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Monday, 05 October 2009

Rita and Sean in Nippon - Week 2

Karlex in Kyoto and other Kinds

Our second week was one full of music... I like. :) Here it is in photos...

Lito playing with his band at the Blarney Stone in Osaka. They were great and the crowd looooved them! We met Lito in Vancouver in July at Chris and Melissa's wedding. It's a good thing we did cuz he invited us to stay with him in his apartment in Osaka. :) Thanks Lito!!

Fuyuki rippin it up on the guitar.

Lito's living room/office/dining room/guest room

The street performers in Japan are all aspiring singers. They bring their whole set up of mic and amp and percussion, CD stand, and some even already have a loyal fan base. Apparently, lots of bands get started this way.

Kyoto!

Chopstick taboos. Which ones are you guilty of?!
I like to use mine to point. :)

Lanterns at a shrine in Kyoto. They're everywhere... tucked away in the shopping districts. Sometimes you see can see the salarymen make a quick stop into them and then bustle along on their merry ways.

The bar in Kyoto that Karlex was performing at.

We had the pleasure of meeting Karlex who hails from France. He was in Japan for the Kansai International Music Festival and Lito and some of his band were backing him up.

I wasn't sure what I thought about his music when I first heard it in Lito's apartment but as I listened more and heard it straight from the artist, I really liked it. Karlex has a great presence and he's just an all around genuine and nice guy. Great afro-beat music with an actual message.

We got to see Corteo compliments of my old high school friend who joined the circus!
Yuki, Lito, Sean and I under the big top.

geee neee usss
except for the fact that you have to make sure you don't get thet seat wet while washing your hands.

Saying our farewells to Karlex and Collette after his last show in Japan.

Frank jamming at Papillon!

The Elvis gang performs every Friday at Pappilon.
Sometimes we get to play too. :) Fun times! (I think Sean is hiding out on the drums)

more pics here: http://flickr.com/photos/smeeta

Monday, 21 September 2009

osaka days 5-7

Days 5 - 7 in short:

Day 5 - lots of lounging around laundry and lunch
Day 6 - Osaka Castle
Day 7 - Lunch with Jer, getting lost in Umeda, and then Elvis

words will not flow from me in proper paragraphs right now so here are some pictures with captions. it's almost 4pm! hahah, will write more about that later... enjoy! :D

butterfly in plum garden on the way to the castle

The sign is a warning to people that there are serious fines if you throw out an animal onto the street or if you're found abusing one. Apparently that happens all too often here. We saw a gang of cats hanging out in the park and one of them had no eyes. :(

Fortunately, this one has eyes...

Finally made it to Osaka Castle after a REALLY long trudge on a scorching hot day. Why is it so hot here?! We've been seeing temperatures in the area of 29 degrees every day this week.

It was reconstructed semi-recently and now holds a museum collection of the events surrounding the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of the castle.

View of the city from the castle gates

TORAYA!!!!
My first craft shop score for the trip. I was fully prepared to buy (and possibly have to ship back) tonnes of fabric for my crafting biz. This store did not dissapoint and I will definitely be back for more before we leave. :)

We met up with Jer for lunch! He's here touring with Cirque du Soleil
(which he got us tickets for this Wednesday! w00tw00t!)

And this is what we had... mmmm... our first sushi meal in Japan. The scallops were AMAZING. The set lunch came with a hearty miso soup with onions and fish and we also got a side of cold noodles (oops, I ate them before I took the picture!)

Sukiya! Here's what Japanese fast food looks like. Piping hot rice bowls served up in seconds with sides of soup and salade.

We moseyed our way down to a local restaurant/pub that hosts Elvis night every Friday.
We had an awesome time jammin with the locals and not so locals! They were so cute... Ryoji and Kimiko who own the bar like to dress up and slick their hair. :)

And of course, who should we meet on Elvis night other than the King himself!
lol. This dude isn't even part of the band, he just comes dressed up every week.

Friday, 18 September 2009

day 4 - suntory museum and kaiyukan aquarium

Suntory Museum and Kaiyukan Aquarium

We hopped onto a few trains to get to the Tempozan area which is right by the water. It was kind of a funny seemingly deserted port-town. Lots of shops but hardly any were open... around lunch though lots of older businessy looking gentlemen were out. We arrived at Suntory Museum after some tasty Japanese eats and found out that the current display was a collection of Studio Ghibli storyboards. Sweet! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but fortunately you were able to purchase the entire museum collection in book form (I couldn't resist) I was really inspired by the drawings and now it's got me wanting to learn how to draw. As if my brain wasn't pulled in enough directions already. :P

train to Osakako station

We snuck in a picture at the museum! These little guys were in the stairwell.

So cool! In the lobby there were little tables set up where you could draw your own little dust/ash creatures from Spirited Away on round stickers. Then you got to stick them on these two gynormous walls. Fun. :)

We also took in an IMAX 3D movie called Under the Sea 3... triptastic. The only thing was that since it was in Japanese we had to use headphones for the English narration. The headphones were wonky... they only worked if you tilted your head in a certain direction! Lol. Super crick in the neck.

After the museum it was just a hop skip and a jump away to the Kaiyukan Aquarium famous for its whale sharks (they're so cute! and huge!) We could have just sat and watched the fish in that huge tanks for hours on end. Such fascinating creatures.

Another kind of fascinating creature are the Japanese. As we walked throughout the exhibits in the aquarium we could hear no end of squeals of delight! "OoooOOOH!" "OHHHHHHH!" Hehehe. It was awesome and so distinctly "Japanese". Reckless abandon when it comes to squealing from both genders.

penguin floating around...

hello mr. toitle

yum!

WHALE SHARK! OMNOMNOM.
check out the little fish below him... how do they do that?
It attached itself somehow to the whale shark and went for a free ride.

yum again!

There was a tank full of sting rays and little sharks and you could touch them. The rays had a jello like texture and the sharks were rough like sandpaper.

You can see more pics on my FB page.

To be continued...

Thursday, 17 September 2009

rita and sean in nippon (day 3)

Minami Area

I can't seem to remember what we did during the day... but in the afternoon we ended up going to the Minami area. This consisted of traipsing our way through an area called America Mura and then we went across and hit the Shinsaibashi covered shopping arcade. Holy long shopping arcade Batman! This was nuts. I've never seen such a long arcade in my life. Just store after store after store in this area... it was packed with ppl and went on for blocks on end. As soon as we thought it had ended (we reached a large main street), there it was starting again on the other side!

A mural/graffiti in America Mura

Some of the crazy outfits we saw for sale...

Shinsaibashi shopping arcade

women make the world go round...

Aaahaha, in the Sanrio shop we found Luchador Hello Kitty.
Or as some people like to refer to it, S&M Hello Kitty.

Oh right... some time before Minami we dropped by Daiso and found these super cute sponges!
They sure like to put things in outfits in Asia...