#kachimushi

[eternalkingdom]

[rollingtsuchinoko]

Dragonfly AKA kachimushi (勝虫) Yachiyo, Chiba, Japan

Fujifilm X-T3, Fujinon XF 100-400

400mm, f/5.6, 1/500

[winterkirk]

Kachimushi ichinensei and their Queen Buchou

[teacup-warrior]

So we collected the Japanese students

And we did so with almost everything going wrong.

First, I rented a van from the college. However, they signed the wrong van out for us. At 11:00 pm, I went to go check the car out. Instead of the 12-passenger monstrosity I needed, sitting in the parking lot was this perfectly nice, but absolutely inadiquate seven-passenger mini-van.

It was 11:00, with the streetlights painting everything this wretched orange color, and I remember thinking, "I cannot transport seven Japanese naginataka, their equipment, our Translator, and my Vice Captain with this thing."

It was 11:00, and I needed to get to the airport in an hour.

So I ran my ass over to the rental place, and told them that I needed the 12-passenger van. I then had to run back to the parking lot across campus. (Let it never be said that I have no love for this team.)

--

I went to pick up my Vice Captain, some of the other teammates and our hired translator.

And of course, given Murphy's law, our translator was drunk.

On the ride to the airport, I watched her in my rear-view, lying down and arms flung over the edge of the seat mumbling, "Oh no worries ... I'm so sober."

(P.S. - What are you doing drunk on a Tuesday night? Who ARE you?)

--

Lo and behold though, the van didn't explode, and now we have seven fresh from Nippon naginataka scattered through my college.

More on this later~!