Bubbly Elizabeth

The fertility festival (aka penis festival) is held every year on the first Sunday. A buddy and I had it scheduled in our calendar and planned to go. Despite the stormy weather the day before, the weather cleared and turned into a warm and sunny day.

The venue wasn't as crowded as last year, so we ventured over to the shrine where the portable penis shrines are kept, in hopes of a chance to get in and see the grounds and and the displays before they're taken out for the parade. Alas, no such luck. While the line wasn't going around the block and then some like last year, there were a good number of people waiting to get in, so we decided to head over to the other shrine where the shops and stalls were.

Word was that the organizers changed the route this year, so the corner we usually stake out to watch the parade wasn't an option. We had to find another place. We had plenty of time before we had to stake out a spot, so we went to visit the shops and stalls that sold candy and other goodies. Can't have a fertility festival without penis-shaped candies. Of course, there were the pink penis candies that depict Elizabeth, the huge pepto bismol pink penis, which is the star attraction of the parade. For those of you who don't know, Elizabeth was named after the club for trans people who donated it back in the 80s to raise awareness for aids. The Elizabeth candy is strawberry flavored. There are other smaller ones that come in a variety of flavors. Only in Japan during fertility festivals would you see people sucking dick of different sizes in broad daylight. LOL

Ice cream must make an appearance whenever I'm out and about, doesn't it? Actually, there's a shop that offers sesame-flavored soft-serve ice cream, which is really good. The toasted sesame seeds add extra flavor to the rich and creamy sweetness.

We didn't bother with the stalls inside the shrine grounds since it was kinda mucky from last night's rain. The approach with the candy and souvenir shops is paved with stone tiles, so no worries about getting muddy. We're usually not interested in the food stalls set up in the shrine grounds, anyway.

We found a good spot near a corner where the parade turns to head to the nearby park, so I broke out my collapsible stool and got settled in. My buddy brought hers, but there were a couple of women encroaching in our space, so she took the passive aggressive route and kept nudging at them with her backpack (the women decided to move to the other side of the street, good riddance). Since we had a bit of a wait, we started sucking on the smaller candies we got. My buddy got green apple and I got grape. The candies are pretty good with a strong fruity flavor. We were talking about how funny it would be to make a YouTube vid using the bigger strawberry flavored penis candy on tips to give better blow jobs. Strawberry candy has gotta taste better, right?

The highly anticipated parade finally reached to where we were waiting. The parade was lead by the Shinto priest, followed by a small portable shrine, then the bigger one holding a wooden dick, which is followed by a big black iron dick on a boat-type portable shrine. Taking up the rear is the star of the parade, Elizabeth, in all its pink glory with the portable shrine carriers chanting "kanamara, dekkai mara" (iron cock, huge cock). What was funny was that there were parade watchers joining in the chant so we were hearing the chants from all directions. There was someone blowing a bunch of bubbles around Elizabeth, which added to the fun.

Although the train station wasn't as crowded as last year (where there were people wanting to get on the train spilling outside the station), we decided to take the lesser used bus back to the main station for lunch. We decided to have lunch as a steakhouse we saw last year, where they offered beef from another prefecture. It was a good choice. Can't go wrong with steak and fries. For dessert, we went to a cafe around the corner. We got in right away and enjoyed coffee and cake. I ordered a strawberry tart. For some reason, the piece I got had a piece of normal-sized strawberry, and a monstrosity of a strawberry on top. Most places use strawberries of a uniform size for the aesthetics. Clearly, this place didn't. Remind me to not get the strawberry tart anymore. Or, we find another cafe for dessert.

We finished off the day with a bit of wine tasting. There's a wine shop just down the corridor from the cafe. We went there last year and found a couple of wines we liked after tasting. This time, they were offering tasting of rose wines. They weren't bad, but not enough to our liking to take a bottle or two home.

It was another good day filled with fun.

Elizabeth

Sugar cocks

Iron cock

 Apr 5