Playing Japanese Drums For The First Time

Yesterday I went to a Japanese Drumming Lesson with my sister. We went with our friend Risa and her three children.

It was my first time and I didn’t even know there were different types of Japanese drums. Some of them are small drums that are for getting everyone in the same rhythm and there are big ones for the main sound.

The teacher gave each of us individual drums to play. The drum sticks were short and thick. After trying our drums out we went round and played the drums that other people were using. I really like the smaller drums because the sound is less hollow. There were a few elderly people and all had a lot of energy and were playing the drums very hard and fast and I was quite surprised. The teacher showed us how to play the drums by moving our hands in a circular motion.

The teacher taught us how to play with a group with all of us playing at the same time. It was hard for some of the children but most of them were quite good.

It was a really fun first-time experience and I would really like to go to another one of the lessons again.

Showa Memorial Park

I went to Showa Memorial Park in Tachikawa with my family. It’s a extremely big park in a suburb of Tokyo.It had been a long time since I had been there. When we first got into the park were given a free Uber Eats balloon but my sister gave it to a young boy who had just popped his one.

We then went to check a bicycle rental place but there were no tandem bikes so we went for a walk. When we finally got a tandem bike at another rental place. we cycled to a garden area with lots of flowers and sakura(Cherry Blossom). I went on the tandem bike with my sister but it was very heavy and hard to steer. The basket on the bike was attached to the front stem, not the handle bars. It felt really weird on the bike because it didn’t turn with it.

We had dinner in Ikea, I had salmon and ketchup rice.

Joining the Yokohama Spring Homeless Patrol

Yesterday I joined a volunteer group called “Yokohama Spring Homeless Patrol” for the first time.

My dad’s friend, Elena, is an early co-founder of the group. Elena looked after me a lot when my dad was in hospital. And I hadn’t seen for quite a while so I was very happy to see her.

Patrick Curtin and Elena started this group about one and a half years ago. They get food and beverage donations and give them to the unprivileged  and homeless people of Yokohama(City in Japan).

When Elena and I got to Kannai station in Yokohama at 17:35 we met Patrick, the founder of the group. There were a few people that came to the patrol meet up for the first time. They were all very talkative and kind. There were 14 of us altogether.

We were split into groups to give out food and drinks. I was in charge of handing out some Cherry Coke and some vegetable juice drinks. There were around 100 people queuing for the food and drinks. They were very patient and I was amazed. Some of them had been waiting there for  over 3 hours to be the first to get the food and drinks. This is because sometimes there is not enough food and drink for everyone.

After that we went into the station to meet some people living in cardboard boxes. We handed out crackers and chocolate biscuits.

It was basically what I had expected except that almost all the volunteers were non-Japanese. I wonder why there weren’t many Japanese people helping other homeless Japanese people.

It was a very good experience and I would love to join more of these events. They do these twice a month on Saturdays. Why don’t join or donate some time?

You can get more information about this group, the people in it and see some photos here:
https://www.facebook.com/mutualaidsolidarity/

Minecraft SMPs

I’ve recently been playing Minecraft SMPs a lot more than before.

SMP stands for “Survival Multiplayer”. It’s a type of Minecraft Servers where it is based around playing Minecraft survival mode together.

There are many types of SMPs but the ones I play the most I own and run on Exaroton. I try to keep people from fighting but my friends just keep fighting so it’s very hard. So that’s why I decided to turn on KeepInventory so that after we die the person that killed us can’t take our stuff. But the problem with that is that if you die from a natural cause like falling off a cliff or fighting a monster then you keep your stuff which is half considered cheating in the Minecraft Survival Community.

The other setting I changed in game rules is MobGriefing. The reason is because a lot of the members of my servers don’t fill up the creeper holes and also don’t keep the landscape clean.

Some SMPs are public where anyone can join with the IP address and usually griefing is not allowed and you can only build on your plot of land. There are also annoying plug-ins that let you teleport to anyone from anywhere.

Even though there are these annoying restrictions there are some servers with no rules. For example the popular Minecraft Survival Server 2b2t has nearly no rules. You can Hack, there are no chat restrictions and you can kill anyone. The only rule on this server is that you can’t cause a lot of lag and crash the server.

One of the most famous Minecraft SMPs out there is HermitCraft. They mostly focused on building and redstone. They are currently on Season 9. The SMP has been going on for more than 10 years. Some of the people from the MindCrack SMP joined HermitCraft as well. On average HermitCraft is inviting only one member every couple of years. It is a private whitelisted server and it’s extremely rare to be invited to join it. The members of HermitCraft are arguably the best Minecraft players and are very committed and enjoy playing vanilla(No mods, original and plain) Minecraft a lot.

I think the most important thing about SMPs are to keep the SMP in good condition and not abandon it. You need to think about what kind of an SMP it is and what kind of people should be in it. For example if it is based around war and fighting, you shouldn’t invite people that want to peacefully build and play the game. And if the SMP is based around building and having fun then you shouldn’t invite people that want to have wars and destroy what you have built. The hardest thing is to choose who should be in it. If you have the wrong people then it will never work out. And if you don’t have enough people then it was stay dull, grim and lifeless.

An accident on a train

Recently, when I was coming back on a train from my Ninjutsu class, a women fainted. She collapsed on to my dad who was sitting behind her and she slid onto the floor.

My dad picked her up and asked someone to press the “Emergency Button” to stop the train at the next station.

At the next train station she was put in a wheelchair and taken away by the train staff. After that the train started again and the announcer apologised for running 2 minutes late. Have you ever experienced an emergency on a train?

In Tokyo not many people have cars so we use trains a lot. Some of the train companies are: Japan Rail, Tokyu and Odakyu.
But there are many others and some are subways. And in Japan we use train cards where you charge them with money, they are called Pasmo, Suica etc. They are a bit like the Oyster card in England.

Oreo Ice Cream

A few days ago I made Oreo Ice-cream. It tasted amazing. It’s my favourite dessert now. This is how you make it:

You need:

  • Small pack of Oreos or similar
  • Milk
  • A bar of cooking chocolate
  • Nuts(Best is walnuts or peanuts)

First you crush the Oreos without opening the packet(Use a rolling pin or something similar). Then you open it carefully at the top and pour some milk in until the packet is full. Push a Popsicle stick or a something else into the top(This is where you will hold to eat it). Then you freeze it for 4 hours.

Second, you  melt some cooking chocolate(Use up to 50g).

Third, you take the Ice-Cream out of the freezer and surround it in the liquid chocolate. Then just sprinkle some nuts on it and it’s ready to eat!

Top Gun: Maverick

Recently I watched the new film “Top Gun: Maverick”. I went to see it with my family and grand parents.

It was quite good and thrilling. There were a lot of expensive planes in the film. The American Air Force had a mission to blow up a uranium facility owned by a unknown enemy. Maverick got shot by a SAM and crashed into some snowy woods. He got shot by a helicopter but his friend destroyed the helicopter before it shot him. It was the last film without CG for the planes and aircraft.

I haven’t watched the first Top Gun film yet but I may watch it soon.
Have you seen them yet which one would you recommend?

Exploring Tokyo

Recently my dad and I walked from Ebisu to Shibuya. Most Japanese people don’t explore the city and go to places by train. There were a lot of low planes. There was a lot of graffiti. We saw train super close up around 50 cm. It was so scary there was only a fence between us and the train. I took a lot of photos. We went onto a viewing lobby on Hikarie Deck in the Hikarie building.

 

Riding A Segway

Recently I tried out a Segway. It was faster than I thought. It was really easy and I just crashed 1 time. You stand on it and you lean forward to accelerate and lean back to slow down or move backwards. It’s a bit hard to control because it naturally balances itself and when you try to lean back it’s very scary. I loved going uphill but hated going down hill. We had to go through a quick training thing.

I could try the Segway because it was some research about the opinion of Segways. There was an old man and he went on the Segway too. There were two instructors but they didn’t go on the Segway much. Afterwards, I ate a hamburger at a nearby restaurant called Village Vanguard and had a chocolate milkshake. After that, I went to a gaming store. I looked at the keyboards and found a Hyperx 60% keyboard with linear red switches. It wasn’t lubed so the sound was clacky. If you get it and want it to be thocky you should oil it and lube it with Krytox GPL 205 grade 0.

My New Bike!

Last  Saturday I got a new bike. It’s called the Trek SLR 6700. It’s a mountain bike with 3×8 gears and disc brakes. The frame is aluminium and it has front suspension. It’s really easy to cycle up hills and it’s quite comfortable even on bumpy ground. I need to get a mud guard and lights so it’s safe. I bought this bike on Craigslist, my dad had to ride it from the middle of Tokyo to our home and it took 4 hours! I went home by train.

I want to cycle on my bike to my friends’ houses and places where you can’t get to by train. I would also like to cycle to the sea one day.