By the way, I started to use a Firefox
plug-in called "feedly". I really like it!
It re-format the feeds from your google reader
to "magazine site" look...so

This

becomes this

Actually the change it makes is not that complicated,
it's just about things like font, margin, size, it's so simple!
But these small changes make articles much more readable.
I think feedly itself has some problems of usability,
but still it's much better than Google Reader!
It makes you realise the importance of layout.

Feedly

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During the stay, I went to see Kabuki, ate lots of
yummy foods, went for shopping etc...
it was such a wonderful time!
As it was too wonderful, I felt so sad when I left Japan...
I can't see them for a while again.
But this is the way I decided to go,
so have to stay positive...

Since I went back to Japan just after the MA finished,
I feel like it's a new start.
To be honest I'm feeling much more anxious than one year ago
as I don't have jobs and moneys,
and I feel like I'm totally alone in this big city.
It's totally a start from scratch.
But only I can do, is just working hard, isn't it?

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This time a taiko performer, Tetsuei Hayashi, and
a shamisen performer, Chikudo Takahashi were on
the stage as well. Hayashi is the person who
participated to start "Kodo", which I went to see
their performance on the other day, so their
drumming today was also amazing and energetic.
Takahashi was so good at playing speedy tunes.

And of course, Nakamura brothers was fantastic!

In their first performance, "Ninin-Wankyu",
I was so surprised that Shichinosuke,
who played "Matsuyama-dayu" looked so beautiful.
"Matsuyama-dayu" is a phantom in the story,
but Shichinosuke well expressed that dreamy mood,
and how he moves lookes so feminine, and
his proportion is so thin...
I remember when I saw his performance last time,
he was not that good at all! It was the first time
I kept looking at Shichinosuke while Kantaro was
on stage too.

The last performance was "collaboration",
and it was so cool! Energetic taiko, dynamic shamisen,
and Nakamura brothers wearing simple hakama and dancing...
The title "Shin" (="core") expresses how it looks
very well. The whole impression was "modern Japanese".
And this time, Kantaro was so good at performing
masculine dance...he is getting really closer to
his father recently. I love Nakamura family so much.

Now I have favours to Shochiku!

1. Please release a DVD of this stage! I will buy it!
2. Please come to London!

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They showed these movies.

1. Satoshi Tomioka : "Usavich"
2. Kitune Akimoto : "Meat or Die"
3. Hidenobu Tanabe : "Phantom Planet" (Beat Crusaders)
4. Takeshi Nakamura : "Mind Wall"
5. Shintaro Kago : "Terror on the golf course"
6. Mirai Mizue : "Devour Dinner"
7. Makoto Yabuki : "As One"
8. Mood Magic : "Hinotori"
9. Takafumi Tsuchiya : "With Rain"
10. Takahiro Kimura : "Born to Bone"
11. Takafumi Tsuchiya : "Apoptosis"
12. Wow : "Another perspective"
13. Groovisions: "Ensuring the future of food"
14.Kawamura, Kirkland, Nakamura + Kawamura : "Hibi no Neiro"
15. Taijin Takeuchi : "A Wolf Loves Pork"
16. Horoaki Higashi : "Ahiru"
17. Muto Masashi : I will be here
18. kouki Tange : "Bikini Sports Ponchin"
19. Daito Manage: "Electric Stimulus to Face Test 6"

Again, I really liked the movies by Makoto Yabuki
and Takafumi Tsuchiya, whose movies were shown last year too.
I like their very detailed graphic and texture...
Also Taijin Takeuchi who is doing stop motion animation,
his work was actually made inside a small room,
but looked like we are traveling outside of the room,
and was good idea! Also, "Hinotori" by Moon Magic was
amazing...(It might not enough to convey it on youtube)

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It was amazing. It's still playing repeatedly in my head.
Actually I was so excited already just because
the place was Wembley. When I got to the station,
I wished it was a football match...
but no, that thought was wrong, coldplay was wonderful.

I have seen coldplay twice in Japan...
but this time was the best! Of course they are
in their own country, their home city,
and maybe because it was the last day of the tour,
they looked really full of life.

The live consists of both tracks from "Viva la Vida"
and older tracks by turns, they played
"In my place" and "Yellow" even at the beginning,
it was so exciting to sing these songs with lots of people.
"Fix you" almost made me cry!
Also their graphics and lighting were amazing,
I enjoyed all from the beginning to the end.
Their stage always looks cool, but it was
awesome this time.

They also played tracks like "God Put A Smile Upon
Your Face" and "Talk" in "electrical" version.
(It sounded a bit like the Gorillaz...)
In the middle part, they moved from the main stage
to a smaller stage in the middle of audience,
and played in acoustic style, it was full of amazing music.

Led by Chris Martin, we tried "mobile wave" as well.
(each person holds mobile phone and do wave!
So beautiful!)During that, coldplay played "Billie Jean"!
It was so unexpected but actually they were quite good.

I was so fascinated by Chris Martin.
He changed that strange hair style, so looked cool.
His voice was so beautiful too...

It was my dream to see them in the UK.
And they showed me a wonderful night.
I love you, Coldplay!

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For the last project, we made an
iPhone application called "Alight".

Alight is an application to allow users
to associate their small ideas in daily life
with particular location, so that they will
have more chanced to develop them further.

I was in charge of interface design.
I know iPhone is not small as mobile phone,
but still designing menu for small screen
was good learning for me.

We used 50inch plasma TV for the degree show,
so I had to edit some footages (which I hadn't
done for a few years!). My poor macbook (not pro)
was crying all the time rendering HD.

Finishing the course, I really feel that I met
such wonderful classmates! It was so fun
to do project with people who are enthusiastic about
interactive media, and we enjoyed the time together
even outside the studio!
Some of them have already gone back to their own
countries, but I believe I can see them in the future again.

By the way,

>To friends in London,
I have to move our from the current flat soon,
and looking for a new place! Please let me know
if you have any ideas.

>To friends in Japan,
I'm going back to Japan in October!
Let's go for a drink if you have time.
Let me know when you are free,
but as I am a poor student, (i.e. no money
to drink a lot)
let's drink together if you guys know each other lol

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So this is Switzerland Day3.
We went to a city called Montreux which has
really beautiful scenery, next to the lake.
The lake was soooo large that it looked
almost like the sea.

After having a lunch, we moved Lusanne.
This city looked more similar to England,
it looked like shopping area.
Although we walked to the Cathedral,
it was over 30 degrees and so hot!!!
No more walk.

After that, we went to Gruyères.
It is the birth place of cheese fondue,
we went there to have dinner,
but scenery was also amazing!

Unfortunately the castle was already closed,
streets are very european stone pavement,
the windows on the buildings looked cute
with flowers. Cheese fondue was very good of course!

To be continued.

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I didn't know anything about the story,
but it was amazing!
The costume was so gorgeous,
all the scenes was so energetic and powerful!
I wish I could understand their jokes more...
but still, their dancing was wonderful
and I enjoyed it so much.

Actually my friend's friend is playing
in this musical. Her name is Kanako Nakano.
The scene she speaks was not too long,
but her character was so unique
and performance was great!
It cheered me up as well, looking at
a Japanese woman trying so hard in west end.

You should check it out too!

Priscilla website is here.

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On Sunday night, I started to feel so cold
and my body started to ache, having a sore throat.
Usually it gets better if I sleep early
wearing "pocket body warmer", drinking Japanese medicine,
but this time I couldn't get recovered until wednesday.
I repeated feeling cold and having a fever,
so called to NHS at the end.

As they have stopped checking swine flu,
so it was not clear if I had swine flu or not,
but anyway they gave me Tamiflu.
My friends went to get it. On Thursday,
fever has gone. Although I was still feeling stomachache,
it was better than having high fever.
But on Friday, it was horrible again.

When I got Tamiflu, I was told that I should have it
with foods otherwise I would throw up.
I did, but after taking it, I had awful neusea.
Even after throwing up everything, it didn't stop.

On Saturday, I felt much better and today
I'm fine now! Well, I was going to Bristol
to see Banksy with my classmates, but
overslept and missed the bus...

So disappointed...but maybe it means
"I should stay at home today".
To be fresh again, I did laundry,
and being relaxed.

I feel so bad to have had a flu
during the final project, I'm so sorry!
And I appreciate my flatmates who helped me
a lot during the ill. Thanks!

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The last one day trip was to Granada!
Althuugh we wanted to see Alhambra,
there was a restriction of the number entry already!
Unfortunately we couldn't get inside.

So...I had no choice but took a picture from outside.

Ok...this picture looks a bit too dark...

But the area we walked around looked amazing,
it was so fun to talk around.

It seems there is a history of arabic culture as well,
looking around the shops was also fun.

It was the first Spain trip for me,
but it was amazing as I could go to some different cities.
I really liked the foods, especially sea foods
I usually can't enjoy in London!

It was such a wonderful trip!
OK, I finally finished writing about one trip...

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I had rice balls and Japanese tea for lunch.
(OK, it's not British style, but...)
And we went to pick lavender.

I realised it was the heaven for bees...
They looked so huge...so scared.
Everyone said, "Don't worry, they wouldn't
hurt you". But still scary!
Well, but they looked so busy flying around lavenders.

Although it rained a bit, it was so nice
to have been away from London and surrounded by lavender.
It still smells so nice in my room now,
I'm feeling so happy!

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I don't know why, but their tune sounds
a bit like Asian traditional music.
But still soulful.
The vocal's voice was so good.

You can listen to their music here.
http://www.myspace.com/magistratesband

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The talk was maintly about these issues.

1. Visualising information.
There are many kinds of "visualisation",
but he uses things like the record of
searching query, or flghts records and
I find interesting that make animated
information using actual data which happened
in the reality. The promotion of Radiohead
was done by capturing his movement.
All the works has very detailed texture,
and looks so beautiful.

2. Wisdom of Crowd
He showed the project to ask 2000 internet users
to sing only one sound of the whole song,
and to combine them into one song.
And the project to ask 10,000 users to draw sheep.
It was so funny one users wrote
"Why are you doing this?" instead of drawing.

Anyway, seeing would be quicker so
have a look at his website.

Aaron Koblin Site
Song by 2000 people is here
Not sure if we can say it's working though.

This is a some scenes from the talk.

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Unfortunately we couldn't go to the top,
but the scenery was amazing~~~.
It was Switzerland! Mountain!
What a scale! The ice cream I had there
was so yummy~~~. Eating an ice cream,
having a walk, we had a sandwitch lunch
wathing the mountain and the sky.
It was such a nice time.

After returning to the bottom of the mountain,
we went to see the village near to there.
There was some waterfalls, looked great.
Meeting cows, sheep, and we had nice time again.
To be continued to the day3.

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We went to one day trip to Sevilla.
It is a capital city of Andalucia...it's huge!
But the buildings of pastel colours looked so European.
Walking around, we arrived at Santa Cruz area.
Narrow passages look so pretty.

For the lunch, I tried gazpacho yummy!
I liked its light taste, and I love tomato!

After that, we went to the cathedral.

err...it's blurred. But it looked amazing.
Its detailed decoration was brilliant.
As usual, it looked like CG...

To be continued to the day4.
Well, after writing about Portugal and Swiss.

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This kind of "effect" could be done by editing application,
but they made it "by hand" using a lot of webcamera.
I also like that a lot of people from different
countried participate it.

It gave me a small happiness while I am so busy.

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But it was amazing. Just amazing.
I thought it would be good when I saw the promotion video
on their website, but you can never experience
the sounds of "big drum" unless you go to see them.
It echoes inside your body, rather than on the surface.
It was like thunder.

Another thing I liked about them was that
they were really entertainer.
The quality as musician was good, so they can
perform serious drum, but also they can do it
comically so that audience feel relaxed,
and above all, they looked enjoying themselves so much.
You can feel thrill, fun, rhythm,
and the time just goes by!

They will be travelling around Europe, so check it out!

Kodo website

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It was the first day of the event, OFFF.
There was a long queue in the morning!
After waiting a lot, finally we went inside the place.
There were some interactive installation,
and, Microsoft was showing their interactive campus
and "Surface".

Opening talk was by Neville Brody.
(I didn't know he was alumni of LCC...)
But actually I don't remember what he talked...
Well, how things were organised was not so good,
the sound was not so good...
The first day was a bit disappointing.

But the dinner we had at the hostel was so yummy!
Spinach soup and main dish was cod...
This hostel is so clean, the location is good,
the price is reasonble, I recommend!

To be continued to the Day3.

Neville Brody
Lisbon Lounge Hostel

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Taking a flight from Gatwick, it took only
1.5hours to Zurich. So close!
We rent a car and travelled around.
The first place we went was Luzern.
It was such a beautiful city with
lots of European buildings around the lake.
Walking on Kapellbrücke, having a dinner,
eating ice cream, we left the city and headed
for Interlaken. It was a really comfortable
travel on the car driving along lakes.

To be continued to the Day2.

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So Spain, day2.

Before I went there, I had read some blogs
and had one place I wanted to visit, Frigiliana.
It seems most Japanese tourist who visit Malaga,
actually choose the place to visit Frigiliana, or Mijas.
The pictures show such a beautiful scenery
with lots of white houses. We went to an information centre
and a woman there told us she personally recommends Frigliana.
It seems a bit closer as well.

Taking a bus from Malaga, we first went to Nerja,
and changed there to a bus going to Frigilana.
The weather was a bit cloudy, but when the sunshine came up,
the white houses and colourful flowers looked so beautiful.

It was such a small village, narrow paths on the mountain
looked so european.

I just remember Kiki's delivery service looked a bit like this...no?

Spain is so lovely...the village itself is not so big,
so you can walk around everywhere only for a few hours.

So, when we were waiting for a returning bus,
suddenly I was talked by a Japanese women.
She told me that she was travelling around by herself.
She was such a nice person, and we decided to travel together

To be continued...
But the next entry will be about Portugal again or Swiss!

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The reason why I went there was to attend a media event called OFFF,
but I was just passive as always, my classmate found about it (thanks!)
and I joined them! So I did no research beforehand!
But I enjoyed it very much
The event started on the second day, so the first day was beach...

After taking a train from Lisbon for about 30mins towards West,
we took a bus towards North. The beach was so nice!

Well it was a bit cold and windy...the water was so cold...
but the beach was amazing.

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Anyway, today is a short story.

A few weeks ago, I went to meet other Japanese postgrads students.
I was so impressed by people studying such different things.
We have all different background, age, but
have a big thing in common: struggling to fit into the life in the UK lol
I enjoyed it so much.

I think there were almost 30 Japanese students there...
One corner of the British pub looked like Japanese pub. hehe.

I'm going to join them again soon.
I wish to keep these connections after the course too.

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To be honest, when I went to see "Noh" almost 10 years ago,
it was in Yasukuni Shrine and the play was "Atsumori"
as same as this time, the situation was perfect as
there were some cherry blossoms around the stage...
but I fell asleep. Sorry. Noh is sometimes a bit too difficult.

But this time I watched everything! And it was amazing.
I wonder why the "Noh-men" (Mask that actors use) looks
so powerful. Wearing a gorgeous kimono, waving a fan
and a sword, he looks like someone who is not from the real world,
he looks so mysterious but still beautiful.
Some audiences who looked getting bored at first
even started to lean forward a bit and concentrated on the stage
once "Atsumori" appeared. And the last part of the play,
suddenly the music stopped and the air fell completely silent.
This silent actually talks a lot....it was so touching.

I would like to say thanks to my friend who told me about this event!

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My first impression of Spain (or I should say Malaga)
was Japanese apartment area with strange colours???
Being different from British buildings, Spanish buildings looked
rather plain rectangle. But the colour is different from Japanese ones,
and there is a lot of palm trees so they looked so interesting.
From the centre, we went to the hostel called Melting Pot.
It was cleaner that I thought, so relieved.
After leaving the luggage, we went to have a walk along the beach.

It was a bit a shame that there were some places where were under construction...
The sand was rather dark like Japanese beaches, and also as the weather
was not so good at first, it looked "port" rather than "beach".
But still, long, long beach line looked amazing.
Walking for a while, we went to a cafe along the beach,
and went back to the city centre to have a dinner.

The fist paella in Spain! I loved it.
Seems I can expect much about foods....to be continued to Day2.

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When another friend played Japanese flutes,
it was as if Japanese wind blew into the air in the UK,
exactly representing the couple, it was so touching.
It also made me miss Japan so much.
The sound of her flute was so warm,
I think I have to practice playing it too...

Anyway, congratulations! I wish their eternal happiness.

By the way, I want to write about a trip to Spain
which I went on Easter holidays, but don't have enough time...

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My image of Primark is cheaper Uniqlo.
But they have more different designs than simple Uniqlo,
so it's fun to look around. But I had never bought anything
because it always looked so crowded! But I'm going to
Spain this week and wanted to buy some small things,
so joined the friends going shopping there.

Wow...everything was so nice price. To be honest, I don't know
about its quality...but it's like a few pounds anyway.
Oops, this way of thinking might be dangerous...
it's not eco-friendly! Anyway I bought a small bag/£5, camisole/£2.5,
a pair of sandals/£2, simple T-shirts/£2, Bikini/£6...
They are just like £17! I understand why there is few people
in the Next just opposite to this Primark...
Well, if I got a job, I might prefer proper quality clothes,
but I have no money at the moment as I'm a student,
and Primark was really nice.

After that, I went to see my friend visiting London from Japan,
and the other one living in the U.K.. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral.
I regret so much that I didn't visit there sooner!

I have visited some other cathedral, but I think I like here the best.
The painting is really detailed, the tone of the colour is mild
but looks gorgeous, and solemn. I'm not sure if this is appropriate
description, but it looked like the sky with full of stars,
which is impossible to count, and looks so mysterious.
I should have brought my camera!
But I think I will visit there again soon with my parents.

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...It was really good! As a mystery, it has thrilling and surprise,
as well as bizarre feeling, and as human drama,
its title "Kenchin (= devotion)" exactly describes the key point of the story.

I felt like I wanted to read the original novel.
I think film-hour is too short for this kind of story,
and it would be more touching if I read the detailed
description of each person's emotion.

Anyway the actor, Shinichi Tsutsumi who acted Ishigami was amazing.
When I read reviews by other people, most of them said
"Ishigami should be more frumpy.", but maybe because I haven't read
the original, he looked enough "frumpy"
despite the actor is typical cool man lol
He looked so bizarre! Basically he talks so quietly with emotionless face,
but his behaviour was so touching at the end. Great actor.

By the way, Yukawa, acted by Masaharu Fukuyama,
is he a kind of "light" person like that?
And I heard the person acted by Ko Shibazaki
is not in the original novel...was it necessary?

....Well, I really want to read the original.

By the way, now I'm so interested in "Four colours theorem puzzle"...

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Usually access is from searching engine or mixi (Japanese social network site)
but today I found unfamiliar URL named "kizasi.jp",
so I jumped to that site.

It seems they are collecting keywords from a lot of blogs,
and makes rankings of what people are interested in.
I didn't know such a website exists.
What is "Panic face"...? (Seems it's the popular keyword right now in Japan)

Well, I found this article on the other day too.
「15 Fascinating Ways to Track Twitter Trends」

Yeah, Twitter is full of irrelevant information, so now there are more
service which select and put them into tidy order. Looks interesting.

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"9 Reasons Why Japanese Interactive Work is Awesome"
http://www.crackunit.com/2009/03/17/9-reasons-japanese-interactive-work-is-awesome/

The first reason, "The work is polite" made me laugh a bit.
I don't know if these reasons are right,
but it's really nice to hear someone says Japanese contents are awesome.

Not only about interactive media,
but I think we have a lot of things we should be proud of.
Foods, technology, design, traditional culture, politeness...
But usually these things are delivered in misunderstood or distorted way!
I wish more Japanese people could work a lot internationally.
I should try harder too.

Of course there is a lot of culture which I don't like.
But Japanese politeness, and seriousness to try to make things crisp and detailed,
could be our strength which other country don't have,
I started to think like that after I came to London.
I'd like to study more from western cultures
but meanwhile I want to stay as proper Japanese as well.
(Not sure if it makes sense...)

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My impression was, unique Kabuki (in a good meaning).
There were more British audience than I thought,
and the atmosphere was completely like "away"!

At first, three children were on the stage and sang
western style song with cembalo, and Orsino wearing
Japanese style costume said "Shakespeare lines"...
it was extremely weird! Some British people were giggling,
and I thought the whole play might be crap...
But don't underestimate Kabuki actors!
They started to capture audience's feeling little by little.

Well...Kikunosuke acted Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian,
by changing his costume quickly (this is traditional skill called Hayagawari).
I wonder how many British audience could understand
how difficult that "hayagawari" was?
He changed into gorgeous princess style kimono so quickly,
but no one applauded...I felt so sad.
It was such a great performance!

I heard Twelfth Night was comedy. I don't know much about the original,
but as the story went, the theatre became filled with laughter.
Especially, Kamejiro who acted Maria was really good.
His original face is not feminine at all, but somehow
he looks so sexy while he is acting a woman...
His comical character was really attractive.

I thought the reaction of the audience at the theatre was really good,
so I read some review on the internet...
but most of them were rather critical.
Wondering why, I read them, but it seems their opinions
were "This is not Shakespeare."
One article says the first "chorus" made her curiosity,
but the rest (direction which is typical Kabuki" was not good
because it reduces main point of Shakespeare.
It seems, what is important for them is "being Shakespeare"
rather than "being Kabuki". That is,
I went to see "Kabuki based on Shakespeare's story",
but they went to see "Shakespeare which uses Kabuki style".
...Well, I can understand even if they don't understand Kabuki.
Anyway I thought the audience were enjoying it.

But I also felt that atmosphere of the theatre was important
for Kabuki. The situation no one shout at actors during the play,
(Some audience shout names of actors at a certain point.
Only a few regular audience can do it because it might destroy
the rhythm of the play. It's kind of tradition.) was less exciting.

Anyway, I really enjoyed my favourite theatre after for a while!

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