Sitting back on the splendid bullet train now as we power out of Kyoto after a lightning two-day one-night visit of epicness to the great Kansai region of jolly old Nippon.
Kyoto's majestic station building
Came up Tuesday morning into Osaka, then braved the Pre-Christmas throngs to meet up with the Williams Nerds in Umeda, the city’s northern shopping area, there to gawp in gigantic music stores at guitars a plenty.
Back down to central Osaka to check in at the wonderful Chisun Inn in the bestest busiest most happeningest part of the city known as Shinsaibashi. There I fell asleep for a couple of hours, but but not before paying (very apt) a quick visit to the Apple Store.
See, even though I’m broke, I decided that I needed to upgrade my Logic Express music software to the full-blown Pro version, weighing in at a cool $340. Now you might think that a software upgrade might entail just a fistfull of DVDs, but no, bugger me lengthways if the product didn’t come in an enormous box weighing (and I kid you not) six kilos. The jolly salesman laughed and said that you could safely chuck most of this baggage since all you really needed were the discs. Indeed, back at the hotel I discovered the box to be comprised mostly of two gigantic manuals in Japanese, the first running to more than a thousand pages! No, matter, it’s not needed, since the software comes with built-in PDF content with the same information in English. I hope!!!
6kg of pure Logic
More guitar shop gawping, then meeting up with the Williams Nerds again for the main event, namely the annual Shonen Knife “Space Christmas” gig at Club Quattro!!
Well, the Knife didn’t disappoint, and armed with a vile free plastic cup of Wild Turkey I headbanged my way through all 24 songs played. The lesser Williams Nerd stole the show, however, by appearing atop his Dad’s shoulders carrying a placard requesting his favourite ditty, a cover of The Carpenters’ ‘On Top of The World.’ Like a masthead he ploughed through the moshpit until singer Naoko spotted him, and granted his wish in the first encore. He was truley a star, gaining applause and approval amongst even the hardest cadres of the assembled punks.
The iPhone totally fails to record Shonen Knife live at Club Quattro, Osaka, December 23rd 2008
After the gig, the band did a ‘meet & greet‘ in the lobby, and like an oik I barged past the bespectled geeks awaiting autographs, grasped Naoko’s hand, thanked her for the great gig and presented her with a copy of my latest STAVKA CD ‘Heavy Casualties in the Charm Offensive,’ which she accepted with bemusement.
Thence out into the night to trawl the streets of Dotombori amid the parrot-headed touts and garish neon, beers and takoyaki in hand. Takoyaki is an Osakan speciality. Chop off the arm of an octopus, boil it, then shove it inside a ball of batter with some chives and coat liberally with mayonaise and a thick pungent brown sauce, and there you have it. Best served so hot that it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth.
Takoyaki, baby!
Next morning we speed off to Kyoto and try to hire bicycles (see, those Williams boys are two-wheel fanatics), but apparently a new law does not allow 3-year olds to be appended to the aforementioned peddle-powered vehicle, so we had to be content with a stroll down Kyoto’s tranquil Philosophers’ Walk, dropping in at the odd temple and battling in word play with the nascent linguistic skills of the young Williams unit.
Evidence of Bigfoot at Kyoto's Honen-in Temple
Back on the bullet train at six, hurtling homeward to Hiroshima and the impending non-event that is Christmas, and a lid was verily placed on the top of the Kansai Quickie jaunt.
Your humble narrator searches for his bullet train at Kyoto station
