Alcohol-fuelled nudism

On August 8th each year, the quirky nudist colony in which I live, littered with pyromaniacs and seasoned alcoholics, becomes even stranger still.

Throughout the year I have witnessed workmen fashioning an enormous Hanzaki (salamander) to take centre stage at Yubara's annual Hanzaki Festival.

The usually quiet streets of Yubara undergo a stampede of parents and children, who have joined forces to celebrate the creatures, usually residing in the rural rivers running through the valleys of outback Japan.

What starts as a pleasant family occasion will quickly escalates into full-scale hedonism and debauchery. Setting out from my apartment at 4pm, we go to the local Salamander museum where the metre-long beasts, disguised as large grey rocks and invisible to the untrained eye, are cramped into fish tanks which would instil chronic levels of Claustraphobia in Nemo.

We are beckoned to a table, already overcrowded with pensioners, sat cross-legged and cross eyed, in the museum courtyard by an incredibly inebriated local, imploring us to help them drink their sake. Most cannot sit up straight, instead rolling around like Weebles, crashing their craniums on all manner of objects, from drinks coolers to paving stones.

We decline their offer and move on.

Sitting with our feet dipped in the river, the evening's mist settling on the water's surface, cranes wading mystically in the distance, all is calm and serene as we watch the dance troupes marching past, music blaring, followed by three giant papier mache Salamanders, being wheeled along by a host of strapping young gents.

I'm discovered by some first year students and led by the hand away from my friends and into the abyss of the crowds to meet their parents.

But it is once we have finished ooohing and aahing at closing hanabi (fireworks) ceremony, when the kids start leaving and I finally find my friends, that things take a downturn, into a drunken version of the Wicker Man.

We go to the local bar, where I kidnapped Edwina, the clown, from the squat toilet during my first month following a binge of 22 bottles of Sake.

It transpires that the bar is owned by the parents of two students, a girl and boy of elementary school age, who are, as a special treat, allowed to serve us pint after pint of beer, which feels wrong on so many levels.

Soon the father comes to sit down, encouraging his son to come too, and learn English from the Gaijin.

And so the eight-year-old sits amid the haze of smoke and lager spillages, chatting away with a level of maturity far superior to the drunken westerners who have overtaken the bar.

Not long after the father instigates a photo shoot with the kids, beers in hand, which would have seemed entirely inappropriate if it wasn't for the vast quantities of alcohol consumed by this point.

Following the photos, the well known, "who am I" post it game ensues. Seemingly amused by the gaijin with yellow stickers attached to their foreheads, decorated with foreign scrawlings, the aged friends on the next table decide to join in, covering their faces in sticky labels, before carrying on drinking, seemingly oblivious to their adornments.

Soon it is closing time.　We say our sayonaras and, deciding that midnight is too early to retire home, venture on to the outdoor, mixed onsen situated along the riverside overlooking the dam at the top end of the town.

We strip off and soon find out that the rocky path leading to the steaming outdoor bath is slippy, seeing all attempts to cover our modesty disbanded in favour of attempts to remain upright.

The water is scorching and despite our best efforts to endure the heat, bubbling gently like live-lobsters simmering away on the stove, the temperatures soon become unbearable.

Aborting mission, Scott's friend Matt discovers that his flip flops have disappeared and a group of naked Japanese men offer their assistance, running up and down the rocky path, searching in the moonlight before proudly presenting a pair of shoes to the drunken token white people. But they're not Matt's, which are later found exactly where he left them.

Eager to practise their English, the boys get dressed when we do and follow us along the river, where we are waylaid by the sfestival tage and giant salamander, which has been abandoned at the water's edge. Stopping for another photo-shoot one of the men, Hiro, expresses an interest in Lucy. His friends encourage from a close distance "kiss her, kiss her." This embarrasses Hiro to such an extent that he lays down on the floor and ROFLs (for those of you unfamiliar with the iliterate new wave of so called "text speech", reserved only for chavish youths and cunts, "Rolled around on the floor laughing"), before pulling himself to his feet and kissing her, like a washing machine on a fast spin, traumatising unfazable Lucy.

Hiro texts Lucy a few days later - "Hello Lucy, do you think me a boy? Japan people look young to the Western eye. I am 30. Maybe we could email sometimes."

I think she may be in love.