Practising for the lantern festival
On a recent trip to Akita I managed to catch some Japanese university students practising for a Kanto festival held in Akita.  

During the festival the lanterns are lit and the pole is carried down the road and passed from one participant to another. As you can see from the practise the poles are not just carried but they are usually balanced on one part of the body (head, arms, shoulders).


There are traditionally 46 lanterns on the bamboo poles that are said to symbolise golden ears of rice and constitute prayers for a good harvest. The length of a traditional Kanto pole is 12 meters and the weight around 60 kilograms.


These students had both an experienced and beginners pole. As you can see the lanterns on the beginners pole (in the background) had spent a lot of time on the ground.


10:53 AM | Category: , | 0 comments

Where's Godzilla?
While returing from a visit about two hours north west of Tokyo there appeared on the horizon a large statue. As we got closer and the full size of the statue became apparent one of my Japanese colleagues asked where Godzilla was to fight this trespasser.


9:15 AM | Category: | 3 comments

Can you keep a secret?
I have walked past a number of these pay per fish fishing ponds in and around Tokyo and my weak will finally got the better of me and I had to give it a go.

There will be no photos of me engaged in this activity.

While walking towards the fishing park it was almost as if the fish were mocking me and I was still asking myself if this was such a good idea, what if someone I knew saw me?


At this park you pay 500 yen and that gets you a ticket that you can swap for one spot for one hour, a rod (a piece of bamboo with some fishing line tied on the end), a seat, some bait and a net.


This park’s pond was divided into three separate areas with a number of people engaged in the gentile art of fishing. The bait consisted of a flour and fish meal mixture that you squeezed onto a small, barbless, suicide hook and suspend 60 centimetres below a float. After getting some guidance, in Japanese, on the way to bait the hook and where to put the bait it was time to get the line wet. The takes, when they came, were subtle. After one hour I had netted 3 fish and missed any number of others. As to the size of the fish? Well, who said it was a competition and who was counting anyway (does that give a hint).

After spending an hour there watching the serious guys with their hand crafted bamboo rods, rod holders and fishing boxes I could feel myself believing that it would be a good idea to buy some equipment that would allow me to do this style of fishing whenever I liked. I managed to escape before that idea took hold.

11:34 AM | Category: | 0 comments

Tanabata
Festival season really picks up in July and August and we managed to come across the very visually spectacular festival “tanabata” last week. Tanabata literally means the night of the seventh, and it's also known as the star festival. Tanabata is supposed to take place on the seventh day of the seventh month but this festival had been running for a week and showed no sign of slowing down. The streets were decorated with great big streamers and paper balls. In this area one whole street, about two kilometres long, was lined with these streamers. Spectacular.







People also take the opportunity of tanabata to write their wishes on paper and hang them on bamboo branches. They also make any number of paper decorations and hang them up outside their houses and shops. Some of the folded papers were very intricate.




While a traditional festival there is still room for others to join in and on one of the side streets there was a line of Harleys ready to roar down the street (after the marching girls). Some of the decoration and time that has obviously gone into these machines is staggering.

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A stormwater drain oasis
Over the weekend I visited one of the most impressive spots I have seen so far in Tokyo. I have seen a number of these little oasis around Tokyo and am  amazed by how the planners in this town manage to insert them into the middle of a huge city allowing for an escape from the heat and hussle of the streets.

Just up from Oji station, which is only 30 minutes on the subway from home, you cross the bottom of the stormwater drain and while it looks nice its nothing compared to further upstream. Following the banks of the stormwater drain and ducking under the trees reveals a green space that is cool and simply amazing. The water is diverted from a large drain at the top of the valley and run through trees and rock gradens. There are waterfalls and water wheels through out the valley.

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Cosplay time
On a recent Sunday visit to the Tokyo Dome area I came across a truely  bizarre sight.

Japan is well know as the home of Cosplay and while I had seen random examples of people dressed as their favourite characters (or just any character) around Tokyo the concentration in the area of the Tokyo Dome on this day was amazing. There were nurses, characters from cartoons, obvious old school Australian one day cricket fans and all manner of school girls and warriors. The most bizarre costume was the woman dresses in a full body leather suit wearing a motorcycle helmet styled to look like a cats head (it was 30 degrees celcius and 90 percent humdity) - no photos of that - sorry.




  

10:48 AM | Category: , | 0 comments

Don't try this at home
On the weekend I was looking around an area near where I live and came across this guy set up in the tree's (yes it was a tad creepy) complete with a massage table. If you can't read it the sign on the chair says "Massage Free". There were no shortage of woman waiting to take advantage of this guys obvious magic hands and no, I didn't see one guy take him up on his offer. I wonder how this would work back in Australia?

11:04 AM | Category: | 0 comments

Strange signs
I went out for a walk in one of the local parks today and came across some signs that caused me some confusion.

The first sign I could understand what it said but was worried or confused why it would be needed in a local park.



The second sign I couldn't understand at all. There were no people throwing anything let alone fish!!

10:59 AM | Category: | 0 comments