Anyway, last weekend, I went to Kyoto for some Hanami, sakura-viewing. People traditionally go out for some drinking/food under the cherry blossoms. In some cases, the newbie of the company/group has to go out and reserve a spot for the group for later in the day. Blue tarp is a good way to do that. (So is sleeping there overnight.) You don't need to worry much about food, because there are a lot of stands selling a variety of things. Okonomiyaki, takoyaki, yakisoba, yakitori, hot dogs, dango, ice cream... It's hard to decide to eat just one.
After our little tour through Maruyama park, my friends and I went to Kiyomizu Temple for the light-up Sakura. As you can expect of my crappy camera, the pictures didn't turn out well (especially without a tripod). But I tried! I tried using walls to steady myself too -- if only it weren't crooked. :X
So, that took us a while. We had met up with some other friends there, and they wanted to see Maruyama park too, so back we went. We stopped for some food, and as we were eating... somebody called out to us. Did we want to sit with them? ... Sure, there were five of us, and there's safety in numbers :P Anyway, the guys who called out to us were all very nice. One of them had lived in NYC and spoke fluent English; the other guy worked in advertising design and was really outgoing. It was a lot of fun, and we spent around two hours sitting on the tarp with them and just chatting.
We cut it a bit close on leaving though, because we ended up on the last train. :X Ick.
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Well, after Disneyland, I did go on another trip, but I haven't uploaded any pictures yet so you'll have to wait for that.
Instead, I'll tell you about the concert I went to today. It was in Osaka, at the Osaka Holiday venue. We saw ten Visual-K bands. For the unfamiliar, "visual-k" is basically the Japanese equivalent of a "hair" band, although still current and a lot prettier. These guys (usually guys) dress up in all sorts of exotic outfits. Visual-K is all about the look.
Well, not completely about the look. It's also about really loud rock music, which I'm sadly not too much of a fan of. My ears are still ringing ;_; I'm convinced that some of these bands were covering up their lack of skill with the volume. After all, if we can't hear, we also can't hear how much they suck XD
But there were some nicer/cuter bands playing too, and if they talked a bit I forgave them for their shitty music. I caught the guitar pick that one band threw (or rather: it hit in me in the neck). Oh, also amusing was the band DL; the lead singer jumped into the crowd of mostly young Japanese girls and got dropped to the floor. Then one of the girls I was with convinced him to jump again, so that this time he got caught by us foreigners and then tossed back on stage, where he must have bumped into something because he was fumbling for a couple of minutes.
The band most people came to see was Anjyu', who were really cute. And apparently disbanding soon, so I won't be able to enjoy them anymore. Which--- okay, doesn't bother me, but I thought they were cute. A lot of their fans were cosplaying as them, and even brought a birthday present for one of the guys. They got two encores (which sounds funny in Japanese: AN-KO-RU!) and got us all to dance a lot more than the previous bands did. The fans were speaking in really high pitched voices though, I don't understand why. It sounded annoying to me. But what do I know.
I'll stick to my J-pop, it's got real melodies and lyrics that I can kind of understand. But I'm glad I went, because it was a fun experience. ^^
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I went ice skating with some friends today. There's an amusement park close to where I live, Hirakata Park (=Hirapa for short), that had a skating rink opened for the winter season. Today was the last day to go, so we decided we might as well.
It was around 10 degrees celcius. The sun was shining. The ice on the rink? Was melting. In fact, it melted almost as soon as the zamboni had cleared the rink. Not to say that skating wasn't fun, but it was a slippery, wet affair, especially for the people unlucky enough to fall.
No, I didn't fall. I did get to see a lot of other people take a spill though. I was just moderately uncomfortable in my rented skates, which must have been the oldest pair they could find. And not my size.
Strangely enough, there were a lot of old people out on the rink who were just cruising along, leaving the younger folks behind. These were also the people in hockey skates, and my Canadian friend assures me that those are WAAAY better than figure skates. I wouldn't know, I've never tried hockey skates before.
Anyway, it was a couple of hours of fun. It was kind of funny to be skating on a half-melted rink though. When the old people passed, they'd always kick up a small wave. It's probably a good thing that today was the last day, because an outdoor rink in this kind of spring weather wouldn't last very long.
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I mentioned in the previous entry that the weather was kind of bad?
Well, it was raining this morning, so of course the first thing I did was NOT take my umbrella along. I figured, since I was gonna be riding my bike anyway, I didn't need it.
Well, halfway to the nearest train station, I realized that not only was it raining, but it was COLD, and it was doing shit for my visibility. So I decided not to make the rest of the trip on bike. I parked it by the station and took the train/bus from there.
Going home, I certainly wished I had taken an umbrella along. The morning's light drizzle had turned into a down-pour. Waiting in the rain for the bus was not a lot of fun, and for some reason there was no covered bus stop going towards the station, just by the school coming from the station. But I can deal.
Make my trip from the school to the station by my homestay. Time to pick up my bike. It wasn't going to be a pleasant trip, but it would only be around five minutes in the cold.
The place I parked my bike is run by this elderly couple, and they are both super sweet. Not only do they offer space to park the bike, but they also take care of it! So all of the bikes had little plastic seat covers, to keep the seats dry for us. It's awesome. I unlocked the bike-chain and was about to leave, and the old man comes up and asks me if I have an umbrella. Well, no, but I'd be fine. He could lend me one, he said. I should just bring it back next time I pass the area. Um, no, it's really, seriously okay, I don't need one.
Well, he hands it to me. And now I've got this umbrella, and it'd be rude not to use it, right? And I see Japanese people riding the bikes while holding an umbrella ALL THE TIME, it can't be that hard, RIGHT?
.... Um, terribly, incredibly wrong.
I kind of stumbled after I got on the bike, and you'd think that would have been a hint to give up. Instead, I decided to try again. I COULD DO THIS.
Except where I couldn't. I ended up crashing into a sign for one of the snack pubs on the way home. Not more than ten feet away from the bike parking lot. I apologized to the owner profusely, but after that, I didn't want to risk it anymore. ESPECIALLY since the road to come had a lot more traffic going through it. So I walked my bike home. At least part of me stayed dry, thanks to the ojii-san's umbrella.
:( Moral of the story? Holding your umbrella while riding a bike is illegal for a reason. (Incidentally, using your cell phone while bike-riding is also illegal, and I ALSO see Japanese people doing that a lot.)
AND HOLY CRAP THERE IS A SLUG IN MY ROOM WHY????
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