"What did you do on your birthday Nikky?"
"......"
"Nikky?"
"Manual labour."

After a 2 hour nap (directly under the air conditioning machine) I woke up, got dressed, and was picked up (in searing hot 35 degree weather) to go to Shigaraki and make a torch. On the 26th, there is a fire festival. People trek up a small mountain, carrying large torches on their shoulders, and take them to the fire shrine. You can, of course buy the torches, but by venturing out on a hot day like Sunday, you could save yourself $20. In hindsight, I should have paid someone $50 to make mine for me.....no, not really. It was hard work, but I got into it, and it helped me avoid actually being hungover. I have my suspicions that I was still a bit drunk at about 10am, so it was nice to sweat out the nasty alhohol toxins and breathe some fresh countryside air.

How to make a Fire Torch in 10 easy steps

1. Start by selecting a bamboo pole (taller than yourself) which has been split several times at one end.

2.Then, you wrap some thick wire around each section,

Bamboo Shafts

making a bamboo frame.

3. Select some logs from a nearby pile, and split some of them so they fit more easily.

4. When your axe/cleaver/chopper thingo gets stuck in the wood, take a deep breath, relax, and try to avoid smacking yourself in the head on the upswing.While doing so, ignore the natives watching you with grins of amusement on their faces.

5. Though you are by now coated in a shining sheen of perspiration and you can feel the beads of sweat trickling into all of those interesting places, just focus on your work (and not the sweat patches appearing on your shins - your shins! I didnt know shins could sweat!). Hammer the 6-8 bits of wood into the space the size of a large man's forearm, and mind you don't hit the small dog or any of the children rinning around.

6. Lament over the fact that your friend told you you didn't have to come, that you could have been lying under the air conditioning and wallowing in self pity in comfort, rather than in the stinking heat.

7. Wind a piece of wire around the cage and use pliers

Wath the pro

to bind it close together, then pick up a coil of rope (not to use on self).

8. Wind the rope around the base of the wood-filled cage, and get your friend to turn the bamboo pole while you line up all of the cords and make it look pretty.

9. After all of this is done, heft the torch onto your shoulder, and imagine trekking up that hill/mountain, over there, behind those buildings.

10. Curse silently in your head for not choosing smaller pieces of wood.

There you have it.

Now start from the beginning to make your friend and other (smart) absent people a torch each.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
As much as I grumble, I had a nice day with some of my Japanese friends and friends of friends,doing something new, and we all worked hard together in the heat, had a laugh, I had a short nap in the early evening and then they took me out to dinner and gave me presents. Lucky or what?

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