Baika-sai (Plum Festival) 2011

Geisha and Maiko (apprentice Geisha) host "Nodate" (an outdoor tea ceremony) beneath the plum blossoms during the Baika-sai (Plum Blossom Festival), which takes place at Kitano-tenmangu Shrine each year on February 25. Visitors to the shrine can look on as they commemorate Sugawara Michizane on the anniversary of his death. Sugawara Michizane was a well-known scholar, politician, and plum-blossom aficionado of the Heian-era who is celebrated as the god of study in the shrine on the anniversary of his death.

Advance tickets to the festival are available and highly recommended as Baika-sai usually attracts a crowd of thousands.(source : http://www.kyoto.travel/baika-sai_plum_festival.html)

(imported from: molied.multiply.com)