Momijigari

A couple walking over the momiji at Ryōan-ji in Kyoto.

Momijigari (紅葉狩り) is the Japanese tradition of visiting areas where leaves have turned red in the autumn. The word comes from the two Japanese words momiji (紅葉) meaning "red leaves" or "maple tree" and kari (狩り), "hunting". It is also called kōyō (紅葉). "Kōyō" is another pronunciation of the characters for "momiji". In Hokkaidō another word for it is kanpūkai (観楓会).

Many people in Japan do this. The cities of Nikkō, Tochigi and Kyoto are very popular. The tradition started in the Heian era.

Related pages

• Hanami

Other websites

• "Momijigari" Archived 2011-09-06 at the Wayback Machine, Japanese events calendar