We enjoyed watching the 73rd Kōhaku Uta Gassen this evening. The highlight for me were Aimyon, Twice, Uta from the One Piece Red movie, and Hoshino Gen singing Kigeki from Spy x Family. I am learning that on the ukulele, so this is motivation to practice it a bit more.

I hope you had a nice New Year’s Eve!

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On the way to work this morning, I saw these very large birds gathering by the intersection. I’m not sure why they chose this spot, but it must have to do something with food or warmth. Or perhaps they just called an impromptu meeting? Who knows? 

In other news, I finally finished watching Kouhaku 2018. For those who are not familiar with Kouhaku, it’s a Japanese music contest/tv show that happens every New Years Eve. It’s the red team (women) vs the white team (men) in this four-hour (I think it’s four hours) marathon. Since we were out of town this new year, we recorded Kouhaku and watched it later. Which is kind of nice because I could skip all the performances I didn’t care for, which was probably about 90% of them!

However, there were a few really good performances that stood out to me. I love seeing Twice, Perfume, and Aiko, but the Shiina Ringo x Miyamoto Hiroji song was awesome! I loved it. Here’s a little clip (not from Kouhaku) to check out:

But probably the highlight was when Yumi Matsutoya (Yuming; Arai Yumi) sang the ending song from Kiki’s Delivery Service (Yasashisa ni Tsutsumaretanara) which was so natsukashii that there were many tears in the audience. It was really cool.

Anyway, I have to say I prefer watching Kouhaku on New Year’s Eve… it’s just fun to drink saké under the kotatsu watching Kouhaku to ring in the new year.

I hope you had a nice day!

またね～

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