The Ginza Festival

[unico_love]

Even though Michael and I were both stressed early in the day, we did decide to go to the Ginza Festival in Chicago. I think we avoided some traffic by leaving in the afternoon (the Air and Water Show is always the same weekend as the Ginza Festival and causes all kinds of traffic problems). They were selling a variety of Japanese crafts and I bought two gifts, one of which will be a birthday gift for a friend. There was drumming going on on the stage part of the time, but we didn't pay close attention -- there was drumming at the Bon Dancing Festival, too. We watched the folk dancing and the classical dancing which were both very pretty and interesting. Food was expensive, though I wanted to try something new (despite the fact that I usually hate trying new foods). I ate Udon, which is cold noodles. It was weird eating them cold, but I was very hungry. Michael had a lime snowcone (but it was in a cup, not a cone). We looked at the crafts in the Buddhist temple (Mahayana Pure Land Buddhism). We saw the minister/reverend give a talk about Buddhism and we took away some free booklets. We took many pictures, which I will post to Facebook and post a few favorites on LiveJournal later. I'm very worn out now, but overall it was a good day.