Music City

Hello!

Yesterday Robin and I took the Shinkansen (the bullet train) to a city called Hamamatsu. It is a couple of hours South along the coast. It is called "Music City" because there are piano building factories for Kawai and Yamaha as well as beautiful piano showrooms. There are music stores all over the shopping district and a concert hall where they hold major international competitions. The nice thing about going there was that I finally had a chance to GET OUT OF TOKYO! The view from the Shinkansen was great- we went through mountains on our West and ocean on our East. We could even see the top of Mount Fuji above the clouds as we passed by. We visited the Hamamatsu Musical Instrument Museum, and it was fabulous! There were instruments from all over the world and from every period in time. What a collection! There were some of the strangest instruments I've ever seen! I took a bunch of pictures that are attached. After spending a long time at the museum- (poor Robin, he got bored after a time) we wandered down to the down town area of the city. Hamamatsu has an Ithaca feel to it. Wider streets, smaller town, fewer people, lots of school groups visiting- I think there may have been a school music festival going on, there were so many groups. We came across a street that had been closed off, and heard a band tuning. We hurried over to see what was going on. Luckily, we could see over most of the people in front of us! Set up in the street was at least an 80-member Hamamatsu High School band comprised entirely of girls. WOW! They were amazing! They performed with the musicianship of college music students- plus they moved to the music, and several times included singing, choreography and a costume change. They featured soloists on soprano sax, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and piano. They played with great precision. We couldn't pull ourselves away. I absolutely loved it. You might find it interesting that the piece they opened with was the theme from "Rocky."

The past few weeks have been busy. This past week I took a 3-day seminar called, Tokyo, Here and How. It is designed to help newly relocated expats settle into Tokyo life. The topics included traditional culture and etiquette, architecture and history, earth quake preparedness, how to find health care, how to buy Japanese groceries, where to go for fun, and some demonstrations. There were kimono tying demonstrations, Taiko drumming and traditional Japanese dance. It was just a fun and relaxing 3 days at the American Club, meeting other "newbies" and getting lots of good information. Friday night we broke down and ordered Dominoes Pizza. The boys have been asking for pizza for about 2 weeks. Rob and I walked over to the store in the rain and ordered. A little while later the delivery guy came on his scooter to deliver it. Pizza never tasted so good! Someone recently told me about an American family here who would call a number for pizza quite frequently, and always had a hard time communicating. Somehow they always managed to get their pizza delivered. One time, they had a Japanese friend who was at their house call for the pizza. The Japanese friend discovered that for over a year, these people had been calling a photo mart number, ordering their pizza, and the photo mart people had then been calling the pizza place for them! Can you imagine something like that happening in The Big Apple???? That story cracks me up completely.

The weather today is perfect. We all now have our bikes and are heading out to the park after we eat lunch. There is always something interesting going on in Yoyogi Park on a Sunday afternoon. Next weekend on Saturday will be my first Taiko performance. Should be interesting...I'll just watch all the kids and do what they do. Try not to stick out and look too goofy.

Take Care, All.
Cheers,