Government, Penises, and Eathquakes! Oh my!

3/15--

Everyone went to some bureau today to try to get alien registration cards. We took a 15 minuet bus ride outside of the Nisshin area, Nisshin is where my place and the college is located. So we all huddled on the bus all like 50 people or more. And the sights were fun…lots of cool houses all with the tiled roofs. When we got to the building it was like a tax place. Lots of people were there. But basically we were in, out, and done fast. After doing some paperwork for the alien registration, they sat us down and talked about the bus and subway. My group ended up finishing first, so we had half an hour to kill before we even had to head on out. So the guy who was leading the group whipped out his harmonica and started to play for us. It was too cute!!! The women then proceeded to take out their cameras and take pictures of our reactions. After that Leah took out her cute little Japanese card game and we played that. The Japanese people there were watching us and thinking it was the cutest thing ever! After our game it was time to get back on the bus and back to iHouse. Yay.

Had some lunch…made my noodles the wrong way…your supposed to put in the liquid flavor packet and then add water….ya I didn’t add water, so it was super salty…but its ok, it was still tasty. Then from there it was off the the penis festival, ended up booking it to the bus stop cause the group left without me!!!! T_______T Good thing they weren’t too far off. So then from the bus to the trains. The train station is sooooooooo clean!!!! Its just stunningly clean!





Me and Catherine on the train! Too cute of a picture not to share!!!!

The train rides were fun! I ended up having another stupid moment. An older lady was walking down the train and I offered the seat next to me, only for her to politely turn me down, she had on a face mask on, so I thought she didn’t want to sit next to me because she was sick. But Leah oh so kindly pointed out to me she as a worker on the train. Oh joy….i felt like a complete idiot. We ended up getting a little lost, but luckily the one guy was really good at his Japanese and we made it to the right place in time. As soon as we got out of the station, the penis memorabilia was well BAM IN YOU FACE. As we got closer to the place where the actual festival was, it just got crazier and crazier…penis candy, food, posters, you name it. Just wow. Wow….


I ended up eating some good street vendor food….mmmm fried chicken and candied strawberries and grapes! I bought a souvenir. It's a koi fish prayer board! Yayay! It’s really pretty! There was also a moment when a random Japanese man grabbed me and took his picture with me. Shocked to see a ginger I guess? Not to mention one guy who wanted a picture off all us gaijin (slang for gaikokujin=foriegner.) I also had another stupid foreigner moment. The people were in the shrine doing there thing and I was taking pictures, flash and all, only too look over and realize there is a huge sign saying DO NOT TAKE PICTURES! Oh boy…go me!



The picture that was not supposed to be taken!

We then gathered around the shrine path because a parade procession was coming. Was that a sight. There were these two creepy but nice old men who kept looking at us and laughing at us and talking about us. Maybe trying to flirt with us, idk it was just weird. So down came some fancy dressed people and some shrine maidens holding small wooden penises and people were reaching out to touch them, so I built up the nerve to reach out and touch one, only for the old men next to us to say うらいやましい！(jealous）O.o oh boy. And they heartily laughed.



The old men!



I love this picture!!! It reminds me of something you'd see in Nat Geo Magazine or something like that!!! :D GO ME!!!



Then came a giant flag and then a giant orange penis shrine. The crowd started to go crazy and the shrine holders started spinning around and then they all fell over with the shrine, idk if it was supposed to happen or what. lol. Then for the next part of the ceremony, an announcer came over a loud speaker and said that children, the elderly, and people with glasses should not participate because it was dangerous. And boy was it. I stood in the back but people up on a roof were throwing down mochi into the crowd. Mochi is sticky rice formed into a ball, but this mochi was a solid rock! A friend ended up catching 2 and gave me one. I bit into it to see if there was a yummy filling, but no, it was just hard rice. Blaah. So after some more wandering around and all that jazz, we got back on the train and headed home.



mmm bananas anyone???



This guy just randomly came up to us and was showing off his wooden friend.......O.o



Hehe tiny fire truck!!

Later that night though, things got a little crazy again. I was chillin out watching a movie with a group of friends and all of a sudden, the table started to wiggle a bit, and it suddenly felt like I was on a boat and my feet started to vibrate. Oh crap…and I said, “Are we having an earth quake??!!”. And sure enough, we were. But no worries, it was the aftershock from a neighboring earthquake that was very small. But boy did it scare the crap outta me!

**WANT MORE PENIS FESTIVAL???? The rest of the exciting pictures are on facebook! :D