Japan Fest

For two weeks it has been raining in Atlanta... not regular rain but time-to-build-an-ark torrential downpours. The rain has been so hard at times that the streets have become rivers and all of the trash cans in the whole neighborhood floated down the hills and piled up by the bus stop. On Tuesday night a giant 60-year old oak fell down, took out the power lines, and crushed the new neighbor's car. What a week...

We were supposed to have a busy Saturday with 2 soccer games and a neighborhood picnic but the fields were sodden that the games and picnic were canceled. So instead of a crazy-busy day we woke up on Saturday with nothing to do. Usually we would head to the park... but the rain showed no signs of letting up. We looked up the weekend's events and settled on Japan*Fest.

It was GREAT. We watched Japanese anime, saw demonstrations of Japanese archery, sumo wrestling and ninjistu, and watched a drumming performance. I attended a demonstration where an artist showed how to paint watercolor koi. Ben bought himself a giant stuffed Pikachu and Nik got a pink, glittery fan. Most importantly, we gorged ourselves on udon noodles, sushi, and shaved ice with green tea ice cream and red beans. *YUM*

A number of Japanese businesses with local offices had booths where they were giving away free tchotchkes. Nik managed to score some cool stuff - a giant bag, little flashlights, and glowing balls. At the Kubota booth there was a tracing game -- you had to move a metal wand through a cut-out of the kuboto logo (imagine Operation for grown-ups). If you touched the sides of the cutout there was a loud buzzing noise. Most people who tried did not make it past the first letter. I can't resist a challenge so I decided to try my hand at it. I actually managed to make it all the way through and won up a neat scale replica of a riding mower as my prize:

When I got it home I was astonished by the level of detail on the model so I looked it up online -- it was a $40 collector's scale replica!! Wow.