Category Archives: Travel

I’m Going Back to Japan!

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I’ve taken my placement test, submitted my application and mailed in my deposit check.

I’m going!

Yes, I’m very excited to have made this decision and am totally looking forward to another wonderful experience in the land of the rising sun. I certainly can use all the practice I can get at speaking Japanese.

The one BIG pain, though, is that there are NO available flights in June that I can get for free using my Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer miles. That means forking out around $1k for plane tickets that I would have liked to use for other purposes. I won’t be letting something like that hold me back, however.

I’ll probably make a few entries here and there as I get ready for the trip. But I will certainly be keeping my faithful daily journal as I did in 2006—so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, it’s off to Little Tokyo tomorrow to find out about discount tickets and a Japan Rail pass..

Kyoto in ’08? An Intriguing Possibility…

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There was in interesting email in my inbox today from Paul Churton at Kyoto Sangyo University.

It seems that beginning this year, they intend to offer a third-level class as part of the IJP program—the one I attended in 2006. It also seems that they are opening it to general enrollment rather than having to go through a particular University. It’s also possible—and cheaper—to attend the program without receiving college credit.
It looks like the same month-long program will be more than $1,000 less than I paid in 2006! Granted, I won’t get college credit and there won’t be a company to reimburse me for my tuition, but that’s still a terrific deal. I’ve also got enough Virgin Atlantic miles to get a free roundtrip ticket on ANA.
In case you can’t tell, this is an opportunity I’m extremely excited about and very seriously considering. I can get back to Japan again for an extended stay, with a true purpose and for a relatively low cost.
Incidentally, did you know that in the current global currency environment (with the Euro so high) that traveling to “expensive” Japan is actually a better deal than traveling to europe?
Why not come and visit me there!

AMAZING Bunraku Performance

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Last night, I attended a performance of the Bunraku National Puppet Theater of Japan in Little Tokyo at the Aratani Theater. It was nothing short of amazing.

Bunraku is one of the three traditional theater artforms of Japan, along with Kabuki and Noh. Having actually never seen any of the three, I jumped at this chance, shelled out $60.00 for a good seat and was not disappointed. It was the first time the National Puppet Theater of Japan had come to the US in nearly two decades.

It’s a unique type of puppetry unlike anything you’d usually imagine. Essentially, the puppets—approximately 3 feet tall—are worked by three men who are in plain view the entire time, a master puppeteer and two assistants covered with black hoods. The story is told from the side of the stage by a chanter with music provided by a shamisen player. The chanter has to provide not only narration, but the voices of all the characters as well. The shamisen player’s technique and music create the moods and sound effects (like crying, footsteps running, and so forth).

The puppets themselves are quite amazing, especially the heads, worked by the master puppeteer’s left hand. Male puppet heads have articulated features like mouths, eyes and eyebrows and it’s incredible the emotion and life that can be given with only those simple features. Gestures, costume changes, moving feet, using items on stage are all handled by the three puppeteers working their parts of the puppet and essentially “ad-libbing” the movements in realtime. After watching, spellbound, the puppeteers almost disappeared as I became absorbed with the puppets themselves while taking in the story as recited by the chanter.

The show’s first half had a short piece entitled Oshichi’s Burning Love—The Fire Watch Tower
about a maiden who raises the town’s fire alarm so that the gates to the city will be opened and she can return a treasured heirloom to her lover who, having lost it, is under penalty of death. Of course, raising a false fire alarm is also punishable by death and she therefore sacrifices her own life for his. It was very short, but fascinating—especially how they had her climb the ladder to the top of the tower.

This was followed by perhaps the best part of the performance. Each of the players in Bunraku—chanter, shamisen and puppeteer—each demonstrated and talked about what they did. The chanter spoke about 100 MPH and I was trying really hard to understand—fortunately there was a translator. The shamisen demonstrated all the different sounds and techniques he could produce from just his single instrument. The most fascinating, though, was the puppeteer who showed all the parts of the puppet and all the different techniques and movements used to let the puppets “act”. It was extremely interesting and contributed so much to the enjoyment of the final performance.

That final story was really moving. Miracle at the Tsubosaka Kannon Temple—Sawaichi’s House and the Mountain tells the story of blind Sawaichi and his faithful wife Osato. He hears her slipping out of the house every morning, and thinks that since he’s blind and of no use, she’s being unfaithful to him. She explains that she faithfully prays to the Kannon every morning to ask the goddess to restore her husband’s sight. After sorting out that misunderstanding, Sawaichi wants to go to the temple at the top of the mountain to pray to the goddess himself, and the couple make their way there. Once arrived, Sawaichi resolves to remain for a three-day fasting vigil, so Osato returns home to get a few things for them. Sawaichi decides he’s been too much of an untrusting burden on his wife and throws himself off the cliff to his death. Osato—sensing something bad has happened through a terrible premonition—returns to see her husband’s cane and shoes left behind, and his lifeless body at the bottom of the ravine. In her despair, she too jumps from the cliff so they will be together.

Riveting stuff, huh?

But, the goddess Kannon, having heard Osato’s faithful prayers takes pity on them and restores them back to life—complete with Sawaichi’s eyesight! All the tension and sadness fortunately takes a more lighthearted tone when Sawaichi—seeing his wife for the first time ever—asks anata wa dare desu ka? (Excuse me, but who are you?) They then rejoice and exhort the audience to believe in the goodness of the goddess Kannon and the great Buddha and resolve to go off on a pilgrimage to “spread the word”, as it were.

I absolutely could not believe how enthralling it was and how emotionally involved I got with the story and characters. It was an experience I will treasure and not soon forget.

For more information, check out Bunraku on Wikipedia.

Labor Day Weekend: Anime Vegas 2006

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What did I do on my last 3-day weekend vacation of the year? Why, I spent it at an anime convention, of course…

Almost by accident, I found out about 10 days ago that there would be a convention in “nearby” Las Vegas. I asked for half a day off on Friday (so I could fight the holiday weekend traffic and have a faint hope of arriving there before it ended), booked a hotel and pre-registered. I figured that since I missed the really big cons this summer while I was in Japan, this would be the chance to get my fix for the rest of the year.

One of the big reasons I also decided to go was the impressive list of guests! They had over a dozen voice actors who were there to sign autographs, host panels and generally mingle with the legions of otaku like me. What really clinched it for me was when I saw listed two of my favorites: Rich McNanna (voice of Shuichi Shindou in Gravitation) and “the goddess of anime voices” Laura Bailey (voice of Tohru Honda in Fruits Basket and Sana Kurata in Kodocha, among many others). I figured this would be a golden opportunity to get to meet them and couldn’t pass it up! In addition to them, about half the cast of Kodocha (Jerry “Akito” Jewell, Colleen “Mama” Clinkenbeard and Sonny “Zenjiro” Strait) were there plus many others like Lex Lang, Sandy Fox, Mike McFarland, Troy Baker, Jennifer Sekiguchi, Jeff Nimoy, Johnny Yong Bosch and others I’m forgetting. This turned out to be the best part of the whole weekend, and there are now lots of new entries in my autograph album!

One of the things that was most fun was that since it was a smallish convention, you could simply run into the VAs as they were strolling around the venue. This gave me a chance to tell my story to Rich about how he indirectly got me into this whole hobby. It was, after all, a chance interest in Gravitation that lead to other anime and manga, then studying Japanese, visiting Japan for the first time this summer—all of which have created a very large change in my life and potentially my future and career. We had a long chat, and he’s a really nice guy. I thanked him for playing Shuichi’s role and how he ended up being a sort of “catalyst” at the right time which led me to this change. He’s also a teacher, so he understood what I meant about the “a ha” moment. Really cool.

An important thing to do at conventions is go to screenings of anime I’ve never seen before to see if it’s any good and something I’d be interested in; sometimes trailers and online reviews just aren’t enough for me. I did see some interesting things like Shana, Negima (which I already ordered), Kamichu, Fate/Stay Night and some others. I also got to watch part of the live action film Densha Otoko which was really good—I’ve got to find it too so I can see what happened in the rest of the story. Unfortunately, they only had two screening rooms and it seems they were having lots of technical problems. It also seemed like they would change around the screening schedule and shows on a whim—meaning that I missed some of the things I wanted to see. That was frustrating and disappointing. This is only their third year, so maybe it’ll get bigger and better organized.

Another letdown was the series of panels. About half of the ones I wanted to go to just never happened. I did enjoy the Geneon previews presentation and both the Voice Acting and Fullmetal Alchemist series panels were good. But again, it was frustrating to have planned before I left home to see some very specific things only to find out that they were dropped without explanation.

On Saturday night, I had the chance to see the Fullmetal Alchemist movie again, and I think it was even better the second time. Since I’d now done a little studying up on the real-life historical background used in the film, it was even more enjoyable and made even more sense—I still can’t get over how well they fit the reality and fantasy together so beautifully. I can hardly wait to get my DVD, though the Special Edition release date has been bumped to November. Maybe I’ll buy the regular edition in the meantime, then sell it down the road…

In order to make sure I got a good seat, I arrived early and had to suffer through—yes, SUFFER through— two episodes of Hellsing: Ultimate that were being shown. It was appalling. I made a good-faith attempt to watch it since I know it’s a popular series, but only lasted about 15 minutes of the first episode before I couldn’t take the constant gunfire, gratuitous, constant violence, buckets of blood and gore, zombies, vampires and generally disgusting visuals. To me, it had absolutely no redeeming qualities about it at all. Luckily I had my iPod around my neck, so I tuned in, turned on and dropped out of the screening until it was over.

As expected, there were also a lot of cosplayers there running around. Some of them were pretty good, but again, you could tell this was a small, hometown kind of show and most of them were not as “advanced” as I’ve seen. I think just about all of them wore the same costumes the entire weekend and most weren’t really acting in character much—just an excuse to dress up and be crazy, I guess. The most adorable one—as you can see in the picture—was a chibi Inuyasha being carried by his mom dressed as Kikyo. He was probably 4 years old and I don’t think he’ll ever get more photos taken of him ever again! There was also another mom dressed as Momiji Sohma from Fruits Basket in his costume for the New Years dance and her daughter dressed as Uo in “The Red Butterfly’s” riding coat. I didn’t take many pictures of the creepy ones, but there were some other nice costumes. I inadvertently didn’t take a photo of a very convincing Sesshomaru, which is a pity—she’d (it was a girl) put in a lot of work on the costume.

Finally, the dealer room. There were about 20 booths, the biggest names being Funimation, Geneon and Media Blasters. It took maybe an hour to get through everyone at a leisurely pace but I spent many more than that—mostly because there just wasn’t anything else to do (especially with the screening rooms down or the panels getting canceled). I bought some fun things like Kujibiki Unbalance figures, some lovely Naduki Koujima folders and the complete Samurai Deeper Kyo boxed set for $40.00—I even got a small, stuffed “Chiyo-dad” which is really hysterical. They had the autograph signing table in the very back of the hall which turned out being great because it gave the fans a chance to jump in there and get their goodies signed.

So in the end, it was fun and worth the trip. The disappointments inevitably happen, but the positives made up for it for the most part. I certainly hope this con continues to grow and become more popular—yet doesn’t lose the fun, “small-town” atmosphere. I’d like to come back again sometime for another go.

Back to my Regularly Scheduled Life…

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Well, I’m back from my 6-week trip to Japan. It’s hard to believe that a) I was actually gone for that long, and b) that it’s all over and I’m home again. Of course, there’s now a ton of stuff I need to do both at home and the office, I still have jet-lag, it’s incredibly hot here right now and I’m suffering from “post-vacation depression”.

I went back to the office yesterday and started trying to get my bearings once again. BTW, I had a total of 367 emails in my mailbox (and Mike Kubit won the pool), so I spent most of the day dealing with that mess. Then trying to catch up on all the happenings in the office and with the projects I’d left behind—everything just moved on without me. I’ll be pretty busy for the next couple of weeks digging out from under.

The depression especially began when I went to lunch at one of my usual spots, California Pizza Kitchen. As I was sitting there eating one of my regular favorites and thinking about my usual office-related concerns, it started feeling almost like my whole Japan experience never happened. That really started to make me sad. I had such a wonderful time and met such wonderful people, that I didn’t really want it to end—thought it would continue on. But then, “regularly-scheduled life” sets in, and all of a sudden, I’m back in my usual rut. So you can see how that might be depressing…

You can, however, look forward to many, many more musings from me here on this blog since I’ve now sort of gotten in the habit. I also want my new Japanese friends to have an easy way of seeing what I’m up to if they’re so inclined. I have a lot of things to say about just how much my Japan trip changed my life and how happy I am that I went.

But in the meantime, I’ve got lots of work to do…

Home again…

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Part of what I forgot to mention about yesterday was that in my searching in Akihabara, I never discovered any big Manga shops. By doing an evening search on the internet, I discovered where to go—but they were closed! So I decided to get up early and take those last few precious hours before leaving to go and check it out.

Arriving more than an hour before they opened, I went back to an already open Yodobashi Camera—where I made the snap decision to buy a new camera! It’s the pocket-sized, latest version of the Sanyo VPC series, and it actually does HD movies—and it was a good deal. Of course, now I need to sell the old one and scrape up some more money to pay it off…

Then the manga shop—Mandarake—then turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but then I didn’t have a lot of time to check it out thoroughly. It’ll have to be for my next trip…

Then It came time to leave the apartment behind and make my way for the last time to Shinjuku and the Narita Express. That part of the trip was fine and uneventful—but raining, of course, right when I needed to carry all my stuff to the airport. The airport was really nice, since they’ve just re-opened their new facilities after a major renovation. I haven’t been to a more efficiently run airport checkin service since 9/11, and it was refreshing. I made the snap decision to upgrade to Business Class, which I was glad I did (since I had really good food, service and plenty of room with a seat that reclined and had a leg rest—I managed to actually sleep on the plane for a change). Before I’d thought about it, though, I spent some extra money and an extra hour eating lunch at an airport restaurant instead of just making my way directly to the Business Class lounge where I could have snacked for free and had more time to relax and use the wireless internet. Oh well, not for next time…

So then I got home. Dad picked me up at the airport and took me home to an absolutely sweltering Woodland Hills. There has been a record-breaking heat wave here since I left, with only 1 day in the past six weeks where it was below 100 degrees. It was about 106 today, and completely insufferable since I have no air conditioning. That will have to change immediately.

So then—here ends my Japan travel diary. I’m going to switch back to my regular blog and website, where I’ll probably continue to talk about how my visit and study trip to Japan changed me. Check back there over the next little while…

Sayonara…

Last Day in Tokyo

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It’s hard to believe my time here is almost over. I’m at that point where I’m trying to pack in everything I possibly can before the clock runs out, and beginning to have regrets about things I didn’t do and won’t have time for…

Anyway, the first stop was Asakusa to see the famous Kaminarimon Gate to the Senso-ji temple. It was a typically gray morning, threatening rain just to make things perfect. I also ended up doing a lot of souvenir shopping on the market street between the gate and the temple itself. I actually used the fortune sticks at the temple and got one that was really true: “Always traveling around since your childhood has given you a lot of places [sic]…Wherever you go, everything can be done as you wish.” Seems like my life does involve a lot of travel wherefrom I derive my happiest times.

Next stop was the famous (or infamous) Yasukuni Shrine where Japan’s war dead are commemorated. I don’t see what the big deal was—except that supposedly Class A war criminals are also remembered there, but I wouldn’t have known that without the news reports. Most importantly was the museum there, which discussed a lot of Japan’s Military and other history—it was fascinating. My favorite part was watching the little film with actual footage from the Russo-Japanese War.

Then it was off to the Kato Hobby Center Tokyo, which was really cool and much bigger than the Osaka one. They had a ton of operating layouts and I got some good photos for reference on my own layout. I also couldn’t help but succumb and make a couple of additional purchases…

Last stop was Akihabara Electric Town again, which drew me back like some kind of electro magnet (pun intended). I discovered the Yodobashi Camera super store, which is 8 floors of consumer electronics and other goodies—a veritable wonderland for a guy like me. I could easily spend an entire day in here and not see everything. They had a nice hobby section there too—where I ended up buying even more stuff. I ate a really nice Tonkatsu dinner in the 8th floor restaurant area. My niece and nephews would love this place…

And then it was back home to begin packing. Time is too short…