Nodo Jiman, or I'm Proud of My Voice, is a television program that has been airing in Japan for around 50 years. It is a karaoke competition that takes place in a different prefecture each month. I found out about it from one of the wonderful ladies working in city hall. She heard me karaoke during the samurai after party for the Takeda Shingen Festival and told me that I should enter. So I did.

The process is really simple. You just have to send in a postcard with some personal information and the name of a song. Then, the Nodo Jiman people pick 200 contestants from all the postcards received. The only requirement is that you are a resident of the prefecture they are auditioning in. It was very difficult for me to pick a song, but Tsunoda-san, the one who recommended that I try out, really wanted to hear me sing Utada Hikaru's First Love. It was because she heard me sing that song that she said I should enter, so I did end up choosing that song. It shouldn't be such a difficult decision, but the song is in Japanese and even though the show is a karaoke type competition, there is no screen to read off the words. You have to have the song memorized. Not a easy feat.

Eventually I got a postcard back from NHK saying I made the 200 person cut! I am contestant number 65. What this means is that I've earned an audition spot, not necessarily a spot on the show. This weekend I, along with 199 others, will audition by singing 60 secs. of my chosen song for the judges and they will choose 20 to appear on TV. I have been practicing almost everyday for the last few weeks. So much so that I'm almost sick of karaoke at the moment. But, I've improved a lot and have the song (mostly) memorized. I'm still a bit worried about singing in front of a crowd....

Anyway the audition is this weekend and if I make it, the taping for the show is the following day. Wish me luck! I'll update next week.

Labels: karaoke, NHK

Let's just say I had a busy weekend.....

It started off with visiting one of my old elementary schools. I no longer teach at the school, but all the students bar the 1st graders have had me as a teacher and I currently teach their older brothers and sisters. I went to watch their sports festival. The festival was not so exciting. They get a bit old hat after watching two or three, but I really enjoyed seeing all the kids. As the saw me, groups of them would yell out my name and wave like crazy people. It was really cute.

After spending some time at the festival and talking with some of the kids, it was soon time to head to Otsuki for a pub quiz. While I suck at answering the trivia questions, its nice to get to see people I don't ofter get a chance to see and to meet some of the new people who I haven't had a chance to meet. Was a bit disappointed by the table I was assigned though. It was mostly people I already knew. I was also quite peeved at the fact that I was in the bathroom during one of the few questions I knew the answer too and my group ended up getting it wrong. Nooooooo! The pub quiz had a few interesting new rules/categories this time. There was even a physical challenge. All in all a good time. Never did end up figuring out who won as the quiz ran late and I had to catch a train to Tokyo.

Spend the night in Tokyo at one of my favorite hostels. The Sakura Inn in Jimbocho. Always a nice place and me and Janet ended up having a 4 person room all to ourselves. It was a quick stay though. We got up early the next morning to head to MakuhariMesse in Chiba for the annual Tokyo Game Show. It's been tradition over the past 2 years that me and Janet attend the show together. It's normally held during a 3 day weekend in October, but was held a bit earlier this year. Luckily I checked the website a few weeks in advance or we would have probably missed out! This year we wanted to attend 2 days instead of just 1, but due to the sports festival and pub quiz, it didn't quite work out.

Anyway, the game show was a good time as always. We got there about an hour and a half before the venue opened. Most of the game show is spent collecting 'swag' aka. various free things passed out by different companies either for doing nothing or playing certain demo games. Last year Janet manged to walk away with a decent sized stuff Sonic. Other goods from past years include key chains, mouse pads, cups, bouncy balls, and a ton of game demo CDs. This year it was clear that the swag was a bit lacking. Not as many giveaways and most of the giveaway stuff was fairly average. We did manage to pick up some jewelry, headphones, and a really cool multicolored pen/highlighter. No free game giveaways though, and the demo disks were also really scarce. There also seemed to more people and fewer vendors this year, which meant that most of the good stuff was gone exceptionally fast.

Didn't have much time to spend grabing swag though as I cosplayed this year. I went as Beatrice from 07th Expansion's Umineko no Naku Koro Ni series. I got a ton of compliments on it and had a ton of people ask to take my picture. One person even asked me if I was working for 07th Expansion as their 'booth babe' aka person who passes out fliers for a company while in costume. This got me all excited because I didn't think they'd have a booth, but in the end it turns out they didn't. I even got interviewed by 2 different TV stations. One of which was from Spain. I also managed to meet up with an online friend from Singapore who recently moved to Japan to attend school and was cosplaying from the same series as me.

I also ate at the show for the first time and was impressed by the food selection and quality. Everything but the drinks, which were going for 200yen a bottle, was really cheap too. I got 2 large chicken legs and french fries for 500yen. Couldn't even get that kind of deal at a fast food place and the food quality was significantly better than anything you'd find at a KFC. I'd even go as far to say it was sit-down restaurant worthy. Yum!

After considering stopping in Tokyo for dinner for a brief moment, we decided to head straight home. It was a very long weekend and neither of us were looking forward to work the next day.

Labels: cosplay, TGS, Tokyo, weekend, Yeti