Japanasia – The show

Well, for a while now we have been getting ready for our Japan trip. A few weeks ago, we were invited to the house of the Japanese Ambassador. It was great! They gave us a traditional Japanese lunch, taught us a few helpful phrases (none of which I can remember… sigh), they even let us try on a few of the traditional kimonos. When we were headed out they gave us all invitations to an upcoming show. The show, Japanasia, was a musical performance of traditional Japanese music.  We talked our professors into letting class out early so that we could attend (it wasn’t that difficult, because as it turns out most of them wanted to go as well)

We got there, tickets in hand and dressed to impress expecting a grand production. However when we got there, they was no ticket collector and no real dress code. But that didn’t stop the show from being amazing.

This is a short from my seat. There were a lot of other photographers, and just about everyone in the seats had cameras. The crowd seemed pretty down when the Master of Ceremonies announced that there was no photography allowed. But you’ll be glad to hear that they were not discouraged. The sound of camera shutters was almost constant throughout the entire show. I even rebelled a bit and snapped a few off…

Unfortunately, karma seemed to win this one as none of my photos really turned out. In my defence, it was REALLY dark in there…

Afterward we all decided to go out to eat.

I (because of my allergies) did not order, but I did have some time to look around the restaurant and find this Cameo by the Pillsbury Dough Boy on a bottle of water.

I’m told hes everywhere, I guess I’ll have to keep a closer look.

24

02 2010

CLACK!CLACK!CLACK!

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK-CLACK! CLACK!

So, just about everyday this bird comes to the window in my studio, and attacks it. I don’t know what his plan is, but I guess its pretty damn important because hes always there. CLACK!

Lucky for me hes pretty photogenic. He kept flying away, but he always came back…

CLACK!

18

02 2010

“You have to understand, most of these girls have never been to a Pep-Rally before…”

Last week I was invited to attend the VCUQ girls basketball game. They are doing really well this year so I decided to check it out:

But lets take a step back first. I was in studio late one night and a few of the girls who were still there as well decided to take a big break and head to the game. Now, as many of you know, I’m not a big sports nut. So the idea of going to a pep-rally and getting my face painted, then headed to the game, isn’t really something I do… But after hours and hours of work, I was about ready to call it quits. Someone passed by my studio room and told me that there was food at the pep-rally, and I was packed up and out the door within moments. We made out way down to atrium expecting to find hoards and hoards of people cheering and yelling “GO RAMS” but when we got there, I was shocked. There was no cheer squad, no mascot no band, just about 20 people walking around in over-sized VCU t-shirts with yellow and black face-paint.

Our bewildered look must have caught some attention because one of the ladies working the face painting turned to us and said “You have to understand, most of these girls have never been to a Pep-Rally before…”. Instantly, it made sense. Brent and I got some Black and Gold war paint and donned oversize shirts and joined the ranks of about 30 students.

Now this must have been really odd, because when we got there to show out spirit, there was practically no one there. There was no other cheer squad, and actually only a few parents showed up to cheer on the other team. Our spirit over took that small gym.

Now this was no ordinary cheering. It was a mixture of chants, waves, and traditional Egyptian drumming. It was completely different than anything I have ever been to.

After a while, the other team started to get into it, and one man (who I assume was a father of a player, or else he was REALLY weird…) started cheering back at us! We called him… “Crazy-Claws”

The other team was the Wildcats, so instead of giant foam fingers, they had giant foam claws. Crazy-claws insisted on waving them at us menacingly each time his team scored. Frightful.

Well, we ended up loosing the game but not the spirit. After the end of the game we still rushed the court to congratulate our team and cheered “V-C-U!” as we did.

In the spirit of sportsmanship, the Wildcats got together and cheered “VCU!” as well. Unfortunately it was lost amongst our own chatter and we ended up responding with a “VCU!” cheer of our own. Oh well, they had the win, we can have the cheers.

18

02 2010

Japan Update.

Well as avid readers of my blog might come to know (or may not know, I may not have written about it, oops!) I will be in the great land of Japan for spring break. But this trip does not come without certain strings attached. We MUST make a journal. This won’t be too bad for me, but since I’ll be away from my computer for about 10 days it will be a good way for me to jot ideas down and tell you all about it upon my triumvirate return… The real bummer is I think there is a paper attached to this trip too.. ack!

Anyways, anyone who knows me knows that I couldn’t sport a boring old marble notebook, so I jazzed it up a bit:

I thought it was pretty neat, so I figured you might as well. I will be taking pictures and writing notes feverously for 10 days, so get ready for a BIG POST! (or maybe just a small concise one, I have to leave some mystery for when I get back!)

17

02 2010