Of Manila's Nouveau Riche and our Time-Space Warp Experience
It was hime_takarai's Kame's birthday last Saturday so we thought of celebrating it by going to Japan Foundation's Nihonggo Festival at the Shangri-La Mall.
Manong Driver, anoh beh? Our day got off to a bad start because of a rude cabbie who wanted to charge us a flat rate of Php100 to get us from Libis to the Shang, which would just fall to around Php70 if he'd use his meter. He was using a nonexistent traffic jam as an excuse for this, and he was probably unaware that he's talking to 3 feisty tired women who just got out of work. Some quotable quotes:
"O sige Manong, i-start n'yo yang metro. Php100 or plus Php30 whichever is lower."
"Pare-pareho lang ho tayong naghahanapbuhay."
Needless to say we transferred to another cab a block later; it's not even about the money anymore, it's the whole principle of it. We're working our asses off night after night only to be "swindled" by these ne'er-do-wells when we get out of the office. The next cabbie was really nice though, so he kinda made up for his colleague. We would've been more than willing to add a few pesos to our fare had the first one been as nice as him. Anyway, on to the good stuff.
Ekiben Exhibit, Inihaw na Pusit and Kimono Ken. We got to the mall early so we decided we'd go around first. The Ekiben Exhibit was already propped out so we looked around and took pictures while there aren't any other gawkers yet. We especially loved the bento shaped like a snowman (will post pics once I get them from babyshazam) and the Anpan-man one. We also took pics of the bento's from Chiba Station (because babyshazamloves yamapi and also because of Aiba), Osaka Station (because of Ryo) and the other stations with "Ka" and "Me" on them because of the birthday boy. So it's lunch time and we we're craving for the Inihaw na Pusit (grilled squid) that we saw on a Gerry's grill billboard across Eastwood. We scoured the place for a Filipino food place much like Gerry's (if not Gerry's itself) and we were unable to find any, so we ended up in the foodcourt. At that time, I was already craving for something Japanese so I took out this amazing omurice from Kimono Ken instead. Yum! (The guys at Kimono Ken even gave me a glass of water while I was waiting - two thumbs up for you guys!) babyshazam and hime_takarai stuck to the original plan though and were contentedly feasting on some yummy-looking grilled squids by the time I got back to them.
L'arc HK Concert News and Uchiwas. Ongaku Society had a booth near the stage and it's a real good thing that we dropped by because this really friendly gal there (she goes by Magnetic Rose, I believe) had HUGE info re the upcoming L'arc En Ciel concert in HK. hime_takarai was a jrock fan before we lured her into liking JE boys as well and is absolutely, madly in love with L'arc's lead vocals, Hyde (thus the LJ username). She's been bouncing around since she heard about the con but is having difficulty finding info re: the tickets so she was really, really happy. I'm happy for her too, and kinda wanna go to HK as well for the concert (I sorta like L'arc's bassist, Tetsu) but I really need the moolah so I might not be able to. Anyway, there's also this booth for the Nihonggo Center (where I wish to enroll in the future) and they have this sort of game wherein you can draw questions and you can get an uchiwa if you answer correctly. Too bad babyshazam didn't get one, her question was really, really hard. >.<'
Speeches and Witches. We got to sit down in front of the stage right in time for the awarding of the speech contest winners. (Btw, I saw this really cute bald Japanese guy, but he seems to have his gf with him...anyway,) We didn't get to watch the actual speeches, but hime_takarai and I sorta liked the title "100 Yen idea" (one of the speeches) and felt bad it didn't win. The first prize was a 1-week all expense paid trip to Japan and all of us promptly turned green with envy after hearing that. Too bad, maybe next year... Anyway, after that is yet another contest among schools that teach Nihonggo, but this time, it's a contest for performances that demonstrate the Jap culture. As we moved nearer to the stage and near the parents of some kids who were performing, we saw a Japan Foundation newsletter so we started to close in on it and hime_takarai started to pick it up. That's when this baba immediately told us off. "May nakaupo dyan!" (and as she grabbed the newsletter) "At amin din yan!" I swear, the indignity of it! We weren't even trying to get the chair! She WAS kinda pretty and they looked burgis (read:upper middle class) but she had NO right to talk down to us like that. (She looked like someone who got rich thru tama no koshi and then promptly turned into your typical nouveau riche housewife.) We were throwing death stares to everyone who seemed to be connected to them in any way for the rest of the program. Her kids were a part of this dual band which shared members. The first one had a vocalist who was pretty but performed like a dead fish (I can do a superb impersonation of her) and the other one's pretty decent if not for the fact that the members seem to think this was their stepping stone into show business. Other notable performances include: students from DLSU dancing this sort of traditional Jap dance (we wanted you guys to win 3rd place), children from University of Manila singing various Disney theme songs (they won 2nd place), and a collab between Adamson and Manila Sci (Manila Sci has a nihonggo program??? No fair!) in which they did this kakkoi traditional Jap dance (forgot what it's called. I did, however, remember the name of their sensei, Sato-sensei, who was my bald Jap guy #2 that night. Oh, and btw, they won first place).
Kakkoi Karate Sensei and Chibi Yokoyama Yu. So this dojo had this demo and all kids lined up on the stage and started doing kicks and karate stuff when we noticed this chubby kid who kept fidgeting and was getting constantly scolded by his senpai's. He was doing baka things and acted all rabu-rabu when this little minnie mouse (from an aforementioned perf) walked in front of the stage. That and his interaction with a smaller kid really cracked us up. The smaller kid was bossing him around. He does seem like his senpai though, the smaller one has an orange belt, this other boy has blue. Ojou said he's kinda like a chibi Aiba, I said no, he's a chibi Yokoyama Yu. LOL. The real sugoi demo of course came from the sensei's. They had these demo's where they broke cement blocks and Jap roof tiles which really looked painful, but the dojo master went ahead and broke 4 slabs of ice. Ouch.
Hot Tank Top Boys and Our Time-Space Warp Experience. We moved to the Shang's Streetscape to checkout the Taiko Drum performance of Ryo Shiobara and his crew. I must admit that at this point I had been way too tired and way too sleepy. having been awake for more that 24 hours already. The performance still blew me away though. It's amazing how at that same night we had this amazing view of the moon, so when you look at it and hear the Taiko drums beating at the background you feel like you've been transported to a place where a Japanese poet is writing a haiku. Then you look back at the stage and see Shiobara-san, his hands all blurry from the speed of his actions, and you see the rest of the drummers tired yet happy... Sugoi. Hontou ni Sugoi. Of course it doesn't hurt that some of the drummers were really good-looking. Teehee. I've labeled 2 of them as the tank top boys, becuase they were wearing these tank top-like thingies which showed off their muscles (honed by vigorous taiko drum training, i suppose), and in true fangirling tradition we ran off backstage after the show to get pictures. We got pictures of almost everyone except lynne ching (because she looked like her) and my fave tank top boy (whom I called Ta-cchon the entire night because he reminds me of him, not because he looked like him). He seemed snobbish and way too concentrated on his work. He walked way too fast past us to get back to the stage and finish packing up their equipments so we didn't get a chance to ask for his pic. We didn't wanna join the rest of the girls who mobbed him when he got to the stage either, since he looked a bit irritated. Why do I always tend to like guys who are snobbish and domyouji-like? Oh, and he's bald Japanese guy number 3, by the way.
The universe is sending me a message.