Bon Bon yourself silly!

As any fool know, Bon Bon is the BIG GIG of the year in Matsumoto!

August 4th

Can't read the form on the left? Well, that means you probably ain't a Luna student. No problem. (If you are a Luna student, and you can't understand this...Nihongo posting on Monday!)

Want to join the festival? Email oyajim at gmail.com and I'll let you know how you can register. More importantly, we'll send you t-shirt iron-on prints (you buy the cheapest white t-shirt you can), and supply as much ale as you and all the other reprobates we recruit can drink. This will only cost you Y1,000 - and you will not get arrested for singing, drinking and dancing your little behind off all around our historic town!

Can my friends/wives/kids come? Yes, of course - but please register with us by the end of the month.

Can I just turn up? No - dress code applies, and Jim totally hates the idea of giving away beer (hints of Scottish relatives in the closet).

When does this part start & end?

• Meet up 17:30 (don't know where yet). Break up at 21:00 - if you are coming with toddlers, please advise (recommend a 8pm curfew)
• Apres dance knees up - don't want to miss out?!  Tell us the now!

Frogs, a pig, and a pint

There's a lovely little street just down the road called "Frog Street". Today (and yesterday) was their 'festival'. It's a short street, and pedestrianised - one of the few bits of city planning Matsumoto has managed to get right.

(Time for a quick whinge? I think so: there's a total abomination of a building going up in the middle of this historic riverside street, where no other building manages more than two floors above street level. In fact, that was the old rule - nowt taller than the castle. Despite concerted local opposition, a block of flats is going up in the middle of Frog Street. Blend in it will not.)

Anyway, it's got lots of little shops (stalls really) - selling traditional snacks such as hot bean paste in fish-shaped dough-shells, knick-knacks, snacks, memorabilia, bread & cakes, and...lots of replica guns. You know, the realistic kind? The kind where people get shot by accident? Then again, in Japan the cops have their sidearms on lanyards; so it's a safe place really, right?

I always think so, and on a day when Britain is on 'critical' alerts because of bomb threats in London & Glasgow. But then again, I've never seen a pig, a big fat black pig, calmly grazing through rubbish bags before - in the middle of town. I'm glad Tim was with me, otherwise I wouldn't have believed my own eyes...just give me a few days to scan his pictures?!

But then something even rarer. Free beer. Not just any old beer either, Yona Yona Porter & Real Ale. From the cask. Fresh, real, ale. Tim & I were going to have a swift half & call it quits - I know, unlikely? But how do you turn down a round from the landlord when he comes over to chat about his favourite pub in Bronte country, Timmy Taylor's "Landlord" & Marston's "Pedigree". For a little while there, the both of us were drifting back to sultry summer evenings in English beer gardens, skylarks & cut grass...