Lost Australians, irrelevant bands and wonderful noodles.

I got back from Fuji Rock Festival on Monday. My sleeping pattern's been all over the shop and I've not had the energy in the evening to write it up until now.

The weekend started in a way that only a Morris family male could start a weekend: sleeping through my alarm and waking up only at the time I was meant to be meeting my friends - who were kindly letting me stay in their tent for the weekend - at the train station. I pack light, a manbag for my camera and a backpack with clothes, and assume/pray that I will somehow run into them. Fairly easy train journey, it's clear who's on their way to the festival and who isn't, but already it's easy to see that Fuji Rock goers are by and large of a different calibre to Reading goers. They're clean and nice. You reach the festival site set in a beautiful mountain range and it's readily apparent that it the coolest festival site in the world, with mountains, forests and rivers it's really pretty special:





Beyond the natural landscape is the attention to detail though. Reading always has a few strange things going on around the site, whether it's 5 minute long choreographed lightsabre fights or men being pushed into each other in trollies, but the amount of organised oddity at Fuji Rock is some what next level:




The disco ball picture was from this amazing boardwalk in the forest which was surrounded by disco balls, plastic flamingos, changing colour lanterns and hoards of people making their way to the DJs' sets after the live music had stopped. The vibe at Fuji Rock was amazing.

But I digress, I arrive at Fuji Rock, hot, sleepy and with no friends or tent. I have no clue where they might pitch their tent or what it looks like, don't know their phone numbers or if they even have a phone among them and looking at the lineup, the only band I'm sure they're going to see is Foals, who are playing on the third and final day. Shit. I trust my hands to luck and fate, put my backpack in a coin locker, keeping a change of clothes on me, and figure that at the worst I sleep under a tree, and so many Japanese were doing in the heat which allowed this, or stay up at a dance tent all night, and pretend I'm the sort of person who stays up at dance tent all night. I head of to see some bands, first on the list is The Vines (who were excellent, the lead singer didn't have a fit on stage or anything! Bands I saw included My Bloody Valentine, Feeder, Princess Superstar, Primal Scream, Underworld, Gogol Bordello, CSS, The Go! Team, Foals, The Music, The Zutons, and the Mystery Jets). As luck/fate would have it I meet a wonderful person who let me stay in their hotel room they were staying in with their friend and who I hung out with the rest of the weekend. We wouldn't have met had I been with the Aussies. The next day, sitting down resting my legs before Gogol Bordello, the Australians walk pass and with an "Oh there you are" I have found my tent mates. Sorted.

Fuji food is somewhat overpriced, but ridiculously tasty. Anyone who has never eaten a festival burger for 5 pounds can not understand how amazing it is to get a big bowl of ramen, or oven cooked pizza, chicken teriyaki, for 4.

The bands were fun, the lineup was somewhat strange though, what have Primal Scream, let alone one hit wonder of the mid 90s Underworld done to justify headlining spots? Far from the greatest set of gigs I've been to, but more than adequate as a justification and backdrop to the other activities of the weekend

Here are good photos:







Aussie friends:




Groggy final morning:



So that was Fuji, and it rocked.

I wanted to write a bit about how this trip had compared to my last two. I adjusted to being in Japan pretty much from day one. There was no culture shock, indeed the opposite, some sense of returning home, and differences that strongly struck me in earlier visits were quickly excepted as what is normal. By this I mean that, in previous years, things like the abundance of vending machines, the busyness of the cities, the way that a single building houses different shops and bars on each floor, the ways in which people interact, all of this, at one point was exciting and challenging, but is now commonplace, it's just the way things are done here. This may sound like a complaint, that Japan is becoming less interesting to me, but that is far far from the case. Japan has lost her novelty to me in many areas, I have been here too long to be in a constant state of excitement and confusion, but she is becoming a place more intimate, a place I can connect to better and deeper. Where in previous years I missed the excitement of say, the bright lights and night time and the amazingly cute everythings everywhere, what I know I will miss when I return this time is the commonplaceness of it all. I will miss having the Japanese way of doing things being my normal place of reference.

Lost in Translation, possibly my favourite film ever, has quite a different affect on me that it does on many others. Japan was chosen as a location for that film because of it's sheer foreignness being the perfect backdrop to a film about alienation; there is nowhere that can feel as distant from England or America as Japan. While the difference between Western and Japanese culture remains as large for me as it ever did, I feel that I essentially have two modes of operation now: one where I am in England, and I am surrounded by people from around the world, self-deprecation is key, nothing works that well, people are friendly and irreverent, the sky is grey, the buildings are old and, in London, one can never forget the sheer sense of importance that surrounds you. When I'm in Japan everything is crowded, space seems a precious commodity, connivence is all and one always know they can get a can of ice coffee if they need it at 3 AM, everything runs with flawless precision but the government system's a mess and people regurgitate conservative opinions from the one sided newspapers, there is a huge pretence of logic which fails under scrutiny, everything contradicts everything else, people are boring and repressed, racist and unimaginative, but kind beyond what one could think possible, welcoming, a great sense of fun, of joy, a passion for learning about other's different to themselves, better dressed than anyone else in the world, and the food is cheap and delicious. I hold both of these utterly incompatible worlds within me at the same time.

Another aspect to not is how much more I've been talking to Japanese people, and how much better I have got to know many. For all the cultural differences that at times make one question whether communication can ever be possible, one realises just how much in common everyone has. Perhaps there is some element of the young Japanese I talk to being of a more similar cultural outlook to me than older Japanese generations, but it's more that personality traits, open/closed, friendly/mean, funny/boring, clever/dumb etc etc. are universal and that people are people are people.

I don't know if this was one of the best posts I've written or just the most pretentious >_> But yes, normality and whatnot, let's see if I agree with myself when I come back here for my year abroad. Also, why am I writing as though I'm leaving soon? I have a whole month, silly.

See you soon for thoughts on living in Tokyo
xx