Yanagawa Day 2: sakura mankai

Mankai aka full bloom just started in Fukuoka and Tokyo yesterday and I'm in Yanagawa which is an hour from Fukuoka.

Having a smoke after parking the car just outside Mihashira Jinja ミ柱神社.

We decided to go for some unagi/eel first cause there was an hour before the show started. Good thing we missed the queue which had formed when we were leaving.

For the price, it wasn't that much better than eating at Yoshinoya.

Katana chopping exhibition.

I would pay money just to get a katana and be able to chop stuff up.

As Ricco would say, those two are Miss nanjyarou kanjyarou. Wishing I had gotten that zoom lens.

Musical performance before the big event.

Procession with archers on horseback.

Horseback archery is called yabusame 流鏑馬。

Basically there were two net targets and the horsemen had to shoot arrows into the two nets while riding at full gallop.

Went to Taishoen for yakiniku. Ricco's parents went to her place to take care of Rintan.

It was so busy we had to wait one hour. It was bloody torture sitting there smelling all that meat.

Unfortunately we could only get the family room which meant no smoking.

Yanagawa Day 1

How come I never noticed this Hakata ramen street at Hakata Station? Ricco who had just become a mom invited me to go stay at her place for the weekend.

Took at 45 minute train ride to Hainuzuka station and Nori-san met me there. My first meeting with 4 month old Rin-chan.

We stayed the night at Nori-san's parents' place so they can look after Rinchan.

I really like the old Japanese house feel with the sliding doors...

... and sleeping on the futon in the play room. Nori-san's dad spoke in real fast Hakataben and it was really had understanding him.

Its been almost a year since I went to an onsen.

Had kushiage for dinner, otherwise known as kushikatsu.

Sakae

Fark. Got ripped off big time. I was too stupid to ignore flashing warning signs. Thinking with the wrong head. Live and learn. Nothing ruins your night like a bottakuri.

Edit: Just realised I got her card, when I shimeied her.

Asian Kung Fu Generation Tour 2015 Suicup Forever at Zepp Tokyo

I think most Japanophiles know Ajikan. They've been around over 10 years and have created some great songs.

I'm not an Ajikan fan because I find most of their songs very meh. The new song Easter puts me to sleep.

However, they've got 4 songs I really like. Rewrite, Re Re, Solanin and Marching Band and these 4 songs are my reason for wanting to go see them live.

The good news is when the light pierced the darkness and I heard the first riff of Solanin to start the concert, I had goosebumps.

The meh news is that Rewrite had a super long solo/comedy bit in the middle.

The bad news is that they didn't play Re Re and Marching band. Wtf???? Re Re is the greatest example of a song where the live version completely destroys the CD version. I knew there was a chance Re Re wasn't going to appear but Marching Band is not an old song.

At least with Zepp and live houses in general it doesn't really matter where you stand cause most views are decent.

The shirt seem pretty small for XL.

As someone I know would say, I'm devo they left RE RE AND Marching Band out. I could listen to those two songs on repeat whole day. I hated the feeling of dread as time was running out and I realised the two songs won't come out.

I need to look up the set list after this cause there were some songs I didn't know that were not bad including two new songs. (I think)

Probably the best thing was there was miminal talking until the encore unlike Scandal so it felt like they tried to fit as many songs in as they could in 2 hours. Final song was Kimu to iu Hana which was their most audience participatory song.