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Luke's Blog
September 25,2006 to December 16, 2006
Things are back to normal around here. Mika is back at work and I'm waiting out the holiday's with respect to work. So that means I can goof around around with stuff like my blog. However, this is probably the last one before Christmas unless something really exciting happens.
We are now, I think, ready for Christmas. Our neighbours, Japanese and Canadian have put up Christmas decorations and from what we hear, Ontario is having weather closer to ours than a white Christmas. This is the embassy tech guy (one of our neighbours) decorating in his Yukata (Japanese pajamas).
I gave Mika an early Christmas present of a Christmas tree with decorations. Fake trees have come along way since my parents had one. They fold up nicely and look a little more natural too.
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The embassy had its Christmas party and their are pictures in the photo section (see above). I've been warned to practice Christmas music for next year to play behind the enthusiastic Christmas carolers. We will be having Christmas dinner with some friends at the embassy and Nick will be up from Hiroshima to visit as well. So we are go for Christmas.
Construction season continues, however. Since the weather is alright most of the year, they build most of the year. We are lucky enough to have three construction sights next to each other. Having said that, the construction process is much different than in North America. We've been watching the process since we got here.
First, there is the removal of the old building. Now in Canada this would have been accomplished in one day with a wrecking ball or backhoe. In Japan, however, this may take a week because they carefully dismantle the building, separating out the metal, wood concrete etc. for recycling. This was done in August.
Then they do some blessing ceremony with Shinto monks (sorry no pictures), and erect a scaffolding around the perimeter of what will become the house. Construction here is always done with scaffolding, to provide access, and netting around the outside, to keep debris inside the construction site. Quite different from North America where scaffolding is rarely used. They can set this stuff up in a day.
The wooden frame of the house was all precut. All the mortice and tenons were already done and the beams were truck to the site and the frame erected in ONLY one day. It was like a good old fashioned barn raising. Only with less people and no feast.
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Now they are installing the floor and roof and such. It's quite interesting to see. Especially since all of Tokyo, including our area is built on small streets that are just wide enough to fit a car. And the streets are two way streets. This means all the trucks, cement trucks etc. look like matchbox cars when compared to the monstorous ones in North America. It's so cute!
So for now relax, enjoy the season, family and friends because you don't quite no what you've got until you can't visit them. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
First I must apologize. I have not given up on my blog but it has been a little eventful here. Enough to make me forget when I last wrote. You see Mika had an appendicitis a week and a half ago and was in the hospital for 5 days after having surgery to have her appendix removed. She is no quite well and will be going back to work tomorrow. However, she does have to take things easy which means no heavy exercise or lifting for a month. Everyone will have to visit her office instead of her going to theirs.
The Japanese hospital she was in was not too far from our home and was quite impressive in comparisson to Ontario. First they have a lot of staff each patient in her room of six beds had a different nurse. She had two surgeons whom she saw everyday. We had to wait about 10 minutes when we arrived at 6:40 am on the Thursday and by noon she was out of the operation in her hospital bed. The food was quite good. All round pretty good. The minor drawbacks are that the Japanese doctors like to keep patients for a lot longer than perhaps they need to (Mika would have been out the next day in Ontario). This is partly because their want to gouge you (in our case our insurance) but mostly it is because the Japanese home is not a good place to recuperate. It's small, noisy etc. Also, Japanese men in particular are dumb and as soon as they get out of the hospital they go back to work at full speed. Take it easy is not in their vocabulary. Thus complications often arise. At any rate I spent several days in the hospital making sure Mika did not go crazy from being too bored or lonely.
Now, because of this dramatic turn of events and we were slow off the mark to begin with, we will not be sending Christmas cards as they won't get there until next year. Sorry, better planning next year.
We were going to travel to Hiroshima on the Christmas weekend but since the surgery we decided that was not the best way to rest up so our friend Nick will be coming up from Hiroshima to visit us instead. We will also be having Christmas dinner with some other Canadian embassy friends who are also in town for the holiday. All in all things are not too bad.
Since the international schools are now on holiday's for the next three weeks, there will be little work for me so I will have to work a little harder at keeping busy. There seem to be possible teaching prospects for next year at some of the international schools for next school year at the high school and the middle school level. More on that as time passes.
For now, we are well and getting more into the Christmas spirit despite it being a warm 14 celcius (I know it's rough but the lack of snow does hamper the feeling of Christmas we are used to).
During the weekend of Nov 25th, Mika and I decided to go for a walk in the sun. We noted that it was the end of November and there was no snow. That was nice, and it is nice, not to be greeted by sub-zero temperatures when exiting a building. However, as we are approaching Christmas, it makes it a little hard to feel Christmassy when it is 15 celcius and there is no snow. I know what your thinking,"why complain, it's warm". All true but still, there is a bit of us that miss the cold every now and then.
On our walk we went through Meji shrine, which is a huge park near where we live and it is where the Meji emperor's remains are buried. He is now a deity with all the other emperors. He is also the one who opened up Japan to the world and modernized the country. Important guy. Anyway in this park we discovered a Zen archery range where there was a competition going on. So we peeked in the window. It seems that the archer's are judged on movement and style in preparing to shoot and shooting, as well as accuracy. There didn't seem to be a lot of accuracy because the few people we saw, didn't hit the target.
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Last week I had a job at the embassy to supervise the dismantling of the old boilder and the removal of all the associated pipes. RCMP rules require a Canadian to supervise to make sure they don't put any bugs in the walls or something. Anyway, not terribly interesting most of the time except to see how they might get rid of the boiler which was about 6 feet by 6 feet by 5 feet and cast iron. So what's the big deal right. Well I bump my head getting down the stairs which are 4 feet wide. Not to mention the boiler weighs over 5 metric tonnes. They was a lot of humming and haaing (how do spell that anyway) in the way that only the Japanese can do before they decided they needed to crush the boiler using a hydraulic clamp. Since the boiler is cast iron, it breaks (not bends) when under stress so they spent 2 full days chomping away at the five sections that make up the boiler. It was quite impressive but a lot of work. Not to mention how much pipe was there to remove as well. Three guys to remove pipe for 3 days and 3 guys to crush the boiler for 2 days and I was watching it all. Interesting for the first few hours but three days of it gets boring.
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We
went for breakfast Sunday morning in Omotesando which is also close to our house
only to find the restaurant everyone said we should go to had closed for good
last week. But I did find something neat. The map of the area on the side of
the road had these little squares beside a stores name. You can scan these squares
using the barcode reader on you cell phone and it will connect to a small webpage
where you can get information on the store such as its hours.
We also visited Kiddy land, which is a toy store. Now Japan is generally quite good when it comes to putting up English signs. Occasionally, however, you find signs that make no sense. Anyone know what this means?
I bought Fodor's guidebook to Japan to find out what to see in various places. It's quite handy and informative (good things for a guidebook). I discovered the area we live in wasn't much to speak about until Japan hosted the 1964 summer Olympics. The stadium is about 5 minutes from here. As a result they extended the subway to this area and where there is a subway people follow. Now it is home to the branch stores of non-Japanese upscale fashion like Louis Vitton, Dior etc.
With my new found info guide, I returned to Ueno area and park. We had been here earlier to the Zoo. The park is huge as it contains many of the national museums (5 or 6) and the zoo. In addition there are large walkways which I was perplexed to find croweded with people on a Tuesday at 10 a.m. Don't people work here! More evidence to support my theory that they waste time at work thus explaining their late working hours. There are also shrines (Shrines are Shinto buildings and temples are Buddhist). I finally found out from this book that the big gates in front of shrines are supposed to separate the secular from the religious.
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Ueno park has one of the only original shrines from the Edo period (1603 - 1867). It wasn't ever burned down or bombed and subsequently rebuilt like most other shrines in Tokyo. It includes a Pagoda. I haven't figured out what they're for yet.
Also at this shrine is a monument to the use of atomic bombs. The story goes that after the atomic bombs were dropped, a man went to visit his uncle in Hiroshima and found it still burning. He took some of the flame and kept it alive at his house as a reminder of what was done to his family and prayed for vengence one day. As time went on, the anger subsided and the flame became a symbol of hope for peace. The flame was given to the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in a ceremony in the 80's, I think and they continue to burn there. A national ceremony was held in Tokyo where a group was founded to ensure that the flame never burns out in the hope that peace will someday come to the world. In the picture the flame is in the middle of the dove but it is hard to see because of the sunny day.
About a half hour walk away (toward Asakusa if you know your Tokyo geography) is a street called Kappa-bashi. This is a most excellent street. This is called the Kitchen district. The street is lined with shops that service the restaurant industry and sell display cases, signs, appliances, food items, cash machines and lots and lots and lots of dishes. It's one stop shopping for restaurants. And regular people too.
Among the more interesting aspects of going to a restaurant in Japan is that many restaurants display there menu items using plastic food. This is good if you can't read the menu because you can see exactly what the scribbles on the menu mean. Well, Kappa-bashi is the place to buy it. Some of it is not cheap though. A fake bowl of ramen will cost about $50.
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And life would not be complete without your own Buddhist shrine. You can buy these in Asakusa too. At least I think their shrines. They could be for a family members ashes too. Anyway, like headstones in North America, they are expensive but very nice to look at.
You know, for a country with no space for landfill, they sure use a lot of packaging and plastic here.
Whew! What a week. I've been substitute teaching at the American School in Japan (ASIJ) all week in the middle school which has been good. Half the time I was doing microscope labs with the kids. Most of you know my undying love for teaching biology (I don't know anything about all the academic stuff) so it was a challenge. However after waking up every morning at 6 a.m. for the 1 hour and 15 minute commute I'm still alive.
The kids here are extremely well behaved and it makes me wonder whether I want to teach back in North America. Everyone does what you ask, generally, and they listen and do work and stuff. No need to raise your voice to get their attention and they are very helpful in finding equipment and filling you in on things they have done already. What a change.
The teachers at the school have interesting and diverse backgrounds. Some went into teaching right after college while others gave up working in business to teach in the international school circuit. The ones who used to work in Japanese business went into teaching so that they could see what their family looked like awake (crazy Japanese business hours).
I have a Japanese bank account here and I discovered that they are worse than Canad for gouging you at the ATM. If you take money out during the week they won't charge you for the bank machine, their machine. However, if you want to use the ATM, of the bank in which you hold an account,on the weekend, they charge you about $1.05. What a scam. The reason I say this is because I can use the Post Office bank machine to take money out of my Canadian bank account at anytime without being charged anything. Craziness.
Last weekend, Mika and I took our first sight seeing trip outside of Tokyo. All the way to Yokohama (30 minutes on the train). Not far but it still counts as outside Tokyo. There is a really nice street for shopping in which we found some really unique and wonderful jewellry made by a German company called Niessing.They have some nice diamond rings but also you can get two rings that can interlock to form a chain. The pattern for the pair of rings is unique to the set of rings so there are no two rings in the world the will fit together except the one pair. Anyway, it's hard to describe so check out the website and look under "wedding rings" and the model is "unita".
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There was also a chocolate store right next to a tea store. How convenient.
Yokohama is a quieter and less hurried place to go too. They have some nice
parks near the harbour. One of them is on a bluff with a really great view of
Yokohama bay and in the distance Tokyo bay. (Tokyo bay is in the distance on
the left. Yokohama bay is in the centre of the picture)
There is also a china town that is compact with 160 restaurants in a 8 or 10 block radius. We had lunch at one on a street where there were nothing but restaurants, one after another. It turned out that this was also the weekend of the Yokohama marathon so we walked into the main park to see a unquie sculpture made of shipping containers and thousands of people milling about. As well they have a retired cruise ship that used to go between Yokohama and California for 30 years but is now a museum.
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Yokohama also boasts the tallest observation deck in Japan and the world's fastest elelvator (certified by Guiness book of World Records) in a building called the Landmark Tower. The observation deck is on the 69th floor and it takes 36 seconds to reach it (I timed it). The elevator reaches a max. speed of about 750 metres per minute. At the top of the tower you can clearly see Tokyo tower in Tokyo and the other side of Tokyo bay where the my Costco adventure was headed. It is quite an amazing view. You could also see Mount Fuji.
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On a completely separate and normal adventure to the grocery store, we passed by a store that Mike in particular would enjoy. What do they mean by that I wonder? All for now.
It looks like we may finally have tenants for our house. A retired couple with a toy sized dog. A relief because that means I don't have to pay all those utility bills. Now you might think that they would be small because no one is living there, however, most of the cost of utilities is fixed delivery charges water heater rentals and the like which are not insignificant. Yeah!
Mika's mother has convinced me to try my hand at a special kind of Japanese carving called Kamakura-bori as a way of still working with wood. So I decided, somewhat nervously to try going to this class with a teacher who speaks some English tonight. It wasn't bad. I'm sitting in amongst the old lady's gossiping about who knows what carving straight lines as a way of learning to use the knife. Think Karate kid training; wax on wax off. Only for me it's deep straight line, now do shallow straight line. I have to to start somewhere. So we'll see where this leads. Apparently the average person will do 3 to 4 carvings in a year.
The last three days I've been supervising the maintenance of the ventelation systems at the off embassy grounds. A bit of a dull experience as, you let the contractors into the house and sit around for a half hour making sure they don't steal anything and then move to the next unit. I have now seen every Canadian staff quarters that the embassy owns. Despite taking Japanese lessons I still can't really communicate with the contractors. The words I need like "the furnace is over here" or "Write a report detailing how it doesn't work" haven't appeared in the conversation type lessons yet. Maybe never. Suffice it to say that language is still an issue.
On Monday evening, Mika and I were invited to take Mika's bosses place at a dinner at a posh hotel in the Ginza. The hotel was introduced to Canadian wines by our locally engaged facilities manager and the manager of the hotel was having a dinner to show us how his chef is trying to pair Canadian foods and Canadian wines. Three different wines, all from Quailsgate vineyard in the Okenagan, with a variety of foods using as many Canadian ingredients as possible. Apparently, the chef wished there were more Canadian products available on the market in Japan for this exercise. The top thing in my opinion was the roasted duck. It was soooo tender, it just melted in your mouth. This hotel does special wine dinners, where you pay oodles of money for a one time menu with select wines. The chef works with top chefs around the world to prepare these meals. Apparently he was off to Hawaii for a few weeks to study with a chef there before preparing another one of these meals. Not a place we could ever afford to go to by ourselves. A great opportunity.
"What the hell?! Why do I hear a siren that sounds like a submarines claxon chiming "Man your battlestations"?" I said to a person in the embassy.
"Oh that's the fire alaram. We have to leave the embassy." she said.
Man did that alarm scare me to death. I've never heard an alarm so loud. It turns out that the embassy staff were going to be doing fire, earthquake etc. training. They even had the fire department there to demonstrate a bunch of stuff including responding to a gas leak. They were all decked out in Hazmat suits and the like. I had to chuckle to myself because I don't know a lot of Japanese but the way they go about doing stuff, you think you were at a sports event and the commander was the cheerleader. He's standing 3 feet from 5 guys and he has a megaphone! He shouts something at them and they all throw their fists in the air and yell "osss". Apparently, Mika told me, that is like saying "Roger" or "OK". Besides the slight comedic bent to the re-enactment it was impressive with all the gadgets they had. I took some pictures with my cell phone. I didn't have my real camera handy.
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Two very important lessons learned this weekend about driving in Japan. This first is that you never, under any circumstances, even entertain the idea of the possibility of driving on a day that is a national holiday. STOP! Don't even think about it. Second lesson is that Japanese suck the big sucky suck at giving driving directions. Let me elaborate.
Mika's aunt who lives in nearby Yokohama invited her sister (Mika's mother, Kyoko), mika and myself to come to her church bazaar somewhere between Yokohama and Tokyo on Friday ( a national holiday). The two sisters were going to be going to Kyoto for a week together so it was decided to bring all the bags and people in the car to the church instead of taking them on the train. Oops! A journey that was about 50 km took us three and one half hours to complete. In addition the directions given to us on a map and later by cell phone while we were lost we more detrimental than helpful. To be fair, not all the blame can go to the dozen or so people trying to give directions. A chunk of blame is be placed with the various levels of government for not labelling or even giving names to streets. Their unusual way of addressing buildings does not involve street names at all. So you can't simply say, go to street A turn left. Go straight until you get to street B then turn right. Instead you have to think of landmarks that people might recognise in a country where everything is so smooshed together that you can easily miss the landmarks. Anyhow, what a mess. It was another 2 hours home because of the traffic. It also explains why car makers have taken to having TV's and DVD players and all sort of gadgets in cars because most of the time your NOT MOVING! As a side note, we did not travel on the toll expressway because we weren't going very far but we also go a look at said EXPRESSway and it wasn't so much express as stationary. Worse than the road we were on.
WHEW! Got that off my chest.
So my birthday was on Thursday of last week and to celebrate, Mika and I went to a steak house in Roppongi which was really good. On Friday night some of our embassy friends had a gathering for me as well, including the essential chocolate cake.
I also learned, well more fully appreciate the soba shop. The food is fast, healthy, tasty, and cheap. You can get it anywhere in all kinds of variations. So if you come to Japan, and I know all of you are planning to do that right! Seek out the humble soba shop and indulge.
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The Japanese are crazy about details. Everything must be just so. This explains the insufferable amount of time to get anything accomplished as everybody needs to check and re-check everyone elses work. It's no wonder they work long hours and accomplish very little. The reason I was thinking about this is that last week I supervised a team of contractors at the embassy who were checking all the smoke detectors in the staff quarters. Now in Canada most places have a smoke detector on each floor. The embassy apartments are, in most cases, one floor and yet every room (and sometimes closet) has a smoke detector. So the guy had to check about 10 detectors in each of 25 apartments. When we got ahead of schedule in visiting apartments, the guy wanted to wait until the exact time listed on his check sheet. I persuaded him that no one was home generally and that it would not be a problem. Thank goodness because this meant we finished this mundane task an hour and a half earlier than scheduled. Waste, waste, waste everywhere.
On Friday, besides substitute teaching at ASIJ (American School in Japan), the embassy held a charity halloween party. It's part of the government's United Way campaign. There were about 400 people that showed up in various costumes. It was quite amazing. The repressed personalities explode again! I was going to take a bunch of pictures but the batteries in my camera died just after I got there and had to resort to the iffy quality of my cell phone camera. At least I got a good picture of Mika's costume as well as some others (see pic's below)
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Mika's mother arrived last week to attend the Ikebana international conference. On Saturday she took us to a Japanese tea ceremony demonstration of her particular school. She is try to arrange lessons for me and, as I need a translator, Mika too.
She then took us to see the 300 plus ikebana displays at the conference. Some are really crazy and others are quite nice.
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I bought this book on making mechanical wooden models which I thought maybe I could make here. I was pleased to see a paragraph which said "you don't need a workshop full of complex and expensive tools...". However, I was upset when below this paragraph is a long list of tools required which include a bandsaw, scroll saw, lathe, a good selection of lathe tools, four-jaw chuck, tailstock drill chuck etc. Sounds expensive to me. I guess it depends on what you definition of expensive is.
So a week since my last update. Well, we now have a car. A 1995 Nissan Bluebird. Now, I know your thinking its old, but there isn't a bit of rust on it. Remember that Tokyo rarely gets snow and they don't use salt on the road either so cars last longer. Anyhow, we won't be driving it that much in Tokyo as there is no where to park and it's easier to get around by subway or train. But for the odd occassion where we need to go to Costco or to places near Tokyo it should be good.
It's been a quiet week for me. Mika on the other hand has had a lot to do with new staffing requirements and a host of other HR stuff. I supervised the public service exams yesterday which is pretty easy work for me but a lot of testing for the four people who wrote three tests. I think if you survive the day of tests without going crazy that should be extra points. I can't say anything about the test because... Wait I've said too much. They may be watching. I have a secret you don't know :).
On the weekend I dragged Mika out to the other side of Tokyo (near Costco, so another hour or so on the train) to see the Plastic and radio Control model show. As these models are a hobby of mine I thought I'd go see what's up. I now realize that I do not even scratch the surface of seriousness when it comes to this hobby. So many people spending a lot of money. One cool thing was a computer simulator for flying radio controlled airplanes. Instead of crashing your plane to learn how to use the R/C controller you can practice on your computer using a USB adaptor that will take the radio wave input from your controller. This may sound silly to some, but learning to fly a plane when it is not pointing in the same direction you are facing is a little tricky so a lot of crashes happen. They also had small steam engines for models which was neat too.
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Tomorrow I have another small embassy contract. I get to accompany contractors to all the staff quarters while they test the fire systems. Oooo lots of fun. Hey it's something to do.
So I have a lot of time on my hands when I'm not working. Last was very little work for me. The only thing regular I have is tutoring the son of an embassy officer twice a week. This means I have to fill up my days somehow. This is a bit of a challenge sometimes as speaking the language well would allow me to do a lot of activities. So I'm working on the language but its a long way from being "well".
Last Friday Mika and I had dinner with her Aunt and a friend of Mika's family. It was at one of the those fancy restaurants. I have some pictures of the food and presentation. The one thing I've discovered about a lot of Japanese food is that it is a lot of work to make which is why a lot of people eat out a lot. The really fancy food is even more work but its nice when someone else does it. Even in a restaurant in Yokohama.
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There is always, it
seems, something going on in Tokyo. This weekend in Yoyogi park was the Sri
Lanka festival. Similar in many ways to the India one a few weeks ago. Food
and dance are very similar but still enjoyable.
Mika and I walked through the main part of Yoyogi park (the entrance is where the crazies are) and discovered it to be a hive of activity. I guess since no one has space at home to do stuff they do it at the park. Practicing music, tap dance, drumming, sports and anything else you can think of goes on in the park. So many people and this means the grass is in poor shape or just doesn't exist anymore. At least there are trees.
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Well we had thanksgiving (check out the photo tab). It took a five hour round trip during typhoon weather to acquire two turkey's (they only had 10 lbs turkey's) but I survived. You know the Japanese language is silly in many ways. Here is only one but a shining example of the use of English words in Japanese. I travelled to Costco (yes it is here). I asked directions to Costco only to receive blank stares until the train station guy figured out that the store I actually wanted was "Costoco" not "Costco". Every English work has extra vowels in it and they use a lot of them. "Spark Plug" is not understood until it is pronounced "sparku plugu". Our neighbour has been in Japan three years and speaks no Japanese but he gets around becomes he simply throws vowels into English words to Japanify them (lefto and righto and straighto). Why am I bothering to learn the language?!
Anyway, we had guests for supper including Hiroko'w new boyfriend George who is half Japanese and half German. As well as a friend, Joe and family, from Mika's University of Victoria days. Much food was eaten and all enjoyed themselves.
The next day, Mika and I went to Uneo Zoo and wouldn't you know it, there were Peruvian musicians there. They are all over the planet. You can't escape. Run now before they find you. At the zoo, among the many animals we discovered the penguins. Apparently there is a species of penguin called the Jackass Penguin. I'm not making this up. Really!
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As well, there was an animal called an Okapis which looks like someone has replaced their real legs with Zebra legs. Maybe it's an upgrade. The Okapis have been Pimped! As well as the ever present 75 year young Galapagos turtle. They live, so we are told about 150 years.
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One last thing. Everywhere in Tokyo you can get these little cakes with sweet bean paste inside that are oh so good. They are made with a cool automatic machine that is reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine. They're so cool.
On a completely different tack. We saw a truck that had a sign that screams to be made fun of. Immediately, I thought of Mike. I have no idea why but here it is. I have visions of a grow/pick/rolling machine in the back of the truck.
Well I've been substitute teaching at ASIJ (American School in Japan) for the past three days doing middle school science and algebra. I have to say that I quite enjoy not having to take marking home and worry about planning the next days classes. The class sizes are smaller and the kids better behaved than in Ottawa. Besides the one hour train trip to get there for a start time of 8:30 a.m. it's not bad. I'm trying to fit in literally and figuratively on the train by sleeping and nodding off as often as I can. I think it's working.
Mika and I have decided to try having Canadian thanksgiving dinner here on Sunday. This is more difficult than you might imagine. Since most Japanese don't have an oven (their kitchen is too small) it is hard to find anything that you can roast, never mind finding a turkey. However, Costco is here in Tokyo and they have turkey's apparently. So I will have to take a 1 hour train trip to get one from them. This city is soooo big.
In my blog about Yoyogi park, I forgot to mention the crazies (or more P.C. the differently cultured) people who come out on Sunday to be seen. First you have the Goths and the Lolita's.
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Then there is something I don't understand. The Tokyo Rockabilly Club (see picture below). They seem to do the Twist most of the time with the occasional slide. It's quite funny to see. Especially the hairdoo. You can see video of them on their website here. I guess they don't get to express themselves much during the rest of the week or something.
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Nick came up from Hiroshima for the weekend. He's doing well but needs to walk with a cane until he gets his hip replacement. We did a little sight-seeing and discovered the Natural Science Museum has a life size model of a blue whale. Pretty cool.
We're finally settling in and have all our stuff unpacked and mostly arranged the way we want. I've been working on getting this website up and running and I'm just about there. Just have to upload to a server. Obviously if your reading this, I was successful.
So
there was this Indian culture thing going on this weekend in Yoyogi park. Dancers,
music and food. Indian food is a wonderful thing and there are some really nice
Indian restuarants near our house.
Apparently also on Sunday's around the edge of Yoyogi park, all kinds of bands
set-up and play. They're not busking, but just playing to entertain. And they
are really good musicians too. Some sell some CD's and drum up business for
up-coming gig's like this really good band called Loovee
(see below).
Click image to see video of the band (16 Mb)
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Hear a sample of other bands (25 Mb) |
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