The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival was held the past two weekends in San Francisco’s Japantown. Dan and I took my sister on Sunday, the day of the Grand Parade, since Miwa had never been to the festival before.
I love going to the Cherry Blossom Festival, and haven’t missed it once since moving out here. This was my third year attending San Francisco’s festival, and although a lot of things are the same, it’s always great to see the celebration of Japanese and Japanese American culture and heritage.
The highlight for me, as usual, was the taiko. If only I had better rhythm, I would totally want to take on taiko lessons. It’s a great workout for your arms and I just love the sound and energy of taiko drums…. Can’t wait to see Taiko Dojo again next year!
Last night, Dan and I went to the much-anticipated Muse concert in Oracle Arena in Oakland. Muse is one of Dan’s favorite bands, and so when I heard that they were coming back in December, I immediately picked up a pair of tickets as a birthday gift for Dan. I’d also grown to become a fan, from listening to Dan’s music library, so I was pretty psyched to see them live too.
The stadium was packed and Muse put on an awesome show that did not disappoint! They sang all of their much-loved classics, such as Uprising, Resistance, Supermassive Black Hole, Unnatural Selection, and my personal favorite, Starlight. Their set was incredible, too! They had these massive skyscraper-like structures onstage that opened up to reveal them inside each at the start of the show, and they kept being lowered and lifted and spun atop them while all sorts of motion graphics and effects played on the sides of them. It was visually stunning; I’d never seen anything like it before.
Here’s a video of Muse performing Starlight last night. Amazing!
It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, and I came out even more a fan than I was before! Definitely looking forward to seeing them live again sometime. 🙂
Last night, my sister and I went to watch UTADA in concert at The Fillmore in San Francisco.
I’ve been a longtime fan of Utada Hikaru since she first debuted at the end of 1998 with her single “Automatic.” I was a junior in high school and was in my final year of chuugakkou (middle school) in Japanese Saturday School, and I remember the whole class was buzzing about her as soon as she came on the scene. She was an instant hit in Japan, and I remember having her first album First Love on repeat for months — it was one of those albums in which pretty much every track was good, and it amazed me that this girl who was one month younger than me was writing and singing these songs. What talent! She continued to churn out hit after hit in the coming years. The Japanese drama-holic that I am, I came to associate a lot of her songs with the dramas they became theme songs for. First Love with Majo no Jouken, Can You Keep a Secret? with HERO, Sakura Drops with First Love, Flavor of Life with Hana Yori Dango 2, Prisoner of Love with Last Friends, and more recently, Eternally with Innocent Love. (All great songs paired with great, addictive dramas… although now that I look back on them, with the exception of HERO and Hana Yori Dango, they’re all pretty dark, depressing “forbidden love” type dramas. But I digress.)
Utada is one of the few Japanese artists out there who have the English language skills to make for viable success in the international market, since she grew up going back and forth between Japan and New York. Even before Utada set her sights overseas, she was starting to attract international audiences and fans. Unfortunately, her first major debut attempt in the US with the album EXODUS sort of bombed (in my personal opinion), and for a few years, she seemed to go back to focusing on her already-hugely-successful musical career in Japan. She came out with a second album early last year titled This is the One, which seems to show more promise.
This month marked the beginning of Utada’s first official American tour. So far, she’d performed in Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Seattle before coming to San Francisco. I went to the concert under the impression that she would probably be singing mostly if not all English songs as her set list, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that she sang almost half and half in terms of English songs vs. Japanese songs throughout the concert. I think she understood that much of the audience was of Asian background and that there were some fans who had come from Japan as well, and so she catered to the hopes that she’d sing some of Japanese classics. Among the songs she sang were Sakura Drops, Automatic, First Love, Stay Gold and Can You Keep a Secret?. We were able to meet up with my fun coworker Estella and her brother at the concert, and we nostalgically rocked out to some of our Utada favorites.
I couldn’t take any pictures or video footage because cameras were strictly forbidden at the concert, but my friend Vince found this clip that had been taken at the concert last night and sent it to me. It’s of First Love. (Thanks Vince!)
There are some more videos online (although not of the San Francisco performance) that showcase more clips from the rest of her set list. I think they’re from her concert at the House of Blues in LA on the 19th.
From here, Utada will go on to perform in Las Vegas, Chicago, Boston, and then to her hometown here in the States, New York City. I hope that the rest of her tour is a success and hope that she can continue to break into the US music industry — I’m excited to see what the future has in store for her. I’m happy that I finally got to see her live, and hearing her sing took me back to the starry-eyed high schooler I was ten years ago. I feel like digging up that dusty First Love album from my closet and once again putting it on repeat.
I am so behind on updating our blog. The beginning of the year is somehow always so busy. I promised myself that I would make some solid New Years resolutions but I haven’t even gotten a chance to sit down and do that yet. Is it too late? It’s still January… maybe as long as I can get them figured out by the end of this month, I will be okay.
So another fun thing we did earlier this month was attending the Mochitsuki event at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Once essential to the Japanese New Year celebration, the practice of mochitsuki (mochi pounding) is now rare even in Japan, as people tend to eat store-bought mochi rather than make their own in today’s hustle and bustle society. San Francisco-based Kagami-kai is a group dedicated to maintaining the Japanese tradition of mochitsuki, and this was their sixth year performing and churning out mochi for the masses at the Asian Art Museum.
My friend Akiho was visiting from Virginia Tech because she was interviewing for an internship position at UC Berkeley, so she, Dan, and I went together with some of our friends from the San Francisco Bay Area Japanese Language and Culture meetup group. It was quite an experience — the Kagamikai’s mochitsuki performance was very impressive, and the taiko drumming accompanying it was equally breathtaking. We even got to have a bite of mochi at the end. Growing up with Japanese traditions, it really doesn’t feel like the New Year has come until you have some mochi. 🙂
Below are some photos and video footage of the mochitsuki action:
For more information on this yearly event, please hop over here.
Last Saturday, Dan and I went to a bonenkai at Zabu Zabu in Berkeley to celebrate the end of 2009 with friends. For those that aren’t familiar with what a bÅnenkai is, Wikipedia offers a good description:
A bÅnenkai (in Japanese, 忘年会, literally meaning “forget the year gathering”) is a Japanese drinking party that takes place at the end of the year, and is generally held among groups of co-workers or friends. The purpose of the party, as its name implies, is to forget the woes and troubles of the past year, usually by consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
The Japanese love bÅnenkais, and in Japan, it’s typical to go to several throughout December with various groups of friends, classmates, and colleagues. It’s a good excuse for them to do what they do best. 😉 This time, we got together with some friends from the SF Bay Area Japanese Language and Culture Meetup and celebrated over all-you-can-eat shabu shabu. It was fun to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, as well as meet newcomers and make new friends.
Dan and I both love shabu shabu and we stuffed ourselves so much that we were still very full for much of the day on Sunday. haha* But we’ll be going back soon enough — there’s only so long we can stay away from those savory thin slices of meat!
A huge thanks to Kyoko-san, who worked so hard to plan the bÅnenkai and made it such a big success!
group picture, stolen from Kyoko-sanIt was so nice seeing Kyoko-san again! It's been a while.Yasuko-san and 2 x Miki-sanGreat turnout!
