Young Voices of Melbourne

Japan Tour Report Friday 22nd September Melbourne – Hong Kong As with any tour there was plenty of excitement at the airport, as well as the usual bit of nervousness for those heading off on tour for the first time. I suspect the parents of our young ones were just as anxious as their kids, as they headed off on their first YVM tour. For me, it was great to get finally get underway after more than twelve months planning. The 450 emails in my 2017 Japan Tour email folder and the 288 files in the tour folder on my computer represent the hundreds of hours spent trying to create a happy and safe tour rich in musical and cultural experiences. The Japan Tour has been one of the most difficult of the 32 tours I have organised for YVM, but I am happy with how it looks on paper as we leave, and looking forward to seeing if it all works out as planned! We have a great team to look after everyone - Amelia Alder, conductor of YVMen and well known to the kids through her work as a tutor with the Senior Training Choir, Emma Casey, ex choir member, Senior Training Choir tutor and our Japanese language expert, Julia Piggin our accompanist, Dr Katrina O’Leary, Janet Armstrong (Laura’s mum) and Katrina O’Leary ( Immy and Austin’s mum). All are committed to helping to create a safe and happy tour.

 

 

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Saturday 23rd September Hong Kong - Tokyo We negotiated our stop over in Hong Kong without any problems, and started to get used to the group checks which are such a feature of life on tour. After not quite enough sleep we arrived in Tokyo and were greeted by an enthusiastic team from our bus company who steered us onto our waiting coaches with great efficiency. Welcome to Japan! The National Olympic Memorial Youth Centre is a large facility of accommodation, sporting and cultural buildings on what was the site of the Olympic Village for the 1964 Olympics. It is used for youth seminars, conferences and youth groups visiting Tokyo from other parts of Japan and overseas. Our visit is organised through St Mary’s International School in Tokyo as the centre only deals in Japanese, and would not communicate with us directly. On arrival we find a large campus that feels like a university with many buildings, lots of young people and a large cafeteria. On picking up our meal tickets we are told that there are 948 people booked in to lunch the next day, so ‘please don’t be late’! Everyone had their own small room but we soon discover there were not many showers in the shared bathroom facilities so we had to plan our showering activities carefully. This was a recurring theme in all of our accommodations, as the Japanese bathing tradition of group showering and then soaking (naked) in the hot pool is alive and well. Many of us decided that group showering (in bathers) and avoiding the hot pool was the way to go, although plenty of the group had at least one soak in the hot pool Japanese style. Fortunately there were always a few western style shower recesses for those preferring their own company at bathing time. After some initial awkwardness the tour adults all quickly got into Japanese style bathing and I suspect will miss it! Sun 24th September Tokyo Our first full day in Tokyo began with a visit to the Meiji Shrine and Inner Garden after a walk through Yoyogi Park. We encountered locals making devotions at the shrine, traditional Japanese weddings, the expected tori gates, beautiful old buildings, sculptured trees, much greenery and lakes with koi (large goldfish). It was a peaceful introduction to traditional Japan.

 

 

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After lunch in the cafeteria back at the National Youth Centre we walked to the Harajuku shopping area for some Japanese culture of a different type. Harajuku was very busy and as the kids headed off in their friendship groups to explore the area I did wonder just a little whether we might lose a few! But we don’t (phew) and they all arrived back at the designated meeting spot on time and with many stories to tell of extreme fashion, exotic Japanese crepes, super sized fairy floss, cat and hedgehog cafes and more. This was an excellent YVM group for not getting lost, and for getting back to the designated meeting places on time. Our meals at the National Youth Centre offered us plenty of choice as long as you liked Japanese food, were not vegetarian and were not too fussy. The vegetarians coped, thanks to lots of rice and vegetables in the salad bar available at each meal, but it was interesting that there was never a vegetarian option available as one of the set meal choices. Monday 25th September Tokyo After a day of sight seeing it was time to begin the musical part of our adventure and there were questions to be answered. Having never actually had everyone in the choir at a rehearsal together before tour, how will we sound? Would everyone have finished learning the words of all the songs? Would everyone be able to remember the different positions for our performance – about 8 different stage positions? How would YVMen go on their first international tour? Would the local audiences appreciate our program, specially designed to be not too reliant on language, and being more about colour and sound? Would this touring YVM be of the international standard that we aspire to? We rehearsed in the morning in a very nice rehearsal studio at the National Youth Centre and the initial signs were good.

 

 

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The choir was sounding good and balanced, and most of the group had worked hard to finish learning our program including some very wordy and long Japanese songs to be sung with local choirs. Our Malaysian sitting dance was tried and deleted from the program as it didn’t come up to the required standard, and you just can’t fake your way through a dance! We knew that our first audience would be a tough one. St Mary’s International School is a very musical school for about 400 boys, with about 40% local students. They have a strong music program and many boys sing in one of the several choirs at the school. The Varsity Ensemble is internationally regarded, and often performs around the world, including very recently at Choralfest in Brisbane in July. We discovered that we would be singing for the whole school in a special assembly, and I must admit that I was little worried that we might not be able to hold their attention for 40 minutes, but my fears were soon allayed as YVM gave a very good first tour performance and the boys listened well to our musical offerings and seemed to enjoy the program.

Our visit to St Mary’s was a return visit, with a choir from St Mary’s having visited us in Melbourne in 1996. Some of them stayed at Amelia Alder’s house, and she performed in the concert we did with them at Shelford. You know that it’s a small word when one of the staff let us know after the concert that YVM sang at his wedding in Hawthorn 20 years ago. He was particularly excited to hear us again. After a rest and dinner back at the NYC we headed out on foot to another

 

 

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famous Tokyo shopping district – Shibuya. This is a bustling shopping and eating precinct famous for its neon signs and the massive intersection where up to 1,000 people cross each time the lights change. Even those of us who were not really wanting to buy anything enjoyed the people watching and the fascinating mix of traditional and super funky shops.

Tuesday 26th September Tokyo - Disneyland To get to Disneyland we had our first Japanese train experience. We had all heard about Tokyo’s famously crowded trains and confusing stations with many different lines, entrances and exits and approached this task with some trepidation. But I had planned the journey with the very useful Google Maps, and was hoping they wouldn’t let us down. We had a good strategy to stay

 

 

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with our small communication groups so that if we were split up by crowds we could all rendezvous at the end of our journey. When the first train arrived my heart sank as the doors opened and the train was full, but we managed to all squeeze on and from there all went smoothly with our line, station and train changes. (and only a couple of wrong turns along the way.) We had a big day at Disneyland and there was much to enjoy, from the roaming street musicians, many shops, sedate steam train and paddle boat rides to the gut wrenching thrill rides and the frequent street parades. We all ended up having dinner together at Mama Sara’s Kitchen before making our return train trip and collapsing into bed after an exhausting but memorable day.

Wednesday 27th September Tokyo – Inuyama (Nagoya) After successfully cleaning our rooms, folding our sheets in the required way and returning them to the laundry room in bundles of twenty we were on the bus with our luggage and heading to Inuyama which was to be our home for the next two nights. It was a long day on the bus, but we had plenty of green mountains to look at on the way and discovered amazingly good food at the highway service centre where we stopped for lunch. Not what we were expecting at all. We arrived at the Inuyama International Youth Hostel to find (after having to get our luggage up a big hill in a minivan) a beautiful modern building in a

 

 

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bushy location, where we were the only guests. The rooms were better than expected in a youth hostel, and there were big glass windows so we can enjoy the forest outside. Some of us g0t to have their first experience of Japanese style sleeping on the floor in a Japanese style room and a few more of us gather the courage to explore the onsen (Japanese bath). Our buffet dinner is excellent, and there is good wifi – something rather lacking at our Tokyo accommodation. Thursday 28th September Inuyama/Nagoya Today we had our first cultural exchange with a Japanese choir and we were all excited by the prospect, and keen to see how we would be able to communicate with our hosts. Before meeting the Nagoya Children’s Choir we spent the morning at the Little World Museum of Man. It’s an odd but rather fun place, where buildings representing many cultures from around the world are placed around a large outdoor site. You can walk or take the mini bus from country to country where you can sample that culture’s food, souvenirs and sometimes music. It’s only 2 minutes from Indonesia to Germany! The coffee in Italy was disappointing, although the goat curry and marsala tea in Nepal were excellent. Some of the buildings had been transported from their original location (including a 400 year old Austrian farm house) and some were reproductions. It’s a crazy concept, but was a fun enough way to spend a morning! The Nagoya Children’s Choir visited YVM in 2007 when we hosted a concert for them at St John’s Southgate and provided homestays, and it was great to have the opportunity to make a reciprocal visit. The concert was in a very nice new concert hall of about 400 seats and we enjoyed rehearsing our program in the lovely space. After our stage rehearsal we met the choir for the first time and rehearsed two songs together. Their choice, Azure has given us some grief as it had many Japanese words that we found difficult to learn. But it was an important song for them, about hope after the devastating tsunami of a few years ago, and although too long for us to memorise successfully we were able to sing it convincingly with music and our hosts were very happy with the results. After a wonderful concert attended by a good local crowd and a few of our parents who were also in Japan on holidays, our hosts held a reception for us and we discovered for the first time the onslaught of the Japanese gift giving tradition. The kids had a great time exchanging trinkets, names and even contact details with the local singers. It was a really fun way to meet people and it left everyone buoyed and excited by our first real Japanese cultural exchange.

 

 

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Friday 29th September Inuyama - Kyoto After getting back late to the Inuyama Youth Hostel after our concert the night before, we had to get up early and pack our bags to head to Nagoya International School for a performance before heading to Kyoto. Again we performed for the whole school, both primary and secondary students and the performance was for 60 minutes. We sang in their gym, the only space in the school large enough to hold all the students. I was very pleased with YVM’s performance and the group’s ability to keep a hall full of students engaged with their music. Unlike at St Mary’s, these students did not have the benefit of a great music program in their school and it was quite an achievement to keep them listening. The school principal, an ex music teacher was delighted to have some quality singing in the school to inspire the students to do more singing. I was delighted to receive the following message after the performance: I am a mom of a 4th Grader at Nagoya International School, my daughter Tilly has not stopped talking about your performance as she absolutely was in awe of you all!! Luckily someone at school had recorded it and I have been able to sit and watch your amazing performance with her. Thank you for uplifting and inspiring my daughter and I am sure the rest of the school!

 

 

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After enjoying an excellent lunch at the school we headed to the Monkey Park Iwatayama, on the outskirts of Kyoto. After a 20 minute walk up to the top of the mountain we were greeted by 120 snow monkeys. These monkeys are wild and uncaged, but live in the trees at the top of the mountain and congregate at a viewing centre where they are fed. I felt a strong affinity between these monkeys and our kids …

 

 

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The Utano Youth Hostel in Kyoto was a nice surprice. It was a new purpose built hostel in a peaceful green setting, with lots of wood and glass in the design and lovely common areas creating a calm and relaxing atmosphere. Saturday 30th September Kyoto This was a big day of sight seeing and walking as we explored some of Kyoto’s 29 World Heritage listed sites and caught up on some shopping. After a fascinating walk to the station through a bamboo forest and past houses with traditional Japanese gardens we caught a train to the Higashiyama district. From Higashiyama Station we walked along Sanjo dori, across the canal and turned right into Jingu-michi, past Shoren-in temple and Chion-in temple to Maruyama park where we lingered for a while to have a look at the 1,350 year old Yasaka Shrine. We then headed to the old shopping street of Matsubara dori on the way to the Kiyomizu-dera temple which we also explored. In the afternoon we headed to the Takashiyama Department Store, to have a look at their amazing food hall and then split into friendship groups to explore the shopping area around the 400 year old Nishiki market. Rather worn out after a busy day exploring and walking we had dinner in our friendship groups in restaurants on the 7th floor of the Takashiyama Department Store, before heading home through the Gion district along the Shirakawa river. No geisha were spotted, but we did see lots of locals and tourists dressed up in traditional clothes.

 

 

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Sunday 1st October Kyoto (Nishinomiya) After a big day in Kyoto (26,000 steps recorded on my phone) we were happy to get on the bus to visit the Nishinomiya Boys and Girls Choir in Nishinomiya, a bit more than an hour’s drive away from Kyoto. Before we left the hostel we were pleased to be able to sing a couple of songs for a group of very special kids who were having a workshop day at the youth hostel. These kids were all suffering from major illness or disability and it was great to be able to share some music with a very appreciative audience.

Founded in 1961 the Nishinomiya Boys and Girls Choir has a proud history of travel and hosting choirs from abroad. The choir was founded by Mr Satoru Nakanishi (artistic director, conductor) in 1961. He is still actively involved and was with us for the day. Very impressive longevity! You could tell that we were not the first group that this choir had hosted. We had a well organised day where we rehearsed together (including our Sakura hand dance), sat down to lunch together, played games together and then presented a great concert in the Naruo Cultural Hall. As well we were treated to a splendid farewell of the bus!

 

 

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Worth mentioning here is the dinner we had when we arrived back in Kyoto. Although it came from a youth hostel kitchen it was excellent. Not the usual youth hostel fare.

 

 

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Monday 2nd October Kyoto - Osaka It was sad to leave Kyoto this morning and I know many of us were already thinking about when we might be able to come back to this wonderful city. I had a rather amusing email this morning from the Ikeda Junior Choir who we were heading off to visit and had heard that we had performed Azure in our concert with the Nagoya Children’s Choir, requesting for us to perform it in our concert with them. Parents might know this song as it was the cause of considerable annoyance and stress in our tour preparation as the 15 pages of Japanese words were very hard to learn, and even harder to memorise. In the end we abandoned our attempt to sing Azure from memory, and gave a very good performance with the NCC with music. However, not wanting to carry around the copies for the rest of the tour I put them into the recycling bin just after the concert. So I had to confess to Ikeda that we would not be able to sing Azure in their concert! After an hour and a half on the bus we were in Ikeda City, and keen to find out what a Welcome Party with the Ikeda Junior Choir involved. We discovered our hosts had gone to a lot of trouble to organise party games, lunch in small groups on the floor, a visiting wombat and a ladies traditional dance group that taught us a dance. There were a lot of laughs and it took us a while to get the wombat story but we eventually learned that Ikeda is a sister city of Launceston, and 60 years ago Launceston gave Ikeda City a wombat. Ikeda now has 6 or the 9 wombats that live in Japan, and they are very proud of it.

 

 

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After our party and rehearsal we were back on the bus and headed to the Osaka Municipal Nagai Youth Hostel which we were a little surprised to find was tucked into the surrounds of a large stadium. While not as big as the MCG, the Yanmar Stadium has a capacity of 47,000 and it was a rather unique accommodation venue!

 

 

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Tuesday 3rd October Osaka Our activity today was to visit a Japanese school – the Seikei Girls High School, a private girls school of around 400 students. This visit was arranged through the Osaka Convention and Travel Bureau who we linked up with at an education and business forum in Melbourne, organised by the City of Melbourne. We were formally welcomed by the principal and members of their school choir and then broke into small groups for a school tour. Soon after, things began to be a bit odd, as strange bursts of random screaming started to be heard along the corridors. We were perplexed. This was not the quiet disciplined Japanese way we were expecting. It soon became apparent that the cause of the hysteria was in fact our boys! So unaccustomed were these girls to having handsome Australian men in their presence, they just … screamed. This excitement continued as the whole school gathered for our performance, and our boys were of course very happy to have the attention, and were not shy in encouraging the local girls. The school’s staff didn’t seem at all phased by this behaviour, which was also odd. After all this excitement we did have a great workshop with the Seikei Girls High School choir, where we taught them Sesere eeye, and they taught us Hotaru koi, a Japanese song. The whole day was a fascinating insight into the workings of a Japanese school and the Japanese teen girl’s brain!

 

 

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Wednesday 4th October Osaka Today it was back to Ikeda City for our tour of the city sights and then our concert with the Ikeda Junior Choir. First on the agenda was our tour of the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum, where we decorated our noodle cups and then chose the flavours to make our very own custom noodles. While some of us couldn’t quite see the point, I enjoyed the quirkiness of it all and made the most of my first colouring-in opportunity for a while.

 

 

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After a relaxing visit to the Ikeda Castle and gardens we were back in rehearsal mode, getting ready for our last concert in the rather large hall in Ikeda. There was also time for some good old-fashioned playground play before the concert.

 

 

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Thursday 5th October Osaka – Hong Kong Our last day, and it was time to spend those last yen with a shopping trip to the Dotonbori shopping area. Some bought final souvenirs, we all bought lunch and we were all a bit sad not to have more time to explore this busy area.

 

 

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If the tour adults look so happy in the photo below it was only because we were going to miss our 53 children so much when we got home!

Final Word I was very pleased with the Japan Tour, in many ways. Our 53 singers proved themselves to be responsible and capable tourers, and their good behaviour was noted by several strangers we encountered. The singers looked after each other well, and on the whole it was a very happy group. Everyone coped well with the pace of the tour, and always managed to turn up on time at our meeting points. On some days there was a lot of walking, but I heard no complaining, and we managed to include a lot of activities in our 13 days. We made some excellent music while on tour, and our program was well received by the local audiences. This was the first tour with YVMen and Choir

 

 

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together and I was pleased with how this worked, both musically and socially. We were introduced to Japan’s temples and shrines, beautiful parks and bustling shopping culture, but more importantly had the opportunity to interact in a meaningful way with local people through music making. This is something that is not easy to experience as an ordinary tourist, and we were very fortunate that our music open the door of meaningful cultural exchange to us. All the Japanese people we encountered were friendly, helpful and very welcoming. Every time I travel with a group of other people’s children I am very aware of the great responsibility this entails, and the trust that parents put in me to care for their children and bring them home safely. Thankyou very much to all the touring team – adults and kids – for playing your part in making this a safe, happy and culturally rich tour for everyone.

 

 

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