🌸⛩Shoujo and Husband Attend a Japanese Festival🌸🇯🇵

Two possible truths could prove the less-than-profound-yet-highly-accurate jumping off point for this post’s introduction. The first? I am incredibly but happily tired from an afternoon well spent. The second? I might need to go back on my no-more-fan-media pledge for Yuri on Ice and read some fanfiction because, dear readers, I have been inspired…

By this:

[Yurio had run off to the bathroom, but would you look at this 🔥 group?]

Husband and I adventured through the closest botanical garden during their annual Japanese Festival, and—apparently—how could Yuri and Victor not drop by with their friends? Does that not seem like such a Victor thing to do? (The sheer inclusion of all these skaters makes this cosplay fangirl-worthy, right??)

Anyway, moving on, I’ll begin with our outline of events and proceed thusly in effort to stay coherent. Husband and I headed over in the early afternoon after church, lunch, and changing our clothes. After some navigational mishaps, we arrived!

The gardens were so crowded that we ended up parking quite far away and hoofing it to the entrance, but that was lovely exercise and we both wore comfortable shoes (even though wonderful Husband refuses to wear anything but sandals unless absolutely necessary). (^^)

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Digression:

Speaking of shoes, my pastel street fashion made me feel very happy. (*^^*) There is just something about skirts and pastels and cap sleeves that makes a Shoujothoughts feel so~~ alive!! Can’t we all just dress up like that all the time if we want?? Hehe. (^^)

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Anyway, getting back on topic, we ended up by the food stalls upon arrival (which were amazing and regarding which I will wax on shortly), and we made our way toward the main entrance to see the booth of an anime convention* (a festival co-sponsor). They were holding a Pokémon Hunt in which you had to locate and take photographs at different points in the garden, turning in your results for a chance to win a free pass to their next con (and one also won a tea bag)! I did not participate, but Ginger knows the gardens well as she frequents them, so if she had gone, (she could not as she was working) we might have undertaken the challenge. As it stands, there were too many other things to do!

*I’ll be going to this particular conversation next May, hopefully with Chronic in tow!

Husband and I watched an artist demonstrating calligraphy whilst in the same area as the con booth. Said artist is from Japan, but she is traveling in hopes of sharing the art form around the world.

Her work was quite interesting to watch unfold.

Next, we wandered toward the bonsai tree exhibit… Is is astounding to think that some of these beautiful, tiny trees have been living as bonsai for decades… The dedication it must take to care for them must be reminiscent of a pet rather than plant!

I read a bit about bonsai types, and we proceeded on.

In the same hall, we sat and watched an artist ranging flowers. Her particular illustrated style of Ikibana turned out to be (and I’ll probably spell this bit wrong) “Rika Shinputai,” a more modern facet originating in 1999. (Okay, Google tells me that I got pretty close. It is actually “Rikka Shimputai.”)

I felt like I was in Magic-Kyun! Renaissance for a little while there. (If you don’t understand why I say that, you should go watch the show for *literal* shoujo sparkles.)

Wandering out of the main entrance building, we perused the Japanese market, which was a bit small and a tad underwhelming compared to what I had expected, but—while I didn’t find any hair sticks—I did later purchase an egg shaper for use in making my bentos. 🙂

Husband and I stumbled into his brother and said brother’s wife shortly after, and decided—after parting ways and consulting a festival volunteer—to grab food before getting in line to watch the tea ceremony performance. (But not before running into a friend who shall remain nameless and making awkward but nice small talk.)

The food… oh, my anime compatriots, the FOOD WAS DELICIOUS. Husband got yaki tori and a Japanese soda, whereas I got a bento to sample multiple wares. 🍱 My bento included a salad (mixed greens drizzled in some sort of sweet sauce), two pot stickers (which Husband refused to try even though I bet he would have liked them!), and two takoyaki, as well as rice with spicy chicken. I was in Heaven!! This was my first time eating Japanese food other than sushi, and I loved every bit of it!!

Husband’s soda tasted a bit like bubble gum, and it wasn’t bad in my opinion, but he really liked it! He said it was better than his go-to soft drink, Sprite, which I thought was cute and interesting because he was so sure he wouldn’t find anything he liked, but went two for two (as he liked his yaki tori as well). (^^)

[I’m going to have to try and order some of that online for him as a surprise!]

And guess who we saw shortly after we

finished eating! Chronic and his mom!!

After lunch and parting ways with friends once more, we watched the tea ceremony, which was interesting and also quite long, lasting around an hour. I didn’t get any pictures during the ceremony itself as I was trying to stay in the moment as well as keep myself from being disruptive, but I did manage to capture a few images before they began. Here’s one now…

After the ceremony, we wandered a bit through the Japanese garden…

Exiting the area, we watched some traditional dancing!! It looked very fun, and they even let the audience get invoked with some of their numbers. Below is a portion in which the dancers demonstrate their craft…

By this time, we felt like winding down. We headed back through the botanical gardens, stopping to peruse the Japanese snacks on display before heading back to the main market where I bought my egg shaper. One more serving of spicy chicken be rice later left us ready to make the trek back to our car.

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Have lost all coherency. Waiting for video to load almost made me pass out. Autocorrect is great but still trying really heard here. Going to wrap it up but so glad I got to share this awesome experience.

Love and Cheese Danish,

Shoujo