Sumo

Sumo wrestling poses a great question.

Is it an ancient and revered martial art that is adored by its aficionados and greatly respected in Japan? A true martial combat that is all about strength and manoeuvring; with participants that are honoured and respected individuals.

Or

Is it a sport where two fat guys slap and push each other?

The answer is it is both and it is fantastic.

Saturday the 15th of March (yeah, sorry it took so long to get this post up) I had the great privilege to watch a live sumo wrestling game in Osaka. I was immensely excited. Although sumo itself is not something I came to Japan to see it is exactly the kind of thing that I came to Japan for. Unique experiences of another culture that I simply couldn’t have anywhere else.

Sumo is a sport unlike any other in that it hasn’t become tainted by commercialism and the desire for money. Instead all the ancient rituals and pseudo-religious ceremonies associated with the sport remain intact and it is a much more arresting visual spectacle and a much more interesting sport for it.

The one concession I saw to commercialisation was that some wrestlers have endorsements. However even these are wonderfully arcane and ceremonial. Before matches begin several attendants walk around the ring carrying flags and banners on which only kanji and embroidery are permitted. This is all the advertising he is allowed and then the game resumes. There is something brilliantly ironic about a mobile phone company resorting to waving cloth banners around in order to advertise. Other than this though Sumo is the most ceremonial sport in the world.

And make no mistake, to the Japanese people sumo is more than a mere sport. According to Japanese legend sumo is part of the very origin of the Japanese people.

As legend would have it the Japanese were just one of many people’s living on the islands of Japan. The right to supremacy over the island was decided by a sumo bout between the god Takemikazuchi and the leader of a rival tribe. I know football is important in the U.K. but we certainly don’t have any legends of Viking conquerors winning fair albion off the Saxons in a penalty shoot out.

The intrepid explorers off to witness this most ancient of sport consisted of myself, Fran (my girlfriend), Ryan (well known to readers of this blog), Yuko, Farrah, Dustin North, Ovando and his wife Memery (whose name is quite easy to remember). We set off with high hopes and not much knowledge (bar Ryan who is a bit of a sumo –fan) to Osaka.

The excitement began long before we actually got inside the stadium because no sooner should we arrive than a taxi should pull up and out would emerge one of the most enormous men I have ever seen with my own eyes. The wrestlers pull up in cars and arrive at the front entrance as adoring fans take quick photographs of their heroes. This early in the day nobody truly important or famous was arriving but they were all still impressive sights. They are absolutely huge buggers, tall, wide in fact the most accurate expression is probably “great of girth”.

This provided the first laugh of the day as one taxi pulled up and an endless stream of enormous men emerged from it. Honeslty it was like one of thos clown cars at the circus. We simply couldn't believe how many sumo wrestlers you can get in one taxi.

Their hair is also incredibly impressive. It's absolutely rock solid and tied up in a kind of top-knot. Apparently this offers some sort of head protection in the case of falls but it is mostly intended to look fierce. Up close I can tell you it certainly does that.

Sumo wrestlers must wear traditional Japanese dress at all times in public. They can never just step out to a club in a pair of jeans and a shirt but must always wear Yukata and Kimono. This isn’t to say some sumo wrestlers don’t go wandering around in normal togs but it is highly frowned upon. This kind of dedication to your chosen profession, to the extent that it influences aspects of your life at all times, is something I think is uniquely eastern. Can you imagine if footballers had to wear their team colours at all times for example? But sumo wrestlers (or rikishi) aren’t just athletes they’re living emblems of the martial culture of Japan and the pressure on them is enormous.

We wandered into the arena and took our seats (good seats too right smack dab in the centre, shame it was on the wrong side) and began stage one of sumo enjoyment.

Stage 1.

Sumo bouts only last a matter of seconds but to compensate there are a lot of them. The tournament lasts 15 days and on the day we went matches were being played from 8.30 in the morning until 6.00 at night. The quality and rank of the rikishi progressed throughout the day and as the rank of the rikishi changes the nature of the match changes. The early wrestlers are all professionals but are fairly junior and a lot of the ceremonial aspects of sumo are denied to them because of this. This means that the junior matches are, if anything, even quicker, and a good 40 bouts flashes by in only a few hours.

Stage one of sumo enjoyment then is marked principally by sitting around with friends drinking and eating and having a laugh, punctuated by short periods of paying attention to girthy men hitting each other and then resuming the general amiable air. As ways to pass an early afternoon there are few finer.

Stage 2.

During Stage 2 concentration on the actual bouts become more focused as the quality of the wrestlers improves and the nature of the game changes dramatically.



Firstly there is the ceremony of the entrance of the rikishi, also known as the dohyo-iri. The dohyo is the area on witch the bout is played. It is a clay platform 18 feet square and 2 feet high. Bag of rice are buried in the clay to form a circle and 2 starting lines. Above the dohyo is suspended a roof that is made to look like the roof of a Shinto shrine (originally sumo was fought on the platforms in shrines). In each corner of the roof is a tassel denoting one of the four seasons.




In the dohyo-iri rikishi from the East and West teams enter the dohyo and form a circle facing outwards. The rikishi are dressed in the traditional garb of sumo. They are wearing a silken loincloth called a mawashi that is very similar to the fundoshi that I wore for the naked man festival. The main difference is that the mawashi is made of silk and has decorative strings dangling from the front. During the dohyo-iri the rikishi have a patterned cloth dangling from their mawashi like an apron. These are fantastically ornate things inlaid with embroidery and sometimes gold. The sight of all these brilliant ornate costumes is both colourful and impressive; two words that pretty much sum up sumo for me.

After standing around for a bit looking mean the rikishi do a very short dance (including one adorable bit where they all lift up their little aprons simultaneously, somewhat detracting from the warrior image) and then leave the dohyo so the FIGHTING can begin.

In a sumo bout both players start on the lines inside the circle in the dohyo. When both wrestlers are psychologically prepared they crash into each other and begin to grapple. A player loses if any part of his body except his feet touches the floor of the dohyo or if he steps outside of the circle.

However before this the rikishi engage in a short bout of psychological warfare.



First both players scatter salt (a ceremony known as shio-maki) to purify the ring. This is solely the right of the more experienced sumo and junior wrestlers are not allowed to do this. Rikishi will also wash their mouths with water and wipe themselves with a paper towel to purify their bodies.



Secondly both players stamp their feet on the ground to chase away evil spirits and do several gestures known as chiri-o-kiru to demonstrate to the gods that they have no concealed weapons.



Thirdly the rikishi approach the mark and adopt a posture of peaceful submission.



Fourthly when both players have reached the mark each player crouches low to the ground and prepares to strike. A rikishi may place one or both hands on the dohyo.



Finally when both players have touched the ground with both hands one player may raise his hands and power forward for the initial strike known as the tach-ai. If the player being struck does not raise his hands to defend himself he is deemed not to be ready and both players resume the procedure again.

The beauty of this ceremony though is that at any time between stage 4 and the tachi-ai a player can simply start the process again. Getting up to go scatter more salt, glaring fiercely at his opponent, deliberately charging early to unnerve him anything goes and it’s all intended to psyche-out the other rikishi and win before a single blow is exchanged. Well anything goes for 4 minutes anyway, after which time the match must begin, but during which time the crowd get psyched up.

As I say sumo matches are over in seconds, but what makes them so watchable is all the ceremony beforehand. A good rikishi is as much a showman as sportsman. Building anticipation until the crowd is in an absolute frenzy awaiting the tachi-ai.

Actual combat varies from player to player. Some favour grappling techniques, grabbing hold of the opponent’s mawashi and manoeuvring to throw him to the ground. Some simply use brute strength and force their opponents back or use their opponent’s strength against them leveraging his momentum into a throw (one guy simply stepped backward and the over-balanced attacker fell over). Still others favour a form of combat that, well my friend Dustin probably put it best when he asked why they were cat fighting.



As you can see above, it is a very slappy game.

Stage 2 of sumo enjoyment was marked by an increasing focus on the actual sport we paid to see but no less talking, camaraderie or drinking. However stage 3 was much more intense.

Stage 3





Up until now we had only been watching the very junior wrestlers and the lower ranked rikishi (known as Juryo). However now it was the time for the big boys, the Makuuchi.








The Makuuchi dohyo-iri was the same as for the Juryo with one marked difference. After the Makuuchi entered the ring it was the turn of the two highest ranked wrestlers in the tournament, in fact two of the highest ranked wrestlers in Japanese history. Hakuho and Asashoryu the Yokozuna.

To become a Yokozuna one must win two tournaments consecutively. In the 300 years since the formation of the Yokozuna class only 60 rikishi have ever been awarded the honour, and here we were lucky enough to see two of them on the same day. Oddly enough both Mongolians.

Being part of the Yokozuna class has two major benefits. Firstly a rikishi in another class may go up or go down a class depending on his performance. Do badly and you get demoted, do well and promotion beckons. However a Yokozuna is a Yokozuna (or grand-champion) forever and can never be demoted. The flip side to this is that if a Yokozuna is doing badly it is tacitly understood that he should resign before he embarrasses the sport. Fortunately neither of the two Yokozuna I saw shall be resigning any time soon as both won their matches with ease.



The second advantage is that Yokozuna have a special version of the dohyo-iri. Flanked by two attendants, one of which carries a samurai sword (katana) and dressed in a special mawashi with a knotted rope at the back and zigzag paper on the front the Yokozuna performs a special dance to cleanse and purify the ring.



You can watch Asashoryu do the dance above.



The Makuuchi matches were much, much more intense than the previous bouts. The arena had been largely empty all day but by this point it was absolutely packed and full of Japanese people screaming encouragement to their favourite wrestlers. The atmosphere before each clash was unbelievably tense and it was impossible not to get swept up in it all.



A particular fan favourite was this guy. Takamisakari also known as Robocop due to his strange way of walking. The crowd absolutely loved him, especially one little girl whom Fran thought was really cute, and he really got them pumped up. Won his match too.



Another fave was Kotooshu a Bulgarian also known as “the David Beckham of Sumo” which must be a little bit demeaning. Rikishi choose their own names when they become rikishi and Kotooshu as a Bulgarian chose "Black Sea". Ryan likes him so much he got his picture.



Following the actual fighting a final ceremony is performed. This is known as the bow dance or yumitori-shiki. In anicent sumo tournaments winning rikishi would be awarded a traditional Japanese bow (known as a yumi). In gratitude for this prize the rikishi would perform a ceremonial dance with the bow. Now the dance has endured and has come to symbolise gratitude by those rikishi that were victorious this day.

Yumi are absolutely enormous by the way. Longer even than most longbows at a whopping 2 metres plus in length. The yumitori involves twirling the yumi round and making striking gestures with it as if it were a sword. This was actually one of my favourite parts of the whole day and it was really interesting to see such a huge guy move so gracefully.

Enjoying sumo Stage 4.

Leave, buy souvenirs, go into Osaka, argue about where you want to eat, eat huge and delicious burger, play taiko drumming game in Namco land, go home and generally enjoy a fantastic sport that I feel privileged to have seen.

All in all a pretty fantastic experience.

SOUP!

Not much to say today so hear are some funny things I have seen in Japan recently.


A sign on a train telling people not to put their make-up on the train. Why on earth this is prohibited nobody could work out.



Not to stereotype but I don't trust the blue shadow men. I'm always very nervous when they're around.


Ah that famous French dish, Cream Bluree.

And finally.

SOUP!



No really, that was written on a packet of soup.

Here's the rest of them.







I particularly like the one about the milk boy.

The Flux Continueth

No poker night this week but blogging time was monopolised by the recently arrived girlfriend. I'm sure you can all forgive me for skipping a post in order to spend time with my girlfriend whom I haven't seen for 7 months. However on the off chance that some of you are sharpening net-axes and prearing to murder me would a sorry help?

My life, along with blogging, continues to be in flux as well. School is wrapping up and this Tuesday will be my last ever lesson at Fukuda Junior High School, however, joy of joys, I have to stick around until the 1st of April. Considering my full time teaching kind of wound down in the middle of February this is not a prospect I relish. Ah well, I expect there shall be many hours spent studying Japanese in my future.

Speaking of school I received confirmation today that I am going to be moving schools in April. Fellow JET Pete informed me that I'll be taking over his old school. Apparently the letters have been sent out but typically my school hasn't bothered to tell me yet (le sigh). Peter described the kids at his school as super nice, which will make a nice change. No seriously, the best part about my job are the kids. I love them all and they're all great fun, but my school does have something of a reputation for misbehaving students. Having no experience of other schools I couldn't tell you how bad they are but certainly I have struggled.

The worst part about my new school is that apparently it is the furthest away school that Gakuentoshi JET's go to. Which is, obviously, not exactly ideal. I need to get both a train and a bus to get to work. I already have to get up at 6 to get into work now I'm going to have to get up even earlier!

Recently arrived girlfriend (or Fran to use her proper name) is in good health. On her first weekend here I showed her around Sannomiya and Harborland and watched her go "squee" whenever she saw anything cute. Although I have lived here for 7 months she was spotting shops I have never seen before! Apparently Fran has some kind of cute radar and can home in on a cute thing without even seeing it.

She started training today and this finishes by March 29th. Hopefully then I can book Japanese lessons and figure out a new schedule for blogging but until then you'll all just have to bare with me.

Currently I've had no big photo opportunities or particularly exciting jaunts. However this is all due to change as this weekend I am going to watch Sumo wrestling, followed by a national holiday (in which i intend to visit Kyoto) and then a tea festival in Shiga the weekend after that.

However despite the lack of photos I do have news. Today was my san-nensei's (third grade) graduation. Alas no pictures because I rather foolishly forgot to charge my camera but mostly there wasn't anything to take pictures of.

The main hall was really elaborately decorated, there were red carpets, an ENORMOUS bunch of flowers and of course the Japanese flag. Highlight for the embarassing moment of the day was when I went in to look at it in the morning and one of the teachers told me that it was the Japanese flag. Now it's one thing when my kids explain Japanese to me that I can already speak but it is quite another to try and explain the Japanese flag to me.

I am convinced that everyone at my school thinks I am an idiot.

the day started with the san-nensei in their classrooms getting ready and some volunteers from the other 2 grades helping to put the finishing touches on the hall. Since nobody seemed to have any work for me to do I volunteered myself for greeting parents that were coming in. My word some of the frocks had to be seen to be believed. There was one woman that looked exactly like Margaret Thatcher, only Japanese obviously. There was also a man with the largest beard I have ever seen on a Japanese guy. It rivals my Grandad's for length and for width surpasses most of the beards I have ever seen in my life. It was an almost semi-circular projection from his face, quite extraordinary.

All the female teachers were dolled up too. Kosuga-sensei had a smart suit on, Nishi-sensei looked like an asian Princess Diana and one san-nensei teacher was wearing Yukata. Only a very unusualy yukata, more like the kind that priests in shinto-shrines wear than the kind I am familiar with. She was the only woman wearing Yukata on the day too but she looked very smart.

I do like that about Japan. At any formal ocassion you have a choice between western clothing or traditional Japanese and nobody bats an eyelid. You can wander round in something that is essentially the same item of clothing from 100's of years ago (and in the case of some kimono's this is literally true) and not seem at all out of the ordinary. It makes formal events so much more vivid and interesting to look at. Even if this particular style of yukata did have the unfortunate side-effect of making her look like a bell.

My concession to the day was to wear a tie. Yeah...

Eventually everyone was seated and I got the opporunity to practise sleeping with my eyes open. We had a speech in Japanese, an intermiable wait whilst students collected certificates, some music, another speech, another speech, another speech, anotherspeech and then some more singing followed by another speech and it was all over. 1 and a half hours of sitting in a hot room desperately trying not to fall asleep.

I did perk up when the second bit of singing started because the san-nensei sang everyone a song and then everybody sang the school song. I do like to hear my kids sing, they're all wonderful singers and whilst I'm not keen on Japanese singing voices individually collectively they're stunning.

It was quite sweet to see some of the students in floods of tears as they tried to sing too. And some of the teachers.

I did think it was a bit much pomp for only graduating year 9, however I realised that this is the last time the students will all be together. They will all go to separate high schools. And the teaching set-up is slightly different in a Japanese school, the teachers change grades every year. So for example Nishi-sensei taught
1st grade English, 2nd grade English and then 3rd grade English with these kids. So I guess it is a very emotional time, particularly for the teachers.

Fleeing the very, very hot auditorium (to the strains of land of hope and glory???) the teachers, parents and ichi and ni-nensei lined the road outside and we threw a parade for the san-nensei. Then I nipped off to where they finished up and said my goodbyes and had my photo taken many, many times.

I will miss some of my students. In particular Michael (who did a very un-Japanese thing and hugged me) and Maho who is easily the best English student in the school and one of my favourites. However I can't say I was particularly sad, after all they have their whole lives ahead of them and it would be selfish of me to want to tie them to one place and time.

Besides a lot of them really were gits. Especially Michael.

Kids all done with I retired to the staff room for a fancy sushi lunch paid for by the PTA and then proceeded to do sod all work for the rest of the afternoon.

Titles are Hard.

My girlfriend arrives in Kobe tomorrow.

Needless to say I am excited.

I don't know how much that excitement seeps through in this post but it might help you to picture it if I tell you that I have to break off ever 5 minutes to do a cartwheel.

I have spent all week cleaning my house in preparation for her imminent arrival and now it is finally clean and tidy. Well except my game room but that is a whole other problem.

My San-nensei graduate on Wednesday, I had my last ever class with one of my ichi-nensei classes today and very shortly I will be moving to another school.

It feels like I am entering a new stage of my life. I had my bachelor period in Japan and my grace of adjustment and now it's time to get down to business.

I had been getting into a bit of a routine and now it is time to spice everything up again and turn the process of being here into an adventure again.

In-Jokes

So last Friday my friend Ben was bored at work and decided to see if he could get a "You know you're an ALT when..." meme going on via e-mail. I don't know how much sense this will make to most of you but here is a list of some of the funnier ones including some contributed by myself. Annotations are in brackets.

The concept of teaching more than 16 classes a week sounds preposterous.

You wonder why Japanese people don't get fat if they eat "Japanese food" like
you do.

You know the "Azuma Legend".
(The azuma legend is about my "boss" azuma-sensei the head of the JET programme
in Kobe. Azuma-sensei is very softly spoken and friendly but he's one of those
guys that inspires instant fear and respect. The Azuma legend is about the time
before he became the head of the JET programme when he was a general trouble
shooter for the Kobe Education Centre. Now it won't surprise anyone who has
worked in one but riots in Japanese schools are not unheard of, particularly in
Kobe just after the earthquake when everyone was in a pretty bad state. In fact
one famous story about a school in Kobe is that a boy beheaded a student and
stuck his head on a spike on the school gates. My friend Damon actually works
at the school where that happened, although apparently it's very nice now.
Anyway one day there was a riot out in a Kobe school. The teachers basically
barricaded themselves in the staffroom and called the KEC. Azuma-sensei came
down and walked into a class that was kicking off. One boy took a swing at
Azuma-sensei with a baseball bat he had for baseball club and Azuma-sensei
CAUGHT IT IN ONE HAND and smacked the kid down. I don't know what happened to
the rioting kids but every ALT in Kobe knows the azuma legend.)

The only Japanese you know is: ichi, ni, san -nensei, Kyoto/Koucho-sensei and
Ohaiyougozaimasu.
(I entirely sympathise)

You find yourself bowing while talking on the phone.
(I do this too)

You can`t eat lunch without an audience ("No I don`t use chopsticks to eat a
sandwich or a banana.")

You go to the toilet for a sleep.
(I have never done this but I gather that Dave does it a lot)

Students greet you in the corridor with "How are you I'm fine thank you and you,
ha ha ha ha hahaha haha!"
(Yes they do, damn textbooks!)

After an hour you realise that the only other person in the staff room is the
janitor. And he's sitting in the kyoto sensei's chair reading a newspaper."
(barely a week goes by without this happening to me)

You spend 5 minutes, with san-nensei, saying "No, what's the day...day...day...d- a-y. Not date. DAY. What's the day today? Today... what...is...the...day? Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and ( ). Not the weather. You're 14,
not 40. Not date... not daTE. No T, just day----. Yes, it's Friday, well done!"

The warmth of your clothing depends on the temperature and not the date.

I know I'm an ALT because I get letters that begin "To Mr Dabit, I like
spaghetti. What J-pop do you listening at?"
(obviously just Dave but it makes me laugh)

The laminator is your bestest friend. And you slowly start to realize almost
any small flat thing you own is now laminated.
(I love my laminator. Without it some days I wouldn't have done any "work" at
all.)

You're the last one in the staffroom and you have no idea why.
(this happens everyday)

No one, not even the English teachers, understand what your saying.

You have no idea what your bills mean , but you pay them anyway.
(yup, when I remember)

You're the only one who thinks that insulation is a good idea.

You're the only one that wants to spend a few bucks and TURN UP THE DAMN
TEMPERATURE IN THE STAFF ROOM!

You don't own a pair of inside shoes.
(Japanese people usually have separate shoes to wear inside, I always forget to
bring mine and thus whenever an assembly is sprung on me my feet get cold as I
wander around in socks)

Kids notice you pass the classroom even if you creep by with ninja stealth.
(Entirely true, and yet if you sneak up behind them during break they never,
ever notice. Japanese people have ridiculously poor personal space perception.
It must be because the country is so crowded.)

Half the school is empty and the only hint as to why was given a two days ago
when someone said cryptically "Student make newspaper".

Suddenly all your classes are cancelled and nobody told you until an hour before
they were meant to start.
(thus meaning that frantic rush job you did to get the worksheets finished or
the extra you put in the night before WAS COMPLETELY POINTLESS!)

You are not allowed to use the photocopier in the staffroom without an audience.

You have set answers to the questions "what Japanese food do you like?"
and "where do you go in Japan?" that you can reel off in seconds.

You have a burning hatred for the man responsible for the phrase "dondakee"
despite never once seeing his TV show.

You are the only teacher whose desk is covered in art materials. Even the art
teacher has less coloured paper and pens than you.

You hear the bell ring but have no idea if it is time to teach your lesson or
not.

right, and that signals my bedtime over here so short and a bit in-jokey as it is that's your Thursday night post.

With poker-night and my recently arrived girlfriend the blog schedule is going to be in flux for the next few weeks. I'll probably decide on a new schedule once I know what Fran's schedule is going to be.

I do aim to try and actually increase the amount of posts per week too or at least get some better content than this last month.

See you next time.

Ironically I have naked men again.

So this blog appears to be developing a theme as yet again male nudity forms the basis of most of my post.

First up here's a video I made at James' recent cheese and wine party. I was attempting to record James and Adam playing some Enka (Japanese country music) and I did, however at first I got side tracked by a long conversation about Drew's nipples.



Enjoy!

Secondly I'm not sure if this will work but my friend Kate put together a fantastic video of the Naked Man Festival that reallty brings the whole event to life. You can watch it here . However I'm not sure that link will work. If it doesn't please comment on this thread and I'll see if I can get the real video from Kate.

In other news today was the "farewell party" for my san-nensei. Basically a special assembley with videos, the brass band playing, the choir club singing and lots and lots of photos of the san-nensei. It was unlike most Japanese assembley type activities in that it was pretty fun and interesting. The photos in particular were hilarious and it was really cool to see what my kids looked like before they were my kids.

There were also a couple of photos of me in the display too which all drew big laughs from the kids. I'm not sure I know what's so funny though.

The best part of the day was chatting with some of the san-nensei afterwards. In particular one girl who I've got to know really well from the letters we've being exchanging. She hasn't sent me any for a couple of weeks now due to her exams but today she gave me a last letter and next week when they have the more formal graduation ceremony I'll give her my last letter. I copied all her letters to me today and it's a really fantastic souveneir of my first year and something I'll keep forever.

She also gave me an actual souveneir; a phone charm from Kyoto of two frogs. Apparently it keeps couples together and stops you being in a car accident. So now I can finally get my driver's license!

This would be the rewarding part of teaching. Connecting with and inspiring people.

The un-rewarding part is stopping boys from reading manga every time we go in the library. "Yes I know Black Jack is a cool series but this is an English lesson not a manga lesson."

I did like the one boy who was meant to be researching Thomas Edison and was in fact reading a samurai manga. When I asked him what he was doing he looked at me with a totally straight face and pointed at a samurai and said "Edison." Then he pointed at a girl on the page and said "Edison's girlfriend." When I flipped a page and pointed at a demon he pointed at it and said "lightbulb." Massive props to this kid, if you're going to dick aroudn in my lessons the least you could do is make me laugh whilst you're doing it.

Apologies

sorry guys no blog post tonight I was invited to a poker night. It looks like this is going to be a regular tuesday night event so the blog schedule may be in flux. Actually with my girlfriend arriving shortly the schedule is definitely going to be in flux anyway so await further news.

However you will all be pleased to know that I won the poker night and pocketed 1,300Yen for my troubles (about £5).

I got nuthin'

Inspiration has not hit and frankly I don't feel like posting much today so here are some photos snapped at my local combini Sunkus (bit like a corner shop).



FRENCH TEA! FRENCH TEA! Oh Japan, how you get it all so wrong.



I was really excited to see a McVities product. You don't see many british brands out here. You do see a lot of green tea flavoured things though.



My, those look like appetising crisps don't they.



Shockingly blurry photo of an odd Kit-Kat product.



POCKY! Everybody loves Pocky. I particularly like the Men's pocky. Not for you girls go away!


Sorry this post was rubbish guys I will make it up to you.

There are absolutely no naked men in this post at all.

A very pleasant sign seen in Okayama.




Just a quickie this week as generally nothing particularly interesting has gone so permit me if I may to talk about Den Den town.

Den Den town is an area in Osaka famed for its video games, electronics, manga cafes and generally it’s geek stuff. It is wall to wall robots, games, anime and manga and is generally what I thought all of Japan would be like.

This Saturday myself and Ryan hit up Den Den town and along with all of usual stops hit a few new sites.




The only site I have any photos of though is this amazing retro gaming store that we found. Purely by chance we wandered in and I entered into a kind of nerd nirvana. It was full to the brim with computer games and consoles, quite a few of them older than I am.



The floors of this place were papered with screen shots from old 8 and 32-bit game title screens. In the above pic I recognise Streets of Rage, Sailor Moon, Indiana Jones, R-Type, Lemmings, Mickey and Donald in Dreamland, Gundam, Ultraman, Rampage, Dragonlance, Tetris and Castlevania.




One of the more impressive things in here was a working original Nintendo Famicom. This was only ever released in Japan but was re-tooled to become the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Europe and the States. The NES was the first console I ever owned (and it’s still good fun) and here was its big brother for a piddling £20.00!




Pictured here is another Japanese only console, the colossal failure that was the Virtual Boy. Launched in the early 90’s in the height of the VR fad it bombed hard and is the only console Nintendo ever launched that did so in Japan. Part of the problem is that the whole gear you see before you was meant to be worn on the head. And my word is it heavy. A game boy is meant to be portable and lightweight, this needed a specialised stand to be used. The other big problem was that the system reportedly gave people huge and frequent migraines, not a big selling point. Finally the red lines it used to simulate VR were apparently quite hard to see so some of the games were simply unplayable because you spent all your time struggling to see what was happening. Nintendo themselves only ever released one game for the console and then quietly ignored it.

Still, if I wanted one here it was.






2 of the older consoles on offer. No idea about the “snoopy” but the minestorm is actually asteroids (if anyone remembers that game) that could be played at home! Imagine a world where you don’t need to go to an arcade to play videogames!






These appear to be pictures of Mario drawn in a realistic style. No idea whatsoever what is going on or what the context is but I think the spaghetti eating turtle is totemo kawaii! (very cute)




I have no idea what this is either. I just know that he’s been haunting my nightmares ever since.




However, easily the most impressive thing in the entire shop was this little guy. It’s ROB or the Robot Operating Buddy.

ROB is almost single-handedly responsible for computer games still being alive today. In 1983 there was a massive market crash in the states amongst computer games stockists due to Atari’s poor business practises. Stores in the states were not prepared to stock any new computer game consoles as they couldn’t shift the ones they had. In comes Nintendo with a product this is not a computer game, but in fact a newfangled robot toy, with an attached console that was just necessary to make the robot work. The gamble worked and shops in the states were prepared to stock ROB and the attached Nintendo Entertainment System. 2 games later (gyromite and stack ‘em) all support for ROB vanished and Nintendo started doing their real business. Getting families and shops that didn’t know they’d bought one to start buying games for computer consoles.

Poor ROB isn’t remembered much these days but he is a true hero of gaming history.




Other than the gaming store our big visit was to the Gundam shop. This was two floors containing nothing but Gundam related merchandise. Gundam shirts, toys, models, DVD’s, CD’s, games, FOOD! and most notably a giant Gundam hand thrusting through one wall.

Ryan, who approaches a religious fervour in the presence of Gundam, was happy, to say the least. I was searching for a Tequila Gundam but alas none of the ridiculous Gundam from G Gundam were in stock so I left empty handed.

Having sufficiently geeked out we headed to possibly the nerdiest place to eat on the planet. A maid café.

Japan has a big service culture and a service industry that stops at open prostitution but certainly sidles up to it. There are a lot of very, very stressed people in this country and there exist a huge variety of businesses prepared to “relieve” that stress. These range from massage parlours and spas at one end to the hostess bars at the other. Hostess bars are basically places where men come to pay to flirt with women. They go to see their favourite girl, buy her drinks, laugh with her, flirt, sing karaoke, have some dinner and a few drinks and do everything short of actual touching. I guess the closest western equivalent is an escort service except some of these guys form relationships with the hostesses that are closer than with their own wives.

Maid cafes sit comfortably in the middle of this spectrum. They are cafes catering to a very specific fetish, guys who want to see girls dressed as anime-style maids. Honestly the outfits these girls wear are outrageous. Perfectly modest from a sexual standpoint but incredibly cartoony and unreal.

Den Den town is full of Maid Cafes, most of which offer an , ahem, “refresh service” which is wonderfully vague in the details but appears to be along the lines of foot and back massages by girls dressed as cartoon characters. To each his own I guess.

Myself and Ryan were not seeking a “refresh service” (I am more than happily attached) but I didn’t want to come to Japan and pass up on seeing something so patently bizarre and with my girlfriend’s arrival due imminently I thought this might be my last chance. So we searched and searched and eventually found a place just selling food.

It was hilarious! The girls flirt with you outrageously, they called myself and Ryan “master” dropped to floor level to pour drinks and generally rushed round like we were the most important people in the world ever. I think they gave up on us a bit when they twigged that our Japanese isn’t good but they were continuously flirting with the table next to us.

And the food, well the food was pretty good actually. We both ordered a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) plate which was huge. The table next to us ordered the “happy time surprise” which turned out to be an omelette and rice (don’t ask) on which the maids drew a little smiley face in ketchup.

I do not think there is another country on earth where grown men pay to have a woman draw a smiley face in ketchup on their food.



No pictures alas, they ban cameras and if you want a picture you have to pay to have one taken with the girls so here are some poached off the internet to give you an idea of what maid cafes are like.



I doubt I’ll be returning but I am glad I went.




Oh and one last thing. Pictured is one of the fabled beer vending machines. However more unusually the bottom row is cans of ramen! Beer and noodles in one machine, what more can a man ask for.

Significantly Less Naked Men This Time Around

So apparently Tuesday was the busiest day this site has ever had with more new visitors than ever before. I credit this to the frequent mentions of naked men and so I shall be sticking the phrase “naked men” in as many posts as I can get away with. Now I just need to sign up to google ads and I can get some cash from all these poor deluded porn seekers.

In actual news, erm, not much. Work has been quiet but consistent and so bar nudist adventures in Okayama I haven’t really been able to go out and find new material for blogging. So I’m resorting to two old standbys, posting lots of videos and talking about my kids.

My Kids are Adorable.

Recently the big project with my Ichinensei has been to do a short speech about a famous person. They get to pick the person. Most of the choices are athletes or Japanese celebrities but every so often my kids surprise me. One kid desperately wanted to do Elton John (his group overruled him), one group is doing Marie Curie, another the Wright Brothers and one group of complete dossers opted to do “Son Goku” i.e. the hero of Dragonball Z.

I think they did this to impress me as they know that I like Dragonball. Plus it means that I can translate all the names for them (any time one of the groups doing a Japanese celebrity has a problem I just shrug and go get the JTE).

BTW for those not in the know here is Son Goku.



My favourite groups are those doing Japanese historical figures because I get to learn something too. However my kids have only just started learning the past tense so they’re really struggling to turn all the statements into past tense statements. My favourite example is the question they all have to answer “where does/did they live?” Pretty much all of the students opted to try and skip answering the did part of that statement (even though they theoretically know it) which posed a bit of a problem for the kids doing dead people. However ingeniously they all came up with the answer “he lives in Heaven.”

All together now, awwwwwwwwwwww.


My Kids are Significantly Less Adorable. In Fact they’re Little Shits.

So one day one of my kids asks me “do you like pornography?”

Now of course I burst out laughing prompting all the assembled boys to ask what is so funny. So of course I tell them what it means in Japanese (for all those curious it’s either Ecchi or Hentai) and they laugh even harder.

This was a mistake, now EVERY DAY I get asked if I like pornography. EVERY! DAY! My kids can’t do a joke just once, or in private, oh no. If something is funny once it’s funny a bazillion times. I’m keeping in good humour at the moment but eventually I will snap and put a child through a door. That is not an actual threat by the way, my kids are obviously adorable cherubs.

(just covering the bases there)

Worse, I now know that the kid didn’t say “do you like pornography?” but “do you like porno-grafitti?” who is a Japanese singer.

Yes it seems the new game is “see if we can get Adam to say a rude word.” Now I am perfectly happy to play along with this to some extent but not when other teachers are around. Also kids, don’t insult my intelligence. My Japanese is awful but even I’m not going to fall for “her name is Baka.”

Speaking of my kids being annoying this project has done something incredibly beneficial. It has allowed me to put a name to the Sonna no kankei nee guy. Kojima Yoshio I now know who you are and my vengeance will be swift and terrible.

Need some context? Okay. Kojima Yoshio is a Japanese “comedian” (and I use the term comedian very, very loosely) whom is my mortal nemesis. He does a routine called Sonna no kankei nee or “but that doesn’t matter.” My kids are OBSESSED with this idiot and quote him constantly, ask me if I like him, do his routines, try and get me to do his routines and generally driving me up the wall with constant references to this unfunny nuisance.



Here is an example of his routine. The bit where he looks like he is playing a guitar or hitting the floor is the Sonna no kankei nee part.

And no that isn’t me laughing.


Finally recently one of my students has been introducing me to some actually good J-Pop! I think it might help that I can’t understand the lyrics but I really, really like some of the artists she’s been introducing me to recently. They may be pop but they’ve got some awesome guitars, really distinctive vocals and a nice driving tempo. Fine art it ain’t but fun music, definitely.

In paticularly Tommy Heavenly (slash tommy february slash brilliant green, she’s a bit like David Bowie) and a lady known only as YUKI. Both are a bit like Avril Lavigne (with the benefit that I can’t understand them) with the difference that they’re both unconsciouss post-modern geniuses in the way that only japanese people can be.



This is Tommy Heavenly with the fantastically Japanese title “Lollipop Candy Bad Girl”. This may be one of the most hysterically bad videos I have ever seen. The opening part of the song is just for the video (and this is the short version) and the real song kicks in when the weird evil santa-gomes appear. The girl in glasses that shows up halfway through is Tommy February. Tommy Heavenly is a dream that Tommy February had of the perfect pop star. Again a bit like David bowie and Ziggy Stardust.



And here is YUKI with a MUCH better video for "The End of Shite." That's pronounced shee-tay but it's okay to giggle. I did.

4,000 Naked Men.

Japan doesn’t have the same nudity taboos that we do in the west. Partly because the population density is so much higher here and historically has always been so. There’s precious little space to live in Japan so issues like nudity and personal space aren’t really as important.

The other reason is that in Shinto-ism nudity is considered to be purifying and so there are many “naked” festivals in Japan known as Hadaka Matsuri where hundreds of men at a time all go and do something religious, whilst naked.

Alright, not totally naked but wearing a fundoshi and some tabi and nothing else nature didn’t provide. Tabi are socks with a split in the toes to separate your big toe from the rest so you can grip sandals. They also have a pad in the bottom like a light sole. Ninja wear these. A fundoshi is a loincloth, the same kind of nappy thing that a sumo wrestler wears. Although according to wikipedia fundoshi is just traditional Japanese male underwear and was pretty much the standard until after World War 2.

For whatever reason (temporary madness, a desire to do shit that I won’t get away with when my girlfriend arrives, drunkenness???) I decided that I wanted to go and join in the nearly nude fun in the middle of February (when it is cold) for Okayama’s Hadaka Matsuri, one of the biggest in Japan.

This is my adventure.

So firstly I’ll set the general tone of the evening as it was explained to me. There are some men, they are naked, there are some priests, they will throw some “lucky” sticks into a crowd of the aforesaid naked men. The aforesaid naked men will fight each other for sticks. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Initially two more complete idiots were meant to join me in making a spectacle of myself, Gavin Coutts and Randy Rymer. However, Randy wasn’t allowed to attend as a runner because he had tattoos. Tattoos in Japan are a sign of the yakuza and pretty much every place with public nudity frowns on or excludes tattoos. This matsuri has a particular problem with tattoos because the lucky sticks are highly sought after. Some Japanese companies will pay up to £5,000 for a stick. The yakuza have apparently being waiting by the gate you have to pass through if you win, dragging off the winners, beating them up, stealing the stick and giving it to one of their mates. Previously people with tattoos have been allowed to cover themselves with make-up but this year there was a total ban. So Randy was out.

That just left two idiots, myself and Gavin.

Oh and a small crew of pervy ladies who wanted to stare at men’s naked bottoms. Nicky, Kate, Becky and Gina. Perverts, all of them.

We met up, travelled a very far distance on the train and consumed copious amounts of booze on said journey.

Yup, on the train. In Japan it is perfectly okay to drink on the street or public transport hence the beer vending machines. Train beers, as they are known to we gaijin, are an essential part of any night out in Osaka or beyond.

Arriving in Okayama myself and Gavin had 30 minutes to get more beer and fuel our bellies (we opted, naturally, for ramen) before boarding a bus full of extraordinarily drunken men from all four corners of the Earth.

But mostly from Australia, which speaks volumes doesn’t it.

It was at this point that the “safety” instructions were given to us. These ranged from the sensible (tape your hands up so people can recognise you and tape your socks on so you don’t lose them) to the worrying (please complete this sheet with your blood type, if you don’t know your blood type but O-) to the downright ludicrous (do not participate under the influence of liquor, oh how we laughed).

More drinking ensued.

We arrived at the shrine and walked through a pretty standard festival set-up before being ushered into a special tent for the competitors.

In here was FREE BOOZE. Well free sweet sake, which isn’t exactly my preferred tipple, but it certainly did a fine job of warming me up.

After some procrastination Gavin and I finally had to bow to the inevitable, doff our vestements and submit to have a grinning Japanese man put on our fundoshi for us.

Incidentally I kept my fundoshi afterwards. It’s difficult to photograph but basically imagine a strip of white cloth about 13ft long and 1ft wide.

Right, now imagine that 1ft width being gathered up and thrust violently up your arse.

No woman is ever allowed to complain to me about thongs ever again. Thongs are floss thin and sneak up there over the course of a day. They are not furiously thrust up your fundament by some cackling Japanese goblin.

Needless to say I’ve had better moments.

Well now properly, um, attired I had little to do but stay in the tent drinking more and keeping warm by the heaters inside. AT one point I got chatting to an incredibly old man. His skin was like wood. He was so wrinkled and dry that he looked like a normal man had been dried like some jerky. He was lovely though and full of fun. Apparently some old guys participate every year. Last year somebody had a heart attack and died so I hope lovely old jerky man was alright.

My heated revelry was interrupted by a command from a veteran of this festival.

I had to go run through a pond.

Yes, water, in the cold, at night, in the nuddy.
Apparently it’s purifying.



Fortunately I was very, very drunk at the time. So I did.

It wasn’t that cold actually. If you stayed in enough of a crowd to have your arm round someone’s shoulders (did I mention I was drunk?) and kept running you didn’t really feel the cold. And the wet didn’t bother me much either.

On the way back from the pond we met up with the ladies again who fed us and took photos. I am in possession of a fine photo of my chapped, freezing and wet arse but I have been forbidden by my missus from putting it on this site. However if you’re one of my facebook friends then it is easily found.



I didn’t manage to take any photos myself, after all where would I keep my camera? So all the photos in this post are courtesy of the lovely Kate, pictured above.

Getting back to the tent I now had more of a wait before the big event started with nothing to do but jump and down to stop shivering and drink more sake.

Now I want to ask you a question. What will happen if you get a huge bunch of gaijin in a tent with nothing to do but drink? Men who have nothing in common except a shared language and desire to run around nearly naked in February.

What will these men do to entertain themselves?

You may not know the answer but if you are a man when I tell you the answer it will feel right and true and just. This was the proper course of action.

We started singing Queen songs; complete with improvised harmonies. And we did the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Bliss!

Finally the main event was due to begin. We were chased out of our tent and made to run around the town in a huge crowd. All holding shoulders and screaming “Washoi!”

And no, I have no idea what it means.



It was fantastic good fun. Pure, unbridled and primal. We were men, running screaming and naked and it felt awesome. Due to all the bodies it was pretty warm and not in the slightest bit cold. Even after they made me run through the pond AGAIN!



The crowd were loving it too, particularly the ladies and they were very pleased to see so many gaijin men. I kept going back to high-five people and shake hands. All the while screaming “washoi” of course.



Finally we got to the main alter of the shrine, basically a big platform with some steps leading up to it. On this platform and on the ground below were 4,000 nearly naked men in total. All competing for a grand total of 7 sticks.
The priests threw more purifying water on us and everyone jostled to get a good position. The closest situation I can compare it to is a big music gig. It’s the same inability to move, the same trouble breathing and the same mad desire to get to the front.

However, in gigs I try and maintain a bit of civility. This was not a time for civility, this was a time to be an animal. And so elbows out I used my massive gaijin strength to ensure that I was solidly on the platform. I have never felt stronger or manlier in my life. I wanted a damn stick.



After much sweaty and vaguely homo-erotic shoving and pushing the priests dropped the lights and cast out the sticks. Cue an immediate surge of people forward and to the sides and I got swept backwards somehow. I pushed my way back in and managed to gain some distance when the second stick was cast out. However somewhere around the third of fourth stick a random surge tripped me up and I fell down the stairs, giving myself a nasty scratch down my right side. I was up in a flash though and back in the game.



Much shoving later I was sadly bereft of any sticks but did feel fantastic. I was purged, freed of all my build up caveman instincts and riding on a massive adrenaline rush.



One of the winners.

We got back to the tent somehow and I was immediately deflated to find out that I had lost my underpants. All my clothes were in a bag, except my pants. Now I am in no way accusing somebody of stealing my underpants but it was a mystery that I still can’t really get my head around.

Besides, how many times can you claim that a night was so chaotic that you lost your underpants?

More festival food (ramen AND takoyaki, this was a good night for me) and we hooked back up with the girls and headed back to Okayama.

Of course we had missed the last train home so we had to stick around in Okayama until 6am to get the next one. First stop on our all-nighter was an American theme bar playing some kind of Japanese Ninja-themed porn. A bar I promptly fell asleep in.

Having been woken up we set off in search of a club called “Friends.”

1 hour later we found it.

1 hour of wandering up and down the same 4 sets of streets, screaming into phones, meeting people, losing people and drinking from vending machines.

I wasn’t complaining though, all the cold air had woken me up.

When we eventually found “Friends” it was a great place. The barman was massively incompetent and had a nomehodai (all you can drink offer) that he had no idea how to enforce. This basically meant we were drinking for free. I usually hate Japanese clubs (well the music in them) so I was really pleased to hear some 90’s classics being boomed out and got to dance the night away for the first time in ages.
And it had a shuffleboard. How random is that? We ended up staying the whole night.

All that was left was a sleep train ride home (we lost Gavin because he nipped off the train to pee. He’s fine now though) and then to stumble into the comfortable embrace of bed.

Quite frankly a fantastic night.

FIGHT TO THE DEATH!

First of all in the course of planning a lesson today I came across this photo.



GO BABY SUMO FIGHT!

Secondly today I saw something that you would only see in the East. A monk in bright orange robes (with a black robe over the top) waiting for the bus. There is no better way to start the day. Alas, no pictures.

Thirdly today was Valentine's Day in the land of rising suns and madness. In Japan Valentine's day as we understand it is actually split into two festivals. On Valentine's day women give presents, typically chocolate and usually something they made themselves, to men. On White Day, in March, men return the favour by giving women something white, usually marshmallows or white chocolate but if it's an actual couple then lingerie is quite a popular gift.

Obviously being thousands of miles away from my sweetheart makes Valentine's day a wee bit sucky. However to compensate for this I was given some chocolates today by Misa, one of my JTE's. No, she isn't trying to hit on me, rather some women in japan feel obliged to give presents on Valentine's day to all their male co-workers even if they're married. Now since buying chocolates for all the guys in the school would get expensive really quickly Misa opted to just give me some to be friendly. I didn't even get a chance to thank her properly as she shushed me to keep it a secret. I'll just have to re-pay her on White day.

They were really, really nice chocolates by the way. I only got four but oh my were they delicious.

Right then, things are slow and no adventures are forthcoming so here are

5 Awesome things about Japan. Number 2 in a series.

1. Kotatsus



Kotatsus are basically a table with a detachable top. When you remove the top a frame is left to which a heater is attached pointing down. You place a blanket over the heater and put the top back on so that the blanket is now between the heater and the top of the table. Then you sit underneath the table and relax. It’s like a snugly little heat cocoon. Although winter is technically over it’s actually colder at night now than it was for most of December so I have been retiring to the safety of my bedroom and my kotatsu every night recently. It’s really cosy and warm and (dare I say it) snugly and I sit in warmth and happy bliss watching telly on my laptop for about an hour before I go to bed. In general central heating is more convenient and more effective but it isn’t as cool (using the informal meaning of course)as a kotatsu nor does central heating make you fell like you're retreating into a tiny and very, very warm world of your own.


2. Food in shop windows.



I can’t believe it took me this long to mention it but one of the truly defining things about Japan is its displays of food outside every shop window. Fake food I mean, made from plastic. Often these looks incredibly real. In fact the food in the window and the food served to you are usually indistinguishable other than a glossy sheen. It's a damn site more trustworthy than the photographs you get in fast food places in the U.K.; where a kebab photo looks like some kind of gourmet cuisine prepared by grecian gods and appears in your hand looking like a limp dog turd. You always know exactly what you’ll be getting before you order it in Japan. Sure that removes a little bit of the surprise in life but its more honest. Any street in Japan is a riot of shrieking colours and adverts all baying for attention and the plastic food is one of the cooler and more interesting examples of the japanese business tendency to go "look at us, LOOK AT US!".

It might be that the Japanese as a people are so scared of ever drawing attention to the themselves that makes the businesses overcompensate but regardless of the reason it is the insane advertising that is one of my favourite things about japan.

3. Engrish.

Engrish is the use of ungrammatical or nonsensical English, usually in advertising but sometimes in clothing and packaging. Much like we think Kanji looks cool and slap it on products and shirts without knowing what it means the Japanese think roman letters look cool and use it everywhere. However what it says is not always what they think it says.

This website is in part dedicated to Engrish as Mummyboon is the most
Engrish t-shirt I have ever seen. I seek out engrish in clothes shops all the time and Mummyboon was the first and thus far the best example I have personally owned.

however, it isn’t my favourite Engrish shirt. That would be this one, found on the website www.engrish.com



“dog look at airplane”

it tells it like it is.

Other examples of engrish include……..





And of course my last post was full of Engrish.

4. Robots.



Okay, most of the "Japan is a technological wonderland stuff" is sadly a load of bollocks. This is a constant source of dissappointment to me but i deal with it. However, they really do have a lot of robots here. Mostly the robots are just toys but one robot in particular has a a major role in my day to day life and an even greater one in my friend Jools's. You see, my friend jools lives on Port Island. this is a man made island in the ahrbour of kobe and is accessible only by monorail. The monorail is a robot. I don’t mean it occasionally transforms from a mono-rail into a humanoid machine and fights Godzilla (although frankly I would not be surprised) but rather that it has no driver, either on the train or back in the station. It has a man monitoring it for safety but the train drives itself.
To go to work everyday jools has to get into a robot.
How cool is that!

5. Festivals and Holidays.



Do you know how many bank holidays there are in Japan per year? 16. In England we get 9 (factoring in Christmas and Boxing Day). Now admittedly were I a Japanese person I would work insanely long hours during the rest of the year nd this would be the compensation for it. But I’m not Japanese, I’m a lowly gaijin. This means I work standard gaijin hours as we would expect in the west and get lots of holidays!

Discounting the benefits of a day off Japanese festivals are still brilliant although they are basically the same thing each time and roughly equivalent to a village fete. There’s a stage or some form of visual entertainment (i.e. looking at pretty lights, or people dancing, or people riding horses, or matsuri floats) and an unbelievable amount of stalls selling food. Quite varied food too. No stall really sells more than one kind of thing so there are individual stalls for okonomiyaki, takoyaki, grilled corn, burgers on sticks, fried chicken, noodles, etc, etc. The protocol is go get food, position self to see visual entertainment, eat food. If it’s a religious festival go do whatever odd “lucky” thing is associated with the festival (religion in Japan is big on the celebrations and pretty low key on the rules and services business) and possibly buy a fortune.

They may all be samey but they're fun!

And really the only difference between them and the village gala is a) the lamentable lack of a play your cards right stall and b) the displays are usually much, much more interesting than majorettes or some bloke with a falcon. And I like falcons so that's saying something.


Next week you can look forward to a re-cap of my plans on Saturday to run around a mountain in the snow in a loincloth fighting other men for lucky sticks.

And every part of that sentence was true.