Pacific Rim Tour

Today we went to the Aki Matsuri Fall Festival. It was at Bellevue Community College. Very nice. According to the paper, there were over 60 exhibits. We enjoyed it. Mark thinks there could have been a little more food. Lon had a grand time. We saw Kimonos, Martial Arts Demonstrations, Live Music, Dolls, and the most fun, was Lon getting dressed up like a little prince!

It was great to watch all these lovely Japanese women dress Lon in the tiniest kimono I have ever seen. We had Lon's photo taken. I think it turned out pretty cute, even if he would not stand up. When he stands up, he walks. They came and found us and gave us our photo, instead of us coming back for it. The very nice lady said she just wanted to see the cute baby again.

At one exhibit, they show a short film and ask you some questions about the film and if you are correct you get a treat. It was pretty easy, two questions, the wrong answer to each was Pickachu, (the little weird yellow animae thing). Lon got the treat. He took two. A candy, which he ate and surprisingly he really liked the rice crackers. He ate both of them. I took a taste, they were salty Styrofoam things. But Lon liked them. I got the wrapper and I will get more for him.

Some of the dolls. They had a special doll exhibit. Very nice. The dolls in the photo were developed after WWII. Each doll is a work of art, they start off as a small log, then are turned and painted. It is a lot of work. This is not an art form that is passed down through the generations, it is each person developing his/her own style as they make the dolls. This gave me a new appreciation of the doll my parents got for me. I have one like this, but the body of my doll is a blue kimono and it is my face on the doll. (how cool is that?)

They had an exhibit of Bonsi and flower arrangements. I can not spell Icibana. (sound it out, you will get it)

The drums. Lon thought they were loud, but he liked them.

We all had fun at the festival. Dad wanted to go home and work on power washing the deck so we dropped him off. Lon was napping in the car. I took him to the Taste of Korea. This was not a big thing. It was basically a cooking demonstration.

They also had some martial arts demonstrations. They gave a history of Kim Chee. Did you know the Koreans have a refrigerator specifically designed to keep Kim Chee for a year? They make Kim Chee all at one time for the year.

After we spent some time at the demonstrations we walked around Seattle Center. They are having a Clifford The Big Red Dog Show.

The show goes till January, so we will catch it when we have no festivals to go to.

One really good thing was that I found the cheapest parking lot near Seattle Center. I thought that we would try the Market again. Perhaps the Lanjager store was open!

Yes! The Barvarian Meat Shop was open! We got Daddy a kilo of Lanjager. He is a happy guy. He worked hard power washing the deck. The line was not long to get into Piroshky Piroshky. I got two, an apple and a marzipan cream.

I gave Lon some of the apple. He ate the edges but the inside part he did not. I took a bite, didn't blame him, it was very doughy. I gave him a bite of mine, the marzipan cream. Well, that was the end of it being mine. I also got a lemonade with a straw. He now has drinking from a straw down pat. He loved the lemonade. He would make a face, then want more. Such a cutie.

Tomorrow: The Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival.