Konan Daigaku Bunkasai
I went to Konan University's school festival today.
My friend and I made a beeline for the festival map so we could figure out what to eat first.
We were barely there for three seconds when some guy bounded over.
Guy: LET'S EAT TAMAGO SENBEI!!!!!!!!
Us: *blink*
Guy: LET'S GO! TAMAGO SENBEI!!
Us: Um...
Guy: DO YOU LIKE TAMAGO SENBEI??? IT IS TAMAGO AND SENBEI!!!! RICE CRACKER!!!
Me: Umm... we'll think about it.
Guy: OKAY LET'S GO!!!!
My friend: Well....
Me: Okaaay, if you translate this *whole* map into English for us, we'll buy some!
Guy: O-KAY!!! (points to various tables on the map) This: potato-butter. You like? This: yaki-soba. This: TAMAGO SENBEI!!!!!! OKAY LET'S GOOO!!!!
We glanced at each other.
Me: Okay. We'll go look.
Guy: OKAY!! THIS WAY PLEASE!!
Guy: We have three flavor! KIMCHEE!!! CHEESE!!! MAGU--....(in Japanese: what the hell is maguro?) AHHHH... MAGURO FLAKE!!!
Me: How much?
Guy: ONE HUNDRED FIFTY YEN!
Me: GIVE ME A DISCOUNT!!!!!
Guy: OKAY!! ONE HUNDRED.... TWENTY YEN!!
Girl making tamago-senbei: Hey!
It was a lot like being in Bangkok: touts holding signs would mercilessly chase after people passing by, trying to get them to buy from their booths. With us, they would use all their energy to dig out any English expression they could remember. It was really refreshing and cute because we usually spend our time with recalcitrant highschoolers, so we paused to talk to each one. At which point one of their cronies would come out and double-team us to buy stuff or move on. XD
On the way home we passed a vending machine (not unusual) that carried Dr. Pepper and root beer (highly unusual). There was a warning note taped to the root beer:
And now, a selection of Konan University's official club T-shirts:
DEPA!!
It was funnier when I thought it said, "Let's Spank!"
Konan has approximately 300 tennis clubs.
Konan's school festival is what's referred to as a bunkasai in Japanese. It literally translates as "cultural festival": a campus-wide party with food stalls, exhibitions, and events put on by various student groups. Students usually plan and execute their bunkasai all by themselves.
maguro: tuna
tamago senbei: literally, egg and rice-cracker: it was a fried egg covered in Japanese mayonnaise and takoyaki sauce, sandwiched into a large, flat, shrimp-flavored rice cracker.
My friend and I made a beeline for the festival map so we could figure out what to eat first.
We were barely there for three seconds when some guy bounded over.
Guy: LET'S EAT TAMAGO SENBEI!!!!!!!!
Us: *blink*
Guy: LET'S GO! TAMAGO SENBEI!!
Us: Um...
Guy: DO YOU LIKE TAMAGO SENBEI??? IT IS TAMAGO AND SENBEI!!!! RICE CRACKER!!!
Me: Umm... we'll think about it.
Guy: OKAY LET'S GO!!!!
My friend: Well....
Me: Okaaay, if you translate this *whole* map into English for us, we'll buy some!
Guy: O-KAY!!! (points to various tables on the map) This: potato-butter. You like? This: yaki-soba. This: TAMAGO SENBEI!!!!!! OKAY LET'S GOOO!!!!
We glanced at each other.
Me: Okay. We'll go look.
Guy: OKAY!! THIS WAY PLEASE!!
Guy: We have three flavor! KIMCHEE!!! CHEESE!!! MAGU--....(in Japanese: what the hell is maguro?) AHHHH... MAGURO FLAKE!!!
Me: How much?
Guy: ONE HUNDRED FIFTY YEN!
Me: GIVE ME A DISCOUNT!!!!!
Guy: OKAY!! ONE HUNDRED.... TWENTY YEN!!
Girl making tamago-senbei: Hey!
It was a lot like being in Bangkok: touts holding signs would mercilessly chase after people passing by, trying to get them to buy from their booths. With us, they would use all their energy to dig out any English expression they could remember. It was really refreshing and cute because we usually spend our time with recalcitrant highschoolers, so we paused to talk to each one. At which point one of their cronies would come out and double-team us to buy stuff or move on. XD
On the way home we passed a vending machine (not unusual) that carried Dr. Pepper and root beer (highly unusual). There was a warning note taped to the root beer:
And now, a selection of Konan University's official club T-shirts:
DEPA!!
It was funnier when I thought it said, "Let's Spank!"
Konan has approximately 300 tennis clubs.
Konan's school festival is what's referred to as a bunkasai in Japanese. It literally translates as "cultural festival": a campus-wide party with food stalls, exhibitions, and events put on by various student groups. Students usually plan and execute their bunkasai all by themselves.
maguro: tuna
tamago senbei: literally, egg and rice-cracker: it was a fried egg covered in Japanese mayonnaise and takoyaki sauce, sandwiched into a large, flat, shrimp-flavored rice cracker.