Every year in Kansas City, the Japan festival Committee holds a Japanese cultural festival at a local community college.  While in previous years the festival spanned an entire weekend, this year they are holding the festival on only one day, but adding more event during that time.  I will be going for part of the day to explore the various exhibits, listen to some talks, and sample some food.

From their Website:

The 2007 Japan Festival will take place in the spacious Carlsen Center and include more “hands-on” workshops than ever. We hope these workshops will allow you to get involved in aspects of Japanese culture that you have wanted to try but have not gotten a chance to in the past.

This year you can participate in one or several of these workshops: from flower arrangement, bonsai, and tea ceremony to dance, music, origami, taiko and three kinds of martial arts.

Join us and experience the “new” and “old” Japan.

After attending the Renaissance Festival on Saturday, I will visit Kansas City’s 76th Annual Country Club Plaza Art Fair on Sunday.  I love art, and always enjoy seeing what the various local and national talents attending have to show.

From the Website:

Each autumn, the streets of the Country Club Plaza become a beautiful outdoor art gallery as the nation’s top artists display their work and attract art enthusiasts from all over the country. An annual event rich with tradition, the Plaza Art Fair is pleased to have American Century Investments as its presenting sponsor for the seventh year.

The Plaza Art Fair is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 5 art festivals.  In a highly competitive jury process, about 1,500 artists submit their best in hopes of becoming an exhibitor in the nationally recognized program.

This weekend, I will be attending the Kansas City Renaissance Festival held in Bonner Springs, KS.  I have attended the faire almost every year of my life that I have lived in Kansas City, since my parents started taking me along when I was very young.  From good food to great entertainment and interesting shopping, there is always more to do at the renaissance festival than I have time for in a single day.  I have been to renaissance fairs held in other cities, but so far Kansas City’s is better.  Not only is it huge, spanning 16 Acres of private land, but the land they have is used exclusively for the renaissance festival and related events.  This means that they are able to have a huge number of permanent structures, rides, and attractions that would not be possible at fairs that must be torn down after each festival. 

Each of the seven weekends the festival is open, they have a different theme.  This weekend’s theme is “Celtic Crimes of Fashion - Featuring the Scottish Heavy Athletics Wargames!” I am particularly interested in trying some haggis, the horrible sounding Scottish “delicacy” involving sheep organs cooked with oatmeal in a stomach lining.  Yum!

On day two of my trip last weekend, I stopped at a trucker cafe near Danville, MO and Montgomery City, MO called Maggie’s Cafe. It was pretty much what you might expect from such a place — Quaint, inexpensive, and home to some great American diner food. I had a huge breakfast, with biscuits and gravy, chicken fried steak, eggs, toast and truck stop coffee for just over $6. It was too much food to finish and was easily the best breakfast I have had in ages. If you are ever driving down I-70 between Columbia and St. Louis, I would definitely recommend a stop as a great alternative to the ubiquitous fast food joints.

See a couple more pics after the jump.

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