Potentially NSFW!
Okay, okay, I'll admit I've always wanted to go to the penis festival, aka fertility festival aka honen matsuri :) We ended up in Aichi around 2pm, which turned out to be perfect timing :) We ended up taking toll roads to get there which meant around four hours of driving instead of eight which is super amazing. The non amazing thing about toll roads is their toll nature :p From memory that 4 hour trip cost us around 80 Aus. dollars. That's crazy! We ending up only doing the toll thing a few times to save coin. Another plus to avoiding toll roads is our GPS took us through some amazing small towns (down roads that didn't look like roads and meandering around rice patties) it was amazing and a big part of why we wanted to do this trip via car :)
Anyway back to the penis festival. In my head it was going to be larger than I it actually was, not the giant wooden phallus but the whole festival itself :p The procession of the wooden penis, I read, was to take place around 2pm but the last part near the temple happens more around 3pm. Ben and I, after standing in the hot sun to capture it all, aborted after 10minutes - no stamina and we don't do super well with crowds! We ended up wandering and munching on things instead. I always enjoy a good Japanese festival and although small this one has lots of charm and lots and lots of chocolate covered bananas. I, myself, ended up with a cucumber on a stick :p
