it's Tanuki Time!

heard there were a lot of tanukis out in Mashiko, a small town in Tochigi, so i enlisted the help of my mom and uncle to go pick one out for my sister's birthday. i think my uncle had regrets about volunterring as soon as we got on the train. as you can see, he's having none of it.



boy's day carp:


i expected a lot more tanukis but apparently is just a small cluster of shops out there that sell tanukis. they don't even make them! i'm told that over 90% of all tanukis sold in Japan are from a small kansai town called Shigaraki. but there were quite a few tanuki paraphrenelia here:








and super big ones:



and stoned ones:




this is the chagama bunbuku tanuki that i got for my sister:


mom tries out the local dango:


and we have a fancy local lunch:



and even a few cherry blossoms to boot!