Notes from my travel: Hokkaido

Today was tremulous, to say the least. I came in just before midnight on Sunday and was forced to wake up for the busy day today was.
In my list: overcome some crucial multilingual interface problem for an online qualitative research kicking off Wednesday (still not particularly solved yet as my counterpart is enjoying their Labor Day Monday. OK, don't panic, they may read their e-mails tomorrow...), as well as paying a visit to the immigration office to extend my visa (3 hours wait, but everything was in order) and rehearsed for the guitar orchestra (shameful lesson, my teacher was not impressed I didn't have much practice this past week).

Wanting to put the hecticness behind me, now I am sitting down in my living room with a drink in hand, I put Richard Bona's "Scene of My Life"... I decided to empty my thoughts into a pensive I call a blog. My choice wandered to the wonderful day prior where I roamed free on the roads of Hokkaido.

Sunday morning...
With no particular reason, I was awaken at 5:00 am. My body always spots the differences of beds, and I'm guessing it doesn't like the bed in my room at Hotel Doral.　The hotel itself is not bad, and it's a very good deal for 6,500 yen. I tried to　force myself to sleep a little longer, but all those Sapporo beer we had at Sapporo Bier Garten, pushed me awake. Fine. Might as well get an early start. I did have a very ambitious itinerary.

At 6:30 am my colleague from Australia sent an SMS, "ARE YOU AWAKE AND ABLE TO TAKE ME TO SHIN CHITOSE AIRPORT?"

"YUPE! BEEN UP AND SHOWERED FOR A WHILE NOW. SEE YOU DOWNSTAIRS IN 15 MINUTES."

And so we embarked on our journey to Shin Chitose airport. My colleague had an early flight and it was only 58 km anyway from where we were, I was flexible to change my route.

After dropping A off at the airport, I decided to head towards Shiraoi. According to my travel book, Shiraoi is the nearest Ainu preservation museum from Sapporo area.
Realizing that it was only 7:20 am, I decided to take the regular roads. My reasoning for this: well, I did have the whole day to do this exploring, might as well stop at any place I wish to do, rather than rushing here and there with the expressway.

10 minutes on the road, I was so happy I took the regular roads. The streets of Hokkaido are fantastic! Cars can finally be driven as they're meant to be, very unlike in Honshu!



On my way to "Poroto Kotan", I stopped at a lake where swans were lounging around enjoying the morning sun. Some 20 kms away from it I made another stop at the scenic seaside. I spent about an hour lying there in the sun, enjoying the spray of water from the waves breaking while enjoying the horizon. This is really something you don't see everyday in Honshu.



I finally arrived at the Ainu museum of Poroto Kotan (The Big Village) at 10:00. I was happy I went there. The open air museum displayed the rebuilt Ainu houses, live art (some music and dancing), some improved like village talk by the 'chieftain'. It was all good, but I felt that there were some missing information. So for this part I was not particularly impressed. I am more unimpressed when I saw that at a corner of the village I saw that they have put 4 bears in very small individual cages. I felt that was very cruel.





What I enjoyed the most was when I wandered into the actual museum where they displayed stuff from the ancient Ainu days. There I met an elderly gentleman who's working on a part time basis to help explain about the Ainu culture and tradition. We got into talking when he spotted me struggling to read some of the display explanation which were only available in Japanese. He was a wealth of information regarding the Ainu culture! He was a walking encyclopedia indeed - answered all of my little questions with additional extra explanation. We even went as far as comparing the indigenous people of other regions and tried to dig the root where 'indigenous' cease existing and became a race, and what effect civilization have on humanity, culture et al. Very interesting conversations.

After talking for an hour, I realized I had to go. We found me a book in the museum gift shop, only to realize that he's given me much more information than that was listed in the book!
Thank you, Kind Sir! I wish I had asked him his name to remember him by, especially after he drove me to my car that was parked 1 km away (trying to avoid having to pay the steep parking fee by the entrance - I'm cheap when I'm traveling).

After Poroto Kotan, I decided to see Lake Toya, a lake that was formed from a vanished volcano and it was side by side with a new volcano that suddenly appeared about 30 years ago.
When driving to Poroto Kotan were mostly seaside, going to Lake Toya required me to go drive through the farms, mountains and forests. I was the queen of the roads! The streets were empty, my iPod was blaring loud, I sang at the top of my lungs and then I saw a farm with many, MANY, black cows.
I drove some more and I saw another farm with one cow and 2 goats.
Fab!








Arriving in Lake Toya, I saw the lake with the three mountainettes. Very cool.
And then I drove up to Showa Shinzan (the new volcano). Pretty impressive. The volcano is still fuming with sulfur. Got some pretty interesting shots there.







After all that drive, the day had become late. It was already 3 pm and I had to be back at Shin-Chitose airport by 8 pm so I could go home.
Realizing that I had only 3 more hours to spend in leisurely manner before heading back to the airport, my next choice of destination was Noboribetsu. I needed a bath, I figured... Why not go to a hotspring!
Noboribetsu proved to be a bit of a drive down to the South West coast of Hokkaido. From the high altitude driving down was a bit of a challenge. It was really foggy and raining in some parts. Finally found an onsen that was still open for the late afternoon, got cleaned up and relaxed...



I calculated the drive I've done for the day, by that point: 210 km! Not bad!!
After visiting the hell mountain after the bath, I decided to call my adventure for the day to quits. Yeah, I gotta make my flight at 9 pm. So, I drove back the 77 km from Noboribetsu to Shin Chitose airport.

After the Nippon Rent-A-Car dude dropped me off at the airport - realizing that I haven't had a proper meal the entire day, I decided to give myself a treat. You can always count on Japanese airports: they have good restaurants. My choice fell on Sushi Hanabusa. My farewell meal was sea-urchin bowl and some salmon sushis on the side. The sushi-master who was very friendly and kept me company throughout dinner gave me a gift: a small bowl of prime sea urchin. He would not hear me paying it since it was his farewell gift for a person who loves his Hokkaido sea urchin. Thank you, Sir, from the bottom of my heart!





Now, I am here and back again in Tokyo.

With a toast, I am thinking fondly of the kind people I encountered during my short visit in Hokkaido, the beautiful scenic places, the Ainus, the brilliant food, the free spirit drive, the cows, the milk, the cool weather. I dig Hokkaido!

I will be back!

In Sapporo

This was definitely a very productive day. Woke up in Tokyo, took care of business and finished some stuff related to the upcoming trip to Indonesia, worked intensively until 3:30 pm, departed to Haneda airport. Next thing we know come 7 pm, the five of us were already landing in Shin-Chitose airport, 58 km off Sapporo.

My first impression of Hokkaido was the smell. It smelled as if you were walking into a big farm. Strange that I didn't see any cows anywhere, but then realized that we were at one of the largest airports in Japan.

Second impression: the roads were huge, like in midwest US. When the bus from Nippon Rent-A-Car picked us up, we were driving through the darkness (yes it was pitched dark already in Hokkaido at 7 pm).

Third impression: it was chilly. FINALLY! I brought my fleece jacket - I was good. My colleague didn't realize it was going to be somewhat cooler in weather - the city girl that she is - she was shivering and suffered from some hiccups accordingly.

Fourth impression: people in Hokkaido are very friendly and pleasant. They seemed to be very pleasantly surprised once me or my Australian colleague opened our mouth and started speaking in Japanese. They liked to chat, too, and picked up conversation left-right-front-and-back. Very un-Tokyo like.

Fifth impression: the food. Ah... the food was EXCELLENT!!!! We had the best first meal in Sapporo comprising Hokkaido king crab legs, scallops, salmon roe, sea urchin, potato, asparagus, etc. We ate until we felt like exploding. Brilliant food!

First 5 hours in Sapporo had been great. I am looking forward to the coming 2 days.

Must get up early tomorrow morning. I salute you good night!

Sapporo!

I go to Sapporo tonight. JA!

Got some work to do in Sapporo on Saturday.

Am looking forward to go because I have never landed my feet on the land of the North.

It will definitely be cooler than it is in Tokyo.

The weather forecast indicated sunny weather for the entire weekend.

Other than feasting on the much raved about seafood, I plan to spend 12 hours on Sunday to drive about and visit an Ainu village.

The entire island is populated by 'only' 5.6 Million - not even a third of Tokyo's population. Very much looking forward to NOT meeting many people there.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

ITTE KIMASU!

A tribute for Japanese postal service

Gotta love the postal service here in Japan.

One of the perks of living in Japan is that their postal service is absolutely amicable.
I got my contact lenses arriving in the mail. Since I wasn't home, the postman left a note in the box advising me for arranging another delivery. I called the number, arranged it and within 24 hours, the box arrived in my house between 9 to noon. Awesome.

Today, I came back from a joint birthday party celebration at nearly midnight. Having not been home in the past 15 hours, I checked the post and there was another note from Mr. Postman. The note said that there was a package from a Ms. ADM for me! My darling sissie said that she sent a package a week back and that it wasn't going to arrive in 2 weeks, so naturally it was such a great surprise when it arrived in exactly 7 days!!!
You see, I could arrange another delivery... however, since I was having a birthday high, I just couldn't-shouldn't-and-wouldn't wait. I must see what my sissie sent me at ONCE!
So, I went upstairs, got my bike lights and pedaled over to Yoyogi Post Office. I headed straight to the pick-up window, and rang the after-hours service (the district main post offices are open 24 hours, FYI) buzzer. 10 seconds later, a postman with a rather sleepy look turned up at the window. He checked my claim tag, got my package, checked my ID, and handed the package. All done in 2 minutes.

Gosh, I just love the Japanese postal service. They make it so easy and accessible. Absolutely amazing. I love them.

But I love my sister 10,000 times more... I mean, who wouldn't? Check out what she got me!!!

Earth Celebration 2007, Waraku Daiko and summer stuff of sorts!

Today is another monsoon day. The day is raining and spirits are destroyed. And my sad laundry will need to be hauled to the laundromat for a proper drying.

All had been blue until a cheerful phone call from O.Div arrived. Waraku Daiko's performance time had been confirmed for the much anticipated Earth Celebration 2007!

Excerpting from my post last year:
For those who don't know, Earth Celebration is an art/music festival hosted by world's best (my own opinion) taiko drumming group Kodo at their home island, Sado.
Every summer, musicians from all over Japan and the world gather for the three days of musical fun. Please visit the link above for more details. There are way too much fun things in the list. It is simply impossible to sum it up in a short blog entry.

That being said, per usual, my taiko group Waraku Daiko will perform at the fringe show on August 19, 2007 (Sunday). The venue is at Kisaki-shrine. It is by the Ogi port, a very short walk from the information center.
We will be on stage at 1:15 PM.



This year's Eearth Celebration is observing the 20th anniversary of Earth Celebration. Along side Kodo, there will be world-known tabla player Zakir Hussain from India, Puerto Rican percussionist Giovanni Hidalgo, French Guinean tap dancer Tamango (he was also guest performer for EC 2007), and a few more celebrated Japanese musicians.

Well, there's nothing much else to say, except for... SEE YOU THERE!!! (especially on Sunday August 19 at 1:15 pm KISAKI SHRINE).

Taiko-ly yours,
Taiko Tari -071207

There are many, many, many envelopes in Japan...

I have been living in this country for... 9 years now. Yep, 9 years! Holy crap, that's a long time.

Even though I have been here for that long, there is always a first time for everything. Like the big party tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my dear friend Toru's wedding day to his lovely wife, Yone-chan. (They are already married by law in February)

The following was my conversation with him during a dinner we had earlier in the year:

Toru (To): "Dude, you want to come to my wedding?"

Taiko Tar (Ta): "When is it?"

To: "June. Yone wants to be a June bride. No, actually that's the only time the hall is available."

Ta: "I'd love to come!"

To: "You know that it is customary to give money to the couple when they marry, right? We don't do gifts, "

Ta: "OK, that's great, so I don't have to worry about your wedding gift. I will give money anyway for a present, otherwise you'll end up with ridiculous collection of chinaware."

...

I then contacted my J-mum in Niigata to consult how much money is customary to be given to the happy couple. Okaasan then said, "Well, it depends on how close you are to the person who invites you. It starts from 10,000 yen (about US$100), basically, but people hardly do that, it's regarded too cheap. Then it goes up, if s/he is your good friend, then you give 30,000 yen; if you come as a couple then you get a 'discount' for the couple 'rate' of 50,000 yen or if you're a close relative then it's only fitting if you give 50,000 yen per head, for every family member who goes to the wedding celebration. And remember, don't do 20,000 or 40,000 or 60,000; basically no even pre-fix, it's symbolizing death"

And then she said, "Since you're not Japanese, you can be culturally ignorant and not give money or give however much you are willing to, but I don't suggest you do that. How close are you with this person?"

Me: "You're joking! No, I can't be culturally ignorant. I have been living here for that long. That will be very rude. Well, he was my former colleague at the previous company, and ever since he became one of my savior angel in Tokyo."

Okaasan: "Yep, you're a 30,000 yen tag, at least."

My summer vacation allowance has immediately become a wedding gift.

...

So, later on I discovered that all this gift money has to be presented in a special envelope. Not having done this before, I am completely oblivious as to what the envelope should look like.
I went to the stationery store just now and headed straight to the envelope area. Whoa! There were so many selections for it. From the tiniest of envelopes to the biggest ones. They are all basically white, but with different side coloring. I saw black, green, pink and red. And then there is another one with an elaborate crane in front of it and there was another one with an elaborate origami ornament in front of it. Needless to say, I was at loss. I just want an envelope.
The clerk at the register was rather busy with other customers, so with good faith, I brought a sample of 5 most festive looking envelopes, in different colors. Finally it came my turn, then I just had to ask,

Ta: " Excuse me, but I just want to buy one. I'm not very sure which one I should get. Can you tell me what the differences are among these envelopes?"

Shop clerk: "The black color symbolizes death, so this one is for funeral. Now this dark green one is for a similar purpose. The pink one is for when you give money when visiting someone at a hospital who is very ill. This gold and red one is for people who just graduated university or any school. Now this one with the silver and golden crane, that's for weddings. Which one are you going to?"

Ta: "I like the black the best, I think this one looks very elegant. But I am actually going to the wedding, so the crane it is."

...

Back at the office, I bugged one of my colleague to advise if I'm supposed to be writing any stuff on it or not. As it turns out, there are three places on which you're supposed to write something.

1. The strip in the middle: you should write your name

2. The front cover for the money: a statement on how much money you are putting in the envelope in old Japanese writing

3. The back cover for the money: your name and address, preferably written in old Japanese style writing. The address is especially important as the couple needs to know where to send the hikidemono -which is their "thank you for coming" gift for people who have attended their wedding. Toru did say that he is going to present a catalogue where we can choose anything in it as our own hikidemono.

So, with several ernest attempts, covered in black ink; my envelope is finally ready. Ta da!

This is the end product, the ink is still not dried, so I have to wait to put it behind the crane

the envelope broken into parts

Oh, crap, now I have to worry about what to wear tomorrow morning. Why do I always do these things at the very last minute???

Festival weekend

Truth be told, I am extremely exhausted.

The weekend had been quite festive. Lunched with Viscount A at the glorious Le Gaulois. One of the finest meal that I've ever had in Tokyo. Glad we made that trip. And they never stop giving you extra bread. Wonderful meal. It is quickly getting into our Tuesday dinner list of restaurants. (And the good news is, their official day-off is on Mondays).
Saw O.Div. for dinner at one of my favorite neighborhood restaurant Fungo. Been feeling a little guilty for not having been there yet in almost 5 months. They have their Porcini mushroom risotto that is to die for. Exquisite. It was lovely to catch up and just chatted the evening away.

Today, went to drumming per usual. We did the nidan uchi again. Got my knuckles relatively injured today a couple of times by my drumming partner. Hang on, let me find a picture of us doing this particular arrangement. You'd see how drumming can be murderous.

Pardon the quality, but this image was cropped from a practice video

The weekend was closed by visiting the Asakusa Sanja festival, with Ms. Bicky, James and Jess. It was very nice to be in the sun for a long time and ate food from the street vendors (I had takoyaki and yakitori, chatted the afternoon away while watching people in their fundoshi. To be quite honest, from a spectator's point of view, watching people carelessly displaying their butt-cheeks in public could be quite disturbing, but it could be a trauma I am having after (finally) watching Borat. Brrrh....
Nonetheless, the festival was fun, and the dinner with good company at a very cool izakaya in Shimokitazawa was the perfect ending of this seemingly culinary week.

And tomorrow is Monday. All of the sudden I'm not so happy anymore...

I'm just going to roll into bed now.

Golden Week is a time to ZZZZZzzzzzzzz...

We are going through what they call the Golden Week period in Japan. Basically it is a collection of holidays that fell on April 29 (Emperor Day), May 3 (Constitution Day), 4 (Greenery Day), and 5 (Children's Day). This year is one of the good year, because of how the dates are located, my office (and most other businesses in Japan) closed their offices on May 1-2. So, all in all, I got 9 days off! YEAH!

After working nearly 5 weeks straight, I was more than happy to just sleep in everyday, and occassionally have plans during the day, or meet up friends for dinner. It's been quite liberating.

One of the highlight of the week was on Tuesday when MirPir and I rented a car and went up to Nikko. It is about 170 km North West of Tokyo, took us about 3.5 hours drive through the normal roads. The trip was fun and it was great to have sometime to chat and unload. Went up to the shrines, and later on to the Lake Chuzenji and finally to Yumoto Onsen. It was quite special to go through a very misty area, going straight up with 48 very steep curves.



It was pissing rain, in different level of heaviness, but it didn't stop us from having a good time.

I also caught up with 24 Season 5. It was very good, but now that I have finished I am running out of thrilling things to watch. Hmm... I do have Lost Season 2 and CSI New York waiting to be seen...

OK, got 3 more days left, what should I do... Haven't quite decided yet. Though, an old friend is in town from Spain on promotion tour, will see him at some point. Other than that, maybe I should continue with the hybernation plan. Zzzzzzz...

Which is which?

So, today I was forwarded an article about a sheep scam in Japan. The article was a hit Australian newspapers, such as this and also in some UK newspapers such as here.

In a nutshell, the articles are saying about how nearly 2,000 Japanese people were swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

A movie star stated that she was confused why her 'poodle' would not want to eat the pet food provided, and that her 'poodle' never barked.
Also in the article, it is said that the police reported that nearly 2,000 people have been affected in this scandal, which operated in Sapporo, because those people were apparently unable to distinguish a poodle from an authentic Australian sheep.


I do not know what to think when I read this article. I mean, surely they can't be that dumb not to be able to tell a cuddly pet from a cuddly meat factory.

Curious, I found another article claiming that it was a hoax, but the rationale was relatively weak.

Which is the truth, then?
I will keep my ears and eyes open for the local news.

Personally, I won't be too surprised if this actually happened. These people can believe everything they read or buy or whatever they were told.
I will not be surprised at all.

Taiko Tari reporting live from Tokyo. Have a good Golden Week, Everyone!

===
Image was excerpted from the Metro.co.uk April 26. 2007 article on the subject

Little Miss Grumpy Meets Tokyo Cab Driver

Yikes! I'm in that zone again!

Let me tell you a news flash: I am exhausted.

I came back on Monday evening, got into my house at 8:10 pm and went straight to work the following day. I am on an insanely unforgiving schedule from Tuesday March 13, everyday, until March 25th.
Since Wednesday I have been giving in and catching a cab home every night, because it is 4C outside, windy, dark... and with exhaustion and jetlag up my sleeves, I'm just a tad concerned that if I jump onto my bicycle - what guarantee do I have to prevent this from happening again.

With that rationale, I took a cab home tonight, again. I told the cabbie where to go, and the 20 minutes ride to my house felt like a day. Said cabbie was ever soooooo unsure about the route of which she should have taken. She confirm where to go at every minute, everytime we pass a trafic light, she would reconfirm again, so that's every half minute. *AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH*
Halfway, I was so close to stopping the car and either walk home or catch another cab; I was suddenly reminded on how bloody cold it is tonight, I decided to be patient a bit more.
Restless, I noticed that the cab has got a really swanky GPS navigation system, why it was set to monitor the machine - beats me! No wonder she had to confirm her direction all the time. If only she'd press the button where she discovers that the fancy machine is supposed to help her...
When she sped through at the traffic light where I requested her to take a right at - I finally lost my patience. I got out of the cab and walked home. Lucky I was already close enough and it took only 5 minutes walk.

Really, what on earth is wrong with all Tokyo cabbies? They never knew where to go. And they're not even trying to camouflage their obliviousness to the streets of Tokyo. When you say, "Take me here, whichever route that is quickest." Then they will start discussing the million possible routes with the meter running. I am so NOT impressed.
Except last night's cabbie. He brought me to the corner of my street with no question asked. Maybe because I was already half asleep and never bothered to answer his questions. Nonetheless, I cherished the ride.

Man, I am grumpy.

Yin and Yang

Yesterday was a very interesting day. I had a very elatedly happy morning but shattered by a mere twist of fate.

As I sometimes do, yesterday morning I took a few hours off work for a bit of 'treatment' from the Doctor.
Partly because I will be away this Sunday - so I can't go, and because I am not so busy at work - thus this presents as good a time as any to pull a flex time, and most importantly because it was going to be my friend MirPir's first class at the taiko drumming. I always like to be in a newbie's first class, particularly when I brought the newbie into the troupe. I somewhat feel the responsibility to keep them entertained with the class, so they would come back for more.

Anyways, the class was excellent. An unusual Thursday class indeed. We had me, the great Tazawa-san, the chirpy Sato-san, Kiyomi, lovely Lena, Arianne, Hattori-san and of course the eager MirPir.
The class was divided into two shifts, the beginner and the advance. Sensei put me on both, so I could help MirPir out with some of the tricky pieces. Let me tell you, drumming for 2 solid hours with no break was quite a workout.
We played so many arrangements and spent sometime with MirPir so she could pick up the rythm and join in with the pieces. Such a happy morning, everybody was actually taking the time to re-study some of the pieces that we have taken for granted. Very energizing.

A professional musician, MirPir* picked up really quickly, she remembered the pieces very quickly and absorbed everything in, even the tricky movement. Normally sensei does not teach the movement so early in the class, but he did yesterday.
It was amazing to experience the energy, she was so happy to be banging on the drums, and I was so happy because she was so happy, and our teacher was so happy because everyone were giving their everything. Given the variety of levels in the players yesterday, the pieces were not perfect, but it did not matter. The class was so alive, the taiko drums even seemed to be giving out more energy than usual. And I couldn't stop laughing because I was ecstatic. This is one of the best class that I've ever attended.

Everybody stayed back, while I had to leave at noon and go back to my corporate live. I took the train to Yoyogi station and was ready to hop on my bicycle and discovered that my bicycle disappeared.
It was gone. Missing. GONE.

I thought... WHAT? Did some jerk steal my bicycle?

I was about to stomp my feet to the nearby police box, when I took a deep breath and looked around and I saw something really strange. There was no bicycle in sight. Not a single one. Only then it downed on me, I guess they're really doing it now. On that fateful morning, my beautiful bicycle was swept and being discarded at the bicycle graveyard because it was considered to be illegally parked.

Damn.

Not in the mood for the police to be preaching me about bicycle parking, I decided to just go ahead to work anyway and deal with it in the evening after work.

The bicycle was finally collected at the bicycle 'graveyard' not so far from my house. I had to pay 2,000 yen (about 20 USD) to bail it. At the graveyard I saw at least 300 other bicycle, which means if all owners go and collect their bicycles and pay the bail fee, in just one day's work, the government of Shibuya district has just made 600,000 yen (approx 6,000 USD) in one go.

Maybe I should consider a service I could provide for the district administration. hehehe. It seems like easy money.

All that happened yesterday made me wonder though... I think I was scarily happy yesterday morning at drumming, it almost consumed me. Then I got to the station and had the disastrous experience with the bicycle.
Something tells me it might have something to do with the universe trying to keep my feet on the ground. Do you belive in this kind of stuff? I'm beginning to.



---
*MirPir is a musician performing for the much celebrated Cirque du Soleil. Throughout 2007 and 2008, Dralion will be performing in various locations in Japan.

A Surprise in The Mail!

Still no time to write yet, but I do want to share a little surprise I got in the mail today.
Per usual, my taiko troupe Waraku Daiko performed in the fringe event at Earth Celebration 2006. During the performance there were some photographers who were taking some shots. One of the photographer came up and asked for my address as he wanted to send some pics.
And they arrived today!!!

I think these are quite cool.

It's WICKED!!!

Just in case anyone is wondering... I'm back!! Just got in about 1 hour ago from a very very wicked trip to Sado island for the Earth Celebration 2006.

Four days of too much fun, amazing experience and the wickedest road trip and camping that I've ever done in such a long time.

Tomorrow is a busy day at work, so I will give a low-down on this wicked trip sometime as soon as I have the chance to write.

For Odaiko Div, Beating Drum, Annie Bananie and Katesman... OTSUKARESAMADESHITA!!!

4 days of non-stop laughters and amazing time... I thank you all so very much and I bid you good night.

--Taiko Tari

Earth Celebration 2006

Earth Celebration is coming up soon!!!
Am very proud of myself for getting things organized 2 weeks ahead of time this year. Purchased my three-day-pass the other day (still haven't managed to go through the forest of Japanese kanjis on the website - thus made the very simple quick call to the ticketing office), the ticket will be ready to be claimed at the information center when I get to the island.

For those who don't know, Earth Celebration is an art/music festival hosted by World's best taiko drumming group Kodo at their home island, Sado.
Every Summer, musicians from all over Japan and the world gather for the three days of musical fun. Please visit the link above for more details. There are way too much fun things in the list. It is simply impossible to sum it up in a short blog entry.

That being said, per usual, my taiko group "Waraku Daiko" will perform at the fringe show on August 18, 2006 (Friday). The venue is at Kisaki-shrine. It is by the Ogi port, a very short walk from the information center.
We will be on stage at 2:30 PM.
This year the troupe is HUGE. We will have 12 drummers performing. Haha...!! This is going to be a blast, I know it already!!!

See you there!!















Kodo performing at the Art market @Ogi Port, EC 2005