Japan Trip Part 8

We got up early to check out, then took the subway to JR Station. We said farewell to one of our members from the Czech Republic, who wasn't touring with us any more last night. We met her again at the station waiting to buy our tickets. We said goodbye again and went our separate ways. Then when we boarded our train for the airport, we saw her again, getting on the train next to us.

The train ride felt oddly longer than the bus ride. We arrived 2 hours before our flight at New Chitose Airport. We split up into groups for lunch, and then went shopping. I figured I needed to buy some something that was Hokkaido specific. I bought several knick knacks which I actually ended up giving away as gifts. In Chitose, we said goodbye to 3 more teammates, who were going back to their homes around Japan. We flew out of Chitose and arrived in Haneda. We took a bus to the bus terminal in Yokohama, where one of our members, Minako greeted us with her family and friends. We all piled into 3 vans, and headed to her family's house.

Minako's father is a priest at the Tenrikyo church, which is attached to their house. It was a surprisingly large house, though it had low doorways. It was funny watching the taller men hit their heads and walking around hunched over. Apparently they normally have visitors and were easily able to accommodate our large group.

After unloading our things, Minako gave us tour of the house and church. Once in the church, her father gave us an intro to their religion. He answered our questions until it was time for dinner. Her family was kind enough to provide us a delicious temaki sushi dinner. There was two kinds of squid, tuna, salmon, and eels. There was a challenge to eat the whole tiny squid they provided. I ate my squid before the challenge was even brought up. It was a bad taste and odd sensation as your bite through the head. Most of them didn't try it.

We finished a little after 6:30pm, which is when the church has their twice daily services. We sat in on it. Following the service, we were asked to give a performance by her family. We did 3 dances. It was slightly odd dancing in the church immediately after they just had services. After our performances, we piled into the vans again and they took us to Yokohama Chinatown.

Chinatown is supposedly famous for its nikuman (pork buns). We just finished a big dinner so most of us weren't interested in trying them. I personally found no interest in Chinatown, so I just walked around, not going in any of the shops. Our destination in Chinatown was the karaoke box. There was 18 of us in one room. It started slow because there was only one song list in english. A former member of the team, worked nearby and hung out with us. He was even kind enough to pay for part of our fee.

Seiji wanted us to pick songs that everyone could song along to. Only about the group were interested in picking songs, so I picked a couple that they might know. I picked the Cardigans - Lovefool, Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, and Weezer - Buddy Holly. I didn't pick up the mic for lovefool, but I did for the other two. We picked a few disney songs too hoping everyone would know them. We only sang three Japanese songs; Re:Japan - Ashita ga Arusa, a song I somewhat knew because we sang a version of it in Japanese class, the Theme from Totoro, which was a hit, and Minako with Wildcats - We are wildcats, a song that no one knew, but it we felt it needed needed to be sung. My favorite moment was when Ada, our 13 year old member, and Ashley, a fairly quiet person, sang Metallica's Master of Puppets. It came out of nowhere, and they did a great job. After singing, we took cabs home, and prepared for a day of sightseeing in Tokyo.

Japan Trip Part 7

Sunday was another day filled with performances. Before our performances, a member from one of the other teams came and taught us the new Soran Illusion dance at our request. They also gave us t-shirts. We started at the Sapporo Factory Shopping Center, and had lunch there after our performance. Next we went to the Daiei Shopping mall. They had all the teams lined up behind the stage. Much to our glee, Mai Docomo was standing right next to us. We cook a couple more pictures with them and cursed that they didn't go before us, because Seiji said we had to leave immediately after our performance, so we wouldn't be able to watch them. We walked very slowly and once we got far enough, we actually just stop so we could watch them.

Our next stop was Odori Park for our parade. We had to perform our dance 5 times in a row with a water break after the 2nd one. Before our first dance, we saw someone from the team ahead of us being hauled away on a stretcher. Our first couple runs were kinda off. We practiced moving at a much faster pace, and we didn't think to leave space between us and our music van. During our water break, I was still hyped up and kept dancing. It was hot and I was happy to see the end of the block by our 5th performance. After parade, we took some time off and bid farewell to one of our supporters.

We had an hour break, then it was time for Soran Illusion part #2. It was basically the same as last night, but with less teams, because the semi-finals were going on at the same time. This time we started at the fron of the group right behind the Kenyan team. This time the experience was a lot more fun since we actually knew the dance. In fact, it was probably the most fun I've ever had in my life. I purposedly moved at the slower speed so I dance with other people throughout the dance. I want to come back next year just for the experience of dancing in the parade again. I definately had a lot more energy in this than in any other dance.

After the parade it was time for our farewell dinner. We went to the Monja Tanuki restaurant which was an okonomiyaki and monjayaki restaurant. People gave going away speeches, which was surprisingly tearless compared to our end of the semester going away parties. We said goodbye to our Assistant Director, who was flying back to Tokyo that night. After the party we were free to do whatever. Half of the group went to watch the finals. I went with Seiji and the other Japanese members to the onsen (hot springs) for a bath.

Bath house was an experience. They had serveral different pools. They were at various temperatures and had different minerals in it. There was one with lemons and one with a light electric current running through it. I didn't actually see that one, but they talked about it. There a couple of saunas too. A regular and a super sauna. The super sauna was crazy. I began sweating immediately and could barely breath once I got in there. After a couple minutes, I gave up. The best part was the outdoors portion. That's where the pool with the actual spring water was. There was also the foot baths and heated chairs. There was kind of a line for the chairs. The backs of the chairs were heated and warm water runs from the waist down. After the bath we went to the relaxation area. They had full body massage chairs, a mini arcade, a restaurant, and a tatami room for laying down or stretching. The trip to onsen was by far the best bang for your buck in Japan. Just 300 yen for a relaxing finish to a day, and a great last night in Sapporo.

On our way back to the hotel, several of us took the posters for the yosakoi festival since it was officially over. We probably arrive back around 11pm, and had to pack for tomorrow.

Japan Trip Part 6

Saturday, we had a full day of performances. We were constantly on move going from venue to venue. We started at the JR South Station. The ground was still wet from the night before, and our tabi shoes didn't help much on the pavement like they did on the main stage. At the very beginning of our dance, I slipped and fell. I quickly recovered and proceeded with caution. Other members complained about slipping too, but no one else fell. After our performance, we broke for lunch. I grabbed some onigiri from the conbi, and watched the other performances. I even got to see Toppu perform, which was the team of our former assistant director. We learned about 3 of Toppu's dances. Our next dance was back on the big stage at Odori Park. Then it was off to Aka-Renga, (the old red brick government building). We were rushing, but we actually got there early, and got our team picture taken again. This was a smaller venue, so the audience was right in front of us. We had to make sure to shout really loud and to smile really big.

We thought our next dance was at the elevated circle stage back at Odori Park. But it was actually on the street. It was supposed to be a short form parade style, which we didn't rehearse at all. We just basically did a stage style dance, which I felt cheated the audience. The crowd is to the side of the us, but we faced forward the whole time.

After that, we sneaked off to a empty road and practiced our parade style dance. We practiced it quite a bit back at the hostel, but we didn't have the whole there at the time. After a short practice, we were allowed to go explore and watch other performances.

I watched some of the big stage performances on a big screen. I actually saw a team that was smaller than us, they only had 10 people. After watching a couple of those, I watched the parade performances.

The teams will have these ornately decorated trucks, and that's why the hype men will stand. We were lucky, being a special team, we got our truck provided to us for free. We also got our $2000 entry fee waived too.

At around 5:45pm we went to dinner at a viking restaurant, which the Japanese word for buffet. After that, it was time for Soran Illusion Night. Various teams get together to perform a parade dance together. We were in the college group, which was called the Kenya group. They gave us all wraps. We were actually expecting to the Pokey Pokey dance, which they learned last year. Instead we did a whole new African themed dance. It was a fun dance once we went through it several times and learned it. The Kenyan team was at the front of the parade. This was an extraordinarily fun experience. Dancing with 1000's of other people while the crowd cheers us on. The chorus of the dance motioned for the audience to join us, some of more enthusiastic dancer would run right up to the crowd. We danced up the street first, then a different group danced up, then there was some flag battle going on after that, but I couldn't see it. While waiting for turn again, our director Seiji lead us in doing the Pokey Pokey Dance. We thought we could start a wave since we figured these people would know the dance. Only a few actually knew last year's Soran Illuison dance. Some tried to dance it with us anyways. After our little impromtu dance, one of the people that helped make the dance thanked us. He said it made him very happy to see his dance performed again, though it was different. On way back, everyone danced Yocchore, which was a dance we did know. The announcement of Yocchore made everyone happy. People were screaming "yocchore" and cheering. There wasn't enough space to do the dance properly, but it didn't matter, because there was so many of us. It didn't matter if the dance was right anyway, as long as you had enough enthusiasm. Once Illusion Night was over, we went home and prepped for the next day.

mmm, steak

My boss continues to be awesome. We had a cookout today and she provided the steaks. I brought fried rice, while others brought three different pasta salads. There was also strawberry cheesecake, some kickass brownies, and watermelon, which made me happy. It was actually a cookout/staff meeting, so got some business taken care of too.

The north office EAIII got the FEA position, and I still waiting for them to open the position. This recent cookout is reason a why I like this office so much more than the north office. I’ll apply for the EAIII job, but I won’t be upset if I don’t get it. I figure I have to at least try, can’t let myself get too lazy, plus it’s a $6k/yr raise. Though I’m afraid it’s already too late.

Japan Trip Part 5

Friday is the day of our first performance. We had to get up slightly earlier, because were checking out of the hostel and into a hotel downtown. It was unfortunately raining that morning. We first took the subway, then proceeded to walk a kilometer with or luggage through the covered shopping district. The pace we were moving at really upset my knee, but I did my best to keep up.

Our hotel was just a couple blocks from the main venue. The rest of our team met us at the hotel, except one. We now had 24 people, 18 dancers. Most of us were on the 4th floor. The three of us had a double as a triple. It was a tiny room with barely any room for our luggage. It was slightly smaller than the room at the hostel, and the hostel had futons, so we could stuff our bedding in the closet, though I was the only one that actually did that. We didn't spend much time in our rooms anyways. We at least had internet, but it was wired, so we had to share.

As soon as we checked in, we had to change and get ready for rehearsal. It was still raining, and we didn't know how to dress for rehearsal so we came in our uniforms. Every other team there were in costume, but with ponchos. We were out in the rain for hours being thoroughly soaked. Tonight was World in Souran Night, when all the international teams were showcased. There were teams from New Zealand, Kenya, Brazil, and Taiwan. And despite the distance they travel, they still brought a lot more members than us. The Brazilian team was called Sansey, most were descendants of Japanese living in Brazil. The Kenyan was actually mostly Japanese. They wore yellow and black African outfits.

Right after our rehearsal, we were interviewed Sapporo TV, the major local station. They chose three of us, Austin, Michelle, and myself. Michelle did all the talking, while Austin and I just nodded and smiled. Apparently we were interviewed semi-famous model/actress. She asked her questions about yosakoi and global climate change, since the theme tonight was the environment, which was related to the upcoming G8 summit in Sapporo. It was good that Michelle did the talking because she did a great job, and came up with better responses than I could have ever done in short notice. They interviewed the other international teams too. We had stay cheerful, because we never knew when we were going to be on camera. And whenever we noticed the camera, we had to get excited and yell, like the people in the backgroud of the Today show.

The performances started at 5pm. One of the top teams actually opened with a dance, and halfway through it, all the international teams joined them. After the group dance, we were up. There was a decent turn out despite the rain. The dance went great as far as I could tell. The acts were precisely scheduled and we had to run off stage quickly. As soon as we finished, it stopped raining. We got our picture taken, then they handed on Bandai Namco Happi coats for the group dance. We waited until it was time to perform the special dance that we learned for the night. We performed it with Chapi, the extremely cute penguin mascot of this year's festival. It was very fun, but very crowded, really didn't have room to properly do the moves. After that we went back to the hotel to dry off. Our flag waiver, Ryan arrived during our performance, so Dr. John had to wave the flag. It was extra difficult because it was wet. It made me happy that Dr. John got to perform on the big stage with us, and he was ecstatic about it too.

Afterwards we were invited to a dinner with the Taiwanese team and the president of the Yosakoi festival. They had a lot of tasty food. Sadly there wasn't much mingling because of the language barrier. We actually performed for the president. The song we used for our dance the theme of last year's festival and they were playing various yosakoi songs in the background. Most of our team will instantly start dancing whenever they hear a song they know. So the president saw them and was wondering what they were doing. It was explained and had to give performance. It went well considering that it was a small stage and we were in the middle of eating. Most of us were in street clothes, though I was still wearing the pants, which I love very much, and an older version of our shirt. My knee held out even though the painkillers wore off.

Following the dinner we split up, and I followed the director to watch the rest of the performances. Once that finished, we went home to prep for the next day.

Japan Trip Part 4

Next day was more of the same. We went to a family restaurant for lunch which took the while lunch period and then some. It seemed to be some Japanese franchise of Bob's Big Boy called Victoria Station. Our group was too large to sit together, which was often the case here, and I had to sit in the smoking section with other males. It wasn't as bad as expected. The reason our meals took so long was that once we finished the main dish, many of us ordered dessert and those took a long time to come out. I got a flan parfait with coffee jello. That's one of the things I love about Japan, there's melon and coffee flavored everything. Nothing like starting the morning with coffee bread. (this is not what our restaurant had but, a picture I took in Tokyo, but it gives you and idea of what they look like.)
We ended our afternoon practice because we were going to watch a earlier performance. There was a line for the shower, so I decided to try out the public bath down in the basement of the hostel. Luckily it wasn't busy nor were there any Japanese present, because I'm sure broke some etiquette rules. It was refreshing to soak in a hot bath after a workout, but the water was very hot that after a while I was sweating.

We went to another night of performances, which started slow because they featured a lot of kids teams. It picked up with team dressed in hip hop fashion, followed by one of the favorite teams of the festival, Konza Freak. They're a team from a women's college and they started off wearing yellow dresses with fairy wings, then they shed them to reveal a cheerleader outfit with pom poms. Our tickets were for only a certain time slot, so the organizer prepping us to leave. Luckily we stay until the end and got to finish with one of our team's favorites, Mai Docomo. Austin is huge fan of them, and wanted to track them down after their performance. After performing on the main stage, all the teams go to take an official group photo. After they finished with theirs we asked to take some photos with them. Their costumes are so simple. basically dress liked a old fashion Japanese blue collar worker but with happi. Their moves are fairly simple, but they all do it with such precision and to the sounds of the music, that is looks awesome. Any team that has a corporate sponsor has to be good.

Sadly, I guess the combination of the workouts and sitting in those uncomfortable bleachers messed up my left knee. I had to limp my way home after the performances. I went back to the hot bath to soak my knee and it really didn't help that much. I went to Dr. John, who gave me some ibuprofen, a wrap and an ice pack. The pain in my knee really upset me, because I worked out much harder in the weeks before the trip and on the day before our first performance it starts to hurt. I hoped it go away after a night's rest, but it actually plagued me for the rest of the festival.

Japan Trip Part 3

Wednesday June 4 was our first actual day in Japan, since there's a 14 hour time difference and the total flight time including lay overs of 24 hours. I woke up at 4am, because that's when the sun rises and we left our blinds open. Out of laziness I just rolled over and went back to sleep until 7am.
Our practice involved a really short job to the local grocery store, just so we'd know where it was. I opted to run it barefoot, which is probably frowned upon since I'll be bringing in the outside dirt indoor even when I take my shoes off. The hostel had a little gym for us to practice in and we had to take off our shoes before going in.

After practice, we had an extra long break for lunch so we can go shopping and explore a little. Half of us chose to follow Seiji, our director around, and we went to Mos Burger for lunch. I just got a regular Mos burger, which was fairly messy and tasted like a sloppy joe. It was a solid patty though, it was just the sauce. After lunch, most of the group went to the nearby shopping complex which the grocery store was attached to. Seiji, Dr John (the team medic), and myself went to the Geo, the used game, book, and cd store. I bought two Bonnie Pink albums for $2 and $9 which made me really happy, since they usually cost $25-30.

We practiced again in the afternoon, and then we went to downtown Sapporo to watch the other teams. Our first performance wasn't until Friday night, so got two nights to watch the performances. The performances on the main stage weren't judged the first two days. We had to pay to get into the stands. The performances were all excellent, though we were a little distracted by the cold weather. Seiji said none of the top teams were performing tonight, which amazed me, because I was in awe of the performances that night. The size of the teams, the cheographery, costume changes and props, they were definately more than just dances. Every team had what I called a "hype man." They stand in towers on opposite sides of the stage, and yell at parts of the song when the team yells, since the crowd can't hear the team yell on the main stage. Some of the teams have actual singers, which really adds to the performance. I remember one team that had two hype men, one singer, and three rappers. My favorite that night was a group called Las Vegas. They wore glittery tuxedo looking costumes. A lot of my teammates didn't care much for them, because they were far away from traditional yosakoi, but I still think they put on a great stage show. Watching those performances made my anxious to get on the main stage, and made me proud and amazed to be part of such a wonderful festival.

Japan Trip Part 2

There were 12 of us traveling together. 1 bought her tickets separate from the rest of us, so she was on all the same flights, but wasn't seated anyways near us. The 11 of us were split in into 3 groups and I had the pleasure of being in the girls group. The flight from Chicago was around 12-13 hours and it wasn't too bad. I only watched one of the inflight movies, Jumper. I actually watched it in Japanese, because the button on my remote was broke and I couldn't switch it to english. But it was a simple enough movie that I actually understood everything. Japanese dubs always seem to use the same actors, which are a completely different set of actors used in anime. I read my book, "I am America and So Can You" and played some FFIII DS. I took a couple naps early on so when I arrive in Sapporo, I'll be ready for bed.

We arrived in Narita Airport in the afternoon. We immediately exchanged our money went to our gate. There was a gift shop/restaurant/convenience store close by and our group immediately squealed at the Hello Kitty display. Our flight to Chitose was mostly empty, so some of us spread out to lay down to sleep. We arrive in Chitose at 8pm and took a bus into Sapporo to the Youth Hostel. We met up with a few other memebers and increased our number to 17. 8 more were coming once we checked into a hotel in the city. It was a international hostel, so most of the people there were Americans waiting to move in with their host families. There were only 3 male dancers, so we were always together for lodging. There was a total of 7 males, 3 dancers, 2 supporters, the director, and flag waver.

I was part of the two groups that got Japanese style rooms. We were directly above the lobby so we were able to get the wireless signal. I didn't realize that everyone else was without internet. The hostel had what everyone called "space toilets." They were indeed nice and had heat seats. They also had awesome hand dryers. It's bascially a trough with two air jets blowing downward. You slowly pull your hands out and the water is blown off your hands, so much better than the dryers they have here. I took a quick shower and went with a group of girls to the conbini (convenience store) for some snacks and breakfast for tomorrow. We made it back right before midnight when they lock the doors. Finally got to go to bed for some much needed sleep. Our first practice was scheduled for 10am to give us plenty of time to rest.

Japan Trip Part 1

I left Wichita on June 1 at 3pm with another member of the team, Michelle. She drove her van and was very pleasant company, which was good since in addition to riding with her for the next 5 hours, she was also going to be sitting next to me on all of our flights. We first drove to Manhattan to pick up two other members, Holly and Austin. We actually got there ahead of time so we got some coffee, then waited at chipotle for them to arrive. After dinner, we drove to KC to spend the night at another team members house, but he wasn't going on the trip with us. Either he gave bad directions or Michelle wrote down the wrong ones, because we got lost on the way there. We finally arrived around 9:30pm and went to bed around 10pm. I couldn't fall asleep that early since I've been working the night shift the week before, and just laid there until Austin finally got up and started playing his DS around 2am. Which was good for me since I could stop pretending to sleep. The girls were upstairs in the guest rooms, while us two guys just had the couch in the basement. We got up at 4am, because we had to be at the airport byt 5am for our 6:30am flight to Chicago. Made it through security without a problem. In fact throughout the whole trip, I didn't have any problems with the TSA or customs. I even brought back a Marimo from Hokkaido.

Not ready to be back.

Two weeks didn't feel like enough vacation for me. I should have taken an extra day to recover, because as soon as I got back to Wichita, I went to a lan party for the weekend which really mess up my schedule. I did manage to get some work done on Monday and Tuesday morning since I had some stuff piled up. But soon after 11am, I lost any focus I had. With no motivation, I just tried to catch up on everything I missed in the past 2 weeks. Today, I managed to do no work, felt tired the whole day. I even took a short nap during my lunch break outside. A couple engineers from district drove up during it, hope they understood it was my lunch break and that I wasn't blatantly slacking off. I don't think I'm jetlagged because I'm able to go to bed a decent time and still get 7-8 hours of sleep at night.

There were a couple changes at work while I was gone. The Construction Engineer (EAIII) got a new car. They replaced our old Taurus with a new Impala. We actually got that Taurus a couple months ago. We had an old one and they replaced it with an older one. We got our new senior, The tech with 15 years of experience can finally stop bitching. I am happy for him though. They're having interviews for the FEA position in the north office today, and I was sad to hear that our EAIII didn't even apply for it. She didn't want to work in that office. Truthfully, neither do I, but I'll still apply for the engineer position assuming it opens up. The EAIII from the north office and Pratt office recently passed the PE exam, not sure if the Pratt EAIII applied for the position though.

The next several posts will be about my trip to Japan. I didn't really write much while I was there other than some tweats. So they won't be very detailed. I did take quite a few pictures, but not nearly as much as everyone else in my group. I guess Japan doesn't impress me as much as everyone else.