Well, after 5 nights straight going out and being busy, I've hit a national holiday and a day of rest. It's a good thing, too, I'm wiped out and seem to be getting sick. Seems everyone's got a sore throat and cough, must be changing weather.
It's been a couple months, at least, since I went to Yokohama, and all of a sudden I went there 3 nights in the past 5. Saturday evening I met a friend of Ana's from Narita in Yokohama, since it was sort of halfway. Sunday was a pseudo-pre-Halloween celebration with Miwa. We met her friend Luna, who she met studying in Indiana, for a bit of holiday merriment. We ate at this place called the "Hurricane Deck," a nice little restaurant and did the requisite print club photo shoot.
Yesterday, Wednesday, was my latest foray into the concrete wilderness that is Yokohama. I was going up there with the sole purpose of going with Ana, Damien, & Miwa to see a jazz concert put on by a co-worker of Ana's. But my school had a system-wide meeting so all the teachers took off after 3rd period, so I did too. I took the opportunity to shell out a goodly portion of my paycheck to finish paying for my plane ticket home and then I got a new pair of glasses, always a big deal for someone who is incapacitated without corrective vision. I found a relatively cheap pair of titanium frames and fairly thin lenses for a decent price.
The jazz concert was amazing. Michael Chesnick, the frontman and sax player, came here a little over a year ago. I guess he'd already studied a fair amount of Japanese, but his ability has skyrocketed since coming here. He formed his own band, the Michael Chesnick Quartet, and they've had a couple paying gigs over the past month or so. I guess business isn't enough to quit the EFL biz, but I think he's on his way. And he's pretty talented, which oughta help. According to Ana, who attended his previous gig, the piano player was the same, but the bassist and drummer were different. The musicians were funny to watch, each has his own groove he'd get into and physical ticks and habits.
In other news, I got to see Corpse Bride, the Time Burton spooky Halloween flick. I don't know when it came out back home, might've been last year, might've been last week. I enjoyed it for the most part. It was more for kids, I guess, but I was entertained. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a huge thing over here, so this one probably will be too.
I'd planned on going to the Tokyo Motor Show today, but nobody seems to have a desire to go and I'm under the weather, so I'll have to give it a miss. Maybe I'll go this weekend, the last one, if I can persuade someone. But better I rest and recover. Now that hte exciting week is done, I can go back to being a hermit.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A tale of a boy, his trusty digital camera, and a teaching gig in Japan.
2 comments:
What's a print club photo shoot?
Print club are those photo machines you see sometimes in the mall, where you can pop in with your friends and take photos with goofy backgrounds and stuff. Only, being Japan, they're really high-tech and kitschy(sp?). You can get strange backgrounds like on a train or in a haunted house and you can put all sorts of weird things like different noses or eyes or write things on the photos on a screen outside.
Then a couple minutes after they pop out and you can cut them up, divide them amongst your friends and they're stickers so they can go anywhere. I have a couple on my phone and my computer.
It's goofy Japanese stuff. And it's mostly popular with teenagers and down, but crazy foreigners also seem to love them. I'll try to snap some photos and post them so people can see the craziness.
Post a Comment