8:47am 11/15/2010

Yesterday, I went to a video game orchestra concert in Tama City. It was actually an amateur orchestra, so the ticket price was only 1000 yen ($10) plus the amount it took to get a train out there (which was about an hour away). Still, even for an amateur orchestra, it was really nice to hear video game music played out with a full orchestra.

I got up early on Sunday to take care of some things back home (mainly consoling/counseling – however you’d like to look at it - family) and then getting ready to head out!


I left my house shortly before 11am. I had missed the 11:09 bus, but caught the 11:13 bus. However, that bus BARELY got me to the station on time, because we ran into some traffic. I should have left at 10:50, so that I wouldn't be late reaching the meeting place at 11:40. If we had missed the 11:40 train, it would have been a pain to find alternate routes that didn't require a lot of transfers along the way.

Fortunately, I was able to catch the 11:33am train to meet up with my friends and still had 3 minutes to spare. Whew!

The trip out to Tama City took about an hour, more or less. While riding on the Toei line (I think?), I kept noticing a lot of Hello Kitty advertisements. I figured that being it was Japan, they were just using cute icons whenever possible. Heck, I once even got a Hello Kitty bank book cover from my bank.

However, when I arrived, I realized that the stop was where Hello Kitty Puroland was. It made sense!

We had lunch at the Subway near the station and then made our way to the Parthenon, where the concert was held. The concert started shortly after 2:00pm and the first set was music from Dragon Quest 1. Unfortunately, I recognized maybe only three songs from that set, mainly the standard Dragon Quest theme and ending theme.

After a short break, they proceeded to play music from Chrono Trigger. The one theme from Chrono Trigger “やすらぎの日々 ～ ガルディア王国千年祭” was quite entertaining (and an interesting use of the orchestra’s members to “sing” out the parts). In fact, they did the song again as an encore with audience participation.

Here is the set list that they played:

＝＝＝＝プログラム(第1部)＝＝＝＝＝＝

交響組曲「ドラゴンクエストＩ」
1.序曲　Overture March
2.ラダトーム城　Chateau Ladutorm
3.街の人々　People
4.広野を行く　Unknown World
5.戦闘　Fight
6.洞窟　Dungeons
7.竜王　King Dragon
8.フィナーレ　Finale

＝＝＝＝プログラム(第2部)＝＝＝＝＝＝
1.予感 ～ クロノ・トリガー
2.やすらぎの日々 ～ ガルディア王国千年祭
3.風の憧憬
4.王国裁判 ～ 隠された事実
5.ガルディア城<勇気と誇り> ～ カエルのテーマ ～ 魔王決戦
6.ティラン城 ～ ボス・バトル２
7.時の最果て ～ 時の回廊
8.歌う山
9.封印の扉 ～ シルバード<時を渡る翼>
10.黒の夢 ～ 世界変革の時 ～ ラストバトル
11.エピローグ<親しき仲間へ> ～ 遙かなる時の彼方へ
12.サラのテーマ ～ CHRONO CROSS<時の傷跡> ～ 時のみる夢

Well, being that it was an amateur orchestra, it wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed every aspect of it and just listening to some of my favorite music performed live with a full orchestra was more than enough for me! ^^

After the performance, which ended slightly after 5pm with 2 encore pieces, we took the train back to Shinjuku. The four of us went to grab a bite to eat at a restaurant called Oceans Table (?) at the top of the Lumine building for dinner. I had a jambalaya plate, which was ok, albeit a bit dry and small.

By the time I got home, it was already 8:30pm! >< I showered and got ready for work the next day.

Rolling back to Saturday. On Saturday, I got up around 9:30am and decided I was going to attempt my 10K run. Actually, I just wanted to see how long it would take me to complete a 10K. I had breakfast and then dragged ダイちゃん with me down to the lake-side running trail. Well, ok, I walked down to the lake and ダイちゃん　drove to the meeting point (and I’ll be nice, ダイちゃん was still recovering from a cold) to where we also rented a bicycle.

From that point, I started my run towards the “elephant park” which was just a little over 5K. As I had thought, it took about 40 minutes for me to get near my 5K goal. Unfortunately, I didn’t see where the 5K actually ended or started, so I don’t know if I went over 5K by a little or not.

All in all, it took about an hour and a half, which included about 7.5K of running and 2.5K of walking. I was pretty exhausted and dehydrated at the end.

We then went to have lunch since it was almost 2pm by the time I finished! I couldn’t believe how fast time flew. However, I was so exhausted that by the time I got home, I crashed for about an hour. The rest of the afternoon was gone, even though I had a lot of errands I still needed to do.

After dinner, ダイちゃん took me home and I played online for awhile.

That was my weekend. Now it’s Monday and I’m feeling really sleepy again. ; ; I feel like I don’t get enough sleep these days. I was tossing and turning a lot on Saturday night and knew I should have tried to sleep for a bit longer, but I couldn’t.

Oh well, at least there aren’t any classes today, so I can spend some time planning for lessons.