HEBI

Natsuko's out of town at the moment and she has the camera with her, so what better time than now to talk more about our last trip to Japan.

I'll try and do a few posts about all the cool stuff we saw and did while we were there in October.

Ok, so first off, Nastuko's parents are both afraid of snakes. Natsuko's mother is especially terrified of them. Hakui City is not a great place to live if you're afraid of snakes, because there is a lot of them. We only saw two snakes on this trip, but one of them was quite large, and the other one (Which you can see in the video below) was not afraid to sunbathe on the driveway.

When I spotted this snake, Natsuko's mother ran screaming for the house (with Natsuko). I grabbed the camera and thought it would be a perfect photo opportunity to show everyone back home what a snake looks like in Japan. It's cool to see a professional photo in a book or on google, but it's way cooler when you can say you were standing right there with it.

Step 1 - Grab a stick

Step 2 - Poke the snake

Step 3 - Think about how dum that was after you've done it.

I don't think the snake was poisonous, but I'm not an expert on snakes, so I really have no idea. It didn't look that different from the kind of small snake you might find in your garden here on the west coast. The only difference being that this one was quite a bit larger.

After poking at it a bit, it dissapeared under the stairs to the house and we never saw it again. I really wanted to pull the snake out on the end of the stick (kind of like how the crocodile hunter used to do it) and then release it into the rice fields. That would have put everyone's minds at ease. Unfortunately since it slipped away under the stairs, Natsuko's mother was convinced the snake was still there. She refused to watch the video I took of it.

your pal,
Beadle

PS - Hebi, is the japanese word for snake.