Museum of fairground arts

When I set up a meetup for my comm, I really try to find something a bit different, places that really have their own atmosphere and makes you travel.
When I first saw the pics from the garden of the museum of fairground arts, I knew I had to set up something over there. To be fair I didn't even know about the place until lovely Shenna from lacealamode posted the pictures from her visit last February. A museum where you can ride the attractions ? I needed to go !

A wild herd of lolitas appears

The only downside of this place is that the dimlight makes taking pictures really hard.

Some of  Josephine Baker's costume were in the museum !

There were three parts in the museum, each of them was composed of a great dance hall and an area with rides we could try on. They actually rent the place. Just imagine celebrating something here !

Camélia and her friend creepy unicorn guy

Camélia, Léa, Chloé and Lunila on the venician ride

Teeny tiny ram ride

Flying horses of the automaton gallery.

The automatons sang an opea piece for us. Those were distorting mirrors.

Venitian room.

Great barrel organ. They are my weakness, it's a shame they're not more common, especially the smaller ones.

Yes, we rode that

Vélocipède

 Ok so it was my first time earing about this thing. This weird carousel with bikes is called "vélocipède", and you have to actually ride it like a real bike, it's powered by pedaling. This one is fully working, and it's the only one still functional in Europe ! Needless to say that I loved it. The machine itself is so heavy that you really feel like you're going incredibly fast when it start to move. Such a blissful feel of freedom.

Look how stupidly happy I am. I couldn't stop smiling, I had way too much fun

Chloé, Lunila, PumpKin, Camélia, Léa, me and Chloé (thanks Lunila for the pic !)

After that we all went to a restaurant nearby to have some dessert. I took a mint lemonade and some tarte tatin.

Then some of us ended the day by some ramen in Japan Town. I got tonkatsu, since I wasn't feeling up for a soup.

This was truely amazing.

 I have a really specific connection with traditional, popular culture since I come from a rural area and have been raised with local tales and songs. I felt so moved and so happy seeing this place, it really made me miss home and some parts of my childhood. I'm very much a city girl now, but I couldn't stop talking about my days at my friend's farms, the summer neighbour party with the old accordéon player and the cold nights spent in this half deserted castle in Ardèche. This was twice as important to me since I had memory issues due to medication a while ago and the place really triggered some very specific memories that I missed dearly. It was really hard for me to not cry at the sound of the organ barrel, and me who was feeling so blue just before the meetup went out with the biggest smile across the face. So maybe I'm a bit partial on that, but you should definitely visit that place. It's worth it. Trust me.

Thanks a lot girls for sharing this moment with me, we had a wonderful time together and I'm happy you liked the place too. I look forward to organise an other meetup with such a great group of friends !