rock and roll shizuoka (and beyond)

I'd been frequenting live houses in Shizuoka on my off days (few and far between) there i met up with a cat from Hamamatsu who had a band called Free Hug. His name was Yusuke (yuu-ske) He was amazingly cool and we vibed right away, although he didn't speak much English and my Japanese is...well, still a bit on the dodgy side. However, we hit it off and i promised him the next live he had, even if it was in Hamamatsu i would travel the three hours to see him. Turns out his next live was on a day i was off and was of course 3 hours away in Hamamatsu. A promise is a promise.

















This was the view of Mt. Fuji from the Fujinomiya train station. It had snow finally, which made me happy. NOW it looks like Mt. Fuji.


Three hours later i arrived at the station where Yusuke picked me up and walked me over to the live house.







This is the live house and the play bill featuring free hug.

Heres a bad picture of yusuke at the drums. hes also the vocalist.

ogi the guitartist. not robert johnson. different hair. he was sick but still rocked the party, he rocked the party. who rocked the party? ogi rocked the party.

hirohumi. the bassist. he left pretty quickly after the show so i didnt really get a chance to chat with him. seemed cool though.

rock in motion.

this was another band 3nd. (pronouned sahnd) they were purely instrumental but were crazy cool up on the stage.

me and yusuke started chatting up two girl members of another band. they heard we were going to rock and roll all night (since the trains in japan stop running at midnight, it was too late for me to come back to fujinomiya, so yusuke decided to stay with me and keep me company until the trains started rolling). they decided it sounded like fun so we were +2. the girl all the way to the right is yusuke's *secret* girlfriend. i probably shouldnt have told you but im sure you wouldnt tell. right? she spoke english and met us around midnight after she got off work. +3

rock.


we stayed at this restaraunt for almost 4 hours. it was called za watami. (even they didnt know what it meant)

cute. (kawaii)

hes hot (literally).

shes hot (figuratively).

this was a little place run by a brazillian friend of yusukes gf.

this map tells you where the bathroom is if you push this button. however its in japanese so i would probably have to use the tree next to it if it were an emergency.





everyone was super tired at this point.

sunrise in hamamatsu.

at the train station. one last look.

so that was that. it was fun. going to do it again. ill let you know.

also bonus.

take a look at the sign that says kool. its the black one with white writing. it was small and dark and high up so the pic isnt so great. but if you can make out what kind of music they play im sure youll groan or smile. oh japan. silly silly japan. you have no idea.