Berg Village
The Christmas Village running in the open plaza in front of Lotteria had a small marching band playing when I came by on Saturday on my way to the English school.
After a couple of minutes, they headed out to parade through the Tenmonkan arcade, accompanied by another foreign English teacher in a Santa suit.
Not sure why so many of them are dressed as prisoners. Maybe they're on the "bad" list.
On Sunday, a couple guys led the audience on hand drums. This ended just after I arrived. Oh well.
Tenmonkan Christmas Market
Saturday
Temonkan also has its Christmas Market this year. The Saturday evening concerts are where I first encountered Bon DX, (my favorite Ska band) several years ago. In general, the best music is on Saturday, and unfortunately, I had to work pretty much all day Saturday this year, meaning that I missed Bon playing at 6 PM. Sigh. But, he had two other concerts at Amu Plaza, on Sunday and Monday, and as I write this up, I've already seen the Sunday show (spoiler: it rocked).
I did catch a little bit of this woman on my way into the school at Noon. She was part of the NHK TV mini concert part of the schedule, which didn't list performers by name. She gave a solo acoustic set. Not bad, but I didn't have time to record her.
I probably have seen her at other free live events, but I can't put a name to the face.
I had a short 35-minute break between 5:15 and 5:50, and I took the opportunity to swing by the stage again on my way to Mister Donut for a couple free donuts (I had coupons) and a cup of coffee. The manzai comedy duo Party were in the middle of announcing Southern Cross.
It had already gotten dark, and the girls moved around so fast that most of the shots came out blurry. But, I've seen them so many times now (and they always do covers of AKB48 and Momoiro Clover Z copyrighted songs) that I just stick around long enough to take a few photos for the blog, normally.
So, I'm trying to take my photos, when...
The guy in front of me pulls out his smartphone and tries taking his own shots with Miku Hatsune in them. Sigh. That's when I gave up and went back to work.
Say, "Hi."
Karachiki
I really like this sign for a booth that sold fried chicken.
Sunday
I got out of the apartment at 2 PM, and arrived at Tenmonkan just as Yoko was finishing her set. She does pop vocals over a CD. She's very popular with some of the other musicians I know, but the audience this time was only around 20-30 people. A light crowd.
("If I close my eyes hard enough, she'll go away.")
I forget the MC's name. I've seen her a few times before, and she was part of a comedy duo back during the Berg Plaza Obon fest in August. She's ok, not side-splittingly funny.
("She's wearing that dress?")
Yoko was followed by "Music Create Rein", a group of (very) amateur musicians that use music to teach children to read and learn how to dance. The lead singer had a bag of presents, and I was very surprised when she gave me one. It was a small paper cup wrapped in plastic, containing a hard candy, a piece of chocolate, and a biscuit cookie. That was nice.
The Japanese version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" really has nothing to do with the original song.
"From you, Merry Christmas. From me, Merry Christmas, Santa Claus is coming to town.
Have you heard, better go to sleep, Santa Claus is coming to town."
Next up was Yui. She was billed as one half of Kirara and Yui, but I guess she was being given an opportunity to get some solo stage time. She did a couple folk-like songs as an acoustic set. I'm not sure if I heard her introduction correctly, but I think she's 16 or 17. She did a pretty good job.
At this point, it was getting close to 3:40 PM, and I wanted to get up to Amu Plaza to see what was going on there. At a minimum, I wanted to arrive a little early in order to watch Bon DX set up for their 5 PM set. That will be continued tomorrow...
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