FREEDOMTIME, Art&Design OSAKA

This weekend was big fun, the old Kobe-Osaka 1-2 again. Lazed around Saturday morning, just finishing off a couple of tunes. Check my myspace page to hear them! No please. Really. Please. Late afternoon, went down to Kobe and met Trish. We walked over to Harborland and despite having been there loads of times I couldn't find Chinatown on the way... My sense of direction was proved to be a bit crap many times this weekend, even when assisted by by my mobile's GPS. Had dinner overlooking the bay. I've figured that Umeshu is my favourite drink in Japan, and as no doubt it's pretty hard to come by back home (although maybe I just never looked) I'm going to drink as much of it as I can before coming back. After, we headed over to Osaka for FREEDOMTIME! Woo! Unfortunately about 15 mins away from Umeda the train stopped for ages, and then it turned out there was a guy who had jumped in front of our train. So we were stopped for about an hour and a half as the cleanup guys were searching under the train, and the police wouldn't give the all clear. They shut down the lights in the train (to help the search guys or something) and it was a bit serious. When we got to Umeda, all trains in and out on the lines that used that section of track were delayed by over 70mins! If you know Japan's trains you know that's MADNESS.

Anyway, went to Osaka and FreedomTime. I've come to the conclusion that this monthly night is my favourite club night I've ever been to, and also one of my favourite things about Japan. Cool club under the JR rail tracks in Umeda, clued up unpretentious crowd, deeeeep jazz crossover with a house feeling spun by a DJ I've idolised since high school and always a fantastic guest who takes it more into their own particular style... (and you can drink Umeshu here.) I think this is the best music for clubbing. For listening I prefer a bit more on a broken tip, but you can lose yourself in the deep deep soulful funky jazzy beats that Yoshihiro Okino spins (and he is a master at sets, when it was time to leave we were like 'after the next track... okay the next one... okay the next one...'). Your more soulful or hiphop type is also fun, when you're out to meet people or just chill but not so much about getting really into the music, and DnB, while definately something you can get well into, is more sound therapy (or 'jumping around like a nutter'.) This strikes the perfect (jazz influenced) balance, you got your tough beats, latin percussions, jazz improvisations, deeeep bass, soulful vocals. Anyway this Freedomtime was Mark de Clive Lowe's Freesoul Sessions, all improvised (well, sometimes I think 'collection of ideas' is a better way to put it). It was the third time I've seen him do this, but today he was doing it with Lady Alma instead of Bembe, and it had a very different vibe. Bembe is more floaty, more off beat rhythms, but Lady Alma is on a more soulful, funky tip, and she has definately got the chops. So Mark de Clive Lowe did his building beats on the spot with his MPC and his Rhodes, Lady Alma vocalising (that should really be a word), then they did a few on the spot remixes of her tracks, Mark's remix of Yukihiro Fukutomi's "Peace", and his own housey cut on Especial Records, "Twilight". Towards the end of the night, they did a wicked version of MJ's "I can't help it" and then to finish up, a heavy extended version of "Hold It Down" similar to the Bugz rework with a rewind halfway through where MdCL took it even more broken bleepy. Lady Alma was LOVING it, the crowd all knew her tracks and were loving the improvisations, and I would imagine compared to the the crowds elsewhere who are either smaller or too cool to really get into things (London) it was refreshing. During Hold it Down, she jumped down into the crowd and danced around the floor still dropping vocals. I enjoyed this the most of any Freesoul I've seen, I think the beats get better every time, I guess as MdCL perfects the improv craft. Big big fun.

Sunday was about art and design type places in the wonderful city of Osaka. Started off in Umeda with breakfast at Cafe Bibliotheque, where they have art and design books up around the tables for you to browse, and a really funky little design bookshop with books from around the world.



Next headed to Osaka Photography Month 2007 "One Space with 150 Photographers" Exhibition. Small little gallery space in the Nikon centre, with work displayed from various amatuers, some really nice pics.


Headed over to Shinsaibashi. Hit the Modern Art Museum on the top floor of a building, where there was a poster exhibition (crazy name: 5 Star Designer's Banquet) of some fantastic designers from round the world.


Then hit a little place in Minami Horie called &'s . 2F is a very eclectic little shop, bit from round the world (bizzare and obscure goods from the 60s and 70s, shadow puppet books, classic calculators, obscure old magazines and for some reason loads of Peanuts goods.) I picked up a bilingual Peanuts book. The 3F is a tiny little gallery where there was the Oops! here I go again exhibition, a mix of paintings and photos, in little series on the wall and photobooks.



After lunch and a bit of a wander, headed down into Amemura, finally checked the record store called King Kong which has some nice bits, then to digmeout cafe, a cafe/art space. Their current theme is online art t-shirts store. The tees themselves are pretty nice, but it's the display more than anything else that's cool.



Osaka is definately the place.

Headed back to Umeda, went to the Sky Building where underneath, by chance they were having a Aloha Hawaiian Festival with groups in colourful costumes doing Hawaiian dancing. Not really my thing but still looked pretty cool. The wind was howlingly strong though, seemed pretty tough for them.



Went up to the Floating Garden Observatory (which is not floating, nor a garden, nor an observatory but 'rooftop viewing platform' doesn't have the same ring to it) just as the sun was setting. I love you Osaka. Even when I cheat on you with Kobe you don't mind.


EDIT: Check Mark de Clive Lowe's Blog about the Japan Tour! You can see me in the pic of Noon's crowd (and like Trish's arm I think, hehe) I'm in the centre 4 back in the grey flat cap. Woo!

Osaka Aquarium and Den Den Town

Headed down into Kobe this weekend to get a haircut, hoping for one like the barman in Fukuyama last weekend... instead it just looks like a number 3 all over. Oh well, it's okay. My friend Yuki recently started working at the Osaka Aquarium and so we decided to go this weekend as she can get us cheap tickets. Me, her and Alex met up in Kobe then headed over to the Tempozan area of Osaka Port where the Aquarium is. We ate some gyoza and bibinpa (if there's a greater meal out there I have yet to find it) in a cool downstairs area set out to be like Japan in the mid 60s with little backstreets and restaurants. Headed over to the aquarium. I've never been to an aquarium before (and apparently this is a really good one) and I was seriously blown away.



After Yuki pretended she was going to work so she could sneak in another entrance, we met up and went through an awesome corridor which was a tunnel under a tank, absolutely beautiful to see the creatures swimming all around you.

The aquarium is based around real areas in the world, Ring of Life and Ring of Fire or something, so each tank represents a place and has a mix of the creatures you'd really find there. I don't know much about that kind of thing, but this place was fascinating. My favourites were the Sea Otters, like a mix between bears and dogs who can swim really well. Very cute but didn't come out well in the pictures so none here.




Massive new whale shark (they're the largest living fish speccies), unfortunately the old one died recently. There were divers at the bottom of the tank seemingly cleaning, and as their air bubbles rose up to the top breaking up into fine bubbles, the massive manta ray was doing endless backflips in it, presumably it tickled or something.



Cute puffer fish. WEIRD ALIEN CRABS FROM SPACE.



Really interesting jellyfish type things.



These things were about the size of a table tennis ball.



After, Alex had to get back to Shinsaibashi sharpish, but me and Yuki checked the Dream of the 20th Century Modern Design Revisited on at the Tadao Ando designed Suntory Museum:



The exhibition was very cool, I was surprised by how much furniture and typography from the early to mid 20th century would still be contemporary today, but it was very small and we were kind of in a rush to get back to Shinsaibashi to meet up for dinner. Before we did, popped in to the Apple Store in Shinsai so Yuki could pick up a new MacBook, and I finally got to have a go on this:



It's ridiculously poor. Can't cue: after you get to the menu for the song, leave the pod for more than a few seconds and it goes back to the main menu, obviously can't beatmatch or anything like that, pod often takes a random length of time up to half a second or so to start once you do actually select the song, horrible.

Headed off to a mexican restaurant, El Pancho, for dinner with some friends. I've never really eaten much Mexican food and it was fun.
Headed out for Laurence's birthday (another Laurence, obviously) and we went to a couple of bars in Shinsaibashi. I think they ended up in the end in Club Pure, but for some reason few of us weren't in the mood and retired.


Next morning was all about leisurely exploring Osaka. I love wandering as the city wakes up, you see the dressed to impress kids from last night and girls from the seedy snack bars and foppy haired skinny suit guys stumbling back to the station, a few suits going to work, shopkeepers starting to open up, the city start to get bustling, nice feeling, like the city is yawning and stretching. Everybody else went off to play Ultimate Frisbee somewhere (they're quite into it) and the record shop I wanted to check, King Kong, was still closed, so I thought I'd engage my inner geek and wandered down to Den Den Town in Nipponbashi, which is the electronics/nerdy video game area of Osaka, similar to Akihabara in Tokyo (but less dissapointing, that was mainly tourists and shops with the vibe of Tottenham Court Road). From Shinsai you wander south through Namba til you get there. Was kinda fun going into shops which were playing 16 bit game soundtracks over the stereos, retro video games controllers hanging from the ceiling, pictures of scenes from old games up all over the shop. I've come to the conclusion I don't really like video games anymore (it's been years since I seriously got into one, just the odd one here and there these days) but I still like the ones I did when I was a kid, so places like this are fun. Checked Super Potato, Big Tiger and some others I forget. Picked up a kids DS game with furigana so I can understand it, though realistically I doubt I'll play it much. Played a Nintendo Virtual Boy for the first time ever and just ogled the nerdiness of it all. Fun. Also in DenDen Town, theres a large two storey shop dedicated JUST to gundam, a particular type of giant robot anime. I couldn't not have a wonder, and though I know nothing about it, the level of detail and obsession that exists for the fans is kinda fun: figures detailing the exact parts used to make the robot, flags for imaginary robot factions, stuff like that. Surprisingly, there were actually quite a few cute young couples in there seemingly sharing in their nerdy passion. Surprising is the wrong word, I thought it was sweet.



Had no rush to get back, so decided to walk all the way from Nipponbashi back to JR Osaka in Umeda, took about an hour and a bit in total. Through Namba back to Shinsaibashi, then just straight down the road for about 45 mins. We always take the tube from Shinsai (takes about 10 mins) but it was cool to see bits of the city I never had before, office areas, a shrine area, little shopping area, and some cool little sculptures ever block or so.



Dunno what the first one is about but love the robot Star Wars vibe of the second.



I love you Osaka. Come and live with me. (oh yeah and summer is definately on it's way - Yoshinoya has changed from serving hot tea to cold.)

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This week has been busy. It's exam week, but this time round I actually have lots to do. I've been helping make exams with the teachers for English I and II and by myself for Sogo Eigo. I'm really enjoying Sogo this term, I have complete free reign to make the lessons and it's been great. The teacher who officially I am assisting is retiring next year, and whilst he's a mild guy who wouldn't hurt a fly (nicknamed Hage-chan by the kids which means bald as it's similar to his name) he's sort of checked out in his mind already. He hangs around at the back of class and occasionally I ask him for a translation (his English is great, although he'll never use it - at the enkai before the student teacher left, she said she was surprised to hear him talking to me as she'd never heard him use English and wondered if he really could) but that's meant Sogo has been my baby this term.

Also starting this week I'm doing 4 elementary school visits. I can't speak for the whole of Japan, but at least round here, elementary schools are complete madhouses! But in a fun way. Today was the first visit. As soon as I went in to the school, some kids ran up and started shouting in Japanese. "SPEAK ENGLISH!" commanded one. "No, teach ME english!" said one who'd sat down and started dragging himself backwards across the floor as another kid threw his slipper down the corridor and chased after it. As I bent down to take off my shoes a small boy started patting my head while asking "are you an adult?" "Hello!" chimed in a girl in English. Everywhere you look, kids seem to be climbing on things, crawling across the floor, runnning like mad things around and about. The lesson about food went well, but if I was an elementary school JET I'd be KNACKERED. Returning to school, the baseball team who normally seem pretty lively seemed the most serious grown up gentlemen in comparison.

Fukuyama II - Rose's Bday and Onomichi

Headed back west to Fukuyama in Hiroshima prefecture over the weekend for Rose's birthday. On Friday, we ate at a cool little French restaurant in Fuk called 'Les Enfants Terribles'. Perfect example of how Japan absorbs ideas but keeps them Japan flavoured: the whole place is oozing French atmosphere, the 5 course dinner is very much French influenced, but then you still sit on the floor cross legged under a table less than a foot high, and eat all the food with chopsticks. Cool place.



Headed on to a little bar for her friend Jess' leaving do as she was leaving JET early and heading home to New Zealand, sad. I only met Jess a couple of times but she was lovely and her and Rose were close and everyone was a bit :o( .

Next day Trish and I headed to Onomichi, a little town on the inland sea a few stops away on the local train. I'm guessing it had more than a little to do with the company, but I really enjoyed this place. It has a sort of wistful feel to it, small areas are run down, others desperately wish they were touristy, the sun was out and we wandered down some rustic streets round and about. Chilled in a little cafe next to the water for a while before walking to take the ropecar thing up to a little peak where you get beautiful views of a number of the islands in the inland sea. The weather was great and we could see for a long way. Obligatory day out ice cream later, back to Fuk for Rose's bigger bday night, at a Beer Garden! Beer garden's are a great idea of Japan's, on top of a department store or something similar, open the roof up (or, er, cover it over for no reason in the case of this one) for an all you can drink and eat fun. Was really cool, then headed to some little club to listen to small city rock club music (and surreptitiously snap pictures of the barman whose hair I want mine to be cut like).



Sunday morning just chilled, me and Trish watched the Ghibli movie Nausicca which I've been wanting to for ages but never got round to, very cool. Later in the afternoon, met up with Rose and Hannah who were having a little picnic in Fukuyama Museum of Art grounds next to a cool red scultpure and kids practicing breakdancing to melodius funk from a small stereo. Chatted and said my goodbyes (nice to catch up with people from home home), then back to the old Osaka. Shit, time is going/has gone fast. Shit.



Oh yeah in that area, they have the Asahi group running some things, and I LOVE their logo, simple but brilliant.