Saturday Jul 4. At Live House, Avanti in Toyohashi City and joining trio SeShi-Bon on stage for a short talk break in between songs. Lead Vocalist Ishida San does a brilliant Billy Joel impersonation, while professional Keyboardist Kashima San keeps the right sounds happening. 
With Kashima san (in the hat) and friends and fans at Toyohashi after the live! Looking forward to a show in Nagoya City soon!!
Saturday 4th July. Drove to Kagegawa in Shizuoka Prefecture, about 150Km from Nagoya to see Kakegawa Castle. The castle was first built about 500 years ago and was destroyed after an earthquake in 1854. The keep was re-built in 1993, while the castle palace is original. The town's reconstructed symbol and the attached palace have been used many times for Samurai films including ones by famed director, Akira Kurosawa.
The castle was Japan's first modern reconstruction castle rebuilt in the traditional way using all wood. All the other reconstructed castles are made of concrete. The wooden interior lends a more authentic feel to the castle, and they've gone as far as to incorporate all the defence traps and gun windows too. The steep stairs saved space inside the confines of the keep, and helped in defence of the castle. Armour laden attackers would find it difficult to mount the stairs...
After a day at Kakegawa, it was a brief stop at one of Japan's larger and well known lake districts, Hamanako for a late lunch, before heading off to Toyohashi....
Sony's Walkman has turned 30! July 1, 1979 the first Walkman went on sale! My first Walkman was this early 1985 model, given to me on my 17th birthday,... a recording Walkman with AM/FM and even TV listening capabilities (in Japan only!). Compared to the current i-pods, it's big, it's heavy, the batteries ran down fast, couldn't play as many songs as an i-pod, the tape hissed, ...we used to think this was advanced technology! Come to think of it, my i-pod is a 2004 model, and even that by current standards is an antique! .... Sure, I used to listen to T-Rex on it, but is my much treasured Walkman really pre-historic?
July 2, Thursday. Special guests on my radio show, PMi were trio, Zaha Torte. They also played a studio live...
The bands latest album, the instrumental "Stekky na Ichi Nichi" hit record shop shelves late last month. It's an easy to listen to album of mix styles, not pop, not rock, not jazz nor chamber, but a mix of all. Worth checking out!
Nagoya City's main thoroughfare, Sakura-Dori became Sakura River. I was navigating through the traffic listening to my i-pod when it played Japanese band The Echoes hit, ZOO. The song is beautiful, the wet city reflected in the streets was beautiful. For a few minutes I could forget the troubles of the world and enjoy a few moments alone in my car. It felt right, so I played the song again.
As the rain bucketed down, it was just me, the Echoes ZOO, the sound of the rain pounding on the canvas roof of my convertible and splashing off the hood and the surrounding cars splashing in the wet wet roads. It was bliss. 
Yes!,...Yes! This is DISGUSTING! Thankfully it's only available for a short time. Last year it was Blue Hawaii Pepsi, a bright blue, lemon and pineapple drink, the year before was Cucumber Flavored Pepsi. I guess the guys at Pepsi Japan are either weirdos, or they take great delight in creating these yearly specials knowing that the media will "lap them up" and provide copious amounts of free publicity...either way, it's REVOLTING! 
