not quite with it...

I should REALLY be packing for Sapporo, but hmm I'm just too good at this procrastination lark! I've been introduced to a website (thanks Spec!) to work out running distances- this is no where near accurate, not even on the roads, but check out one route i try to do, see how close I am to the Pacific ocean. You can zoom in and out to see where exactly I live in ze world.

I've just had my taiko 'debut' but actually it wasn't on the drums in fact but 'kane' - small cymbal type thing, during the annual festival of the shinkansen servicing area in my town (yes, there's a shinkansen- bullet train- servicing place where I live). It was quite funny watching shinks (as they're commonly known!) go by in front of my eyes, filled with waving kids. I noticed one with loads of muck and dirt on it. I thought, 'surely these clean and tidy Japanese people would have cleaned the trains before the festival?', then I looked a bit closer and saw where it was heading, to a massive car wash machine- but obviously not a car wash but a train wash!
After setting up, playing and packing up the taiko stuff, we went across to a park and I don't know why, but we played another short set (20mins) there. Not many people were there and it was drizzling with rain- that's right, no heat wave in Japan! So we spent more time setting up and packing up than actually playing! Reminded me of CCBC- all those times getting the boats out of the boat house in Durham [argh, Waterhall was always the worst!], these old big wooden things [if our crew was any better we would have had the plastics, but no- well that's another story!], which would be just awful to get out off the racks & then be carried down to the river. Have a quick outing, wipe down the wooden stuff and put it away again- practically the same as taiko drumming! (In fact Collingwood colours and that of my taiko group are exactly the same- red and black...)

Anyway I'd better go, as you can probably tell I'm not quite with it. Packing shimasho.