Shinjuku Weekend

It's Monday again and I'm coming back to reality after a busy weekend in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It's pretty far away from where I live in Yokohama so it's always kind of a shock for me to come back to the semi-countryside that I call home. Another big part of it is the usual lack of sleep that I get on the weekends. I usually remain pretty lazy during the week as a result.

Friday, after decompressing from the work week for awhile around the apartment, I hit the train up to Shinjuku to meet Eriko. She doesn't really speak English often which gives me plenty of opportunity to pick up some more Japanese. I'm starting to get to the point where as long as I know the words I want to say, I don't have to think too much about sentence structure. Of course, there is still a seemingly endless amount left to learn.

I went up pretty early so I could check out the town since the lights looked so inviting last time I was there on a weekday. I ended up not even really seeing the town, and just hanging out around the front of the train station watching band after band of street musicians do their thing. I watched one jazz group with some very talented musicians, but they lacked soul. The drummer however was incredible.

After that, I watched a pop-ish kind of group for a long time. When they finished up their set, we talked for awhile about what it's like to perform in the street. I bought one of their CDs and talked about maybe playing sometime together. I think Sunday I'm practicing for the show in June and we're supposed to hit the street afterwards to play. Should be pretty fun.

Saturday evening Eriko and I met up with Eric and his girlfriend. We got some drinks around Shinjuku and then headed over to Nana's place in Gotanda. It was a pretty regular evening; just hanging out around the apartment. Eriko and I barely caught the last train back to Shinjuku and then we went out for my favorite food here: Katsudon.

I've been a little homesick as of late. I was riding high for the first couple months here but some of the newness is starting to wear off. Since I'm not really a teacher by trade, I feel some pressure to get back to the US and get a proper job in the music industry again. Some days all I'd like to do is hit up the old bars in Nashville or Annapolis where things always seemed to make sense. On the same token though, I certainly needed a break from the monotony of a regular 9-5 job.

I think there is certainly a lot of both good and bad things about living in such a different environment. I probably won't get into the bad things now since I'm sure nobody wants to read about that sort of thing. I will say that I've been in Japan for several months now and I haven't seen one damn robot. As far as technology goes, I really haven't been amazed by too much here. It's just frustrating rules about your shoes, no paper towels, and the occasional hole in the ground for a toilet. You can however drink anywhere, anytime. Perhaps it all evens out.

As for other stuff, I just got the new Portishead record and it's pretty cool. What I've been listening to the most is The Best Show Of WFMU and Uhh Yeah Dude podcasts. I highly recommend them. I have some quick video that I shot with the digital camera thats laying around now so hopefully I'll get around to editing that for YouTube this week.

Laterz - Brad

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