Warabi Naked Festival

In February, I went with a group of ladies from the Tokyo American Club, by coach, to a town on the outskirts of Tokyo. Our destination was the Warabi Naked Festival. With a title like that, it was just too intriguing to resist! The purpose of the festival was to baptize the new babies, born in the previous 12 months, in a muddy pond and then take them to a tiny temple to be blessed by the priest. A large group of men from the village, dressed only in white loin clothes went in procession between the pond and the temple with the babies. It took quite a long while to take each one between the pond and the temple and there was much cheering along the pathway, mixed in with the crying of the babies. Then, the men fortified themselves with saké as they stood around a fire. This was followed by groups of them, stacked on each others shoulders, fighting each other in the muddy waters of the pond, until one team collapsed into the water. Then more saké, more warming over the fire (it was very chilly that day) and more wrestling in the mud. All in all a fascinating day, with the local townspeople somewhat perplexed by the influx of 50 or so women from the USA/UK/Australia! The men shared their saké with us and tried to put mud on our faces (apparently, bringing good luck to the one muddied).

I think that the photographs speak for themselves.......

Wilhelm Solf

While the family were visiting in December, we went to the German Embassy, where we were shown the photograph of my grandfather, Wilhelm Solf, who was Ambassador to Japan in the 1920s. This a photograph of Henry, Hugo and Julie with (great) grandpa's photograph (top left).

Christmas and New Year 2010

Hugo and Julie in Roppongi Hills with the Christmas Lights

We had a wonderful time with Henry, Cat, Hugo and his good friend, Ryan,  joining us here in Tokyo for the holiday season. The weather was fine, clear and cool with blue skies. We enjoyed a traditional Christmas interspersed with visits to temple and shrines and Mt. Fuji. The young took side trips to Kyoto and Osaka. Probably the highlight of their time here was New Year's Eve, where we followed dinner at a restaurant called Gonpachi (where a famous scene from the movie, Kill Bill, was supposed to have been filmed) with seeing in the New Year at a shrine nearby, where the Tokyo Tower was the backdrop for thousands of clear helium balloons rising up as the new year was chimed in by Buddhist bells.

Henry making a wish at a temple in Kamakura