AWAJI AWAJI AWAJI

Went to Awaji Island this weekend for a cooking sort of thing, it was called a 'Town Meeting', no idea why. Had to meet at a market first thing Friday morning and ended up feeling reeeaaallly rough cos Thursday night went out with a friend in Kobe and we ended up sleeping about 2 hours in an internet cafe. Incidentally, on the way down to Sannomiya (central Kobe) to meet I saw for the first time a particular Japan Stereotype: salaryman reading porn on the train like it was just a novel or something. The bar we went was fantastic, little faux european joint with all the belgian beers (stupidly expensive, way more than even central London prices, but sometimes I just don't bother converting the price in my head at the time if I know it will hurt, and the place was nice enough to warrant it), and what really sold it to me was they played Snowboy and the Latin Section's "Afro Cuban Jazz" album through in its entirety twice. Thats a massive album for me, I still have the cover of it up on my wall in Harrow. Koooobeeeeeeee.


So next morning we met at a market famous for its seafood and stuff like that, wandered round and ate some food at little stalls and had the sweeeeeetest lemon drink ever served by the oldest woman ever, then went off to Awaji over the longest suspension bridge in the world. I feel like I should mention that even if its not so interesting. It was a kind of group trip, on a coach, which I normally try to avoid unless it's a unique opportunity, which this was, and I really enjoyed it anyway so maybe I'll rethink about stuff like this.



We stopped to eat our bento (packed lunch... kinda but better) at this beautiful area. Everywhere in Japan seems to be 'famous' for something. Awaji, apparently, is famous for flowers and onions. This seemed to be the only place on the whole island that had flowers though, so maybe it's all A BIG SHAM.



So the place we where headed was right on the south coast of Awaji (you come across to the north when you come over from near Kobe) so it was a long drive with lots of opportunities to stop and see stuff. When we pulled into the next place, there were cows, and my heart sank (I thought this might be where we're staying... and I'm not so much down with the cows.) But it turned out it was just a 'famous' Awaji milk place, so we just wandered round for a while, were slightly bemused by the giant milk carton, tasted some milk and patted some cows (??).



So then we got to the south coast of Awaji where we were staying. The place in the second pic is where we were staying, like a big kind of centre where different groups could go for different reasons. It was really nice, cool artwork on the walls in one place, nice food, a BED (futons are cool and all but you cant beat a bed), and a beach 10 secs from the front gate. Oh and check the pic with the two guys right, there are two grown men doing a demonstration and drawing a diagram of how to FOLD SHEETS in our room. At one point another guy jumped up to help, so THREE PEOPLE were explaining very carefully how to fold sheets. Very strange.



There was a flag ceremony thing first night (no idea why) and all the various groups staying at the place lined up and a couple from each went to help get the Japanese flag down... including a couple in multicoloured gimp suits from a volleyball team who was there... I only had my mobile so the pics are on that, but I'll try and update tomorrow when I get a mini SD reader and can transfer pics off of my phone.

We also went and planted 'famous' Awaji Onions.... hard work. Like seriously, sweatng like a pig. In November.



Saw the bridge that leads to Shikoku (big island below little Awaji), it was so beautiful round that area, my pics don't really do it justice.



So the first day we had food lectures about Japanese food, there was an awesome Japanese chef running the show, really cool guy and so skillfull. We all cooked a few Japanese dishes (I gloss over this but it took ages and was the main thing) and then had a massive meal where we ate what we cooked and shared it around. We kind of ran late, so we had roaring fires going around the place to keep it warm, a strange but cool mix of classical and 70s japanese pop music on the stereo, and I gutted my first fish, which was kinda fun. Look at him right there.



Second day we all cooked dishes from our home country and had a massive meal. The music selection reaaaallllly added to the experience, it was different from the previous day, eclectic and weird but really fun. As we ate breakfast there was a bossa/lounge version of Moon River, then as we cooked there was stuff like the solo piano version of the love theme from Final Fantasy X, a classical music version of 'you raise me up', a female lounge version of 'what a wonderful world', a strings lounge version of 'tonight tonight' from West Side Story, the classical theme that played when Cookie Monster (as Alistair Cookie) introduced Monsterpiece Theatre in Sesame Street, and a track of Oscar Peterson's. So I'm not much of a foodie, I'd happily eat flaming hot monster munch and a picnic bar for dinner every day, but this meal was stunning. I think 3 types of korean food, vietnamese food, some south african style fish, polish salady thing, my indian curry (woo), british soup, american cheese steaks, oh man.




Came back Sunday and had to go back to Kobe on Monday to get my passport stamped so I can go India at Christmas. Went and changed my phone contract to use more internet as I realised my phone has this AMAZING feature: if you take a picture of something and tell it to add GPS data to the picture, then when you're browsing the pictures in the album, you can just say 'take me to this place' and it'll give you a satnav map (except with a little man icon instead of a car if you say you're walking) and give you the route there, updating as you walk. So cool. Went down to harborland in the evening and it looks really nice at night, I'll put the pics up tomorrow when I get them off my mobile. I'm loving Kobe, really chilled city. In a cool cafe my friend knew about heard Lee Konitz' version of Favela and a string jazz version of Someday My Prince Will Come. Japan always hits me with music I love (or some lounge which I dont love but find strangely soothing here) wherever I seem to go.

Speaking of music, if all goes to plan this Friday I'll be seeing Soil and Pimp Sessions in Osaka. Woo! And in two weeks Jazztronik live in Kyoto. Woo! And next month, check this out right, in Tokyo, TOKYO JAZZ/CROSSOVER FESTIVAL 2006 that I am going to go to. Just look at the lineup (only included the ones I really love)

LIVE:
Koop
Sleep Walker ft. Bembe Segue and Yukimi Nagano
Kyoto Jazz Massive ft. Vanessa Freeman and Tasita D'mour
Mark de Clive Lowe
Cro Magnon
Frank McComb

DJs
Jurgen von Knoblauch from JAZZANOVA
Shuya Okino from KYOTO JAZZ MASSIVE
Ryota Nozaki who is JAZZTRONIK
Yukihiro Fukutomi
Karma (on COMPOST records)
DJ Kawasaki (ESPECIAL records)
Shacho (from SOIL AND PIMP SESSIONS)
Masaya Fantasista (from JAZZY SPORT crew)
Piranhahead ft. Diviniti

Music things are looking GOOD. In fact most things are looking GOOD. Except my Japanese level...