Beer, Costumes, Lederhosen, and Sausages.

It was a bright and sunny Friday morning that saw us heading over to the Sendai International Centre on our bikes. The day was September 23^rd and we all had the day off to observe Autumnal Equinox Day, Japan’s most straightforward and no-nonsense holiday. What do we do on Autumnal Equinox Day? Well, we take note that it is the autumnal equinox. What do you mean, you wanted to visit family graves and hold family reunions? Does this look like Vernal Equinox Day to you??




Anyway, where were we?

The International Centre was playing host to Sendai’s 2011 World Festa, which we had volunteered to work at for the day along with a few other foreigners. I guess a World Festa without foreigners is pretty lame. The event more or less consisted of a great deal of stations, stalls, performances, posters, and food. Visitors could learn about other countries, play cultural instruments, try on traditional wear, make origami, eat non-Japanese food (though there was a Japanese food stall for the less adventurous), watch and take part in dances, you name it.

Proof.

Originally Kelsey was assigned to sign duty.

Our joint work on sign duty was quickly called off due to inconsideration to the children.

We figured into this equation by being the smiling volunteer faces at the international costume station! Sweet! Visitors were encouraged to try on a variety of cultural clothing from different parts of the world, mostly dealing with those people would be unfamiliar with. Everyone knows that Canadians wear fur coats and beaver hats all the time (it’s practically the only thing in our Igloo closets), but what about Vanuatu?  After a couple hours of volunteering and only having a few visitors actually try on the costumes, we decided to spice things up by trying on a number of the costumes ourselves to encourage visitors to do the same. And so it began – we tried on an array of clothing, ranging from what looked to be a wizard’s cloak (one less than shy visitor shouted “Chinese witch!”) to a hula skirt and coconuts! Before we knew it more and more people came over to try on the costumes, laughing at themselves and at each other.

Kelsey modelling this year's collection from...somewhere.

Mr. Malawi meets Ms. Vanuatu.

"Yer a wizard 'Arry."

A Moroccan prince and his exotic bride.

We had some off-time to visit the other stalls and see what was going on elsewhere, which was very interesting. The event tapered off around 4PM, at which point we were thanked for our hard work by being offered squishy balls of bean paste, dried octopus tentacles, and a bushel of bananas. Needless to say we were richly rewarded.

Matt and Kelsey try their hand at Indonesian instruments.

Drummers that did not stop drumming for 6 hours.

Lunch break!

What you get when you put the costume rack into a blender.

Shamiz working hard!

After a long day of trying on cultural clothing we were inevitably famished. And bananas and octopus just wouldn’t cut it. Fortunately for us, Sendai City was currently in the midst of its own Oktoberfest celebration in a different part of town! We never really found out why they celebrated Oktoberfest over here (perhaps a shared history with Germany in the past; I will have to do some research) but they did a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of it: food and beer. Incidentally that was exactly what we were looking for.

Oktoberfest time!!

German beer, complete with all the foamy head you could desire, and more!

So much delicious meat....

Oktoberfest? More like Sausagefest! Am I right?

We headed out to join the beer festival in a local park in the hopes of quenching our thirst and satisfying our empty bellies. There was a massive tent set up in the park, with a stage surrounded by rows upon rows of tables underneath it. Even with a small group of people it would have been hard to find a table amongst the hundreds of locals at the festival; finding a spot to fit the substantial number of JETs we came with was inevitably impossible. But first on the agenda was food and beer – we could worry about where to sit after! The beer was served in large pints glasses that we were required to give a deposit for - a deterrent against thievery, it would seem (Good call -- who wouldn’t want to steal an oversized pint glass from Oktoberfest?).

Brian gets what he wants.

Adam is preparing for handouts by leaving half his tray empty.

The GaijinZone.

The food was not scarce – most of us settled on various types of German sausage, spud (as one of the New Zealand JETs calls them), and sauerkraut. As our hunger intensified and our hope for finding a table dwindled, we settled on a park curb away from the tent. After some mingling, sausage eating, beer drinking, and cake eating (it was Kate’s birthday!) we began to hear music and cheering from the tent. A few of us decided to check out what all the commotion was about, only to be pleasantly surprised to see German men clad in lederhosens singing, dancing, and playing the accordion and guitar on the stage. I think there may have been one Japanese man in there, pretending to be German; no one could be sure. Our camera also started taking black and white photos for no particular reason at all.

Kate's birthday!

Shamiz ensures that other festival goers keep their distance.

Sing those German songs! Deutschland über alles!

Everyone at the festival was in great spirits, smiling from ear to ear, laughing, dancing, and singing along to the German gibberish. As foreigners, we undeniably stood out in the crowd of Japanese locals beneath the Oktoberfest tent; it was only a matter of time before we were bombarded with Japanese people wanting to take our pictures, raise a glass to us, and join us in dancing. We were more than happy to accommodate their photo requests -- perhaps too eager?

Nico and Brian are confused as to which way the stage is.

We did not fit the bill for typical Oktoberfest Sendai revelers.

Prost!

His hat even says Oktoberfest! This guys is legit.

Brian has a puffed-out chest competition on the dancefloor.

We love Oktoberfest!!

After a couple more drinks it was time to head home, stuffed with food and more than a little sleepy.

And that’s all for now! As the Germans say, Auf Wiedersehen alle! (WE THINK this is how you say: Goodbye, everyone! But we don’t know. You might want to verify.)

View the entire album here!