2015-04-12: Fasterer Horsies, Fasterer!

We. Bloody. Well. Did. It!

• No Japanese to speak of
• No real idea about the existence of the festival
• No real planning 
• Half the country away

And we got to see mental bastards going mental with mental horsies in mental outfits !

Sure He is proud of the strike and the form but if he knew the zen like state we enter for travelling he would be impressed

This, I think, counts as our finest achievement in half arsery ever.

I think I managed some interesting photos. I want to know what the hell those pebbles are all about.

If the Shrine yesterday was for Blacksmiths, Warriors and Sake then I think this shrine should be consecrated to the God Of Expensive Camera Equipment. My camera is not cheap in the scale of Things You Can Buy but I know it is cheap when compared to the crazy sums people can and do spend on cameras.

And some photos which were purely documenting the environment

Today reinforced that. Every second person had a lens the size of themselves and about half of those people had these giant tripod mounted fully automatic, press a button and it takes pictures until you tell it to stop with your remote control things.

Japan has OCD, even their mental people line up in height appropriate order

Fortunately I accidentally made a nodding acquaintance with one of the more professional types of camera guys. It was purely through laziness. All the judges, riders etc were getting set up and looked like they were going to go to the shrine for a bit of the God thing. Probably they were luring the expensive cameras towards the God as an offering.

So they lined up like we told them? Yeah and now I will make them gallop hands free! ahahaha how do we get away with this each year?

There was a mass of people taking photos of them and I don't really like masses of people taking photos of the thing I want a photo of so I wandered up to the flags by the steps which I figured they would take. I assumed that the guy doing all the yelling would yell at the camera people and then I could get some nicer photos.

Our Gods Will Feast On Your Nikon and Lay Waste to Your Pentax!

While I was sitting waiting behind the flag this other camera guy came up, moved the flag, saw me and laughed. Then he went to the flag on the other side of the door.

This. Dude. Is. Terrifying. Even before it all started you could see he was a big unit with some hardcore skills. Plus he was at the front of the line, people at the front either suck or rule. Small people with skills are cool and all but big units with skills are terrifying people. Fortunately most of them have that whole martial arts self restraint thing pressed into them and they don't actively hunt fat bastards down for sport. I can't ride a bike fast enough to get away from this one.

Then when the guys were all in the shrine praying we went down to the finish line as Ewa wanted to watch the first ones from there. It was 3 deep already but the guy that had laughed at me behind the flag was there already and let Ewa crouch down under his Tripod Drone Camera of Doom and get some nice pictures.

Probably just a reminder to the Big Unit; Don't Be Hunting Down Fat Bastards On Bikes. Bad for tourism.

The guy I was nodding acquaintances with decided to talk to us. He started by asking if we spoke Japanese. We said No. We even said No in English. He spoke at length to us in Japanese.

The weak point is the dead centre should you ever be chased by a smaller unit. Big units wear cloth because you ain't getting near hurting them.

Cultural Observations: Japanese speaking to Foreigners in Japanese

They Fucking Love It. I have been hanging out with Japanese people for some time because of the Naginata and Kendo things. I still remember my first seminar when a little old Japanese Lady that looked eerily like my Nanna had just shown me kata where I was worried she was pissed at me because she obviously wanted to kill me so badly.

We had a break, I ran off to smoke, she followed me, she asked if I speak Japanese, I said no. She launched into a 15 minute speech in Japanese. It involved much poking of body parts. Probably as aids to the corrections she was telling me about. But I was young, skinny and pretty then so maybe it was just an old Lady getting her grabs in.

We are hoping that the stirrups at least make it safer when you fall off, less chance of having your foot stuck.

Since then I have found that Japanese people in particular seem to love talking to me in Japanese after I say I don't understand it. No other nationality seems to do it as often to me.
I don't know why, maybe they just think "he looks too smart to not understand me so I'll go for it".
But I doubt it

Rating: 8/10 (It's good because I hear lots of words and learn quickerer)

Note the entirely safe and completely required broad edged blade. It's like they made a bow that fires knives.

The basic format is a 200 odd metre track about 3 feet wide. This has a rope on each side then another one 3 feet further on the spectator side. From my observations this counts as pretty serious OH&S by Japanese standards. There seems to be a fair amount of "really? you want to get closer to the galloping horse no one is steering and maybe annoy the guy that is actively practising killing people? knock yourself out buddy".

Still putting his fan away, there is like at least 20 metres before he needs to use the bow.

Archers do an (almost) standing start and I think they are allowed to have the first arrow nocked (although the Big Unit didn't do this, in his first run he was still dicking about with his fan halfway to the first target). Targets are at 30, 90 & 120 metre points. From the start they are into a gallop within a couple of steps. The entire run takes maybe 30 seconds.

The boards get taken away to calligraphers that write stuff and sell them as souvenirs. We are not materialistic so didn't get one.

Of the three shots to be made the first was the most common hit. Only a couple of the riders consistently hit all three targets. They were the riders using the arrows with the big vein cutting blade tips. The lesser skilled archers used big rubber ball tipped arrows.

The fancy spectators (not including the Gods that are being amused) appear to sit at the second target. This seems like the worst one to sit at. The first target you get the incredible start and the likely hit. The last target you get the chaos of the finish.

30 seconds is a pretty good time to fire 3 arrows in my opinion. Even standing still at a range with stationary targets. Doing it on a horse at these speeds is damn impressive.

Some of the horsies just can't take it seriously

The horses are probably trained in their job but they are still, shall we say, excitable due to the noise and crowds. I am not sure I would want to ride that level of frisky with boots, a helmet and in a safe sandy arena. If I did I would want a decent set of stirrups, not some olde timey open things. I'd also quite like proper reins. Plus I would hang on to the reins the whole damn time.

Even the rubber tip shatters boards pretty easy.

After firing the three arrows the rider and horse attempt to stop in a maybe 10 metre run off area. A reasonable number of times the rider decided to let the handlers deal with this and chose to dismount mid gallop with varying degrees of grace and choice. A couple of the horsies had less efficient brakes and used the handlers like those water barrels at free way exits to slow them down.

Lunchtime had a play which I am not sure the style of. I don't think it was Noh or Kabuki but I am an Uncultured (and Unkempt) Man in many ways.

Red guy and White guy have a fight. White guy had a bow and arrow but (spoiler alert, although if you haven't seen it yet I think I can safely say you aren't exactly trying that hard, it is probably hundreds of years old) he lost.

Red guy was kind of dick about it and pranced around for some time.

Then I got distracted by these three who started doing their own version. It escalated fairly quickly and the kid with the blue jumpers nailed the tiny kid in green pants in the back of the head with a folded up chair. Too much Wrestlemania I guess.