Another weekend of craziness!

It's Monday morning and in need of a bit of a rest after the weekend. Managed to do two taiko performances (one for the grand opening of a new community centre; the other for what appeared to be an old granny festival); fit in a band practice; go on the kurobe railway; finish off the recording and editing of the new Bento track; and get a little bit tipsy at a nomihodai.

All-in-all a very good weekend!

The Band: Niikawa now has its very own gaijin rock band, who are currently in the process of rehearsing for the international dinner at Colare (in Kurobe) in December. We'll be playing well-known traditional Christmas songs in a not-so well-known style. The line-up is as follows:

Lee 'holler' Randall - Lead vocals, guitar
Mark 'strummer' Seymour - Lead guitar, backing vocals?
John 'finger-pickin good' Penewit - bass, backing vocals?
Rob 'syncopation' Szeliga - keyboards, backing vocals?
Adam 'animal' Matthews - Drums, handclaps, backing vocals?

We are currently rehearsing in a Christian (!) church in Nyuzen.

Kurobe railway: Managed to fit a visit up the Kurobe gorge to have a 'butcher's' (trans: look at, investigate) at the koyo (trans: autumn leaves). Very impressive. It is the perfect time to go up there, as the snow is appearing on the mountains and the leaves are at their most colourful. It is really is absolutely breath-taking, and a million miles away from the urban sprawl of Toyama.

Bento update: The new bento track is nearly ready for release, just a little bit of final mixing and fiddling around and it should be up on this site by the end of the week.

Taiko: Two concerts in one weekend! A new record!

Nomihodai: Friday night was spent eating and drinking at a really cool restaurant in Funami. The food was amazing and we were even treated to a little shamisen performance by one of the waiters! Yosh!