Pounding rice, dried squid and hungry carp

M: Today we had a lovely day. We started off early and went to a community festival in downtown Tokyo. Apparently it's quite popular in Tokyo to have a festival in your local community - but we busted in on this one as it was held by a friend of a friend of a friend. Everything there was free! We had free noodles, soup, sausages, sweets (puddings but they call them sweets here) and much to Jack's delight, free beer!

As soon as we arrived, Jack was roped in to pound some rice to make these gooey sweet-rice puddings in 'tradional Japanese style'

The noodle women...

They were doing a raffle but it seemed pretty much like a free-for-all...
Jack tackling the dried squid, it was quite tough and chewy...

Jack with some other goodies - they were pretty much giant Wotsits...

After the festival, we went along to an Edo museum where they had recreated a section of a town that you could wander round...

Jack and Ryota in an Edo-era hotel...

Jack and Ryota enjoying a katatsu (a table with a heater and blanket)...

There was this weird mechanical cat on top of one of the roofs...

A mock toilet, basically a hole in the ground...

A child-size woven sandle...
After the museum we went to a Japanese garden and had tea and cake in the tea room...

We also fed the fish - check out the gobs on these carp!