全国大会 - 宮崎

For those who can't read Japanese Kanji, that says "Zenkoku Taikai - Miyazaki" which in turn means "Whole country big meet - Miyazaki" or something of that nature.
It's an annual event, possibly always in Miyazaki, not sure... The event seems to be a cultural festival of sorts, that Japanese people seem to love holding. However it was less focused on showcasing to the general public. I think most of the audiences were families of those attending, and a few people that just happened to be interested in watching.
Various events included drama, chorus, various instruments, Japanese style music, various martial arts, baton twirling (which is big in schools here), art, calligraphy (Kanji), shogi (Japanese chess), speech, flower arranging, and others...
My school club, earlier in the year, attended the 愛知県大会 (Aichi-ken Taikai (Aichi prefecture big meet)), and being in the top 2 or 3, qualified to attend this event in Miyazaki. By earlier this year, it was 2010, but in the previous school year, before I started.

And so at about 9:55 pm on the 31st of July 2010, 18 students, 2 teachers, 2 past students, and 2 bus drivers got into a big bus loaded with instruments and luggage, and departed on a 16 hour drive to the south of Japan.

For those who don't know, a bus is like a plane when it comes to sleeping, except slightly better cause you might be able to stretch your legs under the seat in front. Bus trips are boring so I wont go on about it but to say I played games on my DS, spoke a bit, and nearly lost parts of my earphones on numerous occasions.

So we arrive at the Miyazaki. We're all a tad buggered, due to it being near impossible to sleep properly on a bus, and at the venue we unload our instruments and are led to a place to unpack and set them up. Then we get led to a little room to tune our instruments and have time to run through once. We then proceed to be led back into the main building where we wait outside a door to the stage, we then enter, wait, go on stage, play, leave stage, go back to the first room and repacked our instruments.
During this practice I was a tad confused due to language, but I managed to work out it was a practice run-through of the actual thing about the time we were lining up to enter the stage...
I also noted we would only stay in Miyazaki for a tiny length of time compared to the event being 2 days long.
We got back on the bus and drove further south to Kagoshima prefecture to our hotel.

More practice was done there, as well as dinner and... the hotel had an onsen. So I went in that both nights at the hotel.

On the second day at the hotel, we were given free time, yipee. We split into groups, basically our parts for the music, and the part leaders decided where each group would go. Then the groups were mangled and everyone changed cause they wanted to be with this friend or they wanted to go to that place or they didn't think the one guy in their group (me) would enjoy what the rest of them wanted to do.

So I ended up going to the Kagoshima Aquarium with 2 of the other guys and about 5 of the girls.

"It was pretty cool :D"

I also had ramen that day, and remembered that ramen freshly made in a ramen stand is still infinitely better than instant ramen, which in turn is infinitely better than Aussie instant ramen...

Then came THE DAY. It was a Tuesday, 3rd of August to be precise. We woke at 5, got into school uniform, had an early breakfast, packed our bags and instruments into the bus and left the hotel at about 7.
We arrived back at the venue, the nerves were starting to be felt by some. I just figured it felt much the same as opening night for shouts, even if there was a bit more riding on how well I played...

We went through just the same as the practice 2 days prior, but then while waiting backstage, we could actually hear the group before us playing. Then we got on stage. I remembered to slightly close my eyes so I wouldn't be stunned by the sudden brightening of the lights.

And we played.

I have to say playing in a group is so much more satisfying than playing by yourself, being able to hear all the other parts of the music while playing something completely different and yet complimentary is just amazing. The only time apart from this year I've played in a group was in year 8 or 9 where I hit a tambourine a bit during presentation night.

I thought we'd done alright, not excellent, but fairly good. I had made a few mistakes, nothing I hadn't expected. The only effect of nerves was a bit of shaking in my hands, which does make it interesting playing.

We then packed our instruments back into the bus and had lunch at the venue, and to my joy we had a chance to listen to some of the other groups. I quickly realized that perhaps we had not done as well as I thought...
The first group was particularly notable for the fact that they were singing. Traditional Japanese singing is very different from anything else I'm used to, and it's not something I'd go out of my way to listen to. That being said, when you hear music live, it becomes amazing, unless they really suck... But they didn't so it was cool. My favourite was the 3rd group we watched. They played a song that used some horrible chords, but in a way that they worked. It was a very evil sounding bit of music.

After these mostly magnificent performances, we got back on the bus and headed on. We stopped in the next prefecture north, called Kumamoto, and made our way to the Kumamoto castle. I remember the name as one of the 2 past students was acting as a guide for the fun of it and kept saying "Oraiasu, this is Kumamoto castle". I was told she apparently only knows about this much English and so kept saying it to me. 'Twas amusing.

Japanese history I find more interesting than a lot of other human history, maybe because a lot of it is so recent in comparison. Because of the way Japan closed itself from the outside world except through Nagasaki, it retained it's medieval culture for longer, and still does to an extent today. But also, Japanese castles are always fun to look at, and this is one of the 3 biggest in Japan.

Unfortunately it started raining and we didn't have much time so I couldn't enjoy it to the full extent I wanted to, so I dashed to the top, took some photos, and had to dash back down.
We returned to the bus and headed on... to an onsen. That's 3 times in 3 days. Though this one was a meager 39 degrees compared to 40 something. I preferred the heat of the hotel's onsen.

After a refreshing bath, we finally got out of our uniform and headed on our way back to Aichi, after a brief stop for dinner.

So in all it was an excellent experience, much discussion was had on the bus after the competition. We all had to give our impressions, and what we felt about how it went etc. There were a few tears when it came to the third years as it was their final chance to have gone to a zenkoku taikai (apparently we qualify pretty much every year). Being unable to understand the finer points of the language this didn't affect me so much... Though I did get my chance to be greatful for everyone making my 'only' zenkoku taikai experience a good one. Which was the followed by exclamations of how good my Japanese was getting... I still don't believe them.

I haven't found out what we came, but I 'think' today it was mentioned that the other Aichi prefecture school came first. But they may have been talking about something else...

Well that's that, the August-June students have partially arrived in Tokyo. But the student coming to join me at Kikuka hasn't arrived in Japan yet. The Germans and another group get here on the weekend I hear. Then they'll study in Tokyo for a month before being separated around Japan. Just in time for the start of term in September.

Tis all for now, but it is a fair bit... so be happy. Tata.