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Matsuri

The Matsuri (Festival) Tsukuba 2007, organized by the Tsukuba Chamber of Commerce and the Tsukuba Cultural Foundation was concluded on Sunday night by various street performances ranging from comical magic, acrobatic show, musical band, dances, and parades. And who would miss out the cluttering booths selling foods and toys?

shamisenI only managed to attend one day of the event, so I had to do things double time - point and shoot, walk, watch, and back to pointing and shooting photos and videos. Honestly, I was excited to watch the “Seshami street” boys playing the shamisen because the instrument they play is somewhat similar to one of the traditional instruments of Maguindanao, called “kutyapi“, and ever since, I love listening to it being played. The music is just astounding and seem to reach the inner soul.

So for that, I hereby share a video (photos included) of the fantastic duo, Ryo Hagiwara and Pierre Ono (both former Tsukuba University students) playing the Shamisen. They really did a good job by adding humor to their play - watch how they change picks along the way. They even came up with a rubber doll.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKBFuGVY304]

After that, I saw this five-members musical band. I was kind of caught with the music’s rhythm until I saw that old woman on my right side, who seemingly had the music brought her to dancing mode until she tried pulling up a Cha-cha.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMpOflBDBYQ]

On the other side, there was the Chinese acrobat group. Now I am convinced that these guys can really do those famous martial arts moves in the movies. Talk about balance, strength and focus. Click the photos to enlarge.

Chinese Acrobat Chinese Acrobat

And I wondered what the horses were doing in the festival :) Anyway, they took a lot of slots in my zooomr album, so just in case you want to take a look along with other photos I took in the festival.

Horsie

The Chuo pond at around 4 pm.

Chuo pond

And here is how it looks like in the night.

Chuo pond at night

Overall, it was fun strolling the Chuo park all by myself and watch performances randomly - wherever my feet bring me to. I got lazy looking at the event schedules. As soon as I got them from the distributing booth, I folded them and slipped into my walking short’s side pocket and started walking around.

Well, no Philippine booth this time. Halo-halo would have been a cool treat for the festival goers, under the heat of the sun.

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While writing: Chris Brown - Say Goodbye
via FoxyTunes

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