Shin’s band

Looking back, I have gone to see so many different bands – most of them have been Jazz. I have been really into jazz since coming to Japan. There are so many brilliant musicians here to listen to and appreciate. They are really entertaining and they look so comfortable up on stage doing their thing. That is one thing I really like about being in a big town – there are many opportunities to go out and listen to bands play.

I went to see a band at a local Irish pub last night. Lauren and I met a really nice lady called Yumi at a party we had at the beginning of the year and Yumi’s husband, Shin is a guitarist in the band. His band is a mixture of country and blues and there are nine people in the band! There were two electric guitarists, one bass guitarist, two harmonicas, a drummer, a trombonist, a singer and a keyboard player. They were all very talented and Lauren and I enjoyed listening to them. They took turns in getting on and off the stage and then in their last set, they all got up and played together. They sounded really good.



We met Shin’s friends and found out that most of them were teachers. One of them said he wasn’t a teacher, but he sells bananas in Kobe! I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but it was funny! I asked him if he worked in a fruit shop and he replied, “no, I only sell bananas!” Then he said, “Do you like banana?” Lauren and I cracked up laughing and were too embarrassed to answer him! Then they kept on laughing about that comment the entire night!

We were the only foreigners in the pub that night. It felt weird being the odd one out, but the people there were really friendly and made us feel welcome. In a way, I kind of liked it because it was good to mix with only Japanese people and practise speaking in Japanese to them. I find it really hard to practise speaking Japanese here. It sounds weird because I live in Japan, but it is so easy to live in Japan for a year and come back not knowing a single word! I come to work, speak in English all day, I come home from work, speak in English to the people who live in my building and then I go back to work and start all over again! You have to make a real effort to learn Japanese and have conversations in Japanese. I am trying really hard, but it is very difficult to break that cycle. I hope I can meet some more Japanese people so I can learn to speak Japanese better. It would be nice to know what people are saying to each other and to me!

Himeji Festival 9th April 2007

During the first couple of weeks of Spring, Japan looks its best. This is due to the cherry blossoms which come into bloom. Thousands of cherry blossom trees surround the Himeji Castle and when they are in full bloom, they look spectacular. All Japanese people get excited when the cherry blossoms come into bloom because they only last for two weeks in the entire year. They are very delicate and beautiful flowers, but they are so precious and interesting because they live such a short life. If they were around all the time, people would tend to take them for granted, but they are very special and are appreciated more due to their rarity.

This time of year is very exciting and busy as thousands of locals and tourists surround the streets and parks. Many people have Hanami parties during Spring under the cherry blossom trees. The Himeji Castle is a very popular spot for having Hanami parties because there are so many cherry blossom trees on the grounds. I have already had three Hanami parties!

In Hanami parties, friends and family get together, bring lots of food and drinks to share and have picnics under the cherry blossom trees. Some people even have karaoke parties in the park!

On the weekend, there was a huge Spring festival at the Himeji Castle. During this festival, there was lots of entertainment including one hundred koto players, drummers, traditional Japanese dancers and lion dancers. It was very enjoyable to sit under the cherry blossom trees and listen to talented musicians produce quality music.


We spent the entire day lazing around, eating, drinking and enjoying the atmosphere at the Himeji Castle. We even got to meet the mayor of Himeji!
We gave him some quality chocolate to try: Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate, and he loved it! He even posed for a photo with us! He was really friendly and we felt special that he came up to us out of everyone and said hello.

There are so many festivals held throughout the entire year in Japan and almost every town has its own annual festival. It is great to experience Japanese culture and learn more about their ways of life.

Our last day 31st March 2007

Today was our very last day on holidays before we had to head back to Himeji. This was probably the best week I have had so far in Japan with all the exciting things we did. It was so much fun and it was all very exciting and interesting. We went for a walk to the mall where all the markets were and then we found a street that followed the river through the town. The street was covered in cherry blossom trees and looked so beautiful. We stood on a bridge and admired the sight of the cherry blossoms. It was very busy and crowded that day as everybody was having a hanami party. This is a very popular Japanese tradition where family and friends get together and sit under the cherry blossom trees and have a picnic with lots of food and drinks. I can't wait to have one. It should be fun!

Remember how I was saying how disappointed Tina was for not going on the ferris wheel? Well she got her wish today and we went on the ferris wheel together and got a beautiful view of Yokohama. It was really cool. She was happy in the end!

We had lunch, picked up our things from the hotel and headed home on the shinkansen back to Himeji. Being back in Himeji is weird now. It feels like I have been away for much longer than one week. Getting off that train and seeing the main street felt so surreal. If I felt like that after leaving Himeji for one week, imagine how I am going to feel when I come back to Australia! It is going to be hard settling back into Australia after having lived in Japan for a whole year. I think I will really miss Japan when it comes time to leave. Not that I have to think about that for another nine months!

Sankeien Garden 30th March 2007

The Sankeien Garden was the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. We picked the perfect time of year to go and see it because the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and they looked amazing. I have never seen something look so beautiful before. I took so many photos of them, but seeing it in real life is just a totally different story. This time of year is the most beautiful time because all the cherry blossoms are in bloom and they have cherry blossom trees EVERYWHERE! Some of the streets are full of them and you could imagine how pretty they look.

The Sankeien Garden was just amazing. I took so many cool photos of the flowers and plants that grew there. There were many old homesteads that were still remained within the boundary of the garden and they were so cool. I wish I could have lived in them. There were some tiny little Japanese-style cottages surrounded by native Japanese plants, trees and flowers and to top it off, sakura (cherry blossoms). It was the best sight I have ever seen.

The garden was packed with people rushing to see the first signs of the cherry blossoms. They all brought their own picnic lunches and sat under the cherry blossom trees watching the ducks swimming in the pond. It was so serene and relaxing just walking around and seeing nothing but beauty.

After a few hours of walking around the gardens, we headed towards our hotel. Tina and I were really excited about going on the Ferris Wheel because it is a major feature in Yokohama. It is so pretty to look at in the night time because it is all lit up with colourful neon lights that change colour and pattern. Unfortunately, we missed out on going on the ferris wheel because by the time we got there, it was closed, much to Tina’s dismay and disappointment. I have never seen her crack it so much as she did when she realised she wouldn’t get to go on the ferris wheel. It was the funniest thing. Steve and I just thought, “oh well,” but Tina was beside herself with big puppy dog eyes and a sad, sorry look on her face. She was like a little kid who missed out on the last piece of Cadbury chocolate! Steve and I started laughing at her and it made her even angrier! She cracked it good and proper. If she were an egg, she would have been in one thousand pieces! She soon got over it though!

To make her feel better, Steve thought of this cool idea to take a photo under these pretty red lights. How cool does this photo look? I wish I could have said it was my idea, but I will let Steve take the cake for that one!

Yokohama 29th March 2007

Yesterday was our last day in Tokyo before we moved to Yokohama. I LOVE Yokohama! It is a beautiful city with nice wide streets and clean footpaths and great scenery. We went for a walk through Chinatown, cruised up towards the beach to check out the view and watched a really cool performance from a guy who could juggle with fire, perform magic card tricks and put out fire with his mouth! It was all very impressive.

After that, I went for a walk on my own and stumbled across a really cool, old and interesting building. It was open, so I looked inside and realised that it was a department store. Looking at it from the outside, you wouldn’t think it would be a department store as it looks more like a museum or an art gallery, but it had a lot of character. Later, I found out it was called the Akarenga.

I was walking through the building, wishing that I could find a jazz bar because I really felt like listening to some good quality jazz music. I was about to ask someone, when I stumbled across this sign. It said that there was a jazz bar on the next floor and that a jazz band was playing there that very instant! It was all so convenient and coincidental, that I just HAD to go in and have a look.

I was so glad that I did, because I walked into this really classy, up-market jazz bar with four extremely talented musicians on stage each playing their own instrument of expertise. There was a pianist, a saxophonist (who could also play the soprano trumpet), a cheloist (who could also play the bass guitar) and a drummer. I was mesmerised by their talent and I didn’t want the jamming session to end. It was the best jazz music I have ever heard in my life. I couldn’t believe how fast the pianist could move his fingers and not once did he make a single mistake. I couldn’t believe how confident and comfortable the drummer looked while he was playing the drums as he had such a luring presence on stage during his performance. Later, I found out that he was one of the best drummers in the whole of Japan! The saxophonist was just amazing the way he put his heart and soul into his music and the cheloist could play with such precision and excellence that he almost put me in a trance. It was brilliant.

The service was fantastic and the waiters were really friendly and accommodating and could speak English really well. I had the nicest cocktail that had a little cherry blossom inside it with honey and small flecks of gold. It was delicious! I felt really comfortable in the jazz club and it was a very bizarre and interesting night. It was like everything just fell into my lap without any effort whatsoever...the band, the service, the people, the atmosphere - it was all perfect! I love it when that happens!

Imperial Palace and Tokyo Tower 28th March 2007

It took a while to find the Imperial Palace today. When we got to the train station, we were asking all these Japanese people how to get to the Imperial Palace and none of them knew what we were talking about. They didn’t know what it was called in English, they only knew what it was called in Japanese. We eventually found the information desk and this really nice lady explained in perfect English how to get there. I really, REALLY wish I could speak more Japanese so that I could explain myself better to people! It is so frustrating sometimes.

We eventually got to the Imperial Palace and it was really beautiful. We didn’t get to go inside the grounds and see the actual palace as it wasn’t opened to the public, but we walked around the gardens that surrounded it and took lots of photos. There was this really cool bit that we saw that had lots of fountains and statues where people who are on their lunch break like to go to eat their lunch with their work mates. It is a really popular place to go as it is really pretty – especially when the weather is nice.

After walking around for what seemed like hours, we got on a train and headed for the Tokyo Tower. Tina and I were on our own. We were so proud of ourselves that we found the Tokyo Tower all by ourselves with no help from Steve.

The Tokyo Tower was so cool. There are lots of things to see and do inside the tower. We saw the Wax Museum which was really interesting. In this museum, there were hundreds of models of famous movie stars, singers and inventors. Some of them looked so real and I couldn’t help thinking of that movie, “The House Of Wax” and getting a little freaked out by how real they all looked! They had models of The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Last Supper, Julia Roberts and heaps more!

I also got a photo pretending to be the fattest man in the world, and I got a photo standing next to the tallest man in the world. His name is Robert Wadlow and he was about 8-something feet tall. He truly was a giant man!

There was also this really scary torture section where they had wax models of how they used to torture people in the past. One way was to tie a man’s arms and legs down to a surface and stretch them so far so that their muscles and tendons would snap. This was usually done to force the truth out of someone. Another form of torture was when a man was strapped to a wheel on his back and on the surface of the wheel was sharp spikes that would pierce the skin and the man would bleed to death. The next form of torture was when the man would lie on his back with a funnel in his mouth and water would continuously be poured into his mouth, bloating his stomach so that he would either die from his stomach being burst open or he would suffocate on the water if he chose not to drink it. The worst one was when the man would be left in a tiny cage that only allowed him to stand in an uncomfortable position with no food or water until he starved to death. Sometimes, they would put him out into the public view as an example to the people.

The most interesting section was the optical illusion and magic tricks section. In the optical illusion section, there were lots of pictures on the walls that you can see in 3D when you look at it in a certain position. The magic tricks section was the best! The photos you can see below say it all!



After seeing all the different sections of the Tokyo Tower, we went to the Observatory which was 150metres above the ground so that we got a beautiful night view of Tokyo. It was picturesque! To top it off, there was a jazz band playing and there was an amazing singer with a beautiful voice that we got to hear. It was a very interesting and enjoyable day and night.

Asakusa and Ginza 27th March 2007

It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning. I have been so tired lately from walking around all day and all night – not that I’m complaining because I am having such a good time here. Tina, Steve and I decided to go to Asakusa today. Asakusa is a part of Tokyo that has very old buildings and an interesting history. We took so many cool photos of gates, shrines and temples. We walked through the markets and saw all these beautiful ornaments and cool souvenir things you can buy a memento of having been to Asakusa. It was a really pleasant day walking around and seeing all the cool sights.

At night, we decided to go somewhere different for tea. We got on a train and made our way to Ginza. Ginza is like the Beverley Hills of Tokyo. It is so rich and posh and up-market and beautiful! We walked straight into a shopping complex from the train station and no kidding, every single person that was in this complex was dressed to the nines. They had their name brand coats and dresses and shoes on and all the men were in neat suits. Then there was us! Grubby, scrubby us! We felt a little out of place in this shopping centre, but we enjoyed looking at how nice everyone looked around us.

We went for a walk down the main street and it was so clean and neat. There was absolutely no rubbish on the footpaths and it looked like a million dollars – well it probably cost way more to make it look that good! You get the gist of what I’m saying!

Every shop was lit up with neon lights and looked so cool. We couldn’t help but just stare in awe of what we saw around us. It was just awesome!

We looked for somewhere that wasn’t too out of our price range to go for dinner. We finally found this cute little place that looked kinda like a pub. I had a yummy pizza and it didn’t cost too much! It was a very enjoyable day and evening.