some fall travels and jazziness

I haven't updated in awhile because I've been out and about. Specifically, this past week I've gone to Osaka and Kyoto for a very short whirlwind tour. Well--mainly, Osaka for shopping, and Kyoto for pretty fall foliage and some touristy sightseeing. It was fun and exhausting.
The hugeness of Osaka was staggering. It's more or less like Tokyo, except that this time I was better equipped to deal with it. In the Osaka Station area alone, there were at least 5 huge buildings (I hesitate to call them skyscrapers, but how else would you call a building with 27 floors?) dedicated to shopping and eating. And all the people in the subway stations at 5pm!
Kyoto, in contrast, was less crowded and much cleaner. But it was also less easy to get around, or so it seemed at the time. I took a walking tour around the station area, which lasted 5 hrs and made me very tired. And then I walked some more! Whee!! After a few aggravating detours caused by bad map-reading and bad street signs, I finally made it back to the station to go back to my hotel in Osaka. But it was gorgeous :-) Pictures are on facebook.

Tonight I went and saw some jazz at a bar downtown with my Nepalese friend (the one who is studying American literature). It was fun! It was more or less like an open mic type of deal, where people signed up to play or sing. There were lots of vocalists singing jazz standards ("All of Me" came up twice!). There was one group of 5 women who were very good with the harmony and all that. They started by singing The First Noel/Silent Night a cappella. But, I have to say, the pronunciation was quite distracting. "Za fast Noel..." particularly of note was "Joy tsu za fishes in za deep brue shee, joy tsu you an' me" I had to cringe every time "heaven" came out as "hebun," though after awhile they were jamming so upbeat to Joy to the World that I wanted to sing along and nearly sang it as "hebun" myself! Bad pronunciation is infectious! Then there was also "Fry me tsu za moon..." And a lady sang White Christmas, which simultaneously made me want to cry for reasons unknown, and laugh because she sounded so inescapably Japanese: "wheah za toreetops grissen, and childoren rissen / to heah sreigh bellzu in za snow...." Well, enough of that. I'm sure I butcher Japanese regularly, so--it's forgivable :-D They were generally very good singers :-)

Anyways, most ppl were really great and having a blast. There was one man in particular that I really liked--a middle aged skinny man in a dark grey suit. He sang "goody goody" and "i can't give you anything but love." He was the only male vocalist, which I thought was kind of strange. Of all the vocalists, though, he seemed to be the most relaxed and natural and most genuinely enjoying himself. He smiled through all his songs (as far as you can smile while singing--maybe he only gave the impression of smiling, or maybe you really can smile with your eyes). I thought it was so oddly incongruous, the man in the gabardine or grey flannel suit jamming to the subversive notes of jazz. Cultural transplantation, things become oddly removed from context.