Summer Holidays Pt1: Innies vs Outies! I wish.

It's been a while, but recently I had a small boost of motivation - I've decided to stop being so lazy and make a few posts. This sudden passion for writing is most likely temporary, so I'm going to try to write as quickly as I can for the next ten minutes.

So last time I posted it was the middle of summer holidays. We had about six weeks off from the end of July to the first of September. Even though we didn't go overseas, like we were half-heatedly planning, I think we managed to make the most of the break.
We went to Kyoto and Nara, a belly-button festival, a fireworks festival, a drift (motor sport) festival, saw a giant robot - twice! Also did a bit of shopping in Tokyo and I climbed Mt Fuji.

I'll split the adventures up over a few posts to raise the post count and because I'm not a fan of writing epic posts anymore.

So first up, the belly-button festival in Shibukawa (Gunma prefecture). Shibukawa is known as the belly-button (heso) of Japan because of where it's situated geographically. It is about 1.5 hours by train from where we are in Ashikaga. Interestingly, since sometime in the 16th century the town has been split into two opposing factions - it doesn't take a comedic genius to imagine what those two factions may be; you and I both just proved this.

So every year they have a heso matsuri (belly-button festival). It's basically a big parade up and down the main street of the town for three or so hours - this...last year, it was on the 25th of July. Most people in the parade paint their stomachs to look like faces. Others don't- they wear other traditional stuff.
One of the big draws for participants in the parade is the mandatory beer break every 20 minutes. Yep, free beer every 20 minutes. I'll tell you, they earn it, though. Watch the short video to see why you might want a beer after 20 minutes of parading.

Jenni and I went with our English mate, Andrew. You might remember Andrew as the Pop Idol auditionee (not a word) and reject band star from a previous post. Unsurprisingly, he was keen to join in on the parade and the free beer.
Now, considering this is our blog, convention would dictate that we also took part or at least did something interesting. Well, we're breaking free from convention and all the embarrassing parading it entails - so I am proud to announce that we did neither!

Pictures:

Andrew taking advantage of the beer breaks.


Couldn't handle the pace...or the free beer?? Either way his mates don't seem too concerned.


And a short video - those kids were awesome.

Finally, a short video from an upcoming post of my adventures at the Summer Drift Festival. Please watch it as it's intended to pique your interest and suck you into checking on the blog later for updates.
Anyway, this guy is a friend of mine and he's really good. He's coming down this straight at about 120kmph. I taught him everything he knows about cheese and Vegemite sandwiches. *cough*