I want to be a Korean Pop singer! 2nd stage!

As you may have read before HERE a friend and I have entered a KPOP contest in Japan. The first stage was to make an audition CD and send it by mail to the competition. We'll we did that and we have recently received word that we have been accepted and can move on to the 2nd stage which means we must perform live in Nagoya. If we can pass this stage then its off to Tokyo for the finals.

Here is a little poster we made to advertise our performance to the judges.

  Now I just need to finish learning the entire song by  memory and we need to create a performance to go along with the song.

I want to be a Korean Pop Singer!

Actually not really but I do enjoy K-POP (Korean pop) songs and recently my Japanese friend came up to me and asked me if I would like to sing as a duet with her in a huge K-POP contest here in Japan. The contest has been held every year since 2008. It is open to all non native Korean speakers who either wanna do a dance performance, a ballad, or a traditional style of Korean song. Now while I do enjoy singing in the privacy of my own home or at Karaoke I would usually never even think to try and participate in a singing contest, but when she asked me the first thing that came to my mind was "How awesome would it be to tell people I was in a Korean singing contest in Japan?!" Especially awesome if we make it to the finals which take place in Tokyo. Luckily I've studied Korean before this so I have some knowledge of pronunciation and my previous studies makes remembering the lyrics more easy. My partner Sayaka speaks good Korean and also has a good singing voice so perhaps we will have a chance. If nothing else I'm almost positive an African American has never entered this contest. So we got that going for us.

Here is the Japanese website.


Here is a decent translated version of the website.


So the song we chose is called "잔소리" which translates roughly to "Nagging" by Korean pop singer IU featuring  Seulong from 2AM. It's a really cute and catchy song and I had never heard about it until deciding to join this contest but I'm in love with it now.

So our first step is to send in our audition recording by July 17th. If we pass that stage we will go on to the 2nd stage which is a performance in Nagoya and if we are blessed enough to pass that stage we will make it to the final stage in Tokyo. Wish us luck!

You can see previous competition performances HERE.

Takayama in a day

Last week I was blessed with a 5 day vacation due to the students at my school taking final exams. On one of those days I managed to get out and do a little traveling. I went to the small yet scenic city of Takayama about 2 hours and 45 minutes away from Gifu city by bus for 4,500yen round-trip. It had been awhile since I took a trip within Japan and I've been needing to go out and rekindle my awe and excitement with Japan. This trip was helpful.

Some good old fashion rickshaw action going on the bridge.

Shiroyama park

I've always been a fan of these orange gate like structures called "torii".

I like bridges in Japan.

A large torii above the river.

A closeup of the torri along with a dog trying to get his 10 seconds of fame on the web.

Hida Kokubunji Temple.

700yen will get you into the "Hida Folk Village". A lot of cool thatched houses, some imported from other places in Japan.

An old fashion home.

The bamboo shoot fills up with water until it becomes too heavy and slams down making a loud noise that was meant to scare away wild boards that would eat the crops.

Eco friendly home.

There were many students visiting on this day.

                          Here is a little video of me feeding some really hungry fish in Takayama Hida Folk Village.


I've heard the winter is even better for visiting Takayama. Perhaps I will see for myself.