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Published: October 9th 2006
Yes thats me!!!!
Walking on hot coals at the festival in our street!There was a festival in our street!!!
Last Wednesday, as we walked home from kindy, I thought there was going to be a hard rubbish collection, as there were boxes and old tables on the sides of the street. I couldn't have been more wrong...it was actually people setting up their stalls ready for a festival in our street!!!!
Amy and I get excited about a lot of things in Japan, but this was extra special! We LOVE festivals and couldn't believe how close this one was to us! We went for a walk, literally down our stairs, to check it all out. People were setting up their colourful little tents and beginning to prepare festival food and amusements. Up the stairs, at the temple, preparations had been made for the evening, including branches and wood laid out ready for the fire walking!
Anyway I got some yaki soba and Amy had to go to stupid Juku (tuition lessons). As soon as she came back, we went to mingle amongst it all again. We heard the fire walking began at nine, so made our way to the temple. While waiting, Amy tried to eat her yaki
soba. Three young Japanese girls would not leave us alone, and kept giggling at us while they spoke the only English they knew - "Hello! Hello!" Before any fire was even lit, there was a line of people all the way down the steps near The Shizu. These were people eager for a year of good luck. All they had to do was step on HOT COALS!!! Crazy, huh?? After we watched a couple hundred people walk over the coals, adults, children, dogs and the crazy girls, we decided it was our turn!
I went first so Amy could take a photo, however she missed me actually walking on the hot coals, so I had to do it again! Burnt feet twice!!!! It didn’t really hurt at all actually, but we could definitely feel the heat, which was mainly coming from the fire on either side. When it was Amy’s turn, I cut her out of the photo too, accidentally, so she had to do it again as well! It all worked out great however, because now we have two years of good luck each!!!
Nice beaches in Japan…I don’t think so!
I take
that back as the beach in Okinawa was perfect, but apart from that, white sand, clean blue water beaches are nowhere to be found. We did try, and even though the ones we found were not perfect, it was nice to drive along the coast of Shizuoka and breathe in the fresh air. We arrived at Hamamatsu in the evening, ate at a Japanese restaurant and then checked out the Aussie bar. In Hamamatsu there is an Australian run bar called Down Under. They sell lots of Australian beer and food, most notably Vili’s (good old South Aussie bakery) pies, pasties and sausage rolls! The bar was interesting and had lots of Australian memorabilia, but since Our Boozer is our second home in Japan (the mansion being the first of course), we drove back to Shizuoka city, feeling a little homesick, and hung out at Boozer with our family away from home.
A run in with the cops!
A few weeks ago I was driving Amy and I home from Matt's house after watching some DVD's. I had had maybe one and a half drinks over four hours. We turned the corner at our landmark fish,
to be waved down by the koban (police) with their red light saber baton things. They bagan speaking in Japanese and we thought we could get out of it by saying we didn’t understand. There were three of them, however, and they managed to communicate with us in broken English. Then the interrogation began, they wanted to see (both of) our international licenses and alien registration ID cards. They asked us why we were in Japan, for how long, and who we worked for. I was shitting myself! I was just waiting for them to breath test me! In Japan I don’t think you are allowed to have ANY alcohol in your blood, but I’m not exactly sure. (I think I could have bribed them anyway - maybe!) So after all the questioning, they finally let us go (no breath test thankgod), but not before the older one called through the window,
“You are very beautiful girls!” What the??? Why couldn’t he have said that at the beginning and sent us on our way?!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Yes you are very beautiful
Hello, my name is Phil McCracken and I work for a small magazine called Sultry and Sizzling. I would love to feature you and your dusk photos at Omaezaki in an upcoming article called 'Dusk Delights'. If you are interested please visit this website www.sultryandsizzlingcrack.org. I look forward to your response