Today is Japan day in Düsseldorf, the city with the largest Japanese community in Germany. My host took me along because it was a great day and she wanted to kno how authentic some of the demonstartions were, now that she had a Japanese native with her.
We had to wait in line in the car park for a car to leave so the next one could go in, even though the system outside had told us there were free spaces. It was several stories below earth and a bit scary, with it's low ceilings and so many cars. When we got out and arrived at a small harbor close to the film museum.
The old own of Düsseldorf was very crowded but I saw some narrow old houses, one with a carrion.
And the town hall where we could breathe for a change and stop without being run into.
We got to a square directly at the Rhine where stages were set up, a camera constantly took in the scene and a Japanese children's choir was performing at that moment.
It got more and more crowded along the food booths and we saw lot's of people dressed up as manga characters, or dressed in kimonos.
It was too full of people for my taste, so we got a little reprieve from the people and from the sun in some side streets.
Back on the Rhine promenade we saw these kids with different rhythmn instruments. They made a racket and their sense of rhythmn didn't seem all that coordinated, yet.
The promenade is very nice, though. These houses look over the Rhine.
Here's the Rhine river with the TV tower and one of the bridges:
We saw some demonstartions of Kendo and Aikido.
And spent some time squeezing through the crowd (you really had to watch out for your children or the got hurt) but finally gave up and went back home.
