Sunday, February 18, 2018

Feb. 17, 2018




The last few weeks have been boring, event-wise. I've spent most of my time catching up on stuff that I hadn't been able to get to during January because of work. However, things did pick up a little this last weekend.



On Saturday, as I walking in to the school, there was a parade of local foamhead mascots through Tenmonkan. I'm thinking this is kind of a regular event for promoting the shops between Lotteria and 7-11, although I've only seen it happen a couple of times in the last year. But, on Saturdays, a bunch of tables get set up in the arcade in front of 7-11 for selling various jewelry, arts and crafts, and there's a jump room for small children. The parade ended in that arcade at the 7-11, where a lot of parents tried to get photos taken with their children and the mascots. The Kyocera Hotel robot is new.

Play and Art Marche


On Friday, one of my students told me there was going to be an event on the lawn in front of the Volunteer Center. I had a class on Saturday from 2 to 3 PM, and wasn't able to get to the VC until just after 3, when things were just wrapping up.



For the most part, it seems to have been a mix of food booths and art activities for children.



When I arrived, there was some kind of drum dance going on, with 3 people on stage wearing what looked like indigenous costumes from different cultures, and 10-20 people dancing. Naturally, everything ended before I could get close enough to take photos.



One of the dance groups posed for photos at the end. I'm assuming the foreigner in the front row is an English teacher at one of the high schools, but I didn't talk to him, so I don't know for sure. In the background, at the upper right edge of the photo, is some kind of foamhead mascot. I tried getting a shot of that one, but he disappeared in one of the art booths and started taking off his costume before I had a chance.



Some of the artwork created at the event.



This silkscreen looks like something inspired by Roger Penrose's asymmetric tiling examples. Not exactly mathematical, but close enough for jazz.



They had rope running between the trees around the perimeter of the front lawn, with t-shirts hanging from the ropes. The shirts seemed to have random designs on them, but the ones in front of the building on the second floor spell out "Asobu to a-to no Marushe" (play and art marche).

Because the event was ending already, I just hung around long enough to take some photos, then I went down to Dolphin Port to check out the ramen contest there. After that, I found a quiet spot in one of the Tully's coffee shops in Tenmonkan to read manga and kill time until my 8 PM English class at the school. Then I went home, had dinner, and read online comics before crashing at 2 AM.

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