Photo: iloverjoa · CC BY 3.0
At Iri-zome-shiki (入初式), every 2 January, wooden statues of the priests Gyōki and Ninsai, credited with founding and reviving Arima, are carried from Onsen-ji to receive the year's first water from a spring head. Arima geiko dressed as yuna, Edo-period bath attendants, stir it with paddles to cool it and pour it over the statues.
Why it's unique
It is a New Year rite specific to Arima, and the claim is made cautiously at prefectural scope.
It is also one of only a handful of times a year that Arima's own geiko perform in the street for free, here in the costume of the bath attendants the town once employed.
Before you go
The geiko are Arima's own, and this is one of only a handful of times a year they perform in the street for free; the others are the cherry-blossom festival in early April, the yukata recital in July and the summer festival in early August, when visitors are pulled into the dance.
Stand near the spring head, not at the school where the procession ends, to see the water rite itself.
