I arrived at 6:55pm the previous day to be met by my father. Straight away, I dragged him to the Tonkatsu restaurant on the top floor as I love, love, love tonkatsu. We then drove back to Kawasaki where he lives, hung out with him and his wife Kay and then fell asleep on the couch. It was already very late when I slept and the next day we had to wake up early for me to go to Haneda Airport. I was pretty exhausted. I met with Taiga and his wife, Yuri to which we then proceeded to check in and grabbed some ‘Soraben’ Airport Bento Boxes. I grabbed a pork cutlet sandwich.
Things are so efficient in Japan. Our guitar cases were placed in specially padded protection boxes to prevent it from being damaged. If I had known that I would’ve taken a soft case like Taiga as if you put a soft case through cargo in Australia, it’s goners.
The Japanese go on planes like they do buses or trains. We just scanned our tickets and were on our merry way, it didn’t take long for the HUGE plane to organise themselves ready for take off.
Oh a quick side note. My dad is a geek haha. He loves mucking around with electronics and other tidbits – hacking into routers or OS platforms like there’s no tomorrow. But he’s got so many other hobbies too.. which is funny as that’s very much like me, to want to conquer different things and always be learning. Except.. I don’t think I’ll be turning my whole house into an internet radio anytime soon. Haha.
After our 45 minute plane ride to Osaka, we got on the bus into the city.
We dropped off our luggage then had a walk around town. This is apparently the tallest skyscraper in Japan at the moment – Abeno Harukas.
We met up with one of Taiga’s old teachers who plays rock guitar, teaches high school students and is also a well known science fiction translator. He has translated James G. Ballard’s novels into Japanese for people to enjoy here. We ate okonimiyaki, very well known to Osaka, it’s a somewhat savoury omelette pancake.
And to continue my pork consecutive meals…. Pork and shallots.
Pork, mustard, cabbage and mayonnaise.
Pork cutlet okonimiyaki.
I was surrpised to see that Osaka also had old school trams!
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to freshen up and then setted out to go sound check at the venue. I was slapping myself in the face to wake up and stay alive haha.
The artists geeing themselves up! きやい！
Nakano Suzuko
Taiga Yamazaki
Hoshio from Junior Breath
You might’ve noticed that I was playing a guitar different to my own. My dad so generously wanted to part ways with one of his for me to take home, so I decided not to bring mine and just play his around the country instead. I always think there is a huge sentimental value when giving such a gift like a guitar so I am really so appreciative. Takamines are beautiful Japanese guitar and also having a cutaway seems a little fun! He gave me a difficult decision to choose between two gorgeous options but I went with the sunburst for now. Something drew me to it.. not sure why – they felt and sounded the same to me.
I loved the night, I enjoyed myself so much.. despite it being a small room, it didn’t matter. The other artists were great people with great stories to tell themselves through their music.. and even though I didn’t understand I felt it. I also enjoyed… ‘Oyuwari’ a hot plum wine alongside the night. I was so glad to come back to the hotel and crash though haha.
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