last weekend we went to omuta for the daijayama festival. i'm not really sure what it's all about, only that it involves giant snakes (that look like dragons to me.) they have these huge floats and march them up and down the streets. at one point they have a fireworks contest where the snakes look like they're breathing fire and that's pretty cool.

anyway, at one covered arcade they have a snake set up for eating children. well, not really. a baby is lifted up into its mouth (and seemingly slid up and down its tongue--maybe to see how tasty the baby is?) while shouting and drums and bells are beaten furiously. well, of course i have to traumatize hiroyuki in this way. heck, i've been looking forward to this festival since he was born! hahaha. anyway...

on saturday we drove down to shingu for a baby massage class. there were just two babies: hiro and a little one-and-a-half month old. it was her first massage and she just cried and cried. poor baby. then yoshi and i had lunch at the clinic. we got the pizza set and they used fresh basil right out of their roof 'garden'. yummy. then we went to a nearby shopping center because they have a really great bakery where loaves of 'english bread' are only 200 yen. when we got to the parking lot there was a car that was leaving right near the entrance. since this shopping center was nearly always busy we felt pretty lucky. however, the woman driving the car was an idiot. she nearly backed into us (backed up way too fast and way too far). then, as she drove away, yoshi noticed she had a driving cone stuck in the front (left) wheelwell of her car!! i was laughing my ass off but yoshi felt that he really should have made an effort to stop her and let her know....other people in the parking lot were laughing at her, too....

we drove down to omuta and went to yoshi's parent's house. it was dinnertime so we ate. then his parents wanted to go to an onsen and yoshi did too. he said that we could do the festival on sunday, so i agreed. it is nice to go to an onsen, but i would have loved to have seen the festival at night. on sunday it just seems tired and that everyone really just wants to wrap it up and go home.

when we got to the festival we followed a 'children's mikoshi' until we found the lucky snake. we had to pay 1000 yen for the honor of feeding our son to the snake. hiro hadn't taken his afternoon nap so he was not in the mood for being handed over to strangers. he started to cry as soon as one of the guys took him.



we took some photos (with my cell phone. i forgot the digicam!!) then hiro was terrified by the snake.