The Japanese Festival in STL yesterday was so much fun. Sam said the best part was speaking Japanese and being understood! We received some pleasantly surprised looks from our first attempts. Very encouraging. Wouldn’t it be cool if next year we went and spoke nothing but Japanese while there. Sam thought so.
The beginning of the photos yesterday can be reached here. We visited the bonsai and ikebana exhibits inside and then wandered outside to wath sumo wrestling, ice sculpting, kendo and drumming and buy Japanese candies with play Yen. Oh, there was a water fountain you could play in too. That was a wonderful thing as it was nearly ninety yesterday. I remembered to bring waters for us all but forgot things like hats and sunblock. For all that we saw, there was so much we didn’t get to see. By 3:30 we were all pretty worn out and headed home.
Next year, I think I’d like to try getting there before the festival opens. Parking was difficult but thankfully we got lucky and didn’t have to park too far away. I also think it would be fun to sign up for one of the tea ceremonies. ($10 extra) There was also a deal with new garden membershipos. If you signed up during the festival, you got a free 3 day festival pass for the whole family. ‘Course I don’t know if we could survive more than one day at the festival. LOL!
This week promises to be a busy one with many things going on around town. We’re going to try to attend some of them if the temps allow.
