Tokyo Day 2 May 21, 2008

Day two began early morning. I ve never been a good one for traveling time zones. Even driving to another time zone, I am always stuck in new york time or wherever time zone I happened to be at the time. I do not really remember the details of this day so let me highlight and abridge. There was a meeting in the evening to discuss the greenroom festival.

(left to right. Yuri Shibuya, Jonas Kaku, Mikey of Dedication, Kumetani Satoshi, Mike Ming)
My partners, Yuri Shibuya and Jonas Kaku, and I thought about how we would like to finalize the action before we get to the festival to prepare for the show. We had two support members, Mikey of Dedication Studios in Kamakura, a long time associate of Jonas Kaku and Kumetani Satoshi of Dooor to nail down the final plans. We discussed our plans at the future location of '!!NEXT!!' show at Uplink Gallery in Shibuya. By the way, there restaurant/cafe is exquisite. Delicious blend of Euro/Asian/Middle Eastern. Please come and Enjoy! After the discussions, we all made our way back to get rest and prepare.
There was a quick trip to shibuya's Tower Records. They were selling our DYZUE Zine and art books!



I had my own personal agenda after the meeting which involved english pubs and futbol!

It so happened, the day after my arrival was the biggest futbol event of the year. It was the World Series of Futbol, as the European Clubs all competed to have the title of .. 2008 Champions. It happens that in this particular year, it was Manchester United vs Chelsea, two english teams. The first kick was scheduled for 3.45 am! Yikes! I went to bed and set my alarm for 3.15. Of course being jet lagged, waking up was not a problem. I was later to find out, the problem was a lack of standing room at the premier futbol pub in ebisu.



They even charged ¥1,500 including drinks but it was still too crowded. They were nice enough to suggest a different pub to go to though, and it was a short jog away. I was 4 minutes from kick off and all of a sudden, I got strange futbol fever and found myself running in a general direction to find a british pub somewhere in some building near the ebisu station on the 5th floor.


My heightened futbol awareness led me right to where I had to be, just in time to see the players lining up on the field and getting into position.
Unfortunately, this pub was not as crowded as the other pub. What I wanted was Futbol Fever and guys going nuts! But at least there was a place for me to watch the game. I ve never bent over backwards for futbol but well, I was not in my city any more. 3 hours later, as any news caster will tell you, Manchester beat Chelsea in a double overime, double penalty kick battle. Both teams played marvelously. Although it did feel like some of the referee's calls were a little bit questionable. I returned back to Footnik to see how the audience was and true to any sport lovers form, there was cheering, merrymaking and crying.


The fans wearing the chelsea blues were teary eyed and heads hung low.

(or just passed out from the booze)
The Manchester fans were very loud for 6.45 in the morning, kinda hecking the Chelsea Guys. Intense.



(hooligans?)

Tokyo Day 1 May 20, 2008

Day one started kinda in the afternoon at my arrival in Narita. Before that, it was pretty much the time warp tube riding from New York's JFK on may 19 to NRT may 20. There was a typhoon that struck the island for the majority of the day but fortunately for me, the plane arrived, no problems, without incident. It was not until later that evening , I was told that May 20 2008 was actually Narita Airports 30th Anniversary! There was a special 30th Anniversary Plane that was to arrive early in the morning, but due to uncooperative weather, the plane was re-routed to nagoya. I am hoping that this is not a harbinger of the trip for me. The AA 167 flight I was on was already delayed half an hour and the Greenroom Festival in Yokohama is only a one day event, insted of two days.. like I assumed. Nonetheless, I arrived without incident and everything was as smooth as can be. Slept on the bus ride into tokyo. My good friend and long time associate, Shingo Wakagi allowed me to make camp at his office and we went out to eat at Octogan Cafe right across the street. Later that night, I found myself at Ebisu's Premier Football Pub!

It is a little English Pub in Tokyo and they are obsessed with Futbal! There was even a golf pub near by! After two pints with me associate, Kumetani Satoshi of Dooor (www.dooor.jp), I called it a night.

I don't know if it is jetlag, but I tell you, I was tired all flight and then some.

(did not expect to see all kinds of happenings in the late night hour...violinist getting into it)
Peace!