Giant Salamander

Last night I met up with some people in Kyoto for dinner and drinks. One of them was too cheap to go to any bar so we ended up going to the Kamo river to drink beers from a convenience store. It's a good thing we did, because we saw a couple giant salamanders in the river there. They grow up to 5 feet long, but the ones we saw were maybe 3-4 feet long. They were trying to go up river but were impeded by a breakwater. They're pretty rare to see, especially in Kyoto. All of the Japanese I talked to there had never seen one before in the wild (though I'm not sure if the middle of Kyoto qualifies as 'wild'). One guy tried telling me it was an alligator, but they don't have those in Japan. Apparently someone called the police because two officers showed up at one point.

That's the best thing police have to do on a Saturday night in Japan; watch salamanders try to get up a river dam.