Japan Fest Recap

   Today's Japan Festival, organized by The Heart of America Japan-America Society, was fun as always. I hobnobbed with Samurai,

   enjoyed samurai and geisha by Roger Shimomura

   gave a little talk about Japanese character design (my fifth presentation of this ever-evolving labor of love),

With groupies Joe Andriani and his friend Ian

   got confused by the preponderance of Logwoods in minature and in actual size,

   and then treated myself to exotic noms: Sama Zama's gyuudon (beef and onions over rice), pork gyoza (dumplings), and dango (a semi-sweet dessert of mochi—rice flour—pound into a gummy paste and flavored with things like green tea, then skewered and covered with toppings like azuki—red bean paste—and what I think was caramely-soy-sauce). I didn't intend to order everything in one color, but it was all very delicious.

   I also picked up a couple of souvenirs: a Fuji-San banner; I always regretted not buying one from the little stand up on top of the volcano when I summited in September 2007. Seriously, who'd think to bring CASH to the top of a VOLCANO?! They had the coolest 「富士山に上りました」(I climbed Mt. Fuji) pennants, and someday I WILL go up there to get one.

   And okay, I'm a sucker for fun characters, we all know that. I might have resisted the guy on the top of the package, if the package did not say, "Leader of the fun headband". But it does say that. And I am only human, after all.

   So perhaps it's lucky for me that the pig karate shirts only came in L and XL.

さようなら！