And every leaf will sing...

This last weekend headed out of town to find some leaves. Hamamatsu's a little devoid of the good stuff so on the way to Shizuoka we got off half way and took a tiny local train line up into the hills. It was pretty impressive, the line ambled through the foothills and became rapidly engulfed on all sides by forested hills and river beds. The further out we got the nicer it became. We attracted thhe attention of a group of older japanese travellers who insisted on giving us "local" cake. It was a red-bean paste bun thing, green on the outside. Really fresh tasting and quite refreshing. We had intended on taking the train all the way, but had not foreseen the distance involved so got off half-way at a suspension bridge over a wide part of the river-bed. It was a stunning day. Beautiful sunshine, and really warm; stripped to t-shirts and rolled up them trousers. Wandered up into the hills a little through all the green tea plantations which just about cover the landscape in these parts. It's incredible, I can't imagine how much they must consume to need this much... it's good though!
Took my manual camera out of it's case to give it it's Japan debut. Didn't finish the film though so will have to wait a little. Hopefully when I do develop it I'll figure out a way of making it digital for your enjoyment. Think I got a few nice ones. On the way back down towards civilisation we got on a steam train. It was really nice. There was a large party of tiny kids travelling with supervision in their snazzy hats. (I love their hats - all primary colours and secured in place with the finest quality knicker elastic under the chin, styled with a short peak like cycling caps) But the train-conductor was a super-happy, slightly crazy lady. She wandered up and through thhe three carriages singing at the top of her voice and making train noises - WITH the universal hand gestures of the piston driven train! Then a few minutes after she finished, much to the enjoyment of our tiny co-travellers, the intercom crackles into life and we're treated to it again in mono with tinny vibrato. There can be no better way to travel!
On arriving in Shiz, we grabbed some tonkatsu and headed to the venue. Signed up for our slots and awaited the talent. The bar is a tiny place owned by an ex-JET. It's so small there's not even any amplification, just you and yours. First up was an American fellow who informed us he'd be playing a bass solo... hmmm I thought, the only bass solo immediately springing to mind being Metallica's Anaesthesia. Well, perhaps by good choice, it was not this he treated us to but a jazz piece by someone whose name I didn't catch and didn't know. Pretty good though, lots of harmonics. Quite unusual to hear an avante-garde bass solo first up at an open mic too - kudos! Second up was Johanna and Megan playing a few numbers, lovely voices, really nice hamonies and relaxed picking. Then I'm up and I haven't had enough beer. Oh well, I try to settle the tiny assembled croud and do my best to find my ay through Paul Curreri's 'Maria'. Think I did it quite reasonably too. My voice wasn't so great as I was throwing off the tail end of a cold but my picking was on form. And I only forgot three verses! After me was another fellow whose name I didn't catch, then up I am again with Doug playing the Muppet theme tune! I was slammin' out the bass line in as funked up a manner as I could muster and Doug was doing the melody on his mandolin. We did silly voices, comic pausing, and even had a bike horn for the finish. Think it went down pretty well. We followed on with Sufjan's 'The Dress Looks nice on You' which went really well and as far as I was aware, sounded lovely. Then we finished with 'I will survive'. Doug started off with a real slow melancholy verse, then I kicked it up with some power chords and just notched up the effort each verse. The first time the chorus came round I practically screamed it out; think I surprised a fair few people. They told me so afterwards.
We were followed by a guy from Vancouver called Brent who had the voice of an angel and did a few Ben Harper songs, then Joni Mitchell's 'A Case Of You' and finishing with the Jeff Buckley take of 'Hallelujah'. Every was pretty much in awe of his voice and wanted to go home and cry. But calls for a second rendition of the Muppets to cheer everyone up were short-lived. A few more people went up who were probably a bit annoyed to be going after that and then Aroop (a second year from Brighton) stepped up and kicked out the jams. He was gifted with nimble fingers and a sultry tone and bangged out a few self-notched numbers, the most memorable being his finale, '70s Love God' - a slight jibe at himself. Being a well-known character, he went down well and the evening was drawn to a suitable close.



Sunday morning I arose with the pigeons and headed out into the sunshine on my velocipede. I quickly stripped to down to shorts and tees again and cycled up to Tenryu. Was aiming to get back to Gansuiji - the temple I first visited when I was still looking for a bike many moons ago. Well was almost upon it when I was side-tracked by a sign for a forest park. Thought that'd be nice so followed the end of my nose that way instead. Took these photos with my phone as my digi-camera's still out. Cycled around for a couple of hours in the sun. The highlight being when I was heading along a narrow road through a really small town and saw a small boy zipping down the hill towards me on his bike. When he spotted me, he screeched on his brakes and looked like he'd come across a bear or a lion and exclaimed, "Gaijin!" (for those of you who don't know it means foreigner, but more directly translates as barbarian devil).