A STRANGE PERFORMANCE

One night we were lucky enough to hear about a little festival somewhere in Tokyo. After a lovely day with Julia out shopping (watch out for the shopping post) and talking, we went along to the little 'thing' for want of a better word. There were many stalls, which of course were full of quirk.

Mainly masks....



and inflatable anime characters,



and balloons.



Of course I wanted to buy EVERYTHING, and consequently bought NOTHING. This is typical of Pod. I do this so many times, and when I finally decide to go buy whatever I had my eye on, it has gone. I do not seem to learn! There were lots of little game stalls, mostly to win goldfish (why did I not take a photo of these?). The contestants get given a tiny hoop with a paper net, so they have to catch a fish quickety-quick before the paper dissolves away. If successful (which wasn't hard as there seemed to be more goldfish than water) they get to keep the fish, if not they are left with a soggy hoop.

I always felt sorry for the goldfish at the circus or funfair. If I ever won one, mum would put it in the crystal salad bowl and then put cress leaves on the top. I never knew why, and still don't understand, but I used to love watching the gold and red and orange flashing through the glassy green of the cress and water, thinking 'ooh, this is mine!'........

I digress!

Then we came across a little show on a platform (that was too high to really get a decent angle to take a photo from). The musicians were playing instruments that I had never seen before, but the sounded like zithers, if anyone knows what they sound like. Your guess is as good as mine as to what the performance was about. Apparently it is the same every year. First this piggy Tina Turner lookielikie came out and gently shook those things in its hands at us and trod carefully about the stage.



Then this happy-faced guy popped out. Him and Tina seemed to like each other.



The pig left, and the happy man appeared to be miming that he was making little stools in the shape of mushrooms. He would stroke them and clasp his hands to his chest, obviously overjoyed with his creations.



Suddenly this angry looking fellow with a large hooter (a Japanese Noseybonk hey English readers?) pounced out and smashed the imaginary ?mushrooms with his stick and frightened the lovely man off! I wanted to shout 'boo!' and 'hiss!' and 'he's behind you!!' but everyone in the audience looked very serious, and as I didn't really understand what was happening, I kept well buttoned.



The angry guy pranced about for a bit too long, and we got bored and went and ate far too many noodles and watched far too many fish being won. Everyone, except me, had bought masks I realised on the way home..........