Category Archives: Europe

Europe (UNWTO Area)

23rd & 24th September 2017: San Sebastián Film Festival (Spain)

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23rd September 2017: Let’s go!

Overnight, I headed off to San Sebastián as a Weekend Escapade to the Festival de Cine de San Sebastián International Film Festival that is held over there because they were projecting a Japanese film and the main actor and the director were coming over to present it. The film was “Sandome no Satsujin” [三度目の殺人], the director is Hirozaku Kore-eda and the actor in question was Fukuyama Masaharu, of whom I am a big fan.

I started off at 22:00 on Friday as I had to take a bus to go to Intercambiador de Avenida de América, which is one of the bus hubs in Madrid. My bus to San Sebastián left at 00:30, so in the end I had to wait for almost two hours until I could board. I was dozing for most of the trip so it did not feel too long. I arrived in San Sebastián bus station at around 6:50 in the morning and I had decided that I would go to the so-called Shell Beach, Playa de la Concha, to watch sunrise. I had been told that cafeterias would be open at that time, but not even the one in the bus station was ready.

A beach at night. The sea is calm and it reflects the city lights

My plan of watching a sea sunrise was trumped by the fact that the sea is towards the west, but I still could take a couple of nice pictures.

The sun rising, tinting the sky and the sea blue and orange

Among them were the beach itself, the “skyline” and the Catedral del Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd Cathedral).

A gothic or neogothic church clock tower, spiky with pointy arches

I wandered around, found the theatre where the film was going to be projected and as the sun started warming up, I started feeling less like a homeless dog.

The sun rising along a promenade

I found the local Starbucks at around 9:00 to get some rest, a coffee, and a cookie before I went to the Aquarium, which opened at 10:00. The Aquarium de San Sebastián is a bit more of a museum than anything else. The first part (second floor) is dedicated to the history of ocean commerce, with different types of ships, and rooms focused on the local harbour, companies, traditional boat racing and whaling. This includes an actual right whale skeleton and several sperm whale teeth and some baleens. The second part (first floor) is dedicated to general fishing and the local oceanography society, including machinery and live specimens.

Finally, after all this, you get to the actual aquarium (yay). There are several small tanks and then a big tank with a walk-through tunnels. The inhabitants are pretty standard, with lots of small fish and several magnifying-glass tanks to make the animals look bigger than they are. The third floor hosts the tropical fish including the piranha and the clown fish. All in all it is a nice place, however, it was under construction and some tanks were covered by dark plastic. After that I left the aquarium and I decided to go up Mount Urquil, which hosts a castle and quite nice views of the city and the ocean.

A small building entrance which yields to the aquarium. Collage showing different exhibits inside: a whale skeleton, a seven-grilled shark in alcohol, a trilobites fossil, a shark jaw, a starfish, a shark swimming above through an aquarium tunnel, a lionfish, sarks swimming in the aquarium

I walked by John Malkovich while heading there, but he did not look like he was in the mood (or the clothes) to be recognised, so I did not bug him. Then I started my climb up the mount towards the the local castle, Castillo de La Mota, along the batteries of cannons. The castle has a small history museum, and a look-out balcony, and the top has been transformed into a church, with a giant Christ overlooking. The truth is I was mostly improvising on my visits as the week was hell between work and the death of a family member.

Views from and of the ruins of the castle - the sea, the wall, and the old cannons

After that I had lunch and headed off to the theatre to check out the coming out of people. At this point I planned to wait for the actor and the director to come into the theatre, but for some reason I checked out the schedule, and the name of the actor had been taken out of the presentation! That made me sad for a little while, but I decided that I was okay with it, that it would not be a drama. I had taken my chance, and at least I had gotten some air after all the pain and drama throughout the week. I guess that helped relativise the sadness. I went to a park near the beach to get some sun and enjoy the last days of summer.

A 19th century building with large windows. A banner on the façade reads Festival de San Sebastián 65

A banner for the cinema festival, showing posters for different films. The third murder is on the bottom left

Around 15:00 I returned to the theatre, Teatro Victoria Eugenia to start lining as I wanted a seat close enough to see the subtitles- and I found a place on sixth row which was pretty good. As this was a special people’s vote session, we got a ballot to give our opinions. Then I settled to wait, and eventually at 16:00 the presenter came in, and to my surprise, she announced Kore-eda and Fukuyama. That made me so happy I could have died right there and then, and the best was still to come. Kore-eda told us about the film. Apparently several people consider that he has changed genre, but he told us that he disagrees and that he still tried to make a human drama. However, he thought that we should judge. Then Fukuyama told us that he enjoyed San Sebastián and that they had been having pinchos and that he was happy to have returned. I was shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone as I recorded.

The stage inside the theatre

Director Kore-eda and actor Fukuyama Masaharu on stage

Promo of the film The Third Murder from the Festival Webpage

All this would have made me very happy already, but there is more. “Sandome no Satsujin”, or “The third murder” tells the story of a lawyer whose job is to defend a man accused of murder. As this would be the defendant’s third murder, if found guilty he will be handed the death penalty. The film is a complex story, completely unpredictable – or I was too enthralled to see the ending coming – but when everything fell into place I felt like gawking.

Furthermore, there was more to come – at the end of the film both Kore-eda and Fukuyama had stayed behind. as I was coming out I looked up and told them “otsukaresama deshita”, and both of them bowed and replied “arigatou”. Then we waited for them to come down from the second floor, from where they had taken the ovation. I dropped my vote and rushed through the red carpet. As other people talked to the director I made a beedive towards Fukuyama. It was then or never, and it turned out to be then.

Director Kore-eda and actor Fukuyama Masaharu waving for a picture on the street after the film

I was shaking inside but I managed to tell them that I had been a fan of his since Galileo times and I asked for his autograph. He told me thank you (at some point the interpreter tried to help, but I was busy dying and trying to get my meaning across). He signed my Galileo booklet and I asked him to take a picture with me, to which he also agreed. And thus I fulfilled my wildest dreams (and look horrible in the picture). After Fukuyama had continued on the red carpet I managed to sit down on a curb and I was on the phone with my friend C*****, who prevented me from going completely hysterical in fanby bliss.

After I told her everything, I was pretty dead so I headed off to he hotel (pension) that I had booked for the night, and pretty much giggled and crashed, and uncrashed and giggled some more. At 23:00 I was completely zonked out, not without realising that I had headed to get some rest without grabbing my freebies and some merchandising I wanted from the festival.

Fukuyama Masaharu's autograph on a DVD booklet

24th September 2017: And back

I left the hotel early, around 8:30 to head towards the cinema area and buy the short Festival guide (not the big one for 22€ but the little one for 1.5€) and get the free newspaper. I bought a coffee to go and headed back to the bus station, when my bus was at 10:00. I could not sleep and the Wi-Fi was not working, but I could watch Youtube videos on the seat screen. I managed to get home around 17:00 after a couple of buses, and I was pretty much dead. However, it was totally worth it. I think this is why I was hyper enough to decide to go to Vienna next month…

11th & 12th June 2017: Highlights of London (England, Great Britain)

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As part of my day job, I took a group of customers on a trip to London. Not the best decision in my life, but one that I would repeat a couple of times before I had enough. This was a short getaway – we took off on a red-eye flight on Saturday and we came back on Sunday evening.

Our first stop was The Tower of London, officially called “Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London”. The main Tower, “White Tower”, was built in the 11th century, and additions to it were made up to the 1400s. It was designated Unesco World Heritage Site in 1998. The Tower holds an armoury, some treasure, documentation offices, a few shops and the Crown Jewels of England. And, according to the legend, quite a few ghosts.

After the Tower, we took a moment to see the Tower Bridge.

We had a hotel basically at the end of the world, and we decided to go to drop our things off before we continued on the visit. We saw the Wellington Arc in Hyde Park on the way to the royal palace.

Then we fooled around Buckingham Palace.

Finally we went to Chinatown to have dinner…

… and rounded up the day at Piccadilly Circus.

The next morning we headed off to the British Museum. We had breakfast outside because of course it was one of those times when it’s all warm in London. Waffles = ♥

The British Museum was established in 1753, and opened to the public, in its current location, in 1759. It focuses on human history and art, having branched the natural history items to the Museum of Natural History and all the documentation to the British Library. The museum holds the awe-inducing number of 150 million of artefacts from dozens of cultures of the world, both ancient and modern, with amazing Grecian and Egyptian collections (albeit having disputed ownership…)

Inside the British Museum we separated. I left them to have a walk around the most important areas and I walked into my favourite spots (although the Japanese galleries were still closed. I also got a ticket to see the Hokusai – beyond the Great Wave exhibition, which presents a number of Hokusai’s works organised in series or topics. One is waves, and it shows how Hokusai experimented with textures, shapes, swirls and foam until he found the “perfect” wave – his most famous work, the Great Wave. There is a series on people, another one on mythology, and another one on himself and his family.

After I was done and we had met up again, I helped them found some stuff that they had not seen but still wanted to. Then, we headed off to the Westminster area to see the Big Ben, and although there was some scaffolding already visible, we managed to see the whole thing.

Finally, we headed off to the airport to get back home.

6th & 7th May 2017: Cuenca (Spain)

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If I ever go missing, especially with my car, don’t go around looking for me in Cuenca . I would have a nervous breakdown trying to drive through the streets and slopes. I’m not sure what time we arrived, maybe mid-morning. We had a reservation to have lunch at the Parador. However, to get there we had to drive up a horrible, horrible hill with a terrible paving and park too close to the cliff so #no.

Cuenca is considered a World Heritage City. It has a classical, mostly Medieval area, and a normal / standard area surrounding that. The inner cluster is virtually carless as the streets are narrow and steep. It is perched on the Huécar Gorge and as you can see, a vertical rock wall.

We had some time before we had to go for lunch, so the first thing we did was go have a look at the Casas Colgadas, the hanging houses that overlook the Huécar Gorge. Inside there is a contemporary art museum that I visited once already so there was no incentive to look again – you know, the kind of abstract art that showcases a plus-symbol and you’re supposed to interpret.

We had lunch at the Parador de Cuenca. A Parador is a high-end state-owned hotel usually with a good restaurant. More often than not, a Parador is located in a renovated historical building. This one is a former monastery, and the restaurant is located, if I remember correctly, where the original dining room would have been.

Main dishes were forgettable (and not photogenic) but the curd or “cuajada” for dessert was to die for – and it came with a lot of extra goodies.

In order to get to the town centre you have to cross the scary, scary bridge aka the Puente de San Pablo, St Paul’s Bridge, over the gorge, but I survived – without a freak-out (≧▽≦) and you might be aware that I am not a fan of heights.

We had lunch, then moved (over the scary scary bridge) on to see the Museo de las Ciencias de Castilla la Mancha, the Science Museum of Castilla La Mancha – unfortunately the dinosaur area was closed, so we “only” got to see the super steampunk clock and the energy wards, and the tornado simulator, along to some kind of reproduction of the International Space Station.

After the museum we walked a little around the town. We went to the cathedral, Catedral de Santa María y San Julián de Cuenca, but it was closed due to some religious service or another. I mean… that’s its main purpose I guess? (≧▽≦)

Then we found the Torre de Mangana, Mangana Tower, a clock tower dating from the Sixteenth Century. From underneath the tower there is quite an impressive sight of the area surrounding the city.

We went back to the car and we had a drive around the city. Cuenca is located in the middle of a karst area. Karst is a type of landscape formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks e.g. limestone or gypsum. You can see how the rock seems to be “molten” among all the pines.

We reached the Castillo and Murallas (castle and walls) on the other side of town but we had to drive back due to the streets being cut for the same religious event we had run into before.

Thus, on our way back, we drove at the bottom of the Huécar Gorge and headed back to the hotel.

This was about six or seven in the evening, and we did not go out again because we were way outside town. We had dinner in the hotel and called it a day eventually. I ordered the kids’ menu because everything else was too fancy and abundant.

The next morning we woke up early to visit the Ciudad Encantada / Enchanted City. This is another karst topography which has somehow become very famous. Some of the rocks have interesting forms, and have been given names. It is a sort of geological park formed by rain falling on the rocks and dissolving them for millions of years. The original rocks were a mix of of limestone and dolomite in different proportions, which ended up dissolving in different shapes.

After walking around for a couple of hours we went on our return trip.

11th March 2017: “TAO: The Samurai of the Drum” show in Guadalajara (Spain)

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More than a trip, this one is focused on an event I attended. There was a Drum Tao performance in Guadalajara, to which I was invited. The fun part the person who had invited me used to work at the theatre. As he still had “contacts”, I was allowed to peek a little into the backstage, so I could take a few special pictures.

There is not much of a description that you can write of a percussion performance, to be honest. TAO focuses on drumming, the Japanese taiko style, with bigger and smaller drums, but they also play traditional flutes, koto and samishen (traditional harp and three-string guitar). The show also displays a few acrobatics. It was pretty fun. In the end you could take pictures and get autographs from some of the staff members.

Aaand I own up that I did a little bit of trolling by speaking Japanese to random staff in the merchandise area…

Collage: the big drum, the back curtain reading Tao, and a CD with the booklet autographied

3rd – 5th March 2017: #XDAY in London (England, Great Britain)

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The X JAPAN concert in Wembley was scheduled for the 12th of March 2016. Unfortunately, on the 15th of January, guitarist PATA was admitted to the ICU in Japan, which set back the date a whole year. For the record, I’m very happy that PATA made a full recovery.

Since January 2016 I had been trying to arrange one of the VIP packs that were being offered and which included transportation, but the promoter ONTOURS had been skittish. The postponement did not come as a surprise. In the end these packages blew up and there was a different kind of VIP upgrade arranged, that my friend C***** and I chose to buy. This included half of the merchandise and access to the sound-check. Later on, it was announced that the band would be signing copies of the “We are X” album at hmv in Oxford street. My friend C***** and I also managed to get tickets for that one, so we were elated.

Friday, 3rd of March 2017: We Nailed It

C***** and I met at the airport on the 3rd of March, Friday, for an early afternoon flight, and everything went smoothly. The only minor bump was that she was carrying a trolley and the lady at the gate decided that there were already more than fifty trolleys being loaded as carry-on – there were not, I had counted them and that she had to check in. She tried to protest (literally, the attendant started tagging the line when she saw us) to no avail. I was not having it, so as soon as we walked past the boarding pass check, I ripped off the “check at gate” tag and produced a copy of the boarding pass (without the check-in sticker), and we were allowed in without problem.

We arrived in London Stansted, went through immigration without any impertinent agent bugging us, and we took the Stansted Express, then changed into the underground. It was all smooth once more, we got to the Oxford Street stop, alit, and found the hmv building. When we reached the queue, sheshe stayed and I went in to buy the CDs for the autographs. I also bought a bottle of water, and the cashier actually got a chuckle out of my face when they gave me a new £5 note, which are sort of plastic-y, and have a transparent part. After this, we settled to wait. It took a long time to finally get to the signing area, but the weather was reasonable and there were no weird people around.

You could take pictures on the approach to the band, but as you arrived at the front, you had to leave all your things. As you approached the band, one of the assistants would take the booklet from you and handed it over to the first artist, guitarist Sugizo, who did not look too awake. Then ToshI, who was smiling all the time. Yoshiki was happy as he tends to be when he is the centre of attention. Patatried to look like nothing had to do with him. Finally Heath handed (what you hoped was) your booklet back to you.

All in all you might be seeing them for 3 or 4 minutes top as the hmv staff kept yelling at you to hurry up. It was however worth every second, although all my pictures ended up being horrible.

hmv building outside, autographied CD and a very blurry image of the band signing

And here is my not-so-little secret: I froze. I had practised so much what I wanted to tell each and every one of them, but I just froze and I couldn’t get the words out except a mumbled thank you to Heath when he gave me my booklet back. I remember looking at Sugizo and Yoshiki thinking “they’re real, they’re here, it’s happening…”

We knew that there would be a crowd after the event, and we wanted to avoid that, as C***** has a bad back, so we decided against waiting for them after the fact. Instead, we headed off for the hotel we had booked just next to Wembley Arena. On the way, we stopped at a Salisbury supermarket to get some stuff that we might need – aka some drinks and snacks for the following day – we needn’t have worried though as when we turned the corner we found a whole shopping centre with restaurants.

We checked in, left our things, had a shower, and headed off for dinner. She had never been in a Wagamama before, so I thought it was a great idea to try it for dinner. I think she enjoyed it – and so did I, I might have eaten a bit too much.

Dinner: dumplings, fried chicken, ramen with a lot of veggies, sweet buns

Saturday, 4th of March 2017: The Actual #XDAY

On Saturday morning, the actual #XDAY, the fourth of March 2017, we had breakfast at a Costa Coffee – I have to say that I really enjoyed introducing her to a bunch of “my favourite British things”.

Tall coffee latte mug

We hung out at the outside of the venue all morning until we could get our VIP accreditations and be admitted. Before everything started, though, we had some burgers for lunch.

Fancy burger with overflowing lettuce and avocado sauce

After lunch, we went to the VIP line. I saved up the space while my friend made a run to the merchandise booth to check if they had the We are X soundtrack CDs – yes, exactly the same one that we had bought the day before, except that this time they had a special cover – blue, red, or purple. And with each CD you got a set of “trading cards”. We were not lucky at this time.

The venue, with lots and lots of windows

The whole experience once within the venue started with watching the rehearsal, at least what we were allowed to – to this day I don’t understand why we were let in late and escorted out early so we only caught about 50% of it. Highlights of this are Yoshiki in pink sweatpants, and ToshI waving his hand at us whenever “nobody” was looking.

The band rehearsing

We were chased out to wait in the halls and I used the time to slither towards the merch booth, where I got the CDs – all three colours (twice, actually, for both myself and C***** as she kept the spot). Eventually, the doors opened again and we took the picture on the stage – unfortunately without the band – as the arena started filling up with people. After this we found our seats. I made a run to the ticket booth again because I had won an extra set of tickets and we needed to check whether by any chance they were better than what we had. Through this process, I ended up having a riff-raff with the security staff at Wembley that lead me to file a complaint letter. Of course, I had to run into my least favourite things about British people.

Late, of course, everything started. First, we were shown the documentary “We are X”, and it hurt every bit as much as the first time in Barcelona. And as the documentary was coming to an end, the music rose up and we got started with the chords of Rusty Nail. The concert was fantastic – we had had to wait for over a year but we were finally there. This was my first real X Japan concert, and my heart was soaring all through the event. Everything was magnificent: all the members, the music, the crowd… It was so amazing I wished it never ended.

Unfortunately, though, everything comes to an end, and so did the concert, though I hope the memories never fade away.

Stills of the concert

Sunday, 5th of March 2017: Excitement Hangover

The next morning, we woke up and went to find the Costa again, because Costa is amazing. It was raining, cold, and I was not feeling too well as I had hit a wall, but coffee revived me a little. We got into the underground to go to the commuting point to the train and kept an eye out for any We Are X posters that we could find (we decided against trying to find the billboards because that would mean a big detour and we did not feel comfortable with the flights timing).

We eventually found some posters at Baker Street and… after a quick Instagram check we realised that we had stumbled upon the very same poster in front of which ToshI had taken his pictures, and we had a laughing flash.

The concert promo in the underground.

When we reached the airport we had some hot food at the Stansted Itsu – not the best but it was warm and it helped me feel a bit better.

Lunch - containers of fast food: gyoza, miso soup, turkey with peas, and meat broth. The logo says itsu eat beautiful

We separated at the airport because C***** had a better connection to her town to return than she had for arriving in London. All in all, this was one of the best weekends of my life and it all worked almost perfectly – all the important things anyway.

Also, I made a promise to myself after this – that I would not freeze again in front of a star. I hope I can keep it.

5th & 6th of November 2016: Barcelona (Spain) for We are X

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I was supposed to have travelled to London in March 2016 to see X Japan’s concert, where they were also going to project the We Are X documentary premiere. Unfortunately, that was postponed to 2017 due to PATA’s health issues. I really hope it works out next year. However, the decision was made to start premiering the documentary in different music festivals, and the second I heard that it would be shown at the Beefeater In-Edit festival in Barcelona I got a ticket for it. Furthermore, I actually won two more tickets in a giveaway.

These two tickets I got I gave to a couple-friend of mine who had been so nice as to let me stay over at their place. I took a train around 8 am and was in Barcelona mid-morning. I went directly to their place and we just hung out until it was time to go to the Multicines Sala 5, where the documentary was going to be shown. We were actually the first and, press aside, we were the first ones in. We sat dead in the middle of the cinema and a group that walked in ten minutes later wanted us to move. And sorry, random person, but the answer is not. We were not really a “queue” but we were waiting for a couple of hours, so I was not going to give my chosen “best seat” out of the whole theatre for a group of ten people.

This was a Saturday evening, and there had already been a premier on the 1st of November so there might be more fans there, but in general I was a bit taken down by how few fans there were, most felt like people who had a whole-festival ticket.

The documentary tells the story of X JAPAN, one of my favourite Japanese bands, from the point of view of its founder, drummer and pianist Yoshiki. The band crumbled at the height of its popularity when guitarist Hide died by hanging, and the singer ended up brainwashed by a cult. Everything is told from Yoshiki’s own point of view, which makes the film biased, but still poignant.

After the film we went back to my friends’ place and had dinner. The next morning, they wanted to show me their little orchard in the outskirts, and I was treated to the best paella (Spanish rice) that I have ever had in my life – so awesome I even forgot about taking pictures! It was sad that I had to leave by 8pm, so I was only in Barcelona for about 32 hours, but it was so well worth it.

Collage showing the entrance to Multicines 5 and the Beefeater In-Edit screen before the film started

16th September 2016: Some Madrid (Spain) Museums

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I woke up one morning, a silly weekday that I did not have to work for some reason and I decided to wander off and take a day trip to Madrid to see some museums, just because I could.

My first stop was the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, the museum of natural science. The museum is divided into several buildings. The first building holds the “Biodiversity” collection. This includes preserved specimens – in better or worse shape, mostly stuffed, and some skeletons.

Then I walked over to the palaeontology and mineral museum, where at the moment most of the collection is composed of replica, sometimes it feels that you see the same diplodocus or arsinoitherium (two-horned rhino) skull everywhere. Of course, however, I hunted down every megalodon tooth on site and sight.

After this, I walked around the mineral collection and walked down Castellana Avenue until Colón Square, where I had lunch somewhere before I walked around to see the Museo Arqueológico Nacional – National Archaeological Museum. There were a few things that interested me there.

My first goal was to study the Iberian stelæ . Nobody really knows what they are or what their meaning is, but it is thought that they were funerary monuments, maybe of fallen warriors.

An interesting thing to see in this museum is the sculpture of La Dama de Elche, the Lady of Elche, the limestone bust of an Iberian lady dated back to the 4th century BC. It is supposed to be a woman who belonged to the aristocracy that was later revered as a goddess, or maybe a reinterpretation of the Goddess Tanit of Cathage. The back part has an opening, which suggests that it could have been a funerary urn. It was originally polychromated, but it has lost its colours. I really like her expression, and probably due to the Hellenistic influence. I have a thing for Greek sculpture, after all.

A second “lady”, the Dama de Baza (Lady of Baza), stands next to the first. This one still keeps some of its colours. This one is full-body, also carved out of limestone, and it traces back to the fourth century too. This lady seems to have been designed in pure Iberian style, without Hellenistic influences.

The last key pieces of Iberian sculpture in this museum are the verracos – sort-of headless boars, pigs or bulls (depending on the interpretation), but it is commonly accepted that they are symbols of protection of cattle routes. Most of them are… visibly male.

Once I had seen what I really wanted to see I wandered over the rest of the museum, stumbling upon the currency exhibition, which was strangely interesting.

I walked past the Medieval rooms and then I found the Egyptian area, which is humble, but has some interesting things like the X-rays of a mummified falcon. Finally, I checked out the classical Greek area before calling it a day and making it back home.

22nd May 2016: Kabuki at the CBA (Madrid, Spain)

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I made a short escapade to the theatre Teatro Fernando de Rojas in the Círculo de Bellas Artes, in Madrid. It was my first time watching kabuki [歌舞伎], a type of Japanese theatre. The play was called Tsumoru koi yuki no seki no to [積戀雪関扉], something akin to “The Snowbound Barrier” and translated into Spanish as “En los límites de Osaka, bajo la nieve del amor” (In the Outskirts of Osaka, under the love snow). It is a dance-drama kabuki written in the 9th century, and deals with the spirit of a black cherry tree turning into a courtesan to extract revenge. Before the play, there was a small conference to explain some details about kabuki and that was really interesting.

Afterwards I just had to run for the trains so… no much time to hang around.

14th May 2016: Ikebana & Taiko in Madrid (Spain)

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I went to the Royal Botanical Garden Real Jardín Botánico in Madrid because they were holding an exhibit of Ikebana and Japanese culture “X Gran Exposición de Ikebana y Semana Cultural Japonesa”. There were several activities, and I wanted to watch the ikebana and listen to the taiko players.

I was very amused when it turned out you could actually attend an ikebana class. Ikebana [生け花] is the Japanese art of aranging flowers, and it is one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement (the other two are calligraphy and tea ceremony, I’m doomed).

To my surprise, the ikebana scene in Spain is heavily dominated by elderly ladies who take the whole thing Very Seriously ™, so in the end the workshop was more like two of them giving instructions to each attendee and one of them just taking the flowers from you and rearranging them if you failed to heed the instructions within a couple of seconds. It was interesting though, and behold my creation:

They almost made me late for the taiko – Japanese drums – demonstration, which turned out to also be a workshop, my first time playing the drums. I’m not that good at that one, either, but let me tell you better than the flowers…

Afterwards, I wandered about the rest of the exhibition before I headed off… and this sounds really fast, but it was a good half day!

2nd April 2016: Círculo de Bellas Artes & Tsugaru-shamisen music (Madrid, Spain)

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Círculo de Bellas Artes (CBA) is a Spanish cultural and artistic association founded in 1880, and they had partnered with The Japan Foundation to hold a concert by Kenichi Yoshida [吉田 健一], a famous Tsugaru-shamisen [津軽三味線] player / artist.

I got to Madrid in the late afternoon, with enough time to get to one of the most hidden Starbucks in the city, which was rather crowded as it was Saturday. Fortunately I found myself a table to spend the extra time (public transport transport paranoia, maybe. But it’s not paranoia if they’re really after you and you have been stuck in Spain commuter trains for hours already). And well, a Starbucks a year and all that… And I mean, I was planning to skip dinner so a Vanilla Frappuccino would keep me going.

The concert was to be held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes building, located in downright in the middle of Madrid. It was designed by the Spanish architect Antonio Palacios and erected in the early 1920s. From the outside, I had always thought it looked pretty weird.

Inside, however, it was a different feeling. I had never imagined the inside of the building was going to be this neat! The CBA Headquarters has a neat staircase, an impressive ballroom, and a reportedly-cool observatory at the top. Unfortunately, getting to the observatory required lining and I was not willing to do so either before or after the concert. However, I did get some views from the second-floor windows!

The concert was in the inner theatre Teatro Fernando de Rojas, a fully-functioning theatre on that second floor, with about 400 chairs, and I had got a fairly good seat so I was happy and could sneak up a couple of pictures.

The concert in itself was amazing. Kenichi Yoshida, the younger brother in the Yoshida Brothers band, comes regularly to Spain to teach shamisen – a classical Japanese string instrument – in Barcelona. Oftentimes he makes the most out of his time and organises recitals and other activities. The concert was a mixture of old and new melodies, played along some drumming. The concert lasted for about an hour, and it felt very short. As Yoshida is a frequent visitor, he can speak a tiny bit of Spanish, too, and he tried that. It was a lovely touch.

24th – 27th March 2016: Easter in Barcelona (Spain)

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I think this has been the first time I’ve been to Barcelona without a concert. However, one of the first times I did take a long touristing tour, so this time round my friend and I took it rather chilly – in the literal sense. As we were there there was a drop in temperature and I had to run to get myself a long-sleeved T-shirt.

24th March: Gaudí afternoon

Through different means and from different origins, my friend and myself arrived in Barcelona at around the same time mid-afternoon. We met at the station and dropped our things off at the hotel, then we took the underground towards Monte del Carmelo, Carmel Hill, where Parc Güell, the Güell Park, stands. The park, which was supposed to be a urban area originally, was designed by Antonio Gaudí. It became a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1984.

Visiting some areas of the park is charged, but the whole park is accessible starting in the late evening. We decided to climb up first and then visit the paid-but-free area. Thus we got to the summit of Carmel Hill and saw the Turó de les tres creus, the Three-Cross hill, that offers a great view of the city, including the Tibidabo area with the Cathedral and the amusement park.

We went down and we walked into the architectural area. Although there is no artificial lighting in the area, as the sun went down we were treated to a bit of a magical area, also away from the tourist crowds.

We had dinner at Arenas de Barcelona, the old bullfighting ring now turned shopping and dining centre, then we went up to the roof for some night views.

25th March: Gaudí morning & Gaudí night

We woke up and had breakfast – coffee inception!!

Then we headed off to see the Casa Batlló, the Batlló house, one of Gaudí’s Modernist masterpieces. It is also called the “house of bones”, and it’s kind of wobbly and organic. The roof is designed to look like the back of a dragon. An interesting detail is that the building was not really erected on Gaudí’s orders – it was a renovation of a previously-existing building.

After the house, we went to the harbour area. We hung out for a while (with a stop to buy an extra T-shirt because it was cold), had lunch and eventually purchased tickets for the Museu Marítim, the Maritime Museum, located in the former Royal Shipyard.

The sun was setting when we came out, and we headed towards the Basílica de la Sagrada Família, the church of the Holy Family, also designed by Gaudí. Both of us had already seen it, so we were happy to see it from the outside. When they finish it, I would like to come back though.

26th March: No Gaudí!

We had a walk around the Gothic Neighbourhood of Barcelona, and we made a stop at the Iglesia de La Purísima Concepción, the church of the Conception to visit the cloister.

We saw the cathedral Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia.

We also walked under the Bisbe Bridge, Pont del Bisbe, in the street of the same name.

We had lunch in a Japanese restaurant, then walked around the Port area for a while.

As we had visited the Maritime Museum the previous day, we had a free pass to the sailboat Santa Eulàlia.

We ended the day in the L’Aquàrium Barcelona, the local aquarium.

After that, we backtracked to our hotel. The following morning, on the 27th, we met up with another friend who had a free while for breakfast and then everybody went home.

16th January 2016: Un Planeta Enloquecido: Fantasmas, Monstruos, y Alienígenas en el Manga (Exhibition in Madrid, Spain)

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Naves Matadero in Madrid was holding a free exhibition on Japanese “monsters, ghosts and aliens” in manga and Japanese pop culture, and since I was around I decided to drop by. Here are some pictures.

I did not stay over but took a bus right back home because it was too cold for anything else.

2nd January 2016: Palacio de Cristal (Madrid, Spain)

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Right after landing back from Scotland there was a couple of things I needed to get going in Madrid. That afternoon I took up the chance and went to see the Palacio de Cristal, or Glass Palace, in the Parque del Buen Retiro (Park of the Good Rest, sort of). The building is a Victorian, iron-cast structure which is currently dedicated to exhibitions. It is a satellite building of the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art. It featured an exhibit by the Vietnamese artist Danh Vō – with a hanging Christ and fossilised bones?

And then we found out that there is indeed a parakeet invasion in the Retiro…

27th December 2015 – 1st January 2016: Scotland (Great Britain)

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A friend and I decided to organise a New Year’s Eve getaway to Scotland, and I used the opportunity to get some stuff and redtape out of the way, so you might notice some chunks of time missing. Furthermore relationship with Scotland is complex and bittersweet, so I’m not sure how this post is going to turn up

The first part of our trip was based in Edinburgh. We arrived rather late in the evening so we just got to Waverly Station and walked to the hotel to get some rest before we started off the adventure.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and it is a dark city, but not in a bad way. The dark, moss-covered rock seems designed to absorb any little beam of sunlight and warm the houses. In our first morning we had a walk around Princes Street Garden, where the Scott Monument, a memorial in honour of the writer Sir Walter Scott, stands. There was also a Christmas market standing.

We climbed up Castlehill to visit Edinburgh’s castle, in the Old Town. The castle stands on an extinct volcano and some of the archaeological remains can be traced back to Prehistory! The first castle is thought to have been built around the year 1000 BC, which means the foundations are 3000 years old! The site of the castle includes, among other dependencies, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Museum, National War Museum, the Royal Palace, St. Margaret’s chapel, and a couple of distilleries. Due to its vantage point, also features a great view of all the Edinburgh area.

We walked back down Castlehill and made a stop at The Tron in the City, a former church turned artisan flea market.

My friend is a Hard Rock Café collector, so we went to the George Street area, which was decorated.

After lunch, we walked to Calton Hill, a hill / park area located near the centre and that hosts the Dugald Steward Monument, the National Monument and the Nelson Monument.

Then we met with a local friend to have dinner (bangers and mash!) to The Elephant House, the so-called birthplace of Harry Potter, where JK Rowling went to write the novels.

On our way back we saw some of the illuminated views, most prominently the Christmas market and the Balmoral hotel.

Glasgow

Aside from all the emotional baggage associated with Scotland, I can say that Glasgow is one of my favourite cities in the world. Most of what we did was walking around even if the weather was nasty at points. As we came out from Queen Street Station, our first visiting spot was George Square and the Glasgow City Chambers, and we had lunch in a Greek restaurant that I love over there.

But we quickly moved over towards Saint Mungo’s Cathedral, also known as the High Kirk of Glasgow. It is a 12th century building built in North Europe Gothic style.

Afterwards we walked up the Necropolis, a Victorian graveyard on a hill behind the cathedral. Today it is a great place for a stroll, aside from a place with way too much history for a humble blog post.

We strolled up and down Buchanan Street and the Central Glasgow area a few times – Queen Street, Central Station, the museum of modern art, the Japanese restaurants… We stopped at the HRC again, the Mandela Monument and dropped by St. Enoch’s shopping centre to see the light reindeer and warm up.

We walked to the Glasgow Cross area then, with the Tolbooth Steeple, the clocktower that marks the entrance to the Merchant City.

We came across quite an amount of interesting buildings in the Merchant City, among them St Andrew’s in the Square.

Another of the places we visited was Glasgow Green, which was half flooded due to the storm.

And when the weather became so bad that the sleet was making impossible to stay out on the streets, we visited the Riverside Museum, the Museum of Transport of Glasgow, where we had some delicious scones too.

We tried to see Dumbarton Castle, but it was closed down due to wind and the storm, so in the end we just took a ride there and walked around.

On the 31st we had dinner at a very nice Japanese – with awesome staff. Then we bought some provisions and headed to the B&B.

At night we were surprised by the fireworks so we ran out of the B&B room to find them.

And on the first we were treated to a rather… unimpressive… first sunrise of the year.

When we flew back I had one of the most surreal experiences ever – we had bought a pack of scones for breakfasts and snacks, and somehow it became tangled in my phone wires. Well, turns out that wired-tangled scones look one hell of a lot like bombs on X Ray machines! The poor Scots security guard was first deadly pale, then so relieved that I was not carrying a bomb!

3rd – 5th July 2015: Japan Expo in Paris (France)

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I went back to France rather unexpectedly because VAMPS announced an appearance at Japan Expo, a Japanese Culture convention held in Parc des Expositions de Paris-Nord Villepinte. I flew in on Friday and as I had time, I decided to go to the Louvre museum. I discovered the automatic ticket selling machine, so my queue was unexpectedly short once I was out of the security waiting area. I geeked out to my heart’s content and I reflected on how I had got used to geeking out alone and how comfortable I felt compared to my first time alone in a museum, back in the Dark Ages when I was 14.

Different exhibits of the Louvre: bronze sculptures, Egyptian sarcophagi, sitting scribe, Babylonian bulls, a marble, bathtub, Venus de Milo, Eros and Psyche, Victory of Samothrace

The following day I met up with some friends at the Japan Expo for the VAMPS concert act that had been organised. Japan Expo is one of the biggest European conventions about manga, anime, Japanese culture and everything in between, including concerts, food stalls, merchandising, and so on. The concert in itself was all right – one of the shortest ones I’ve attended, but in the end it was “just” an act in something bigger. I wish they had talked about the Sunday autograph possibilities earlier, though, because I could not attend due to my flight being in the morning.

Vamps promo claiming they were the guests of honour

3rd April 2015 (Good Friday): Carcassonne {France, Easter 2015}

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For my final day we went to visit the nearby town of Carcassonne, which is famous for having a medieval fortified citadel, the Cité de Carcassonne , which can be traced back 2,500 years, to the Gallo-Roman period. It’s been a Unesco Heritage Site since 1997.

We wandered around the citadel for a few hours, and we had lunch, the famous (so I was told, I had no idea at the moment) cassoulet, made with white beans, duck confit, sausages, pork and mutton, served in a cassole. I remember this as super heavy but I have this obsession to eat everything I’m served, so I finished it – maybe I shouldn’t have.

Placed we visited included the Château Comtal, the Counts’ Castle, dating from the 12th century…

… the walls…

… The former cathedral of Carcassone, the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus…

The Église Saint-Nazaire, the church of Saint Nazaire…

… the Porte Narbonnaise, one of the castle gates…

… and the Cimetière de la Cité, the graveyard.

After that, we headed back to the train station and back to Toulouse as the following day I was flying back home, and France said goodbye with a neat sunset.

2nd April 2015 (Maundy Thursday): Here Be (rust) Dragons {France, Easter 2015}

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We spent the day in Toulouse for several reasons – I had been doing a lot of driving and I did not feel like moving, among them. However, we were not going to stay at home all day, so mid-morning we headed off to one of Toulouse parks, the Jardin Compans Caffarelli, which features some sculptures such as a dragon made out of metal scrapes.

And also, there is an area landscaped as a Japanese garden, the Jardin Japonais.

Then we took the tram and went to the The Aeroscopia museum because my friend was interested in planes, and we got to see a bunch of aircraft both modern and classical designs.

1st April 2015 (Spy Wednesday): Saint Malo & Nantes {France, Easter 2015}

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We got up on to see sunrise (okay, not really sunrise but early morning) at the ocean before we headed off.

Our first stop was Saint-Malo, yet another fortified city by the sea. It can be traced to the 1st century, but the modern Saint-Malo is cemented on a 6th century monastery. In the 19th century, Saint-Malo was a nest of pirates, and it was destroyed during WWII, but rebuilt shortly afterwards.

We left the car in the outskirts of town and we headed towards the actual walled city, coming across the Etoile du Roy ship first. The Etoile du Roy is a sixth rate frigate with three masts, built in imitation of a warship from the Nelson era. Today it can be rented for events.

We reached the walls and headed off to the beach where the Fort National stands.

We strolled around for about an hour or so, and I really liked the old city.

After a while, we walked back towards the city and saw the Cathédrale Saint-Vincent-de-Saragosse de Saint-Malo and the remains of the cloister. The building was originally Romanesque / Gothic, but it was damaged during WWII, and rebuilt in the late 20th century.

We had lunch in a Japanese restaurant because when we went into the tourist centre we found a visiting card, then we headed back towards the city of Nantes. The drive towards the city was all right but entering the centre was nightmarish, as we got caught in rush hour. We went to the cathedral, the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Nantes, a Gothic building that was started early in the 15th century but was not finished until almost the 20th!

Afterwards, we moved on towards the Château des ducs de Bretagne, a reconstruction of the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, a thirteenth-century fortress.

Finally we pumped some petrol, returned the car, paid for the extra kilometres we had driven, and took a plane back to Toulouse to just have a snack and get to bed.