Apparently, like Eminem, Christianity is not big in Japan.

This is not altogether surprising as they already have their hands full with two other religions, Shintoism and Buddhism.

Having said that, there are roughly a million Christians in total here - though in a country the size of Japan, it's not a lot. But if it was a country the size of Barbados, it would be. But it's not.

Walk around any neighbourhood and you'll find plenty of churches, but in many cases the pews will be empty.

It appears that it's all down to the advertising methods being employed by the Christian Association of Japan. Sticking a few TVs in a wall and running God-related ads around the clock just isn't cutting it.



Let's be honest, corrugated iron never looks good, no matter what colour you paint it.



It's something of a surprise that there aren't more Christians here, as according to the people of Shingo in northern Japan, Jesus is buried in their village.

Legend has it that instead of having his hands nailed into wood, Jesus fled to Japan and ended up living in Shingo, doing a spot of rice farming and dying at the ripe old age of 106.

On his way to Shingo, he visited the Gion district of Kyoto because he'd read in his guidebook that it was a really lovely place....


Jesus was said to have been impressed by the doors in Gion.


Moving on from Gion, he soon found himself feeling rather peckish and, for the first time in his life, tried takoyaki - little chunks of diced octopus inside a ball of light fluffy batter...


Despite burning his tongue on his first bite, takoyaki became part of Jesus's calorie controlled diet while living in Shingo.


Jesus forewent the bullet train in favour of leg-power, arriving in Shingo a few weeks later. Here he lived out the rest of days mingling with the locals and eating takoyaki.


"Tooooooouuuuuuchakuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!"

If the sparks that fly when two flint stones are rubbed together give you a semi-boner, or if the lighting of a match gives you a whacking great woody, then the Kurama Fire Festival will likely make you as stiff as a rigor mortis-ridden rabbit found on a freezing winter morn in the glorious mountains surrounding this tiny village half an hour north of Kyoto.

Now I'm not a fire starter, twisted fire starter, but after reading about this festival, I thought I'd go along for some flaming good festive fun. The problem was, the entire population of Kyoto also had the same idea.

This meant that on Thursday, all the people who were here at lunchtime...




....were here at dinnertime....



The parade takes place along a narrow bonfire-filled street bordered by wooden houses against a backdrop of tinder-dry trees as a result of a drier than usual summer. Perfect conditions for a blazing good night.

The crowd was made up of:
30% Japanese spectators
10% Tall Westerners blocking the view of the Japanese spectators
60% Police officers with megaphones
0% Firefighters

The number of police officers in attendance was quite astonishing. I'm sure it meant that at the same time there were no police officers in the whole of the rest of Japan, allowing criminals across the nation to run riot.

Apparently the people in the parade chant "sairei, sairyo" as they move along the street carrying enormous pine torches, but unfortunately I couldn't hear it as the police were chanting "move back, move along" through their enormously loud megaphones.


A megaphone with the volume turned up to 11.



A megaphone-happy cop.



Many police officers had swine flu. Or didn't want to catch swine flu.


At around six o'clock it all kicked off. Firestarters, twisted firestarters were scurrying about starting fires all over the show, and before long, thick billowing smoke was rolling down the main street...



Kurama was quickly ablaze, with some bonfires singeing the eyebrows of those standing too close....


A police officer warms his hands on one of the many fires.

As we know all too well, there are many kinds of balls in life.


Pool balls....



Testiballs....




Ed Balls....


Currently the UK's Secretary of State for Children, School Dinners and Families.


And of course, pachinko balls....

Without pachinko balls, there would never have been any pachinko halls, as the pachinko machine would never have been invented.

Indeed, could THIS be Japan's oldest surviving pachinko machine, a contraption I recently found abandoned in an Osaka backstreet?








No, probably not.

When a friend told me recently that a barge had just cruised into town, images of ye olde English narrowboats crawling along the canals of Osaka immediately came to mind.

It was a scene I didn't want to miss, and I rushed along to get a glimpse of a boat that I thought would be something like this....




...being steered by a man who looked a bit like this....




...but instead I saw a strange looking fella like this....




....steering a guaranteed-to-give-little-children-nightmares barge - like this....



A little baby driver with a bloody great dragon behind it.


It wasn't quite what I'd been expecting, I mean, I can hardly imagine it plying the peaceful waters of the Trent and Mersey canal....


Actually I wouldn't mind seeing it plying the peaceful waters of the Trent and Mersey canal....


It's a barge quite unlike any other....


Fun for all the family!


According to this article, artist Kenji Yanobe is hoping that when people see his fire-breathing teeth-gnashing fearsome looking creation, they will "think about peace"....





Here's an alternative image that might cause people to think about peace....




....though on second thoughts, this one is far more interesting....


A peaceful fire-breathing dragon barge.


Here you can watch the barge doing things that barges don't normally do....




Video from here

Can you guess what it is?


What on earth could it be? From here it just looks like a collection of pipes and tubes....hmm, what else is there....is that a broom? Bits of wood.....


OK, so now we have a basketball, and what looks like some beer cans......any the wiser?




From here we can see a load more beer cans, wires, a wheel trim and, among other things, a circuit board......



Got it?

No, it's not a new product from Microsoft......

....that's right, it's.......

A LOAD OF RUBBISH.


But it's also a bit more than that.

Here's another clue....


Osaka's main river, the Yodogawa.


Yes, all that rubbish is part of Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009, where the city's rivers have been revitalised by getting all the crap out of them. This has then been used to make some rather fetching sculptures....


a rubbish fish in osaka


This little number was made with rubbish pulled from the Yodogawa and Osaka Bay.

I guess it's a celebration of all the gunk people throw in, for without it, this wonderful piece of art could never have been created.



So when it comes to garbage, we can conclude that the people of Osaka either:

a) religiously recycle it, separate it, and carefully divide it between boxes, bags and bins marked for burnables, non-burnables, plastics, non-plastics, cans, bottles, non-bottles, PET bottles, glass bottles, ten green bottles, paper, card, electrical equipment, magazines and newspapers,

or

b) chuck it in the river

If it does go in the river, this is what may come out - a kind of mutant man-eating bevvied-up beer-canned underwater monster, seen below as it was caught in the act of devouring its final victim....


Whoever was wearing this jacket got a nasty surprise when they opted for b)

In Japan, you don't see a lot of hair - apart from on top of the head or blocking up the plug hole.

There are few moustaches, and if someone has a beard it's usually a fake one bought from a novelty shop. Excessive hair seems to be a big no-no.

For women in particular, a hairy arm could be a cause of embarrassment. Two hairy arms would be twice as bad.

Anti-hair manufacturers across the nation are constantly bringing out new products to keep the bristles at bay.

But now it seems like the definitive product (another one) is finally here. It's the no-no shaver. The first no refers to no hair. The second no refers, reassuringly, to no pain.

The no-no shaver was featured on a recent TV infomercial. It went on for a good hour. There was hair all over the place.


Finally, a hair remover that doesn't hurt like hell.


The shaver incorporates burning technology which essentially frazzles your follicles and melts your hair, leaving a burnt-hair odour to confirm that the job's done. And apparently it doesn't hurt a jot.

The infomercial went to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate the no-pain factor by showing how painful other methods of hair extraction can be.

Three unsuspecting souls with suitably hairy haunches were hauled in off the street and forced to volunteer for a test using the no-no shaver. They made it sound like pain would not be involved.

But within minutes of their hirsute legs being thrust before the cameras, it was clear that a high level of discomfort (ie. pain) was central to the show, with one of the women soon suffering audible pain.....

One was given the no-no shaver. Another was given a good old-fashioned bloodletting razor and finally, thrust into the hand of the woman who drew the short straw was little more than a pair of pliers. Plucking hell! Wasn't it obvious these weren't going to be the best method of hair removal? Yes, it was obvious, but the infomercial makers wanted to film it nonetheless.


1 - the no-pain shaver. 2 - the bloody razor. 3 - the plucking pliers


The poor plucker on the far right looks like she might be regretting her decision to "have a bit of fun" by volunteering for the experiment....



"3....2.....1....shave!"


The plucker is off camera, although she can be heard. Screaming.


Then, just as you weren't expecting it, they showed a close-up of the plucker at work.




It all seemed rather unnecessary. And she could be heard yelling one word....





Meanwhile, the other two collected their hair in a large bowl.


A big bowl for all the hair.


Not surprisingly, the no-no shaver came out the winner.




As the plucker was carted off to hospital, the infomercial concluded that the no-no shaver was by far the most efficient and least painful way to remove hair.

The ad closed with some shots of a model shaving her hairless body....



...from her legs up to her arms and beyond....



It was a wonderfully pain-free end to a painful-looking infomercial.