The Kawasaki Cock fest.

When I first heard of this I thought to myself, "Come now Chris, you`re being immature. They`re talking about roosters." How wrong I was. It`s all about cocks. All sizes, only one shape. According to Lonely Planet Japan, it celebrates a local prince rescuing a local maiden from the clutches of a not-so-local demon by de-flowering the lady in question with a gigantic wooden phallus. The demon seemingly lost interest after this. The maiden`s opinion of the turn of events isn`t recorded. Sadly I have missed the unique cultural experience of sitting astride a gargantuan cock Dr Strangelove style on a sunday, but I`ll be more than re-imbursed by the three day orgy of festivals that is golden week. No idea what to expect there though...I doubt there`ll be any cocks.

This has been quite a long weekend, but I`ve still had to be places. Well, one place - the Kawasaki Board of Education Centre. Officially I`m supposed to work on lesson plans, but I have more than enough time to do that at school & at home, so I spent a good portion of thursday and friday sitting around with various other ALT`s, mostly from America, but there`s a very jolly Welsh lady. We went out to a darts bar for one beer (and we all know what one beer turns into after "work") and ended up playing darts until some unspecified time in the evening. Japanese darts bars are a far cry away from all the connotations the sport (tee-hee) carries in the UK - no fat androgynous northerners for one. We met a keen player - typical elegant & demure Japanese lady with a demented cartoon giggle & purple darts to match her shoes, top and earings. Fairly dull weekend otherwise - been playing with my various domestic appliances - I think I`ve bought a shark steak...practicing kanji endlessly, blah, blah, blah...this entry appears to have tailed off a bit...Oooo yes. I met a microbiologist the other day. Boy, was he small...