Fuku What?!?

Fuku. Fukushima, that is. That's where spent the day a couple of weeks ago. It's a neighboring prefecture up north and the owners of a local Saitama bar invited us up there to see a ceremony at the temple their bar is named after. So, we made the LONG trip up there and certainly had a good time. But... worst part of the day? Hands down waking up at 6 in the morning to begin the journey. The bar owners has rented a bus for us all and we were heading up there together with a bunch of other middle aged men and their kimono wearing wives. Nice touch. Anyway, the worst part of the busride? Definitely the lame middle aged men insisting on chain smoking at 6 o'clock in the morning. I mean, really, can you imagine it? Here we are in the mini bus with a haze of smoke hovering over us. And, there were small children in the bus with us... as though destroying our lungs wasn't enough they had to go and tarnish the pure lungs of the wee little ones. Boo for inconsiderate smokers.

Anyway, so we finally arrived after numerous pee breaks/more smoking breaks. We got to the temple and all the people crowded in as the obosans, or monks, starting chanting and entering. They chanted a bunch in Japanese, none of which I could understand. Then they had these wooden clacking thingys that made lots of noise which they clacked above the audience to ward off evil spirits. That was my guess, anyway... it really coulda been anything. After that, they then came out into the audience and tapped each of our backs with what I like to call the blessing stick. I can only imagine they were praying a blessing over us. Either that or checking for early signs of osteoporosis or checking our reflexes. Who knows.

Then.. we hit the jackpot. We each got money for the afterlife. The obosans tossed out these colored papers cut out in the shape of leaves which are money for the afterlife. The more leaves you caught the more sixpacks you can buy in heaven, I guess. Well, that's what we (Mark, James, Jillian and I) decided we would do- hit up the afterlife 7-11 and get some drinks to enjoy in eternal bliss.

The after party was also cool- lots of good food and drink with the family. Good times. And then, of course, there was the long ride back home. Oh what a day.



Here's us with one of the monks at the temple. Mama-san, our surrogate mother from Saitama insisted that we snap a shot.