I run toward the naked men, arrive at a tent where the undressing machines seem to be hard at work. "Insert fully clothed man here," reads the sign in my head. " Receive professionally diapered man here."

I purchase fundoshi, tabi and numbered garbage bag and step inside the tent, which heaves in the night. Sweat and alcohol and the stink of hundreds of naked men permeate the air. I join, strip to my birthday suite, sidle up to one of the dressing machines who asks me to hold one end of the nearly ten feet of white cloth. He tucks my nuts into a fold, threads cloth between my legs, pulls it hard between my cheeks, wraps and wraps and is finished. I exit into the snowy night, a fully diapered man, more raring to go than I imaged possible.

I pose with friends. Flashbulbs burst. Someone passes around a carton of sake. We are swept into the crowd, toward the temple.

Thousands of police officers, none of them smiling, encircle the temple grounds. It dawns on me that this is serious. We are led into a pool of freezing water. Someone near me dives into the frigid pool. I lose feeling in my legs. I exit and steam bursts forth from my chest. Suddenly, two degrees and windy is tropical. We loop back toward the main temple, climb the stone steps, offer prayer at the temple door. None of us really knows what we are doing. We are laughed at. It isn't so serious after all.

Back on the streets, caught up in the excitement, we are separated into two groups. My group goes in search of theirs. We end up far from the crowd, freezing and naked. My friend's tabi are too big. He has been walking barefoot for two hours and can't take anymore. He enters a shop to beg for a new pair. Mortified, the shopkeeper refuses. My friend contemplates theft. He is convinced no and we make our way back to the temple.

Inside again, an even larger crowd. This is it! We climb the temple steps and take our place on-stage. Ever more people rush forward. An area designed for 100 suddenly houses 300. Then 500. Thousands more stand below. My chest is crushed and I can't breath. I want to pass out, but there is an elbow jammed into my ear. I want to pass out, but will be trampled if I do, will make my exit on a stretcher. I scream, shred my vocal chords. Momentarily, the crowd releases and I breathe.

Stone-faced Shinto priests perched in windows above the crowd throw cold water which evaporate instantly. The moans, the screams and the chants morph into a cacophony of white noise. Hypnotized, I lose myself in the smell, the heat and the weight of the crowd. It is manic, barely controlled chaos. Men collapse and are carried out on stretchers. Men are hurtled from the stage a dozen at a time, down stone steps into the mud below. Men gasp for water, for air, for space.

The crowd lurches like a ship at sea. I dance on tip-toes. Someone steps on my foot, crushes my toes. I pull my foot out quickly. I do not want to be dragged under. The crowd stops for a moment. I lift my legs to have a rest, am held there by shoulders and elbows and naked, naked men. The crowd lurches again and I tip-toe for all my worth.

We all of us go on living. Suddenly the lights are thrown and the priests begin dropping sticks into the blackness. What was frenzy becomes rage. Groups of men fight for the sticks. Groups turn into eddies and finally torrents of sweat and muscle. A friend catches a stick, begins his descent to the temple gate. He is discovered ten meters from his escape, jumped by twenty men and pummeled into submission.

More fights break out near the gate. The police swing into action. But there are too many fighters. We run, ten of us, into the streets. Onlookers take pictures. They clap and smile. They congratulate us, the survivors.

I return to my plastic bag, stowed away in a smelly tent more than four hours ago. I wash my feet in a tub of water, unwrap my fundoshi. I change into my old clothes and walk back onto the street, past barbequed chicken and octopus dumplings sizzling in the night. Drinks at a bar in the city again, I sit near the dart board, sip beer and smile.