2015 April 18 - Morikami Hatsume Fair (Pictures)

TLDR: Hatsume Fair was very fun, very hot, and I look forward to going back next year!

The Hatsume Fair at Morikami Japanese Gardens is an annual spring festival held at their beautiful (and huge) garden and museum! Husband and I met up with several cool cats from FAU (mostly the math department) and took in the spring and the costumes.

(More after the jump.)

It was HOT. Hot hot hot in South Florida. We sat in the sun for most of the day and I was very glad to have my beach hat. It did not detract from anything! We were greeted with the sounds of Taiko drumming almost as soon as we got on site! I'd been wanting to see these drums for a couple years now, and keep managing to miss my opportunities! The drum shows were performed by the Wadaiko Academy, run by "Ronin Taiko: Traditional Japanese Drumming". Some people get emotional listening to violins, for me, it's the drums. I wept, it was so wonderful. After, children were permitted to get up and have a little jam session. I was too old, but Shane actually asked someone there if I could go on stage and see the drums, too. One of the teachers explained to me the history of the drums, and let me hit the huge taiko. Just, WOW. I was almost in tears again leaving the stage! I happily took one of their academy fliers, and we'll see if I allow myself to fit it into my schedule somewhere.

We got to see one of the math professors (who teaches Judo) bring his students (Judo, not math) on stage for demonstrations. They were all ages! I saw a mother-daughter pair, and a grandfather-grandson pair. It was a neat demonstration, especially since Judo is something I've wanted to try for a while. It was definitely a day for wishlists!

I had a photo with the Buddha! (And I didn't sit on him, like most the people I saw.)

We sat through a beautiful tea ceremony at the old main house on site. I was terribly irritated by a handful of the guests, since they either didn't realize that the screen offered zero noise-canceling during this silent ceremony or simply didn't care. The woman hosting the tea actually had to send her helper to have a docent shut the actually door. I was actually embarrassed for them. The ceremony however, was very neat to watch. It lasted half an hour, though she told us that in Japan it can last four hours (including the dinner and more). Imagine meeting for coffee and having it be a formal affair each time. I wonder how we'd get anything done.

This photo is from the Morikami site. I felt it would be even more disrespectful to take photos. 

We sat a bit for some demonstrations where people... well, it was basically Society for Creative Anachronism but exclusively for Samurai. They dressed in generally period appropriate clothing, and fought with padded foam weapons. They did a sort of Way of the Sword demonstration, then a fighting demonstration, a bit of an armor talk, and a woman spoke about arts and sciences. I felt I should have been more interested, but was very hot and tired by then.

We had a very nice lunch at the Cafe on site, and even had mochi! (Mmmmm). Alas, we would not stay for the anime costume contest though. We had seen quite a few people, but not very many I recognized.

The only other photo I could get of Shane! He doesn't pose often, but delighted to be silly in this photo.

All in all it was a very fun day. I wish I'd remembered to make time to poke into the museum! Or the little museum in the old main house! We did walk the whole garden though, and sat in the lovely (not-so-quiet) rock gardens and contemplative areas. It's nearly impossible to keep a large group of people quiet there, but it was still lovely, for the most part. I definitely want to go back and have the tour with a tour guide.