Spring Vacation!! 春休み…関西で‼

Originally, I thought that I would only have a 3 day weekend at the end of March, but it turned out that I actually got 6 days off!! When I originally thought it was the 3 days, I decided I would go out to Kansai and hopefully catch some sakura as well as a live, and when I found out I got 6 days, I just decided to extend my time in Kansai a little bit.

The first day of my vacation, I met up with a friend from university who is from Nara.  Actually, I met her and her mom in Nara.  When I got there, we took a little walk through Nara Park and tried to look for some sakura in bloom, while we caught up (it's been about 4 years since I'd seen her last!).  Unfortunately, it turned out that there weren't really any in bloom yet.  It was a little bit too early. 
Disappointing.

The one blooming weeping sakura in Nara

And, when they found out that I'd actually visited Nara Park a few times before, we changed our plans a little bit.  Instead of looking at things that I'd seen before, they decided we should go into Osaka, as they had to go there anyway to look at some things in a shopping street.  Before we left, Ayumi's mom asked us to wait for a minute, as she had something to do.  When she came back she was carrying a little bag.  I didn't find out what was inside until we got onto the train.  It turns out that she had bought me some of Nara's speciality foods in a bento to eat before I went to the live on the following day.  I was so surprised and really touched.  It was so incredibly kind of her!

When we got to Osaka, we stopped for a late (and giant) lunch of okonomiyaki and yakisoba, and it was, of course, delicious!  After that we wandered around in Doguyasuji shopping street which has various shops full of cooking things, supplies for restaurants (signs, cash registers, menu pads, etc.) and the food samples that you see outside of restaurants here.  It was quite interesting.  After that it was already quite late in the afternoon and Ayumi's mom was getting a little tired so they left to go back home to Nara.

Sakura at Osaka Station

The next day, I did so many things!!  I started the day by heading out to Kobe to drop my things off at the hotel that I needed to change to since there were no hotels available on the Saturday night in Osaka (and I had looked at the beginning of February -- nearly 2 months ahead of time!).  Once I dropped my things off, I headed back into Osaka, where I had a nice little lunch, and then visited Osaka Castle in hopes of seeing some sakura blossoms.  I did get to see a few, but many of the trees there were only just starting to open up.  Not to mention, there were so many people there, as there was some kind of event going on. 

After wandering around Osaka Castle's park area for a while (did I mention the weather has been beautiful?) I hopped onto the train again and went to Tennoji, as I had found out that one of the bands I liked was doing a street live there.  As I had never been to the Tennoji area before, I had to do a little bit of wandering around to find the location of where the live was. It turned out that it was in this interesting bridge area near the station. 

When I got there, the other musician that they were doing a joint live with was singing a song and when he finished they got shut down by a couple of policewomen.  Having been to street lives before, I know that sometimes after they get shut down, they will start up again after waiting for the crowd to clear off and the police to leave, so I decided I would go take a walk and check out Tennoji Park which is right across from the station since it was such nice weather.  It turned out though, that the park itself was closed due to construction, so I was only able to walk around it rather than through it.  

After that I headed back up to the area where they were doing the live, and sure enough, they had started up again.  This time, I think I got to listen to about three songs or so before they got shut down again by another policeman.  Bad luck. 

ソラモユート and Taisuke

At this point I decided I would go try talking with them, and actually ended up talking with the other musician they were doing the live with (his music was really fun and he got everyone kind of pumped up).  He actually introduced himself to me in English and said, "Hi, my name is Taisuke.  I'm Japan's number one musician!"  Which definitely got a laugh from me -- why would Japan's number one musician get shut down by the police (multiple times)?  Anyway, he talked a lot and really fast, and I somehow ended up taking a picture with him (although it's not really such a good one of me).

Taisuke and me

After talking with him, I wanted to talk with ソラモユート, the two guys who I'd actually wanted to listen to, but somehow I ended up talking with an older lady instead who gave me their pamphlet and told me to check out their website, twitter, etc., and told me about a live they're having at the end of the week.  And then they had packed up their things and already started leaving.  Too bad.  They came back again later, but at that point I had ended up listening to another group who was doing a live close to where the others had been and by the time I realized that ソラモユート was singing again, I had to leave.  Oh well.  Another time, I'm sure.

ソラモユート

The reason why I had to leave was to go to ヨシダヒロキ's live which I had already booked tickets for.  This live was at a live house in Shinsaibashi, another area of Osaka that I'd never been in before this weekend.  (I had checked it out the evening before though to see if I could find the location so I'd know where to go --- I actually didn't find it that night, but that's a story for another time).  When I arrived at the live house, ヨシダヒロキ was there greeting everyone, and when I came in he asked me if I'd been in Nanba the day before, which I had (that was where I had lunch with Ayumi and her mom).  I was definitely surprised by that question, but it turned out that he'd actually either seen me waiting for a train when he was on one or he was on the same train but further down (I wasn't really clear on which it was), but anyway, I guess he'd seen me and recognized me.  Surprise!  Anyway, as usual, it was a great live, and lots of fun!  He and マルシェ also autographed everyone's tickets after they were finished performing and then took a group picture with everyone. 

 

Signed ticket

Everyone after the live!

Good times!! It's going to be great again when he comes to Takamatsu in April (he actually told me to send him an email about how many people I'm going to come with!)

ヨシダヒロキ and me

 

On Sunday it rained, and I didn't really do much worth mentioning at all.

The next day the weather was back to being lovely and warm so I took a walk from Sakuranomiya all the way down to Osaka Castle area (well actually I went further than that, but that's not particularly important). Anyway, the sakura have started to open up a lot more and as the entire way along the canal is lined with them, it was a really nice walk!!

After this lovely walk I ended up back at Osaka castle and I decided to go back to Tennoji to see what street lives were happening in the afternoon, and it turns out Taisuke was doing another live so I stopped and listened to him again (for more than just two songs this time). After about an hour or so he got shut down, but it was good timing for me as I had to go around then anyway. But before I left he came over shook my hand and thanked me for coming out again.

At that time, I headed back to Osaka station area since that's where I wanted to eat my dinner. After I finished doing that, I found another street live on my way back to the station, and since I had a couple minutes to spare, I stopped and listened. This pair (they were called フタリシズカ) switched back and forth between playing the piano and singing.

フタリシズカ

After watching them for a few minutes, I headed out again to go to...(yes, I know, it's probably not too difficult to guess)...another live!! But before I talk about that...I really wish I'd had a bit more time to listen to these two because their piano and voices were quite nice! But they sent me messages on Twitter, so maybe the next time I come, I'll be able to listen to them again.

This time it was off to FASE's live. Lucky for me the live house where he had his live was fairly easy to find. While I was there, I saw the older ladies who are so clearly his big fans again.  His live was also pretty fun although there weren't so many people there -- maybe 5, but I guess that's alright. He had two other guys (separately) opening up for him. The first one was ok, and the second was more energetic and kind of amusing and played piano really well. I was jealous. But this musician (山本義則 [Yamamoto Yoshinori]) also started talking to the audience between some of his songs and at one point asked them for some Japanese words that he wrote down as cues for songs later. I was really surprised when he suddenly switched to English and started talking to me directly. After the live I talked with them for a bit (both FASE and 山本義則 could speak English quite well). FASE talked to me about ヨシダヒロキ for a little bit and said he should start talking with him in English the next time he sees him. That made me smile -- I think it would be an interesting conversation to listen to. ~_^ Anyway, it was a good evening and I'm glad I went. 

And for my final day in Kansai, I headed out to Kyoto's Arashiyama area to get out of the cities for a little bit and to see some more cherry blossoms. Since it was Tuesday, I didn't expect there to be so many people, but they were everywhere!!! The streets and trains were packed! I can only imagine how much worse it would've been on Saturday or Sunday. Anyway, I stopped of at a zen temple and garden, Tenryuji, which is also incidentally a world heritage site. There were many different plants in flower, but too many people!

 

 

 

After that I went across the bridge to Arashiyama Park where there were many sakura trees in full blossom. Very pretty!

 

Then I took a walk down by the river which led up to a short little hike to another small zen temple on the top of a hill.

And that was more or less how I spent my spring vacation. Not too bad, I'd say!!  Although, I was really sad to have to leave Kansai, because it was so much fun! I didn't want it to stop!

To see more of my spring vacation photos, click here.

Sky Class Graduation

For the last month or so, life at work has been really busy getting ready for the graduation of our Sky class as well as preparation for the new school year.

Graduation day was held last Saturday and it was a really nice day for the students and their parents.  It is also one of the only days of the year where our staff has to wear formal work wear.

By the end of the ceremony there most of the people in attendance had cried at least once. (and not just the students, but the parents as well).  As Rainbow class teacher, I also was an MC for the day as the other full time preschool teacher was busy doing things such as presenting diplomas, giving a speech and leading the graduating students in a variety of things.

Throughout the ceremony, a variety of things happened.  The students received their diploma, read a letter to the students in the younger classes, gave a gift they made to the school, received gifts from students from the other classes and from the teachers, listened to speeches by their teacher, our boss and one of the mothers of a student from the graduating class, listened to letters from the younger students, sang a song, presented gifts to their Sky class teachers, and also presented flowers to the teachers who will no longer be at our school for the next school year, and it was finished with a song sang by one of the student's mothers in addition to group and other pictures.  It was a busy day for them, but they had practiced a lot and worked really hard, so I'm glad it went well for them.

After the ceremony, all of the teachers saw the younger students get picked up by their parents, and then we proceeded to take down decorations and return all of the things that had been taken out of the classroom back to their proper spots.  By this point, we were all quite hungry, and headed out to a really nice lunch all together, which was a combination of a year-end and farewell lunch.  We ate a multi-course Japanese meal.  It was delicious! 

 



Shopping Nightmare vs. Amazing Lives

So if you know anything about me, you know that shopping (for clothes) is one of my most despised activities EVER, so I was understandably less than excited when I had to make a trip to find myself a new pair of jeans.  I headed out to Kansai to visit some of the types of shops that I would be more familiar with.

On Saturday I spent the day in Kobe looking for jeans that would suit me, but for the most part it was all skinny jeans, skinny jeans and more skinny jeans.  AHHHHH!!! Not good for me! So eventually I took a look at some of the shops websites (yes, the Japanese versions) before I went into the stores, so I could just look for what I wanted.  For a couple of them, the websites said that the stores should have boot cut jeans, but when I went they told me that the store didn't have them.  Disappointing.   Or I would ask if they had boot cut jeans and they would say yes, but they would turn out to actually still be skinny jeans or non-full length jeans.  Not good.  When I finally did find some jeans that would actually work for me, they of course had the size one size bigger and one size smaller than my size, but was my size there? No, of course not.  So frustrating!!! 

Eventually I got to the point where I just needed a break, so I headed outside for some sunshine and fresh air.  As I went outside, I could hear some music, so I decided to go check out what was going on.  Turns out that there was a street live going on.  This was a new band for me to hear -- their style is more of a kind of rock music --- with a drummer, bassist, guitarist and vocalist.  While I'm not sure if I really like the vocalist's voice or not, I definitely enjoyed the music as it was really upbeat and was an awesome break from shopping.  This band was called Wing of Wind... to check out what they sounded like, listen to the audio below...

If this video doesn't work, click here to listen.

On my way back to the area where I was staying, I ran into ヨシダヒロキ and FASE. They were waiting for a policeman to clear off so that they could start a street live that they'd planned for that evening.  So of course, I had to stop and listen!  They ended up singing from around 6pm until about 9pm.  It was so much fun!  I also met some of the older ladies as well as the lady who worked in the café from the last time that I saw these two do a joint street live in Kobe.  As the weather was a little chilly, everyone was drinking the warm drinks from vending machines/convenience stores that you can buy here in Japan.  In fact, one of the ladies bought a whole bag of a variety of them and shared them with ヨシダヒロキ, FASE, the other ladies, and even me too! So kind!!  Actually, there had also been a mobile kind of doughnut stand that parked itself right next to the live setup (distraction technique?!) and the same lady who bought the drinks also bought a couple bags of those and passed them around as well (although I declined these).  As he was getting ready to leave (FASE stayed and played music for a while longer) ヨシダさん told me he was doing another live in Osaka the next afternoon, and asked if I was going to come --- I told him it depended on if I could get my shopping done or not...

So the next day, I checked out and headed in to Osaka to try out my luck at shopping there.  Initially I ended up having the same issues as I had in Kobe, but eventually I found the same store as the one that had jeans that would've worked for me, but just didn't have them in my size.  The store in Osaka had one pair in my size!! YES!!! They're mine!! Not to mention I got 1,000 yen off (about $10), just for trying them on.  Score!  I managed to accomplish this feat with enough time to get some lunch and pick up a couple snacks for the bus ride home and even had a little bit of extra time to spare before ヨシダさん's Osaka live started that afternoon!  Yay!!  It turns out that this time he was doing the live together with マルシェ, who does percussion kind of things.  It was also incredibly windy that day which made it feel really chilly and I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to play guitar like that (even I had my hands stuck well into the pockets of my coat!).  Again, many people who were listening brought the two of them those little warm drinks every so often. They were scheduled to do this live from 1-4pm, and they did do it for the entire time, but around 3, you could really tell that they were starting to get really miserably cold and were ready to be done with it.  がんばれ!!

Anyway, all in all, considering that the weekend started out so dismally depressing with the outlook of shopping, it turned absolutely amazing with the opportunity to hear and enjoy all kinds of awesome music!

Birthday Time in Japan

This year’s birthday was so much fun!! Normally I don’t do too much, but this year, there were all kinds of things that happened.  At our school, our staff is really big on giving birthday presents to each other, so I ended up getting all sorts of nice different things.  Many of them had to do with me going to the beach or a live or one of my other interests, which was absolutely amazing.  I was super touched by how thoughtful all of the gifts were!  Also, the other teachers let it slip to the students, so I got wished a happy birthday many many times all day long.  And some of the students even gave me some little presents (a cut out paper heart, paper rabbit head and a number of leaves from outside).  I also got sung to many times throughout the day.  Maybe too many times. :P  But it was really nice anyway.

 

I had also planned to go out for dinner on the weekend, but when one of the other teachers found out that I was going to go by myself, she offered to join me, and then it ended up that all of the Japanese full time teachers came with us, so it was a nice group of five of us.  We went to a Japanese buffet restaurant and had a lovely dinner and some interesting conversations!  They were also super kind and treated me to dinner, which they really didn’t have to, but it was so kind of them! I was so happy to go together instead of going alone!

 

And then on Sunday afternoon, although not really related to my birthday, I went out again with the same girl I hung out with for a day in Okinawa.  We visited her house (because she forgot something before we started :P) and then wandered around AEON, a shopping mall, looking at all sorts of different things, checked out what movies were playing (no English ones), stopped at a café, wandered around some more, and then headed out for dinner.  Originally, she wanted to take me to yakiniku, but when we arrived at the restaurant (after she finally found it – she forgot where it was – lol) it turned out that it would’ve been about a 40 minute wait, and she didn’t want to wait that long so we got back in the car to find another restaurant.  This time we were headed to a Korean restaurant, which it again took her a while to find hehehe.  When we got into the restaurant, we took a look through the menu and ordered WAAAAYY too much food for the two of us, but it was delicious!  We must’ve stayed there for at least a couple of hours (we sat around talking as we were trying to work up some more room in our stomachs for the food).  After that we headed back in the direction of Takamatsu and ended up back at my apartment where we talked for a probably another hour and a half or so. It was soooo much fun and we also talked about other things we should do and places we should go together, so I also have some things to look forward to in the future!!  Exciting! ^_^

Weekend in Kansai!

This past weekend was an absolutely lovely 3 day weekend! (And the last one I'll likely have for a while, so I definitely had to take advantage of it!)

On Friday night, we had a staff New Year's party and went out to a Korean restaurant about a minute walk away from our school.  It was quite fun and there was lots of yummy food (plus it made me remember a few things from Korea...if I ever crave Korean food -- I know where to find it! :P)

Saturday I just spent doing a few things I had to catch up on, and then Sunday morning I headed off to Kobe for the rest of the weekend.  Actually, on Saturday night I found out that the musician I enjoy was doing a street live Sunday afternoon in addition to a live on the Monday night, so yay, bonus for me!  When I got into Kobe, I dropped off my things then wandered around for a while looking at various things.  In the afternoon I found my way to the location where he and another musician were doing their joint street live.  They were both quite good, but the one drawback was the wind made it rather chilly to be standing out there.  After the 3rd set it started to rain a little bit and a policeman showed up to shut them down saying they were a little too loud and blocking an entrance (even though there were some of those announcement cars that went by that were about 10x louder than they were and they weren't actually in front of an entrance to anything...) But anyway....it all turned out alright as after a long discussion with each other and a couple other people who showed up, they decided to move the location of the live to a café a little ways away from where we were.  So, we headed off that way (there were about 6 of us...2 being the musicians) and found ourselves in a tiny little café which was thankfully nice and cozy and warm and the two of them continued their live.  It was awesome!  Actually after the live, I talked with the other musician for a while as well, and it turned out that he had studied in the US, spoke excellent English and actually had certification to teach English to middle and high-schoolers although he's working at a company in another city here in Shikoku of all places.  Major coincidences!  There was also another funny little thing that happened (well actually twice). While at the street live and they were just changing musicians an old man asked me if I was going to sing. Nope! And then a similar thing at the cafe--- when we all walked in and were getting comfortable, the lady behind the counter asked about me as the "female member" of the group and if I was going to perform too, and so they had to explain that I was just there to watch. Funny though, that the same thing happened twice. Apparently I must look like a musician?! ^_^

After the little live, I headed off to Osaka as I really wanted to go to the 3D light show at Osaka Castle.  It was actually pretty awesome.  The first section was just going through a lit up archway path and looking at lights through the archway.

After that, you arrive at the 'pyramid tree' which cycles through an interesting 3D display (and it's loud!). 

If you can't view this video, click here.

Right next to that was what I'm going to call the light ocean.  The lights were all set up in a cycle and positions so that they looked like waves coming in and going out. Pretty cool.  And as you walked past that, you actually walked over some of those lights on a glass pathway, so the feeling was like you were walking on top of the ocean...

If you can't view this video, click here.

Next, you arrived at what is probably the main attraction of this event.  The area where you can watch the 3D display that's projected onto the castle.  It was about a 10 minute long display and it was AMAZING!!!  It also had sound too and I'm really glad I took a little video, because it's kind of hard to explain...not that the video really does justice to seeing it live though...

If you can't view this video, click here.

The final display at this event was a musical fountain/light show.  They timed the fountain and lights to various classical music and it was pretty cool, although it was a little hard to see from the position that I was in.  Nonetheless, a pretty sweet event altogether.

If you can't view this video, click here.

Monday morning, I decided to go check out Mount Rokko, as I'd heard it was a fairly nice place and had an awesome view.  It didn't take too long to get out there, but once I got to the top, it felt COLD!  And, guess what?! There was snow up there! Not a lot, but it was the first snow I've seen this winter (and quite possibly the only...)  There was indeed a very nice view, but the wind was BRUTAL!  So after spending a few hours up there, I headed back down into Kobe and cozied up with a nice warm drink in a café.

By the time I got myself warmed up again, it was time to head out to Monday night's live (lucky for me it started rather early in the evening).  This live was a combination of three different singers: ヨシダヒロキ, FASE (the two I'd seen Sunday afternoon), and Tyotti. They each had their own unique style of singing -- I won't say to much about ヨシダヒロキ as you've heard lots about him from me already, but FASE (he got made fun of a lot because he wants his name pronounced as 'face' but the way he has it spelled it's not really like that in English and in Japanese they'd pronounce differently as well) has kind of a mellow, relaxing style and Tyotti's style is kind of energetic and he does some really cool things with a LOOP machine.  And of course they all sang a song together at the end.  I really enjoyed all of the music that night.  After they were finished singing I actually saw literally all of the other people that had been at the café the previous afternoon, talked with a couple and talked with the musicians for a little before I had to head off to catch the last bus of the evening back to Takamatsu.

Tyotti, ヨシダヒロキ, and FASE

Not too bad of a weekend at all.  I may be having way too much fun, but there's no way that could be a negative thing at all! ^_^

For more pictures from this long weekend, click here.