Anatomy Of A Stupid.

30th Annual Bon Odori

Ohayo gozaimas, konnichiwa, konbanwa and oyasumi. Sorry to admit it to you, but yes that was last year’s greeting and yes it is based on Jim Carrey’s ‘.. and incase I don’t see ya; good afternoon, good evening and good night!’.

I gotta be honest with ya, every year’s Bon festival is the same ole’ thing. You come, you get a fan, you eat expensive food, you drink ’super dry’ beer, you dance to weird (but happy) music and you see lots and lots of chicks and I don’t mean the one of the bird kind! This year was no exception. Walking into Matsushita sports centre felt just like the first time going to a Bon Odori.

What can I say, the place was filled with perv guys and girls wearing extra skimpy outfits, even Farah wouldn’t be able to stand it. Most people see the festival as, or rather they associate it way too much to the Japanese culture itself when in actual fact it’s just a cultural event based on the Japanese’s culture. Like a topic in chapter, rather than the chapter itself. I see it however as a medium to indirectly make friends with strangers for a short while, enjoy the dances and just hang out with people you don’t get to see every day.

Can’t even get a good shot.

This year I think the crowd has at least doubled for sure, the lines were even longer at the Jusco stalls, and the ice cream stall ran out of stocks way before the event even ended. Sad story but even when I first reached the cocoa mona macha (not to be mistakened with dey apa la lu macha) ice cream was already sold out. But aside from all the usual stalls which were in the exact same position as last year, there was a new stall near the Yakult stall and it looked darn familiar.

No wonder, it’s Beard Papa. I only got to try one of these babies early this year at their sole branch in Mid Valley on the way home (’some’ people call it a detour or lencongan) from going to the AIDS council to pick up some stuff. Kinda bought it by chance since I was waiting for my friends who were shopping, so of course I as a shop-worthy person had to go shopping also la right? Saw this weird santa like mascot for a little corner shop and had lots of burger looking puffs stacked. A closer inspection and I found out they sell really really expensive cream puffs at RM4.00 per 3 inch puff but it still looked interesting so I bought one anyway, and that was my very first cream puff from BP.

So since I enjoyed the last one, I bought one at the Bon and so did Adrian. Of course we had more than compliments for it since it really is good. These golden puffs are just half the story, the filling is a rich and creamy custard that’s served cold and it just blends really well with the warm puff. Beard Papa is Japanese bourne and was brought in by Kiseiki International just over a year ago and they’ll be opening a second branch soon in One Utama. At the Bon festival, they were selling them for RM18.00 per box of 5 pieces at first. This is expensive compared to the retail RM16.50, but would you believe it at the end of the festival they sold it for RM10.00 per box. I actually already bought one at a discounted RM15.00 but felt so depressed about the price that I with regret bought another box. Conclusion, cream puffs ruined my childhood. Did I mention I visited Mid the next day and shamelessly bought another box? From the same counter dude?

Adrian and Edmond bought a kind of Teriyaki Toki which is a teriyaki chicken satay with teriyaki sauce but it came with a slice of grilled white cuttlefish on the side for RM6.00 and I tell you it tasted like heaven! If I can recall correctly they got it from the Jusco booth so it should be available at most Juscos nationwide. Sorry no pictures, we were rushing to catch the dance so we gobbled down everything in a tick.

The ice cream stall

 

Since we were all on a (n uncontrolled) budget, we told ourselves to make sure we *only* bought something either rare or can only be found in Japan to avoid any wastage and set the maximum spending limit to RM15.00. I broke mine when I bought the puffs, but that was for a good cause. Really. After the dance Edmond was making lots and lots of noise about getting some damn beer, so we quit half way on the last dance and went to the Asahi stall. Funny the lady didn’t bother to ask for our age. I actually hinted to her that we’re underage for drinking but she didn’t seem to care. Even asked me if I wanted to buy one. This should be a good sign, might not have to use my fake IC anymore haha!

I don’t know if it’s intentional or not la, but Edmond threw some trash into my bag of stuff and he didn’t even know it. Could be the side effects of drinking kicking in =P Aaanyways! As usual we danced to the shirashi, kimigayo and tsuwano. Again, there is just something too weird yet addictive about dancing with a bunch of strangers at Bons, really.

Stage

Nothing much more to say. We came, we saw, and we left I guess.. Saw some really really weird items on sale too, such as…

At first me and Edmond thought it’s some kind of Japanese dude’s sweat  fountain of youth thingamajigger canned and commercialized. But in actual fact it’s just as isotonic drink (but it’s still salty though, way too salty to be used together with the word sweat in the brand name). Also, there was the popular Doraemon ‘kuih’ which is actually a dorayaki ‘lah, but I’m just trying to make things interesting. There was one that looked normal but they had a chocolate coated one and sorta put a picture of the big blue Dorae-mamu next to it just so that people get the picture and that you’re cool if you eat dorayakis. Chocolate ones. Like Doraemon.

There was people from the JSKL like always, and I thought of asking them why the hell aren’t they replying the email that says we want to visit their school for a community service project, but oh well.. Not like I can speak Japanese right? Yeah yeah. Well that’s all that I have to say about this year’s Bon. Until next year, sayonara.

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