Archive for October, 2010

Sing! Dance! Everybody loves everybody! We’re all connected!

In an effort to get out to more festivals (because, as it turns out, there are a lot of cool ones locally, especially this time of year), I went to the Celebration of Cultures at Centennial Park earlier this month. This happened shortly after a rather successful cultural gathering at my old college (I think the third), and some of the people who were there were also here. I was at the fest all day; it was great. All kinds of people and world cultures combine into one big, awesome fest of love. I danced, I ate, I tanned! But I didn’t eat much because all the food lines were really long. I didn’t get to try all the foods I’d like to have. I need something authentic and Greek,  that’s what I need.

Mostly what I did was watch dance performances and browse the tons of stalls. Even then, I feel like I could have seen more. Everything was so cool, and it was quite impossible to see all of it… I’m anticipating seeing more next year. I did manage to see traditional Japanese dance, but have no photos of it.

Of course, there were several Japan-related booths, like Happy Japan, which always makes an appearance at MTAC (and also Nashville Anime Day, and maybe GMX this weekend?), and another booth filled with anime and Japanese things (at which I bought a parasol, a towel with a Toshusai Sharaku ukiyo-e print on it, and a katana letter opener, because I’m a huge geek). But then there was the World Market section, with booths representing countries around the world! And, of course, there resided a Japan booth.

Name-writing in kanaGet your name written in kana!

Games!Games! I was terrible at all of them. Neno nearly killed me with one of them, too! True story.

Japanese games are fun!Oh! Actually, I wasn’t terrible at the sumo-tapping game (almost front-and-center, there). That one’s my fave. I want one for myself.

Nashville Cherry BlossomsThe people taking charge of this booth are also related to the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival, which I completely forgot to go to this year. Spring will be here in no time, though! I anticipate next year’s very much! I love cherry blossoms, along with plums (which I saw a lot of in Franklin in Spring). They’re going to plant 100 cherry blossom trees here every year for 10 years. Let’s make Nashville beautiful!

The culture celebration was a very nice event on a very beautiful day. I almost wish it had been multiple days. I am excited for next year. Seriously, I can’t get enough of things like this. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it last year.

And I’ll end this post with a very gryphon-like…caaaaw!

Me inside the Parthenon, because it was free that day (and I hadn't been since I was a kid)

October is exciting. It’s my birth month! More awesomely, it’s Halloween month!

How do Japanese kids handle zombies? Let’s find out:

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They go all-out, that’s what they do! Samurai Soul! Yeah!

I just had to share this video. It had me grinning and laughing the whole time.

I enjoyed doing my past blog matsuri research for nice independent animations on the internet made by Japanese people. I should keep posting them from time to time. Here’s an adorable one I just saw, which is actually Taiwanese:

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Don’t read the comments there if you go to Youtube; though you should never read Youtube comments anyway.

Speaking of animation, I also just saw some pretty neat and elaborate sketch animations for the next Castlevania game. I actually don’t see these kinds of things often, so it’s really cool.

omg

BOOSH!

Download them here.

Hiya guys!  I’m Neno, and I suck at introductions!  So now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to talk about bento.  Specifically, kyaraben (or charaben), which is short for ‘character bento.’  This is a style of bento box where the ingredients are elaborately arranged to create characters or designs, in order to entertain children and get them to eat their food.
I might not be a child, but I still love these adorable bento boxes.  They come in all shapes and sizes, and are usually very nutritious!  Here are just a few totally awesome ones from Anna the Red.

JiJi from Kiki's Delivery Service

Jiji in his Cage

Meta Knight from the Kirby series

A really awesome Meta Knight!

Almost too cute to eat!

Such an adorable giraffe!

We’ve got a new contributor here at Nippon-Ichigo! Now you don’t have to put up with me 100% of the time!

A good friend of mine, Carolyn, otherwise known as Neno, is going to be writing posts here soon. Yaaay! She’s been a good friend of mine for several years. She and I share a mutual fondness for Sweet Things From Japan, with her tastes being slightly more saccharine.

Her main blog is Poor Wedding Planning, full of hands-on advice from someone who’s also in full-out wedding-planning mode.