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Summer Sonic! (The Event)

Summer SonicEver since the beginning of the spring I had been thinking about attending Summer Sonic, Tokyo’s largest urban music festival of the year. After all, Arctic Monkeys were headlining the Sunday show, and there were some other notable acts (mainly Modest Mouse on Saturday). But I procrastinated too long and tickets quickly sold out. However, after seeing the schedule (and learning of some new bands like Maximo Park) I decided I had to go. Yahoo! Auctions came to the rescue and I was promptly the owner of a two-day pass for just over face.

I’ve got a selection of (non-concert) event photos. Or, hit the jump for a more complete review of attending a festival, Japan style.

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2007 09 06 Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Fuji-Yoshida Fire Festival

Fire!Last weekend I traveled a few hours with a few of the ultimate folks from Futako to attend the Fuji-Yoshida Fire Festival. The draw of this festival, as is evident from the name, is Fire. Lots, and lots, of fire. On a narrow street. With the usual festival draws (Food! Beer! Goldfish!) on the sides of the street. And of course tons of people as well.

Jason, who provided the invitation (thanks!), was a local celebrity since he had served as a JET in Fujiyo for several years. As a result, we were treated by the very friendly locals to some good conversation and good food — including great local udon (at insanely low prices!) and homemade peanut butter cream sandwiches.

Unfortunately, since I don’t yet have an image stabilized digicam (or a DSLR) I didn’t get a ton of great photos, but there are a few that came out OK in the album. Here you can see one of the towers of bamboo being lit. As the night wore on the fires grew progressively lower (and more dangerous!) making for quite a fun time. There was also some great Taiko music and good local beer on hand.

Only drawback to the festival, besides getting home after midnight on a Sunday? Everything that went to the festival smelled like charcoal for a long time.

2007 09 05 Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Irrashimase!

So, after 13 months in Tokyo, I’ve finally decided to do what I told many of you that I would do a when I first moved here — write a blog. So, Irrashimase! (welcome.)

Why a blog, you may ask? Basically, after a year there’s a lot of thoughts stuck up in my head, and I’m regretting not having written them down as of yet. However, I don’t intend to comment on what I’m doing every day in Tokyo (posts of “I woke up, went to work, ate lunch, returned to work, ate dinner, went home, watched TV and went to bed” would probably not draw an audience.) Instead, I think I’ll use this as a place for random commentary on occasion, and also take the opportunity to highlight particularly good photos that describe my time over here in the Far East.

Enough of the welcoming. Let’s blogging!

2007 09 05 Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink