Concert on the Rock
As promised, this is an update on my life. This actually happened a couple weekends ago now, but I've gotten behind a bit on the old blog.
The weekend before last, my friend Eion and the gang from the Tropicoco's band organized a concert on Mount Hachimen. Without getting bogged down to much in the background details, Tropicoco is a Mexican bar out in this area that the expatriate community frequents. The owner of the bar and some of the other foreigners around here have formed sort of a salsa/rock band. The name of the band, as well as the line-up, is frequently changing. I sometimes say, only half joking, that everyone I know except me has at one time or another been a member of this band.

Anyway, they created and organized a concert event on Mount Hachimen, inviting other bands they knew or were connected with. They gave all the money they raised to a local orphanage. The event was pretty successful considering these guys created it out of thin air, and on rather short notice as well. Eion in particular had been working pretty hard the past couple weeks organizing and promoting the event.

Being the good friend I was, I did absolutely nothing to help. Despite Eion giving me a bunch of fliers, I didn't distribute them. I didn't even buy a ticket to the event until I was absolutely certain nothing better was going to be happening that weekend.

But despite my poor showing, I did have a good time at the concert. Anyone who has been to Mount Hachimen knows it is a very beautiful place (and I've taken a couple of you there who have come out to visit me). During World War II, an American airplane crashed into the mountain side, and so the people of the area built a peace park to commemorate the event. The park is very beautiful because of all the flower gardens and statues on the side of the mountain. A stage area and viewing area are above the peace park.

The concert went from 2 in the afternoon until 4:30 in the morning. From the mountain we could see the view of the surrounding area in the afternoon, and the city lights at night. It was a great place to have the concert. And the sunset was spectacular. (Actually I missed the sunset. Playing my usual role as the only sober driver, I got recruited to do some driving for another beer run. But I imagine it must have been spectacular).

A good afternoon all in all. Weather bordered on a bit too hot in the afternoon, but the evening and night was great. Good to sit outside with friends and listen to music. No interesting stories from the event really. I stole Greg's hat at one point, and he ran after me and tackled me. And when going on a beer run with Chris, Paul and I pretended we were going to try to ditch him by running away. Chris later said we had such a campy "Benny Hill" type run as we ran away, that he almost didn't dignify it by giving chase.

Oh, and my dancing got made fun of. When everyone was dancing in front of the stage, someone told me I really stood out. Not only because I was a lot taller than most of the Japanese, but because they said my dancing style seemed like it was from the 1920s, and they said the Japanese people around me were watching amazement as I flailed my langley limbs around. (I didn't notice this so much at the time.)

But other than those incidents, not too much in the way of good stories from the event. But a pleasant concert nonetheless.