1,200 Yen very well spent

Don't flip out. 1,200 Yen looks like a good chunk of cash, but as a quick, easy, but inexact way to convert Yen into American dollars, take the decimal point and move it two spaces to the left. Like I said, not exact, but good enough to figure out what I spent today on my concert ticket.

Let's start with my activities on Friday..........Okay, well that's about it for Friday. I took Friday completely off. Candy and I went to the bowling alley for dinner and I went out for a 2 1/2 mile run on post, but other than that, I was a big slug. Long nap and an excessive amount of time on the computer were just what the doctor ordered to put some juice back into my batteries. Thanks to my slothdom, I was up and ready to go for Saturday. Candy and I caught a quick breakfast at Starbucks on Post, I went for another run and then I was off to the city of Kawasaki for a fabulous concert. Many weeks ago, I was looking for activities to fill my calendar that would also help to justify the generous amount of money being afforded to me by "Fund for Teachers." In my research, I came across Muza Kawasaki Hall, the primary home of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Now, I am going to see the TSO tomorrow at another venue in downtown Tokyo, but I wanted to see THIS hall, so I began looking for an opportunity. What I came up with was the NEC Corporation. Seems that many of the big Japanese companies, including Yamaha and Sony have company Symphonic Bands. What an incredible notion. But would the NEC Band of Tamagawa be worth my 1,200 Yen. Muza Kawasaki Hall did not disappoint. A true concert hall that does not have a symmetrical bone in its body. Do not try to adjust the pictures I sent of the hall. The balconies taper to one side and then the other. Completely unique. And the acoustics were the equal of the architecture. The concert was divided into three segments. The first two were dedicated to more serious band works by composers such as Camile Saint Seines and Hector Berlioz, while the final third was Pops all the way, complete with a change in attire by the band to white dinner jackets and a change in conductors to the Japanese version of Arthur Fiedler. But what about the NEC band's performance? For a bunch of weekend warriors that spend the majority of their time assembling intricate electronic devices, designing intricate electronic devices or having meetings about intricate electronic devices, these guys were incredible! Wow! They played the socks off of everything on the program. I especially enjoyed a piece very much in the style of Alfred Reed entitled Five Okinawa Songs for band and their version of Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder. As fine a performance as you are going to find in any of Oklahoma's colleges. If I come back to Japan, I am going to seek out these company concerts. This was the great, cheap entertainment.

A quick snack and then back on the train to Sobudaimae Station. Interesting to note. Today was sports-team traveling day in Japan. I met several school-age, unform-clad teams that were on their way to or from Saturday competitions. It was a further glimpse into a culture that is vastly different from mine. I cannot begin to count how many hours I have spent on school busses, but this was the first time I had contemplated taking a school group on a train as a matter of course.

Candy and I had dinner at Roberto's, a pub on base, and back to the apartment. I am on to the Shinjuku section of Tokyo tomorrow for the TSO concert.

-k