Lovely days with James Brown and Buddha

The last few days have been really good. On Saturday night I stayed with Jenn and we met up at her favorite place, K's American Cafe, a restaurant that is about as American as I am Japanese. This was my third time going to K's because Jenn loves it and has formed a friendship with K, the owner of the restaurant. While we were eating, some guys and a woman all came in together carrying instruments. They didn't talk to us at first, but right as Jenn and I were getting ready to leave they came and sat down next to us. They attempted to speak to us in their very limited English and we tried talking back to them in English and our even more limited Japanese. It turned out that these guys were in a James Brown tribute band and one of them actually did look slightly James Brown-ish. Despite the fact that "James Brown" was clearly from Japan, ethnically he was either not Japanese or only half Japanese, because he had rather dark skin and an afro. These guys, especially James Brown, were freakin' hysterical. They didn't exactly mean to be, but the things they said and did were priceless. The fun began when we introduced ourselves. Jenn told them her name and then I told them mine, when they heard my name one of them said "Like Eric Clapton!" and he and another one of the men simultaneously burst into song: "Raaaay- raaa, got me on my knees Ray-raaaa!!!". It was like something out of a stereotype filled sitcom. Somehow Jenn and I managed to keep semi-straight faces through the song and then steered the conversation away from my name. Later as we were watching a music video by George Michael, James Brown turned to me and said "You love the gay?", then after Jenn had explained the term "man eater" another member of the group proclaimed "I'm woman eater!" we told him he probably shouldn't say that any more. Somehow up until that point Jenn and I had managed to contain our inner laughter, but then James Brown (and maybe a few too many drinks) pushed us over the edge when he asked, "Do you like poo?" and then repeatedly started screaming "POOOO! POOOO!". I almost died... from laughter. Looking back I know it's not really THAT funny, but at the time I just didn't care because laughing that much felt good and I hadn't done it in a long long time. Jenn joined in and then we just couldn't stop, we laughed until there were tears streaming down our eyes, while James Brown said "Pooh, yellow bear, pooh". He also explained that he was screaming POOO because he thought that's what Michael Jackson was saying when he made that high pitched "Owww!" sound. Basically, James Brown and his posse made my entire weekend complete before it had even started. We also are going to go see them perform in April, so I'm very excited about that.

On Saturday I had my second rehearsal. I met two more members of the cast and they both seem very nice. One of them was the guy who is playing the lead role, which is actually two roles because the play revolves around a set of identical twins and he plays both of them. He works at some sort of private drama school and teaches mainly Japanese kids how to act, so I thought that was really cool. After rehearsal I met up with Jenn again and we went to Ebisu for lunch because when I was there the other day I found a tex-mex restaurant called Zest that we both wanted to try out. I'm all for trying new Japanese foods, and I do the majority of the time, but sometimes it's nice to eat something familiar and homey (or as homey as Mexican food gets). On Monday I pretty much lazed around, but I felt that I had been productive enough on Sunday that it was okay.

Today I had been thinking of going to Asakusa to visit the famous temple, Senso-ji, and see the massive lantern that hangs in the front gate. I decided, however, that it would be better to wait until the weekend so that I can take my time and explore the area. Instead I decided to do some local exploring and I'm so incredibly glad that I did! One of my students had told me that I live extremely close (about 5 minutes by bike) from one of the largest Buddha's in Japan so I thought that since it was so nice out I would try and find it. I looked up the name and address online and then set off in the general direction without knowing exactly where I was going but knowing I had plenty of time to figure it out. I asked about 5 different people for directions and eventually made my way to the Tokyo Daibutsu (Big Buddha). I was truly stunned by how beautiful the place was, there was a big gorgeous temple, a Japanese garden with a pond full of giant koi, tons of statues, and of course the giant black Buddha. I seriously feel so lucky to have found this place because it's relatively unknown, even by Japanese people who live in other areas of Tokyo, and it's practically in my back yard, or it would be if I had one. On my quest to find Daibutsu I also found two lovely parks/gardens, one with a quiet bamboo grove that you can walk through and another that I will visit later in the spring or summer because there were signs marking hundreds of different flowers that are planted there, they just haven't bloomed yet. I also explored a park right down the street from me that has a little forest on the side of it. Lately I've really been missing the woods and lakes of Connecticut, so all this exposure to beauty and nature definitely helped to lift my spirits. Hopefully the weather will continue to stay warm and I'll continue to find new and interesting things to keep me happy.