NYJapanTown Festival: Cool Japan

"[It's that] I want to go to Japan!"

Me too Rob, me too. But since I can't, I did the next best thing - last Saturday 7/17 I attended the NYJapanTown Cool Japan Festival!

The two blocks long festival was packed mostly with Japanese food vendors and sprinkled in between with Japanese activity booths (yo-yo fishing, shodo [calligraphy], shinto prayer, etc.) and Japanese shop vendors.

If you're going to start a festival around lunch time, you've gotta be ready for the tummy rumbling crowd. Check out some of the food vendors at the festival!

 Go Go Curry

Tonton Pork

 

Teriyaki Pizza? - They should have stuck to calling it "okonomiyaki".

Mini Curry Pan!

And to keep cool? Shaved ice and Oolong Cha (tea)!~ 

I arrived a little later than I had planned (doesn't that always seem to be the case with me? lol), but I'm glad I did because I heard I missed the brutal heat of the early afternoon. Since the festival lasted all day, I was still able to enjoy it just as much as the early birds. 

 Japanese people are more commonly described as spiritual rather than religious. Whatever the case is, Japanese people believe in prayer. Visiting the town's local shrine to make food/money offerings, ask the spirits for a favor, or receive your fortune is not uncommon in Japan.  

During my time abroad I visited many shrines and had a chance to learn how to pray. Nonetheless, these instructions were a friendly reminder.  

 

 Praying at a shinto shrine.

I wanted to send a special "Thank you!" to my friend, Franklyn "Beatz", and loverboy, Atomsk, who did a lot of the picture taking! To check out more pictures from the NYJapanTown Festival check out our Flickr albums TENOLI'S  &  BEATZ'  

Stay tuned for the Japan Cuts: Nightmare Detective II review coming this Friday!

Hope you all enjoyed this Tenoli Tuesday post!
La Tenoli