What A Mess!

I'm just going to finish off some odds and ends photos of the recent Star Fest, get a good night's sleep and then I can start my 2-week (unpaid) vacation unfettered. So what I have for you are a few more pics of Kaede, some paintings, some funky calligraphy and a few wacky games you can partake in during a festival.

These are little rubber balls, plastic fishies and other odds and sods floating in the pool that you scoop up into a baggie and then you can  haul your loot home. The snag is that the scoop you use is made of tissue paper which breaks after you get it too wet so you can only snag about 4-5 goodies. I've seen the same game using live goldfish which die shortly after you get them home.

Lots of floaty things that are surprisingly good at keeping younguns occupied, until they float away or burst, that is.

Drop 5 bucks and then reach inside a whirlwind of fluttering cranes which reveal a number from 1-5. Kaede got a 3 which nabs her a huge sheet of stickers from TS3. Much better than a 4 or 5 and almost worth the 500￥.

Blue Hawaii かき氷 (kakigouri or shaved ice).

 Scammed from wiki: Popular flavors include: strawberry, cherry, lemon, green tea, grape, melon, "blue-Hawaii" sweet plum, and colourless syrup. Some shops provide colorful varieties by using two or more different syrups. To sweeten Kakigōri, condensed milk is often poured on top of it. It is nearly identical to a snow cone but can have a slightly rougher consistency and a spoon is almost always used. The traditional way of making kakigōri involves using a hand cranked machine to spin a block of ice over an ice shaving blade. However, electric ice shavers are most often used, though street vendors can still be seen hand-shaving ice blocks in the summer.

I'm pretty sure Kaede's was electrically shaven. This was another good way of keeping her occupied throughout the Ghost Story.

We had lunch at a hamburger joint whose name eludes me but the specialty was a Huge Gulp and its logo includes a  カバ (kaba = hippo).

A free time-killing game in which you hook fishies with a magnet.

Before the day ended, we popped into the Mediatheque to use the facilities and take advantage of some air conditioning. We also partook of a pair of galleries, and it was a real chore trying to keep Kaede's grubby mitts off the frames.

The first one was a display of 書道,  Shodo or Japanese Calligraphy. Most of it was incredibly dull, but there were a few funky scribblings.

The other Gallery presented "Grand Rapin" and I'm not sure what it represents but there were a few creepy paintings. To whit,

There was another Gallery but they were charging admission. One of Alex's former students recognized him and then her colleague gave us each a booklet, "Japan's Best 'Short Letters of a Dream', the Best 51 Letters" (out of one million!) I suspect she wasn't getting too many English speaking visitors so she dumped the tome on us.

Some of the Dreams are pretty universal. I liked this one:

To my hated gym class,
Again, I forgot to take my gym uniform to class in a dream.
However, I am 59 years old and enough is enough. (Mizue Miyamoto)

Finally, わたあめ ( Wata-ame  or Cotton Candy/ Candy Floss).

If you get more than one you have Watames or What a Mess! (What a stretch!)