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Published: April 22nd 2006
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the beginning
one of the lions guarding a small shrine we explored in nagoya. jade wasn't feeling all too well the other morning, and so i went down to the hotel restaurant and had a free breakfast. i sat with renee, one of her backup singers. she was from san diego too, so i felt pretty comfortable with her. everyone else in the band was from germany. they were all real nice though, and the pianist, philip invited me to go see the nagoya castle with some of the guys. totally sweet. we walked a distance of "only two kilometers" to a shinto shrine, where the guitarist holger (?) showed me the cleansing ritual before entering. we all walked around a bit taking pictures of things, and then went to the park where the castle was. apparently, it was a japanese holiday, so there were a lot of people at the park for some kind of celebration. you know, one thing i love about japan is that i feel so tall in this country. seriously. all the doors are my size, i can practically touch ceilings, and there are so many tiny hunched over people, i feel like a giant. and what a giant, at a staggering 5'2"!
holger and lars, the sound engineer,
cleansing
holger's demonstration of the ritual process were the long-legged guys of the bunch, so philip and i lagged in the back taking pictures while the other two walked around at a faster pace. we finally got to the palace. however, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, which contained amazing artwork and sculptures from the era, and old samurai swords and armor, with helmets that strangely resembled stormtroopers'. i convinced philip to buy a green tea ice cream that ended up tasting like fish, and we went back to the hotel. upon arriving there, we found out that the show for the night was cancelled. score. we all ate lunch at the hard rock nagoya, and went our separate ways. i went with holger, lars, and jade to look at another temple. we took the japanese subway there... all i can say is that japan is entirely too crowded. it's like an insane sensory overload. thankfully, we didn't get lost, and we ended up finding the temple. as it turned out, the place was closed, so we took pictures of the place, walked around a few shops, found a starbucks [as lars said, here they were, a bunch of germans, sitting in an american cafe in
market
among the many sights we saw on the way to nagoya temple japan listening to latin music- what a culture shock indeed] and went back to the hotel. since jade and i were tired (and in her case, sick), we stayed in for the night. since the show was cancelled, we had a bunch of gifts from her fans sent up to the room. some of the letters were real sad- i'm so sad that i cannot see you sing. i hope you are well. i am going back on the bus to tokyo tonight, and others were sort of freaky. we got some good candy though, which we ate along with some food that room service brought up, and fell asleep.
the next day, i woke up ridiculously early. since everyone else apparently stayed up and partied the night before (or stayed in sick- i guess all three of the other girls were sick), i was the only one up. so i went down to the city by myself to explore. it was rainy out, but not bad at all. i bought some crazy japanese candy, and went down to breakfast. after that, renee and i wandered around the city together. we went to a little park across the
the nataiiji pagoda
we got in after they closed, but jade talked our way into it so we could at least check it out. street from the hotel- a bunch of homeless people had set up camp there. then we went to a few shops in the area, including a video store, where i made her buy me some japanese porn. quite the experience.
later on, jade was feeling a little better, so we decided to go out with holger and lars. we walked around some of the small shops, and we found a bunch of hindu/chinese shops. sort of crazy. in one bead shop the owners gave us tea, which was real nice of them. taking the subway back was kind of cool too. crowded, with way too many colorful ads, but interesting.
okay. wednesday. after going out with renee and swiping hotel things, making her buy me porn, we ate at the hard rock, and had some pretty good chicken noodle soup. then my porn fell out of my bag in front of the waiter. hah. talk about embarrassing. we also had dry cakes and a weird tasting apple thing, which adrian all paid for. how nice of him. afterward, we met back at the hotel and went straight to the blue note. they did soundcheck and then jade and
tea house
on the grounds of the nagoya castle i went to an import store to get some food. i ended up with gelato.. mm. when we got back to the blue note, people were already standing and waiting for the show, and when jade passed by their eyes widened in surprise. heh. it was cool. we came back for dinner, and then renee, philip, and i went to the hmv. i guess they were having a sale, 2 cds for 1900 yen, which wasn't bad. i saw no knife there, how crazy! philip and i went walking down to the mana house, which sold dvds- we were looking for porn. on the way, people kept handing out tissue packets with ads on them. way more useful than a flier or business card!
after some more wandering, we went back to the blue note, swiped shopping bags, and got ready for the show. since everyone in the girls room was sick- alana dabbing her nose, jade with her humidifier, and renee with her tina turner wig (hehe), i went out to wander around for a bit. i ran into berto, the drummer, and he bought me a fruit cocktail at the bar. i don't know if it was
park
the small park right in front of our hotel alcoholic, but we both dont drink or smoke or anything, so i dont think so. still, i felt a lot more relaxed after that. hah. i played around backstage for a bit more, and it was fun. then the show started, and i think i fell asleep for one of them. yoko, the press for blue note or something, kept giving me great back massages. she bought me food too. what a sweetheart. the first show, jade didnt do much commentary or anything, but they still performed well. the second show was good though, and well received.
after the show, fans lined up to take pictures with the band on their cell phone cameras. hehe. holger told one couple that i was jade's cousin, so they asked me a few questions, etc. we sat around for a while longer, ate dinner and all that fun stuff, and then it was decided we were to go to a bar. we went back to the hotel and changed and walked down to this place called shooters. apparently it was costume night or something, so people were dressed up as a backstreet boy, a skanky leopard, etc. jade bought me a strawberry
colada because i was curious to try one.. it was gross. i hate the taste of alcohol. the smoke kept getting in my eyes too, and i just wanted to fall asleep. philip and the rest of the guys went to play some pool, and i sat at the table rather quiet for a while before going outside to get some fresh air. then i went to the corner of the room near the billiards to hang out with berto, and then a couple canadian teachers came up and started talking to us about the band, jade, etc. berto left and i was stuck talking to one of them, and he actually looked a bit like noah wylie, which was sort of weird. the other guy came up and said how his friend had missed jade's show, etc. etc. and i told him to get an autograph from her, which he did. more boring sitting around ensued, a crazy japanese girl came up and started talking to me, and then jade made me drink this colada, which she bought. i think she was slightly drunk, so she forced me to drink it- i took a sip and berto finished it off. imagine, us two clean kids drinking. it was crazy, and i dont think i liked it all too much. she made me take a swig of beer too, which i faked, and we left. it was cold and i was slow, so andy put his arm around me for the rest of the walk home. hes a nice guy.
im tired now. augh.
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