The Greeting Cards Slave

In the last two weekends I had two chances to appreciate some beauty, taste and culture from the beautiful Land of the Rising Sun.
Visiting it is one of my biggest dreams since I was a teenager, but it seems like at the age of almost 33 I am still not even able to afford living on my own... Sigh.

Anyway.

On Sunday, September 11th I volunteered to take part in the Lantern Parade in the Thames Festival Night Carnival.
The event was organised by The Japan Society to raise money to help the Tohoku region of Japan, six months after the massive earthquake and tsunami which struck it.
Wearing yukata and zori, we took part in the parade, performing a simple Bon dance to the sound of always-enchanting Taiko.
I wasn't aware of the dance bit when I applied but I actually enjoyed it :)




On Sunday, September 18th the annual Japan Matsuri took place in Southbank. I think it was smaller than the one they did in Spitalfields market a few years ago.
Anyway, I could enjoy looking at some traditional Japanese dances and I got almost moved to tears by the Taiko Meantime group. Needless to say, a lot of Hello Kitty and similar cute stuff were on sale everywhere :)

Labels: Japan, London