Past Events

Sake Tasting Festival

We held our first “Sake Tasting Festival” from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM on Friday November 9, 2007 at the Alice Hardie Stevens Center in Laramie. About 40 people participated. At the beginning of the event, Ken Matsuno, president of JASWY, made a short introduction about the history of sake (rice wine), how it is consumed and stored, and kinds of sake. Then we made a toast, saying “Kampai” (cheers!) in Japanese. We served three kinds of sake, sushi rolls, edamame (green peas), takuwan (radish) and rakkyo (sweet scallion). We also did a silent auction on a framed Mt. Fuji picture, a beautiful scroll, a computer mouse pad, and sake sets including sake.

                 

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Images of Japan

We held our first “Slide Show on Japan” from 7-8 PM on October 25th, 2007 at the Albany County Public Library.  About 20 people attended. Three board members, Masahiro Yamamoto, Klaus Hanson and Janice Harris presented beautiful and culturally interesting pictures they took in Japan. We got good compliments not only on the slide show but also on the punch Tawnya Plumb, another board member, prepared for the event. We may repeat the same or similar show at the Eppson senior center in Laramie.

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Festival of Japan

We held the 2nd Festival of Japan on September 15 (Sat), 2007 at Laramie High School. This event was co-sponsored by the Laramie International club and the Consulate-General of Japan at Denver.

Just like last year, from noon to 1:45 PM we had a street fair in the cafeteria, where we exhibited Calligraphy, Origami, Chopsticks demonstration, Kimono wearing demonstration, Ikebana (arranged flowers), raffle, Japanese cultural artifacts and local clubs (Go club and Kendo club). We sold Japanese food and drink, such as sushi, a sweet bean rice cake called “Daifuku”, rice crackers and green tea, and also sold the event T-shirts and JASWY T-shirts. The highlight of the street fair was a kimono demonstration directed by Ms. Janice Harris. It drew a big crowd and was well received.

          

                           

From 2:00 to 4:00 PM we had performances in the auditorium. First we had Koto performances. Ms. Junko Shigeta, her two students from Denver and a flutist from Boulder played beautiful Japanese music for 30 minutes. Next we had Laramie Kempo Karate performances led by Amber Travsky for 25 minutes. She brought 17 students onto the stage, ages about 5 to 25 years old. They demonstrated their kata (forms of karate) beautifully. The boys and girls looked very cute. After a 10 minute intermission, we had Taiko performances. The Hibiki taiko group (5 members) from Boulder, Colorado, played not only taiko, but also shakuhachi (bamboo flute) for 60 minutes.

                            

Overall everything went well and everybody enjoyed the whole event. 

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JASWY held its first "New Year's Party" from 6-8PM on January 13, 2007 at the Albany County Library. We had a wonderful meal including Japanese foods and enjoyed playing a game called "Isha (doctor), Bengoshi (lawyer) and Sensei (Teacher)."

          

          

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JASWY held the first "Taste of Sushi" from 2-4 PM on October 22nd, 2006 in the Mona Lisa Ballroom at 2Bazaar located at 404 S. 2nd Street, Laramie, WY. In this workshop 28 participants learned how to make sushi and sushi rolls from Jim Wear, a sushi instructor.

Sushi Chef,  Jim Wear and his assistant Sylvia Wear


Participants were listening to Jim Wear.


A sequence of sushi roll making


Other types of sushi
 

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JASWY held the first Festival of Japan at the Laramie High School in Laramie, Wyoming on September 9, 2006. More than 500 people came to see the event. We had workshops for chopsticks, origami (paper folding), calligraphy and raffle ticket items (Ikebana and sand garden) and sold some Japanese food such as sushi, green tea, rice crackers and rice cakes. In the auditorium, we had Japanese dance, Kendo (sword performance) and Denver Taiko drummers.

   

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