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October 5, 2008
Kanazawa day 3
September 24, day 3 (last) in Kanazawa.
We woke up and prepared to check out of our hotel. We still had complementary drink tickets from when we checked in so we used them to get coffee in the lobby. We left our luggage at the cloak and headed out. We first went for a bit of omiyage shopping. The station building is good for buying omiyage as it has pretty much anything, there's also a supermarket above.
We walked down to Kōrinbō for our first destination, another sushi restaurant that we had booked for lunch. This one is called Otome-zushi (乙女寿司, 4-10 Kiguramachi). The place is really well hidden, led to by a small path between a parking and another building. We were glad that we had searched for it the previous day. It seems like it's also hard to get in without a reservation. Here too the counter seats are the best, as you can watch the lead chef prepare each piece. Actually I think that if you were to choose a table, your sushi would be prepared by an apprentice instead.
Like at Komatsu Yasuke (see the previous day) the sushi is soft, though not quite as soft. Still it's better eaten with the hand. Of course it was all very delicious! One thing that was great is that the chef really listened to our preferences, and served us slightly different menus after having asked if there's anything we dislike. Great service, and great taste. :)
We were quite full, but just not that full, so our next stop was Marukaku, a gelato shop of the Malga Gelato brand based in Ishikawa pref.. The shop is located on Seseragi-dōri (2-8-18 Katamachi), and they serve original gelato with many local and Japanese-style flavors. One particular thing is that they serve ice cream in a monaka (crispy wafers made from mochi). We first had strawberry and hōji-cha flavors, and we got a sample of another containing cucumber and apple. That was really great so I went back to get a full-size of it.
Next we went for a walk again around Nagamachi-bukeyashiki-ato. This time we entered an old Japanese house named Nomura-ke (the home of Nomura family) that contains a truly beautiful garden. It's a very old house that's been converted into a museum.
There's a large garden that contains a pond with many nishikigoi (those expensive red and white carps). There are also old artifacts exhibited such as old coins (I liked the tiny square ones), and covers to hide nail heads, these were previously used in this house.
Nail covers and coins
This next photo is of a street with a canal in Nagamachi-bukeyashiki-ato.
That was about it for sight-seeing. Our time of departure was also getting a bit closer but we went for some record shopping at Record Jungle (2-13 Fukuromachi) where I found a few 7"'s (Hasegawa Kiyoshi, Natsuki Mari, Toi et Moi, The Fascinations).
We also had small roll cakes at a shop called Weekday (3-14 Nishichō). And later while waiting for the time to leave we went to have one last coffee at collabon (1-14 Yasuechō), a cute café that also sells small objects of all kinds and also some music.
We ended our trip by buying some sushi (again!) bentō in the station building, that we enjoyed on the train.
Kanazawa was a very nice destination and I'd really like to go there again sometime! Most people recommend going there in winter, but it does get colder than Tokyo and it seems that they do get quite a bit of snow, so I'm not too sure. :) ("Aren't you Canadian!?")
Some robots seen in Kanazawa
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Posted on October 5, 2008 at 23:17 | Permalink | Trackback (0) | Comments (3)
October 4, 2008
Polymoog live at Apple Store Shibuya: report
Tonight after work I dropped by Apple Store Shibuya to check out a mini-live by Polymoog (from Elektel). I was happy to find my friend Kanae-chan there as well and we watched the show together.
The show was similar to the one last month (at the event where I also DJ'd), but in addition to the SX-150, DS-10 and iPod Touch, he also used a new theremin from Gakken (otona no kagaku) that's going to be released just in time for Christmas. Dubbed "Theremin Premium" 
, this one isn't of the usual "build it yourself" type, but it rather comes as a complete product.
He played Elektel songs, the original track he wrote for the SX-150, a new song that he wrote for a female French singer well known in Japan, and closed with "Moon Race", a song from the game Beatmania. You can hear a bit of this one in the video clip below.
As you can see, he was also accompanied by VJ Higuchi Yasuyuki (faction bleu). Very nice little show!
On my way there I went shopping at Ganban in the basement of Parco part 3, it's one of my new favorite record shops (mostly vinyl) as it's got a lot of good electro and hip-hop, very complete on Fool's Gold too. So I picked up A-Trak's new 12" single "Say Whoa" on Kitsuné (a track from his awesome recent iTunes-exclusive mix for Nike 
), and also the latest from his label Fool's Gold, a new 4-song EP by Sammy Bananas of which all tracks are a blast.
I can't wait to see A-Trak next weekend at Diesel XXX! See you there. :)
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Posted on October 4, 2008 at 01:34 | Permalink | Trackback (0) | Comments (1)
October 2, 2008
Kanazawa day 2
September 23, day 2 in Kanazawa.
We started the day by getting on the bus down to Nomachi where is located Myōryūji aka Ninja-dera™. The temple really has nothing to do with ninjas, but it's the fact that it's full of hidden rooms and stairs and even traps that got it nicknamed like that.
The temple looks quite normal on the outside, but actually it has a total of 23 rooms and 29 stairways! Back in the day temples were only allowed to have 2 floors, and this one looks to respect this from the outside, while it actually has 4! There are sliding doors that lead to two different places depending on the side they're open, and just plenty of tricks like that. The offertory box is also a trap that enemies could be led to fall into, and there's a well inside that's said to be a secret tunnel that led to Kanazawa castle. It was all really fascinating.
The temple visit is a guided tour, and they even provide an English book with the translated tour text. While my Japanese isn't bad, this was helpful for me to understand every trick in detail. Photos aren't allowed inside but I was sure to get the souvenir postcard set. :) A highly recommended stop to anyone who likes this type of stuff! (Be sure to place a reservation by phone a few days in advance at 076-241-0888.)
We then walked a bit around the area, in Nishi-chaya-gai, another old part of town, and Kōrinbō, a much younger district with lots of shops.
Around there is also a very nice street along a canal, named Seseragi-dōri, and there we found CD/clothing shop Rallye where I bought Lullatone's latest album. Later in the day when we passed again we also bought some cakes at Saint Nicholas.
But meanwhile, we went to have lunch at a famous sushi restaurant called Komatsu Yasuke (小松弥助) located on the 1st floor of Katamachi Apa Hotel. We sat at the counter, where an old man with some charisma prepares sushi for the customers. We ordered the fixed set, and even though at first he asked "is there anything you don't like?", it didn't change the menu, after serving me uni he said "Oh, did you say you didn't like uni?" Haha. :) We had about 10 each, and it all was truly delicious, probably the best I've had!
His sushi was very soft and delicate, ojiichan style, and had to be eaten by hand (no chopsticks). He precised for each whether they were to be eaten as is (because it already has some sort of sauce or salt) or to be eaten with soy sauce. I did a mistake once and dipped one that wasn't supposed to be, and he said "no shōyu!" with a smile.
Our stomachs full we went for a little walk just west of Kōrinbō, in an area named Nagamachi-bukeyashiki-ato, which is also an old area with many old houses, some with beautiful gardens that can be visited. The one below is free to enter.
Then we walked down to the 21st Century Museum, famous for its permanent exhibition of Leandro Erlich's swimming pool, a trompe-l'oeil installation that looks like a pool from above but below is actually a room where you can also go in.
For dinner we went to Grill Otuka (81-1 Urokomachi), another old restaurant that serves hanton rice, although theirs not only contains fried white fish but also fried shrimps. It was great too! Gotta love hanton rice. :)
After taking the bus back, we went to the an oden restaurant in Kanazawa station building, for which we had found some free drink and food coupon on a map from our hotel. That sure made the whole deal very cheap.
Stay tuned for the last of this 3-day trip. :)
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Posted on October 2, 2008 at 23:05 | Permalink | Trackback (0) | Comments (4)
September 28, 2008
Kanazawa day 1
Last week I took my summer holiday and we headed to Kanazawa, a town in Ishikawa prefecture near the west coast. We had good weather (just little bits of rain on the 1st day) and a great time eating sushi and "hanton rice", and doing some sight-seeing around town. I took about 150 photos of which I'll post the best along with daily summaries.
On Monday September 22, we left Tokyo early in the morning and took the shinkansen to Echigo-Yuzawa (Niigata pref.) and then a normal train to Kanazawa. The whole took about 4 hours.
We arrived at Kanazawa station around 11:00 and we went to check-in to Miyako Hotel just across from the station. It can be seen through the large "Motenashi-mon" that's on the east exit. Kanazawa doesn't have train public transportation within the city, only buses, but then again a lot of it is walkable.
Our first destination was a nearby department store to have some sushi for lunch at Morimori-zushi, a spinning sushi restaurant. We enjoyed the recommended local shrimp and kajiki maguro (marlin?), and a lot more. Kanazawa is renowned for fresh fish, being that it's near the sea of Japan.
We then walked down towards the center of town, where are located Kanazawa Castle and Kenroku-en. It was raining just a little bit when we arrived at the castle but the sky cleared up quickly and we could enjoy some nice sight-seeing. Kanazawa Castle doesn't look like the typical Japanese castle, its main building has a long structure. It has been rebuilt in very recently in 2001 and is being used as a museum.
It was interesting that by the walls there are holes in the floor to throw stones to enemies who would try climbing, and also that the main room was made with a diamond shape (skewed) that made its construction very complex.
Then we went over to the adjacent Kenroku-en, a large maintained Japanese garden and took some time to look around it. It was very beautiful.
The last picture is of what's said to be the oldest fountain in Japan dating from 1861. It uses only potential energy from the water coming from an elevated point, no pump involved.
We were getting hungry again, and we wanted to go for some "hanton rice", a yōshoku meal very specific to the area. We looked for it a bit everywhere but were surprised to only find it in the places that we had looked up before going. The first of these was Lucky (1-26 Yokoyama-chō), but we weren't so when we first passed because it wasn't open yet. So we decided to go for some more walking and to come back later.
We walked along Asano-gawa in direction of Kazue-machi.
Kazue-machi is an old area of town that used to be known as a men's night spot. There's some wall next to a shrine hiding an entrance to the area, rumored to have made it easy to be making a quick wish at the shrine and just disappear the next moment..!
After having visited these streets, we found by chance the Kanazawa Phonograph Museum, and being a music fan I couldn't help entering. The museum contains over a hundred of very old but working record players, going as far back as the very first Edison models that used cylindrical records (I think I had heard of such before, but I had never seen one), and also a lot of very old Victor and Columbia players.
There are three daily demonstrations where records are played on a dozen of different players, and we were lucky in a way to catch the last song from the last demonstration that day (starting at 16:00), but I'd really have liked to hear all of them.
We looked through the museum, appreciating that great collection, and an old man who works there came to give us some explanations. We saw needles that consisted of rose thorns and bamboo, and an Edison player used diamond. He told us that on some of the players used in the demonstration, they change the needle after 2 plays to avoid damaging the very old records, all of which are 78 RPM. In Japan they call 78's "SP records" (vs LP).
Then we continued walking around the area, across the river to Higashi-chaya-gai, another very old area of town. Of interest was a building that was entirely gold plated, in and out.
We then walked back along the river and went to Lucky again which was now open. We rewarded ourselves with "hanton rice", an omrice with ketchup rice and topped with fried white fish and tartar sauce. Simple and just great! I wondered why this meal doesn't make its way to Tokyo. :)
We caught a bus back to the hotel, and used complementary drink tickets at the top floor's bar. We enjoyed our free cocktails while getting some useful tips from the barman.
Larger sizes and more photos at Flickr
Posted on September 28, 2008 at 02:47 | Permalink | Trackback (1) | Comments (4)
September 21, 2008
arcorhyme live at Grand Cru (vol.6): report
Until last time, they had been holding this monthly event on a Sunday afternoon, but after CD shop Après-midi Seleçao has moved together with restaurant Grand Cru, arcorhyme has switched the event to Monday evening at dinner time. Last Monday was a national holiday so they held it on Tuesday instead.
This time, instead of the usual two arcorhyme sets, one set was given to Love of Peace and Hope, a neo-GS side-unit of Takanami K-tarō together with The Phantom Gift's Sally Kubota (bass) and Charly Morita (drums).
arcorhyme went first, and Sally Kubota joined them for the last 3 songs, and I was delighted that they also played my Les 5-4-3-2-1 request from last time!
The set went as follows:
Sugarbabe's itsumo dōri / Yuming's kitto ieru / arcorhyme's aoi neko / Les 5-4-3-2-1's Miracle Manège / arcorhyme's koi no jigoku / Hippy Hippy Shakes' hen na onna no ko
Then there was a set of Love of Peace and Hope, and while I didn't recognize most of the songs (I think they were mostly neo-GS covers), I think they did play a few songs by The Phantom Gift. Charly sang and played tambourine, Sally played bass and K-tarō guitar, and these two also sang back vocals, the whole sounded great!
At the end of the set Ikuyo came back on stage for a session of these two songs:
Bang Bang's "ichigo hakusho" o mō ichido, The Phantom Gift's Heart ni OK! ("OK in your heart!")
I bought a T-shirt of Love of Peace and Hope, and some dead stock Phantom Gift badges. When telling Charly that I have the album, he gave me a bonus set of badges. :)
Larger sizes and more photos at Flickr
arcorhyme "aoi neko"
Pinky Aoki (The Phantom Gift's singer) with New Rock Syndicate "Heart ni OK!" (live in 2006)
Posted on September 21, 2008 at 23:09 | Permalink | Trackback (0) | Comments (0)
September 19, 2008
KCBL 2nd live report
I've been busy and am running late with my reports. On Monday November 8, I rushed from work to go to Kōenji Enban where Kawashima Circulation Bus Line would perform. That's Hosaka Akane's side-unit together with DJ Peaky. This was their 2nd show, following the one they gave in June at the same place.
I got there just a little bit after first band Cookin' had began playing. They used guitar, pianica, trumpet, shamisen and other instruments, and while some of the music was intentionally cacophonic (especially the trumpet guy), the whole still sounded in control.
Next up was Ohara Maya (MySpace), singer-songwriter performing just with her guitar. She was quite talented with a pleasant voice.
Next on stage was KCBL. Their set was quite different from last time. They sequenced loops on the spot, laying melodies on top, and the music drifted from calm to upbeat. It was a very nice set, and didn't make me as sleepy as the previous time. :) You can hear for yourself in the short video clip below.
Last up on stage was fockea crispa, a band of three with guitar, mandolin (sometimes banjo), and accordion or sometimes a strange small instrument that sounded like a sitar and that gave the band a unique sound. All of the songs were great, but I was especially caught by really beautiful cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star".
After the show I could talk briefly with KCBL's DJ Peaky for the first time. He said he's quite nervous playing with this unit live, and although he can teach things to Akane when rehearsing (being that he has some more experience), on stage he leaves it all up to her "power". :)
Hosaka Akane can be caught live (solo) on October 10 at Sonore's 10th anniversary event at SuperDeluxe. YMCK will also be playing.
Larger sizes and more photos at Flickr
Posted on September 19, 2008 at 23:37 | Permalink | Trackback (0) | Comments (0)
Continue reading in the September 2008 Archives.
Next entry: "Yesterday's set list" (September 13, 2008 at 12:59)
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