Bouzu Meets, Oct. 27

Bozu Meets is the occasional open house at Honganji Temple (in Tenmonkan) where outsiders have a chance to talk to temple priests, and interact with the temple itself. It's a one-day event that, in the past, has featured a lot of good music and activities.



I had to work Saturday from 2-4 and then from 5-7 PM. That gave me a bit of time on my way in the school for my first lesson, and then the break between lessons.



They had a ball jump room...



Food and drink tables...



Arts, crafts and jewelry for sale...



I came in just at the end of a traditional rakugo comic storytelling performance. Rakugo tends to follow traditional routes, where students of a particular master learn the same stories and mannerisms to pass specific stories down from generation to generation. As such, the rakugo stories tend to be highly culturally-dependent, and outsiders aren't going to find them as funny. This guy's biggest laugh, though, was when he tried to stand up at the end, and his legs had fallen asleep.



The altar area of the temple.



The temple mascot - Tera-bou.



There were only one or two outside performers this time, which was incredibly disappointing. I came back during my one-hour break, but there wasn't much of a reason for it. I've seen the singer, Sakura, before. She's ok, but sticks mainly to slow folk pop. Nothing I wanted to record. The other performers were actually priests that had formed their own bands. Because they played while I had to work, I didn't get to see how good (or bad) they were.



There was one artist that had an interesting manga/children's illustrated book style. All of his smaller pieces featured the same 2 or 3 characters in different situations, interacting naturally with oddball people.





Fun artwork.



There were actually 6 different things going on all at the same time this weekend, and I could only spend a few minutes each at three of them on Saturday. So, I went to the Volunteer center at 4:30, then back to work. When I got out at 7 PM, Bouzu Meets was already over. At least I got some photos out of the deal.