Umbrella. Groping. Small Beer. Bamboo.

What sort of person steals an umbrella from a 7-11? A jerk, that’s who. One of the first jerks I’ve encountered (or not encountered) in Japan, as a matter of fact. You see, Japan has somewhat of an honour system in place with their convenience stores (konbini). If it’s raining outside, most konbini will provide you with a rack to leave your umbrella in so that you don’t make the store messy with rain from outside. It’s largely understood that you take what is yours when you leave the store.

How.

Ev.

Er.

Some jerk during the week stole my umbrella, which wasn’t even mine to begin with. In fact, it was Nakamura-san’s. Here’s the part I don’t get about this seemingly low-scale crime saga – it was raining the entire freakin’ day, so whoever headed out on this particular night without an umbrella is not only a jerk, but obviously a bit of a dunce as well.

It’s rare that I use the word dunce these days, but I thought it best to refrain from swearing too much now that my mother is reading these entries.

Last night I could’ve sworn I heard some sort of ferret orgy taking place in the garden outside my room. It was that or a live progressive industrial techno session with instruments such as – banging on corrugated iron, squeeze-a-ferret and rustling garden.

The placement of the sentence above seemed right. Just so you hardcore folk don’t think I’ve gone all soft and PG-13.

This post may be particularly picture-heavy, but there are good reasons for this.

LIKE THIS…

Take note, Australian Politicians. Be this enthusiastic about running for Parliament, and someone may actually want to vote your party into power. I’m sure there’s some type of slogan on there, but I can only figure out less than half of that. But when’s the last time you saw an Australian politician fist-pump their way to victory?

Admittedly, this next photo I actually had to get a bit stalker-y on a train to take, but the slogan on the back of this t-shirt was worth it, because it was somehow creepier than the act of me taking the photo.

In case you’re wondering exactly what it says… LET’S TOUCH ALL POLITELY!! ..yes, because as long as you inappropriately touch someone politely, it’s OK. So next time I decide to grab someone on the bot-bot, I’m going to casually lean forward with wide smile on my face and wave at them while I do so. Because that’s the polite way to grope someone… I think.

On the topic of groping, my larger stature and physique around here have led to me being felt up while amongst friends at random times. Of course, this has all taken place while drunk and purely in jest, so I can’t really bring myself to get upset or offended about it.
Mostly because there’s an odd level of curiosity surrounding my ‘manliness’, apparently.

And here’s a picture of me making my room look even cooler than it already was.

So I have this lamp in my room, because one evening I returned from (you guessed it) drinking and as I reached up to get changed, I busted the lightbulb above my head. Not in a shattering, Paul-gets-covered-in-glass-and-starts-bleeding-profusely-oh-so-hilariously kind of way, but in a Paul-is-too-big-for-this-room-and-forgets-it-sometimes kind of way. So now I have a far more appropriate, mood-setting tone to this room… Until I buy another lightbulb.

And this cafe is just so speciest, I couldn’t help but take this photo.

One day this week was spent seeing other traditional Japanese houses (machiya) that are also being used as living spaces. Both places I visited with Nakamura-san were absolutely massive. One of them was large enough to have eight (!) people living in it. Words or pictures don’t really do the place must justice, but I took some lovely snaps all the same.

This is the large and quite picturesque backyard of the traditional house large enough to house eight people. The large structure you see in the background houses at least four people. Then there’s two smaller structures to the left that house at least three. I’m not really sure where the eighth person goes in the scenario I’ve described for you, but think of them like a Tetris block, if you turn them the right way, they can be devastatingly effective.

The second house we visited was actually a workshop as well, as you will see below. As well an example of their handiwork in the background to the left!

And a close-up of the threads this thing was spinning, for those of you that are arts-and-crafts inclined…

Another day this week was spent catching up with Nana, who I met last time I was in Japan (witness to the woman trying to jump out of the window after making out with me night at Kazu Bar) and her friend Asako. We explored Arashiyama, approximately 30 minutes by train out of Kyoto.

LOOK AT HOW IT HAS THE PRETTY THINGS.

This particular day, a Matsuri festival was being held. As the procession proceeded to pass by us, I was thrown a can of beer by a elderly man on a truck. It’s probably the smallest can of beer I’ve ever seen, to be honest. But it turns out that I am actually very lucky. I didn’t see anyone else get thrown a beer at this traffic junction and there was at least a couple of hundred people. Nana and Asako were both suitably impressed that I was the recipient of this miniature beer. These miniature beers are meant to represent some measure of protection or luck from the Gods. Regardless of what your beliefs may or may not be, free beer is a good thing.

And an ice-cream that can be held upside-down.

Why can it be held upside-down, you ask? Because it’s made entirely out of soy. VEGANS REJOICE. This was a mix of vanilla soy and black sesame soy ice-cream. The noms.

The main reason anyone visits Arashiyama, though, is for the…

..BAMBOO…

..FOREST!

Right, so at this point, you’re probably wondering what else there is to show and tell from this particular day.

How about a dog wearing a samurai sword?!

Or this particularly impressive part of the festival, which involves making a bell ring that sits at the top of this pole.

Here’s the thing you may not be able to tell from this photo: the method by which this pole is balanced and turned so that the bell rings.

So, in effect, you’re balancing a pole using your pole. And then swinging it from left to right in a kind of half-step/hop-step to make a bell ring. I was seriously impressed by this. But I could also see the potential pain involved with doing such a thing. Youch.

And to close out this entry, a picture of one of the actual Matsuris itself. Due to some particularly unfortunate timing, I’m going to be giving 10 points for the expression on the woman’s face and 5 points for the guy to her right too. ‘Til next time!