o di immortales, leo est, equos conscendite!

Okay, this is hilarious for anyone who's an Obama supporter.

(Mostly) Naked Man 2008

This weekend, I took a trip down to Okayama in order to attend the famous yearly "Naked Man Festival" (Hadaka Matsuri) there.

( More info about Naked Man )

Here are some pictures. They're not very good, I'm afraid. It was too crowded to get any really good shot angles, and my camera is not really smart enough to cope with night time picture taking. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to use flash or not, so most of the pictures are pretty worthless, but here you go anyway. (Also, warning, they're pretty big. And maybe not entirely worksafe.)

Probably my best picture of the night: Some runners pose in the streets of Okayama before the festival.
No festival would be complete without Hello Kitty balloons
Some runners making a circuit around the shrine. Don't they look cold?
Yeah, NOW my camera decides to use flash...
Wonder what the big B thought of all this...
Runners go into the water! Splashy splash! No, I have no idea how cold this water was, I didn't stick my hand in to find out.
Yes, I was really there, here's proof! Featured in this picture are ayelle's scarf and cryogenia's shoes.

And here's one picture I didn't take, because I couldn't possibly have gotten a good shot: The final event when everyone crowds into the shrine. Yeah that's a lot of naked.

( My Angst )

Also? When I told the guy from Okayama that Toyama was under two feet of snow at the moment, I thought I was exaggerating. BUT NO. When I got home I had to haul my bike out of the train station shelter, through snow that came up higher than my knees. Not a snow drift, mind you – just ordinary unshoveled snow. :/

Overall I'm glad I went, I guess, but I don't think I'll be taking any trips around Japan any more except on long weekends.