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feeling: many things, mostly tired and headachy
listening to: that BGM from Ice Age in my head...
Well, 19 days in Japan have come and gone. On one hand I didn't get to see everyone I'd hoped to see or do everything I'd hoped to do, but at the same time, it exceeded my expectations. There were rough patches as with every long trip, but in the end, it was absolutely amazing.
Honestly, from the day I arrived in Tokyo, I sort of felt like a celebrity. :P That evening when I first got to an internet connection I already had emails and Nau messages from two people saying something to the effect of "You're in Japan?!" and asking when I'd be free to meet up... that same night You (of The Sound Bee HD, who generously allowed - invited, even - us to stay with her) told me she'd seen a guy from a band we've been in contact with online but never met before, and when she told him her friend from America was coming to stay with her he actually guessed it was me and started thinking of a way we could all get together some evening... and by our second day the word had spread to the Kansai area where three of our old band buddies amused us with a semi-conversation on Nau that went something like "Becky's in Japan?!" "What?! Our US staffer Becky is in Japan?!" "What? Seriously?!" "Hey, is Becky really in Japan??" I've never felt so popular... :P
But it made me realize that these bands we've worked with over the past 8 or so years really do appreciate every one of us and remember us and are always eager to meet up again even in non-business settings, and how lucky I am to know so many great people over there. We were thoroughly taken care of all the time... not only by old friends, but also by lots of new connections we were introduced to along the way. The Sound Bee HD is obvious... we stayed at You's place after all (and she made no secret of that lol... I think we appeared in her Ameba blog nearly every day for like 3 weeks), and the other members of her band came out to see us and take us places when they could. Daisuke came to Asakusa with us and gave us a few lifts in his beloved car, Hiro came by You's place to visit once and also took us shopping at Don Quixote (:P), all three of the above took us out for a farewell dinner before we returned home... Tak wasn't able to come out much since he's very likely the busiest guitarist in Japan x_x, but we saw him at three different livehouses with three different bands and he took good care of us at each one. You also introduced us to her friend and fellow bassist Lavie and the chief editor of Risknote, Tokita-san... both of whom came out to various livehouses to see us throughout our trip and also came to see us off on our last day. Tokita-san also coordinated and guided our Asakusa outing, gave us tons of tips and sightseeing ideas, and totally rescued us the night we went to Yokohama and were freaking out over getting back to Tokyo before the trains stopped running.
And then came our five days in Osaka... which were just incredible. The very first evening after arriving there we hopped to Kyoto to see Mst's new band, and he was so visibly thrilled to see us, it was adorable ^^; We could've chatted with him all evening if we hadn't had to catch a late train back to Osaka... but luckily we got to see his band again the next night, within walking distance of our hotel - and one of our longest band friends, Yuu, dropped by after the show just to see us. We also met the rest of Mst's band that evening, including their female support drummer Yato who was a total sweetheart... and after the livehouse cleared out and everyone else left, Yuu and Yato took us out for okonomiyaki. :3
The next day was even more incredible. While at the livehouse Mst kept saying it would be awesome if everyone could get together for dinner or something while we were in Osaka, so he told me to contact Miwa, a label staffer who's helped out several of the bands I've worked with since 2005, and ask her to get in touch with everyone. So even though it was totally last minute, Miwa set up a little welcome party for us the very next day... sadly Mst couldn't make it due to work (even though it was his idea, aww), but Miwa did manage to bring along Yuu (again), Sho the former LIX./lix drummer, Hiroshi of Suicide Ali, and even Kaede, the original bassist of BLOOD whom I haven't had any kind of contact with in about five years (he's the only one who never picked up on mixi or Ameba or any of the other social networks these people all use). They even arranged to have a "welcome" cake brought out for us at the end of the meal. ;_; It was such an awesome night of great food and friends and drinks and catching up and just *weeps*
Of course we also went to see lix before heading back to Tokyo, so another evening with Yuu lol - plus Hiroshi, Sho, and Yato all came to the livehouse to see us again before we left. ^^ And thus ended our stay in Osaka... the only person there we'd hoped to meet but couldn't was Fu-ki, BLOOD's former vocalist. He had planned to come to our welcome party but couldn't get out of work, and we had planned to go see him at his bar but we never managed to figure out the way and our only available time was after the lix live, which ran almost into the 11pm hour so there's no way we could've made it there and back before trains stopped running. :\ Oh well, next time...
We didn't get to see the other three Suicide Ali guys in Osaka, but the day after we returned to Tokyo we hopped next door to Yokohama to see them perform, so we finally got our reunion and a bit of catch-up time with them as well. ^^ It wasn't as much as we had hoped for, since once again we had to rush afterward to catch a train back to You's, but after not seeing them for two years even that brief time of chatting and reminiscing was very welcome.
As for other random old friends we got to see again... of course we saw Kiwamu a couple times and were able to have some productive business discussions with him, as well as see the new formation of BLOOD. Also, before we went to Osaka we were able to meet Haruka of Plunklock (the guy who had guessed that I was the one staying with You and was eager to meet up sometime) for dinner and lots of chatting and good times... sadly we missed him when we went to his band's live on our last night in Japan, but we did get to meet the vocalist a bit, and he was also a great guy. I really hope we get the opportunity to work with this band in the US sometime, as they have tons of talent and are extremely nice (and adorable to boot - US fans would LOVE them). Anyway, finally, the former bassist of Luzmelt took a day off work to take us to Odaiba for a day, and that evening he called Yuhma, Luzmelt's leader/vocalist (and another one I met on BLOOD's tour in Mexico in 2005 along with Yuu) to join us for dinner.
And that only touches on the people who took care of us during our stay there, to say nothing of most of the new band members we met, the TONS of live gigs we saw, the places we went, the tourist-y things we did... :P;; This was my primary objective for going to Japan, though - to finally meet up again with old friends I haven't seen in anywhere from one and a half to five years. I always wondered if it was weird to think of them all as friends even though I had only ever met them on the rare occasions when they came to perform in the US... but finally getting to visit them on their home turf proved that they think of us as friends too. I was expecting no more than just to see most of them in concert and maybe get to chat for a couple minutes when they came out to sell merch after their respective shows, but the warm and even excited welcome we got from all of them completely blew me away. I know the most awesome people - and I would punctuate that by saying I don't mean to brag, but you know, that's something I really don't mind bragging about. ♥
...The flipside is that this made it much harder to come back home after our trip ended. u_u It's kind of sad that I have more friends and business contacts and opportunities and general awesomeness in Japan than I do over here, heh. Honestly, I'm convinced that country is good for me. *kicked* I was happier and healthier over there, inside and out. After just a few days, even my chronically dry and damaged and dead skin and hair were more healthy and shiny than they've ever been (and it wasn't the shampoo because I used the same brand there that I do here >>). I was also losing weight despite all the delicious food I got to eat every day, I was able to fall asleep at night without the hours of insomniac struggling I've normally dealt with all my life, I was surrounded by people who cared about me and even kept saying I should just move there for good... and in the week since I got home it's just been back to the old routine of nothing but staring at the computer doing work, eating the same five boring meals day in and day out, days of headaches and nights of insomnia... I'm sitting here typing this freaking novel of a post now because I went to bed at midnight, absolutely exhausted after several days of only 3-4 hours of sleep each, only to wake up like four hours later unable to get back to sleep. I'm never going to get my sleep schedule back on track... and to think before I went to Japan (and while I was there also) I was in a perfect routine of actually waking up in the morning and falling asleep at night...
I suppose this would be the depression and withdrawal that typically come after a really fun vacation. I don't feel emotionally depressed - with all the memories that keep replaying through my mind, it's impossible to feel depressed - but it's more physical, I guess. Can't sleep, head hurts, no energy or motivation... I'm just waiting for the day my ulcer decides to wake up and add to this hell again.
If it wouldn't make it so much harder to bring bands over to the US, I'd say I need to just find a job in Japan and get it over with. e_e
...*NOT a weeaboo*
comment! (1)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/09/2012 08:32:00 AM
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