Entries this day: AM_Penis_festival kozue

AM Penis festival

11:26am JST Sunday 03 April 2005

With Kelly, Jasmine, Hitomi and Satoko, I met Kellie, Yumi, Katsu, and someone to scope the Penis Festival, which started as a ceremony to keep prostitues safe from syphilis and prosperous in business.

I can respect and understand that, but it was a bit difficult for me to respect why so many old men were taking photos of women sitting on the giant wooden phalluses.

There were booths selling penis and vulva shaped candies and ash trays; other vendors sold food and sake. If you want to go next year, get there around 9:30am; it's uncrowded and easy to see everything before the crowds arrive.

Jasmine carved a daikon radish to look like what the other people were carving. She didn't know which end was up on the erect penis shape. I'm glad for her for that.

The radishes had green leafy stalks on the top end and a long skinny tail on the bottom end. People were making the head by cutting off the leaves and carving the head then cutting off the tail and saying, "look; a penis!"

I would use the leafy part as pubic hair and if my carving skillz were sufficient the long skinny part as an ejaculation.

However, by going and leaving early, we didn't see the drumming nor the parade, etc.

kozue

11:01pm JST Sunday 03 April 2005

After work I met Kozue in Akihabara where she helped me find a digital video camera. The one she suggested is one I had my eye on and after a few minutes contemplation, I flipped a coin and learned I should buy it.

She was surprised at how fast I made the decision. :-)

Afterward, she drove us to Shibuya to meet the assembled posse of Kelly, Satoko, Jasmine, Andrew, Katsu(?), Kellie, Yumi, and Hitomi at a shabushabu restaurant. When we arrived, there were about 20 people waiting in line, but I was all like, "Kelly会います。" and zoom we went straight in. Kozue was like, "wow." It was pretty neat.

It was all-we-could-eat for about 2600 yen each including drinks. Pretty good.

They just kept bringing stacks of plates of thinly sliced beef and plates of vegetables that we swoosh around in boiling water. The water was in bowls on electric eyes on the table; no gas flames here.

I kept thinking about all the starving people in the world as we chowed down. How will my thinking change when I'm on P-B?