04/21/07
Okay, I don't know what "this" says. Could someone tell me please?

In any case, I should talk a little about my tour in Asia at this time. Although I was born in Japan, I have never really had the opportunity of traveling this much in Japan before. In fact many of the places I went to, I visited for the first time. It turned out that it was a great thing that Thomas wanted to go to Japan. He was kinda funny, because once the deal in Tokyo was made he said that he had been “looking forward to putting Tokyo in my itinerary”. I have to say a special thank you to Okayan-san for putting things together for us in Tokyo and Tsukuba! These were really good shows, and kicked off the tour on a nice cool wind. Actually, it really was cold.

It was a bit too cold in Japan for Thomas especially. He caught a cold early on in the tour, but managed to keep playing strong for all performances. Maebashi was a blast; for me, it is always nice to go back to my hometown and play. Cannot forget to mention the great sushi place Venkei in Ohta as well. That place could put all the sushi restaurants on the planet out of business. If you have never had sushi in Japan, I mean this, you have NEVER had sushi.

And I thought I had it all myself until we arrived in a southern part of Japan called Kumamoto. There we had “Basashi (Horse Sushi…yum!!)” for the first time. Les and Thomas looked devastated at first, however, Thomas later on was saying that, “I used to think horses were things we ride on; from now on, I will be hungry if I spot one”. Kumamoto was great; a huge thank you to Nayuta-san! Man, the hotel room that we were treated to was incredible. You will see in the photos of me enjoying a beer in our very own hinoki-onsenburo that was attached to our very room. I did not want to leave; we were all ready to forget about the gig that night, and just party in our room.

During tours there are ups and downs; going to Hiroshima did not qualify to be neither however. Les being born on the same day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945 at 8:15am is when the first a-bomb, “Little Boy”, was dropped on to a city with living people in it), he especially had a deep and personal experience. I have been there before once when I was much younger, but the peace park and the bomb museum still revealed to me to be a very powerful place. This time it was even more powerful because I was there with Les. If you have visited Japan, however not have been to Hiroshima, I strongly recommend for you to make the effort and go there.

Since we came to Osaka on the same day we visited Hiroshima, my performance that day was very emotional. Could not play much with fun, but there was much feeling within my playing, and I made a very good friend there in Osaka who is a bit of an artist herself and a good painter...you know who you are;) The venue in Osaka perhaps was my favorite in Japan; thank you Maeda-san and the crew of 5th Street for the great time and taking care of us three!

Came across two old friends in Kobe, and the gig there was nice, however, I made the wrong decision by putting us up in the public bathtub that night. Don’t wanna go into details but check out the photo and you maybe able to imagine why, Les was not feeling so good the next day, but must give him credit for taking this shot on the left. That is me and Thomas somewhere in the back there.

Kyoto was beautiful. Les fell in love with this place, and it made up for the experience that we had in the public bathtub the night before. This was our final stop before we were going off on our separate ways, and I think it turned out to be the perfect place to do that. Next time when I am back in Kyoto, I will have to make it to a point to stay there longer for sure. There were too many things I was not able to do, but then again, maybe that is also the beauty of being on the road.

At the Kyoto station, I sent Les and Thomas off to the Kansai International Airport, and then I went back to Maebashi to enjoy a few days in Japan with my parents before I was going to Taiwan. However I got real sick, and just pretty much remained in the house resting till the day I was going to be taking off to Taipei.

Taipei...what can I say. Ken Dawgg, my bud from my days in St. Louis and early days in Los Angeles, made everything right for me there. The gig in Taipei was incredible. Friends who have been to Taiwan in the past have told me, “Goh, if they don’t respond to you, don’t take it personally. They are shy people”. I was thinking that it was going to be very hard for me to run the show, however man…what a great crowed we had that night. I shared the stage with a very famous guitar player in Taiwan called “Master Dong” (or Dong Yun-chang) and this gig was way off the hook. Perhaps it was the best audience I have ever played for; very quiet during the performance, but they laughed there asses off for the jokes that I was making on and off stage. And of course hanging with my buddy Ken Dawgg was just great. We did our usual working out in the gym, and doing some nice sight seeing, and he introduced me to many of his friends. He is super popular, and the people he knew were mostly gorgeous girls only. One of them her name is Isabelle, and we became very good friends. She is a true heavy metal chick and she is hot as hell. She is a famous singer in Taiwan who teaches pop stars of Taiwan how it is done. She and I will be working on her next upcoming album together on one of the tracks she has composed. She was also nice enough to take many shots for me in Taipei including the one on the right.

Grooveyard of Taichung was awesome. Patrick and Roger were my hosts there, and they treated me super well! They are great musicians themselves, and it was quite a treat to play there at the Grooveyard. Thanx to my oldest friend on the planet (yeah, I might have some friends else where), Torah, I made my connection to Taichung. Thanx to Russell, the Canadian, for his great flamenco guitar! I will need to visit the builder next time when I am there; I really thought it was one of the best flamenco guitars I have ever played. My stay in Taichung was real short; I was there probably for less than 14 hours because we needed to start moving to go down to Spring Scream in Kenting located in the very southern part of the island.

Traveling down to Kenting was quite interesting for me. It gave me a chance to become very familiar with the way Taiwan is built as well as what it looked like. Although Taiwan is so much smaller than Japan, there is something about Taiwan that makes it feel quite huge. They say for every 2km, there are 22 peaks of high mountains. For me, Taiwan reminded me of Mexico more than anywhere else in the world. Lots of friendly people, and there was something about the way the land was built. My shows at Spring Scream were a blast and I finished with selling all the CDs I took with me on the road; that felt great. I met some wonderful people in Kenting, and it was very sad that I had to leave. However I was very fortunate because Mr. Spring Scream himself, Jimi, personally drove me to the Kaohsiung airport on the early morning of the day I was leaving Taiwan. Jimi is a very friendly and sweet guy who has a daughter called “Little Rain”, and it was a pleasure to get to know him from during the time we rode together in his little car. We were talking of having Sharp Three come in for next year, which will be even more perfect for Spring Scream. At the airport he gave me the official Spring Scream flip flops and we said our good-byes and then I was on my way back to Los Angeles.