圭子と菅浦の旅行

School finally finished on Monday with my last Japanese exam. To start my summer vacation off I had plans on Tuesday to go with Keiko up to her grandfather's hometown where he also served as the priest of a temple. One of the main attractions is that you can swim in the Lake Biwa, but prior to going it had been raining a ton so we were a bit worried about the weather. Fortunately for us Tuesday marked the end of the rain and it was a gorgeous day so I headed to Hikone for 12:30 and from there we went the rest of the way up to the small (and I mean small) village of Sugaura.

The first day we just did a fair bit of swimming. Keiko said before going that she didn't know how to swim so I was planning on teacher her only to my surprise to find out she can swim quite well. The water was a pretty decent temperature. Not really hot, but not so cold that it made your body cold. Perfect for such a hot day. After some nice swimming we headed to the hotel for dinner. At Japanese style hotels the food is always great. After dinner and nice bath to get the freshwater smell off as well as relax our bodies we headed to bed.

The next day after breakfast we headed over to the temple where Keiko's grandfather was the priest. Unlike any temples I had been to before this was more like a house than a temple. The current priest doesn't like there so we needed to get the keys from someone in order to get in. I doesn't seem like it gets many visitors, but it was still a pretty cool place. From the temple you could open a big window and get a nice view of the town and the lake as well as a nice summer breeze. It was very peaceful. This was followed by some more swimming and one final bath before heading back to Hikone.

A bit of a sunburn, some nice lake swimming, crazy ass massive bugs, and a bunch of great memories; all in all a fantastic start to summer vacation. Sugaura is a beautiful little village. Even though I had never been there before I had a strong nostalgic feeling as it seems like so many old style villages that you see in old Japanese movies. Tucked into the mountains right on the water with only 3 roads in the whole town. Even though we were relatively close to much bigger cities like Hikone and Maibara it felt to me as if I was in a completely different place and time.


Sugaura. The temple is the taller house in the middle.
















Our hotel

Dir en Grey, Budokan, Monday. Gonna be wild!

輝彩 － Various Fireworks

Yesterday was the Kagrra live at Osaka Big Cat. Going in I figured it wasn't that big of a place since I knew the building it was in and my assumptions were true. The stage was a fairly decent size and the room istelf held probably about 500 people all standing. Probably about 15 metres by 15 metres I'd say which is a fantastic size. Having a good half a foot on the rest of the crowd which was probably about 98% high school girls was a nice plus as well. There were a few other guys but few and far between. There was actually a salaryman in front of Andy and I with his girlfriend and there were some guys at the back who looked like either friends of the band or members of some other visual band. Anyway being so tall in comparison with everyone else gave Andy and I a perfect view to the stage even standing towards the back end of the crowd.

As for the concert itself it was fantastic. The guys came out all looking very casual normal style jeans/pants and t-shirts/collared shirts and got down to business right away playing for a full two hours with only one five minute break or so. They played a lot of their older indies day stuff as well as a lot of B-sides from both their indies and major label stuff which was really cool since a lot of those songs are my favourites. It looked to me like they were having a lot of fun with it not really taking things to seriously and just jamming.

Halfway through the show the lights went down at the end of a song the lights went down and Andy turned to me and said "Did you just hit my head?" and I said "No, but Akiya just threw out a pick so maybe that's what hit you" and sure enough when we had a bit of light to see there it was lying on the floor just behind Andy. He picked it up and gave it to me since Akiya is my favourite guy. Very cool on his part. Thanks again Andy and reat distance on that pick toss Akiya.

Being so tall and the only foreign males in the crowd made us stick out a bit and I'm quite sure that Akiya recognized us and remembered us from the HMV fan event in the winter where we were once again the only foriegn males in the crowd, and again 6 inches above everyone else. At the end of the show as the were all making their exits he looked right at Andy and I and gave us a little salute and we returned the favour and he gave a little smile.

All in all a fantastic live experience. I am extremely satified to have finally seen a Kagrra live in person. Simply put, they do a great show.

祇園祭

Last weekend was the Gion Matsuri here in Kyoto, the biggest of Japan's 3 most important festivals. This being the case we were obligated to check it out. Thing is it's been pissing rain non-stop for about the past week. Luckily there was a bit of a break in the rain Saturday night so we put on our yukata and headed down to check it out. We didn't stay down too long though. It was PACKED first of all, and secondly, the rain started up again putting a damper on the festivities. So in order to wait out the rain we went to karaoke where I got a real jem of a video of Andy and Sebastian singing the "Never-ending Story" theme song. I also just recently got back from the Kagrra concert in Osaka. Amazing. More on that tomorrow.

Cha-ching

This morning nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz was giving a lecture at Kyoto University. It was free to get in you just needed to get there early enough to get a ticket. Luckily I managed to snag one of the last 5 or so available. As I was waiting in line just about to go in some random guy comes up to me and offers me 10,000 yen for my ticket. 10,000 yen for the ticket I received for free minutes earlier. Feeling slightly guilty I took his deal and left before he could think about what he had just done. Andy made me feel better afterwards though with his reasoning that if the guy starts his offer at 10,000 yen then surely he has the resources to make such an offer.

To make the day even better I also got to go see the Hanshin Tigers vs Yokohama Baystars in Koshien as well thanks to Keiko who scored tickets at work. The game got called due to rain in the 6th inning but it was still a great time even though our dear Tigers lost.