Over the past weekend, the annual Japanese Festival was held at the Memphis Botanic Garden. The weather was perfect, and everyone had a blast.

Japanese teacher from University of Memphis in yukata and her former student in Lolita.

There were many different little “stations” that allowed kids and adults alike experience different aspects of Japanese culture: from origami, to practicing calligraphy on paper fans, to taiko drum shows, to a kimono fashion show, to even a traditional tea ceremony. Kids were treated to Japanese folk tales, water baloon yo-yos, leaf pressing, and even the MASAJI “The Candyman” Terasawa from Epcot came to provide entertainment. (Which is really cool, because he came to my elementary school when I was in 4th grade.)

The taiko drum show.

A lot of people came out to the festival, many Japanese families with their children came out, most of them dressed in yukata and zori. Some guests decided to show some contemporary Japanese fashion and dressed themselves in Lolita. Needless to say, a lot of the Japanese women were enthralled by their dresses and wanted pictures taken with them. I myself was able to sport a really nice men’s kimono and geta sandals, though after about 5 hours in them, my feet were so sore, I felt like they were going to fall off.

There was overpriced food and drink provided from Sekisui, a local Japanese restaurant here that has a couple of brances throughout the Memphis-Shelby County area, and the very end there a group of fellow students from the University of Memphis and myself did a presentation of Japanese bon-odori, and got a lot of the (remaining) crowd to participate.

Tora explaining Osaka Ondo, with other volunteers giving a demonstration.

I doubt anyone who went will read this, but I wanna express my thanks to all the people who actually came out, you’re the best. 8D

The photos you see here are copyrighted to Kati Finlayson, aka [defective.girl] and are used with permission.

You know, it really sucks when you forget your login credentials to your own blog because you haven’t written in it in over two months.

I should take better care of my baby, and write in it more, haha.

どうやさー