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Published: August 12th 2008
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I was horrified, fascinated and completely thrilled. the old man was hunched over his fairy floss making machine mumbling to himself, twirling his spare arm around in the air and puffing away furiously on an amber lit, tightly rolled cigarette.
Phoebe came up behind me and requested I take a photo of her, I flapped her away impatiently
"Shhh, not now... I'm watching" I stayed rooted to the spot, my eyes not leaving the old mans mouth. His lips quivered. I held my breath. Then just when I was sure the ash was about to drop right into the pot of soft fluffy sugar he gave a spluttery cough, spat his cigarette on the floor, cackled, wrapped up his fairy floss and blundered his way to the front of the stall to present it with a wide toothless smile to the little girl waiting anxiously with 300 yen in her hand. Obviously a veteran smoking fairy floss man, he had his art down to a fine science.
I turned back to my friends, snapped a quick photo of Phoebe gazing up at the twinkling lights of the festival and smiled.
"I can't believe I just saw that" I
mmmm tasty
Old man smoking while making fairy floss for the little ones paused and took one last look back at the fairy floss vendor, propped up on his chair, a beer in one hand and lighting a cigarette with the other
"I fricking love Japan" Sanae, Phoebe, Manabu and I were hanging out at the Kawaguchi Bike Race Festival. When Sanae first told me about it, I thought she meant bicycle (not a hard assumption to make considering the piles of bicycles everywhere you go in Japan) so you can imagine my shock and delight when she took me out to the race track and I saw multiple motorbikes racing around the tarmac, preparing for the race. We snagged ourselves some good seats and then left Phoebe behind to save them for us while the rest of us dispersed into the crowds on food and beverage missions. I was hunting down some festival okonomiyaki when I stumbled across the childrens play area.
Not a normal playground for under 10s, this playground consisted of a rubber mat on the floor and a few hundred empty beer cans. The challenge was to stack ten beer cans on top of each other without collapsing them, and in doing so, recieve a prize.
The Beerground
small children playing building games with Beer Cans It may not have been orthodox, but never have I seen kids have so much fun. I stored the idea away for future use; probably not appropriate for the classroom, but quite possibly a new game to be enjoyed with my younger cousins over Christmas.
God knows there'll be enough cans once the clock hits 2:00pm.
I squared up the Okonomiyaki and ventured back to the race track to meet up with the others and cheer on the bikers. We each picked a colour, and although my choice, red was first for most of the race, he wasn't at the end, which is unfortunately for him, the only time it really counts.
The race over, the lights around the race track flickered off one by one until we were in almost pitch darkness. The countdown started from five.
"Go!"
I tapped Sanae on the arm and inquired what was happening
"Yong!"
Sanae grinned and pointed to the middle of the race track
"San!"
I squinted into the darkness, but couldn't see a thing
"Ni!"
I shrugged and decided to join in the festivities
"ICHI!"
A huge bang made the whole audience jump and massive fireworks exploded off the field 100 metres in front of us and filled the sky above us with a giant array of purple, silver and red. A giant cheer went around the race track and my legs were covered in goosebumps as everyone began to clap, stomp their feet, whistle and cheer. It was amazing, almost as good as the smoking fairy floss mans performance.
Its such a shame that a camera can't capture how beautiful the fireworks were, and that my words can't do it justice. I've always liked fireworks, but after coming to Japan, it's been bumped up to love. The Japanese really go all out with their displays and every Hanabi I've seen this summer has outdone the last in design, sparkle and sheer volume of colour, it's like they consider fireworks a failure if there's a single patch of darkness in the entire sky. An hour later after much ooh-ing and ahh-ing later we walked back home amongst the crowd of other locals with dirty feet, smiling faces and full bellies stretching our yukatas out to maximum effect.
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