Toyakawa FTW

Today was the second public holiday for this month. I don't know what it was for, but I think its similar to Thanksgiving in the States. I spent the day with friends (both new and old) and didn't have to work, so overall it was a sucess.

We traveled all the way out to Toyakawa in the countryside, a town I had never heard off or read about previously. It turns out that Toyakawa is home to the new Japanese teacher at school, as well as one of the largest temples in Japan (it rivals those found in Kyoto and Nara). Today they were having a festival to celebrate the temple's establishment.

Toyakawa Inari was founded in 1441 as a shrine for merchants. The patron spirit is the mischievous Kitsune (ie the common fox). Over the years it has grown in size and stature as merchants come to pray for success and make donations. The whole place had a carnival atmosphere, with stalls throughout the temple grounds selling foods and souvenirs. There was also a show with a trained monkey, who is without a doubt the most awesome monkey in all of the Universe



(The video to prove it. Also, Ben rang me halfway through the performance. Good to hear from you again mate!)

Afterwards we went to the back of the temple and walked down a path to Ghost Fox Hill, which was covered with old and new statues of foxes. People place them on the hill to appease the fox spirits, who are known to play tricks on people and bring misfortune. In other words the ghost foxes are running a protection racket. In my opinion, more power to them!

After that we walked down to a park to have lunch and drink beer. We discovered that we had missed the town cosplay competition by one hour, which was a real bugger. Along the way we ran into the festival jesters, who played the local prank on us. Each of us was given a pastry by a girl wearing a fox mask as well as being dressed up as Santa Claus. Four contained delicious cream while the poisoned fifth contained chili and wasabi. For a change, karma was on my side and I got a cream pastry. For your information, it was tasty.

And those were the highlights of my wonderful day. From here on in, it goes downhill pretty fast (ie laundry and ironing). I hope you are all having fun out there, whereever you are in this crazy old world.

Love and Peace

The Blake