Tokyo --> Osaka

You can take a bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka in 2 hours -- or you can take the slow train, like we did, which takes about 9 hours. What's the point? It only costs about $20. And you get to see a lot more scenery. This was taken near our destination, around Kyoto. Sometimes you get a seat, sometimes you don't. Usually it's not crowded, but when you pass through important stations or cities, it can get packed.

Trip to China

This is the first (of various?) posts about my trip to China with Amber. First of all, let me tell you: it was amazing! I loved it there, we had such a good time, we saw so many things -- I hope that I can explain to you some of the things we experienced and learned in our 3 week trip.


We started off from Tokyo in late July and took the train west to Osaka. From Kobe, near Osaka, we took a ship that delivered us, 48 hours later, to Tianjin, about 2 hours from Beijing.


This is how much money we brought with us to start. About ¥100,000 worth of Chinese Yuan (about $1000). It ended up lasting us much longer than expected. China was so wonderfully cheap: we could eat what we wanted, take taxis, take people out, and stay in hotels for almost nothing.

Google: Japan + Cumbia in Google =

Cumbia master: Andres Landero

I finally stumbled upon this guy with his classic cumbia. This is the sound I am looking for! Andres Landero. Listen here. I am trying to start a classic cumbia and classic latin music party in Tokyo. If anybody has any leads, let me know!

PingMag article on Parashell

I just had an article published at PingMag. Check it out!

The future face of Bunraku

I went to see some puppet theater. I love Chikamatsu Monzaemon, the master playwright of 17th century Japanese pupper theater, and one of his plays was happening. It happened to be pretty boring, partly because I was sleepy, partly because I didn't think I would need the English interpretation via headphones (they would have helped), and partly because this barely surviving art form has lost its popular appeal over the generations probably thanks to how slow it is. It's more fun to read, in my book. Chikamatsu's love-suicide plays are still awesome, I think.

Anyway, yes it was cool to go to the theater, and the puppets were pretty amazing. It was shocking to see how life-like and disturbing the final double-suicide was. The puppet masters are indeed masterful. 3 people handle each puppet - a master and 2 assistants, I think. Some of the puppet masters are so celebrated that they don't have to wear black mask-hoods on stage to conceal their visage. Some even get applause when they step out on stage. I still think it would be fun to be so involved in this ancient tradition. These people must be so devoted to bunraku. You can't weekend as a bunraku singer. Slow, but impressive.

Bunraku puppet theater

Bunraku - Japanese puppet theater