aimeekitty

I feel like it was better this year than last! Even though last year they brought the geisha, Makoto,... which was awesome, I felt like the dealers were a bit lacking overall. (a couple photos of Makoto from last year: Makoto at tea ceremony, and Makoto dancing.

so I'm standing in line and ran into diavana! dressed all punk and awesome so we walked around the Expo together and ate things and accosted the sake man. YEAY!

I tried some wheatgrass drink. It actually didn't suck.

Tried 7 kinds of sake. (HAHA!) Really nice ones too. But I don't feel much closer to being able to pick out good sake in the grocery store. :\

This year they had guys making noodles, mochi and steamed buns... all fresh from dough... right there!

And MARUI!! and Wargokoro was there, too.

I bought a cute mini-heart purse with a rhinestone skull on it (from PEACE NOW). only $15! They put some items on half-off today. I feel kind-of bad for MARUI though. They didn't really advertise that they were going to be at Japan Expo, so the only people who knew where ones who found them by accident or through the EGL post last night. I hope they don't get discouraged. I ran into Mel and Eron... (eeeyaaaay)
Cheryll, I wish you could have been there. You so would have bought something.

Lastly, as I was leaving I realized I hadn't seen Jusaburo's puppets (the whole reason why I came.) and then almost literally ran into Jusaburo himself! (eek!).
He looks like a mildmannered old Japanese man wearing an emaculate white formal kimono complete with KAMISHIMO (those big shoulder things). He's removing his puppets from display... so I follow and then they have a performance! (I didn't even know they were having one!)

AND... would you believe it? it was a kitsune story. I have such a soft spot for kitsune, and I'd never heard this story before. The basic plot was a man saves a white fox in the forest. While saving the fox's life, he gets injured. Then a beautiful woman finds him and nurses him back to health. They fall in love, and then later he realizes that the woman is the fox. (basically.)

anyway, so he looks very mildmannered... but then he starts moving, and when he smiles, you can tell he is a big ham. At one point the music cd failed, and he started doing a little jaunty dance with the puppet. XD He dances a lot in general with the puppet. He's definitely more flamboyant than the puppet masters we saw in Little Tokyo a month or two ago.

Ran into the lovely John Marshall after the performance and then had to head home.

If you want to see more of Jusbaro's work, try this page, and his homepage.

ok... back to work, back to work!!