What I Did On My Summer Vacation

My Trip To Tokyo

Sunday august 18th

Fuji or not Fuji?
Not. It's raining. Actually, it's a Typhoon (according to news reports), though it looks like ordinary rain to me. Some of the wind I experienced here seemed quite strong and a occasional relief in the heat prior to the rain.
We bike to a depato to look at some stuff, head downstairs to the supermarket where I try samples of food from different departments. A breakfast cereal? Something wrapped in a strip of bacon. Maybe a couple of other things. We buy some interesting foodstuffs for lunch. I don't remember much of it. Fried balls of vegetables and octopus (or squid). Some kind of fish. Tempura. I love tempura. It was a large lunch.
Another visit to Tamagawa. The news are reporting that there'd been no Tama-chan sightings for a least a day. We fare no better.
As I'd mentioned before, I had broken the zipper on my main bag, which means I needed luggage. Hiro was planning on traveling to Korea the day after I left, so it turns out he needed luggage too. We find what we need at a depato.
We check out an electronics store in Shibuya. They've got the Ghibli DVD player for just over 18,000 yen, which is less than 180.00 dollars U.S. Didn't I see these things selling on eBay for 750 dollars and up? I didn't get one.

Later on we meet up with some friends of Hiro, a jazz/pop vocal group called Starlight Junction. Keiko, Chieko, Naoko, and Etsuko. It didn't occur to me at the time, but all their names end in "ko". Ko can mean child (when it's short for Kodama), but generally means girl. Anyway, they're nice, pretty girls with good voices who sing in English, perhaps exclusively. Mostly standards as well as more modern songs with a retro feel. In order to help perfect their handling of English pronunciation (which sounded pretty good to me), I was asked to recite lyrics from a couple of songs into a tape recorder. I did so, and also where necessary, added some commentary on American pop culture in regards to the use of slang which may sound non-sensical when translated directly. This might've seemed unnecessary and just part of my occasional tendency to veer off the topic of conversation, but I think it may have helped in understanding some passages that were slightly off in transcription. On the other hand, mis-heard lyrics are common to Americans who listen to music in our own language. In addition, we caught a short rehearsal. I wasn't sure how this was going to go, but as it turned out, they were quite good, especially when harmonizing. Now, I should've mentioned that they spoke quite a bit of English. Certainly a great deal more than I spoke Japanese, but when speaking it's obvious it's their second language. You wouldn't know it from their performance, however, in which they sound completely natural when singing, except for some brief moments. This is much like singers from Europe (particularly the U.K.) who sound more American than European when singing, but return to their accents when speaking. I gave my opinion of what I heard, which was mostly glowing and mentioned the small moments which didn't quite sound American (though I couldn't remember where in the song those were).

As a reward for what little advice I could give, Me and Hiro were treated with a free show in which started with four songs from Starlight Junction. This would lead in to an Avant-Guard production of a Tennessee Williams piece. One of the songs performed by SJ was called Cat on A Hot Tin Roof. Perhaps it was this play. Hard to say because 1) it was in Japanese and 2) the males were dressed like acrobats and the females like dolls. I think I understand the setup; A little girl (played by an adult) is running around, playing. At some point she gets bored and looks for her father (or mother, or both). Finding herself completely alone, unsupervised, she pulls out a book from her fathers library. She proceeds to read it, and we are given her childlike interpretation of Williams play. Or maybe not. Quite bizarre, but also engaging. (It's come to my attention that the scenario might also describe The Glass Menagerie)

Next up is a one man reading of a popular manga, whose title I've forgotten. The performance consists of the one guy (in suit and tie) armed with the manga, selecting a segment from the book. He then proceeds to read and act out the segment. Lucky for me, he's dramatizing a tennis game, which made it much easier for me to understand. Pretty comical. Wish I could've taken pictures.
The night was topped off with dinner with Hiro and the girls (sans Keiko who had a prior engagement). I ordered a red wine, which I started to drink perhaps before I started eating. Not a good idea as it wasn't before long that I started to feel it's effects (a very, very slight loss of equilibrium). I asked for some water, and proceeded to eat as much as possible in order to fight the wine. Most of the dishes had to be explained to me, but I don't recall what they were. Most of it tasted good and a great time was had by all.

Got to the Hotel Continental in Fuchu just before 12:00 am. My room is pretty nice, but is westernized. I miss the tatami mats and Japanese style bed of my previous room, but still, it's nice. Caught the end of some Kabuki play on the TV, and got some shut-eye.