Japan 2011
After a long 8 hours and 30 minutes flight, I say long because I didn’t have a movie machine so I had to sleep and I hate sleeping in the plane, woke up with a super sore neck and nothing I could do about it.
After making sure that our required cards were filled properly we headed into the entry area Mio went to the Japanese area and I went to the Foreigner designated area and lined up to wait for the entry inspector to take my finger prints and a photo as they do here in Japan.
My turn soon came up and there I was getting finger printed electronically and being photographed, then the most annoying thing happened the inspector asked me if I knew where I was staying and I pointed to the address on the entry card and he said “Hotel” – “name Hotel” I said I don’t know so I told him I had arrived with my wife and she had already gone through and was waiting for me.
The inspector stuck his head out the back door and proceeded to scream Mio’s name “TAKAGI MIO – TAKAGI MIO” about 4 times and Mio was nowhere to be found, the Inspector asked me to wait aside and I thought that he was going to get someone or was he himself going to look for Mio. I was sooo wrong, he proceeded to look after the other passengers and a brand new line of foreigners had just arrived so I was destined to wait for at least another half hour unless there was another lot of foreigners’ arriving.
Suddenly Mio appeared with a very worried look on her face, so I told her what was happening and another Inspector had already realised what was happening and as he finished dealing with a Japanese passenger he called me over, we went through the formalities and he simply asked “your wife”? I said yes “ he then said “Sumimasen” my apologies other inspector not very smart” hahahaha I had to laugh anyway I asked Mio where she had gone so she said “I went to get our bags while you went through clearance and a woman came to me and said “Your husband is trapped” so I came running” but you had to have been there to see the funny side of it all.
Finally we collected our bags and out we went got a taxi and got to our hotel in Tokyo and it was so nice and big and comfy and we got our first night rest in Tokyo.
The next day Mio and I got out and just walked it was so bloody cold, we went to the family restaurant just up the road and had a nice meal as usual it was very inexpensive, from then on about all we did was go out and visit the same places we had seen with the guys last year and we caught up with our friend Bronwyn (The washing Machine) and had a fabulous time with her and her friend Wendy.
On Wednesday the 2nd of March we had a Salsa workshop and Performance and it was really good show and a great night of dancing and also on Friday 4th of March we had a Zouk performances and workshops both nights were held at “The Cuban Cafe” in Tsukiji. We met Rohini the lady that usually organises the gigs at the Café, Hiro and Uri and a few others that we had met at the Tokyo ”Intimate Latin Cabaret” show were there so it was nice spending time with people that we had already met. The pictures were great and you can see the fun people were having both socially dancing and at the workshops.
On the 6th of March in the morning we left for Kyoto since we had our first Zouk course starting at Rumbita on the 7th of march and on the 8th of March we had the classes at the Spanish Harlem were we did the 2010 Intimate Latin Cabaret tour show. Again we had such a great time catching up with the people that already knew us from past years performances and workshops and we just danced and relaxed and had a couple of drinks which was a change since we don’t have alcohol at our studio in Brisbane.
We left directly from the “The Spanish Harlem Latin Club” back to the Hotel to collect our bags since they were so nice to keep our bags for us not to have to carry them all over Kyoto and from the Hotel we went to Osaka and stayed at the same hotel as the whole cast did last year, it really felt like Mio and I were retracing our steps from the year before so it was relay hard not to think about everyone back in Brisbane.
Now all we had to do was to find things to do and make sure to spend a lot of money while we organised ourselves to find an apartment in Osaka. We already had organised appointments from Australia so we had to wait for the days in which they were organises and when we went to the first one it was a little difficult and the apartment that we saw was not really to our standards, on the 11th of March we went and had a look at a really nice apartment in “JUSO” and we decided to take it so all the paper work was organised and we then had to wait for the owners approval so that we could move in, we then decided to go to the largest shopping mall I have seen in my life “Shinsaibashi” and at about 11am or so while Mio was paying for a pair of really nice jeans I got a little dizzy and I couldn’t tell why, there was totally no reason for it and was feeling absolutely fine.
Later that day we figured out why, on the news we could see what appeared to be yet another scenario like in a movie except that it was the real Tsunami destroying everything on its path it had been caused by a very large earth quake out at sea not far from Sendai (the wave of the quake had been felt all over Japan), the very town that got severely hit by the Tsunami, it was just so amazing, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the TV so mesmerizing and at the same time so deeply saddening and devastating. Nothing anyone could do and those that tried to runaway did not get very far so much destruction and human loss, how do you explain such horror and pain without being emotionally affected by it and yet life has to continue and you have to move on because the best way to deal with destruction is by reconstruction so we cannot let our lives be stopped from the daily things that have to be done.
We are not in the middle of a devastated area and are not suffering the effects of the Tsunami so we MUST no matter what get on with our lives and by doing so help those that are down to also pick themselves up and carry on, I thought that witnessing the obliteration of the Exchange Towers in New York was ugly and any event were human life is taken is horrible but in my eyes this one had such an impact on me and more than 20000 lives have been lost either by death or just unaccounted for, so sad.
Mio and I moved in to our apartment on the 13th of March it also happens to be “Juso Day”, it is the day when you get 10% discount of any shop for anything you want to buy at the “Juso Mall” and it is not that small either about 7 or 8 blocks long, so we bought our electrical goods such as Fridge, Rice cooker, Surround sound system, gas Cooker (Stove) since we didn’t have one in the apartment and had to buy one so we could cook and we bought our Japanese style bed, yeah on the ground and it is so nice to sleep on and very easy to make and put away every morning hahahaha, roll and throw in the built in.
We have been teaching in Kyoto for about 5 weeks now and our students true to the Vida Latina style of teaching have progressed in leaps and bounds and they are only beginners, just wait until they get to intermediate level, we also started teaching in Umeda/Osaka and again it is a slow build up of students. New place new challenges so we must forge ahead and make it grow and grow it will just like it will when we start teaching in Kobe our next targeted city about 35 minutes from Juso via train.
So keep reading up on the few (lots of) notes that I make as we spend our time developing Kansai Zouk in Japan. Until next time take care love from Lenny and Mio
