Japantag 2009

Heres my coverage of the Japanday 2009 in Düsseldorf!This year was quite thrilling since it stood in the stars if the Japanday would actually be held due to swineflu.Many japanese citizens got infected with it and they feared that it would spread among the festival crows.They luckily decided that theres no real danger and I was able to take some pictures and videos of the event. Hit the Jump for this years impressions!

Ill start of with a brief summary what the Japanday actually is :

On June 13, Düsseldorf will turn into an Asian metropolis: the Japan Day 2009 will again attract visitors to the Rhine with an eclectic programme. A new feature is the pop culture zone, where thousands of Manga fans disguised as comic figures make the Japan Day the most important meeting point of their scene in Europe. Further highlights are a ten-hour stage show, free-of-charge join-in actions and the biggest Japanese fireworks display outside of Japan. Hundreds of thousands of visitors are expected to witness the event featuring over 850 participants.

The popular meeting festival is repeated for the eights time and begins at 1 p.m. It starts with songs and dances by boys and girls from Japanese kindergartens, performing for the first time in front of a big audience on the stage at Burgplatz in the Old Town. In the evening there will be a classic concert by the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker. Also, drum artist Leonard Eto will perform for the first time in Germany on that day.

With free-of-charge join-in activities, numerous stalls between Old Town and Rhine embankment will provide a realistic insight into Japanese culture. Far-eastern skills such as Origami, Ikebana and Calligraphy can be admired or even tried out. In a camp, Samurai present magnificent armours and long arms. There will be demonstrations of Japanese sports such as Sumo, Judo and Karate as well as the art of archery, Kyudo.

To conclude the festivities around 11 pm, pyrotechnicians from the Far East will ignite the biggest Japanese fireworks display outside of Japan. For the light-spectacle in the sky, lasting almost half an hour, the organizers will have thousands of pyrotechnic articles shipped from Japan to Düsseldorf.

In Düsseldorf and its region live more Japanese citizens than anywhere else in Germany (11,300 in North Rhine-Westphalia, of which 6,400 in Düsseldorf alone).

(Taken from the offical Homepage)

To sum everything up: Its damn awesome ^_^

I already visited last years Japan day but it ended up in total failure for me due to bad weather and me getting wet tp the bones.Last year I went there flast year for the cosplayers but I didnt take any pictures of them (except for one awesome dude) this time.There wasnt anything that really tickled my fancy and ill leave the coverage to JimmPantsu.I tried to cover some of the more cultural evens and fireworks.I finally upgraded my Flickr account to Pro just for this post I finally found some use for myYouTube account aswell and uploaded a bunch of videos there aswell.I also took a 15 minute video of the firework in the end but itll take its sweet time until ill be able to upload it somewhere.

The Japanday gave me the chance to meet up with some fellow bloggers aswell.I knew that Jimm Pantsu and gang were going there and idle blog talent Tami called later aswell.Its always fun to meet the people behind their blog and if your in my area dont be shy to ask for a meet-up .

I went there around 12 Pm and it was absolutley stunning weather.Never expected the weather to be this good and i ended up with a sunburn ^^;.

The festivities started around 1pm

Düsseldorfs Mayor Elbers and some Japanese politician are openening the japanday

Stunning weather.

The sumo girls getting ready

I started with watching the Sumo event and to my suprise those two girls are ranked 2nd and 5th in the world ranking.Sumo Fights are actually really short and a matter of seconds.Another interesting fact was that in the female sumo wrestling world the eastern european countries are a force to reckon with

Some training beforehand

If i remember right both girls were called Nicole but they werent twins ^^

I headed down to some food stands and checked out what they had but oh boy their stuff was pricey.Good thing I made a Bento .

Fried noodles – 5 Euro >.<

I headed down to the Kyudo range afterwards to check out their marksmanship and those guys know their stuff

I took a video aswell but I forgot to twist the camra and its pretty crappy

While I was heading to the pop culture zone I found the best Cosplay of the day and I simply had to take a snapshot of the Project Rub dude.Seriously how awesome is this?He nailed everything perfectly down!

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

A J-Pop band called the Jelly Beans had a gig there and it was kind of a disappointment.This may be due to the fact that I dont like J-Pop but its kinda awkward when two girls are jumping,teasing and singing and everything else is pre recorded.I have No Idea if this works in Japan but it clearly didnt work here.I only took a picture of them but luckily i found a video of them on YouTube later.

Their normal voices were pretty high pitched.I wonder if they thought that its cute?

Not my cup of tea

Naginata Demonstration

Training of the shounen Kendo Club

Kendo Ceremony

And finally a Kendo training fight between two boys

And last but not least my absolue highlight of the Japanday 2009 besides the firework:

The Male Japanese Choir with what id call the Frog song

Ke-Ke-ke-ke-Ke-ke-Kero-kero-kero-ke-ke-ke-ke-kero-kero-kero-ke <3

Short before we were heading to a good fireworks viewing spot we watched a real superstar:

Leonard ETO and his Band Blendrums

It was an absolutely stunning performance and im kinda sad that we were in no good filming spot.Ive found this small movie on youtube though:

The Sun started to settle down and everybody was getting ready for the highlight of the Japan Day: the traditional japanese fireworks.It gets really crowded around this time and they expected about a million visitors this time