Monday evening I took part in one of the most insane events that I have ever witnessed. It was one of those times that, if you’re an American, you look around you, frantically raving “THERE’S A LAWSUIT. THERE’S A LAWSUIT. THAT GUY WOULD BE ARRESTED. THERE’S ANOTHER LAWSUIT.” It was absolutely insane. And one of the best times I’ve had all year. It was the Aso Fire-swinging festival.

Essentially, it was one hour of taiko drumming and one hour of whipping huge bails of flaming hay at people, until everything is on fire, and you think you’re in hell. I’ll write a longer post on it when I return from my trip to Hong Kong and Vietnam in a couple weeks. I will, of course, also be writing about my travels, and updating my gallery with the pictures of the trip. For now, I’ll give you these quick cameraphone pics from Monday. You can’t see any fire swinging because I took these photos after the event. With the delay on my cameraphone, if I had taken the photo while the flaming bails had been swinging…I would be dead. Then what would you be doing with this extra five minutes you’re spending being confused on my site?