Gion Matsuri

Kyoto's month-long summer festival builds toward two enormous processions of towering, intricately decorated wooden floats - some three stories tall, hand-pulled through the old city streets to a soundtrack of flutes, drums, and bells. In between, the Yoiyama evenings turn downtown Kyoto into a lantern-lit, food-stall-packed pedestrian festival for several nights running. It's been running, in some form, since the 9th century.