Konban Wa and good evening!
The birds nest tour has begun and Naoto and I have been flapping about in North Japan this last week. I have had some truley Japanese experiences, making me feel very far from home. And too, I have come across some nice familiarities that have made me feel the closest to home I've felt since I've been in Japan.
As we took on miles and miles of motorway putting Tokyo far behind us, the temperature dropped from the high teens to 4degrees C, and the mountains curved and fell in long gentle slopes, rather than the jagged rock and sharp inclines of Japan's younger South Alps. There was still a lot of snow in the mountains which somehow felt confusing. What with the blossom in bloom too, (the last of which was blown from Tokyo's cherry trees over 2 weeks ago), my seasons felt all shuffled about.
We arrived at an Onsen resort in the mountains on our way to Akita quite late on our first night. (I'm sorry I have no names to direct you there...it was a pretty hidden away place...I will try and remember to give clues to the secret map in my next blog.) A little confused and a little chilly on arrival, I was very happy to console myself in the natural hot spring onsen, which was white with minerals, and so gives the area a name meaning nipple! I enjoyed my night time soak so much that I went again in the morning to get some more of those good hot minerals before we had to leave.
Here in Japan the onsen experience is like nothing in England and so it's one of the things I'll miss most about Japan. Everyone goes into the onsen naked. It's nearly always the sexes separate, women go through the red curtain, men go through the blue. I was slightly self-concious when I stepped all bare into my first onsen, but realised quickly how relaxed everyone here is about bare bodies, and it very quickly felt like an overdue liberation. It's so nice to see mothers with their grown daughters, friends together, the young, the very old, sitting about relaxing in their bare skins, chatting, washing, and soaking. There's no embarrasment. And I wish we english weren't so prudish!
The first gig of the birds nest tour was as refreshing as the onsen. We arrived at Aoitoro no Restaurant in Akita as the sun was dropping in the sky and streaming in the windows lighting up the plants, paintings, rocking chair, and shelves covered in antique nick nacks (which I spent a long time sifting through, happy to stumble upon some Czech buttons!)
Everybody was so friendly and there was an atmosphere that got me thinking of Bristol. The boy behind the bar complained about plastic bags which is the first utterance of such a thing I've heard here. (It's depressing how quickly, and often before you can stop it, any bought item, however small and ready wrapped, gets rewrapped and rewrapped in layers like a pass the parcel). Someone else let me play with their kaliedoscope. And the audience were very relaxed and singing and clapping along. Maybe it was these things that made me feel closer to home.
The following day even more Bristol similarities became apparent when we visited friends of Aoitori no Restaurant who ran a cafe, book shop, and textiles shop near by. Such a lovely sense of community!
We then travelled east to Morioka to play at the cosy, wooden, modest cafe, Carta. It was another really enjoyable live experience and some of the audience even brought me presents. A girl made me a bag. I couldn't believe it! I love the Japanese!
Aftarwards Naoto and I went to stay with friends of the cafe. They are from a family of carpenters who have built their own house. It was the most impressive Japanese house I've seen, with huge open plan wood floors, and the traditional fireplace and a grand piano. They even put on concerts there. The acoustics were amazing too (of course I couldn't resist and didn't hesitate when after much ume shou I was asked to play).
They were also the owners of an incredibly clever and incredibly fussy dog, who sat in the middle of the circle while we ate, turning his nose up at fish, waiting to get his bacon, summing up each and every individual!
The next morning after I'd had my jog about the Japanese lanes beneath the mountains, we drove north to Hirosaki for the final gig of the north leg of the tour. I found the same familiarities here. The same sense of community between shops, galleries, cafes and restaurants. Such lovely welcoming people. Thank you all, especially Fumi who organised all three gigs. So Thank you Fumi, and Happy Birthday!
I immediately felt at home in the Stables, where we were to play to an audience of fifty, sitting, shoes off, on rugs on the floor. Standing in my Victorian-esque outfit beneath the clock on the wall in that big old square room, with the exercise books and pens for sale on the tables, and the attentive rows of people, well I felt like an old fashioned school teacher! So later I posed for this photo!
We stuck around the following day and were shown about by Roderick, a very friendly boy from California. He took us to see the remaining turret of the castle, the park with it's final flourish of blossom, and cafes and restaurants, and we were even lucky enough to time our visit with the Spring carnival! It was quite spectacular, all the fleets of brightly lit tissue paper floats and their accompaniaments of many banging drums, many crashing hand cymballs, and many flutes!
Finally in the evening, after much unidentifiable raw sea food washed down with much saki, I exclaimed, in my strongest Bristol accent I could muster, that I though I was most probably Japanese, but that I wasn't entirely certain. Errrrrrrrrrrr!