I just emptied my flash card on my camera and found all these pictures from when I was in Nikko two weeks ago.
On my way back from Misawa I met two American guys that were headed for the same destination as me. We ended up talking all the way down to Tokyo and it came up that they had made plans to go to Nikko the day after. Since we got along so well I asked to come along and they warmly welcomed me.
We exchanged phone numbers, and the day after we met up at the Asakusa station. Two of their friends also came along, so we were a neat little group of five people making the day trip to Nikko.
Nikko is a world heritage site, located north of Tokyo 2 hours by train. They also have a Edo world experience place and beautiful walking tracks, spiralling the mountains, going by the lakes and through the woods.
We bought the tickets for the heritage sites, so our hours were spent walking in the wonderful nature, looking at shrines of all kinds! It was an enjoyable experience, I really liked the atmosphere of this place.
One day I will go back and stay a night, do some more hiking, enjoying the nature and also take the chance to go to the Edo village. I've heard rumours of the possibility to be dressed up in clothes from that era and go into a given roll, maybe be a samurai or a geisha? :) Seems to be a cool place.
Anyhow, here is some pictures for you!
The train that took us to Nikko. Like stepping into the 60's :)
Hear no evil, talk no evil, see no evil.
The famous bridge!
The guys I met the day before.
And their friends that I got to know! Thanks you guys for a nice day!
Two nights ago I went to the Foreign Correspondets' club of Japan and visited their tattoo night. What an experience!
It started out with Horiyoshi III, the irezumi (japanes tattoo art) sensei, talking about the history of Japanese tattoing and then his deshi (students), Matti Sedholm (swe) and Alex Reinke (uk) telling us how they got into the art.
Four guys and two girls then showed us their wonderful tattoos and there was a brief explanation on what the story on their bodies was thought to be. Each full body tattoo describes a story, really beautiful and special. The cool thing is that you wont see anything of their tattoos when they put pants and a long sleeved shirt on! :)
The whole thing ended with Horiyoshi actually tattooing one of the girls! Live, in the room! Doing it by hand. Cool! Unfortunately, my camera battery was out of charge, so I couldn't take any pictures or videos of it. Hopefully I'll get some pictures from one of my friends, I'll be sure to post them!
Here are some pictures, enjoy!
The guy talking did his body suit in 2 years!
Work in progress.
måndag 21 maj 2012
It's about time for me to update this place, isn't it!
I've been around the northern parts of Japan last week, tried out Sapporo for a change. It's now one of my favourite places in Japan! Loved the atmosphere of the town and it offers beautiful nature and a lot of good food. I really recommend the "soupu kare, it's delicious!
Nomnomnom! ;)
Finally got to buy my own Tsugaru Shamisen from the one and only Masahiro Nitta! I bought his old one, that he used to play on a couple of years ago. It has a nice sound to it. Got a CD where he's playing on my shamisen, hopefully I will sound that good one day! ;) Look him up on YouTube, he's awesome!
This is what it looks like. (Sorry for the bad resolution.)
Also had the opportunity to hang out with some Bujinkan friends up north, nice to be able to keep up the training while travelling!
Yesterday I met up with two of my friends from Sweden, who are here visiting for a little more than a week. One of my Japanese friends also came, she works in the same field as one of the Swedes so I thought it would be a good idea to hook them up with each other. :)
We met up in Harajuku with the intention to see some Cosplay. Sadly we were to late, so no Alice in wonderland dresses or Naruto costumes. Instead we took a walk in Yoyogi koen, to Meiji jingu and took a look around. Mildly bored on our way back we suddenly heard the sound of hard core music drifting in the wind, me and my Swedish friends looked at each other. What is this? A party going on somewhere?
We made it a mission to find out where it came from and if we maybe could join in. :)
We quickly made it out of Yoyogi koen and ventured in the direction of the sound, away from Harjuku station. After a couple of minutes we stepped in to another part of the park, walking directly into a bunch of Japanese rockabilly guys, giving it all to the rock 'n roll they were playing from broken speakers. It was such an unexpected thing to see that we stood staring at them for almost ten minutes. :)
In action!
Damn right! Greasing the road!
This part of the park was really nice, filled with green lawns, fluffy trees and lots of young Japanese hanging out, having picnics, playing games with each other or letting out their creativity in different ways. Strolling around we bumped into a group of people playing African drums and dancing to the rhythm. The drummers and some of the dancers interacted in a really cool way, improvising together. Check out the video!
After recording and looking at the joy the dancers were moving with and the smiles at the musicians faces I couldn't help my self and went for a minute of African rhythms. So fun!
Continuing into the park we finally could solve the mystery of the hard core rythms! Just outside the park, on the road near the pavement stood a small truck, loaded with speakers and a mixer board. There, parked on the road, at the sidewalk, the DJ had decided he should play. He boosted out his love for the music with proud! A couple of people were dancing just in front of the car, otherwise people just passed by. Sooo random, so strange and so much Tokyo! Everything, anything can happen!
While going into the park again I walked into two Swedish friends that I haven't seen for almost a year. The world suddenly shrank and went into mini-mode! You just don't walk into Swedish people you know in a park in Tokyo, it's not supposed to happen! What a crazy day!
A little further into the park, a group of people were practising their salsa skills. So much going on at this place! Super cool!
This park is now officially my favourite place to be in Tokyo! Next year I'll bring my Shamisen and any friend that wants to join and sit here and play! The best place to be for creativity, friendship and joy.
Here's some pictures from the place:
To make the day even better and a little more strange we stepped into a Jamaican festival on our way back to Harajuku station. Lots of little shops and booths selling food and a diverse variety of rasta farai, boheme and you name it clothing. Also a couple of places selling vinyls and a live band playing Ska/reggae. By this time we were already filled with the discoveries of the day, so we quickly sneaked out from the stalls and went for some well deserved beer and dinner!
On our way back I found some nice street art on the doors of the closed shops. Aren't they nice!?
And here we are, all four of us. Tired and happy after a great day with all the fun and crazy things Tokyo has to offer. We sure missed the Cosplay, but found more than enough to make up for it! :)
The last two weeks have been so wonderfully different from all my other experiences in Japan. I followed my friend up north to Aomori and the shamisen tournaments that took place in Hirosaki. I've been hanging with my friend and his shamisen sensei, trying to get as much knowledge as possible in this new field.
It was really interesting to go to the two day long tournament in Hirosaki and see what makes the difference between a beginner and a experienced shamisen player. The sounds of the shamisen is really cool, there is the sounds of the three strings, the sounds of the bachi hitting the skin or the wood, a klicking noise from the strings against the bachi and then also the whole spectrum of loudness. The shamisen sure can be loud! :D
Lot's of shamisen players, practising for their performance.
I've also had the opportunity to start taking lessons from my friend and his sensei. I really enjoy playing this instrument and it seems I have some kind of talent for it. I've decided to keep playing and I'm going to buy my self one before I leave Japan. Next year I'll be participating in the tournaments! That's so exciting!
The tournament took place in Hirosaki koen, a beatiful park surrounding a small castle. Luckily the cherry blossoms had just started blooming here in the north, so I've had my second hanami experience!
Hanami in Hirosaki koen.
The drive to Hirosaki from Misawa was also an adventure. We took the mountain route and really had some beautiful views on the way. Northern Japan is so different from the southern parts I've visited so far. So much nature, I love it!
On our way to Hirosaki
The last four days have been full of shamisen practice, the making of new videos for my friends website www.bachido.com and also going through the curriculum that my friends dojo uses for their kyugrades, since I'm planning to make use of that curriculum for my own dojo. So a good deal of Bujinkan training has been done too! A perfect match, both musical and martial rhythms in my life!
