This Saturday is the main event for Wellington’s Japan Festival which kicked off 6 July with the Friend to Friend exhibition in the Fletcher Challenge Foyer.  The organisers Asia New Zealand Foundation, Wellington City Council and the Embassy of Japan (along with the sponsors of course) are always bringing us beautiful free cultural events. 
 
Thanks for that.

Our recent guest poster was rightly excited about Music Fair of Japan that is part of the Japan Festival, unfortunately both concerts are fully booked. Zannen desu ne!  However don’t despair, there is plenty of Japanese culture to partake of:

• Food and Craft market runs from 1.00pm until 8.00pm
• Cultural Show from 1.30pm until 7.00pm
• Friend to Friend Public Speaking Contest from 2.30pm until 4.00pm (for all of you out there that think that they might sit their proficiency test ‘one day’)
• Tea Ceremony from 3.00pm until 4.00pm

More details can be found on the asia:nz website (now with RSS for their event calendar).

If you don’t make it along, don’t forget that the Japanese Embassy runs free movie nights on the last Tuesday and Thursday of every month at 6.00pm. They often sponsor other free events that usually book out fast.  You can find details on their website here.

Tanoshi so desu!

We have a guest post for you by the voluble Anna Jane Wilson who also likes hats, boots, coats and scarves.

My goodness, it’s already July – I can’t quite believe we’re halfway through our Roman calendars, but all evidence says – 10 July 2009. July, albeit cold and windy in this wonderful city, is going to be a large one.

The four main things that keep me warm in winter are jazz, walking, films, and dance. I’m new to Wellington, but apparently this city has a lot of jazz, thus, my soul will be kept very warm.

continues after the jump…

Having observed a steaming hot urn of it at the Southern Cross on Saturday night, surrounded by blankets and hot water bottles, we want to know: where can one get the best mulled wine in Wellington, how much will we have to pay for it, and approximately what alcoholic percentage will it be? 

Do our work for us in the comments section. Thanks!

The Wellington Town Hall is rated amongst the top ten in the world for acoustics ^{[citation needed]}, and this was a significant argument in the 1970s and 80s when the demolition of the Town Hall became a possibility.  The organ in the town hall is 104 or so years old and is reknowned worldwide for being one of the few Edwardian organs in the world that has survived to the present day without alteration.

Once again Wellington City Council is running a free Organ Concert Series on Sunday afternoons featuring our City Organist, Douglas Mews, and other guests. After a spell in Europe checking out a myriad of baroque instruments and playing the occasional organ recital, Douglas says he’ll be full of inspiration and enthusiasm for his concerts on Sunday 9 August and 6 September.

[the details after the jump]

Drypnz will be familiar to many Wellingtonians with his distinct street style gracing the streets, alleyways and gallery walls around town.  From the paid mural work and  other commissions, to paste ups and throw ups around town which are a gift to the city, Drypnz is a prolific, hard working artist who deserves plenty of recognition (and to get paid).  The Wellingtonista were lucky enough to have a sneak peak at the new show opening at Manky Chops tonight, and gotta say, we are not disappointed.  Those luscious juju lips with their geisha girl pouts were there in abundance of course but there is a range of work, different sizes and mediums and there will be prints and T-shirts available tonight as well.

Head on down from 7:00pm until about 9:30pm tonight, the crew at Manky Chops are always friendly and put on a good party.

Take your wallet, I suspect the smaller works are going to sell fast.

As Wellingtonians, we love dub, right? ^{[citation needed]} Sometimes to a fault, even? ^{[citation needed]} Anyone else remember that famous review a few years back in Pavement magazine of some local outfit that read:

More effing trumpet-dub from Wellington

Anyway if its to your taste, there’s some serious dub trickery coming down in the next couple of weeks…

[the details after the jump]

So today is the official start of Matariki, for some time now there has been a push for Matariki to become a public holiday, Minister of Maori Affairs Dr Pita Sharples last week announced the Maori Party had drafted a bill to make Matariki a public holiday.  See what the Prime Minister thinks of the idea here.

Some accounts have Matariki as a mother and her 6 daughters assisting Te R? as he turns around and heads south.  I like this story better than the Greek version of Pleiades which has the seven daughters of Pleione and Atlas turned into stars to ‘save them from Orion’s dishonourable intentions’.  Where are the kick-arse goddesses of legend when you need them?  In Japanese legend the sun goddess Amaterasu was lured out of her cave by a good old bit of burlesque dancing and silliness performed by the voluptuous goddess of merriment Ama-no-Uzume.  That is certainly one way of coaxing the sun out of a funk.

There are a range of things around Wellington planned help get the Matariki celebrations rolling:

Some of us at the Wellingtonista are rather fond of the old Snapper card. We worked through its teething troubles and are now happily tagging on and off as we bus about the city.

So when Miki Szikszai, CEO of Snapper, asked us if we’d like to visit Snapper HQ and learn a bit about what’s new in the world of the magical talking fish box, we (well, Alan and I) jumped at the chance.

After the jump – what we found at Snapper.

Well today there is time to squeeze the out the last of solstice by squeezing out a quick post to mark the occasion.  Mid-winter is officially here with the end of the shortest day, the end of the growing power of cold and darkness and the start of the growth of warmth and light.  While there is plenty to celebrate about mid-winter (mulled wine, boots, hats and scarves spring to mind) there is something heartening in the knowledge that the days will be getting longer and us hardy Wellingtonians can give ourselves a pat on the back for surviving the worst of it with our love for Wellington intact.  After all, there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.

You may or may not have noticed but the energies of the Wellingtonista have been diverted into the twitterstream somewhat of late, but hey we find plenty of our readers there these days too!  Solstice is getting a few a mentions around the place and I found  this charming tweet:

@RowanSmith Went to Druids’ solstice do at Stonehenge Aotearoa. Druid: "We give thx to the powers of the East and to the guy holding this light for me"

So we are curious, do you mark Solstice?  Are you planning anything for Matariki this week?  Let us know in the comments or on twitter @wellingtonista, a post on hot tips for Matariki is planned for tomorrow.