SUMO!

Towards the end of January, in order to get out of the massive snow that was going on in Yamagata, a group of us decided to get out and get into the more happening, and (slightly warmer/less snowier (at least) Tokyo. Sumo was going to be happening, and we wanted to be a part of it! We went on the last weekend of the Sumo tournament, held in Asakusa. Me, Siobhan, Max and Rebecca went down a day before so that we could check out some of the nightlife of Tokyo in an area called Roppongi, famous for it. We went to a club called Yellow, which was really cool and had an excellent sound system. Consequently we were a little late (or early, depending on which way you look at it) to go to bed before the day of the Sumo tournament. We were a little tired, but Sumo is a pretty good and exciting sport to watch! 

Basically, a match lasts between 30 seconds to 2 minutes maximum and the rules are very simple: you either push a person out of the circle, or you make them fall over. So it requires very little concentration, which thus means you can enjoy the sport thoroughly! 

We went on the penultimate day of the tournament, so we were watching the big superstars play...not that I know them all, but the most famous one is Asashoryu. Sumo wrestlers can win certain titles - a bit like a league table, and Asashoryu is a Yokozuna - the highest rank. There can only be two at any one time. Anyway, we saw him win the match on the Saturday. But the day after, he lost to the other Yokozuna!!!

When I told people back in Nanyo that I had been to see Sumo live, they were very impressed - not many of them having seen it live themselves, and there was much talk about the defeat of Asashoryu!

Here is the final electric showdown between the two Yokozuna's.

You might think that this is just one part of the bar - where the drinks are bought, but this is actually the whole bar! It was very small. We didn't stop here...well, only to steal their warmth because it was freezing outside! There are lots of cool and interesting looking places in Tokyo - often times they're just very very small!

The packed Sumo venue in Asakusa, Tokyo.

The Sumo wrestlers process into the ring to introduce themselves. The aprons they wear are typically very expensive and colorful - often sponsored by various companies. Some have diamonds and stuff on them!

Getting ready to fight. Sumo is closely connected with the Japanese religion Shintoism - a branch of Buddhism. There are certain rituals the wrestler always perform. The guy at the back is popular at the moment. He comes from Mongolia, and he's on his way to become one of the top Sumo wrestlers.

...and now for some adverts! Yes, these people walking around the ring randomly popped up to promote various products! I loved it - a really good example of Japan fusing the traditional with the modern aspects of culture and life.

I had a very short-lived career as a Sumo wrestler...it didn't work out!

Tokyo is a city that never sleeps....almost - Shibuya at 5.30am isn't quite as illuminated as it normally is, but its still pretty busy. Actually - things were just starting to get busier - Starbucks was getting ready to open up at 6am. Gosh, we were out late...and before we went to sleep we had to go and get some tasty Ramen! It's the 'after-the-night-is-over' food of Japan!

Winter is definately here.....

As expected, the snow came at the beginning of January, and so far it hasn't really stopped. It is also very very cold. The average temperature at the moments ranges between -2 and -5 degrees Celsius in the day, and -10 at night. I started to go to bed with a hat on to keep my head from freezing, but now I leave a little electric heater on so that my room stays warm and comfortable. Everyday when I go back into my house I have to keep my coat on for a good 10 minutes while my heater warms up the place. It is also quite common to find the water in the toilet bowl frozen over. I went down to Tokyo for the weekend, and I came back to find the water in the toilet bowl completely frozen solid, as well as the water in the cistern too!!!! Luckily my water pipes have given me no problems so far, some of my other friends around Yamagata haven't been so lucky!

A few days ago I went to buy a new camera (my old one broke) and the snow and wind was so bad, we all stopped for about ten minutes because we couldn't see much around us! Very scary! But it is also quite amazing and pretty to see so much snow - the novelty wears off after a while, I have to wake up a little earlier to check that my car isn't snowed under by a ton of snow. Most mornings I wake up to a blanket of snow over my car, which isn't too bad.

This was the first snow we had in the middle of November. It had a burst of snow and then didn't snow properly again until January. It was really early and not many people had put Winter tyres on their cars yet...

...and now, this is what I often find as I walk outside of my house in a morning!

This is the roof of my car - this snow had fallen over the space of one night! Loads more than we normally see in England!

This was a beautiful view of Akayu in Summer...

...and this is the same view of Akayu now! It's hard to believe this was once green and the climate was really hot!

But you can see some stunning views on a clear day like this! All the snow covered mountains look really amazing!

It's not all bad though! We've had a few spontaneous snowball fights, and a last weekend I went up to see Siobhan in Kaneyama (which, in the North, has A LOT more snow than in Nanyo!) and we made snowman with the masses of snow that she has around her home! It is also the season to ski/snowboard - to be honest I haven't had chance to do so yet, I'm a little bit scared about such sports - but I'll bite the bullet soon and give it a try! Promise!

Me and our snowman, Yuki! Yuki, very cleverly means 'snow' in Japanese. It is also a Japanese name! See what we did there eh?!

Siobhan is the Queen of her snowy domain!

New Year Customs

Whilst I was gallavanting about various countries of Asia, Japanese has its own ways of celebrating New Year. They don't celebrate Christmas, but they do celebrate New Year. Well....they kinda celebrate Christmas but more in a cold, heartless, consumerist sense. New Year or Oshogatsu is the most important time. A time for family, a time when Japanese children receive 'Otoshidama' - envelopes with money in it!

On the night of New Years Eve families go to their local shrines to pray for good luck and fortune in the coming year. And on New Years Day they eat various foods such a Mochi (rice cakes - pounded rice). After a returned from my Christmas travels, I was invited to a community mochi eating event in Okigo town which had a 'Saito-yaki' ceremony which is (straight from the Japanese horse's mouth) 'burn old things'.

Making mochi is great fun, you have this BIG mallet and have to pound the rice as hard as you can. You try to get in a rhythm where one person keeps moving the mochi with his hand, then moves it quickly before the other person pounds it again with the mallet, and so on. I didn't do too bad but its not easy! Eating mochi however, is not quite as fun. It's ok - but I prefer my rice not pounded. The Japanese kind of love it. In the northern part of Japan where I live (Tohoku) they particularly love 'Natto Mochi'. Natto is a horrible horrible kind of fermented bean concoction. It has a very strange smell and an even worse texture. Most foreigners don't like it - I can eat it, but I don't like it that much. But when it is combined with the other strange food of Natto Mochi - it is THE WORST FOOD IN THE WORLD!

(All you have to do is pull out a pot of Marmite when Natto is mentioned, and Japanese people generally tend to run a mile!)

'Saito-yaki' is a very interesting ritual. It is basically like a bonfire of wood and straw and amonst it are little items that people place in the bonfire to be burnt - to pray for good health. (Also to keep you warm outside in the FREEZING cold). It was a nice community event and I had the chance to speak to various people and children from the area!

Christmas Travels Pt 3 - To China and back home!

After the turbulent time in Thailand, we were all very very happy, and relieved to leave the place! We arrived back in Shenzhen Airport, a little bit unsure what to do next with no knowledge or command of the Chinese language whatsoever.

I had been sent an email which included some Chinese written instructions that could apparently be understood by a Chinese person as to whereabouts our hostel was. I had written them out as neatly as I could, showed them to our taxi driver, he nodded and we set off. It was a little bit funny not knowing any details about where we were going but our taxi driver was very helpful and helped us find exactly where our hostel was.

It was probably the best hostel we had stayed in throughout our trip - which was a really nice finish to our busy journey. We were all quite tired and a little cranky, so a cosy hotel and a really nice bed was just what we needed!

We only had one full day in China, and we wanted to use it up to see a theme park called 'Window of the World'. It was a large park with giant scale models of famous landmarks around the world! It was really fun and interesting! There were lots of performances and a few rides too.

I love these Olympic mascots! China is getting pretty excited about the games - I was just a little bit disappointed I had to hug this little critter from behind Plastic! :(

The biggest model was of the Eiffel Tower in the centre of the park. It was pretty huge! We visited Australasia, passing the Sydney Opera House, into Venice, through the Pyramids, next to New York closely followed by Washington DC, stopped back off in London to see the Palace, Big Ben and the London Bridge, then the Vatican, and Russia and the Niagara Falls! It really was fun and took up our whole day. 

It's quite unlikely you'll probably see the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids together anywhere else!

A bit of reflection by Notre Dame

Venice was having quite a lot of Chinese custom that day!

You'll all be pleased to know I went back to England, a healthy and growing lad...perhaps a little too big these days!

I'm in Paris!

Things were pretty cheap in China - Shenzhen brewed some lovely beer in a big bottle for only 5Yuan (about 35p!). That doesn't mean I drank a lot of it at all, but I would have liked to take some back for my dad - if only I was going back to England!

China was a fascinating place. I would be interested in going back to explore more of it!

The next day we had to get up at 6.30am and out of the hostel for 7am in order to get back into Hong Kong in time for our flight at about 10.30am. Through the Shenzhen underground, through Chinese passport control, through Hong Kong passport control. Once we were in Hong Kong we were getting a little bit panicky that we wouldn't make it in time. The metro was a little confusing. We decided to get a train a few stops closer to the Airport and then jump in a taxi. At the border of Hong Kong we had a little bit of Indiana Jones action, because as we were going towards the train, thick metal shutters started to block off the entrance just before the train set off. Myself and Siobhan were through the entrance and then the doors started closing on Kathryn and David! We heard a shriek of panic from Kathryn as she tried to race through the narrowing shutters before they prevented her from catching the train that was about to set off!

 It was a little tight but we made to the Airport with a little time to spare in the end! When we arrived in Japan we were back to freezing temperatures. We caught the Shinkansen back up and as soon as we entered into Yamagata, the noticed masses and masses of snow! It had arrived - and lots of it too!

Christmas Travels Pt 2 - Thailand

I will begin my blog about Thailand with a conclusion first. I wasn't too keen on Thailand overall. Let me explain to you why. One of the first instances began at the airport - you come out of the airport and you are bombarded by people offering you taxis. We had been told by some other British guys that the ones closest to the nearest exit overcharge everybody - taking advantage of the first time tourists who don't know any better. They tell us that we should go down one floor to get a cheaper taxi. 

We followed their instructions to find it pretty deserted. A few guys either sitting down or wandering around. One of the comes up to as and asks us if we need a taxi. He didn't look very official, and when we said OK he started taking us to the parking lot saying his taxi was just over there. He was encouraging us to follow him quickly. We all felt a little bit uneasy with him, after asking for ID etc which he didn't provide us. So we decided not to take his taxi offer, instead letting Kathryn stop for a cigarette which, after a while, made us stop bothering us and go back to sitting around near the bottom floor airport exit - quite lazily, as though nothing had happened before and he had never been disturbed!

So we went back up to the main area and found the most official looking taxis, and it didn't turn out to be too bad a price. Such dodgy situations were the first or a few to come.

Our hostel on the other hand was the best part about Bangkok - the staff, a family I think, were so friendly, kind and helpful - the place was lovely and clean and safe! Kathryn tried to be fobbed off with counterfeit money from a taxi driver - very obvious counterfeit money. Me and David were suspicious of a few Thai people who came up to us speaking excellent English and chatting to us, then recommending places for us to go and giving us a suggested price and then all of a sudden a Tuk Tuk (small little three wheel Thai taxi) comes up ready to take us to wherever we went to go - and just so happens to know the entire route that the people suggest! 

Another instance was a night when we wanted to go to a club in Bangkok. We had a particular one in mind...but the taxi driver took us to an entirely different one - that didn't look half as good as the other one. I had heard of taxi drivers taking places to particular places because they get commision - people were opening the doors of our taxi and encouraging us to get out and into their club, but we firmly declined the offer and insisted the driver take us to where we wanted to go - which he eventually did, although he was a little moody about it. Then, after that club closed - we thought about going to another place, if one was open - a Tuk Tuk driver claimed he knew a good place so we took up his offer - after he performed a wheelie as we drove off...he took us to the same dodgy looking club that the other guy before had taken us to! We found it hilarious and just told him to take us back to our hotel instead!

A beautiful Thailand sky. The weather was lovely and hot!

The club we went to 'Bed Supper Club' was like some kind of Spaceship! A very cool place with massive Beds all around the edges of the building.

Thailand was a little bit dirty and shady. The Taxi drivers drive around the city like maniacs! Complete maniacs! The food was so delicious - nice and spicy and full of flavour!

The historic buildings are beautiful too -  and they all love the king so much! I really liked their dedication to that man! They wear clothes saying 'Long Live the King' and there were posters and homages everywhere to the King! At two times in the day the national anthem is played in various parts of the city, and people will just stop what they are doing and stand to pay their respects to the country!

The impressive buildings and temples of Bangkok.

The Royal Palace - Impressive eh? Wouldn't be surprised if that was actual real gold on those buildings, rather than that B&Q Gold-imitation spray paint...!

White Elephants are considered good luck for the King of Thailand - the more he finds the stronger he will rule! These model ones were the centre piece of a roundabout.

For the second half of our trip in Thailand - we went to an Island! It was called Koh Phanghan and was one of a group of three. This one was particularly famous for a monthly club - held every night when the moon is full on the beach. It also held a very big New Year Party so we decided to head on down for that. Unfortunately we failed to realise that loads more people would be heading down to the same party too! We tried to get a train but all the seats were booked up for days! After a bit of panicking - we decided on getting the night bus - even when I'm not in Japan that method of transport still haunts me! True to Thai form, the guys drive like maniacs so we didn't get too much sleep, but met some nice people on the way. Overall, to get to the island, we travelled non-stop for about 18 hours. The boat ride was three hours. We felt tired and dirty as we made it to the island - but we had a spot of luck when we discovered our hotel was right by the port where the boat docked!

The hotel was nice enough, and they had a pool which I took some advantage of! We had a good sleep and also, in the hotel, on this small island - I met a Thai guy who works there who lived in Dewsbury (of all places) for 2 years! His name was Poy and he spoke great English with a nice English accent! He was very cool - he asked me where I was from and I say (as I normally do) - in a town called Huddersfield, near Manchester! He immediately went 'Oh yeah, the football club is Huddersfield Town right?'. He'd visited the place a few times! It really is a small world sometimes!

The party was incredibly, on a warm night - loads of people all having a good time - lots of good music and drink - quite a nice way to bring in and celebrate the New Year! It lasted all night, I lost all the others but went back a little earlier than they did - leaving the party at about 7am. That same day - New Years Day, we had to catch the boat back for the mainland of Thailand - all feeling a little bit tired and worse for wear.

The sea around Koh Phanghan was so shallow for ages! I went and wandered out so far - I didn't actually realise how far I'd gone but I couldn't see Siobhan, Kathryn or David on the shore - and the water was still only up to my waist! On this picture you can see that Kat and Shib joined me!

My fellow Yorkshire Thai mate Poy. What a dude having lived in Dewsbury!

The Koh Phanghan New Year Party! Full of life as you can see!

Unfortunately the boat ride back was one of the most harrowing experiences I think we've ever had the opportunity of experiencing! The sea had turned REALLY nasty and it was expected to stay like that for a good few days. There were huge waves - the wind was high and the boat was crashing up and down on huge waves and tipping dramatically from side to side, making us feel it would almost capsize. People were being sick everywhere, the atmosphere was not good at all and I felt very scared. Only David was incredibly calm - placing full confidence in the boat all he did was read a book! Amazing.

Unfortunately Siobhan and Kathryn didn't handle the boat too well - before reaching the mainland the boat stops at another island (Koh Tao) 30 minutes away from the island we were on, Koh Phanghan. Siobhan was carried off the boat in a state of shock - violently shaking and so we had to quickly grab our belongings and follow her off the boat. So, we were stranded on an island with no accommodation and a plane to catch, up in Bangkok that we now wouldn't make! After a few minutes of tension and panic - we went to find some accommodation for the night and I began to start making some phone calls to rearrange our flights and other plans.

This photo documents us being stranded on Koh Tao - Siobhan is doing an impression of her state of shock whilst on the boat and I am mimicking our distress at our current situation!

Even more bad luck on Koh Tao - trying to take my mind of the next looming boat journey - I take the opportunity to build a sandcastle....only to have it ruined by a large dog who decided to SIT ON IT!

Koh Tao was actually a lovely island to get stranded on - it was a bit more natural and prettier than Koh Phanghan. We were all a little bit anxious and shell-shocked whilst we were on the island - and anxious about the boat ride we would have to take the next day. I couldn't get to sleep and so went for a wander at about 2am in the morning - the place was deserted. There was a 24hr open café that was completely empty and the man was slumped on the counter fast asleep! But the next day, we endured the horrific boat ride again - I thought that it wasn't as bad as the day before but Kathryn and Siobhan disagreed. Nevertheless we survived the ordeal and could get back up to the airport for our newly arranged flight. Everything from then on was relatively smooth!

Thailand was an interesting time, but quite a lot of experiences have probably made the taste of the place a little bit bitter!

Made it to Bangkok airport and back to our stupid selves! We had got into a habit of doing interesting actions and/or routines whilst on elevators - it was always guaranteed to entertain those who could see us in action!

Next stop China....back to Hong Kong....back to Tokyo....and back to Yamagata!

Christmas Travels Pt 1

OK. I’ve been really busy – but I’m going to inform you of my Christmas travels now. It’s a fairly long adventure – so I might break it down into a few chapters!
First – Hong Kong!
We were dead excited on the Friday night – we all met up on the Friday night, ready to catch the night bus down. Following a quite-expected uncomfortable night of little sleep (that night bus is going to be the death of me), we arrived in Tokyo, grabbed some breakfast at a Maka Donaraadousu, (the Japanese don’t understand it if you simply say ‘McDonalds’), and then spent a bit of time around Shibuya – being stupid and buying a lot of CDs. There is a place in Shibuya called Tower Records – it has about 6 or 7 floors of music. It is probably the biggest music shop I have ever seen and it stocks so much music! Unfortunately everytime I go there I seem to spend quite a bit :-S – soon I’ll run out of CDs I really want to buy….or not!

Christmas outside Shibuya Station.

On the first floor of the Starbucks in Shibuya, you can see Kathryn, whilst on the second in the corner, you can see Siobhan, David, and Brigid (who came down to Tokyo with us to meet her boyfriend).

Still in Japan...that's a mighty lot of Japanese! Luckily it did switch over to English every now and then....if only we considered beforehand that Chinese would be another difficult bag of tricks to decipher!

The flight was 5 hours from Tokyo to Hong Kong – I didn’t expect it to be as far away. Oh how I love flying!
Arriving in Hong Kong was great – lots of people spoke English! Arriving at our Hostel was a bit of a scary experience. We had to pass through this dodgy looking market entrance – security guards were making sure those who passed, were those who were going to the hostel. They didn’t really make us feel any safer, as the people who were going through looked rather shady and interesting characters!

It turned out that our hostel was not a building on its own – it was part of a large block of flats. The whole building was generally a shabby one, the corridors were dull and dingy and we were getting really worried about where we were going to be staying. On the 10th floor we found the reception to our hostel and were then shown to our room – we passed through a big nicely-painted yellow door that really stood out from the rest of the corridor décor and once through the threshold, were in a nicer looking corridor with tiled floor and clean decoration. Our room was less than luxury but fine for what we needed.

This was the central space inside the building which our hostel was part of...not really to the same standards of a Hilton Hotel...!

Just down the road from our hostel there was an Irish pub which served TETLEY’S and proper English style food! It was so delicious, whilst we felt a little bit ashamed for not taking full advantage of the potentially excellent Chinese food on offer, we really appreciated the opportunity to have some ‘proper’ western style food and not the ‘imitation’ Western food that Japan seems to produce!

We enjoy some slightly more familiar food and drink.

We went to a beautiful fancy floating restaurant, which looked nice enough but we experienced a little bit of culture-culture shock! Having been used to Japanese politeness so much, the Chinese were often a little bit forthcoming and impatient! They would linger around you. The food was delicious though!

The floating restaurant - with a very clichéd Chinese restaurant name - 'Jumbo' - I think it's a bit more up-market than the Jumbo buffet we have in Huddersfield!

On the boat (or in the restaurant!)

Hong Kong was a beautiful place to be in. Amazing buildings and beautiful views. On Christmas Eve we went up to Victoria Peak to admire the view (luckily the sky wasn’t hazy). We went to a swanky bar by the view and toasted in Christmas day. The day before the eve of Christmas, we found an Anglican Cathedral in and amongst the massive buildings. They were having a festival of Carols and Lessons which we decided to attend. It was really nice to attend something really Christmassy and Christian. I loved the opportunity to sing along with a big congregation to all the carols and I guess it made me a little bit homesick and nostalgic. The service was great – they had a fantastic choir and the place was packed!

Toasting Christmas Day outside at a very nice bar on Victoria Peak.

Admiring the view!

On Christmas day I woke the party of three (Siobhan, Kathryn and David - four including me) to the sound of ‘Handel’s – Alleluia chorus’ on my iPod speakers! Christmas day was the day we were going to get from Hong Kong to Thailand via Shenzhen in China. It all went very smoothly! We decided earlier that, in an effort to make Christmas Day a little bit special, we would all wear a silly hat. I had a Santa Hat, Siobhan and David had Silver hats, and Kathryn had a silver feathery headband. So we took the train to the Chinese boarded and crossed through customs and passport controls wearing our beautiful head gear – we only hope that we made the passport control officers days a little bit special! They never look very happy do they!

We're in China! With Special hats! Once again being some of very few white people in the area, it didn't really help us trying to blend in - probably shouting out 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' to Chinese passers-by didn't help either!

We had a very nice Chinese meal for our Christmas dinner at Shenzhen International Airport - with some ridiculous translated meal names (like 'The Porks Intenstines dancing on the cherry blossom" or "The Chicken cooked on the admiration of a willow tree" - just bizarre). We continued to wear our special hats (we actually made it very successfully to the airport, once in China – no easy feat when fewer people than in Japan speak English).

A nice looking Chinese restaurant in Shenzhen airport. I reflect that we had a lot of 'dinner' photos - but if anything it should only reinforce to you all that we're eating very well!

Then, we were on our plane to Bangkok, a three hour flight – still wearing our special hats!

Hakuryuko: concert performance. Nanyo City's 40th Birthday.

The day after Daft Punk was the concert I had been rehearsing for every wednesday since I arrived in Nanyo City. My good friend Marie had told me about it, on hearing that I loved music and singing. We were performing a fairly recent Japanese work from a Nanyo City born composer about a Nanyo City folk story: Hakuryuko, or, The White-Dragon Lake.

It was a fantastic concert and I felt lucky to be singing with such a fantastic sounding choir - a combination of lots of different people around the city. The Yamagata city orchestra, a well-known orchestra around Japan with a respectable reputation accompanied us, the composer himself conducted us, and six of my friends from around Yamagata came to support me! I really enjoyed it and it was a great opportunity to meet many different people from around Nanyo. It was also funny to see me stand out so much amongst a bunch of Japanese people! I even stood out in the programme, with everyone else having Japanese characters for their name and me know as 'CHRISTOPHER P'.

Sadly, the choir was only created for that one concert but I have now found another choir in Takahata, the neighbouring town. They are a smaller choir, and not quite as strong - but singing is fun and they all seem to enjoy it and I just enjoy meeting all the new people! We're singing Mozart's Coronation Mass too - so I get to sing something that isn't Japanese for a change!

One of my friends in the audience, managed to record me and some of the concert, and he never told me! My parents randomly discovered it on youtube, so, for your entertainment, you can also watch a clip too!

Daft Punk - a day in Tokyo.

Siobhan discovered back in October that Daft Punk were playing in Tokyo on December 8th. We jumped at the chance to go and see them and promptly booked our tickets before they sold out! Finally the day came and we were planning to do something no man should really attempt: take the night bus from Yamagata down to Tokyo, spend the day in Tokyo and then catch the night bus back from Tokyo to Yamagata. All this after I had torn a ligament in my foot a few days ago and was limping quite badly!

There was just me, Siobhan and Guy going and we all met up in Yamagata shi to have a few drinks and wind down with some other guys before we could catch our bus. The place we went to was fantastic. It had a Japanese 1950s theme to it, quite retro and the coolest thing was that they served their beer in old fashioned tin kettles!

Being suitably tipsy enough to face the nightbus (only in the hope that it would act as a bit of a night-cap and help us get to sleep on an otherwise uncomfortable method of transport), we finally reached Tokyo in the early hours of the morning. Still a little rough and tired, we had the clever idea of finding an Internet/Comic book cafe in which to have another few hours of rest before we headed over to Chiba-ken where Daft Punk would be playing.

The Internet cafe's are slightly more than cafe's. They're often open 24 hours and you pay a set amount for a private room. These often have TV's, DVD players, games consoles, computers with Internet, comfy chairs or even beds. Japanese people seem to like to spend hours in these places as a way to relax and unwind or escape the stresses, or perhaps the daily routines of their life. They often offer food in these venues, libraries of DVDs and Japanese comic books, magazines, CDs and you are welcome to unlimited drinks at the drinks bar - anything from a variety of teas, coffee to Coke.

Anyway, after a few hours in that venue (still not quite comfortable enough to sleep but better than nothing). We went off to get something to eat and stroll around Tokyo. Whilst it was freezing up in Yamagata, it was still Autumn in Tokyo and one of the parks we stumbled across in Harajuku had amazing Yellow and orange leaves on the trees and the ground.

The park in Harajuku filled with oranges and yellows.

The happy trio enjoying the park.

The concert in Chiba started at 3pm with a bunch of support acts, but Daft Punk weren't expected to play until 7.30 so we didn't bother with the other acts and headed off to the venue in good time to see Daft Punk. We got a good location with a good view of the stage and despite my poorly ankle, I managed to dance OK!

The happy trio enjoying the concert!

It was only after the gig that things started to go significantly wrong. Firstly, we managed to collect our stuff from storage very quickly, but then we went the wrong way out of the huge venue (Makuhari Messe) and so had to walk back to the exit towards the train station. THEN, we somehow (to this day we don't understand how) got the wrong train going AWAY from Tokyo main station.

We reached the end of the line and then still unsure what had happened, had to get another one going back. By this time it was getting dangerously close to when our bus would depart. Our train was a slow local type and we arrived in Tokyo main station 10 minutes after our bus had set off. A small fortune wasted! We had two options: try and catch another, later night bus in time, or stay in Tokyo. That option wasn't possible for me because I had the big Nanyo City 40th Anniversery concert the very next day! So we rushed over to Shinjuku station where the next night bus would leave and managed to buy tickets and get on the bus with one minute to spare!

An intense day of travelling, concerts, wrong trains and racing for buses was inevitably too much for me!!!

Unfortunately that bus didn't stop in Nanyo, so me and Siobhan had to wait longer for the trains to start in the morning so that we could catch a train from Yamagata City back down to Nanyo - I had one hour of sleep in my bed before I had to be up for the last rehearsal before the actual concert!

あけましておめでとございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm back from some intensive travelling in the far east. I just thought I would quickly catch up with what I did before I left for my jollies. Towards the end of the school term (a whole 17 weeks with no break in between) I was rather tired and couldn't wait for a break. Christmas was especially busy with a number of Christmas parties and Santa appearances. They were the best thing about Christmas this year.

I was asked to play Santa for two kindergartens - Urushiyama and Okigo. Rather controversially I played the role sans beard - this had the effect of perplexing some of the children. But I was all ready in character to let them know that I was 'trying a new image and wanted to look younger'. They seemed to buy it - I played the piano and I dished out presents to each of them, they sang me songs and learn a few English words too. They were incredibly sweet and cute!