My mom and I went to the ohanami cherry blossom festival on campus this afternoon, and it was the COOLEST!! They had some really neat demonstrations with people playing traditional Japanese instruments. The first demo was koto,and the second was taiko. Both were really neat, but the taiko was amazing.

















There were five really large drums, two medium ones, and four small. The instructor told us that the big drums were handmade on campus in the art department. They cut down wine barrels and stretched hides over them. Is that cool or what?


When they were drumming, you could feel your chest vibrating. I managed to take some pictures with my cell phone, so I apologize if the quality is not that great. Since it costs me 25 cents to email it to myself, I'm only able to post a couple right now. I'll put the rest on flickr once I get them onto a memory card and have access to a card reader.

















Other activities included calligraphy, origami, and the ever popular karaoke, but the taiko was by far the most interesting!