I tend to like the Marugoto Fairs because they usually have live stages with free musical performances. The fairs themselves are open-air markets featuring foods and produce from specific regions. I really can't tell what the region is this time, but I think I heard the emcee mention Aira at one point (Aira is a town at the southern end of the pennisula across from Kinko Bay). I had to work Saturday and Monday, but I was able to get to Amu Plaza on Sunday at about 1:30 PM.
At the time, the hosts were interviewing the foamhead mascots for the region.
I didn't have any interest in the food, but the brewery that had the beer at the Volunteer Center for the event at the beginning of the month was also here this time. The brewmaster recognized me and we talked a bit, but he was a lot less chatty this time. I got the stout and IPA, which were ok (500 yen each, $4.50 USD, for a 12-ounce cup). That qualified me for one turn of the wheel of a lottery machine. I turned the wheel and a little red marble popped out of the wheel box. That earned me two packages of wet wipes and a hard candy as a reward for spending $9 at the event. Goodie.
At 3 PM, there was a sax player. I didn't catch his name, and it wasn't promoted on the schedule. He did "Fly Me to the Moon" and a couple other jazz standards over a CD that played the rest of the music with him. It was the first time to hear a sax karaoke. He was good, but nothing really worth recording.
Then at 4 PM, we got Giant Stomp. This was a koto, drum and gong music show, accompanied by a giant puppet. That was fun, and I recorded most of that (see below).
This was the best part of the weekend. After getting home, I processed the photos and uploaded the videos to youtube. If you haven't gone back and read the blog entry for the Segodon event last week, then you missed my edit to the blog write-up. Because the high school girl club calligraphy demo used the theme song from the Segodon NHK TV drama series, youtube blocked the video in all 248 countries. That got me angry, and I ended up stripping the audio off the file and reuploading it to youtube a couple days later. I haven't gotten any nasty notices from them since then, but when I uploaded video 2 of Giant Stomp just now, youtube automatically marked it as "private," so that even I couldn't watch it. I went back into the settings to change it to "public," and it took several minutes to locate the correct page (youtube is in the process of switching to a new interface, but only bits of it are implemented yet and the layouts for everything are really confusing). But, the page showed the video as "public" already, and when I tried clicking on the link to copy the URL and embed code stuff into this post, the video ran fine.
If either of the videos are blocked or missing for you, please let me know.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Direct video link 1
Direct video link 2
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