The Roving Ronin Report

2103 Samba Carnival in Asakusa, Tokyo - not exactly the thing one would expect to see in the traditional area of Tokyo with Senso-ji Temple as a backdrop. Asakusa's Samba Carnival goes back 30 years and has grown in popularity over the years becoming the largest samba carnival outside of Brazil. As usual sexiness and oddity prevail from sexy sword-swinging gladiator women to walking manga. Japanese Gladiator Women with a Jabberwocky Walking Manga - an otaku's wet dream A Mad Hatter Samba Dancer The stuff of nightmares Japanese Superman - they should have hired this guy for the role and Batman

I had to bear my beer aloft to see the bears at Noboribetsu Bear Park in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. At the park it certainly wasn't bare of bear but fortunately the bears weren't grizzly and found us humans bearable especially as we had treats to bring to bear. They could barely contain themselves shamelessly pandering to us with paws to the wall antics. When the cuteness became near unbearable, I took a pawse and went to the Ainu section where they had squirrels and tanuki - Japan's raccoon dog. Despite the legends, the tanuki did not have a ginormous scrotum that kind which smothered many hapless hunters in mythical tales of freudian overtones. They also have duck racing - I lost 200¥ on a lame duck. It costs about 2500¥ to visit the park and you get a gondola ride up the mountain which has some nice scenery. This is definitely a safer way to see Japanese brown bears rather than risking an encounter in the wild. There are still grizzly memor...