Made in Asia 3

A week ago, the Made in Asia event had its third edition in Brussels.

I'd never heard of it before !

It was TOTAL  fun. The exposition floor was divided into several areasof Tokyo :

Akihabara for videogames

Harajuku for fashion

Shibuya for activities

Ikebukuro for magazines and fanzines

Shinjuku for all the shops
Also four small podiums and a movie viewing theatre. Heaven !

Welcome to Harajuku !

This is the Shinjuku area where the shops are ! 

(Why are there no hugging pillows with male characters ? )

They even had furin here ! Furin are Japanese wind chimes that are hung on the porch or near a window in summer. The summer breeze will make them chime. The ones in the picture are iron bells, they also exist in glass. I have two at home.

For Japanese people the sound of the furin's chime is forever connected to summertime.

The (french) sign says that's it's a custom to write a wish on the paper tag and every chime of the furin will remind you of that wish and encourage you to work hard to achieve it. Nice, but I think they made that up :) .

At the center of the expo , was the Japanese village, with small gardens, lots of information stands, a massage demonstration parlor, a tatami, where the martial arts were being demonstrated. The lighting was so bad, I couldn't get any decent pictures.

The Hashi shop where I got some lovely hashioki (chopstick rests).

 

This is the stand of Kino Junko who teaches calligraphy and furishiki-folding.

I bought these furishiki there ( Kino-san was so happy I bought them she threw in three folded cranes ).

 45 minutes to go and I'm standing in line waiting for the famous mangaka Nobuhiro Watsuki and his wife Kurosakito Kaoru to arrive. He's so camera shy, we were all warned not to take any pictures because he doesn't want his ( and his wife's ) face plastered all over the Internet.
The other line to the right of me is waiting for Kanno Hiroki ( animator  and character designer , who worked on FullMetal Alchemist, Rahxphon,Eureka 7 ) . I love his work too, but I haven't got anything of him to sign.

OK, fair enough. So no picture. He signed my Rurouni Kenshin Volume 1.
The "for Walter" is in silver ink pen , the signature in gold ink pen. His wife stamped it with his hanko signature seal ( the thingy in red ). You can see the same kanji ( characters ) of his name on the left page.

This  is now one of my prized possessions :) and it will NOT be sold on Ebay. Not ever...

Sorry for not blogging for so long!