Taking the Pez out of it.

About ten years ago, I had some termites dig into some floorboards and took out a bunch of Pez dispensers as well. That adventure was regaled here. Thanks to the humidity and since I never learn from my mistakes, some of the candies melted yet again, destroying another batch of Pez! 

Poor ET!

Here are all of them, most of them didn't survive the great Pez meltdown!

 

So rather than worry about another "I'm melting!" situation, I trashed all the candies and kept the dispensers. Thus any worth they might have once had has been diminished by 90%.

 

Hopefully these two en-wrapped in plastic shall survive the next Apocalypse.

Now that I have them all out of their packaging, I still need to figure out how to display them...

 I only have a couple of the vintage Halloween ones. Guess what you can now get via Gatcha machines!

 Puny Pez! I only bought one (so far), the witch with a pink hat.

 

 

Not quite a witch, rather a Demon Woman affiliated with Autumn leaves is today's Oni. Her name is 紅葉 (Momiji), born to human parents, and was the fairest in the land. She tried to curse and kill the wife of her aristocratic employer and was therefore banished to Mount Togakushi in Nagano Prefecture. I'm hazy on this but her bad deeds transformed her into an ogre (Oni). She liked to disguise herself as maple leaves and torment the locals by raining fire and stirring up rivers. She pissed off Koremochi who prayed to the gods for help and ended up decapitating her. (Lots of Oni decapitation in this book.)

 

 

You'll need squint or get a magnifying glass to read that.

 Here's a little Kabuki play about Momiji!

I'm driving to Kitakami tomorrow for a wedding, hopefully en route back, I'll get a chance to see some foliage.

I'm taking these candies to give to my Wedding Singers tomorrow.

 

Hopefully I'll be back in time to watch a spooky movie, nothing tonight, alas.

For some other Blogger action this Countdown, check out my old pal at the Wonderful Wonderblog! 

Kabuki-Mikie

When I was at the Fukushima Aquamarine the other day, I glanced upon a small gathering around a Kabuki display. I joined the queue and chose my mask. Afterwards a computer rendering of my face was completed.

Afterwards, we shuffled into a room then my image entered Lawnmower Man territory. Here's a video showing my transformation.



Oops, sorry. That is Lawnmower Man. Here's my video.



My very own Jimmy Olsen was on hand to take a few pics.

I was given this paper mask as a souvenir.

Another intriguing yet ultimately unsatisfying display at the Aquarium were several works of kinetic sculpture by Dutch artist Theo Jansen. Upon arrival, he was on hand signing copies of his book or kits though I didn't stick around. Here are a few of the sculptures.

Listen to Theo talk about his "Strandbeast" here.



His TED TALK is slightly less entertaining though more educational.



I bought a Gacha-capsule and received this.

My last fishy post was interrupted so I could sleep so here are a few more piscine pics.

 Straw squids.

I consumed a quick lunch and then we went on a Kappa hunt.

I didn't eat the whale.

There was nary a Kappa in sight.

Some interesting items at the gift shop including these fugu snacks with a catchy tune.

These paper-crafts looked cool so I bought them. Only a buck a piece.

I really doubt whether mine will look like these.

Finally, there was quite the tribute to my favourite prehistoric fish, the coelacanth. (Hey Google, get with the program, that's a real word.)

This giant grouper (not groper) is a distant cousin of coelacanth though they didn't have a living example of this creature. Here are some non-living examples.

A robotic coelacanth that didn't move.

And a cool metal sculpture of one.

Nat Geo goes fishing.

We went to a nearby tourist trap hoping to buy something cheap. All I got was some water and a date.

En route home, we came across Rocky and the Golden Gorilla! Now that's a Rocky movie I'd like to see!!