Spirit of Japan

I’m a little backlogged here, with all the things that went on in April.  But on Saturday, April 19^th, the weekend after we spent the weekend in Perris, we went to the Spirit of Japan Festival at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. 

I’ve loved Japan and its culture ever since I got into anime.   I follow a couple of YouTubers that cover life and travel in Japan, especially Kendall Beck.  https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=kendall%20beck  She puts up a lot of videos up in Facebook.

I want to go there some day, but for now, Spirit of Japan is the closest I can get.

And maybe a Puffy Ami Yumi concert which we have attended.

The event has been held in other states, but this is the first time it has been in California.  It started at noon, and we got there at 11:30 am.  Could we have gotten better parking?  The entrance is right behind us.

The first thing that greets you is the food vendors.  There were about 18 or 20 of them.

Your ticket in also got you a snack, four fried balls from one of the vendors.

Kris didn’t care for them much, I thought they were fine.

I had forgotten at the time that one of the food vendors had octopus balls.  These were them.  They were small enough that you could put the whole thing in your mouth.  The last one I bit into, and that’s when I remembered about the octopus balls.

It didn’t gross me out or anything.  But Kris and I love octopi.  They are smart, clever and problem-solvers, so I felt guilty about eating one and couldn’t finish the last ball.

Later we got a fried chicken sandwich and a pork sandwich.

There was a saki tasting area, but neither Kris nor I drink.  There were only a few merchandise vendors.  Hopefully there will be more if this becomes an annual event.

There was also live programming.  Yoshiaki Okawa played an electronic Japanese stringed instrument.  I didn’t get a good video of him, which was too bad because I liked his J-Pop version of “YMCA”.  Showm ChikuShin played the bamboo flute.  It was serene and calming, but the venue was too noisy to appreciate it.  My favorite were the Taiko Drums.  When we went to Fanime in San Jose, they would always start the convention with a Taiko Drum concert in front of the convention center. 

This was a group for special needs kids.  After they did a few numbers, they had a workshop where anyone could come up and play.  One person would lead, and the rest would copy his drumming.  I went up there, played, and then took a turn at leading.