My friend in Australia showed shogi in Japan Festival in Melbourne

Every year, Japan Festival is held in Melbourne, Australia. This year's event was held on May 18. My shogi friend in Australia was invited by the organizer to host a shogi table although he is an Australian and many Japanese visitors were expected to come there. I got a note from him as below;

    I was recently invited to host a Shogi table at the Japanese festival in Melbourne , Australia.
    The allocation for me was two chairs and one table , placed in a room between the Origami and Go section.
    The event was scheduled to open at 10:00 am , however as soon as I set my board up at 9:30, I found myself instructing a teenage girl on how to defeat her brother! (she almost did)
    This was the beginning of over seven hours playing and instructing Shogi for me! I played approximately 20 games , my opponents varied from old men , right down to young children. I even played a beautiful Japanese lady dressed in Kimono.The playing strength varied from perhaps 1 or 2 kyu , down to 15 kyu. (I am only around 12 kyu)
    My games were a mixture of even , or, 1 or 2 piece handicaps. All the games were close battles with at times between 15 -20 spectators. Player demand was exceeding my supply of space and sets , after a couple of hours the Go section kindly gave me the use one of their tables .This allowed to use my other two sets and to play two simultaneous games , plus rotatate around the 4 boards offering advice, or instruction when needed. I really enjoyed this even though I lost six games straight!
    The majority of the people that I played were of coarse Japanese , however I'm pleased to say that I introduced the game to quite a few people from different countries.
    To sum up, it was a great day , there would have been at least 50 games played by about 20 people , everyone involved seem to really enjoy themselves. To my knowledge , this is the first time Shogi has been played at this type of event in Melbourne.
    Many thanks to the Melbourne Japanese Federation

I'm sure he had a great time.

I think there have been many events like this Japan Festival worldwide. But many of those events were not recognized well by local shogi fans in many towns in various countries since the organizers did not often have a capability to open a website or weblog for notification of the events in the past. But the situation is gradually changing. As you see above, the organizer of Japan Festival in Melbourne has opened its website so that you can recognize the event a little easier. I hope every Japan Festival to be hold various towns in various regions will be notified in a similar way so that you can recognize ones to be hold your town.

Comments

[w1allen]

Hello, takodori and Darren.
This event was very exciting!
It is good if the events like this are held in various regions.

[takodori]

> w1allen
I totally agree.

[Darren (ramalam)]

Hi w1allen
Nice to hear form you ,
as you can see , there are my notes.
Also , I'm hoping to get a photo of it ...

[Darren]

Hi takodori,

thankyou for psting my notes and all your help.
I think I might have a photo to send soon ...