Wednesday, December 13, 2006
konbanwa... i'm back from beautiful nagoya and i'm glad to say that i've enjoyed myself thoroughly there. for the experience and enjoyment i've had there, i give this whole trip a rating of 90%. 10% for the lack of time given to us for shopping and interacting with the japanese... sigh. i want to see my japanese frens again. i'm suffering from the "miss jap frens" syndrome. =) i dun know where to start. seriously... my mind is like a complete whirlpool of feelings. i'm missing all of them already, even though it has only been less than a three days since i last saw them. sigh... i constantly reminisce the good times we had with them. at least i know i didn't waste this chance of getting to meet up with them again... thanks benny for the advice! the day of departure... sally, christine, zukai & benjamin sent me off. so sweet of them. had swensen's with them before i left. the alumni all came to see us off too... fuquan, benny, weekiat etc.  thanks for sending me off...  walking around in the airport. the flight to nagoya was rather uncomfortable... i couldn't get to sleep at all. somehow, a lot of people managed to go to sleep except me and kangzhuang. even donovan was sound asleep. i was sitting with donovan and kangzhuang... and we watched step up on the plane. atmosphere was so-so... reached the nagoya airport only to be hit my the cold. brrrrr... kajiyama sensei was at the airport with tour guide kiko to receive us. :) we were whizzed off to the ryokan meiryu where we deposited our bags and went to aichi meiden. freaking nice school. and yes, we met our friends there. haha... i miss keisuke and yusuke! and yuka was still that enthusiatic as ever. they gave us a grand arrival with their famous opening deep purple medley. it just brought back memories. then we got a tour of their new school campus. we also went to a buddhist temple where we spent our time taking pictures. haha...   motion pictures... lol! the next few days consisted of practice at aichi meiden... and continuous camera whoring. =) val's camera kept giving me problems cos of the battery... but after that it was fine. and i'm rather upset over the dismal picture quality. about 90/135 pictures were very blur. but the other clarinetists, along with fabian, xuanwei and kangzhuang managed to capture memories of the trip. concert was so-so i think... at least i didn't screw up my bass clarinet solos. =) noah's ark somehow didn't go according to ms sia's expectations. the plus point was that warabe uta and orient express went well. and i managed to meet up with the other three bass clarinetists from tkgs. kudos to pirates of the caribbean... bass clarinetists were good i must say. thank you thank you.  clarinetists in japan. ohayo gozaimasu! we then went to yusuke's house for our homestay, detouring to the ryokan to collect ties for the performance the next day. the meiden high school band alumni dropped us off at our ryokan. :) the hospitality of yusuke's family was overwhelming... they were so friendly and caring. we received a warm welcome to an extent of a sumptious dinner of sushi. mr and mrs yamaguchi somehow became our second parents, attending to all our needs. and yusuke's siblings were also very excited to have us over. taisuke and rikarko... :) they're all still in my heart. love them to bits! which reminds me... today is rikarko's birthday! Happy Birthday Rikarko!  rikarko & me.  taisuke & me.  the yamaguchi family & us. osewani narimashita!!! we caught a glimpse of the japan band competition video where the meiden band formed formations like that of tk band. cool sae! ryoma was the drum major! kudos kudos! yusuke's room was rather big, able to fit in bryan and me. and we stayed up scandaling ayano and toru. somehow, noriko also got scandaled to be with hiroki! =P the next morning was a blur... i woke up to find yusuke & bryan staring at me cos i overslept. we had to be at aichi meiden cos we were to go to the nagashima spaland to perform. mrs yamaguchi sent us all to school... arigato guzaimasu. i seriously didn't want to go to meiden in a train. =P freaking cold. we were allowed some free time to visit the amusement park but a pity i didn't sit rides like the white cyclone & steel dragon. i really wanted to but jingjing, shiyi, bryan & candice all didn't dare. furthermore, there wasn't enough time with so many people queuing up. in the end, we just took kiddy rides like cork screw where the roller coaster went through two loops. not very high... =( as we were late to report, we had to run a lot from the middle of the amusement park to our performance area. a lot of people were sitting around waiting for us to perform. they especially liked christmas festival cos it was played twice. once again, i didn't really screw up the bass clarinet solos. =) haha... and since there weren't any bassonists (stupid pangyu and jeremy refused to go), i had to play the important parts of pirates of the caribbean alone. =P many parts which either had dynamics of p or f were played as fff. after that it was pure shopping. i bought a nice blue adidas cap and i found out that it couldn't fit my huge head. so now i'm thinking of giving it to adrian. see how lah... i also got a pair of adidas shoes. love my purchases!  us at nagashima spaland.  ryoma & i at nagashima spaland.  jensen & i. the last day in nagoya was spent shopping and sight-seeing. went to the nagoya castle.  replica of a tower.  real tower of the nagoya castle.  my room mates and i at the nagoya castle.  mjc peeps at nagoya castle. i bought a new nike bag at the shopping centre for 6000yen. i also bought a lot of chocolates which eventually resulted in me hand-carrying a whole bag of goodies which i bought. arrrggg... i just want to go back to nagoya for more shopping! we then had about an hour to interact with the aichi meiden band members... despite the short time, we managed to take some pictures. however, due to kwek shiyi's shaky hands, a lot of my pictures were ruined by here. pissed me off...  yuka, chihiro & i.  ayano & i.  ayano (sax) & i.  toru & i. p.s. sorry shuuji, didn't have time to take a picture with akemi. =( dinner was catered for the days in nagoya by kajiyama sensei & ito sensei. they sponsored our dinners which were not very cheap. we had our dinner at good japanese & italian restaurants. arigato guzaimasu! i feel so indebted to them for all the help given to us that i bought for them a table cloth and hand towel. thank you mr kajiyama & mr ito.  sponsored dinner by ito sensei & kajiyama sensei. other than that... the pictures will tell you what we spent our time doing.  us with people from the horn section... in bath robes.  my insane room mates & i, relaxing after a long day's music.  strolling around nagoya looking for trouble... =P (bryan looks like a thief!)  the train station near to the ryokan, where we always go.  chelsea & bryan shopping... =)  the innkeeper & i.  our tour-guide kiko...  my dearest insane seniors and godbrothers. p.s. i look ugly in a lot of pictures... sad huh? enjoy the pics. manddaw
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