All year I've been looking forward to this Japanese festival and I'm delighted to be able to say this year it was even bigger and better. Although the Irish weather can be unpredictable in April, the sun was shining the whole day and the temperature was higher than an average spring day. The first Japanese street food/ Japanese festival food I tried was curry udon garnished with bonito flakes, it was delicious and I got it from the WACAFE
There were more food stalls this year due to the growing demand for this Japanese festival every year. One of my favourite food stalls was the takoyaki and okonomiyaki.
These are typical Japanese street foods/Japanese festival foods and always taste amazing when freshly made and served like this.
The queue for this stall was particularly long even at the end of the day.
I was delighted to see a Japanese gift shop called "Cactus Dublin" at the festival with a fantastic selection of Japanese gifts and they also stocked my cookbook "Japanese Food Made Easy".
There was plenty of opportunity to absorb Japanese culture with displays of marital arts such as kendo and karate.
It was great to see Irish children embracing marital arts and tentatively listening to their Sensei!
Asia Market Dublin had a stall again this year with a fantastic selection of Japanese ingredients and their stock of my cookbook sold out!
I really enjoyed my talk on "Japan through the Eyes of Fiona Uyema" in the Cabinet Kitchen. There were so many questions at the end of the session and thanks to everyone who came up to say hello. It always motivates me to hear that people are following my journey and enjoying my recipes and adventures through my blog and online.
I had an information stall in the Cowshed on Japanese food & culture. My little boy came along to help me!
I bumped into these two beautiful ladies again this year. Every year they wear costumes to the festival, I love them :)
Although the cherry blossom trees are not in full bloom across Ireland yet we found a few that had blossomed.
Notes:
If you 're interested in attending Japanese festivals around Europe you should also look at Hyper Japan in the UK and Japan Day in Germany. I hope to attend these wonderful festivals one day too.
I want to say a special thanks to Natalia from Smiles!Photography for allowing me to use her photos for this blog post. Her photos are much nicer than mine!!
To see more about Experience Japan festival go to www.experiencejapan.ie
