Year's first fair held at Toji temple in Kyoto

The year's first fair at a Buddhist temple in Kyoto was crowded with visitors on Friday.

Toji temple holds a fair on the 21st of every month to mark the date when the Buddhist priest Kobo Daishi died in the year 835. The January fair is called Hatsu Kobo, or the first Kobo.

An estimated 100,000 people visited the fair on Friday. Many of them prayed in front of the statue of Kobo Daishi.

In the temple precincts, about 1,100 stalls sold food, clothes and antiques. Rabbit dolls made of chirimen, or traditional Japanese silk cloth, were a popular item, as 2011 is the year of the rabbit in the Chinese zodiac.