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He, he, he! Happy New Year! I'll post tomorrow with all the fancy foods eaten during the New Year's holidays. My mother-in-law at work again! Yum!
And just yesterday J was searching everywhere for a kanji notebook he had misplaced. Later the dog was feeling a tad lonely and voila! He trotted over and laid it at my feet. Goood boy!
The main reason everyone goes to the festival is to buy the good luck charms that are sold. Charms insuring good fortune, good health, and good wealth. Oh yeah, they also go to visit the small shrine dedicated to Ebisu to pay their respects. Maybe some go just to get drunk.
Here is a good luck charm of Ebisu and Daitokoku (another one of the Seven Lucky Gods). Ebisu is in the red hat. They could be twins.
Here hang all sorts of other good luck accessories for sale. The whole festival is so jangly and colorful, lots of gold and red.
Here are some other fun things I found for sale.
Whistles.
I've visited a lot of caves in the States and quite a few in Japan, and there really is a difference. First off, as far as I can judge Japan's aren't nearly as spacious or deep, no vaulted ceilings and pretty colors. I mean they are just hollows in volcanic rock and hardened magma, right?
What Japan caves do have though is a healthy dose of Fear. I've always loved how the Japanese don't feel they must protect you from yourself, or any crumbly rocks, darnit.
Here's a shot of us entering the bowels of the Bat Cave. You might notice a few things: no lights, no convenient bars to grab, and no one has previously come along to build some vaguely walkable surface upon which we can trudge.
I swear I have had nightmares made up of this stuff. Descending into darky depths where the deeper I go the narrower it gets. It's wet and hard and cold and my feet keep falling into crevices and my head keeps banging into the ceiling which is fast meeting the floor and before I know it I must get on my stomach and scoot and I can't back up because someone is behind me.
I'm serious, stomach scooting was involved!
Here are the kids taking a picture of me. They're probably laughing. I was in near freak-out mode by this time. They're all crouched down because they can't stand up.
No, really. They were selling pine cones for five hundred yen. Small bags at that.
Finally, a couple of shots of the beautiful scenery. There are two dots waaay in the background. That would be J and his best friend stretching their legs after a long-ass drive.
Unfortunately, I am not exactly sure how to use a needle or pin so I couldn't take part in the festival.
And then several years ago I heard about another type of kuyou but could never find anything about it on the Internet. Today I came across this.
Proof!Hurry up!
Faster than a speeding bullet.
While Cha was relieving himself on a bush beside the bypass, an old man teetered out of his house carrying three manga comic books in his hand. He strode past us and placed them on the corner of the underpass. Just like that.
Like so.
My first thought was what a jerk, throwing away his books like that. Geez.
Then it hit me, maybe he's leaving the manga there for all the junior high school kids who invariably take the underpass on their way to school. Maybe they're really interesting comics that he wants to pass along, free of charge. What a stellar guy!
Unfortunately, he's like standing right there smoking a cigarette and starring at me so I can't take a peek.
Cha and I return home. I fix breakfast and then the thought runs through my mind, wait, maybe they're dirty books and this old man is some kind of pervert, baiting kids. (You must take note, I'm reading Whoever Fights Monsters by Robert Ressler, a book about what it is that makes a serial killer.)After making sure the old man has gone inside, I sneak over to the books to take a look. They seem safe enough. Robot stuff. But I didn't have time to thumb through them because you never know. Japanese comics can look like the cutest darned things in the world until you get half way into them...shock! The jury is still out on the old guy though.
As an aside, J is sitting beside me right now and glanced over. He saw the pictures of him walking down the bypass and says, those manga are still there by the way. It's like he read my mind. Creepy.
Narrow ass bridge.
I can't tell you how nervous I was. I was. But after finding the parking place I marched down the side of the mountain and ran into two shaggy-looking men cutting trees with a chainsaw. Although he didn't introduce himself right away, I knew one was the teacher (thank you, Google) so I could be all smarmy polite and make a good impression. Despite being told he was a mean little curmudgeon, I found the teacher was perfectly delightful and he had no wrists!
This is a post card of some of his work.
There are ten other students. All long-timers. All very, very good. Here they are measuring and drawing out plans and such.
The first jizo any student makes is this one. Very simple. Very cute.
I received a block of stone, some instruments and was shown how to pick which surface to use as the surface, how to find the center, and how to lay the rock between my feet for good carving. Then I was told to go slow but have at it.
I spent a bit of time watching others carve, I swatted several mosquitoes and once ran screaming like an idiot from a giant spider (I mean, we're way in the mountains guys!)...that last one really endeared me to the teacher I think. But most of the five hours I spent swinging my hammer and chipping away stone. And this is what my rock looked like when I was done for the day:
Those fellows are the spawns of Satan. Japanese cockroaches aren't just big, they're HUGE--they're sneaky and they are crazy-smart . Japanese cockroaches know how to seek revenge. (The stories I could tell! But I'm not going there today.) Oh, did I also mention the buggers could also FLY? And when provoked even just a little, they will kamikaze your face or your nice fancy hairdo.
Japanese cockroaches also have this thing about dying. They just don't like to do it. They fight hard. Often times they'll play dead waiting for you run to grab a roll of paper towels. When you return, they've vanished and worse, they're pissed off.
So how do you kill a Japanese cockroach. Well, the quickest death I ever saw was in our old (very OLD) house that we rented when we first got married. I was cooking steaks. I never buy steaks, they're expensive. But it was my birthday, so I splurged. When I went to turn on the fan--plop! an enormous roach fell right into the pan....sizzle, pop, dead. We ate rice and salad that night. I cried a little and never used the fan again.
Bug sprays don't always work. You usually end up offing your pets (and shortening your own life by several years) just trying to get the demons to slow down. They still manage to escape. And they will be back.
Here are my three weapons of choice:
It's old. It's tried. It's true.
1. The business end of a boot.
Unfortunately, cockroaches have a lot of gunk loaded in them. A LOT of gunk. Which makes clean up no fun at all. Plus you have to aim just right *HINT* If you see their antennae facing forward it means their awake, on guard and speedy--faster than you can ever hope be. Aim in front and pray. If, however, their antennae are laid back and not moving. The monsters are sleeping or sleepy or otherwise not aware you are around, yet. THIS is your chance. May the gods be with you.
2. Freezing Spray, baby.
This just came out. They had to discontinue it for awhile because despite the warnings on the label people were using it in the kitchen around open fires. Explosions ensued.
Anyways, it's back. It's minus 80 degrees C, baby!
3. An Electric Tennis Racket.
I'm not kidding. That's what it is. This was (I'm ashamed to say) part of my son's birthday presents. He loves stuff like this, and I thought of it as sort of a gag gift. Little did I know how useful it would become.
Add batteries, push the button and the wires are all electrified. Swing that puppy at any flying insect and ZAP!!
However, the point is moot because I haven't turned on my Wii in months. And (knock on wood), no creepy crawlies have shown up to scare the living crap out of me. Although my son has taken a shine to the racket and can zap a mosquito out of the sky before you even hear it buzz.
And now for your viewing entertainment. A Japanese commercial for cockroach spray. It's an old one. I'm not usually fond of Japanese commercials. I don't understand them. This one, just rocks.