I have no words to describe how depressed I am about missing the Fringe Festival this year. I LOVE the Fringe. People get so friendly all of a sudden, and you go out on a weeknight and the city is still awake, it's fantastic. Not to mention all the quality shows. Most of the best ones are usually the el cheapos too so even if you are a broke uni student you can have a good time. Speaking of a good time - I was told about a Naked Man Festival last week. It sounds like hilarious fun, if a little dangerous for the participants (all, as the name would suggets, men though so I am safe). Unfortunately I was too late to express my interest and the buses that will be ferrying people there and back are full. BOO. I am on the waiting list though, so perhaps I will be able to get in on some naked man action yet... If not, I will steal someone elses pictures off the web and put them up here ;) From what I can gather the night entails a stick of some description being thrown from a temple by a priest at midnight into a hoard of nearly naked men (they wear a nappy arrangement, much like the sumo's do) who compete against each other to be the one to plant the stick in a jar of dirt some miles off in front of the town hall. By all accounts it is an extremely competitive and downright violent evening - there is a large cash prize for the one who manages to plant the stick, plus a year's worth of good luck. Apparently the priests also throw out "decoy" sticks so there are some poor sods fighting and kicking their way through a hoard of muddy sweaty men for nothing and they think they have the prize in their hands!
Ah yes, St Valentine's Day. Here in Japan it is a big deal. Of course it is all consumerist driven crap and in true Japanese style, has many rules and regulatations stipulating who should be given what and when. Basically we girls are supposed to give chocolate that we have made ourselves (or at least re-shaped ourselves) to the blokes who mean something to us in our lives. That means not only lovers, but fathers, grandfathers, friends too. And then, a few weeks later on White Day, the blokes must reciprocate. While it is still ridiculous that it should be considered romantic to give a present to someone on a day that has been arbitrarily decided, the chocolate thing I don't mind so much as the expensive jewellery and roses pressure that happens in Australia. Chocolate is cheap, it is yummy, and well, who doesn't want chocolate!! Love is a pretty awesome thing and well worth celebrating, but I say let's not encourage the shops to encourage us to waste more money on something that can't be bought. True romance is free - a note scribbled on a piece of paper and shoved in someone's pocket for them to find later is going to mean far more than a bunch of roses. Flowers are impersonal on a day when they are prescribed. People shouldn't let them (you know who they are, they've been shoving their junk mail in your letter box for the last 2 weeks) convince them that the depth of their feelings can be in any way indicated by the amount of money they part with. That's all.
Bloody hell. I just had to answer the phone here and some guy was talking away a mile a minute and I had no idea what he was on about! It was heaps funny!
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4 comments:
Did you answer the phone with "mushi mushi"
Moshimoshi. It's pretty casual so no I didn't. I answered "Kamogata Higashi Primary School, Joanne speaking." At least I sounded professional in the beginning!!
In English? I would think so but hey, who knows.
And what is Dom aragato or is that my brain on drugs.
No, of course in Jap! Doumo arigato means "thank you very much" - so no your brain is not on drugs. Or at least if it is, it's not affecting your linguistic abilities.
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