Japan (3) More pics (local festival) - Update

UPDATE:

Just uploaded the two videos (which I mentioned at the end of this posting) to YouTube with a short impression of the festival. I've embedded them after the pictures, but you also can check them here and here.

This time some pics which I took during a local festival exactly one month ago at the nearby shrine at Nerima area, Tokyo.


Japan knows many festivals, both local and nationwide. It's often said that you always will find a festival somewhere in Japan. Most festivals are based around a main event and often sponsored by a local temple or shrine. At most festivals you'll find lots of food stalls and some entertainment.

I also shot two short videos which I will uploaded to YouTube and will link or embed here. As soon as I upload to YouTube I will update this post with the URL to the videos or embed the videos in this post.

The last six pictures were taken at a nearby temple on the way back home. The pics are a bit darker, because it was already late afternoon and on the way back when we passed the temple it was already started to shimmer.

For now enjoy the pics!

(click on the pics to enlarge)

Japan (2) Some more pics (Kawagoe)

I already made many pics, but still couldn't find the time and energy to post some. Also sorting out and categorizing all the pics cost quite some time, especially when you take many pics.

Since our last trip from October 22nd until October 29th (see for a little more details my former post) we didn't exactly sat still. We made trips to Niigata-prefecture, where we stayed in the city of Murakami (yes the same name as the author, also using the same Kanji characters).

From last Sunday until last Wednesday I went to Hiroshima, where I visited Miyajima and Iwakuni. On the nighttime after dinner I spent my time at my favorite pub, not only in Hiroshima but in whole Japan, the Mac Bar until the late hours, drinking beers, talking with some locals and other foreigners and listening to good music.

Before I went to Hiroshima, my wife N. and I went to Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.

Last Friday we went to the Tokyo Bay area where we visited Miraikan, the national museum of emerging science and innovation (official name). A very interesting museum and fun for kids, we also saw Asimo, the humanoid robot. After that we went to ramen-street at the Odaiba Aqua shoppingcentre, a shopping and eating mall. Ramenstreet is a part in the building where 5 or 6 ramenshops are located together and every ramenshop is presenting a certain ramenstyle from somewhere in Japan. Ramen is probably my most favorite Japanese food, although not the most healthiest Japanese food, but way better than a menu at a fastfood restaurant. After eating ramen, we went to Akihabara, also known as electric town.

Yesterday I slept in and relaxed most of the day. Late in the afternoon we both took a Chinese massage and after that we went to a music bar to see one of my wife N's friends who sings for a hobby and was performing there with a jazz combo.

Today we went to the nearby shrine to see the Shichi-Go-San festival (7-5-3- festival), a festival day for girls of three and seven year old and three and five year old boys. It's an interesting and very photogenic festival with all those cute and adorable little kids dressed up in their kimonos. I made some nice pictures there. Last week at the Meiji shrine I also took some pics from the same festival. In later post I will show some examples.

But because this is a photo weblog I'm also suppose to post some pics. I have decided to start posting the pics a bit in a more chronological order. Collecting all the background information cost sometimes a lot of time and when I stick to one trip or subject I don't need to search for so much different background information.

But be prepared, because I took lots of pics and it's sometimes hard to reduce the selection. In this post I will post pics from our trip to the Kawagoe festival. Kawagoe is a city near Tokyo. These festivals in Japan are often very colourful and very photogenic. There are all kinds of food stands, parades, gorgeous floats etc...

I have enough material to fill many Japan related posts, so there surely will be some more Japan posts. So I would say take a coffee, tea or whatever you like, lean backwards and enjoy the pics.

(click on the pics to enlarge)

unfotunately this pic was a bit moved

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra (Great fun)

Didn't took much pictures the last two weeks that were worthwhile to share. But last night we had a a great night with musical fun.

Last Night N., two friends and also former roommates and yours truly went to a concert of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra in our hometown Utrecht. For those who are not familiair with their music you can describe their music as Madness meets The Pogues with a bit of punk-, jazz-, soul-, funk- and bigband- and even klezmerinfluences added to the overall mixture, creating a live performance that turns every musicevent into a partying, jumping and dancing whole.

N. and I saw the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra for the first time two years ago at the Parkpop Festival, a free music festival at The Hague, which is always held at the last Sunday of June every year. Although they were playing early in the afternoon, they got the whole crowd jumping and dancing, including me and that's quite an achievement if you know that I'm not a big dancinglover. They have a great and very energetic live performance and they also proved that last night.

We had a wonderful and fun time last night N. and I manage to made a few pictures and I shot two videos that I uploaded at YouTube. The video's can be seen here and here.

I also made a (little more extended) posting about the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra at my musicweblog at BrownNoiseMusic.