Disclaimer: If you are easily offended, do not proceed. This blog post may or may not include some pictures that would fall under the category of NSFW. AKA. If you are one or any of my grandparents (or really any of my family members), I strongly suggest you skip this post and come back another day for my next post. And all you friends out there, I suggest you do not view this blog further if you are in a professional or academic setting, save it for later -trust me.
Grandparents, if you are still reading, it is fine for now, but really, I suggest you dont scroll down or read much further through this blog.
Anyway this weekend was a crazy wild adventure across Yamaguchi prefecture (much of which will be saved for my next blog) I am only going to discuss mildly inappropriate things and other oddities that make me question `where the fuck am I`.
So, Saturday I drove my car,caught a train, bus, train, and bus, a total of about 3 hours to get from little Oshima island to Nagato City (with a pit stop in Aio, will be mentioned next post) all to go and see the glory that is MaraKannon. What is MaraKannon and why does it fall under the category of either "Where the fuck am I" , oddity, or NSFW - well, you will find out soon enough, and trust me it falls under all of these categories.
Lately I have been experiencing a ton of `where the fuck am I` moments. I think what really set off the train of events was a bathroom experience in Hiroshima Station (a big station). So, if you read my last post you`ll know that I visited Hiroshima (a legitimate city) last week. What I left out of that post though was probably the one thing that will forever stand out the most to me about that trip to Hiroshima, and maybe Hiroshima in general. So anyway, as to what happened, I was at the station to catch the train back to Obatake (Oshima) and I decided I better go to the bathroom now because it is a 1.5 hour toiletless train ride to Obatake Station. So I go into the bathroom and take my tinkle when I realize, what.the. fuck. not only was I stuck using the squat toilet, but also no toilet paper!!! I look completely around the stall and there is no toilet paper in sight, I call to my friend Jessica `Do you have toilet paper?` (she lucked out and got the western toilet so I hoped that maybe, just maybe there was toilet paper in that stall). Her response: No.
The lesson to be learned here is always carry around tissue paper, just in case. (this predicament has occurred once more between that incident and this post, and naturally I was again unprepared, so do as I say not as I do.)
As it turned out, we could buy toilet paper for 100 yen at the entrance to the bathroom.
My next where am I moment (not as intense to deserve a fuck)occured during my long journey to Nagato. Here we go, when I got off of my first bus in Hagi I checked the train timetables and realized that I had to wait 2 hours(!!!) for the train that would take me to Nagato Station. I thought what the heck, even little dinky Obatake station has trains run through more regularly than this...and after the two hour wait the answer became starkly apparent. The train that rolled up into Higashi-Hagi station was about the size of my Honda Civic, okay slight exaggeration, but the train was smaller than a stretch hummer. All I could do was turn to my travel companion, Jessica, and say verbatum: `where am i?` and in my head include: and where the heck am I going? Never! Never! have I seen/been on such a ridiculously small train and I have traveled to some pretty remote areas in Japan. All I could think was that I was bound for a tiny one shack village that somehow thought it deserved the word city. The only nice perk, there was a toilet on the train (not that I needed to use it [it probably didnt have toilet paper]).
(Oh, and Nagato turned out to be much bigger than just a one shack village)
Okay, so I think this blog has gotten lengthy enough for me to be able to write about the glory that is MaraKannon without having to fear upsetting any conservative family members (so conservative/easily offended family members, if you are still reading at this point, all I can say is I warned you).
Before I say what Mara Kannon is and the story behind it let me just post these following photos and you can make of it what you will.
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I mean really, where the fuck am i?
This cannot be reality or a real place.
So, what is Mara Kannon, other than Samantha Jones` paradise (SATC anyone)? Well one thing that is apparent from the photos is that it is a place that loves the male anatomy, a very specific part of the male anatomy. Well, simply put it is pretty much what it looks like, a penis shrine.
As the story goes, during the Japanese feudal period there had been a landowner whose 3 warrior sons where escaping from some neighboring warriors and had ran up into the mountains of Nagato. The two older sons had been found and killed rather quickly, but the third son had decided to disguise himself as a woman and hide out/live in one of the small mountain villages. Eventually, the enemy warriors found him and cut off his penis to prove that a) he was a man and b) they could bring it back to their own area and show that they had killed the brother (twisted right?). And the villagers who had hid the third son felt pity on him and since that day had left wooden penis figures on the spot where he had died. As a result, it is believed that this location is especially blessed with granting men a larger penis, and fixing ED. Well, maybe not, I don`t know. It actually really might, supposedly anyway. But what I do know is that the shrine is said to grant the visitor descendants, and fertility.
The Japanese people take this shrine really seriously, it is very common for people throughout the prefecture to make the pilgrimage to this tiny, odd shrine if they are having difficulty having a child.
Obviously the group of us had more fun enjoying the oddity of the shrine dedicated to the penis, rather than trying to pray for a child or fertility or to fix any disorder, etc. We did happen to see one Japanese couple that we can only guess had come to pray for a child because they had lit two incense, rang the bell, and prayed within the little temple.
Mara Kannon is one of a few fertility temples in Japan, if you happen to be in/visiting the country I would certainly recommend seeing if there is one near you. It is rather interesting to say the least.
And a final where the heck am I (again not as intense),
So the band AKB48 is extremely popular in Japan, especially for teenagers. Check out the video and maybe you will get an idea why I am what the hecking. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/lkHlnWFnA0c
what kind of country am I living in?
Oh and my toilet seat can give my butt a massage. What can yours do?
Japan, you are indeed something else.
1 comment:
Haha, this was fun to read. Too bad you didn't share how you solved your bathroom issues. I would also have liked to see a picture of the tiny train. It looks like you could buy those penii at the shrine, is that true? Also, that Japanese youtube video (40 million + views!) was insane. A combination of kids song with some soft porn for dirty old Japanese men.
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