A weekend of serious action here in the Far East. On Saturday and Sunday, myself, Ronan and Doncastrian Tommy 'Powerhouse' Gibbs attended the Fukai Danjiri, a whopping festival. Many Japanese are stereotyped as reserved, but the hair was definitely down as 800-100 Fukai Shi heads tore up the town, pulling their Danjiri floats around the narrow streets of their neighbourhood. Not for the faint-hearted, the Danjiri costs lives and causes injuries as the huge floats, each costing about 1000,000 000 Yen, race around corners that are tight for a bicycle, never mind a two or three ton vehicle with wheels that only more forwards. We saw some good friends from last year, and made some new ones. Pictures to follow soon. Big thanks to Shimahara-san and family for putting us up for the two days in traditional Japanese-style accommodation.
Sunday evening, I rested before making my way back to Kyoto for Bikouten, my High-school students’ art expo. The show wasn’t as visually or aesthetically attractive as last year, I felt. However, there were some exceptions, with some brilliant anime, life painting, nihonga (Japanese painting), sculpture and fashion/design pieces on show.
After that I caught a few dancing troupes at the Heian Shrine’s Student Festival. Some of it was good, but of what I saw, none was really brilliant, although it was great to see students age18-25 messing about, having a good time and importantly, not taking themselves too seriously (as some of us are wont to do). The young ‘uns generally created good-natured havoc to the beat of syrupy techno for hours on end, and didn’t do any harm at all.
Saturday evening I caught a jazz band at Zac Baran – some highly talented college students laid down instrumental and vocal jazz in the pub. I can hardly talk about being skilled in jazz, but in terms of groove, I feel that some of the players have, no more than myself, a little ways to go before they are comfortable with the material they are handling. However, I did meet a guy who I had played with, impromptu-style, at Kyoto Station one Summer afternoon, and we renewed our acquaintance. The Hokkaido guitarist was the star of the show, for my money. Wonder if he is giving lessons.
Monday was the first Osaka Biathlon, which I completed in 29 minutes. It was a very poor result, somewhat akin to Ireland’s defeat against Cyprus. I found the run-swim-run format difficult, though I ran the last leg quite well. This kind of contest suits sportspeople whose aerobic fitness is very high – sprinter-folk, in other words. Mine (aerobic ability) being weak, I found it hard to adjust to appropriate/optimal breathing, etc, until well into the race. I also found the swim extremely difficult, and had to stop a couple of times. I got a bit of encouragement from a fellow competitor though, and was on my way before long. Given that there were former Olympians in the field, along with some of Japan’s top runners and triathletes, it wasn’t a bad result overall (59th). However, I’ll be looking to do better next year. I also found out about the Terry Fox events, and I might take those on later in the year.
Finally, I headed to the Gakkentoshi line and took a train out to the Osaka soccer field, where I played in a 5-game 11-a-side tournament for Osaka JETs. Up until now, our form has been poor enough, but we set that right today with convincing victories in all of our games. I played in 3, and we won all of them, 1-0, 2-1 and 4-0. I scored a nice header in the last, making up for a penalty miss minutes before, and did well in a stint in goals. On song for us today were Doug Murrell in defence, and new talent Paul from Oz up front, who scythed through defences and scored a brace in the final game. Overall a brilliant weekend, and a useful, stomping, healthy build-up to Shanghai next weekend.
