Saturday started out with some visitors to Ako, woohoo! My good friend Suzie and her cousin, Nicole, came down to visit me and see the sights of Ako. I met them at just before noon, and we wandered down to the castle to have a look around. Exploring, we ironically found the Oishi shinto shrine. The biggest shrine in Ako and I'd never actually been there or knew exactly where it was. Whoops, hehe. Ah well, I've found it now. As far as shrines go, it's not the biggest or most splendid I've ever seen, but it's relatively beautiful. Suzie and Nic prayed at the temple and Suzie bought a fortune, which was thankfully was the 'best luck' one. With her sister smashing up her knee so badly on a ski slope the weekend before that she'd had to be rushed home to Australia early, I figured she needed it!

After that we wandered up to Kappa sushi for a late-ish kaiten-sushi lunchtime extravaganza. We ate heaps and even tried some new things, one of which was 'ankimo'. Never again, haha. It's codfish liver, and is served with a famous Japanese leaf that is extremely strongly flavoured. One of the worst tasting things I've ever had, haha. Thankfully it was washed down with plenty of soy sauce and followed by my favourite almond fruits dessert. We sat in Kappa sushi talking until just after 3:00pm. Just before we left, they gave me a box of chocolates for Valentine's Day. Which was a lovely surprise :) Apparently it was to thank me for playing a completely unknown part in keeping them sane while they were travelling with Suzie's sister, who was a bit difficult at times.

Suzie and Nic left Ako to head to Okayama at around 3:30pm, which gave me just enough time to get home, shower and get ready for Hadaka Matsuri. I jumped on the 5:12 train out of Ako, which got me to Okayama station at around 6:20. So not too bad. I was somewhat surprised it took quite that long. Once I got there, quickly found my bearings from having been there on the way to Hiroshima at New Year. I grabbed a quick dinner at the funky vending-machine udon place I'd seen back then, then made my way to the meeting place. Although we were slated to leave Okayama for Saidaiji at 7pm, we didn't actually get moving until just after 8pm.

The bus was filled with excited guys, so as you can imagine, testosterone levels were pretty high. Brandon, from Hyogo AJET, read us the rules of the Matsuri, one of which was no drinking. I didn't really feel like drinking for some reason, and that rule made me decide that I wouldn't bother. Most other people did though, and by the time we got to Saidaiji, quite a few of the guys were relatively drunk.

So we made our from the buses to the Matsuri, where we soon came across a changing tent with a good location, right near the temple. We bought our tabi (special socks) and fundoshi (err...it's basically Japanese underwear, check out the wikipedia, if you must) and headed inside to get changed. Although it was stupidly early, the IQ drop that results whenever you get a large group of excited and drunk guys together meant that most people started to change straight away. The festival didn't start until midnight, but most people were changed by 9pm, haha. I held off and got changed towards the end, so it was nearly 10pm by the time I had to get into my fundoshi.

Which was not a pleasant experience, by any stretch of the imagination, haha. Basically, it's all you wear. You put on the tabi, take all your clothes off and then get a helper to put the fundoshi on for you. There's only a thin piece of fabric holding all your 'private parts' in, so it has to be done pretty carefully! And to make sure it doesn't fall off, they pull it really tight in what we dubbed the 'shove it up your arse' move. Very, very uncomfortable, although it did make for some very humurous spectating watching it being done for the other guys.

By this time a lot of the other guys were very drunk, to my annoyance, as they were getting pretty rowdy and disturbing the Japanese in the tent. As I was still perfectly sober, I tried to distance myself from them. If there's one thing I hate more than drunken gaijin, it's being associated with drunken gaijin. Thankfully, a couple of the guys I know, who weren't too drunk, headed out into the festival to make an early 'purification run'. Which was absolutely insane, as the streets around the temple were packed with people, literally jammed.

On the way our, I met a couple of my friends, who were snapping away with cameras. Emerald, Rupa and another girl whose name I forget, actually got into our changing room and were taking as many pictures as they could, hahaha. Cheeky! All in good fun though, I suppose! Out in the street, we finally started our purification run. These runs are pretty important, so to help out you have to find a police person to run in front of you and clear the way. Somehow one of the guys did this, and off we went. The purification run consists of a quick jog through the streets around the temple, through a fountain (yes, *through* ice cold water), up to the battle ground, across to another temple to pray and then back through a special gate and home to the changing tent. All the while, surrounded by thousands and thousands of cheering and screaming spectators, haha. And of course, 90% naked. It sure made for an interesting time, hehe.

The fountain was the worst part, as it was absolutely freezing! Although it was only waist deep on me, we'd all made a pact to get completely wet, so under the surface we went. I lost both of my slightly oversized tabi as I went through, and had to do the rest of the run in my bare feet. Thankfully the cold numbed the pain, hahaha. I will not soon forget the images from the run though, hehe. All of the people staring at the 5 gaijin pelting through the streets in nappies, shouting the Japanese warcry of 'WASSHOI!' Good times.

Back in the tent, we kept ourselves as warm as we could until around 11:20pm, when we went out for the final purification run before the battle commenced. In the fountain, everyone was splashing, so we got covered in ice cold water. The result was quite impressive, as steam poured off all the naked bodies around me and was brightly lit by the floodlights. There were thousands upon thousands of people watching, either in massive stadium style seating or in the battle grounds themselves, held back by hundreds of police officers. Once we got through our purification run, we entered the battle ground.

The platform of the temple itself, where the lucky sticks were dropped, was already full of people. It was very dangerous to go up, so I didn't manage to actually get into the crowd. Goran and Dan did though, as did many of the other gaijin. As we waited, the crowd up top swelled and every now and then would spill over the top of the stairs, sending men flying in all directions. It was totally crazy, haha. Up on the platform, sometimes people would need evacuation because they were either hurt of behaving badly. A red spotlight was shone on these people, and a team of about 50 police would rush in, link arms, and smash through the crowd to get to those people. Whenever they did this, everyone clapped, hehe.

Finally, at midnight, all the lights went out and the sticks were dropped. There was a mad rush and instantly people were flying everywhere. I saw a couple of the sticks flying around, as well as one small group who made a lucky break through the crowd into the safety area. There was a massive fight for one of the sticks though, which I accidentally go involved with. It was totally awesome. I was just hanging around trying to see where the sticks were when a huge group of people came flying out of nowhere at me. I managed to keep my feet and get involved, although I never actually saw or touched the stick. Eventually people ended up on the ground and the battle stalled until by some magic mutual consent, everyone backed off a little to let the middle people get up. As soon as they did though, it was all on again and it spiraled away from the gate and into the crowd, hehe.

Although I wasn't hurt, I decided at this point that I should probably get going, hehe. I had had the experience and wanted to walk out of Saidaiji alive and with all my skin and bones intact! Back in the tent, I changed quickly, ignoring one of the stupid gaijin who had drank too much and was busy throwing up into a bin. Lovely. Out in the street I caught up with some others to pick up some festival food before catching a train back to Okayama. First Japanese train I've ever seen running after 1am :)

We got into Okayama at just before 2am and headed to a relatively crappy place called 'Friends Bar'. Okayama nightlife leaves a lot to be desired. It was ok, but I wasn't drinking and the place was a little too small, so I just sort of zoned out until we finally left at just before 5am. To kill time before the station, I grabbed a coffee at a 24h coffee place, with Goran, Dan, Suzie, Nicole and Ryan. The first train was at 6:28, so we jumped on that and slept until we hit Banshu Ako. They all changed to the waiting train to take them to Himeji, and I rode home to some much needed sleep.

Overall, despite the drunken antics of a few stupid gaijin and the rather dull night out after in Okayama, it was a great night! The Hadaka Matsuri was a fantastic cultural experience, and I'm really glad I actually ran as opposed to just watching. I recommend it to anyone who comes to Japan in late winter! :)