Awesome Taiko Drums and Horrible Karaoke

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Joel Schroeder I got up really early and hit the cave bath again. Perfect way to start the day. I shot some footage of the view from my room, and took some photos of the room. I had slept surprisingly well on the mattress. We met up for a traditional Japanese breakfast at the hotel, in a great room overlooking the bay. You could see the fishing village below, the bay and out to the ocean. It was beautiful. Our hostess and her daughter, Yuka, served us a crazy amount of food for breakfast, and pretty much all of it was food you would never really crave for breakfast. I even made my own tofu, which was decent. Sadly, we had to check out and head back to Kanazawa and Yamanaka. It was about a 2 hour drive to Kanazawa, where we stopped at a Taiko drum factory and got to see a performance that blew us out of the water. We were so close to the drum that your whole heart just vibrated and shook. It was a trio of girls who are extremely famous Taiko drummers in Japan, their ages ranging from probably around 25 or so up to 53, but the 53-year-old didn't look 53 at all. We also got to see them making the finishing touches on a drum that was about 5 or 6 feet in diameter. We made a quick stop at a candy/cookie factory and the only reason I didn't buy anything was because they only took cash and I hadn't exchanged for any Yen at all. Everything we've bought has been so exquisitely wrapped, and the cookies were no exception. We got back to the Kayoutei Inn and after some tea and a few minutes to relax, we went to the kitchen with the inn's chef to film him doing a cooking demo. It was fun to shoot and good practice because he was flying all over the kitchen, but it probably won't make it into the show. After the demo, all of the food was brought into the bar/dining area and set out for us to taste. It was tons of sashimi, soup, plum wine, sea bream, all sorts of stuff I don't even remember, and after we had been shoving it all down for about an hour (it was then around 5:30pm), our interpreter, Noriko, casually leans over to Rick, Reed, and me, and informs us that we will be going to dinner shortly. If we had been drinking something at the moment, we would have all blown it out our noses. The schedule had changed for the day, and we didn't know exactly what was going on, and we thought we were already eating dinner. But, we hopped in the car anyway and went to Jiro's favorite restaurant in town for second supper, where we had fried oysters, shrimp, pork, cheese, and Kirin and great conversation with Jiro, Koji, and Noriko. After 5 days of badgering her, Noriko still would not reveal her age. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, said our goodbyes to Noriko because we wouldn't see her in the morning, and decided to get a drink at the hotel bar before heading to bed. It was somewhere around 8:30 or 9. We went to the Karaoke bar, which was completely empty, and grabbed a big open booth and sat down, planning to just get a drink and stay away from the singing. The bartender didn't speak English, so a young lady from the restaurant next door was brought in to wait on us. She had spent 6 months in Montreal and spoke English quite well. She came to our table, brought us some bottles of Asahi, and was with us the rest of the night, crouched next to the table, ready to fill our glasses with Asahi whenever they got close to empty--Japanese style. The service was ridiculously good, very attentive. She kept on urging us to sing, suggesting some of her favorites, like The Final Countdown, Backstreet Boys, and Queen. We finally gave in, and did about half a dozen songs or so. Luckily, there was nobody to hear us. I would never have imagined I'd do Karaoke in Japan while I was on a shooting gig. We had a blast.

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Photos

a perfect view
this is my view from our hotel on the Noto peninsula, called Hyaku Raku So Hotel

me in my Yukata robe
sorry, I just had to have a picture of myself in my Yukata robe.

Comments

[Mom]

I love this blog and your pictures!