Maruyamacho Matsuri '08

Well into the late evening through both Saturday and Sunday night, groups of jubilant locals carried different Omikoshi through the streets of my neighbourhood. Chanting and whistling and ocassionally even shouting made it impossible to focus on anything other than this wonderful celebration. I am told that up until the Meiji period, the rooster that adorns the top of the mobile Shinto shrine was actually a phallic symbol, which actually does make sense as the matsuri is meant to be some kind of fertility festival. Western influence put paid to the phallas and now we have a different kind of cock! Maruyamacho is also meant to be the last shitamachi (old town) areas on Shibuya, and if the energy of these locals is anything to go by, things won't be changing too much around here real soon..

The Sri Lankan Festival

Wherever you look at the moment there seems to be some kind of celebration of culture happening, and if you wandered down to Yoyogi this weekend that would most certainly have been the case. The Sri Lankan festival is a little more quiet than say the Jamaican, Thai, or Brazillian festivals, but what's lacking in traffic is certainly made up for in the quality of food and entertainment.

Make mine the bbq chicken and gotamba roti..

Random gorgeousness.. 03

Promotion girls at the Brazil festival, Yoyogi park '08. We were sitting beside these girls all day, still not sure what they were promoting as we were kind of distracted..

Creative marketing..

I ride by this American Apparel store in Daikainyama every day, and I guess to some extent I have become relatively desensitized to this very creative way to attract peoples attention, but every so often I still pass it, shake my head, and go..

what the?!?