MIKO 巫女[みこ

Miko [巫女[みこ]] are young female attendants who can be found at Shinto shrines performing ceremonies and other odd jobs such as staffing the shrine shop.
At the beginning of the year, selected girls from all over Japan got to become a Yuki Musume [幸娘] or "Fortune Girl" where they performed a spiritual cleansing ceremony at Keta Taisha shrine in the Ishikawa Prefecture.

"Miko" is translated into English as a "Shrine Maiden." Other terms such as prophet, medium, priestess, nun and even witch or sorceress is used - Wikipedia. Nun is probably the closest out of the bunch.

The last time I went to a shrine I didn't see any Miko and was rather disappointed ^^;
A place where you can be guaranteed to see Miko is at Meiji Jingu in Harajuku.


Back to the ceremony. The Miko line up and get ready for their chanting sessions.


The ceremony was covered by quite a few media. I can see this ceremony gathering more and more interest with otaku ^^;


The Miko then start to do their chanting.

After chanting, the Miko then jog off to the nearby beach. They then chant "Essa, Essa" as they jog - extremely kawaii. You can see some video footage of this ceremony here which was taken a few years ago.

The gods welcome the Miko by conjuring up huge gusts of wind.

The boat you was on sinks after hitting an endangered whale and you are bobbing up n down in the ocean.
You see a maid and a Miko calling to you for help who are also in the water. They both look sweet and gorgeous with big anime eyes.
But alas, you can only rescue either one and swim with her to the nearby deserted island. Who do you choose to rescue?

And this is where the ceremony took place - although I guess you are not interested any more after the Miko pics ^^;