New Year: That Stuff on a Stick

Another common food at any festival, and also featured elsewhere in Ed's Photos of Japan. You can't live in Japan for more than two years and not run into konnyaku. Well, a week in the countryside ought to be sufficient for a konnyaku sighting. This man is doing the double barrel action, one stick of konnyaku in each hand. After snapping this pic, I hung around for a few minutes longer--there was a sake vendor next to the konnyaku. But this one was a little less exuberant about the foreign cameraman, so I left.

Next: The prayers.

A Japanese New Year