Last month the sister and family came down to visit and take care of services for my dad. Dad wasn’t much for ceremony so we kept things simple. We didn’t do the full Buddhist ceremony, it was done more as a memorial service for both dad and mom. We decided to have their ashes scattered a few days later. Seems to be not too common a request for Jodo, but we eventually worked it out. The Reverend Nakano met us the MLK morning at the end of Sandy Beach. He has an awesome voice and his chanting of sutras was masterful!
Archive for the 'Culture' Category
OK, got really lazy this year, woke up late. I’m sure our end of year ride had something to do with that. Anyway, here you go. Beautiful cloudless day with nice brisk temp. It’s shaping up to be a La Nina year so temps are more “winter”like and the rain has been more plentiful.
Sorry, a week late. July 30 this year was unagi day. Wait, I thought you said cow day? Well, doyo, despite the day being a Saturday, actually is the 18 day period before the changing of the season. The days are assigned signs of the Zodiac, thus the ushi/ox/cow day. The ushi no hi is supposed to be the hottest day of the year. It may not actually be, but it’s close enough. Oh, the zodiac only has 12 signs, so yes, there actually can be two ushi no hi’s.
Oops, it started already, missed 24 acts already. Lets do some running commentary. Looks like Dave’s away so its me.
Mmm, NMB48. Hey she can play guitar and sing! A slow song so no fancy choreography. Hey, when did they do costume change?
Sandaime J-Soul Brothers – oh my, the two guys who sing are kinda off. The dancing boys trying to be all masculine and stuff? Who, chrome backup dancers got networked light up suits?
Fukuyama Masaharu – medley of his performances, he’s actually pretty decent. Continue reading ’66th Kohaku’
Presentation genius, whoever came up with these. Saw them at Marukai in the Aomori fest stuff, I couldn’t resist. Thankfully, like animal crackers, they are not flavored with what they represent. These are like a folded single dorayaki with a yuzu flavored mocha filling. Unfortunately I couldn’t really taste the yuzu, but the dorayaki part was good.
About a month late, today is a prime example of Doyo No Ushi No Hi. The unagi marketeering association would be happy. Today was so hot humid and oppressive that all my plans to go for a ride before the storms went to pot. I did nothing today. 8:30PM and it still is bad. I do think I’ll go down to Bubbies and get me some ice cream.
Imagine my surprise when earlier this week, jumped in car and started up to go to work and I was greeted with 50 Cent. WTF, did I accidentally hit the tune button? Um, 97.1 I think is correct. OK, I search around. Really strange. Switch to iPhone music. Later I try to search the Net, go to the KORL 97.1 website and it lists the songs they are playing, which is definitely not J-pop. I search for their sister K-Pop station and that is still going like normal. Sheesh, it seems KORL as a J-Pop station unceremoniously disappeared. When I check the website the next day, it now redirects you to the K-Pop website. Yet another Japanese FM radio station gone, it seems they only last a couple years. I guess the Japanese population here is too many generations removed and does not have enough interest. Only the AM station remains. So sad. I actually picked up a few new songs and artists from listening to it.
The annual Japan red & white festival is airing locally now. My fav site for Japan TV online no longer has the files section so I don’t have a convient online source for it. As such and since Risu is under the weather, guess I’ll be commenting and doing this the old fashioned way through broadcast TV. As such, comments may not be as detailed and will prob miss a bunch of performers since I’ve already missed the first twenty minutes missing a bunch of the youth oriented groups and will eating dinner soon. Unfortunately missed HKT48 opening the show with their can’t help thinking naughty thoughts lyriced Melon Juice. The staging looks fairly pared down again this year.
Sorry, Dook.
You can’t “humbly” ask for my vote this morning after crying foul and claiming your opponent had “attacked” you. There have been no negative ads from the other camp,, unless you consider getting your poor record handed to you on a plate during the debates an attack.
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HI5-0 filming on Young by the back of HPD. From the big blue fake signage, ballet will be part of an upcoming episode.
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