Kagoshima Festivals

So my friends are famous... I just thought they like to play the guitar and drink beer on the patio. They took me to a summer festival at the meat packers plant where they were the headlining band! We met up with one of their friends, Una, a local Okinawan guitar celebrity.

I knew I was in for good treatment when we arrived and the president of the plant immediately gave us as much shochu and beer as we could drink.

While my friends got ready to play, I looked for a good place to take pictures and videos. Lots of yatai stands selling beer and shochu and all kinds of pork products. They had roped off an area for the VIPs in the middle near the sound guy that would be perfect... So I decided to sneak in (if a 6 foot tall white guy can sneak anywhere) to the VIP area and take an unoccupied table near the front. One guy took a liking to my ability to speak Japanglish and said I had to meet someone, the "top guy" in Kagoshima. I wasn't sure what to make of it all, but OK... The man I was introduced to really is the "top guy" in the Kagoshima perfecture, the representative to the Japanese government for the whole perfecture. The equivalent of a congressman back home... A few shochu and kamupai later we were good buddies watching the show. This Japan place is crazy.



After the show we adjourned to the meat packers bar with the president for more drinks. And karaoke! The whole bar was singing and dancing. Our friend Hiromi arrived late to the festival and wasn't able to sing Nada So So; I was glad she got a chance to sing it at the bar.