Ok the past 2 weeks have been relatively quiet although there were a few parties which were pretty cool. The first was at my school at ACC. The female students from one of my Saturday class along with Yoko, my boss had been organizing a nabe party (again with the nabe!) for most of last month. There would be all the teachers plus the women from my Saturday class, and a couple of other guests. All in all the party numbered around 12, and was about half Japanese, half gaijin.
The sheer amount of food was again astounding and there was far too much to go around. There were 2 Nabes, some sushi, some Octopus and tomato salad, some edamame, some tamago yaki, as well as an immense amount of cookies and sweet stuff for dessert.
Oh yeah and cheese and crackers. Sweet!
Anyway I once again ate a ridiculous amount before rolling home in time for the last train.
The next night it was my friend Nahos birthday so we went to an Izakaya. There I had some awesome fried chicken, salads, pizza, pasta and loads of other gourmet stuff which was really delicious.
After the conversation was flowing for a while I asked my friend Steven where he was from in New York and to my surprise said “Norwich” (although he pronounced it with 2 syllables instead of one vowel filled noise). Random, guess it must be fate or something…
The following Wednesday I went to Irago to see Ayae for a couple of days. Whilst there we visited a flower pa
rk, which actually only had one type of flower which was “Nanohana” (Rape). Anyway it was totally full of them and on a nice sunny day looked really beautiful.
The next day we went to neighboring Fukue to see the town halls exhibition of “Hina” (slightly creepy Japanese dolls). As I`ve mentioned before, it was dolls day recently and this exhibition was in celebration of that. There were lots of dolls (what did I expect?) and most were set up on small steps. Im not really sure what the significance of this is, but apparently its traditional to have them set up like this. The level of detail on some of them was immense with the princess dolls each wearing 12 kimonos. On the Friday I headed back to Nagoya.
This weekend was eventless, although I should mention that the sun came out and the wind died down a bit. This is awesome as it seems winter is finally coming to an end. Hopefully this will make me more motivated to go out and do blogworthy things!
The following week I headed to Irago to visit Ayae again. On the Thursday myself and Yusuke went to a nearby Karaoke box which was really awesome. Yusuke has a powerful voice which together with my ra
pping skills means we can execute formidable versions of Linkin Park songs. In addition to that I also got some Guns n Roses, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys tunes in which was sweet. I love Karaoke.
On Friday I came back to Nagoya to go to my friend Kawai`s Izakaya party. You may remember (but probably dont) him from a few months back. He`s the salaryman who organizes international get-togethers at Izakayas every 3 months or so. Anyway at the last one I met loads of cool people so I figured I`d go again.
We went to Y
ama-Chans which is a popular chain of Izakaya in Nagoya. The number in our party must have numbered around 30 and we got a huge room which was cool. As usual there was loads of dishes brought to our table as standard (Chicken wings, Chicken balls, and other varieties of fried Chicken). There was also a load of Sahimi, salads, Tofu dishes, and in addition to that I ordered some miso katsu (miso sauce covered fried pork) which is a Nagoyan specialty. After eating and drinking and chatting to loads of random people, we eventually left and went to an English pub, where I met my friend Michyo. After an hour or so more of drinking I had to leg it to the subway to get the last train home. I then had to walk 40 minutes to my home from the subway station as the buses had stopped running. I eventually got in around 1 and had to go straight to bed as I had to be up for work at 7 the next day.
After blagging my way through the next day of work I got home in time to get an
hours sleep before having to head out again for my friends Rich`s and Steven`s birthdays. We started at the Bottom Line Jazz club where one of my friends students was going to be singing with a 14 piece band. The band was really awesome and over the next 3 hours there was a variety of singers coming on stage to sing with them. Most of the singers were fairly mediocre, but there were a couple with really awesome voices who had no Japanese accent at all when singing. In the intermission we met the singer that my friend Raul was teaching and she was well diva which was pretty funny.
They played a variety of Blues, Jazz, Funk and Motown, highlights being Average White Bands Pick Up the Pieces and Randy Crawfords Street Life. The venue was pretty big and had 2 tiers. We were standing on the top floor looking down, and it was pretty interesting seeing how a Japanese Jazz crowd reacts. They were pretty much inanimate just sitting at their tables and occasionally clapping along. Jazz is absolutely huge in Japan but apparently dan
cing to it isn`t. On the top tier though there were enough of us gaijin to get a bit of a party going which was cool.
After the Jazz club we met with a few more friends and were numbering around 11 now. We went to the overpriced and sleazy gaijin bar “Mybar” which was ok although overpriced and errr sleazy.
After that we headed to a club called Domina where there was a drum n bass night on. For the past 6 months Ive been trying to find drum n bass in Nagoya, and so was well pleased when my friend Callie said she found one. After stopping off at a combini for some naan based snacks we headed to the clu
b. When we got in there, we were given a free glowstick and CD and the first few people managed to blag a free T shirt as well. The club was small (although average for Japanese standards) and underground. The music was pretty overpowering and initially quite jungley and breakcorey. Also in places they were playing Gabba which was a bit weird. The club wasn`t empty but it certainly wasn`t packed although the total lack of any apparent advertising is possibly the reason for this.
After dancing for a few hours, pretty much all my friends went home via taxis although I decided to stay as I liked the
music and also I couldn’t really afford a taxi all the way out to Nisshin. Callie`s housemate Carl was still there so I hung out with him the rest of the night. Around 3 this female DJ named Ayumi came on and totally smashed it playing some really heavy tunes. As the hours rolled on people started to disappear from the dancefloor although most didn’t leave. At the back there were some tables and chairs and loads of people were just sleeping there, in spite of the ridiculously aggressive beats in the background.
At 4 another DJ came on although by this time it was just me and Carl on the dancefloor. To my surprise he was actually playing some really good quality drum and bass so it was
a bit of a shame there was just us 2 to dance to it. Eventually the clock struck 5 and we left to head to the subway (via a combini of course). On the way we met DJ Ayumi so had a bit of a chat with her, and she was really safe.
I got home around 7 and despite my best efforts could not sleep. I had necked a couple of red bulls back at the club to keep my legs from collapsing beneath me which seemed like a good idea at the time but I now regret. As I am writing this now I have only had an hours sleep and after that hectic night still feel pretty wired. Tonight may have to be an early one. Hmmm…
Ok that’s about it for these 2 weeks. Sorry Ive been a bit slack in writing this but I figured I should wait until I actually did something before I put anything online. This week my friend Sam is going to visit Nagoya so Im thinking that should be cool.
That’s it for now, See Yall!!!
Jack
The sheer amount of food was again astounding and there was far too much to go around. There were 2 Nabes, some sushi, some Octopus and tomato salad, some edamame, some tamago yaki, as well as an immense amount of cookies and sweet stuff for dessert.
Oh yeah and cheese and crackers. Sweet!Anyway I once again ate a ridiculous amount before rolling home in time for the last train.
The next night it was my friend Nahos birthday so we went to an Izakaya. There I had some awesome fried chicken, salads, pizza, pasta and loads of other gourmet stuff which was really delicious.
After the conversation was flowing for a while I asked my friend Steven where he was from in New York and to my surprise said “Norwich” (although he pronounced it with 2 syllables instead of one vowel filled noise). Random, guess it must be fate or something…
The following Wednesday I went to Irago to see Ayae for a couple of days. Whilst there we visited a flower pa
rk, which actually only had one type of flower which was “Nanohana” (Rape). Anyway it was totally full of them and on a nice sunny day looked really beautiful.The next day we went to neighboring Fukue to see the town halls exhibition of “Hina” (slightly creepy Japanese dolls). As I`ve mentioned before, it was dolls day recently and this exhibition was in celebration of that. There were lots of dolls (what did I expect?) and most were set up on small steps. Im not really sure what the significance of this is, but apparently its traditional to have them set up like this. The level of detail on some of them was immense with the princess dolls each wearing 12 kimonos. On the Friday I headed back to Nagoya.
This weekend was eventless, although I should mention that the sun came out and the wind died down a bit. This is awesome as it seems winter is finally coming to an end. Hopefully this will make me more motivated to go out and do blogworthy things!
The following week I headed to Irago to visit Ayae again. On the Thursday myself and Yusuke went to a nearby Karaoke box which was really awesome. Yusuke has a powerful voice which together with my ra
pping skills means we can execute formidable versions of Linkin Park songs. In addition to that I also got some Guns n Roses, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys tunes in which was sweet. I love Karaoke.On Friday I came back to Nagoya to go to my friend Kawai`s Izakaya party. You may remember (but probably dont) him from a few months back. He`s the salaryman who organizes international get-togethers at Izakayas every 3 months or so. Anyway at the last one I met loads of cool people so I figured I`d go again.
We went to Y
ama-Chans which is a popular chain of Izakaya in Nagoya. The number in our party must have numbered around 30 and we got a huge room which was cool. As usual there was loads of dishes brought to our table as standard (Chicken wings, Chicken balls, and other varieties of fried Chicken). There was also a load of Sahimi, salads, Tofu dishes, and in addition to that I ordered some miso katsu (miso sauce covered fried pork) which is a Nagoyan specialty. After eating and drinking and chatting to loads of random people, we eventually left and went to an English pub, where I met my friend Michyo. After an hour or so more of drinking I had to leg it to the subway to get the last train home. I then had to walk 40 minutes to my home from the subway station as the buses had stopped running. I eventually got in around 1 and had to go straight to bed as I had to be up for work at 7 the next day.After blagging my way through the next day of work I got home in time to get an
hours sleep before having to head out again for my friends Rich`s and Steven`s birthdays. We started at the Bottom Line Jazz club where one of my friends students was going to be singing with a 14 piece band. The band was really awesome and over the next 3 hours there was a variety of singers coming on stage to sing with them. Most of the singers were fairly mediocre, but there were a couple with really awesome voices who had no Japanese accent at all when singing. In the intermission we met the singer that my friend Raul was teaching and she was well diva which was pretty funny.They played a variety of Blues, Jazz, Funk and Motown, highlights being Average White Bands Pick Up the Pieces and Randy Crawfords Street Life. The venue was pretty big and had 2 tiers. We were standing on the top floor looking down, and it was pretty interesting seeing how a Japanese Jazz crowd reacts. They were pretty much inanimate just sitting at their tables and occasionally clapping along. Jazz is absolutely huge in Japan but apparently dan
cing to it isn`t. On the top tier though there were enough of us gaijin to get a bit of a party going which was cool.After the Jazz club we met with a few more friends and were numbering around 11 now. We went to the overpriced and sleazy gaijin bar “Mybar” which was ok although overpriced and errr sleazy.
After that we headed to a club called Domina where there was a drum n bass night on. For the past 6 months Ive been trying to find drum n bass in Nagoya, and so was well pleased when my friend Callie said she found one. After stopping off at a combini for some naan based snacks we headed to the clu
b. When we got in there, we were given a free glowstick and CD and the first few people managed to blag a free T shirt as well. The club was small (although average for Japanese standards) and underground. The music was pretty overpowering and initially quite jungley and breakcorey. Also in places they were playing Gabba which was a bit weird. The club wasn`t empty but it certainly wasn`t packed although the total lack of any apparent advertising is possibly the reason for this.After dancing for a few hours, pretty much all my friends went home via taxis although I decided to stay as I liked the
music and also I couldn’t really afford a taxi all the way out to Nisshin. Callie`s housemate Carl was still there so I hung out with him the rest of the night. Around 3 this female DJ named Ayumi came on and totally smashed it playing some really heavy tunes. As the hours rolled on people started to disappear from the dancefloor although most didn’t leave. At the back there were some tables and chairs and loads of people were just sleeping there, in spite of the ridiculously aggressive beats in the background.At 4 another DJ came on although by this time it was just me and Carl on the dancefloor. To my surprise he was actually playing some really good quality drum and bass so it was
a bit of a shame there was just us 2 to dance to it. Eventually the clock struck 5 and we left to head to the subway (via a combini of course). On the way we met DJ Ayumi so had a bit of a chat with her, and she was really safe.I got home around 7 and despite my best efforts could not sleep. I had necked a couple of red bulls back at the club to keep my legs from collapsing beneath me which seemed like a good idea at the time but I now regret. As I am writing this now I have only had an hours sleep and after that hectic night still feel pretty wired. Tonight may have to be an early one. Hmmm…
Ok that’s about it for these 2 weeks. Sorry Ive been a bit slack in writing this but I figured I should wait until I actually did something before I put anything online. This week my friend Sam is going to visit Nagoya so Im thinking that should be cool.
That’s it for now, See Yall!!!
Jack
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