Birthday presents

On Tuesday, I was at my high school in Niimi. Tuesday also happened to be national parfait day in Japan (supposedly) as well as the day I was born (3 am, as my mother likes to point out). Niimi has an unfortunate lack of air conditioners.

But anyways, I was in class and this one boy was gesturing back, and at first I thought he was gesturing towards the door since there was a cool breeze blowing through it. I thought he was telling me "oh stand in the cool breezy part." Imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw what he was *really* gesturing at. This huge, giant, horned, beetle, on the floor, about a foot away from where I was standing.

My reaction was something I heard them talking about to other students on the train. I literally jumped a foot, up and back, and screamed quite loudly. Part of the class erupted in chaos. One of the students went over and picked it up with his fingers. Disgusting.

After I got over my initial surprise and shock - I don't like surprises - it actually wasn't so bad. It was really interesting, actually, and my first time seeing one of these out in the wild. I think it was one of these kabuto mushi, or Japanese rhinoceros beetles. That or it was a stag beetle. Either way, it was huge and it was on its back, flailing its legs around. The teacher told me (later) that they could actually fly. So glad I did not find that out until afterwards.

The kid who had picked it up was going to toss it out the window, but everyone was like "NOOOO DON'T DO THAT" so instead they put it on the ledge outside the window.

When we were back in the teacher's room and telling the other teachers about this, all of them were like "dude why didn't you catch it?!" or "omfg luckyyyyyyy I want one of those!" This put me at a loss for words. Apparently, according to one teacher those kind of bugs go for 5,000 yen in the stores. Five *thousand* yen. In dollars, it's over $50 - probably more like $60 with the exchange rate now. For a bug. Granted, said bug was the size of my palm about. That bugger was HUGE.

So while it looks really cool (I'll give it that) I think i'd rather it keep its distance so someone else can enjoy playing with it instead.

I understand now though, why the pokemon Heracross was in so many of the animes. These beetles are HUGE in Japanese culture (as seen by how much they cost in the store!) and they even have a show about them. They're nicknamed "the king of bugs" and kids use 'em to fight. Apparently, you can also find it in the mountainy areas.