Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m four and a half!’
You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.
You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m gonna be 16!’
You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. “YOU BECOME 21.” Yesss!
But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He turned; we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed?
You become 21, you turn 30, then you’re pushing 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away. Before you know it, you reach 50 and your dreams are gone.
But wait!!! You make it to 60. You didn’t think you would!
So you become 21, turn 30, push 40, reach 50 and make it to 60.
You’ve built up so much speed that you hit 70! After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you hit Wednesday!
You get into your 80’s and every day is a complete cycle; you hit lunch; you turn 4:30 ; you reach bedtime. And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; ‘I Was just 92.’
Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again.
Zatōichi (座頭市) is the long running character who is the archetypical blind Japanese swordsman. 25 films were made showcasing his extraordinary ability from 1962 - 1974, with a 26th added in 1989. In everyone he is played by actor Shintaro Katsu, though a 2003 remake starred Takeshi Kitano.
The iconic Zatōichi wanders the land, protecting the innocent, gambling, playing music, and giving massages. It’s an interesting character that has influenced many works both in Japan and in the West.
Below are the posters and/or DVD covers of the 26 films starring Shintaro Katsu, plus the remake for good measure.
“A San Fermín pedimos, por ser nuestro patrón, nos guíe en el encierro, dándonos su bendición. Viva San Fermín. Gora San Fermín.”
“We ask San Fermín, because he is our Patron, to guide us through the Bull Run, giving us his blessing.”
A full grown, male bull weighs as much as 600 kilos, has two lethal horns protruding from the head and is behooved with equally hardened trampling devices. And I was going to outrun a marauding group of them at the annual Fiesta of San Fermín in Iruñea-Pamplona, Spain.
What I was about to undertake is, of course, the encierro, or “Running of the Bulls”. Every morning from July 7th to the 14th, a large group of mostly males brace to make the adrenaline dash some 800 meters to the finish line.
I awaited the sound of the first rocket, indicating the bulls had been let loose, a bit before Estafeta, where the running is a bit slower ahead of the start in the Santo Domingo area. Around me still half-drunk fiesta goers were clad in head-to-toe white, a bold red sash (faja) tied about the waist, red handkerchief (pañuelo) about the neck, and an occasional vomit stain flourish. Don’t forget 13 have died since 1924, the last being in 1995.
Spanish gentlemen nonchalantly read the morning’s newspaper before they twisted it into a tight roll to batter the bulls. Another runner held is young daughter on top of his shoulders. A foreign visitor sat passed out with his head between his legs. How in the world had I come here?
I was studying during the 2001 summer in Grenoble, France and missed my intended train loitering too late at a party for an extra glass of wine. Not an auspicious beginning.
Luckily I was able to jump the next train and complete our journey to San Sebastián, a convenient base of operations on the north coast, blessed with the beautiful (and sometimes topless) La Concha Bay.
My party of three entered by taxi (about €100/1 hour from San Sebastián) since our preparation was nil and buses, of which there are extra, were full. Pamplona can also easily be reached by train from Madrid and Barcelona. Because the city is so inundated with tourists, commuting in can be an attractive alternative. Full transportation details can be found here.
On the way we made Nutella sandwiches and pondered out nonexistent sleeping arrangements, and as expected, we were without accommodation. In a city with under 3,000 hotels rooms and many more times that number in visitors, book well in advance and prepare to pay two or three times the usual rate. Hotels are often booked months in advance.
Or you can just show up like I did. My bed for the night was a public park a few hundred meters from bustling lines of vendors and boisterous tents with sangria and cerveza guzzling revelers.
Even a darkened, vacant corner is not the easiest thing to find during San Fermín. Young lovers and drunken sleepers vie for the best spots, but the three of us eventually found a nice quite tree to curl up near. To combat the chilly night air, I bought several woven blankets of Spanish design to stay warm under. I think one friend cried a little on the outside, and we all cried a little on the inside.
Pamplona descends into chaos during San Fermín. The sheer drunkenness of those around you can be appalling. The city is on 24-hour siesta and mounds of garbage pile up from the constant party. It can be the best time of your life, or the worst if you are not prepared.
These mounds are raked and hosed away from the running route of the encierro immediately before the day’s run. The resulting wet cobblestones provide a precarious sprinting surface for both bull and human.
When the first rocket sounded, I set off at a leisurely trot. Double layers of wooden barricades sealed off the narrow Spanish streets. Suddenly, there they were. Right behind me. Somehow the thick crowd had thinned out and my attention was on the spectators hanging off roofs and balconies. Snapping back to reality, I sped off as fast as possible. A shirtless, muscular foreigner and I elbowed each other for position frantically. The calm Spanish, rolled paper in hand, deftly sidestepped any threat and at the same time delivered an embarrassing blow to the bull’s nose. It was a blow to their dignity, and a young foreigner is the easiest target to exact revenge upon.
I quickly ducked to the side hoping the pack behind me would pass. They sped up to the nearly 90-degree turn of Estafeta Street where the wet cobblestones felled several of the hulking beasts.
After dashing out again I quickly found myself in the same position with bulls bearing down on me. This time I made a dive under one of the double wooded barricades, smearing dirt on my white attire. The third time I had to scamper for cover I went over the barricade, foolishly displaying my backside as an easy target for any bull’s horn.
My hands were shaking with from the rush of adrenaline, like a needle full of it straight to the heart, and would continue to do so hours after the event. I had my fill and finished the last bit of the route mostly behind the bulls saying a blessing to San Fermín, thankful to be unharmed.
My friends rejoined me, jumping up and down in excitement of what they just witnessed: their friend nearly gored.
A successful run with the bulls takes three things. The first is respect; respect the prowess of the bulls and the runners around you. Don’t push and shove anymore than you have to and treat the situation seriously by not showing up after a sleepless night or with a hangover.
The next is confidence. Never lose faith in your legs or decision-making, a falter in either might give you a bottom-up view of a bull.
The final ingredient is fear. Fear keeps the other two things in line and, with a little luck, helps you pull off an event to remember.
The much touted, 10-years in the making Guns ‘N Roses record Chinese Democracy appears to have 9 songs leaked. The project by front man Axel Rose is infamous for the amount of time taken to create the album, which is not currently scheduled for release. Dr. Pepper even took a swing at some free publicity offering a free can of soda to “everyone in America”* if it is released this year.
Well, I had a listen and the songs generally rock. They more than rock actually, and Axel could make a lot of people eat their words… including Dr. Pepper.
One small thing struck me though. In the title track, he start consists of background noise and people talking. The problem is there a bit that is in Japanese! From about :34 - :37 you can hear a man say what sounds like, “Eto… Sumimasen, honto?” Which in English is, “Ummm… excuse me, really?”
** Clip coming soon… need to update the audio player.
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Beppu, Japan has been called the Las Vegas of Japan. I’m not sure it has many more pachinko parlors or snack bars than any other moderately sized Japanese city, but tourists do come in droves to soak in the many natural hot springs, called onsen, for which the city is so famous.
So it was with some marketing trickery Beppu gained it’s moniker as I think anyone who has spent time in Sin City can attest. The odd statue outside Beppu’s main train station depicts the founding father of Beppu’s tourism boom with arms raised and several naked cherub-like children clung to his cape. He compared Beppu to the delights of Mount Fuji.
Among the crowd drawing jigoku, or hell, onsen (much too hot to enter) sits the Hihōkan Sex Museum. Hihōkan, meaning “house of the hidden”, is a not-so-hidden display of sexual artifacts and curiosities from around the world.
Figurines in different positions and dildos sit beneath glass cases as treasured artifacts. India, Paupa New Guinea, and Tibet are represented among the items. Life size female mannequins are thematically posed, some with animatronic action. And, in case you were wondering, two stuffed zebras can be found humping.
The second floor houses mostly older Japanese scrolls and paintings with a hardcore bent, but you can get your picture taken with disproportionately large breasts.
Two items stood out the most on my tour. The first was the viewing room with a large screen, darkened seats, and 1980’s porno playing. The salaryman at the center of the film was torn between his demanding wife and the tempting work hussy. The movie appeared to be rather tame and showed no male nudity and little female, but with visitors coming in and out (no pun intended) it didn’t feel right to linger too long.
The highlight was undoubtedly the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs exhibit. In a display that would have Walt Disney spinning in the grave and his lawyers litigiously drooling, the dwarfs are indeed hard at work. On Snow White. I’ll let the image suffice for further description:
On the way out, a gift shop staffed by a couple middle aged women sell all types of toys and gags for both men and women. By this time, I was not taken aback by that in itself, but by the horde of similarly aged women gawking, giggling, buying, and generally blocking the only exit out of the place. The looks in their eyes did not bode well for me and my Caucasian friend and we made a bolt for the door at the first opening.
