Now that Jon has given you his account of the naked man festival, I would like to share my view as a woman spectator. First of all, as Jon, I had no idea what to expect. Some of our friends had gone last year and told us that it was the best thing that they had done in Japan. The trip to Okayama was beautiful. We rode the train with our friends Vineeth and Anne and travelled right past a beautiful gorge filled with teal-colored water. After arriving in Okayama, we saw a poster depicting hundreds of naked sumo-diaper-wearing men fighting over a stick. I knew from that point, this truely was going to be crazy!

We arrived late at the temple. Jon and Vineeth were so excited it was difficult not to lose them in the masses of people. Anne and I decided that from that point on we were to remain side-by-side for the duration of the festival. Afterall, 2 was better than 1 in the maze and craze of naked bums. We stopped at one shop to ask if they could help the boys put on the fundoshi (sumo-diaper). They looked frightened and refused. Eventually, we made our way to a tent equipped with people to assist with the sumo-diapering. The man attending the door kept yelling over to us, in Japanese, that women were not allowed into the makeshift changeroom. He didn't need to worry - that was the last place I wanted to be!!! Oddly enough when some Japanese women approached and stated that they were looking for someone, he let them in immediately. I think they just wanted to check out the foreign goods...

About 15 minutes later, a stream of foreigners (Jon, Vineeth, and co) came out from behind the curtain. I have never seen so much testosterone charging through the air. They were really excited. Anne and I, on the other hand were a little grossed out. At one point Anne whispered to me, "eeewwww! look at that hairy one! sick!" It really was sick. In fact, I felt a little sick to my stomach. As with any wierd, disgusting, or frightening event, after a certain amount of exposure, the effect seems to wear off. After seeing hundreds of naked bodies and bums, I developed the skill of no longer having to look (or maybe just not being as shocked by it).

After the boys gathered and chanted and the usual other testosterone things, they headed toward the temple shouting their cheer. "Everywhere we go people wanna know who we are, where we come from. So we tell them, we're from Kochi..." That was our cue to head to the stands.

From the stands, we could see the entire temple filled with men wearing diapers. We were standing on a pole (I say pole because it was like a thick handrail). It was not comfortable at all but it provided a good view of the "water hole" where the teams of men would douse themselves in cold water to purify themselves before heading to the temple. Incidentally, it was also the short cut to the ambulance and other emergency vehicles.

Because of the insight into the E.R., the experience of spectating was even more horrifying. I saw countless men fall off of the stage of the temple in waves enabling at least one gentlemen to be taken to the ambulance on a stretcher. Many were unconscious, others were just drunk and scaped. I was worried someone I knew would be next. Luckily, no one was.

The constant waves of men falling off the platform also dulled my senses and the "oh my god!"s soon became "ouch!"es which became "ooh!" and so on. I believe the entire ceremony (the portion that we saw anyways) only lasted for a few hours. At the end, after the priests had thrown the sticks, we met up with the clothed boys to hear all sorts of stories about crushed toes and other adventures. We headed into the city and went to a bar which served poutine. Vineeth, an Eastern Canadian, hadn't stopped talking about the poutine since the moment we boarded the train. After the festival, the poutine wasn't even mentioned. In fact, he almost forgot to order it.

Nice bum, where you from?

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.

This Saturday is the naked man festival in Okayama. From what I gather, around 10,000 dudes are going to run nude through the streets, toward a temple. Not all the way nude, though. That would be crazy. No, these dudes will be wearing fundoshi, known in English as sumo diapers. They'll also be plastered drunk, as its the crowd's job to hand beer to the naked dudes. That, and hose them down with cold water. Inside the temple grounds, the priest supposedly tosses a handful of sticks into the air, two of which are worth 500,000 yen a piece. A giant, naked brawl for the winning stick ensues. Sounds fun. Dangerous, but fun. I might just give it a go.

In the Hall of the Mountain Kings is a great blog about sumo. My plan is to read the whole thing from start to finish. Then buy the book, if there ever is one.

It snowed the other day. A long, sustained snow that wrapped the world in a blanket of quiet from which it has yet to emerge. "The longest, largest snowfall in ten years!" the people around me exclaimed. "Wonderful!" they beamed. Then they did some of the strangest things.

A man watered his car (my money says the locks are still frozen). A little boy walked home from school in shorts and a T-shirt, his legs way beyond purple, rather the icky red-white of frostbite. Little girls in pink rubber boots fell smack on their bottoms at each patch of ice. Grown men, suits pants tucked into army fatigue coloured rubber boots, slipped and slided their way to work. Meanwhile, outdoorsmen rumbled past in gigantic SUV's, tires encased in chain (the snow drifts, all three centimeters of them, never stood a chance).

At one point the snow fall was declared an emergency. Students were sent home, as was I. In Kochi, plus four degrees with six centimeters on the ground is a snow day. Yee-ah-hoo!

Children ran outside and used up every inch of snow. They threw it loosely in the air and with outheld tongues chased the flakes in circles that made them dizzy. They formed snow into balls of ice and hurled it at one another. Boys made girls cry and girls made boys bawl. Teachers yelled from open windows, "Put your hood on or you'll catch cold!" Snowmen were erected and destroyed. Trails were blazed and flakes were inspected. "Amazing!" they said.

And it was. I've never experienced snow in a non-snowy land, where people substitute winter boots for rubber boots, window scrapers for water hoses, rice straw brooms for heavy metal shovels. Where 26 degrees is room temperature (warm enough, by the way, to melt chocolate). Where children use the snow when it falls like it may never do so again. I'm glad I saw all those things, if only as a reminder of how wonderful it all really is.