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The title of this blog alone should attract more visitors than any of my other entries! The third week of February I was lucky (unlucky?) to go to the Naked Man Festival, better known as the Hadaka Masturi. There are naked man festivals all over Japan, but I think the one in Okayama-Ken is the oldest and most famous. If you have no interest in reading the blog, check out this guy Josh's video.

Naked Man Festival

Casey Lary
2006-10-06 17:55:58

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than I would ever be. Unforunately from where i was standing I could not get the best photos. So, apologies for the lack of excellent photography, but I think you get the idea.

We also went to the parade area where the men were marching into the shrine. We would scream things to them and they would all be soooo genki. It is definitely a toss up...who is more fun to take photos with: quiet, silent Sumo wrestlers or genki almost naked japanese men? By the time the sticks were dropped we were sooo cold, saw sooo many nake bums running around, that it was time to go. I really have no idea who actually got the sticks. It was a
So Lisa and I have sumo and hadaka boyfriends!!!! Racking them up in Japan!!! South East Asia Century Club!! (thats for you Puneet hehehe). Notice my hot uni-brow
battlefield out there when the sticks were dropped. Guys were falling of the edge of the temple, falling all over each othere, pushing each other...all for a measely stick that will bring you good luck! Yet, it was absolutely fabulous. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

On our way back to the bus we ran into some fellow Hiroshima-Ken Jets. We ran into dear Bill. Bill ran in the race and was now fully clothed. We asked him how it went and without warning, pulls down his pants to show the big red mark on his butt that he got from falling off the steps. As you can tell Bill, all of us, and probably most of the runners, had a bit of alcohol in our systems- liquid coats in full effect! Still, around 1, naked men were running down the streets. For heavens sake put some clothes on boys!!! We all then met at the bar big enough in Okayama to fit the JETs and continued the merriment. Oh what a night! The next day we roadtripped to Kurashiki for a great Italian lunch, got lost in the Inaka for a bit, and headed on back to
Not tonight...no DIP or open container laws in effect tonight! Notice the mess of cops
Kabe.

To conclude Japan is not the only crazy country to do such absurd things as the Hadaka Matsuri. Yet, Japan has a way of making things more extravagant, more competitive, and very very entertaining! So this Naked MAN festival gets quite the crowd, but could you even imagine the crowd for a Naked WOMAN festival? :-).