Our only touristy activity in Kyoto was to head to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, famous for its rows of torii gates.
We headed to Nara as a day trip. The park there is brimming with tame deer, who were declared sacred ages ago. We shot a little bit of video:
The shrines in Nara had quite a few little girls decked out in kimonos for the Shichi-Go-San rite of passage celebration.
On Monday I had two of my goals fulfilled. The more short term goal was to see a concert in Japan. The second goal, which I've had since I was a wee little one, was to see a Flaming Lips concert.
Stray observations on the Japanese concert going experience:
*Japan's lack of debit cards and my lack of a credit card often leads to some interesting ways of buying things. We purchased our tickets by going to a convenience store in Kanazawa and entering the concert code into a machine. We paid at the register and the clerk gave us paper tickets. The price was as listed (no Ticketmaster-esque fees!) but there was one catch…
* The venue (the Nanba Hatch in Osaka, a medium sized theater shaped like a UFO) forced you to buy a 500 yen ($6) drink voucher. My most expensive bottle of water ever.
* The concert itself wasn't cheap either, and I've skipped going to other shows because they're almost double what you'd pay in the states.
* Japanese men seem to think nothing of going directly from work to a concert, still wearing a suit. Many of them will not even loosen their ties or take off their jackets. I'm pretty sure there are several men in Osaka who will be finding hidden pieces of confetti in their suits for weeks.
* The crowd was very well behaved. The only distractingly annoying people shouting things were gaijin, of course.
* First concert I've been to where not a single audience member smoked pot. It was likely also the first Flaming Lips show with zero pot.
For the uninitiated, the Flaming Lips are known for their loud, extravagant, punk meets acid meets theater shows, and they did not disappoint. The concert started with singer Wayne Coyne crowd surfing inside a plastic bubble, scores of giant balloons dropping, and an unbelievable amount of confetti firing from cannons. At one point I started watching a five year old girl(!) attempting to grab a balloon seven times her size and when I returned my gaze to the stage the singer was riding the shoulders of a man in a realistic bear costume and shouting through a megaphone. It was wonderful. Don't think that the theatrics are there to make up for a lack of musical ability, as they've actually managed to become talented over the years. The only slow bit of the show was when they overestimated the audience's English ability and willingness to act abnormally. A lesson I've often learned in class is that if you ask somebody here to act like monkey they're simply not going to do it. It's what the gaijin are for.
A visual summary of a Flaming Lips concert
Unfortunately I couldn't take Tuesday off because most of the English teachers had to go on a business trip so I had to run classes solo. (There's nothing I want to do more first period than teach my rowdiest, lowest level first year students on four hours of sleep…) Sadly, this meant we had to catch the train back up to Kanazawa when it felt like the concert just got going, meaning that I'm not entirely sure goal number two was fulfilled. It was nice that the venue was on the small side compared to where the band normally plays at, but the next time the Flaming Lips are around (and I have a better schedule), I think I'll have to check them out again, because I don't have nearly enough confetti and space bubbles in my life.
I'd like to conclude this excessively long blog post with one minor factoid: in Shin-Osaka station there was a robotic trash collection cart that played "It's a Small World" as it made its way through the halls.
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