Festival of the Steel Phallus

Went to the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki on Sunday!  As the name suggests, it's a festival devoted to penis.  There was a parade and a shrine featuring all sorts of phallus-related goods.  There were a ton of people there, and I think half of them were foreigners, lol.  We kept running into fellow Aeon teachers, haha.  The train to get there was super crowded and I was initially worried I might miss the stop because I couldn't see the signs, but then I realized that I didn't need to look for the sign because I could just follow the wave of people getting off!  It was a pretty interesting experience.  

Miscellany

Cherry blossom beer can!

Another cherry blossom beer can!  Actually every beer has a cherry blossom design now.  I love how Japan goes all out for the seasons.

More from Disney Sea!  Here's our official Indiana Jones picture. We were all supposed to do the peace sign but as you can see some didn't quite make it, haha.

My awesome orange trench coat that I bought last weekend!

Not a whole lot has been happening lately, but I did pick up an awesome trench coat and took some pictures of the seasonal beer can designs.  I only have pictures of two because I felt weird taking pictures of all of the cans in the supermarket, lol.  Seriously every single type now has a cherry blossom motif though.
Speaking of cherry blossoms, they should be blooming soon!  Normally they would be starting right around now, but because the winter has been so exceptionally cold they're arriving a bit late.  Which is fine with me because it means I can have a cherry blossom picnic birthday party!

Golden week is coming up really soon too, at the end of April!  I haven't decided exactly what I want to do yet, though.  The tentative plan is to go to the Kansai area with some friends;  we want to hit up Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara, and maybe Hiroshima if time/money allows.  I was thinking of maybe trying to squeeze in a trip to Korea to visit some of my friends there (and do some cheap shopping!), but I don't know if that will really be feasible.

Lastly, there's a link at the top of this blog that says 'follow';  if you click this you can get an email whenever I update.

Zao snowboarding

Zao in the afternoon

Zao in the morning

Here we are somewhere halfway up the mountain, about to get some lunch

It was a good snowboarding trip!  Our hotel was nice too, dinner and breakfast were included and were actually really good, and the hotel had an onsen which was awesome after coming back from snowboarding.  There was an indoor bath and and outdoor one, but the outdoor bath didn't have much of a view sadly.
Some of the slopes were icy and as we got higher up the wind got stronger, but mostly it was good.  I spent the first day traipsing all over the mountain with my friends (who are both advanced snowboarders) but the second day I stuck to the lower slopes so I could practice in better conditions.  I think this was probably my last trip of the season, but I'll definitely try to do it again next season!  Maybe I can even go to a different mountain, haha.

Disney Sea!

On the monorail to Disney!

Cute straps!

Just inside the entrance to the park

Ariel's castle!

Inside Ariel's castle

The spinning teacups are in Little Mermaid world at Disney Sea

My favorite of the themes, I think!

We took a gondola ride

It was really nice, it was dusk and the view was amazing

The Temple of Doom?  I don't know, it was near Indiana Jones

Right before we fast passed it into the Indiana Jones ride!

A couple more pictures

Here we all are with  the Sapporo bear!

In our lovely beer garden aprons

Not from Sapporo;  took this purikura today after a buffet pizza lunch in Ikebukuro

After we had eaten all the meat

Sapporo

Mongolian barbeque at Sapporo Beer Garden, all you can eat and all you can drink

Sapporo Beer Museum beer tasting!

This is the apron they gave us to eat in

Snow aquarium!

Snow palace with some sort of pop performance going on in front!

This was a giant ice organ

Indian palace made of snow!  Check my earmuffs that I found on sale for 100 yen

Japanese snow castle!  

Karaoke Sapporo style, naturally!

Here's the woman in her bubble playing the ice organ

Sapporo bear!

Sapporo snow festival sign.  I look so cold!

Snowboard jump!

Ice organ again. 

A few more pictures

At Meiji Shrine on Jan. 1.  It's completely dark but it was only like 5pm

Still Meiji shrine

Mt Zao

Night snowboarding

The videos are out the window of the bus going from Yamagata to Zao, and at the bottom of the slope at Zao.