Birthday Cake and Naked Men

Seems that many of my friends are getting sick or injured lately.  I think it may be attributed to a combination of a few things.  First off, as much as I had hoped Spring had finally sprung and I could commence with the reduction of layers (I rock 6-7 layers on the daily), I was wrong.  The weatherman tricked me with a few warm and sunny days and then *BAM*, so suddenly the gray skies and cold and cloudy days returned, almost with a vengeance.  Indeed, I had forgotten I lived in what I like to call Kita-Cuts because Kobe’s Kita-Ward is absolutely notorious for being cold, and Hanayama tops the list like a sadistic snowy layer on a tree-covered-mountain cake. *sigh*

In addition to the cold that refuses to release its icy grip on my part of town, about 10 days ago my friends and I decided to tax our bodies with an insanely-packed weekend.  It started off with a birthday party in Osaka.  My good friend Damon turned 25 so a bunch of us headed directly from our respective schools out to a tiny bar in Shinsaibashi owned by some friends and made it an awesome event.

In A 100-year old Japanese house.

The food was awesome and Damon is a real music-loving guy and most of the Japanese people he meets are involved in the creative arts in some way.  At the party were a rapper who is pretty skilled on acoustic guitar, a DJ, a didgiridoo player that beat-boxes with the rappers, a salaryman magician, and a poi performer who is also a contact juggler (think David Bowie in Labyrinth).

Another guy I’d met before, Jinta, provided the nosh food and the amazing cake, which happened to be the best cake I’ve tasted in quite a long time.  A really fluffy yellow cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries inside, with more whipped cream and strawberries on top, creating a ring around the edge of the cake with the birthday candles.  The best part was the custom dark-chocolate “album” with “Happy Birthday D-Wolf” scrawled across it.

Scrum-diddly!!!

I mean, seriously, if that thing was a man, I would happily become Mrs. Birthday Cake. It was.that.good.

Anyway, after the festivities wrapped up at that spot, the crazies (that includes myself) decided to STAY in Osaka and make it an all-nighter.  So we headed to an experimental music… thing that was happening until sunrise.  It was quite a walk from the train, and we stopped for food and melon soda (we need it in the States!), and finally got to the tiny gig in a ramshackle structure.  Ended up staying there until 5:30am before deciding to head back home.  It took us 6 train transfers to get back to ‘yama, sweet ‘yama.  I didn’t get to bed until around 8:30 on Saturday morning.

You figured I’d take it mellow, but no.  Woke up a few hours later and headed with a couple people out on another train trip to Okayama, 72 miles West of Kobe, for Hadaka Matsuri, aka Naked Man Festival.  For those wondering what on earth that is, Hadaka Matsuri is a 500-year old festival held every end of (cold as ice) February where thousands of (slightly crazy) men run around for hours in the night in nothing but loincloths and socks through small bodies of water to cleanse and purify themselves before gathering in a temple at midnight to fight for one of two lucky sticks in complete and total darkness.  Thousands more crazy people (including myself) stand around and watch all of this go down.

Swear, Naked Man is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

Delirious J-Guys

Out of respect for them as my friends, and their personal shame, I will not post pictures of my friends and the other gaijin that participated that night dressed in similar fashion.  After several hours of running around like this, though, all the groups slowly proceeded into the temple to await the dropping of the sticks, which, by the way, “guarantee” you a lucky year (and 10,000yen) if you catch it.  I say you’re already lucky if you can catch and keep that sucker without losing your loincloth, a limb, or your freaking life – no lie.

Still Early in the Game, Yet

Many of the groups hadn’t gathered yet, this was still more than an hour before the sticks were dropped.  As the time drew nearer, though, the anticipation was palpable as the crowd got bigger and more uncontrollable.

Fights Started to Break Out

It was really dangerous on the edge as fights were breaking out for better placement, closer to the center of the action, and also because the core group in the middle was continuously swaying from side-to-side with their arms raised in the air… waiting… for those sticks.  To me, it looked like a gay rave and the only thing missing was It’s Raining Men over a techno track… but that was just my observation.

In any case, after all that running around half naked in the 0 Celsius weather, not a single gaijin came out with stick in hand.  They were still lucky, though, because no one got seriously injured or died, like some dude last year!  Silver lining, eh?  That night I didn’t get to bed until around 4am, then had to rush out of the door in the morning to not get charged extra for the accomodations so I couldn’t even enjoy it.

When I got back home, it was raining and I had 20 minutes to sit down before heading back out into the rain to have dinner with my Obaachan friend and her family.  But, I can’t complain.  I only have the slight sniffles while one of my naked friends fully came down with the flu.  And no stick to show for it, even.