Matsuri Japan Festival 2016

I was supposed to post this sooner but got busy with my sister coming home from Japan for the past couple of days haha. Anywho, it was my first time going to the Matsuri Japan Festival and it was pretty packed! Think they did say that there were much more people than last year. But wow, never realised that this has been going on for it's 11th year already! Would've never known about this festival without Facebook people attending hahaha!

For a bit of context, this is the biggest Japanese festival in Sydney and was held in Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour. It's a family friendly festival to celebrate and enjoy Japanese culture in terms of music, performances, activities and food. You could dress up in yukata, play some plastic goldfish scooping, drink sake, watch people doing tea ceremony or ikebana (Japanese art of flower arrangement) and much more~

The first store I chanced upon and omg the candy sushi bento were so cute! 

HAHAHA, I loved the selection of Ditto, kinda regret not buying one, the Charmander one is so cutee!

There were also Studio Ghibli themed baubles(?) for you to hang, very pretty!

Tbh, there weren't many things to buy, but instead more food and performances to see. It was such a sunny day I forgot to take more photos hahaha! But lol, I never learn my lesson, I got sunburnt after this hahaha, yeah, remember to put on lots of sunscreen people! Or have a parasol I guess.

I believe this was the Japanese Folk Dance. They all looked like they were having so much fan whilst dancing!

The taiko (Japanese drums basically) performance was really good! I loved it! I think it's exactly how Kingyo Sou (a good shoujo manga!) described it and how it made me imagine it to be. I thought the sound was very beautiful and crisp.

Official opening with Miss Sake 2016 and others such as from the Japan Foundation opening the sake barrel by smashing it with their wooden hammer looking thing~

There were also many other performances with cheer leading children dances and martial arts performances as well where they showcased sumo, kendo etc that showed a very simple preview of the sport. I'd say mostly everything was rather family friendly instead of being any serious immersion into the sports themselves, but it was nice. Sometimes, I felt the emcees weren't very knowledgeable about the sports they were commentating for though. 

We lined up probably half an hour for this and then had to wait another half an hour or so to get the takoyaki (octopus balls). I think we were a bit late to get them though since we walked around then came back and lol, they were so soggy and mushy! I was so sad T_T I think I was better off getting these from Chinatown on a Friday hahaha.

There were many other foods such as this popular sweet bun thingo, shaved ice (5 bucks though omgg), yakisoba, gyoza and a plethora of drinks with matcha, sugar cane juice and katsu curry etc.

There was this separate area serving the alcoholic drinks (which you weren't allowed to leave from until you finished your drink lol, that was annoying zzz) and they had sake and CHOYA soda and plum wine. I tried the CHOYA ume wine and it was so sweet and good omgg, I'm quite tempted to check out Dan Murphy's and look for it hahaha. Shirataki sake tasted quite like Korean soju, but they are both made from rice so that's probably why they're rather similar. There was also ORION beer but I'm not a fan of beer so I skipped it. But dangg, it was so cool that the sake came in a wooden sake cup! I bought it just for that hahaha! I really wanna try hot sake though~

Overall, it was pretty nice and enjoyable to see the amount of people interested in Japanese culture and to see the different foods and drinks amassed in one place. Definitely a nice and relaxing day out albeit very hot and sunny (my skin is peeling from the sunburns) and I would like to go next year too! I don't usually like festivals but I think this is one I can continue to enjoy, I mean, they even sang the Evangelion Theme Song - A Cruel Angel's Thesis on stage and I was like omgg, I love this hahaha, childhood memories of it keep flooding back. But yes, definitely a nice experience and I hope to see lots more stores next year~ It would be nice if the store showcasing the Japanese tea ceremony, ikebana and shogi etc could be bigger though, was so hard to check them out because there was no space to really crowd around and see, so hopefully everything will be even better in 2017! :)

P.S 2016 Favourites should be coming soon! Oh, and it's long as usual LOL