Taiko: Sakura Concert

Here I am posting about the Taiko concert I performed in instead of studying for the 5 midterm exams I have this week (yay~). Have no fear, I've got it covered. Anyway, taiko. Awsome. First, there were about 50 kids from different groups there, adorable little kids banging away on the drums and some of them really kicking butt.
Basically it was a few different groups performing in one concert to bring in the spring. I am part of the Miyabi group thanks to my friend Matt from Kansai Gaidai. He showed me the group first and is absolutely fluent in Japanese so helps me a lot deciphering what the teacher is saying (she speaks with a super thick Kansai-ben accent).

This is Matt and I performing a peice we both learned
at our 2 separate dojos back in the States.

Another peice I performed in called Tenma.

Matt and I post-performance adrenaline!

After the performance much celebrating took place. David came down from Kyoto to watch the show and joined me and the group at a fantastic food and drink party. When we had all had our fill people started chanting for speeches and everybody got up individually to say a little word of thanks and congratulations. Of course, when they started chanting my name I got up and joined in. Even David and Matt's friends introduced themselves!

There were also many of the cute little adorable kids there, David and I made friends with them.

After the party the Americans headed out to the train station and hit up every convenience store on the way (in Japan, they are called konbini). I arrived home to a delicious dinner my host Dad made and went to sleep tired, full and happy. I was a great end to my spring break and the perfect combo-breaker before my tests.

I'll see everybody after midterms!

Japan is Actually an Island: Part III

Hiroshima, I would expect, is more greatly known for the site of the world's first atomic bomb. Visiting the city without seeing the peace park would feel really wrong so I headed over to the park to hang my cranes and go through the emotionally wrenching museum once again. I took a lot of pictures of the exhibits inside the museum but I don't think I will be posting any on the internet because although the museum teaches a valuable lesson about history, the content is presented in such a way where it is not saying "Look what happened to us" it is saying "Look at what you did to us." My friend Kelly had also been to the museum once before and skipped out this time for exactly this reason.
Aside from that aspect, the city is full of extremely friendly people who just want to chat with you. We ran into an super talkative granny at the Hiroshima museum of Contemporary Art who chatted to us about mothers and studying abroad for a bit. We ate delicious tempura where the chef told us all about the tasty tradition of frying food. We also went to this garden with turtles, and I swear, they were the chattiest turtles I have ever seen.

These turtles were is a traditional garden in Hiroshima...so pretty.


Yeah, SO. Most of my entire trip was spent just wandering around and looking at how different places in Japan can be. People look different too, Hiroshima people are different from people in Osaka and Okinawa and so on. During my walking travels I also realized that Hiroshima is an island too. The name actually means "wide island" and the whole city is filled with rivers and bridges and big wide streets and friendly people. And just like that my trip ended. I had to book it back the Osaka to be in time for a 7 hour taiko rehearsal because the next day was our big performance!

Japan is Actually an Island: Part II

Miyajima is a little island near Hiroshima that is known for the Itsukushima Shrine. My friends Kelly and Kristen stayed there with me.It's a shinto Gate out on the bay and duirng low tide you can walk out to it. It really is beautiful, but this is not why I came back to this island. I came because it is gorgeaus and there are so many other incredible places to see packed into the tiny island. For expample: The Daisho Buddhist Temple.
It's a place great Emperors have stayed to find peace and quite, a temple that the Dalai Lama stayed for three months, a place in the mountains that is so under rated.

The whole island is filled with places like this, monks find the island spiritually settling. I wonder why:

The island is gorgeous, traditional, and has a sense of humor.

Honestly it is one of the more beautiful places I know of in Japan. Who would believe it's 30 minutes from ground zero of the atomic bomb.

Japan is Actually an Island: Part I

One week, three different places, all islands.

On a miserably rainy Friday morning I skipped all my classes and headed to Okinawa with Sebastian and Juliana. We arrived on a deliciously humid evening greeted by a typically tropical airport.

Our First day night was spent getting delicious hand-made noodles and walking the city a bit. But the next day we headed towards our more permanent residence for the next couple days and made it there somehow on a ten-dollar bus. The best thing about it though was getting to our hostel and trying to find the light switch in our rooms, because the lights are actually controlled by knobs and the only switch-operated light in our room turned out to be a moving disco ball.



Mine was yellow. It was awesome. We explored the town a bit that day, basically we were right next to an American army base, not where I wanted to be at all, but the next day made the location all worth it. I spent a small fortune to go scuba diving. Reef Encounters took Sebastian and I too some small unnamed islands to three different underwater environments. Fisrt we got a coral reef, next we got a sea wall drop off (and I unepectedly ended up going down to 130ft) and the last was a rock and sand envirnment home to many sea turtles! The favorite part of this day was not onlyo being underwater but seing the little islands of okinawa, there are many of them around but you have to kind of own a boat or take ferries to the bigger ones. My favorite island was this tiny little sand thing that had some great history. Doug (our instructor) told me that this island:
is the island that America decided to set up camp before they attacked Okinawa. What happened on it goes like this: the island is 14 miles from the mainland. Okinawa saw what America was doing and decided to let them get all settled and then blow them and their equipment to bits. When Okinawa made their attack, they soon realized their long-range guns only went 12 miles. America saw the little puffs of smoke coming from the mainland and bombarded Okinawa with their 16 mile long range guns. This battle was a huge deciding factor in the war of America's final actions on Japan. Cool bit of history in a picturesque setting.
Other islands were fantastic with not as much history.

The next day I took a beach day and got a tan and walked along the shore. The water was blue, the trees had flowers, it was sunny and warm. However the main event happened at night. Next to our hostel was a nightly flea market where people sold their stuff and ddelicious food was made. The best thing I ate that night was not the fresh-baked brownie, not the BBQ ribs, but the Brazilian pies.
This woman sold them, pastry puff full of meat and cheese. The moment I took a bite into one I decided Okinawa really wasn't Japan. It's actually closer to Taiwan than it is to Japan, but the only things Japan and Okinawa have in common is their language is based on the same structure and alphabet.

The next day I headed back to Osaka Airport only to take the shinkansen (bullet train!) down to Hiroshima where I stayed on an island called Miyajima.

I am off to Okinawa for some scuba diving and then to Hiroshima for some memory-seeking. I'll be back in a week with a mass of pictures. Wish me luck~

Momo-chan got Maimed by Mama-san

Do you all remember Momo-chan?

Pretty fluffy devil-kitty.

Well, I came home one day to find that Mama-san got bored and decided to give Momo a little trim. Now, I knew my host mother was a little bit on the crazy side of things but, she could have shaved him and he would've looked better.

The is the "new" Momo-chan. Notice the uneven trim of his cheek fluff, the random chunk of fur taken from his once-proud lions mane, and the sad, lifeless shells that were once the eyes that would stare at me for hours in suspicion.

I could feel sorry for him, but really, I would just be lying to myself.

Omizutori in Nara

On Tuesday, David and I embarked to Nara (about an hour away by train) to go see a shinto ritual called "Omizutori."  Literally this means "to give water" but for some strange reason, the ritual involves parading these massive fireballs up and through the shrine.  The only thing that was ever remotely related to water was the fact that it was pouring rain (yet again).  This ritual has some significance of which I am not quite educated about.  All I know is the end of the ritual weeks are supposed to mark the real start of spring!  Now that is something worth praying for.

David and I climbing the poorly designed stairs/river.

A view of Nara at night from the temple.

In the temple, after the big fire ritual, the "in-the-know" people go up and watch the monks chant and light some more things on fire.  Of course this is all done through a wooden screen and then a white translucent screen, so nobody can get any good pictures.

Every shinto shrine has a bell you ring before praying, usually it is a heavy rope you pull to jingle the bell, but this one was Technicolor!

Hopefully I will go back before March 14th (when it ends) when it is not raining.  Hopefully I will make it back to Nara sometime during the day to go frolic with the very friendly deer they have.  For now, I am awaiting Spring break on the 13th!  I will be heading to Okinawa for some scuba diving and then to Hiroshima for some hiking and historical reflection.  More to come.

P.S.  Here is a link to a song by Akira playing his UFO steel drum thingamabob.

Akira-Track 06

Caution: Megaupload might have some "weird" advertisements on it, beware.

The most Random Thing I Have Ever Done

Sorry, no pictures again. Hopefully I will get something to show everybody on Tuesday. I am planning to go to Nara for a festival of some kind. More in the next post.

For now I would like to tell everybody about the most extremely random thing I have ever done. Ever.

On Saturday night I met up with my friend David in Kyoto. Earlier, he and his friends had met an Australian Experiemental Music band and decided to go to a show of theirs and I tagged along. First, this show was in a Curry Udon shop that could barely hold ten people and looked like something right out of not Japan. The guy that runs the place calls himself "Master" and not only does he serve delicious indo-nese food but specializes in playing music for the cutomer's enjoyment.

The austrlian band was preceeded by two men, one of which was called Akira who played a seriously brand-newly created instrument. It sounds like steel drums and looks like a UFO but the music was like nothing I had ever heard so David and I bought his CD. I think I will try and get a download link to an mp3 on the blog next post (I don't have the CD yet).

The next guy played the sax and was indeed an "experimental" musician. The only thing I found remotely interesting or pleasent to listen to was when he made the sax sound like a base guitar. Other than that, my ears could not pick up on the music aspect of the thing.

The main feature, the Auzzies, were more easy to listen to. There was a drummer who played on various pots and pans and the other guy made some screeching noises with a machine and did some crazy voice things into a microphone that made me trip like I was in the seventies. Then I went home and went to bed.

That was about it. Music I had never heard before, in a Curry Udon shop on a little street in Kyoto. It was an experience to say the least.