Japan Expo (San Mateo)

[tuftears]

dracosphynx missed the J-Pop festival in San Francisco he'd wanted to go to because he came down with something around then, but he's been feeling better recently. I noticed thanks to a co-worker that there was going to be a Japan Expo in San Mateo this weekend. We made it up there today. It was pretty decently fun! Not too crowded, thanksfully.

In the front was the 'Wabi Sabi' Japanese cultural/art exhibit. We paused for a bit to watch a schoolgirl-uniform wearing artist using a brush easily as tall as herself to paint Japanese characters onto a large piece of paper. There were some very interesting art forms including these 'Pressed Flower' art.



I had initially wondered if these were intended to be done completely with pressed flower petals, but it transpires that the background are allowed to be painted/printed/whatnot, and the flowers imposed on top of that. I liked this piece the most for that reason, since it uses flowers in a non-flower role, but they suit the picture well. (they're the mountain shape)



These two images both combine haiku and art very nicely. If you're having problems reading the plaques:

Left: The red leaves / Give light / To the stone lantern.
Right: The ground cherry / Is a bright red / Reminds me my childhood.

(I assume they form actual haikus in Japanese)



In front of an exhibit of pottery which featured broken pottery that had been reassembled using gold leaf to cover and emphasize the breaks, I noticed this really impressively uniformed cosplayer.

There were quite a few cosplayers out and around actually, I just liked this one the best.

Behind the cultural exhibit was a dealer's room. Lots of anime merchandise and tchotke on display. Posed figures seemed to form the majority of the stuff on display. Sadly, they aren't actually pose-able, just posed so you can't move them around like an artist's mannikin. (I kind of thought that was the whole point of an action figure)



They had plenty of cosplay stuff too. There was this cute cat-helmet out in the front of the 'Cosplay Repair Station' area.

I bought a shirt though! It features the catbus from Totoro, with the logo 'MEWNI' replicating the San Francisco Muni logo. dracosphynx picked up a costume outfits reference book.

We meandered over to the martial arts area, where they were having a katana cutting demo. dracosphynx especially wanted to see the naginata demo which was happening later, but this was also impressive. They demonstrated katana techniques by chopping up stalks of bamboo, which were held in place by a stand, and making cuts in a paper scroll being held up by two very brave attendants.



On the side was a display of various sword paraphernalia, including this very impressive large speartip. It purports to be the third largest yari speartip known. If you imagine that on top of a matching spear... Yikes, the whole thing would be huge.



We had lunch out in the central courtyard area, courtesy of the Japo-Curry food truck! This is Karaage chicken (fried chicken) curry. The curry was separate, I presume to allow the eater to decide how much or little sauce he or she wants on each bite. It was pretty good, but Muracci's is still better.



For dessert, after another stroll through the dealer's room, we had Japanese crepes. Mine was the Choco-Banana Custard crepe. Pretty good, but I suspect dracosphynx's Choco-Delight featuring chocolate ice cream was even better. Doesn't it look rather pretty though? Like an edible rose!

We got our desserts just in time for the naginata demo. It was fairly interesting but the sparring didn't really impress me; I guess I'd have liked to see a full kata instead of fairly uncertain spear practice. dracosphynx took a video, I think.

And with that, we headed back home. It was a pretty good day out. ^_^

Comments

[sassinak.livejournal.com]

Did you see Ross? He and one of his co-officers from Nameless Anime were giving a talk yesterday. He said they were right next to where the katana and naginata demos were.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I noticed there was activity in that area but I didn't go over and look!

[rowyn]

The catbus Mewni t-shirt is adorable. :D Sounds like a fun outing!