Konnichiwa!
So...shall I tell you about Japan?
I originally intended to write a log of the trip while on it, but I just didn't have the time or energy. So here's a short bullet-point account of the stuff I remember here and now.
- Eleven hours is a very long time to sit on an airplane. It wasn't a direct flight, so in addition to those eleven (ten and a half on the way back), there were the flights to Oslo and Copenhagen (just Copenhagen on the way back) and airport waiting time. Groan.
- Our Tokyo hotel was huge and confusing. Two elevators to get to my floor. Too many wings. Yes, I got lost.
- We had only one practice where we needed the note stands we'd brought with us.
- For the first day and a half, we were only on the hotel and the concert hall, and only really got to see Tokyo through the window of the bus. The food wasn't particularly Japanese either.
The first concert was just strange. It wasn't really our concert, it was us with two Japanese women (one of them half Norwegian) who played the Hardanger Fiddle.
- The second concert was horrible.
- We got the chance to look a bit more around later on. I took a walk in the Japanese garden in the hotel courtyard, and went to Akihabara, or Electric Town. Granted, I went there mostly because that's also otaku-land. I bought a manga book and a magazine that I can't read, but I like the pictures. Also, I got a digital dictionary which translates between loads of languages (off the top of my head: English, Japanese, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Greek and Russian. And more).
- We did some sightseeing, and then took the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. Our hotel there was smaller and cozier and right next to Osaka Castle. I and two others (S. and G.) took a long walk the evening we got there and saw lots of people eating and drinking under the blooming cherry blossom (sakura) trees. Mostly groups of men in suits.
- S. and I went shopping. We both bought CDs with anime music (she got Ghibli collections, I got a 30th anniversary MS Gundam cd and a Soul Eater CD. I haven't listened to either yet).
- Our concert that day went really, really well.
- Shinkansen to Kyoto, visit shrines. Kyoto restricts construction work to preserve the skyline, so they don't have skyscrapers. Our guide told us that during WW2, the US military deliberately spared Kyoto from their bombing raids in order not to destroy the historical city (at least that's what I think she said - the people behind me on the bus weren't being quiet, so it wasn't easy to hear everything she said).
- Shinkansen back to Tokyo.
- Two others (V. and I.) and I went back to Akihabara and finally located the six/seven-story manga/anime shop. Looked in other shops, and then I. disappeared. (We later found out that we must've been walking around each other. She met up with some other people, so everything worked out fine.) V. and I looked and waited for a while, before we left and had ramen. Then we went some other place where they had nerdy collectibles. There were four glass display mounts with Gundam figures! And oh, some of the Nanoha figures... I wanted them, but due to restriction of space in my suitcase, I limited myself to some tiny things.
- Concert in Tokyo Opera City (only famous orchestras get to play there! Famous orchestras - and us.) Over 1000 people in the audience. (We're lucky if we get 300 at home. People don't have any respect for amateur orchestras here.) It went really well. The conductor had to get back on stage 10 times! We had to play 5 encore numbers! We'd only prepared two, so we had to do three pieces from Tveitt's Hardingtonar (a collection of folk songs arranged for symphony orchestra) over again. When we got out, there was a guy asking for autographs!
- Went to a music shop. Bought a new viola case. Yay! Some of you might have heard me complain about the old one. Loudly. The new one has two good shoulder straps so I can wear it as a backpack, rides fairly high on my back, and is so light that I had to check I remembered to put my viola in it. It was pretty cheap, too! The nice man at the shop kindly took my old case and disposed of it so I never had to see it again.
- Over the course of the trip, while in transit on the train or waiting for the concert to start, we got lunch boxes (bento). There was some grumbling from the others, but I liked them.
- I also got to try traditional Japanese breakfast. Rice porridge, miso soup, grilled fish, tofu.
- A truly magnificent last meal (not so much for the vegetarians, though). I think we had sushi (at least it was raw fish), salad, possibly hot pot (it was a lot of stuff in a pot that was standing on the table on a cooking plate, and then they heated it while we were eating the appetizer). Chicken. Dessert (milk pudding?). I can't remember it all. I wanted to go to karaoke afterwards, but went home to pack and write postcards instead. I was leaving early the next day.
- Somehow managed to get all my stuff with me on the airplane. How, I don't know.
- And...that's it for now.
I originally intended to write a log of the trip while on it, but I just didn't have the time or energy. So here's a short bullet-point account of the stuff I remember here and now.
- Eleven hours is a very long time to sit on an airplane. It wasn't a direct flight, so in addition to those eleven (ten and a half on the way back), there were the flights to Oslo and Copenhagen (just Copenhagen on the way back) and airport waiting time. Groan.
- Our Tokyo hotel was huge and confusing. Two elevators to get to my floor. Too many wings. Yes, I got lost.
- We had only one practice where we needed the note stands we'd brought with us.
- For the first day and a half, we were only on the hotel and the concert hall, and only really got to see Tokyo through the window of the bus. The food wasn't particularly Japanese either.
The first concert was just strange. It wasn't really our concert, it was us with two Japanese women (one of them half Norwegian) who played the Hardanger Fiddle.
- The second concert was horrible.
- We got the chance to look a bit more around later on. I took a walk in the Japanese garden in the hotel courtyard, and went to Akihabara, or Electric Town. Granted, I went there mostly because that's also otaku-land. I bought a manga book and a magazine that I can't read, but I like the pictures. Also, I got a digital dictionary which translates between loads of languages (off the top of my head: English, Japanese, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Greek and Russian. And more).
- We did some sightseeing, and then took the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. Our hotel there was smaller and cozier and right next to Osaka Castle. I and two others (S. and G.) took a long walk the evening we got there and saw lots of people eating and drinking under the blooming cherry blossom (sakura) trees. Mostly groups of men in suits.
- S. and I went shopping. We both bought CDs with anime music (she got Ghibli collections, I got a 30th anniversary MS Gundam cd and a Soul Eater CD. I haven't listened to either yet).
- Our concert that day went really, really well.
- Shinkansen to Kyoto, visit shrines. Kyoto restricts construction work to preserve the skyline, so they don't have skyscrapers. Our guide told us that during WW2, the US military deliberately spared Kyoto from their bombing raids in order not to destroy the historical city (at least that's what I think she said - the people behind me on the bus weren't being quiet, so it wasn't easy to hear everything she said).
- Shinkansen back to Tokyo.
- Two others (V. and I.) and I went back to Akihabara and finally located the six/seven-story manga/anime shop. Looked in other shops, and then I. disappeared. (We later found out that we must've been walking around each other. She met up with some other people, so everything worked out fine.) V. and I looked and waited for a while, before we left and had ramen. Then we went some other place where they had nerdy collectibles. There were four glass display mounts with Gundam figures! And oh, some of the Nanoha figures... I wanted them, but due to restriction of space in my suitcase, I limited myself to some tiny things.
- Concert in Tokyo Opera City (only famous orchestras get to play there! Famous orchestras - and us.) Over 1000 people in the audience. (We're lucky if we get 300 at home. People don't have any respect for amateur orchestras here.) It went really well. The conductor had to get back on stage 10 times! We had to play 5 encore numbers! We'd only prepared two, so we had to do three pieces from Tveitt's Hardingtonar (a collection of folk songs arranged for symphony orchestra) over again. When we got out, there was a guy asking for autographs!
- Went to a music shop. Bought a new viola case. Yay! Some of you might have heard me complain about the old one. Loudly. The new one has two good shoulder straps so I can wear it as a backpack, rides fairly high on my back, and is so light that I had to check I remembered to put my viola in it. It was pretty cheap, too! The nice man at the shop kindly took my old case and disposed of it so I never had to see it again.
- Over the course of the trip, while in transit on the train or waiting for the concert to start, we got lunch boxes (bento). There was some grumbling from the others, but I liked them.
- I also got to try traditional Japanese breakfast. Rice porridge, miso soup, grilled fish, tofu.
- A truly magnificent last meal (not so much for the vegetarians, though). I think we had sushi (at least it was raw fish), salad, possibly hot pot (it was a lot of stuff in a pot that was standing on the table on a cooking plate, and then they heated it while we were eating the appetizer). Chicken. Dessert (milk pudding?). I can't remember it all. I wanted to go to karaoke afterwards, but went home to pack and write postcards instead. I was leaving early the next day.
- Somehow managed to get all my stuff with me on the airplane. How, I don't know.
- And...that's it for now.