Armpit Boudoire

You ever have one of those days where you’re lying in bed that night and you think,”What the ever-living fuck was that?”

It all started innocuously enough. I had all day to get to Ochico, a tiny town only about 50 kms away. The perfect opportunity to do the puttering and diddling around I’ve been promising myself to do.

So first to Iwara-ji, Temple 45 on the 88 temple Shikoku Henro pilgrimage that some people are actually religious and/or crazy enough to do. Just walking up to the fucking temple damn near killed me.

Here’s what I (and those wacky pilgrims) had to do - step by step:

Oh no, my holy friend. Not even close.

Praise the Lord! You can see a couple of pilgrims in the shots - the ones with the hats, white shirts and bags. They climb up, say a few prayers, get their stamp, walk back down and then on to Temple 46. Supposedly it takes around two months to complete the entire thing. I’ve seen them walking beside the highway the last couple days. Seems like real fun, assuming you’re masochistic or have bat shit for brains.

Okay, now here’s the weird shit - and I do mean weird. I had some time on my hands and I had read in my Lonely Planet about Uwajima, a “pleasant, unhurried castle town” about an hour south that was known for its Shinto fertility shrine and attached sex museum. Like I was going to pass up on that. When I finally arrived, Google Maps pretended there was no such thing, but that didn’t deter me. A bit of schmoozing later (embarrassing schmoozing, as you can imagine) I pulled up to a dirt parking lot and this:

It didn’t look promising but I was already there so I headed over. A quick walk through the shrine yielded a couple of what might have been phalluses but not much else and the building looked closed. But when I walked over to the entrance, there was a balding, masked man sitting behind the glass at a laptop.

“What the hell?” I thought, knocking on the glass.

“ Konnichiwa. Sex museum?”

He nodded, opened the sliding glass door, took my money, ushered me in and left me there.

I’m not even going to try to describe the experience. I’ll just say it was three entire floors, completely unorganized and packed with every conceivable form of anthropological erotica from all corners of the procreating world. Go ahead and look - if you dare. Feel free to zoom in on any kinky bit that catches your attention.

Never in my life have I wanted to be fluent in another language as much as when I finished my tour and returned to the front room.

“Fuck it,” I said to myself. ”There’s no way I’m leaving without talking to this guy.”

I whipped out my trusty Google Translate and, “Excuse me. Did you collect all these things yourself?”

“Hai.”

“Impressive. How long did it take you?”

“All my life.”

Head down. Conversation over.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Japanese Fun Fact

Let’s talk slippers. Specifically THESE slippers.

As I’m sure you’re already aware, it’s a Japanese custom to remove your shoes when entering a building. This applies to restaurants, onsens, hotel rooms and, as I’ve discovered, libraries. You can walk around in your socks if you so choose, but it’s obvious that’s frowned upon. So they have these slippers available for your convenience. For most (actually, it seems ALL) people, this doesn’t present any problem whatsoever. However, through some strange quirk of physics which I certainly can’t explain, my feet repel these things like two similar poles of a magnet. They literally fly off my feet if I attempt to walk - and don’t get me started on stairs. I’ve tried everything - toe-curling, intense concentration - all to no avail. It makes me fucking crazy, although it does provide endless amusement for my hosts. I’ve now abandoned all hope and have without doubt become the symbol of all gaijin.

“ Look! He can’t even keep a pair of slippers on. Pah!”