11/7 - A Musical Interlude

Sunday was our day to travel out of the city and attend the concert that Jun and Keiko had been preparing with a local (to the area we were travelling to) choir.

Unfortunately it was wet, windy, and cold - so the walk into Kichijoji was not pleasant. In Kichijoji we met John Milne, who was taking us to the concert. We have various connections to John, who has been an English teacher at Seikei (Maria's old school) now for some 30 years - he taught at Cowra High when Maria was there, attending Wollongong High several years before me, his first cousin Ross Mowbray was in my year at high school, and indeed John grew up in Balgownie. So on the relatively long train ride with several changes, there was a lot of exchange of information about things in Australia and things in Japan (e.g., the fac that at this time of year Japanese hayfever sufferers not only have to cope with spring pollen, but various pollution swept across from the factories on the Chinese mainland).

We travelled right to the western edge of the greater Tokyo district and to our surprise found wide streets and sidewalks. After lunch we found the concert hall and spent a wonderful 3 hours listening to choiral and piana pieces that the local group - under the tutelage and conductorship of Jun - had put on. Keiko played beautifully on the piano with Jun - she has been trained from a very early age as a classical pianist. Jun seems to be a virtuoso - conductor, pianist, and even vocal soloist. He also has a rather distinctive dress sense - black leather pants and black leather platform boots that would put any of the 70s glam-rock bands to shame for their sheer height. The local group of performers were primarily composed of a female choir of about 20 members - nearly all past retirement age, a young female pianist, and a young male operatic vocalist.

After the concert there was a party, which turned out to be a full washoku (name for a traditional Japanese meal - lots of different courses served simultaneously in lots of different dishes/bowls and you take what you want - not a smorgasboard) meal. Of course there were speeches by all and sundry including ourselves, and Mari. Being a musical group there were even songs (there was an old piana in the restaurant) and we four ended up singing "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" and (attempting to) leading everyone in singing it in rounds.

By 7:30 most people had left and the restaurant was closing. The next train in to Tokyo was after 8 and it was bitterly cold, despite the rain having stopped. So the brilliant solution of going to a Karaoke Box (a bunch of small rooms with karaoke equipment in them - you hire the room for a fixed price for a certain period) just to stay warm was hit upon. So for 320 Yen (total) we stayed warm for half an hour, and Maria and Zoe even sang U2's Vertigo for some half dozen Japanese.

Then it was a rush to the station, the long train ride home with Mari (who had accompanied us), and then a very cold walk home from Kichijoji station afterwards. Ohhh, and despite it being after 9pm on a wintery Sunday night when we got into Kichijoji we found it bustling with life - full of people shopping, rusing to catch trains, or listening to a street band performing - quite a contrast to Canberra.