Did Someone Say Penis Festival?

There was a lot of anticipation build up leading into this weekend. Everywhere I went it seemed the usual greeting of 'hello' was foregone for 'Hey, you're going to the Penis Festival, right?' And that's exactly where I went this weekend.

Better known as the Hounen Matusuri here in Japan, rather than being a free-for-all public sexpo the Penis Festival was more about a celebration of fertility. But since nobody in our group actually wanted to get pregnant we went along to see the famed giant penis.

Basically the festival is an ancient tradition to celebrate fertility and renewal. Every year on March 15th, a big party is held at the Tagata-jinga shrine as hundreds of people gather to catch a glimpse of the monster phallus. Each year, a new wooden phallus is craved from a cypress tree. It's about 2.5 meters long and weighs around 400 kilograms. 12 unlucky blokes are desginated to carry the giant penis. They're all supposed to be 42 years old because that's supposedly an unlucky age for men when it comes to fertility.

We organised a huge group to go forth and witness the wonder of the Penis Festival. We were getting (understandably) rowdy in all the excitement. Funnily the boys seemed a lot more excited about the prosopect of seeing all those peni than the girls. We were such a huge group of foreigners that we became a popular attraction ourselves. We kept collecting random people as our group thread through the festival. As we took photos, random Japanese people would run in to pose with us.

Besides the main attraction of the Penis Parade there was plenty to keep me a-giggling all day long. The souvernir store was a delight for the senses. There were penis-shaped lollipops with matching vaginas; keychains with movable parts that show exactly how the birds and the bees do it; an almost posh looking golden keyring (dubbed the goldmember) that had string along the back that enabled people to make it stand to attention and wooden carvings. My personal favourite was the miniature penis with feet. You could wind it up and it bopped around frenetically. I fell over laughing.

Then there were the food stalls. And the Penis Festival fever definitely seeped into the food stalls. There were chocolate covered bananas, giant battered hotdogs and miscellaneous meats on a stick. We rather enjoyed taking salacious photos as we munched on our snacks.

While we waited for the much anticipated parade, we also enjoyed a taiko drumming performance. These guys were great. There were some tiny tykes bashing at those drums before they made way for the big guns who showed us what the art was really about. There was a man walking around with a well endowed mannequin. There was a polaroid attached to where the head shoud have been and if you gave the family jewels a friendly tug, it took a polaroid. Then there was the camera crew that couldn't resist approaching us (told you we were a tourist attraction in ourselves), and we played up the rowdy foreigner stereotype by chanting penis, penIS, peNIS, pENIS, PENIS. I told them that we'd see ourselves on the news the next day, then being deported the day after. I can just imagine the headlines: English teachers fired enmasse for raucous behaviour at family oriented fertility festival.

Then came time to line up along the streets for the parade... There had been much discussion about it beforehand. My coworker and I were fervently hoping that the giant member would be tweaked to shoot forth fountains of milk which would be caught in the mouths of young maidens. And after all the build up and anticipation, I'd like to be able to inform you that the giant penis pounded up that street and with a punishing thrust, exploded into the shrine.

Unfortunately, I think the anticipation of the parade was a lot sweeter than the actual deed. The giant penis took its sweet time getting up that street, teasing us until the allure became frustration. Then it just charged into the shrine like a fumbling teenager. The foreplay was too long and the finish was frankly disappointing.

But I guess the rest of the day had been so perfect that if the parade had been perfect too all of our heads would have exploded. Only in Japan could people get away with parading a giant phallus around and celebrating the fact.

And for all of you who warned me not to get pregnant at the festival, I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear but it COULD be touch and go. In an unsuspecting moment, as I was trying to thread my way out of the penis-mad masses an old woman stuffed a fertility charm (a plant with a ribbon tied around it) into my hand. Uh oh, I hope this doesn't mean I'm pregnant.

Popped my Tokyo Cherry

Now that I know my final deadline for Japan I've created a mental checklist of things I have to do before I leave Japan. I'm deathly determined to get all the things on my list done. And this weekend I managed to check off the first item: Go to Tokyo.

So on Saturday night straight after work a huge group of us made the trek to the city that never sleeps (where people speak Japanese).

One of the most exciting things happened before we even got to Tokyo. My tangent buddies, Darlene and Tommy FINALLY got together. My subtle machinations finally came to fruition. So our train trip consisted of us discussing how long I'd seen this coming, trying to convince the others in our group they were actually together and getting told off for being rowdy and obnoxious gaijin.

Since we took the shinkansen (bullet train) the trip took less than 2 hours. The shinkansen essentially feels like flying but you never leave the ground. I did get that nauseating feeling that I get when I'm travelling on a really fast elevator but it settled down.

When we got to Tokyo around 11pm, we headed out to Ageha, one of the biggest clubs in Tokyo. And this was no small claim (sorry, bad pun) this place was a ginourmous warehouse with marquee extensions. There was a house area that was about the size of a football field; a pool area that was begging someone to be thrown in, a trance tent; a lounge area you could get lost in and a bunch of coloured rooms (the blue room, the orange room) that we didn't even make it to.

Apparently, cameras weren't allowed in the club but I managed to sneak mine in because I truly wanted to document my adventures. I didn't take too many photos though. There were security guards everywhere.

The highlight of the club was when the pole dancers came out. And before the screams of protest against the objectification of women start, these women were not strippers. It was like circe de soleil but instead of leotards these women were wearing bikinis. The things they were doing were absolutely mind-blowing. To be able to climb up a steel pole, cling to the pole using only her thighs then twirl around horizontally was an amazing show of their strength. They were tanks. Amazonian in their beauty and grace but athletes nonetheless. Unfortunately I didn't get to take a photo. The guards were even more prevalent around them.

We left the club around 5:30am, got breakfast, then headed to Shibuya. Shibuya is the famous shopping district and the crossing outside the station is famous for always being a crushing mass of people. This wasn't the case at 7am on a Sunday. After spending a couple of hours in the worst Starbucks ever (it had no bathroom or couches. It's only redeeming quality was the music they played), we got a Tommy Hadouken Adams tour of Tokyo.

We walked around Shibuya and did some window shopping. There was a shopping centre called 109 that was made up entirely of shops for women. Some of the shops were colour coordinated. Like everything in the shop was black and pink, or white and yellow. It was bizarre but shopping in Japan is always a bizarre experience.

Then we walked to Harajuku (the street famous for the people who dress up in costumes). It was definitely a sight to see. So many younguns caked with make-up, tottering around in gravity defying platforms and waving 'Free Hugs' signs. And of course we made a trip to the Harajuku market street. It was a teeming alley of kooky fashion and people.

One thing about Tokyo is that there are so many more foreigners around than in Nagoya. And for some reason almost every group of foreigners we bumped into during our unofficial tour seemed to be Australian. It felt like I was being stalked by Australians.

Tokyo is definitely a more highly-charged experience of Japan. In Nagoya, I've been allowed to get used to culture and my surroundings at my own pace. But everything in Tokyo is in your face.

This may have been my first trip to Tokyo but it certainly won't be my last.

Goodbyes and Hellos

This week was my new co worker, Eduardo's (to be known as Ed or Eddie) first week at the school. As expected he was a little nervous but quiet excited by it all. I tried to help him out as much as I could because I'm a nosy control freak but there's only so much I could do bar teaching all his classes for him. He's really peppy and ambitious so I'm sure it won't take long for him to get settled in.

On Saturday night after work we had our combination welcome/goodbye party for Ryan and Ed. These parties are so much more fun when I actually know the students. It's nice to be able to relax and laugh with the rest of the staff and the students.

Everyone kept asking me if I was drinking a lot because I went bright red. I hadn't even finished my ONE drink yet. So they had a good laugh about that.

I have a Teddy Bopper student called Katsushi, also affectionately known as Elvis. He absolutely idolises Elvis and dresses the part. He brought his guitar with the intention of letting Ryan jam on it. I kept asking him if he was going to sing for me but he kept refusing. I eventually twisted his arm and he serenaded me. It was so sweet. He sang me Rick Nelson's 'Hello, Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)'.

One of my other student's Hisataka is a masseuse and he treated Ryan to an on the spot massage. Where's mine?

Unfortunately, Ed and I had to leave early to catch last train. I basically had to drag Ed out because he was having so much fun mingling. And he forgot everything so he had to keep going back for it. I guess it was a good thing we had to leave early or I might have ended up carrying him back to the apartments.






Except for the random head that keeps popping up in the background (That's one of the students, Shouji. He's hilarious and always brings in a different weird Japanese drink every week) these are my wonderful co workers.
Ryan's the baby faced boy in the gray shirt. Can you believe he's 27?
Ayako's in the striped shirt, Saori's in the middle and of course, suave Ed in the front.

We Get Around... with Urthboy and Hermitude

There are two things that I miss about Melbourne town (besides my family and friends, of course): live music and cafe culture. There's really not much I can do about the sad lack of cafe culture here. Sigh...Here they consider the souless hallows of Starbucks the only cafes to go to.

But thankfully the live music scene has had its saving grace.

Last Saturday night, I sated my lust for live music at an Urthboy and Hermitude gig. I know, I did a double take when I first heard they were in Nagoya too. I couldn't believe that they were coming to Japan let alone in Nagoya.

I've heard of gigs being intimate but this was something else. As a prelude to the Elefant Traks crew I was treated to some Japanese hip hop. Unfortunately the first crew sounded too much like little boys who'd learnt their first swear words and were trying to use them as much as they could before their mothers heard them and spanked them for it. Luckily the rest were pretty fun to bounce to.

When Urthboy hit the stage I was there front and centre. Even though the place was tiny, the crowd was similarly tiny so I had plenty of room to bounce. There was this crazy Japanese girl, hair like Amy Winehouse, in a bikini and short overalls and enough bling around her neck to fund a political campaign. She was Sydney stomping and went berserk when I joined in. She was hilarious to dance with.

Urhtboy was amazing and because the gig was so intimate he interacted with the crowd a lot. You'll be pleased to hear that I am typing this blog with the hand that was personally high fived by Urthboy. No third hand high fives for me.

There was of course the requisite Aussie fans there. And where you get Aussies in a crowd situation you always have the Aussie hecklers. But Urthboy dealt with yells of 'Get your squid out' with aplomb. Lord, I do love my Aussie hip hop. At the end of his set, Elgusto smoothed in a remixed Mary Mary song and they came on down and had a boogie with us all.

We got a dance circle started. All the fly girls and b boys let rip. It was utterly hilarious. I couldn't dance I was laughing so much.

Then it was time for Hermitude to do their thing. I tore up that dancefloor during that set. I did a Dom and nearly took myself out with my own necklace. Luke Dubs set the keyboards on fire and Elgusto was the king of the MPC. They played a seamless mixture of old stuff and new. I never wanted it to end but of course their set flew by in a millisecond.

After they finished, the Elefant Trak boys just hung out in the crowd and grooved to the Japanese hiphoppers that followed them. I went up to say thanks for the show and ended up chatting to Tim for a while.

Yes that's right, I was on first name basis with Urthboy! It was his first time in Japan and he seemed slightly overwhelmed by it. They'd spent most of their time in Tokyo, had the one gig in Nagoya and were setting off for Osaka at 6am that morning before flying back to Australia. Nothing like a whirlwind tour of Japan surviving on absolutely no sleep, fly beats and beer. He was also really interested to hear about English teaching in japan. Um...yeah it's an amazingly sophisticated and glamourous job.

It was 4am when we finally stumbled out of the club and I was definitely the Nanna of Nanna gigging. But it was so good to feel the sweet ache of a live gig in my legs again. The only thing that would have made the night sweeter was having my Nanna gigging crew by my side.

Me and Tim (aka Urthboy...woo, first name basis)

Dancing with the Doala

Japan has become the land of firsts for me. First time I've lived in a different country; first time I've been to an international music festival; first time I've climbed Mount Fuji etc.

Well, last weekend brought about another first for me: I went to a baseball game for the first time.

One of the trainers, organised a huge group to go to a game and I was invited along. Since I know about as much about baseball as I do about Scientology you may wonder why I decided to accept this invitation. Basically, I thought it was about time I found out what the world of organised sports was really about. I got told at the last minute that watching baseball is just like watching the cricket. If I'd been told that earlier there would have been no way you could've gotten me to that game.

Thankfully the game wasn't nearly as boring as cricket. Baseball is a very huge thing in Japan. And what makes the games the most interesting (for me at least) was the fans.

Walking into the stadium, I felt as if I'd walked into the quidditch scenes in the Harry Potter movies. The fans are so super-genki enthusiastic. The different supporters sit on opposing sides of the stadium and try and out do each other with their flag waving, dancing and chants. Anyone who was anyone had plastic clappers and stomped, jigged and yelled along with the team chants.

The local team are the Chunichi Dragons but their mascot is a beige koala (meh?). Their mascot was like Bruce Lee with a giant, flat faced head. He pulled some pretty spectacular flips and twists in between innings.

Unfortunately, the local team lost. I swear it wasn't my fault. I didn't even watch the game that closely so I couldn't have jinxed them with my creepy staring.

My lesson of the day: One doesn't go to ball games to actually watch the game. Socalising, drinking beer and people watching are the true aims of the game.

I am Fuji's Fool

Give me a mountain and I will want to climb it. I’m masochistic like that. Since I’m in Japan I figured I might as well try and tackle the highest peak in the country. This weekend was the last of the official hiking season on Mount Fuji, so a few of us decided to make the attempt while we could.

Our group consisted of Joseph, Candice (his friend visiting from Adelaide), Judy, Joel and I. We were the Triple J IC. So we left Nagoya on Sunday morning and spent five hours on local trains getting to Gotemba station. Obviously it’s possible to get there faster but we were all still using our unlimited train tickets so this way was cheaper.

Mount Fuji is split into eight stations and you start climbing from the fifth stations (unless you are completely and utterly insane with no pain receptors in your body). We arrived at Subashiri gogome (fifth station) at 6pm. We decided to relax there for a while so our body could acclimatise to the change in altitude. They say a lot of people don’t give their bodies enough time to acclimatise and suffer from altitude sickness. I did not want to leave my mark on Mount Fuji by puking on it.

Since the weather of the previous week had been absolutely hideous: torrential rain, flash floods, electrical storms, and even an earthquake (yes, apparently an earthquake happened on Saturday while I was at work but I was completely oblivious) I was expecting the same kind of treatment on Fuji. I was preparing to basically drown as we tried to climb up the mountain. Therefore I was surprised but thankful that the weather held up beautifully. It only rained for the first ten minutes of our hike.

We hiked through the night and I took sadistic pleasure in blinding the others with the flash of my camera. Joseph, Candice and I enlightened Joel on the wonders of Australian slang. We all decided that since Mount Fuji doesn’t have any monsters to call its own we would introduce Drop Bears to Fuji. They’d be ninja Drop Bears.

We reached the eighth station at around 1am and it was glorious to rest by the dying embers of the fireplace and chillax for a while. One of the most ridiculous things I saw up there was, on one hand you had people inhaling from cans of oxygen to acclimatise to the thin air, then on the other you had people smoking. What kind of crazy nutter wants to shrink their lungs while on top of the highest peak in Japan?

From the eighth station it took us another hour and half to get to the summit. There were so many people trying to get up to the summit at the same time and the paths were narrowing down so we experienced a bit of a traffic jam. This was more of a blessing than a curse though, since it forced us to rest as the air got thinner and the atmosphere colder.

We finally reached the peak at 3:30am. Woo, we made it before sunrise. So all we had to do was wait for the sun to make an appearance. It was so ridiculously cold up there. We piled on all the layers we’d brought and went crazy trying to stay warm.

I still couldn’t believe how well the weather had held up. The sky was perfectly clear. The stars up there were soul-achingly beautiful. I saw two shooting stars. Across the horizon we could also see the distant lights of the cities. The sun rise itself just tore at the heart. I felt like a deity looking down on the Earth and I did not feel worthy to be in the presence of such glory. There was also the most amazing cloud formation. It looked like a battleship sailing majestically across the sea of clouds.

Unfortunately, the glory of the sunrise went straight to my bladder and I desperately needed to pee. But apparently the toilets at the summit were closed (you have to pay to use the toilets on Mount Fuji). What kind of sadistic, evil creature thought that was a good idea?

So we decided to head back to the eighth station for another rest by the fireplace and maybe a hot chocolate (after finding a toilet). We’d gotten about 15 mins down when we realised we had gone down the wrong way. There was a separate descending route we were supposed to take but we’d gone back down the ascending route. Whoops. We connected to the descending route and proceeded to fall down the mountain.

When we got to the eighth station, a thick white fog wrapped itself around the mountain like something out of a bad fantasy novel. Fortune has nothing on the whims of Mount Fuji. After resting at the eighth station for a couple of hours we decided we wanted helicopters to take us back down. None of us were looking forward to the further 4 hours of hiking we would have to endure. Little did we know…

I can imagine that the descent into Hades would be exactly like the descending route of Mount Fuji, except probably hotter. The way down was a 45 degree decline of crumbly ash gravel. There was nothing to grip to and the slightest motion gave you the momentum of an out of control shotput. I’m quite happy to report that I only majorly stacked it about 5 times. I fell over a lot more than that but those times were the most painful. But hey, who needs a whole coccyx bone or skin on their feet?

It only took us 3 hours to fall down the mountain. Yes, that’s right. It took 8 hours to climb up but only 3 to come back down. By the end of it, I felt like dropping to my knees and screaming to the heavens (Leo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet style) and screaming ‘I am Fuji’s fool!’.

We were all deliriously happy to make it back to the fifth station. We still had to wait an hour for the bus so we just relaxed (i.e. collapsed) and looked at souvenirs. After another 5 hours on trains, I finally got home around 8pm and pottered around till 11:30pm when I fell into the sleep of the dead. I certainly made the most of my weekend, considering I was awake for 34.5 hours straight. And now I can officially say that I have conquered Mount Fuji.

This is my very short video of the sunrise for your benefit. It was too cold to record for too long. Just ignore Joel's voice in the background.

Saturday night shenanigans

On the last Saturday of our week off, some of the peeps decided they wanted to go clubbing. And since I felt up to a night of light hearted amusement I decided to tag along. Our group consisted of Joel, Joseph, Judy, Jean, Fiona and myself and we all headed over to Joel's place for pre-drinks. I don't quite understand the tradition of having pre-drinks but I'm a green innocent thing when it comes to such things.

We chatted for a while and played silly drinking card games before we headed out to Club ID. I've been told that while Club ID is the most popular club in Nagoya it's also one of the seediest. I was told that I should only go if I want to get hit on by fifty Brazilian guys. But Jean wanted to go there and nobody else had any suggestions.

When we got there the line was ridiculous. It literally went around the corner. Some of group went to the convenience store to get drinks while we waited. Joseph very kindly got me drink as well but we barely cracked them open before we got to the door. Fastest moving line I've ever been in.

At the door we were greeted by a pro-wrestling team of security guards. They did the prefunctory check of id and then Joel and Joseph got frisked. That pissed me off because none of the Japanese guys got frisked or any girls for that matter.

Joseph: They probably wouldn't get away with frisking girls.
Isa: But a girl could just as easily have a girl strapped to her thigh as any guy.
Joseph: Yes, but that would be sexy and if they saw that they'd be like, 'Please come straight on in.'

It was packed inside of course and Jean led us all to the hip-hop, R&B level. And thus the dancing ensued. Despite all the warnings about ID, it wasn't quite as horrendous as I was expecting it to be. I never actually got hit on by any Brazillians. I got the sleazy look over all the time but I think Joseph and Joel's presence in our group kept most of them at bay.

At one point we all started a bump and grind train with a whole bunch of other people. It was hilarious. I also saw one guy dressed up in a Yoshi suit and another in a Pikachu suit. Hilarity. They must have been hot as heck in those.

It got so crowded we had to do our best worming to get through the crowds to get a drink. Jean grabbed my hand and led the way do I put out my hand for Joel or Joseph. I turned back and saw some random japanese guy had grabbed my hand. And he refused to let go until we got to the bar at which point he thanked me for leading him out of the crowd. Smart man.

After Club ID we all decided to head to Joy Joy for a bout of Karaoke. Our bout lasted into the wee hours of the morning. By the end of it, only Judy, Joel and I were still rocking. When we stumbled out of there the sun was already well and truly out. It gets so bright so freaking early over here.