Richard's Japanese Photoblog - KEANE

Richard’s Japanese Photoblog 05 March 2012

tokyo narita airport / saturday / 1000

just wandered past a sign at immigration that says we hope to see you again – i couldn’t agree more. it’s been a really fun, albeit brief, trip to japan, and i can’t wait to come back for summer sonic. it’s going to be a lot of fun.

we had a great dinner with lots of friends at gonpachi – apparently it’s a place that inspired one of the scenes in kill bill. the food was fantastic, even for a veggie!

no pics, i’m afraid – my camera is heading to the hold. i’ve got most of series 5 of the shield to watch, plus most of breaking bad series two (series one was the best thing i’ve watched in a long time).

tokyo / friday / 2145

i’ve got to be quick because we are going out for dinner in a few minutes…

the show was ace – what a way to end an all-too-brief tour. but like tom said, we’ll be back here in the summer, and i can’t wait. i really want to go to the yamaha drums factory (in osaka) next time, too. here are some pics from our trip on the shinkansen (bullet train) earlier.

hi-tech, though i think it looks a bit like a duck.

a very rare pic of tom not pulling a face – we like to let the train take the strain!

note – it’s right on time!

oh, and one from soundcheck… sorry jesse!

tokyo / friday / 1845

another long travel day to get to osaka, via tokyo. i can’t stand flying, and jet star didn’t do anything to change that. it was a pretty bumpy flight, but i managed to find a tokyo snowglobe in the airport (i’ve been collecting them from different places we play since we released perfect symmetry). i think i have around 20 already.

the osaka show was good – a really hot and sweaty rock show, and a really great crowd. jesse will spend the next ten years regretting not buying the white 1975 fender precision that we saw in the shop around the corner from the gig. window shopping in japan is one of life’s great pleasures – there is so much random stuff here that you just don’t see in the uk. i bought a frog lunch box for my niece, and some matching frog chop sticks, plus about a million stickers. jesse got some cool headphones – panasonic HP-HTX7. he says they are great, but have a bit of a hump at around 300 hertz. i have no idea what he’s talking about, but i can’t wait to hear the remix of black burning heart that he is working on!

as i write, i’m sat on the shinkansen, heading to tokyo at high speed, tilting as we go around corners, but as smooth and quiet as any train i’ve ever been on. i love this country. i just bought breakfast to take away for the train, and my coffee was stood in a special holder to stop it falling over in the bag, and the kind lady who made it had put a little piece of tape over the hole in the lid so it didn’t spill while i was carrying it. we got on the train (which arrived exactly on time) and left our suitcases for the staff to pack away. i’m sitting in a seat that is nicer than jet star business class, with a wet towel to wipe my face and hands, and 8 radio channels to choose from. just noticed that it’s a heated seat too, just in case. the seats have a power supply, in case you want to charge your phone or laptop, and there’s a sign that asks you to turn your mobile phone to silent. i’m not a smoker, but there’s a smoking room for those who want a cigarette, just like the smoking area on the platform at the immaculate station. the countryside is beautiful – quite rugged hills and forests with small fields and paddies carved into them wherever it is flat.

ok, we are in tokyo now. here are some pics from osaka. i’ve got more to upload from today, but we are on in 25 mins and i’ve got to warm up.

osaka