Japan 7.-18.3.08

I don't know where to begin... This was my first visit to the land of the rising sun and it was absolutely pleasant over all! We performed with Mnemopark in Kawasaki and Tokyo. I always had the idea that Japan is well organized and efficient society, but the truth of it managed nonetheless surprise me. It has never been so easy! And big thanks for this goes to the very professional and nice staff of Tokyo International Arts Festival.

Very first glimpse of Tokyo on the day of our arrival.

Surroundings in Japan were very comfortable and even the weather was our friend most of the time. The spring was just arriving and plum-trees starting to bloom. For cherry-trees we were couple of weeks early, but the blossoms were very pretty anyway.

Plum or cherry, who cares, pretty!!

Kawasaki in the setting sun.

But there was some hardships to confront also. During the transport from Germany to Japan, one of our cases had collapsed with quite earthshaking results in the scale of 1:87. Some modules were almost completely squeezed flat. Such a tragedy, since building those things contains hundreds of hours of work and enormous amount of love and passion. Luckily it was possible to somewhat patch things up with glue. Insurance claim follows...

Sad sight.

Performing in Japan was curious experience also language-ways. It's rare in Europe that you work in a community of which language you don't understand one word. And working in Japan went smoothly despite the occasional lack of words, no question about that, but it's just amusing and amazing to see how the familiar stuff translates to Japanese kanjus. I took loads of picture of the show just because of the cool subtitling.

Familiar stuff with a new approach.

I really appreciated and liked working in Japan. Locals took such a good care of us, even after working hours. I met some really cool persons and I'm really hoping for a chance to see them again in the future. My translator, Sonoko, was more than worth her weight in gold, also because of all the additional information she told me about the society and ways of living in Japan. I really wish we can to the Ghibli Museum the next time I get to go to Tokyo!!

I feel also privileged having had the chance to meet the head lighting technician, Makiko, who is very clever person with very efficient ways of solving all the problems that might show up. I can warmly recommend her and all the crew from Factor company that were helping us out!

Sonoko, me and Makiko.

Me and the Factor crew and the Alps.

There was some time for leisure activities also, especially in latter part of our stay, in Tokyo. Locals took us to some very nice restaurants to sample some Japanese specialities,of which I was more than happy about, since I just absolutely love Japanese kitchen.

Maria in Fry-it-yourself restaurant in Kawasaki.

Not all the food loooked so yummy,

but taste was good anyhow. This is a fish roe omelet =)

We also visited some of Tokyo's landmarks. The truth is though, that tokyo is so huge place that we only got a little sample of all it could offer. -Like our director Stefan put it - Tokyo in a scale of 1:87. Below collection of pic's of that.

Room with a view:

Sight from our 32th floor hotel room

in Sunshine City Prince Hotel.

Big spider sculpture at Roppongi Hills.

Streetscape in Ikebukuro district.

As the photo says, Sunshine City, Ikebukuro.

Harajuku in the morning.

Hellooooooooooo Kitty in Kiddyland toystore!

Some pop fashion in Harajuku.

We also tried the very Japanese thing, karaoke, of course. Our translators took us to this place called "Little Tokyo", where you can rent a booth for couple of hours. In this room you have wholly digitalized karaoke-system and you can order food and drinks too. In this way Japanese way of doing karaoke differs from Finnish one, which is quite familiar to me. In Finland you can only do karaoke publicly in pubs or bars, where everybody hears your best effort. In Japan you can sing your heart out in bit more private way, only your friends hear you.

Rahel and translator Maki's duet.

- Maki speaks fluent Swiss German, by the way =) =)

All in all, I would love to go back to Japan anytime, no question about that! Next time I will try to catch the cherry blossoms and Ghibli among other things. There is so much cool and also peculiar stuff to explore, that one could easily spend two years instead of two weeks in there.

Otskame sama desta all my new friends!

Last but not the least: one of the peculiarities....

(click to enlarge)