So you think you can't party? "Zoom in" for a unique Matsumoto Bon Bon with Luna Sat 18th, 6pm JST

世界中のルナファミリーと踊りでつながろう企画！！

毎年恒例の松本ぼんぼんが、今年は コロナウイルスの影響で中止となり、残念な気持ちでいっぱいです。
ですが今年は、信濃毎日新聞が「松本ぼんぼん」を踊る動画を募集、ルナ連としてリモートで松本ぼんぼん企画に参加することにしました♪　（三密を避ける為、Zoomを使います。）

ご一緒に参加してくださる方を募集します。
現役生徒さんはもちろん、元ルナ生、世界中のルナファミリーどなたでもご参加頂けます。

参加方法として、Zoomを録画したものを投稿します。
動画は随時、公式YouTubeチャンネルにアップされ、,イオンモール松本、信毎メディアガーデンにて上映されます。
ご参加していただける方は、参加用ZoomのIDより参加して下さい！

※スクールにお立ち寄り頂ければ人数分のバンダナとうちわの貸出します。また、ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツも販売します。お問い合わせを。

＜リモート松本ボンボンZoom録画の予定＞
Zoom ID : 下記よりアクセス
日時：7月18日（土）
18：00～おしゃべり、18：10～踊り練習、18：25～本番（録画します）
終わった後は、そのままZoom飲み会（飲み会は自由参加です。いつでも退出可）
服装：ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツ（ない方はお持ちの赤Tシャツがあればうれしいです）・バンダナ・うちわ貸出します。（添付写真をご参照ください。）
来年も使えるオリジナルTシャツは在庫に限りがございますが、1枚1,500円でご購入頂けます。（ルナ生徒様は1000円で販売）

参加費は無料。 ご家族ご友人など、お誘いあわせの上 是非ご参加ください！
三密をさけたお好きな場所からZoomご参加頂けます。
ご不明な点は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。

Hello Luna family,
As you may know that "Matsumoto Bonbon " has been canceled this year.
However, "Shinano Mainichi Shinbun" will have a ''remote'' Bonbon dance event this year.
Luna will join this event .

Let's dance together with our families and friends with zoom! We will make a Zoom chat room for Luna members,and we will record the dance routine as a group. We will then send this to 'Shinano Mainichi '' for them to use. They will collect recordings from different groups and make a dancing compilation. This compilation will be played at several shopping malls in Matsumoto city during summer.

Date : July 18th, 2020 (Sat)
Start time : 18;00
Time schedule 18：00～Chat、18：10～Practice dance、18：25～Record dance together

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86759696384…

ID: 867 5969 6384
Password: 580897

Wear a red shirt/union jack/express yourself!

We can't wait to see all our friends :)

Another Bon Bon Boogie Night!

The first week of August, hot and steamy, drew to a close; Matsumoto's streets gave way to pedestrians and party-goers! Once again, tens of thousands of people turn out to dance the city streets and join in the fun...and right in the middle is little Luna, led by our merry band of mini-dancers in their smart red t-shirts...and they kept dancing all night long!

We had time to warm up, on Eki-mai, with nobody around - same as last year...but our good friends from the Nagano Pref. Children's Hospital were in front of us. Not sure if they enjoyed the special jelly Damian & Jim had concocted. Contents? Trade secret - but 'special'.

It seemed like a quiet night, and thankfully not too many idiots trying to barge through our group this year. Main problem was Alex occasionally getting too close to the white line in the middle of the road!

 Along the way we bumped into old friends & students dancing with other groups, and others joining us once their more boring teams went home early :) We added a Spanish coterie to our tails for the final swing around the whatever park, behind Yohashira shrine, and later heard stories of Seville & Barcelona while we warmed down over cold drinks!

Thanks everyone who joined us and made Bon Bon 2016 a lovely night out. We think you are great, and we love making this evening the centerpiece of our summers.

You will find all our pictures from the evening at the link below

https://www.flickr.com/gp/saint_george/X1NFwe

BonBon Slideshow

Thank you everyone for making our evening such great fun!

Bon Bon Photos - request

This is the address for the "set" on flickr we shall be using for tonight's Bon Bon photos - please share yours with us as well?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_george/sets/72157630868528122/

If you like, you can share with us through Facebook instead

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Luna-International/125002814212039

If you are tweeting, pls mention @luna_intnl and use the #Luna & #BonBon

Matsumoto information - festivals

3rd July 

Dear Hannah,

It's great that you're coming to Matsumoto. It's quieter and more famous than London. It's in central Nagano,central Japan, about three hours from Tokyo. I think that Matsumoto Bon Bon is great fun. It is our summer festival. People enjoy dancing. Another Matsumoto summer festival is Saito Kinen. It is a program of opera, parades and Saito Kinen Orchestra concerts. So it is classical music festival. If you can visit Matsumoto, you will enjoy festivals.

Write soon and tell me your news.

Love,
Mizuki

Bon Bon yourself silly!

As any fool know, Bon Bon is the BIG GIG of the year in Matsumoto!

August 4th

Can't read the form on the left? Well, that means you probably ain't a Luna student. No problem. (If you are a Luna student, and you can't understand this...Nihongo posting on Monday!)

Want to join the festival? Email oyajim at gmail.com and I'll let you know how you can register. More importantly, we'll send you t-shirt iron-on prints (you buy the cheapest white t-shirt you can), and supply as much ale as you and all the other reprobates we recruit can drink. This will only cost you Y1,000 - and you will not get arrested for singing, drinking and dancing your little behind off all around our historic town!

Can my friends/wives/kids come? Yes, of course - but please register with us by the end of the month.

Can I just turn up? No - dress code applies, and Jim totally hates the idea of giving away beer (hints of Scottish relatives in the closet).

When does this part start & end?

• Meet up 17:30 (don't know where yet). Break up at 21:00 - if you are coming with toddlers, please advise (recommend a 8pm curfew)
• Apres dance knees up - don't want to miss out?!  Tell us the now!

Bon Bon update

Registration to join Luna's team closed on Friday, and we are delighted that once again we will have a full subscription. Thank you all for choosing to join us - we might be able to squeeze a couple more dancers in if you ask our super model Yuki (left).

As you can see, this year's t-shirt is a collectors item (as is Yuki) and is bound to popular and highly recognisable.

Starting point will be outside NHK, heading towards Agata-no-mori. Hardly ideal, as that is absolutely the 'dead' end of the festival. However, we may end up in the middle of town again...who knows! Meeting up at 5pm - 'getting in the mood'.

We are also booking a little yakitori (same as 2009) to carry on the festivities once the dancing stops. Shaping up to be an exciting evening!

Bon Bon starting place

Yes folks, there is still time to join the funtabulous Luna Bon Bon 2009 all-singing, all-dancing and all-drinking Team!
Contact Yuki to get your t-shirt ordered NOW

My hometown - Matsumoto

I live in Matsumoto, which is a city next to the mountains in the middle of Japan. It has a population of 228,814 people and it's a normal sized city in Japan.

It's a beautiful city, and it's great for walking around. There are lots of narrow streets, and it's full of shrines and markets. There's an area called Nawate where is a lot of outdoor markets and yatai-restaurants -people go there at the weekend to buy something for everyday use and eat something.
The weather here is very different from Tokyo. The winter is very cold, and it sometimes snows for days. The summer is wonderful - it's sunny but not usually too hot, and it's great for going to the mountains.

Matsumoto is famous for a castle, which is a national treasure. The most tourists visit there. It's a beautiful black colored castle. There's a festival in Auguest called Matsumoto Bon-bon, with a dancing people in the streets, and everybody competes their dances each other.

But I think the best things about Matsumoto are the people and the atmosphere. It has a clear air and water. It's a working city and it has a real sense of history, and that's the main reason why I like living here so much.

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Big Hand Bon Bon

Bon Bon 2007 was a blast; I really hope our "Big Hands" had as much of an impact on the crowd as they did on my arm/shoulder - feel like I played tennis all night! Anybody else sore??

We started off by the back of Parco, looking a bit sheepish & unsure....but that changed as soon as the music started! Eri's buddies jumped into the lead rank and stayed there pretty much for the rest of the evening, giving everyone else something resembling the Bon Bon dance to follow. Thanks guys!

As with every year we had a very young bunch of dancers, who had a blast being the stars of the show. Kayo-chan's niece once again showed us her moves, and again we were stranded for about an hour without moving - this time half-way down Eki Mai dori. Well done all our little ones for staying the pace.

Around about this time one over zealous staff member tried to tell us off for having too much fun & interacting with other groups! As if?! Never heard anything so ridiculous - not allowed to have fun at a matsuri. Anyway, I think she understood English because she didn't come back to bother us ;)...guess she didn't see me getting a bear hug from the Yamaga FC gorrilla

Last year we picked up a Chinese group, this year some home-stayers from the US, here with my old friend Mark Gribsco. Also a few other folks I didn't know, but presumably British, as they didn't mind putting on the Union Jack bandanas. Late arrivals Kouichi, Mark & family, Tsuchida-san padded our ranks welcomely as some tired ones toddled home.

Thanks this year to my parents-in-law for pushing us around - manning the drinks - and to Alex & Martin, Liza, Owen, Michelle for genki-ing up the crew. Big thank you to Maki guarding us, her baptism of fire as we tried to manage without Yuki-chan for the first time since we started joining Bon Bon about 10 years ago (of course she still organised everything!).

And of course a very big thank you to all who danced with us, or came along to cheer us through the streets. Take a moment to share your photos please at Lunasafamily@groups.msn.com and remember to book early next year for "Bambino Bon"!