Everything is now booked and that dream trip that I have always wanted to take is only 12 weeks away, in November I will be going to Tokyo for two weeks and also touring Japan while I am there as well. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am.
This year has been really awful, and I’m not too proud to admit that I have struggled really badly these last two months since my last remaining brother passed away. It isn’t something that is going to go away anytime soon and there is a lot of loneliness involved virtually every day, but I also have to keep living my life as I had planned it. I remember back to when my other brother passed away and I had somewhere to travel to, but I didn’t think that I could go based on how I was feeling. A friend of mine said to me quite frankly “It’s going to suck either way, Rich, so it can suck for you sat at home by yourself, or it can suck with you being around your friends”. He was right, as hard as it was, I had to keep doing what I had planned to do, and I’m glad that I listened to him. In 2019 my brother and myself were going to go to Japan for the rugby world cup, so it will be a little depressing when I go by myself, but, we have to play the cards we were dealt with.
I’m such a lover of history and I will be doing a lot of train hopping going to various towns that are not normal tourist destinations, or at least not overly populated with tourists. I can’t begin to tell you how much I am looking forward to this trip. My original goal was to spend a few days in China as well, but the price I got to fly direct to Tokyo this week was outstanding. If I’m lucky I might get to do a day trip to Korea while I am there.
One of the things that I am going to do in Japan, and I had already purchased two tickets through a third party before I even booked my trip, is that I will be able to see this band that I love on two separate occasions when I am there. It’s crazy really, I love old time music, most genres from before the 1950’s, yet somehow, I fell in love with this group. And now I will see them live twice within a week.
The reason that I think I like them is quite simple, I’m always rooting for the underdog. When I first watched these guys they played to 80 people, they would play shopping malls and during intermissions at wrestling events. Someone online I think summed them up properly, they are not perfect by any means, but that is what makes them perfect. They all have their own unique personalities and they have such a bond with their fans. It isn’t unusual at all for one or more of them to start crying during their shows because they are so passionate, they work so hard to put on the best performance they can. I’m really excited to see them live. The DVD trailer below I actually bought from Japan months ago, it’s a very unique sound I know, but I can’t wait to be a part of the whole experience that surrounds them and their fans. Their first concert was to 80 people, and now they sell out arenas in 30 minutes. The girl in the armband who you can hear crying a little bit at the end, totally lost it when the final song finished and I don’t know why, but she couldn’t stop crying as the band thanked the fans for coming.
This weekend I will be transferring all of my data to my new laptop, I haven’t done it yet, so all I can offer you this week is my most recent find that I came across yesterday. We will be back to normal over the weekend.