Spring vacation...one year on...filling in the blanks...

This entry was to have been a glittering description of the fabulous historical city Nikko, housing many tombs of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the family that held Japan in the grip of military dictatorship for two-hundred years. It would have been a chance for Hayley and I to get out of the industrial eyesore that is Kawasaki, but alas, my body decided that my long anticipated holiday was the perfect time for me to get tonsilitis...

...so I had my first trip to a Japanese hospital. The waiting room was a mildly pleasant experience, one that we in the west might learn from, with its opulent curtains, massive TVs, Library and sofas that try to eat you. Then I was subjected to a series of medical tortures involving nasal drilling, deep-throat pus removal (via a big syringe) and more drugs than I've ever had in one sitting. So, the holiday's been quiet...



Japans unofficial national flower, the cherry blossom has been in full bloom this week, so we've taken the opportunity to indulge in Hanami (lit. "flower see"), which basically involves sitting under a pretty pink tree and getting drunk with your friends, something we employed to devastating effect last night...




After a year in Kawasaki, I feel there must be more to this city than the (Guinness certified) shortest escalator in the world (ending in a staircase, just to remind you that you're in Japan), and maybe more to say I've achieved than teaching Japanese teenagers how to say "Eee, 'ecky thump" (to the point of being able to do it without prompting), something I'm missing, something...



...of course...







...it's the Kawasaki Cock Fest!!!


Last year, with my source material a good mile away from the computer I was frantically typing into, enthusiasim overtook accuracy in my description of this momentous festival. The story actually goes that a local maiden had her vagina possessed by a demon, the offending creature biting the penises of her suitors...eventually it was quelled by a local blacksmith using a steel phallus. Details aside, this was all about fertility and cocks; a pink one carried by a troupe of transvestites, a huge black effigy in a massive omikoshi carried by locals (and, surprisingly enough, one of my students) and a variety of the things in a shrine.





Stunning. I'm speechless. I feel my time here has been justified.