ダニエルの冒険

The plan for last Saturday was to meet up with Chiyo at Church St and check out the Asian Heritage Street Celebration, which due to an ambitious yet unsuccessful advertising campaign had a relatively poor turnout. There were much more attractions than the Sakura Festival a few weeks back but there were much fewer people. I have some hilarious videos of rappers scheduled in the afternoon rapping about the hos in da club to small crowds of little kids owing to poor scheduling. I had convinced Chiyo to wear her Yukata (like a light kimono) and she looked wonderful in it. When we got on the bus everyone was staring and one guy we passed said “nice dress” from his seat, and when we stood in the aisle, an old lady pulled on her sleeve and told her how beautiful her clothes were.

Once we actually got there everyone was smiling at her, stopping to compliment her, or asking for photos randomly. One guy came up to me and asked me if it was alright if she stood in front of his Japanese-style pimped up car and he took a photo because he wanted to get some Japan-themed photos of it. Chiyo consented and was shuffled down a row of cars surrounded by people with cameras.

After a lot of wandering around we went into the mall and as we passed the Kinokuniya bookshop she stopped when hearing a song she new and told me how she loved that song and it was one of her favourite bands. We stopped and listened to the track for a minute and she pointed at the window to a poster and said “look! That’s the band!” I read the poster and saw that it had today’s date written in big letters in the middle. “Hmm, CD launch?” I thought… and then kept reading “Meet Kumi and Naoki from LOVE PSYCHEDELICO at Kinokuniya for autographs 6pm-7pm after their live performance at the downtown Apple Store at 4pm,” it said. She was going to meet one of her favourite groups! She changed out of her yukata quickly in the ladies’ and we got on the good old 38-Geary to Powell St. I thought that people would stop approaching her when she was in her normal clothes but a lady stopped us to ask where she got her pants (a cute pair of capri dungarees) and an old guy on the bus started complimenting her earrings.

We got to the Apple Store (good thing it’s one of the few places in this city that I actually know) and waited for quite a while upstairs for the duo to make their appearance. It was totally packed with Japanese people. There were probably about 150 people packed onto that second floor and at least 80% must’ve been Japanese. The duo’s promoter announced them and they played five or six songs. Mainly older ones, I’m told, but one or two from their new US debut album. Chiyo and the promoter were the only people dancing, which is probably because everyone else there was either Japanese (who don’t tend to dance in public) or were not Japanese and therefore had no idea who this band was and didn’t know the music.

After they were done with their encore we went back to Japantown and went to Shabu-sen, a shabu-shabu restaurant and got some real actual Kobe-beef sukiyaki, which wasn’t cheap but was so worth it. We went to the CD signing and stood in line for about 40 minutes before getting the CD and talking briefly with Kumi and Naoki. Naoki, the male guitarist, signed a heart by my name, which I think he had gotten into the habit of doing after signing so many CDs for young girls before getting to mine, and then said (in Japanese) “oh, here’s a heart… even though you’re a guy. Sorry.” I told him “no worries, it’s San Francisco!” and thanked him for the performance earlier. They weren’t allowed take photos with us.

Getting some snacks and drinks from the local shop we went into the now much colder evening and waited forever for the 22 to bring up to Dolores Park for the outdoor screening of the Wizard of Oz. I would have taken a taxi if I had been able to find one but it arrived eventually and we got there in time in the end.

Seeing movies with Americans is the best. Even bad movies are entertaining when in a room full of them (or in this case, a field full of them), not that the Wizard of Oz is a bad movie by any degree. Everyone booed and hissed the Wicked Witch of the West and cheered for Toto when leaping out of her basket or over the drawbridge of her castle. The reaction which made me laugh the most was when Dorothy says (paraphrasing here) “but you can’t be a witch; witches are UGLY!” and then Glenda gives this really smirk look and says “only BAD witches are UGLY” and everyone cheered and a guy behind me shouted “I HEAR THAT! WOO!”

It was almost impossible to make out what was being said because of the sound system. It seemed to be thrown together from a lot of different types of speakers so there was lots of variation in pitch and timing from different sets of speakers, making a strange echo with no mid-range sound. I could hear a muffled bass from the nearest set of speakers with no distinguishable words and then a really clear but bassless tweeter in the distance giving clear dialogue about 400ms later.

It was really really really cold in that field. I’ll definitely be buying a sleeping bag or some blankets or something before going again. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is next on the schedule which is another movie which is watchable without dialogue. Not that the event is about listening to dialogue anyway: that’s what DVDs are for.

Really great day and apart from the cold in the evening it couldn’t have gone better. This weekend’s looking to be busy too with Kevin coming in on Saturday. I’ve booked us a couple of tickets for the Alcatraz audio tour on Monday and I’m taking Friday off work (like everyone else at work except two people). Gonna check out Fisherman’s Wharf with Chiyo and we’ll see the new Indiana Jones movie in the evening. So far I’m succeeding in telling myself it’ll be rubbish so I won’t be disappointed. Fingers crossed…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 4:57 am and is filed under San Francisco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.