 |  | Komatsu Music Festival, November 1-4, 2006 (Part 1)
| 8/19/2018 6:13:47 AM - KOMATSU - November 1-4, 2006
Nov 1-2 -- Boy, this was a LONG travel day! Got up at 6:00 a.m., dropped Nikita off at our neighbors to see him off to the school bus, then took the 1-1/2 hour ride to the airport. Sasha was coming back later from his Mingus Dynasty European tour at the same airport, JFK, so it worked out with the car -- I parked it, left him a message on his cell where it was, and he would drive it home. We took off 15 minutes late but made up for it on the flight over and got in 15 minutes early. Had a nice window seat with the seat between the aisle and myself open so it helped, and the babies around us had gentle sweet cries, very cute. 4-1/2 hour lay over at Narita where I did my gift shopping for Nikita and had a simple Japanese dinner with sake -- ended up tripping on my way to the cash register, right in front of a table full of beautiful young stewardesses, VERY embarrassing!! Konked out on the plane ride to Komatsu, was met by the Komatsu town people who were organizing the event. Nyoro was supposed to have gotten in from Tokyo 10 minutes earlier but had missed her flight from Haneda due to the JR train system shutting down for a half an hour after someone slipped and fell onto the tracks. Checking into the business hotel was a trip: Hyper Komatsu Hotel. I was told I had a "family type room" and thought I was going to have a suite or something, and it turned out to be a tiny closet of a room. What was "family" about it? It had a bunk bed. Took a LONG bath and was in bed by 10:30 p.m.
Nov 3 -- Of course I got up at a ridiculous hour (4:00 a.m.!) and pretended to sleep, but it was useless. Took a leisurely shower and was downstairs for breakfast at 7:30. I had been on a non-carb anti-aging and -wrinkle diet since July, and as the hotel breakfast consisted of bread, bread and more bread, I felt a little out of sorts.
Enter Joey Kilrain. Joey is the head of Gigapixel Creatives from NY and had done the opening page for my website a couple years back. Our contact had been strictly through e-mails and I'd never met him, but he struck me as a very nice guy. After sending out my last newsletter, Joey had e-mailed me to let me know that he would be in Japan at the same time as me. I'd written back to let him know that I was going to be in for just one day to do the event in Komatsu. He came saying that he was going to be done with his job and was going to take time to explore Japan, and would love to come and see me perform. While I was booked at this hotel the one night, the eventors had booked me into an exclusive "ryokan" (traditional Japanese style inn with natural hot spring baths) the night of my performance. I checked to see if Joey could stay there, but it was booked solid, so at the suggestion of Kimura-san, who had put together this event, got him booked at the Hyper Komatsu. Well, he was shocked as much as I at how small the rooms were. Did I mention there were no phones in the rooms? Yep. On top of this, the day before when he had arrived at the hotel, it was still an hour before check in and his room wasn't ready, so he left his bags up front and went off to explore the town for a couple of hours. Upon his return and after bringing his bags upstairs, he was shocked and dismayed to find his computer, which was in his napsack, was banged up and dented.
(cont'd) | | Monday's tour blogs |
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