SF hosted two festivals today 9/18: J-Pop Summit Festival in Japantown and the Autumn Moon Festival in Chinatown. So I walked from the transbay terminal (point A) to Chinatown (point B) to Japantown (circled in red) back to Chinatown and then finally back to the terminal - a total of about 7 miles, which according to my pedometer (sorta) is about 22k steps. O.o My feet don't feel like I've done that much walking, but I guess I did sit down and rest quite a bit.
Since I couldn't catch the earlier bus (it only comes every half-hour), I ended up missing the beginning of both festivals; they both went from 11 am to 6 pm >.< So I went to Chinatown just in time to see the ending of the lion dance (from far away), but wasn't able to get any pictures.
Luckily I was able to see the dragon dance, even if it was performed by middle-school kids so it wasn't super professional or anything. It was actually quite funny to see how they kept stepping on each other. Like many other festivals, there were balloon artists - but they did awesome animals, not just the normal dog/butterfly. I saw a hello kitty balloon, and the guy was twisting some complicated asian monkey when I was passing by, at that point I swear it had 20 different little twist bubbles - though it doesn't really come out in the picture.
After hanging around for about a half-hour, I realized that it was really very similar to the Oakland Autumn Moon Festival I went to a couple weeks ago - a whole bunch of booths selling mooncakes (duh), lots of 'dvds/cds' for sale, tv stations, banks, a food...lots of it. So I decided to hop it and head over to Japantown because I had never been to a J-pop festival-like thing.
On the way to Japantown, I walked up several SUPER-CRAZY streets, and at one point I was panting when I reached the top of the street. The sign said park at 90 degrees, and there was a little picture too. Literally I was looking down and able to see the bay - pretty amazing. Also on the way, I passed several gothic-looking buildings that looked as though they were those old Gaelic medival castles. Of course, they were churches.
Japantown wasn't as crowded as Chinatown was (thankfully), but there were still a good 1000 people there. I headed to the concert area first and checked it out. The first band I saw was SOU, but they weren't that good. Only one person was into them, while a whole crowd of people were just sitting there - not a good start to my J-pop experience.
By then I was getting a little thirsty, it was pretty hot out and I also forgot my sunblock >.< So I went and got a nice boba milk tea, very refreshing. I checked out the food stands too, and they had some pretty cool asian fusion stuff - like seaweed on hotdogs.
Although the hotdogs sounded interesting, I wasn't willing to shell out the money, so I hung around and did other stuff, like check out the stores selling cosplay outfits and an art gallery, which was all red and cool. I found a cute little stand that sold hats, hairbands, headbands, jewelery...pretty much all the accessories a girl could wish for. I found an awesome hairband which worked really well with my hair and complexion, but it cost $15. If I wore that kind of stuff more frequently I might have bought it, but I know I'd just stick it down somewhere and almost never wear it...so I let it go.
Yes, I'm squinting it that picture (it was really bright!) After that, there was an anime cosplay contest! Unfortunately, this being America, the cosplayers here aren't that good...so I didn't really take that many pictures. The winner of the contest got 'big prizes' which turned out to be more cosplaying clothes LOL. There was only one guy who I thought was worthy of being called cosplayer...but he didn't win! (He did get the most requests for pictures though).
Then an AWESOME band came on called Jinny Oops! Apparently they're pretty well-known because they got everyone pumped up, and had tons of people crowded around the stage yelling that they loved them. I got right up next to the stage - and managed to hurt one of my ears >.< but in exchange I got some awesome pics and video clips of them. I also managed to run out of camera batteries because of them, but I ended up using my camera phone for the rest of the pictures.
There was also a graffiti artist spray painting a huge mural for the entire 6 hours of the festival, and during that time people could make a silent bid on it for charity. It was pretty crazy because each time I walked by it looked really different, and had added complexity. I'm surprised he could work on it the full time in the heat!
Then there was a harajuku fashion show, with the fashion (and some girls) coming straight from Japan! It was way to neon-y bright for me. Bright pinks and greens dominated the show, with several yellows there too. Ughh...yes it's supposed to be all bright and punky and cute, but still...neon?!? Those are the colors I hate the most!
There wasn't really much else to do after that - unless I wanted to watch an air guitar competition >.> count me out. So, I decided I should get back to Chinatown and grab a roast duck. When I got there, I called a friend to get the name of a famous Chinatown bakery from them. To my surprise, they were in Chinatown when I called, but not for the festival, which cracked me up. They meant to go, but set out too late...so they were going to go to Fisherman's Wharf.
We went to Golden Gate Bakery, and got their famous egg tarts - even though it took 45 minutes of waiting time, during which I practiced my Cantonese with a fellow line-waiter, someone who reminded me of my mom. We almost didn't even get egg-tarts because they were out, but we were lucky and got the last batch - after much arguing from other customers. Wanting to enjoy our treat, we went to a milk-tea shop and grabbed a couple drinks. I got matcha green tea icey with red beans...yummy.
The egg tarts really were as good as the rave reviews. A fluffy crust and perfectly cooked custard. It was interesting to look at the texture of it and see it jiggle more than normal. YUMMM. Unfortunately, by then it was too late to grab any roast duck and most of the places were closed. I decided to ask for a recommendation for a good roast duck place from the tea shop people. They gave it to me, and also advised me to come at 8 or 9 in the morning to get good ones. >.> No way I'm coming out that early just for duck...thanks, but no thanks...I'll just get it from them later, LOL.
I had just enough time to get walk back to the bus terminal, and caught the bus with a couple minutes to spare. The F bus, which crosses the bridge to SF only runs hourly at night, so I was super lucky for that to happen. I was power-walking by the end of it because I was hoping that I wouldn't just miss the bus - not that I knew what time it left.
I was hoping to get this post out on the 18th, but I've missed that mark by 8 minutes *sigh*
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