Tired. Moist. And euphoric. That's how I was two years ago after seeing Radiohead and its the same again. The reason for moistness is different, where at South Park it was because the heavens opened, here it was all about Hell being angered by all the happiness being spread by some band from Oxford.
Summersonic is a newish festival in Japan which is twinned in Tokyo and Osaka. The headliners this year were Blur and Radiohead - probably my two favourite bands going.
It was very hot and ridiculously humid. And a very long day.....
It all started on Saturday. I went into school and whacked the air conditioning up to full and then found out that, although my last lesson was cancelled, I had been given another one. This was a little annoying as there was a festival in Koshigaya that I wanted to go to. Fireworks, people, fun (maybe). It was gonna be great. What was annoying about it was that he didn't turn up anyway and i was warned he might not aswell. Grrr.
I got to the festival a little later than I wanted and the fireworks had started already. And the streets were totally packed - such that moving was tricky. Paul[A] was meant to be coming at night so I had to be home to take any phonecalls to direct. This meant I could not see much of the fireworks as they were a little far away and also because I had to get back. The festival seemed fairly decent with a nice family feel to it but madly busy. Fireworks display went on for about an hour and a half.
I got home and waited for some Paul based contact -his flight was meant to land in Tokyo at about 830. I got a call at 910: "I'm still in Osaka, my flight was delayed".
Anyway, we grabbed some food[C] and then went back to mine for we had an early start - Chiba is not that close. Obviously sleep was a tricky one so we went for a walk once it got light. I wanted to leave the house by 730 so we grabbed some food and then went back to get ready.
[tbc]
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. Paul was (and depending on what has happened since, still is) a friend of mine from secondary school that had, through an element of good fortune and sacrifice, managed to get a free flight from London to "Asia" - and he selected Japan so that he could visit me. I mean visit Japan and stay with me.↩
B. I am not sure that even he knew what trains he got but from Haneda to Koshigaya would require the monorail to the main JR network and probably two JR trains followed by the Tobu line. That is hard enough for a newcomer in the daytime but he managed this at night although he tells me that he was made to run a few times!↩
C. For some reason, this is quite a strong memory of mine - possibly due to still being a little woozy with the awe that I had that he made it. We went to Matsuya - a gyudon chain which I personally preferred to Yoshinoya. Looking back, it must have been a strange experience for Paul to find a chain restaurant open at 1am and the simple service and great food (for not much money) that we got. I have a memory of him putting a lot of pickled ginger on his gyudon and telling me how much he liked ginger. Another teacher also popped in (by chance) and so, I guess from Paul's perspective, I looked pretty settled. I might be wrong, but in hindsight, I think I did settle and find things more comfortable than I had when I went to other places in the UK, for example university in Southampton.↩
Summersonic is a newish festival in Japan which is twinned in Tokyo and Osaka. The headliners this year were Blur and Radiohead - probably my two favourite bands going.
It was very hot and ridiculously humid. And a very long day.....
It all started on Saturday. I went into school and whacked the air conditioning up to full and then found out that, although my last lesson was cancelled, I had been given another one. This was a little annoying as there was a festival in Koshigaya that I wanted to go to. Fireworks, people, fun (maybe). It was gonna be great. What was annoying about it was that he didn't turn up anyway and i was warned he might not aswell. Grrr.
I got to the festival a little later than I wanted and the fireworks had started already. And the streets were totally packed - such that moving was tricky. Paul[A] was meant to be coming at night so I had to be home to take any phonecalls to direct. This meant I could not see much of the fireworks as they were a little far away and also because I had to get back. The festival seemed fairly decent with a nice family feel to it but madly busy. Fireworks display went on for about an hour and a half.
I got home and waited for some Paul based contact -his flight was meant to land in Tokyo at about 830. I got a call at 910: "I'm still in Osaka, my flight was delayed".
As I have explained, the trains in Tokyo don't run that late so there was a definite possibility he could get stuck. A definite possibility. And I thought that was what had happened....until about 1245 when I got a phonecall. Paul, being the jammy little blagger that he is, managed to get to Koshigaya on the four last trains on each line he needed. That's mighty impressive for a first train trip in Tokyo[B]. It was definitely a high risk manoeuvre though.
Anyway, we grabbed some food[C] and then went back to mine for we had an early start - Chiba is not that close. Obviously sleep was a tricky one so we went for a walk once it got light. I wanted to leave the house by 730 so we grabbed some food and then went back to get ready.
[tbc]
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. Paul was (and depending on what has happened since, still is) a friend of mine from secondary school that had, through an element of good fortune and sacrifice, managed to get a free flight from London to "Asia" - and he selected Japan so that he could visit me. I mean visit Japan and stay with me.↩
B. I am not sure that even he knew what trains he got but from Haneda to Koshigaya would require the monorail to the main JR network and probably two JR trains followed by the Tobu line. That is hard enough for a newcomer in the daytime but he managed this at night although he tells me that he was made to run a few times!↩
C. For some reason, this is quite a strong memory of mine - possibly due to still being a little woozy with the awe that I had that he made it. We went to Matsuya - a gyudon chain which I personally preferred to Yoshinoya. Looking back, it must have been a strange experience for Paul to find a chain restaurant open at 1am and the simple service and great food (for not much money) that we got. I have a memory of him putting a lot of pickled ginger on his gyudon and telling me how much he liked ginger. Another teacher also popped in (by chance) and so, I guess from Paul's perspective, I looked pretty settled. I might be wrong, but in hindsight, I think I did settle and find things more comfortable than I had when I went to other places in the UK, for example university in Southampton.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment