Ok, Ive actually been really busy this week so Ill get right to it.
On Sunday Feb 3rd it was the “Osu Kannon Setsubon Ship Parade”. Setsubon is a festival to celebrate the start of Spring (although it seems a bit early to me?), in which people pray for good health for the year, and scatter parched soybeans.
We got to Osu Kannon in time to see the “Takarabune” to arrive. This is a giant model ship that is dragged from Sakae containing the “Shichifukujin” (Seven Gods of Fortune), which are 7 people dressed up as Gods. I have to say actually that their costumes were awesome, with
this one guy who had a really massive forehead. Apparently to get the privilege of wearing this costume at this time of year you have to be very rich or important, so here was Nagoya`s most elite VIPs dressed up like it was Halloween. I love Japan.
There was a lot of people dressed up in traditional Japanese samurai dress, and after the Gods arrived, they started scattering soybeans from atop this massive stage set up specifically for this purpose. The people below had containers (usually upturned hats) to catch the beans and the idea is that the more you catch the more wealthy you`ll be. After that the people who had paid for the right to do so, themselves climbed the stage and threw beans to the rest of the mame adoring public.
Meanwhile the “Gods” had entered the temple and were involved in a Shinto ceremony with some monks. Me and Ayae paid for some candles and also a big roll of incense sticks. We lit the candle and put it with the rest, then threw the roll of incense sticks into a big fire. We then had to try and catch the smoke that came from them and put it to the parts of our body we wanted to be healthy.
After that the Gods left the temple and themselves chucked beans to the public. I should mention there was also a few Onnii wondering round during all this. These are demons, and I thought the idea was that we threw the beans at him, but unfortunately this was wrong. I didn’t do this but I thought about it, especially when he had his mask up, you know take him by surprise like. Oh well.
Anyway they went round scaring kids and hugging people, so I got this pretty bad ass picture of him. After this we went back into Nagoya and to a chocolate festival. In Japan Valentines day is a really big commercial festival and chocolates are the typical gifts. On the 9th floor of Nagoya stations department store, this festival thing was going on. They had live shows showing how they make chocolates and interviewed various chocolatiers from around the world through translaters. In addition to this they had a ludicrous amount of chocolate stalls, and most were offering free samples. Obviously this attracted me!
As well as the novelty chocolates in the shape of animals there
was also this one stall which did chocolates in the shape of various tools including a horseshoe and a monkey wrench.
After eating too much chocolate we decided to go home although first stopping off to get a Maki roll. This is a huge sushi roll and apparently it is tradition to eat it on Setsubon. Anyway it was late by the time we started looking so I couldn’t find a humongous one like I sometimes see, but the one I got was still pretty epic. This was as I suspected really tasty.
On Monday I went to work despite getting a nasty cold. In one of the lessons I was informed that I would have an observer which I was fine with until I was also told to teach infinitives and gerunds. I had never taught these before (and to be honest didn’t really know what they were), and had about 10 minutes to look them up in my grammar book and try and make something up.
When I got in the class I realized I not only had an extra student observing the class but also her mum. I tried to go with my original idea of sentence gap fills on the board but none of them really made much sense even to an English person. I don’t know how I got through that one.
On Tuesday I went to work again although my cold had gotten a lot worse. I couldn’t wait for the day to finish and when it finally did I went home and went straight to bed. Ayae hadn’t moved from bed since I left for work, as she had the same cold (although by this time I had decided it must be flu). When I woke up on Wednesday I was meant to go to Osaka but felt absoloutely hideous. Ayae had already decided she wasn’t going to go anymore, and her brother came and picked her up from our apartment to take her back to her parents.
After she had gone I wrapped up as warm as I could and headed out to go to Osaka. Whilst this flu was certainly
one of the worst things I had experienced in recent times I had decided nothing on Gods earth would stop me from probably my only chance to see Rage Against The Machine live. I arrived around 5 and checked into my hotel. Originally Ayae was going to be with me and she had chosen a hotel which was designed mainly for Japanese guests. However they were very happy to have a foreign guest and the little Japanese I spoke got buckets of appreciation which was nice.
After unpacking I checked the Lonely Planet book for good nearby restaurants, and it described the Doutombori area I was staying in as “Full of terrible restaurants”, although it did say there were a few that were less terrible. One of these was Chibo, an Okonomiyaki restaurant. Since this was an Osakan specialty I t
hought itd be a good place to check out. This was actually really really good Okonomiyaki and they made it on a big Teppanyaki grill in front of me which was cool.
After this I went home and after watching the Japan Thailand World cup qualifier, I got a bit bored so decided to go out and buy some Takoyaki, which were real Osakan specialties. These were being sold everywhere but I went to the first one I went to. The woman didn’t have any change for my large bill so I had to go get change. When I came back she was so happy to see me that she gave me an extra Takoyaki. Bargain.
When I woke up the next morning I met my friend Sam and we explored Osaka. We went to Amerika-Mura which is a shopping district full of garish American memorabilia, and also walked to the Osaka dome just because there wasn’t really anything else nearby. This proved to be a lot further than expected and we were absolutely knackered by the time we got back to the hotel.
After a short powernap, we went out to the gig. The venue was Osaka Jo Hall which is a big stadium in the grounds of the Osaka castle. There was loads of people hanging round outside, with quite a large gaijin turnout as well unsurprisingly.
After getting some food we headed in and to our surprise we were directed to the seating area. I said our ticke
ts were standing but they assured me they were not, which was weird cos when Ayae bought the tickets she definitely selected standing. Anyway we were both pretty narked off by this and tried to blag our way into the standing area but to no avail. The standing area itself was the most bizarre Ive ever seen, every 3 or 4 rows of people there was a separate guard rail, to stop large groups moshing or whatever I guess. It reminded me of what gigs would be like if the Nazis won the war.
So the venue pretty much sucked, but I decided to not get too down about it and that it could still be really awesome. An hour after the doors opened with no support band or warning, a large black flag with a red star began to be raised behind the stage while the Cuban (or something similar) national anthem played, everyone went frickin nuts at this point and went even more when Rage took to the stage. After a short drum roll and guitar effects they Exploded into Testify, knocking me back with how loud it was. Even the seating area had everyone on their feet going mental.
Rage played an awesome set containing most of their best loved tracks including (from memory), “Calm Like a Bomb”, “Bulls on Parade”, “Sleep Now in this Fire”, “Down Rodeo”, “Guerilla Radio”, “War Within a Breath”, “People of the Sun”, “Vietnow”, “Bullet in the Head”, “Tire Me”, “Bombtrack”, and “Renegades of Funk”.
They closed their encore with “Killing in the Name Of”, which left me an awesome memory of 16,000 people screaming “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!”. Unfortunately they didn’t play “Wake Up” and also neglected a couple of others, but it was still a really sweet gig. We were both pretty bumped out about the seating area tickets, but Rage are so good that they can even make that not so bad.
After the gig we headed back to the Doutombori area around our hotel to find a
bar. Osaka and in particular Doutombori are famous for the massive selection of bars on offer. However after looking for a while could find nothing that wasn’t surrounded by Japanese men in suits. Places where you know you`re not welcome.
Eventually we stumbled across a Jazz/Blues bar called the TakoTako (Octopus) King. When we decided to go in all the staff inside the bar cheered loudly and had the biggest smiles on their faces. We got a table and a couple of drinks. Everytime a new customer came in they all cheered at the absolute top of their lungs and it was a small bar so they were always near you. There were 2 oth
er tables and a bar with about 4 stools. It was mostly full, and had one of the best atmospheres of any bar Id ever been in. The staff were so friendly to everyone, and me and Sam had some really long conservations with them in Japanese about music, films and sport and stuff. In fact pretty much everyone in Osaka seems to be friendly at a level which is above and beyond what any reasonable person should be. I decided that night that its probably my favorite place in Japan.
After a few hours however the night took a bit of a turn for the worst for me. My flu had still been there all along and despite knowing this I foolishly decided to ignore it and drink. After I started feeling rough we left (after receiving a ridiculously massive hollering of course).
My flu felt like it had mutated into some hideous creature that had possessed me and was going to burst through my skin at any point. Luckily I managed to get to bed before that happened, although I did not get much sleep.
The next morning Sam had to waste the whole day as he was getting the night bus, so I stuck around and got lunch with him. We also went to the Osaka castle to see the actual castle, but as soon as I got a picture
of it I decided to bail, as my illness got worse. Somehow I managed to get my way back to Nagoya get home and get to sleep. Ayae had been at her parents so the flat was still in the horrible mess I had left it in. When I got in I phoned my boss to ask for the day off. Surprisingly I was told that no one could cover for me so Id actually have to go in, in this obscene coughing spluttering feverish state although only for my adult classes. I got up early in the morning only to find that it was snowing unbelievably heavily. Of all the days to start snowing….
This meant I was really late and got into work about 30 seconds before my first lesson. My voice was literally almost nothing, it was hollow, a shell and I had to do 2 and a half hours of conversation classes. All my students were really sympathetic even when I had a really flemmy coughing fit in the middle of a sentence. In fact one of my students even offered to finish 15 minutes early for my sake, or maybe it was just because he felt really awkward…..?
Anyway eventually I got to go home although my bus was an hour late due to the snow which meant an hour of waiting in the snow. Then when it finally began moving it had to finish early as it couldn’t get up the snow covered hill which meant I had to walk the last part of the journey on foot in the snow.
This was definitely a low point I think and probably the worst single day since Ive been in Japan, given that everything happened on the same day. But after the Rage gig, it still was all worth it.
That’s all this week guys thanks for reading. Next week I plan to spend as much time as possible in bed trying to get over this bloody flu.
Peace out
Jack
On Sunday Feb 3rd it was the “Osu Kannon Setsubon Ship Parade”. Setsubon is a festival to celebrate the start of Spring (although it seems a bit early to me?), in which people pray for good health for the year, and scatter parched soybeans.
We got to Osu Kannon in time to see the “Takarabune” to arrive. This is a giant model ship that is dragged from Sakae containing the “Shichifukujin” (Seven Gods of Fortune), which are 7 people dressed up as Gods. I have to say actually that their costumes were awesome, with
this one guy who had a really massive forehead. Apparently to get the privilege of wearing this costume at this time of year you have to be very rich or important, so here was Nagoya`s most elite VIPs dressed up like it was Halloween. I love Japan.There was a lot of people dressed up in traditional Japanese samurai dress, and after the Gods arrived, they started scattering soybeans from atop this massive stage set up specifically for this purpose. The people below had containers (usually upturned hats) to catch the beans and the idea is that the more you catch the more wealthy you`ll be. After that the people who had paid for the right to do so, themselves climbed the stage and threw beans to the rest of the mame adoring public.
Meanwhile the “Gods” had entered the temple and were involved in a Shinto ceremony with some monks. Me and Ayae paid for some candles and also a big roll of incense sticks. We lit the candle and put it with the rest, then threw the roll of incense sticks into a big fire. We then had to try and catch the smoke that came from them and put it to the parts of our body we wanted to be healthy.
After that the Gods left the temple and themselves chucked beans to the public. I should mention there was also a few Onnii wondering round during all this. These are demons, and I thought the idea was that we threw the beans at him, but unfortunately this was wrong. I didn’t do this but I thought about it, especially when he had his mask up, you know take him by surprise like. Oh well.
Anyway they went round scaring kids and hugging people, so I got this pretty bad ass picture of him. After this we went back into Nagoya and to a chocolate festival. In Japan Valentines day is a really big commercial festival and chocolates are the typical gifts. On the 9th floor of Nagoya stations department store, this festival thing was going on. They had live shows showing how they make chocolates and interviewed various chocolatiers from around the world through translaters. In addition to this they had a ludicrous amount of chocolate stalls, and most were offering free samples. Obviously this attracted me!
As well as the novelty chocolates in the shape of animals there
was also this one stall which did chocolates in the shape of various tools including a horseshoe and a monkey wrench.After eating too much chocolate we decided to go home although first stopping off to get a Maki roll. This is a huge sushi roll and apparently it is tradition to eat it on Setsubon. Anyway it was late by the time we started looking so I couldn’t find a humongous one like I sometimes see, but the one I got was still pretty epic. This was as I suspected really tasty.
On Monday I went to work despite getting a nasty cold. In one of the lessons I was informed that I would have an observer which I was fine with until I was also told to teach infinitives and gerunds. I had never taught these before (and to be honest didn’t really know what they were), and had about 10 minutes to look them up in my grammar book and try and make something up.
When I got in the class I realized I not only had an extra student observing the class but also her mum. I tried to go with my original idea of sentence gap fills on the board but none of them really made much sense even to an English person. I don’t know how I got through that one.
On Tuesday I went to work again although my cold had gotten a lot worse. I couldn’t wait for the day to finish and when it finally did I went home and went straight to bed. Ayae hadn’t moved from bed since I left for work, as she had the same cold (although by this time I had decided it must be flu). When I woke up on Wednesday I was meant to go to Osaka but felt absoloutely hideous. Ayae had already decided she wasn’t going to go anymore, and her brother came and picked her up from our apartment to take her back to her parents.
After she had gone I wrapped up as warm as I could and headed out to go to Osaka. Whilst this flu was certainly
one of the worst things I had experienced in recent times I had decided nothing on Gods earth would stop me from probably my only chance to see Rage Against The Machine live. I arrived around 5 and checked into my hotel. Originally Ayae was going to be with me and she had chosen a hotel which was designed mainly for Japanese guests. However they were very happy to have a foreign guest and the little Japanese I spoke got buckets of appreciation which was nice.After unpacking I checked the Lonely Planet book for good nearby restaurants, and it described the Doutombori area I was staying in as “Full of terrible restaurants”, although it did say there were a few that were less terrible. One of these was Chibo, an Okonomiyaki restaurant. Since this was an Osakan specialty I t
hought itd be a good place to check out. This was actually really really good Okonomiyaki and they made it on a big Teppanyaki grill in front of me which was cool.After this I went home and after watching the Japan Thailand World cup qualifier, I got a bit bored so decided to go out and buy some Takoyaki, which were real Osakan specialties. These were being sold everywhere but I went to the first one I went to. The woman didn’t have any change for my large bill so I had to go get change. When I came back she was so happy to see me that she gave me an extra Takoyaki. Bargain.
When I woke up the next morning I met my friend Sam and we explored Osaka. We went to Amerika-Mura which is a shopping district full of garish American memorabilia, and also walked to the Osaka dome just because there wasn’t really anything else nearby. This proved to be a lot further than expected and we were absolutely knackered by the time we got back to the hotel.
After a short powernap, we went out to the gig. The venue was Osaka Jo Hall which is a big stadium in the grounds of the Osaka castle. There was loads of people hanging round outside, with quite a large gaijin turnout as well unsurprisingly.
After getting some food we headed in and to our surprise we were directed to the seating area. I said our ticke
ts were standing but they assured me they were not, which was weird cos when Ayae bought the tickets she definitely selected standing. Anyway we were both pretty narked off by this and tried to blag our way into the standing area but to no avail. The standing area itself was the most bizarre Ive ever seen, every 3 or 4 rows of people there was a separate guard rail, to stop large groups moshing or whatever I guess. It reminded me of what gigs would be like if the Nazis won the war.So the venue pretty much sucked, but I decided to not get too down about it and that it could still be really awesome. An hour after the doors opened with no support band or warning, a large black flag with a red star began to be raised behind the stage while the Cuban (or something similar) national anthem played, everyone went frickin nuts at this point and went even more when Rage took to the stage. After a short drum roll and guitar effects they Exploded into Testify, knocking me back with how loud it was. Even the seating area had everyone on their feet going mental.
Rage played an awesome set containing most of their best loved tracks including (from memory), “Calm Like a Bomb”, “Bulls on Parade”, “Sleep Now in this Fire”, “Down Rodeo”, “Guerilla Radio”, “War Within a Breath”, “People of the Sun”, “Vietnow”, “Bullet in the Head”, “Tire Me”, “Bombtrack”, and “Renegades of Funk”.
They closed their encore with “Killing in the Name Of”, which left me an awesome memory of 16,000 people screaming “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!”. Unfortunately they didn’t play “Wake Up” and also neglected a couple of others, but it was still a really sweet gig. We were both pretty bumped out about the seating area tickets, but Rage are so good that they can even make that not so bad.
After the gig we headed back to the Doutombori area around our hotel to find a
bar. Osaka and in particular Doutombori are famous for the massive selection of bars on offer. However after looking for a while could find nothing that wasn’t surrounded by Japanese men in suits. Places where you know you`re not welcome.Eventually we stumbled across a Jazz/Blues bar called the TakoTako (Octopus) King. When we decided to go in all the staff inside the bar cheered loudly and had the biggest smiles on their faces. We got a table and a couple of drinks. Everytime a new customer came in they all cheered at the absolute top of their lungs and it was a small bar so they were always near you. There were 2 oth
er tables and a bar with about 4 stools. It was mostly full, and had one of the best atmospheres of any bar Id ever been in. The staff were so friendly to everyone, and me and Sam had some really long conservations with them in Japanese about music, films and sport and stuff. In fact pretty much everyone in Osaka seems to be friendly at a level which is above and beyond what any reasonable person should be. I decided that night that its probably my favorite place in Japan.After a few hours however the night took a bit of a turn for the worst for me. My flu had still been there all along and despite knowing this I foolishly decided to ignore it and drink. After I started feeling rough we left (after receiving a ridiculously massive hollering of course).
My flu felt like it had mutated into some hideous creature that had possessed me and was going to burst through my skin at any point. Luckily I managed to get to bed before that happened, although I did not get much sleep.
The next morning Sam had to waste the whole day as he was getting the night bus, so I stuck around and got lunch with him. We also went to the Osaka castle to see the actual castle, but as soon as I got a picture
of it I decided to bail, as my illness got worse. Somehow I managed to get my way back to Nagoya get home and get to sleep. Ayae had been at her parents so the flat was still in the horrible mess I had left it in. When I got in I phoned my boss to ask for the day off. Surprisingly I was told that no one could cover for me so Id actually have to go in, in this obscene coughing spluttering feverish state although only for my adult classes. I got up early in the morning only to find that it was snowing unbelievably heavily. Of all the days to start snowing….This meant I was really late and got into work about 30 seconds before my first lesson. My voice was literally almost nothing, it was hollow, a shell and I had to do 2 and a half hours of conversation classes. All my students were really sympathetic even when I had a really flemmy coughing fit in the middle of a sentence. In fact one of my students even offered to finish 15 minutes early for my sake, or maybe it was just because he felt really awkward…..?
Anyway eventually I got to go home although my bus was an hour late due to the snow which meant an hour of waiting in the snow. Then when it finally began moving it had to finish early as it couldn’t get up the snow covered hill which meant I had to walk the last part of the journey on foot in the snow.
This was definitely a low point I think and probably the worst single day since Ive been in Japan, given that everything happened on the same day. But after the Rage gig, it still was all worth it.
That’s all this week guys thanks for reading. Next week I plan to spend as much time as possible in bed trying to get over this bloody flu.
Peace out
Jack
P.S Heres a video of Rage in Concert doing Bulls on Parade. Sorry for the shaky work but I was trying to dance at the same time.
1 comment:
hey man, karma has to balance out somewhere...lucky mofos like you have to get ill and have a shit day after experiencing an enviable and awesome gig such as RATM...
glad it was good tho man and get well soon you bastard!
Z
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