Living It Up In Japan

April 24, 2015

This week started off in a lovely little city called Toyama. We travelled by bullet train from Tokyo which was an amazing experience; probably one of the most relaxing methods of travel.

On Sunday evening the Riverdance band met with the local Japanese musicians for a little trad session in the Irish bar, The Pot Still.

The whole company came along to mingle and socialise with the locals. Spirits were high and everyone loved the ‘craic agus ceoil’ – we even persuaded our multi talented, lead dancer, Emma Warren to give us a few songs.

 

 

On the day off in Nagoya, the majority of the cast headed to the theme park, Nagashima Spaland. The excitement on the hour long bus journey to the park was insane. We were like a bunch of kids going on a school trip. To add to the excitement the sun was splitting the rocks so we caught some well needed Vitamin D!!!

 

 

On the other hand Kat, Mike, Pat, Natia and Dharmesh spent the day off in beautiful Kyoto, the former imperial capital of the country also know as the city of ten thousand shrines. They visited the Arashiyama unesco heritage area where they saw the bamboo gardens, the monkey wildlife park and the famous Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine with the thousands of Tori gates (This place was also included in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha). They indulged in some local food in the Geisha district Gino and ended the day with an evening stroll through Yasaka shrine and Marayama gardens.

Nagoya really is a beautiful city. Some of the gang stumbled across a quirky little area where they found lovely coffee shops, markets, etc.

The port of Nagoya public aquarium was another great day out enjoyed by a few of the cast. They experienced a number of shows and training performances from dolphins, whales, penguins, turtles and much more sea life animals.

The local promoters are very kindly organising a karaoke night for us tonight. It is an extremely popular social activity here in Japan. Here’s a little fact; Karaoke was created twenty years ago in a small Japanese town called Kobe. I’m expecting a few interesting versions of the classic karaoke tunes by some of us that are clearly meant to dance and not sing!!!

Until next week.. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter @Riverdance for more up to date info.

ElLen