Officially a member of KETE

This is gonna be a reeeeeally short post, but I just wanted to announce that I am now officially a member of the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble!! You have to be invited to be a part of Sensei's performing group by Sensei himself, and he'll only ask you if he thinks you're a capable player. Anyway, last week Sensei invited myself, Kelsey, and Yoko to become official members of his performing ensemble, an invitation we gladly accepted. So now I'm officially a part of Sensei's group! Quite an honor! Looks like my taiko career is off to a good start!

HLC 2

So not long after my first visitor (in fact, the day my first visitor left), I had my second visitor to Hawaii...also from Japan, and also from the ALC program.

So Chika left on Monday last week, and my friend Yujiro arrived on...well...Monday. So, HLC 2 began right where HLC 1 ended, but this time with more participants because Yujiro was here with his college ceramics club. Unfortunately, I didn't have as much time to spend with my HLC participants because I had to go to work during the week and Yujiro left on Friday morning (5 am in the morning). But we did get together twice, once on Monday evening and again on Thursday, which I actually have off every week. I was able to go meet him down in Waikiki that afternoon and spend some time at the beach and along paradise.

me and Yujiro in Waikiki

Waikiki is only a 30 minute walk from my house, and an even shorter drive (about 10 minutes). It's really a whole different world down there. For one, there are a lot of Japanese...A LOT of Japanese in Waikiki. So much so that there are signs everywhere in Japanese, Japanese ads, and every person that works in every store speaks Japanese. It almost feels like being in Japan...except the pace of life is a lot slower and it's not quite as crowded (by Japanese standards). Waikiki is filled with vacationers, honeymooners, and fun-seekers, so the area has nothing but things aimed toward tourism and the people staying at the huge number of hotels along Waikiki beach. So, in way, it feels kinda like Las Vegas...but a tame (and much cleaner) Las Vegas. There are plenty of bars and clubs in the area, and all of the stores from DFS to Gucci, to Prada, and Armani are present in full force to get the tourists (mainly the Japanese ones) to spend their money. Something is going on basically every night because everyone there is on vacation, and as you'd expect in a tourist-filled area, prices are high and often unreasonable compared to other places on the island. Waikiki isn't really a place for "locals" to go, as you can probably imagine- just like the Strip in Las Vegas isn't exactly where Las Vegasians(?) go all the time either (I actually found that out from a friend who grew up in Vegas).

Yujiro's friend trying to look like a tourist...I think he succeeded quite well

But...given my in-between status of a local (because I live here) and a non-local (because I grew up on the mainland), I hung out in Waikiki with Yujiro. While there are better beaches and more beautiful places in Hawaii, to say that Waikiki isn't beautiful and isn't itself paradise is a far cry from the truth. Being that Waikiki is on the "low" end of the beach tier in Hawaii really just goes to show you how high the bar is set over here and how many awesome beaches they have. So, on my Thursday visit to Waikiki, I met Yujiro on the Japanese-tourist-filled Waikiki Beach and then went to Dukes, a bar and grill along Waikiki Beach, for lunch.

Relaxing at Duke's

I think Yujiro's enjoying paradise

It was great to relax in the semi-outdoor restaurant (it's covered but 3 sides of the restaurant don't have any walls) and sip on a nice (but pretty pricey) tropical drink. I really could feel a much slower pace of life as I sat there, and although I live here, it felt like I was on vacation. And while I sat there talking story with Yujiro, drinking my tropical goodness, and nibbling at a tuna melt sandwich, it suddenly hit me....I live in Hawaii. This is Hawaii. I live next to a vacation. And I began to realize how awesome that is- a 30 minute walk to a vacation. ...I'm not sure how much better it gets than that.

You could be drinking one of these too

Yujiro looking pretty pimp with my sunglasses and tropical drink in hand

But of course (and not to make you jealous) it does get better than Waikiki, and Hawaii has some pretty amazing things to see here. In fact, amazing things to see are quite the norm here, which in itself is pretty incredible. But to find out what those amazing things are, I'll have to leave you hanging until my next post. For now, I'll give you a hint...the North Shore.




P.S. Thank you to all of my HLC participants! It was awesome hanging out with you! I hope I get to see you again (either in Hawaii or in your own home country). For all you other prospective HLC participants, it's not too late to join. We have a rolling admission policy. =P

My First Visitor

So, I had my very first visitor about a week ago!! And...she's not from the US...but from Japan!!! Yes folks, my first visitor was someone from a different country entirely! So in the spirit of the program I worked on this summer (American Language and Culture...or ALC for short) and met her in, I decided to dub her visit part of the HLC (Hawaiian Language and Culture) program. =P

Me and Chika at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani (where she was staying)

As I mentioned above, I met my friend (her name is Chika) in the ALC program mentioned above. The ALC program is a culture and language exchange program that takes place on Stanford campus as part of the VIA (Volunteers in Asia) organization . Over 70 students from Taiwan and Japan are invited to participate in each ALC session (there are 2 sessions) for the month of August, where they live in the Stanford dorms, take English classes on Stanford campus, and go on field trips and participate in other events planned by the 8 Stanford hosts. I could go on and on about how awesome this program is, but that's an aside that isn't completely related to my topic- my visitor.

I gave the above aside to give you an idea of what I wanted to try and do for "HLC" during my friend's visit. Basically, I wanted to show my friend a good time in Hawaii minus the English classes (not to say that English classes aren't a good time). I was able to borrow a car for the weekend from a very generous friend, and thus was able to show Chika and her friend, Niyou, a tour of an island that I didn't really know myself. =P Not having a way to really get around ever since arriving here meant that I didn't really know what was in Hawaii other than the supermarket across the street from my house and the chapel where we practice in at Kapiolani Community College...neither of which make for a very exciting tour. Additionally, the only places I've been to outside of these places are the office I work at and various schools around the island- which also don't constitute an interesting tour.

So...after consulting my tourist guide to Hawaii, Google Maps, and the knowledge of my Hawaiian friends at Stanford, i was able to determine a suitable tour to the beautiful Hanauma Bay followed by lunch at Boots and Kimo's (strange name, I know), a great brunch place known for their Macadamia Nut, Banana Pancakes with Coconut Syrup. Mmmmmmm...

So at 9:30 am, I picked my friends up from their hotel and gave them each a lei to officially welcome them to the Aloha state. We then proceeded toward Hanauma Bay, a bay (duh) on the east side of the island that is a famous spot for snorkeling and seeing all manner of tropical fish. The bay was beautiful, with crystal clear water and a nice walk down from the cliffs above to the sandy (but also tourist-filled) beach below. We unfortunately didn't have a whole lot of time to spend there, so we didn't rent snorkel gear and instead watched fish from the shore (which was vaguely successful) and skipped rocks in the ocean. Overall a good time.

Beautiful Hanauma Bay

Yep...

Like I said, lots of tourists

Chika with her friend Niyou...who is wearing MY sunglasses. =P

Chika posing with the rock she is about to attempt to skip

In the motion of skipping a rock

Not sure why I look so angry in this picture

Ah...

and "ah..." again

Next leg of the trip, a nice drive up the Eastern shore of Oahu, passing more beaches, rocky cliffs, and...underwater caves! Yes folks, underwater caves. Of course...because the caves are underwater...you can't actually see them, but...the underwater caves on the rocky shore do have something exciting which I'll explain. The waves the pound the rocks on the side of the island gradually make underwater caves that keep eroding inside the rock from the force of water being pushed through them, until eventually the force makes a hole on the top of the rock. The result, is a geyser that juts out streams of water whenever a substantial wave hits the shore and forces water into the cave and out of the hole above. Its a neat site to see and was definitely attracting quite a few tourists at the spot we were at.

It's like Old Faithful...just not quite as faithful

The destination of our scenic drive was Kailua, a small town (all towns outside of Honolulu are small) that is home to the awesome breakfast place known as Boots and Kimo's. But, it was closed. Closed despite the sign outside the door saying, "Open till 2:30 pm." "We closed early for equipment maintenance," said the guy who was moving the waiting benches inside and cleaning up the tables when I asked him why they were closed. The worst part was that they were closing early for just THAT day. They were open till 2:30 the next day and even the following Saturday.

Although we didn't get to have the much-hyped macadamia nut, banana pancakes with coconut syrup (just writing that makes me hungry), I wasn't gonna let that ruin our empty-stomachs. So, we drove across Pali Highway through the jungle-filled mountains (also scenic) back into Honolulu and went to a great and famous Ramen shop called Gomaichi. This ramen store specializes in Tan Tan Mien, which is a soup base made with Japanese sesame seeds. My friends enjoyed the salty goodness, which we followed up with a trip to Cold Stone Creamery across the street. :)

Mmmm...Ramen

It was definitely great to see an old friend from Japan, and even nicer to know that the friends I made during the ALC program are really life-long friends that I'll continue to be in contact with and get together with when I'm eventually living in Japan. For all you mainland folks, you could be in these pictures on a beautiful beach somewhere making all of your friends jealous too. Make your reservations and apply to HLC today!

This could be you in this picture

A Brief Post But...

So I realized that I've been pretty lazy about posting updates lately, and that's not to say that nothing exciting has been happening in the past two weeks...in fact, I've had quite a few exciting things happen, and I've been so busy with these other things that I just haven't had a chance to post any updates about them.

So, just to give you a preview of things to come we have (pretend this in the movie trailer voice) a trip to the beautiful Hanauma Bay, Adam's first visitors, a trip to the North Shore filled with sea turtle sightings and garlic shrimp, and... the much-anticipated, long-awaited Big Island tour. Of course these stories will be accompanied by more pictures and plenty of witty and hilarious commentary for your enjoyment. =P

Stay tuned folks...

Working Woes

Ah...work. Making money to spend it on other goods and services to fuel the economy- The ultimate goal of every responsible person in modern society. It is the culmination of years and money spent on pre-education, education, higher education, and everything in-between. It is the crowning achievement of our work through the days of our youth, and it is what the majority of our lives will be spent doing. Ah...work.

...but if my current job is the culmination of my Stanford years and my $180,000 education, then shoot me now. Unfortunately, because I'm just starting my taiko career...it's not quite off the ground yet. In fact...it's far from that. I'm not really getting paid yet for what I do, so I actually have to have a "real" job on the side to support myself until taiko can be my means of living. And that real job is quite a source of anxiety in my life.

I'm currently working at a law office in downtown Honolulu, and I thank Yoko (not sarcastically) for getting me this job (she works there too). The three lawyers that work in the office are all young and (for the most part) friendly, and the work itself isn't hard...it's just mundane. It's boring. It's repetitive. It's tedious. There are lot of things I have to remember (and I'm always forgetting) with every task I'm given. Copies need to be made and then initialed by the lawyers, and then copied again for filing. But only certain copies get the stamp that says, "file copy", and not all files get hole-punched to be filed away. Some copies get sent out and some copies get scanned and emailed. And for all the copies I make, I need to put in the times at which I made the copies for record-keeping. But when I stamp, email, send, fax, or file the wrong copy, I ruin the whole system. I'm sure you're having a ball just reading about all of these copies.

Work does consist of a lot of copying, but I also answer the phone and deal with crazy people (I work for divorce lawyers) that have such messed up problems that they really ought to be looking into the services of someone other than a lawyer. Ah yes...work.

So...in word, work kinda...sucks. But it is paying the bills, and to be honest, it has given me such an increased appreciation for taiko and for the pursuit of my non-conventional, currently-non-paying job. Perhaps some people like filing, making copies, and dealing with crazy people, but it's not for me- enlightening me more to how important it is to find a job you love. Do something you love, because having a job you truly enjoy makes for an enjoyable life. Work is, afterall, what we do for most of our adult lives. Why spend most of your life doing something you don't enjoy?

Impulse Buy

So in my last post, I mentioned a workshop with the principle fue player of Kodo, Kaoru Watanabe. Now, I mentioned him, my workshop with him, and my interest in buying a fue. However, what I failed to mention was that he was also selling fue from a very good fue maker in Japan...

Now before I go any further, I know that you may be asking yourself, "What is a fue?" And that's a good question. A fue, is a Japanese bamboo flute, which is actually known as a shinobue (I believe "fue" is an abbreviation). The shinobue comes in a variety of sizes, each with a number on it. The higher the number, the higher the pitch. The most commonly used shinobues with taiko are sizes 6 and 8. The 8 happens to be in a C major scale, while the 6 is a whole step below that. Each number is actually a half step difference between the shinobue's with the next incremental and decremental numbers. Now, I may sound like I know what I'm talking about with all of this music talk, but I honestly don't really know much about notes, scales, and all that jazz. (no pun intended)

So...back to my story. Because I wanted to learn how to play the shinobue, or fue, I was completely set on purchasing one from Kaoru. However, the fue he had for sale were not cheap. The cheapest was $140, and they went up pretty high in price. Now, most fue that you find in Japan range between $50 and $100, so the "cheap" fue that Kaoru had were still great instruments. But of course, I wanted better. I was actually originally set on purchasing the $140 fue, but after hearing the difference between the $140 fue and the next level up, it was hard to justify the purchase of the cheaper fue. Additionally, I wanted to have a really good fue so that I wouldn't have to buy one in the future. I wanted one good one that would last me (hopefully) forever.

So, I went for the gusto.

After a lot of talking, trying out the different fue, and blowing the only two notes I could make into every size 6 fue he had, I subtracted $300 from my checking account, and I now have a very expensive piece of bamboo with holes in it sitting on my bed. =P Impulse buy indeed.

Now I really have NO excuse not to learn how to play the fue. I have a really nice one, and I also have a limping bank account. Indeed, it's time to practice.

Note: For those of you who I informed of my possible visit to Stanford for the Kenny Endo concert on the last weekend of February, that won't be happening now because the money that would've been used for the flight ($300) went to the purchase of this instrument instead. Sorry about that. And no, I did not choose a piece of bamboo over you. =P

Big Island Tour Update Coming Soon

So it's been awhile since my last post, and that is largely because I wasn't around for 5 days. In fact, I was quite far from any sort of internet access because I was on the Big Island of Hawaii (which is named, Hawaii). I was there not for vacation, but for a 5-day performance tour, which had a whooping 9 performances and 4 workshops on two sides of the island packed into a very short time. It was tiring, but fun at the same. I started writing my epic post describing my tour, and I reeeeally wanted to have that posted before any other post to keep things in Chronological order, but I realized that the amount of time it's going to take me to finish that post would just mean that you guys won't have anything to read for quite awhile. =P So, I caved in, and decided that I'll have smaller postings while I work on the big one, and just put that up when it's done.

So, things are getting busier over here. And it's actually not for taiko (unfortunately), it's with work. Yes, I finally have a real job of sorts, and I just started three days ago. I'm working at a law office, and it's in fact the same place that Yoko works at. I work part time (just three days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday), and I honestly I couldn't take much more than that. My work consists of such enjoyable pleasures as filing, answering phone calls, making copies, shredding documents, and mailing documents. Joy. The saddest part is that I began contemplating to myself on the FIRST day how much of this sort of work I could stand before just totally losing it. Honestly, after having experienced this great taiko lifestyle for the past month (where I had no real job, and thus also no real income =P ) it's harder to entire the "normal" world. Especially doing this kind of work.

Despite the work being...well...(to put it bluntly) not fun, the three lawyers in the office (my bosses) are all really cool. They're all pretty young (probably in their mid thirties), and they're also really chill. They're relaxed about work, and even about showing up to work. They're very accommodating to my crazy taiko schedule and all of the performances I have, which is a real plus. They also buy me lunch sometimes too! =P

As far as taiko things are concerned. Taiko has actually been quite relaxed this week. We have two performances on the weekend (one being for the Pro Bowl), and Sensei has a concert on Friday with guests from Japan. I'll be helping out with the concert, which promises to be pretty awesome. It's being held at a small venue called the rRed Elephant (yes it has two r's in it), which seats about 150 people or so.

Flyer I designed for the concert

I actually had a fue (bamboo flute) workshop with one of the artists who will be playing in the concert on Friday, Kaoru Watanabe. Now, if you know me, I can't play a flute of any kind to save my life. However, I really want to learn, and since he was offering lessons for any skill level, I thought I'd give it a shot. So, I had my first lesson, and I was actually able to make sounds out of the instrument (definitely better than any of my previous attempts).

I had to sit seiza (the uncomfortable way of sitting where your knees are touching the floor and the lower part of your legs are under your thighs) during the whole lesson, and my legs not only fell asleep, but actually lost motor control and all nerve sensations because they had absolutely no blood in them. =P In fact, I could not physically move my left foot for several minutes after the lesson.

I learned that there are a lot of nuances to playing the fue in my lesson (including how to sit seiza for a long time), and although I'm terrible at it, and I've never done it before, I'm excited to learn and try it. In fact, I'll be purchasing a fue from Kaoru (a very nice one) so that I can practice on my own and really get proficient with the instrument. It's a way of putting myself in a position where I'm certainly not the strongest, and I'm willingly embracing that challenge- a challenge that will make me a better taiko player and a better musician.