Day 1 - Blue Start and Sparkling Finish

THE BLUE START



We docked at Ryotsu port on Sado island at 8 am that day. We quickly queued to get our car out of the parking place and head down towards Ogi, a city at the Southern coast of Sado island. The drive is about 50 km from Ryotsu through the mountains and along the winding coast line.



That early in the day, the traffic was pleasant. Having driven 120 km/hour in the past 4 hours, I found it quite challenging to keep the speed below 70 km/hour. The problem is that the other drivers are quite obviously Sado locals, and being islanders, I don't think they quite understand the meaning of haste.
These people definitely are not devoted Kodo fan like this freaky driver, and thus no one needed to be at Kisaki Shrine down by Ogi port well before 9 am to be able to score the early entry ticket.

We made it to Ogi at 9:10 am. After parking the car I ran to collect my ticket and ran again to the shrine to exchange it with the color-coded entry ticket. Deeply disappointed for getting a green card, not the red. I sulked for a little bit, until Beating Drum Ruth poked me on my shoulder, "Hey there, we got RED tickets!!!" I was.... what? what?
But of course!!! I forgot for a moment that a carload full of drummers and drums had left earlier on Thursday morning, and of course they lined up to get the red tickets for us.

Next stop was to drop off the two drummers at the Japanese inn they are staying for the weekend and and for us to set up camp. Lady M and myself did not want to camp all the way over at Sobama beach anymore, like last year, since it means a 15 minutes drive from the happening area, and we will be far away from the Waraku Daiko clan.
So we found ourselves a small park, merely 3 minutes walk away, where we saw some tents visible there. After consulting with some campers on one of the big tent, we decided to stay there.

As we were contemplating the space, I saw a man walked by and smiled at me.

"Are you Tari?"

"Yes, yes, I am."

"I'm Ted! I recognized your face from your blog."

It was nice to meet Ted at last. We've been corresponding our blogs because of this celebration. And since we both have been reading each other blogs for sometime now, it was like meeting a longtime friend again. Ted also introduced us to his lovely Miki.

After a while we both had to return to our business of setting up camp sooner rather than later, as the sky was looming grey and it seems like it was going to rain.
Something horrible then happened. Unaccustomed to setting up the tent, I was stuck at some point. Lady M came to help and then we heard a loud CRACK! No no no no noooooooo. This is not supposed to happen. This is not even my tent! Oh Divelydoo is going to kill me!!!!
Stuck and confused we were unsure of what we were supposed to do, then a nice fellow camper approached from the next tent.

"Are you OK?"

"I think we broke one of the pole. Now we're trying to figure out how to overcome this issue otherwise the tent couldn't be setup."

"Let me get the boys to help you."

She hauled 3 boys from her giant family tent. They inspected the broken pole and nodded wistfully. "We need some duct tape to cover the damage and hold them together."
One of them ran to their car and fetched the tape. Just seconds after the pole was mended, the sky tore open, thunders were breaking and the earth started crying.

Boy, was I NOT happy!

The boys from the next tent dragged all of the tent stuff under their tent's roof and then they dragged their giant umbrella to to cover it while 2 of them set the tent up. In 3 minutes everything was finished. Thank you, you boys!

Now that the tent is all setup, I was a great deal calmer, wistfully willing the rain to stop, we hailed towards the Harbor Art Market. We need to find something to eat or something to do, generally.

What a mood killer the rain was, everything was suddenly covered, not many people out and about and even the Fringe Show wasn't even going on. When Lady M suggested us to go back to get some rest in our tents, I quickly agreed.

I was feeling so blue. Generally I'm not crazy about the rain, but especially on Earth Celebration - I hate the rain. Defeated by tiredness and somber weather, I slept for a couple of hours, I even managed to squeeze in 1 hour in between to call dad and wished him happy birthday.
After a couple of hours, I was awaken with a very still sound. I got up immediately and felt 1000 times happier to find that the rain had mellowed down! Beating Drum R also rang to inquire about tickets for the following day and generally talked some senses into me to get rained on and change my attitude a little bit to be more positive.

Lady M and I decided to find something to eat or drink and generally be a bit more productive. We caught the last 5 minutes of the last fringe performance for the day. It was rather ridiculous, mind you, we were huddling under the umbrella while watching the performance under the tiny roof of the shrine.
After 5 minutes, we decided to leave back to the Harbor Market and find ourselves some food or drinks.

Time passed by quickly after that.



THE SPARKLING FINISH

We got back to the shrine at 5 pm, since we were the designated seat grabbers for the evening - we had to line up to enter the concert that early. You see, to see the evening Shiroyama concerts people had to line up according to their color coded ticket. The seats are not numbered. Well, basically it's just an open field, so if you want to be in front of the magnificent stage, you run as early as your turn allows you to.

Here are what you need to do when you want to strategically position yourself at the best area at Shiroyama Concert:

1. Line up early at Kisaki Shrine to get your tickets exchanged into some color coded card. You want Red. Red is the first one to go into the mountains.

2. When you managed to secure a red card, that means you can start walking up the mountain to concert place from 5 pm, according to your numbers.

3. You walk up with the red card bunch. Be sure to carry your original ticket together with the red card.

4. You walk up to the field opening and a staff will start lining you up according to the numbers written on your red ticket

5. Then with 10 people block, you could start walking into the field and secure seats. The staffs will ALWAYS say that we should not run. That there is plenty of time to get it. Well, I choose not to listen to them. I always run. I run or skipped or anything that is equivalent to getting there faster than walking.

6. Don't forget to bring your tarp as you run to the aimed spot.

7. Spread tarp. You need to secure as many seats as possible to secure however many people you have in your clan to be comfortably seated with enough legroom.

8. Man your tarp to make sure no one shift them until your entire clan arrive and you can begin to breath easily again.




Well, this is at least what I religiously do in the past 4 years of experience. This day, we got our special 'corner' in front of the stage. While waiting for the concert to start some members from Kodo came out and gave us a quick entertainment while fishing donation for the Chuetsu Earthquake victims. I donated some money and scored a photo opportunity with my favorite drummer in the whole wide world: Tsubasa Hori. She is only 4 months younger than me, but her musical accomplishments are perfectly applaudable. Always the front woman for Kodo with the many many front men, I found her my true inspiration of all sorts.



And then the wicked performance began. Kodo played flawlessly that evening. Seeing them on stage there at their home and outdoors can be considered a spiritual experience. The beating of the drums felt like a thunder in your heart. New to the stage this year was a giant drum that was visibly formerly a tree. The songs came one by one, the movements, the unison, the precision, the devotion - all sincere, all heartfelt, all was perfection.
It was phenomenal.



After 2 hours, the concert finished. I did not want to leave, except at some point they made us leave.
Well, we had to rescue Divelydoo at Ryotsu port anyway, she has just arrived all the way from India and desperately needed to be picked up!!!

Divelydoo, my sunflower, had arrived. I finally felt content. After the amazing performance by Kodo and the arrival of Divelydoo, everything is perfect, just as it should be at Earth Celebration.

I closed my eyes that evening with true happiness in my heart. I listened to the soft sound of water at the sea, looked at the stars in the sky.

I know I was at home.

This is Earth Celebration.