Festival and Butts

All of these men are wearing loincloths, and here, you can see many many butts.

We went to see the Hakata Yamakasa festival, which involves teams of men parading with heavy colourful floats while getting soaked with water.

Hundreds of years old, this tradition was originally staged to rid the town of epidemics, by spraying everyone with holy water.

The young don't carry the floats, but they get the same outfits.

The very young can wear diapers under their loincloths.

It's fun for the whole family (except women. They can't take part).

In addition to the loincloth/wedgie, you get split-toe boots, a carry-rope, a role-indicating headband, and a clan-denoted wrap-shirt.

Team members take turns bearing the weight of the 1 tonne float with 6 guys on it.

The floatmasters use their red sticks to direct the float carriers based on their headbands.

When your turn is up, you exit underneath all the fun, trying not to be trampled.

You loop your rope around the float to help carry it. When not in use, you conveniently tuck the rope into your loincloth.

You need to be careful to not get knocked out by the posts or the other carriers.

This is all happening at a jogging pace, while buckets of water are thrown at everyone.

In the back, it's more of a duck and push effort.

Back in the 1800s, the floats were taller, but had to be shrunk with the advent of power lines and safety.

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The Hells of Beppu and Spacy Fride Chicken

Beppu, Japan is a strange and creepy place. It's fizzly and steamy everywhere.

We went to the 10 Hells of Beppu, where Barry would like you to know that he wore the right t-shirt.

The hells come in red, brown, grey, blue, and some with unnecessary caged animals.

My favourite part is bubbling mud. After a while, you can see the diabolical forms emerging from the hells.

 Oh, and there was Engrish too. In fact, there was quadruple Engrish! Spacy!

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Cocks' Combs and other snacks

We've branched out, and eaten cocks' combs. Why waste ornamental meat? They're tasty with a touch of mustard!

In other chicken news, this egg marketing implies that yolk membrane strength means good stuff.

However, the yolk-hold also worked on the slightly expired eggs in my fridge. But points for marketing creativity. And cool picture, right?

Now, moving onto peas. How about some greennut pea snacks in cuttlefish flavour?

But if you want more, you can get the Richo, the whole dried cuttlefish, now in extra long.

And good news! Collon snack is now available in green tea, mango, strawberry, as well as the original creamy collon.

There's lots to see in the Phuket airport.

In addition to good security, they are looking for someone to renovate the loos. Any takers?

And then there are the often sunburnt Russians. Travel tip: when flying to Russia, you must plastic wrap your suitcases. Apparently it is not so safe inside a Russian suitcase, otherwise. While you can get this done at the airport, most people bring their own plastic wrap with them on holiday.

With this technique, if you buy too much stuff at the tropical fruit stand, you can wrap multiple bags together without exceeding your checked bag limit.

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Roti John Throwdown Iftar and Other Religions

What do a Roti John Throwdown, hanging squids...

And some unusually named hotdogs have in common?

They're all here for Ramadan, as part of the ramadan market (and much mosque chanting).

To celebrate this momentous occasion, as well as their honeymoon, Pat and Brett came to visit us.

We toured various spots of religion. Covered Buddha sculpture above (why, we don't know), and uncomfortable Hindu deity head crowding below.

Pat demonstrated her stellar selfie skills. We fit all three mouths in the picture.

The Hindu temple is slightly less welcoming than it used to be. The gingerbread man border is confusing, too.

Barry and I recently discovered that the slots/gates on old shophouses were not for milk delivery, or the like, but for human waste removal. Shocking that it's taken us so long to learn this! We demonstrated this to our visitors. Barry extra hard.

The drawers were emptied by "night soil" collectors, who put the containers in the stinker truck, like this.

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