Su's Oasis Concert and Dice's trip to Hiroshima

The past two weekends have been really enjoyable as I’ve spent my time with friends before my time here wraps up. Last weekend, my friend Su invited me to go watch his Oasis cover concert in Kure. (Picture Below: Su's doing awesome Oasis covers)

Whenever we meet up we always go drinking and usually ended up at our local bar singing Oasis songs. So it was nice to see what he can do without us being inebriated. I was really impressed by his performance as he did some great covers of various Oasis songs. Rob and I both cheered him on and sang along in the front to most of his songs. I found out that he actually released a CD with his former band, which he was nice enough to actually give me a copy. (Picture Below: Rob and I with the Big Rock Star)

After the concert we went for dinner with a bunch of his friends and spent the night drinking at an izakaya, then bar hopping around Kure till the morning. Rob and I crashed at him place for the and the next day he and his girlfriend Akiko took us to the highest mountain in Kure, which had a breathtaking view of the city. (Picture Below: Overlooking the heart of Kure City)

This past weekend my friend Daisuke (Dice) from University came down to visit me from Tokyo. I met with Dice at the station on Saturday morning and then we took the train to Miyajima. We were really lucky that it was a sunny day as Tsuyu (rainy season) has already begun in Japan. We spent a few hours just walking around the 3 temples and eating the good street food that Miyajima has. (Picture Below: At Memories our local bar)

We were lucky to come when the tide was high so the famous red gate was covered in water and we stayed late enough to see the tide go out, so we were also able to walk up close to the gate.

After spend a few hours in Miyajima we went back to Hiroshima city and chilled out a at manga café until going to a concert at 6. I’ve been follwing the band Monkey Majik in Japan for about a year and when I heard they were coming to Hiroshima I picked up two tickets for their concert. There music is pretty good and recently they’ve gotten pretty popular with a few hits in Japan. The band members are composed of 3 Japanese and 2 Canadian brothers. (Picture Below: The Maynard brothers)

The concert was a great and both Dice and I enjoyed the atmosphere and the performance. After the concert we took the train back to Kure where I met up again with Su-san and a few friends. (Picture Below: Monkey Majik's newest release with the Yoshida Brothers)

We ate dinner at an izakaya and spend the night throwing back beer and shochu. We ended up coming out of the bar and about 5 in the morning where we then crashed out at the local onsen for the night. We slept for about 3 hours, then just relaxed in the baths before heading back to Hiroshima.

We spent the rest of the day visiting the Peace Park and museum and then walking around Hiroshima. All in all, it was a great weekend as we packed in a lot of do and it was nice showing Dice my city. He works as a “salaryman” in Tokyo and doesn’t get to travel as much as he wants to, so it was nice just relaxing and seeing a friend from home. It was nice chatting with him and talking about the things we love about Japan and things I’ll miss when I leave here. Countdown is almost at a month!

Japanese Factoid #51- One of the problems with owning a car in Japan is that parking is incredibly expensive and difficulty to find. In city centers space is limited, so they have quite inventive ways to park cars. One of the most interesting kinds is the car elevator. A ramp take up too much space, so a car ramp takes your car up to it’s floor and parks it into a space. Another popular one is the car stacker which sometimes stacks cars in twos and threes and your press your number to bring your car down. Also, Japanese car spaces have a metal bar that pops up when you park your car. To release the metal stopper all you do is pay your fee before you leave.