Of Rain and Bumcracks

This was about as much as I saw of the Naked Man Festival on Saturday night. It rained, and it rained, and it continued to rain. Nevertheless, weather aside, the festival was a success (as in, our organization of a trip to it was).

Eric and I took charge of the bus for the participants. I was surprised that there were so many guys from other prefectures, and so few from our own. The only familiar faces were Kevin, Rene, Herb, Haka-Dave, Vasco, Wayne and Ludo. That these particular men chose to join in the madness did not surprise me at all. That bus certainly filled its quota of testosterone, and we enjoyed a drunken, rowdy bus ride there. Once we arrived in Saidaiji, we managed to lead our gaggle of gaijin to the temple and get them dressed (well, undressed, mostly) without any hassle, which was pretty surprising considering more than a few of those blokes were already pretty much tanked before we even got there.

Now, as the guy who was meant to be in charge of these guys, helping them out, showing them who to pay and what they needed and such, I had the privilege of hanging out in the Naked Tent without having to get naked myself. It was a right old laugh. For an image to make you giggle at any time, try this one: a line of naked men, holding white cloths over their bits, watching with trepidation as another man has his cloth tied around him in such a way as to protect his bits, peaking with a colossal yanking of said cloth up said man’s bumcrack. Hil-A-ri-ous.

An hour after we arrived, the busloads of gaijin spectators arrived right on cue. We milled around in the rain and appreciated the posing of a few gaijin participants in their fundoshi (read: sacred nappies). Amy failed to resist the urge to poke one such fellow in the arse with a kebab stick.

As we stood around in the rain, mostly-naked men marched past in teams into the temple. Eventually, we moved there ourselves to watch the madness. However, thanks to the rain and the inevitable mass of umbrellas, no-one saw anything much. A friendly foreigner saw me straining on my tiptoes and offered to hoist me up on his shoulders, which I did, and managed a good view for a few minutes. Alas, that was all I was to see, and the festival came to its conclusion, not a minute too soon for those of us who had been standing in the rain for the past three hours.

We made it back into the city, feeling rather cold, wet and miserable, though I mustered up the energy to go to the Aussie Bar (as per usual) to kill the remaining four hours before the first bus home. The bar was ridiculously full, and was surely breaking all kinds of fire regulations, but oh well. Afterwards, I was introduced to Okayama’s only 24-hour café. Why did I not know of this place before?

So, the trip to the festival was a success, though I doubt anyone actually enjoyed the festival very much. There were a few promises of participation at next year’s event, and I will make sure that those promises come through, though I won’t be here. Nevertheless, it shall be so. I decree it!

I don't know whose bums these are, hence I don't need permission to show them to the world. Result!