Kabutomushi with phone for size comparison. (I would use a pen but he would eat it.)
Another minor setback in my attempt to speak Japanese led me to indirectly acquire the largest friggin’ bug I have ever seen in my life.
The story goes a little something like this;
I’m at a temple in Kariya Japan and I meet a guy who’s collecting bugs with his daughter. I think he is grabbing the cicadas off the trees. It is the peak of summer and they are everywhere. Their high pitched whistle gets louder as you get closer to the trees.

He asks me where I’m from, and I say America. We switched topics and started taking about bugs. He kept using arimasuka" Which is like asking if you “have”. I kept saying “no”. As in; I don’t have these kinds of bugs where I am at in America. What he was actually saying was, do I have any bugs on me. Things got worse when he then switched to asking iru" iru" Which I always screw up and think it is the “exist” iru and not the “want” iru. So I kept saying. “No.” As in they don’t exist where I’m at. 

Meanwhile, my son, who speaks much better Japanese than me is quietly following along with the conversation. The whole time he is staring in wonder at the small cage that the guy and his daughter have brought out from the trees. When he hears the iru" iru" part he jumps is with a resounding “hai”.  Just when I start think...