Stone Cold Kitty

Yep. It’s Hello Kitty. In pink marble.

The last two days have been very different days. Friday, my first full day here, was a bit of a strange one. The first time i came to Chichibu, everthing was new, different, and amazing. Even after 3 months, I just kept getting a kick out of small things. This time around, my first day here seemed to have a bit of a cloud over it. To some extent, it felt like i’d never left. But it (or I) just didn’t seem to have the shine it had last time. I spent the day cleaning up the caravan, and going out and stocking up on essential supplies. A bit of flute practice seemed to help a bit, and I think I was still pretty tired.

Today – Saturday – the cloud lifted, and I feel like I’m properly awake and seeing things again. Did some work on the love bike (blog entry on that coming soon), some more flute practice, and then into Tokyo with Lachlan on the train for a Saturday arvo lesson.

Kakizakai got me to change my embouchure a fair bit – so its time to undo some bad habits that have set in. I played Daha from memory, and it didnt come out too bad. Not great, but not terrible either. It was fantastic having the lesson though – i can really feel my enthusiasm kicking into overdrive again. 🙂

We got a lift home with Kaki, bit not before Lachlan and I hit the big computer store – he got a cheap secondhand iRiver, and I got a cheap secondhand second monitor for my laptop – something i’ll need so I can work properly. I also paid a visit to the local Outdoor World, and bought a super-cool little gas stove and titanium pot set to take camping. (after deciding not to lug the Trangia over here this time) We all had a fun and relaxed conversation in the car on the way back – an enjoyable ride.

Another thing which lifted me today was Patchie getting Skype to work. So nice to hear her voice from over here. A short sunset bikeride, home for some dinner and a bit more flute practice and I’m feeling just wonderful. 🙂

Dreaming in Japanese…

A week ago I had a dream in Japanese. I dont remember much about it, other than that the people in it were speaking Japanese, and so was I. So it seems my brain has been waking up and reconnecting all the bits from last time, in preparation for being here now. Which I am. Here. In Japan. Now.

😀

Now, please excuse the short entry, as im about to crash!

Oyasumi nasai!

Moving On

Due to unforseen circumstances (the installation of a giant rumbing industrial airconditioning unit directly below me), I’m moving out of my space before I go to Japan. All my stuff will be stored while I’m away, which will save me quite a bit in rent, and in the new year I’ll begin to look for a new place to live.

While I’ve had a fantastic time living here in this wonderful space, It definately seems like the right time to be moving on. One possible plan sees me moving up to the Blue Mountains – something thats been on my mind for a while now. Those of you that know me well know that I’m most at home in places like that, having lived happily in the Adelaide hills for many years before moving to Sydney. If this happens, I imagine Splitting my time between living in the mountains and living with Patchie in the city.

But in the mean time, I have just on seven weeks to slowly pack up my kit, move it into storage, and try not to get too excited about going BACK TO JAPAN!! 😀

In The Future…

-We Will Drive Cars That Can Fly
-We Will Live In Giant Geodesic Domes
-We Will Have 50 Megabit Per Second Internet Connections Wired To Our Caravans

Well, the first one is a way off yet. But the last two – Welcome to Japan.

In Australia, the fastest connection theoretically available is around 20 Mbit/Sec, but you need to be camped next door to the telephone exchange to get it. so the reality is usually somewhat less. And its only available on a small percentage of exchanges. In my space here in Sysdney, I’m lucky enough to be connected to one of those special exchanges, and as a result i get a blisteringly fast 8Mbit/sec. by contrast, the average houshold broadband connection is 512k/sec – one sixteenth of what I get here.

Kakizakai-sensei has generously found out about getting the internet plumbed into my caravan in Chichibu. The result: by the time I arrive, the giant manga-style organic tangle of fibre-optic cables should have sprouted out of the ground and enveloped the van, reality will be a relative point of view, and the van will exist half in this world, and half floating in the twinkling data-sphere of the greater internet, running at speeds a hundred times what a regular net connection here in Australia gives you.

It boggles the mind – this is not a datacentre in the heart of tokyo. This is a caravan, on the edge of a small town in the mountains of Japan.

Casts our national network here in Aus into pretty sad light, doesn’t it…

Another Three Months…

Well, its been six months or so since i got back. I know i promised to keep blogging, and tell some of the stories that didnt get blogged – especially the stories of my wonderful two week cycle tour. But you know what its like. Once back in Australia, my life here took hold of me again and it just never happened.

*But*

Come the 28th of September, 2006, I’m off to do it all again! Another 3 Months in Japan. 🙂

This time will be a little different, however, as I dont have three months of leave from work up my sleeve. This time, i’m going to have to continue to work while I’m there. Ill be working 4 days a week, doing exactly what I do here, just from over there. If all goes to plan, my caravan will have broadband by the time I arrive, and it will be mostly business as usual. I’ll resume my shakuhachi studies with Kakizakai-sensei, and my explorations of the odd stuff to be found at the local supermarket.

I have vowed, however, *never* to touch another mystery triangle as long as I live, tho I do plan on writing a short guide to convenience store cuisine in a future blog entry.

So the next while will be spent getting my work processes well sorted for the time away, doing flute practice, and figuring out what to (or not to) take 🙂

Ive saved the best news till last however – my partner Rachel is going to come and spend two weeks with me there in early December!! 😀 I’m pretty over the moon about this. I’ll take some holidays durning this time, and we will see the Yomatsuri (Night Festival) in Chichibu, and then take off for a week, railpasses in hand.

Lots of other folks may well be passing thru too, and im looking forward to seeing all of them. My Caravan is Your Caravan…

See you all soon!

3 Months is a Short/Long/Indeterminate Time

The last week has gone past quickly, despite being jam packed. On the weekend, there was the chichibu night festival, which I am still digesting. Since then has been a revisit to Temple 32, a trip into Tokyo to see Kabuki, a last spin on the Love Bike, and my last two shakuhachi lessons with Kakizakai-sensei. The last one was squeezed in at 9am this morning, before being dropped at the station to catch a train to catch a train to catch a plane.

So, now I am sitting in an internet cafe in the airport, waiting for my flight. Somehow, by smiling a lot, I managed to get 27kg of baggage checked in, and then, with even more smiling, about 20kg of hand luggage. Thanks to three very lovely China Airlines check in staff, who seemed to like me a lot, and so pretended that they didnt try and pick up my hand luggage. VERY very lucky.

So goes the journey home. So far, excellent. I plan to avoid watching silly movies on a teeny screen too close to my eyes, and instead play games on a teeny screen – I bought Nick a Playstation Portable and some games which it is my duty to test to make sure it works before giving it to him. I also have my laptop, and will begin the task of organising and weeding my photographs, of which there are many. Show and Tell when I am back and settled.

I will continue to update this blog with the many stories that I havent yet got around to telling – the rest of my big trip, and the chichibu festival in paticular will take a couple of entries each to tell.

So 3 months in Japan should provide me with enough stories and pictures to cover the time from now until the next 3 months in Japan, hopefully next year…

its been a h00t!

🙂

Yattai!

Very quick entry, before I go to bed. Tomorrow morning, I get to pull one of these, thanks to some very wonderful friends!

in the meantime, heres a link to a short movie I made today. Its 15 Meg, so dont download it if you dont have broadband.

Tadaima!

means “just now”

I followed the sound of Taiko drums back from the coin-laundry, to discover them wheeling one of the festival floats out of its house!

I must have looked serious while jumping around taking photos, becase they gave me what appears to be the equivalent of a press pass – giving me permission to get right up close to the float, and in the action to take pics…

To turn them, they put a huge jack underneath, and magic feet appear from the float, and turn the jack handle till the float is almost off the ground, then all the folks pulling the ropes pull it around till it is pointing where they want it to go. Everyone is coordinated by the taiko drums – different rythms mean different manoevers.

Bump of Chicken

I’m a stranger in a strange land, for sure.

Hee hee. Laughed a *lot* when I saw this. Still laughing, in fact. 🙂

I wonder what other people’s tourist photos look like. Not like mine, I suspect.

this was the result of walking between Shibuya and Harajuku.

but I can take normal pictures too…

Note the Duck Storage shop on the right in Harajuku. Tokyo is very animal friendly. You can buy your duck at Ducky Duck in Shibuya, and store it at Store My Ducks in Harajuku. And don’t forget your chicken bumps…

apologies for any weird formatting – it seems that both the latest release of Firefox, and Opera have problems with blogspot.com, and ive banished IE from my system. Perhaps a little prematurely, it appears.

Magic bits of Bamboo

“So,” asked the little boy’s mother “how much did you get for the cow?”

“Well,” the little boy was very excited. “I met a man on the way to the market, and I traded him the cow for these magic bits of bamboo!”

Whats to say, really 🙂

I suppose I could tell you that the smaller flute is my normal flute, and is a 1.8 shaku (a shaku is an old japanese unit of measurement similar to a foot) long, and its base note is D above middle C. The new, long flute is a 2.4 shaku, and is A below middle C.

While travelling around on my 2-week tour – which I havent properly blogged yet – I made my way high up into the mountains of Nagano, and stayed with a flutemaker called Tom Deaver. I have been looking for a long flute for a while, and we talked flutes, played music together, and I tried a bunch of his works-in-progress. He asked me what my budget was, and I told him. He responded fairly bluntly that he would rather considerably more. We left it at that, and had a really good evening.

In the morning, as I was about to hop on my bike for what turned out to be one of the most wonderful day’s rides of my trip – down the mountains, through stunning scenery – he said he would keep working on the flutes (he wasnt happy with the balance) and send them to Kakizakai when he was done, for me to try.

Many weeks went past in a pretty amazing way, I came back to Chichibu, studied more, travelled again, tried lots of flutes from different makers. While out on my week long trip with Andrew and Nobuko, an email from Kaikizakai arrives, telling me that Tom has visited, and left a flute for me to try…

So, as soon as I’m back, I’m around at Kakizakai’s, and here is this flute – one that I tried in an unfinished state while at Toms. At the time, I really liked the sound, but found the hole positions uncomfortable. But having played a bunch of long flutes since then, and changed the style of my hand positions, it was now perfectly comfortable, and sounded even better. Bronwyn can get a huge sound out of it – which is fantastic, as it gives me something to aim for, and also means that I cant blame the instrument if I’m having a bad day 🙂

I ask what price Tom wanted, knowing already that I would pay whatever he asked, and that it would be a lot more than I could probably afford, and he names the exact amount that I told Tom was my budget originally.

So I feel extremely lucky to have both an exceptional instrument, and a connection with its maker. This kind of personal connection and relationship with the people that make the things I use, the clothes I wear, the music I listen to – is becoming more and more important to me, and it is, I think, by far the most rewarding and wonderful way to do things…