Balloon Shapes By Cops » Osaka Castle

Muse Live in Osaka 9th Jan 2010

Silentjim — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:12:39 +0000

Just last Saturday we went to see Muse live at Osaka Castle Hall (that’s not actually the hall in the castle, which would have been v. cool, but the concert hall about half a mile away in the surrounding park).

I remember buying the first Muse album when it came out years ago and liking it a lot, but then kinda lost interest in them. So the week before the gig we bought that album again and their new one The Resistance. Figured I should catch up.

To be honest, didn’t get the new album at first, it seemed to much of an homage/pastiche of T-Rex, Marilyn Manson, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Queen.

However that all changed during the gig!

Muse Live in Osaka 2010

However they nearly blew it.

One of the odd things about gigs in Japan which I might have mentioned before is that they always start really early.
The doors for this gig opened at 4:30 and the band were due to be on at 6pm.
In England we’re kinda used to bands going on about 9ish (and usually being late).
Well here, if a band is due on at 6 then they come on at 6. It’s the Japanese way.

At 6:30 we were still waiting. Suddenly an announcement came over the tannoy:

The band have just left the hotel and are on their way.
They aplogise for being late.
And will be on stage at 7pm.

Murmers of disbelief filled the venue.

“Bloody English”

(Actually that was me saying that).

Any road up, they came in about 7:10 and the drummer tried to apologise in Japanese (he was reading it off a piece of paper). Good effort.

They then launched into a blinding set which completely made up for their earlier “rudeness”.

Halfway through, Matthew – the frankly phenomenal guitarist (I was so impressed!) and singer – wandered off and we were left with a bass and drum interlude.
Usually this is the time to head to the bar although not with Muse. The bass player, Christopher Wolstenholme, is a fantastic bass player, and together they played a fantastic tune.
It reminded me of the section in Alex James of Blur’s autobiography where he’s talking about working with Flood (I think it was) and how getting the drums and bass right first sets up the song and everything else just falls into place.
This particular tune didn’t need anything else. Fantastic.

Overall a great gig and listening to the album last night on the way home from the pub, I now love the T-Rex, Marilyn Manson, Pink Floyd, Queen homage!

Osaka River Cruise Photos

Silentjim — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 04:14:49 +0000

English Tea Building

Thin Building

Osaka River

Bridge and Plane

Many homeless people in Osaka live along the river in these blue shelters. You see these blue tarpaulin shelters a lot in parks and around Osaka castle, and along this river. I think the council must give them out or something.

Japanese Homeless Tents

Homeless Tents

Japanese Homeless

The Boat Shrinks Using these Pistons

Osaka and the Manchester of the Orient

Silentjim — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 03:53:42 +0000

Osaka Castle

Just the other week, my girlfriend and I decided to be proper tourists and we went off to Osaka castle, and did a boat ride up the river.

Great fun! I really like Osaka castle, it’s the 2nd time I’ve visited there (admittedly the first was just for half an hour as we got there a bit late), but there are some great views of Osaka, and it also looks pretty cool.

Although it was only built in 1935! The original has been destroyed many times, and the latest is a reproduction of what it looked like when Hideyoshi Toyotomi first built it.

Osaka Castle

Unfortunately the inside just looks like any museum, but they have some interesting exhibitions on (when we went there was a collection of new Japanese swords), and some cool videos telling the story of the castle (well, they’re models, with videos displayed on them, to give kind of a 3D effect, like a hologram but not.

Difficult to explain, I’ll try and find a video clip, and stick it up.

Also, this time they had “dress like a samurai for ￥300″, which, being a tourist, I did.

Baka Gaijin

As they say here in Japan, “Baka gaijin”.
Anyway, it seemed to create some interest amongst the other tourists, so I think I started a trend.

Afterwards we found the 1970 Expo Time Capsule, which has about 1000 items buried to be opened every 100 years, and one extra special box of goodies to be opened in 5000 years!
No idea what’s in them unfortunately, maybe some “conbeni” (convenience store) food, I’m sure it lasts that long.

Time Capsule

We also found some of those cardboard people things (gotta find out the correct name for them), which I love, and it’s my mission to have my photo taken at everyone of them in Japan (which judging by how prolific they are, could take some doing!)

Samurai Jim

Finally we went on the boat trip up the river. Now Osaka is a great city, and has some very beautiful parts, however the river is not one of them. Compared to say, the boat ride up the Thames, or a canal cruise in Amsterdam, there’s something kind of lacking about the Osaka trip, mainly beautiful or interesting buildings.

The highlight of the trip was
a) seeing Osaka castle way off in the distance,
b) Seeing the ceiling of the boat lower 30cm, so it can get under low bridges
c) Finding out that Osaka used to be called the Manchester of the Orient – because of the factories, and the use of the river to transport goods, like the Mancehster ship canal I guess.

Still, I love river boat trips, so I was more than happy. It’s also a very low boat, so you sit only about 1m above the waters surface. Which was nice (for me).
Have to find some photos of it, to post.

All in all, a great day, finished off with a trip to Korean town, and some fantastic Yakiniku (korean bbq).

Cherry Blossom Season in Japan

Silentjim — Tue, 02 May 2006 04:00:55 +0000

A few weeks ago it was cherry blossom season here, this is quite an event in Japan. The blossom (or “sakura“) lasts about 10days to 2 weeks, and during this time thousands of Japanese partake in “hanami” or cherry blossom viewing. This involves sitting under a tree and having a picnic and drinking lots of sake and beer it seems.

We went to Osaka castle on one day to see the sakura, but it was pretty cold so we didn`t stay long.
Did see some poor office workers sitting on their own though.
The junior people have to get there early and just sit around, saving the space till the more senior members turn up.

Office Junior

Hanami

The Blossom is very beautiful.

Cherry Blossom

Cherry Blossom Viewing

Hanami

The next day we went to Arashiyama in Kyoto, a very beautiful place with lots of great cherry blossom, and temples, etc. (well it is Kyoto!).

Arashiyama, Kyoto

Arashiyama Restaurant

Finally we went to Maruyamakoen (??) a park in central Kyoto, where we saw thousands of people drinking and partying!
It was like Glastonbury!
Great fun, but we couldn`t stay long as there was no space to sit down or anything.

Kyoto

Kyoto Party

The Main Cherry Blossom Tree