US Performance Tour Nashville pt 2

We stayed at the Skerrit-Bennet Center in Nashville. It was formerly a university, in fact the first in the country to admit African-American women as students. I am not sure whether the university moved or closed, but anyway, the campus is now a good place for travelers on a budget. The entire campus is done in a fairly economical version of neo-gothic. The guest rooms are the dormitory rooms--a bit dingy, and most of them share a bath with one other room, causing lots of problems when the opposite party forgets to unlock the bathroom door. But certainly cheap, and free wi-fi in the central (used to be the library) building. It is adjacent to Vanderbilt U., and there are some restaurants (including the sushi place) and a CVS drug store that was also very convenient. There is also an old wooden building that was the first Methodist meeting house west of the Appalachians, the Strother Meeting House. The building has been moved around and used for various non-churchly purposes; now it is retired from active duty, and preserved as part of the campus.

In addition to Celebrate Nashville, we also performed at a few colleges/universities: Columbia College, Western Kentucky and Belmont. We got great support from Mrs. Grimes, a Japanese-born long-time resident of the area. She did a drop-in dance performance at Columbia, where she has been a Japanese language teacher. We had to use big vans to carry the ten of us to Columbia and Western Kentucky. However, Belmont is in town, not far from Skerrit-Bennet, so the vice-consul (I think that is what she is, but not sure) made two trips using her own car to take us over there. The last pic shows her with her Japanese-speaking staff member, Jennifer, and Ms. Grimes, as well as the dancers and musicians.

US Performance Tour

My drum teacher asked me to join in a tour to perform in two US cities, Nashville (Tenn.) and New Orleans (La.). Our first gig was the 'Celebrate Nashville' festival on an outdoor stage at Centennial Park, near the famous Parthenon. However, getting there proved to be quite a challenge. Continental Airlines took four hours to fix a toilet problem before the plane could leave Tokyo. We arrived late in Houston, and could not get on any connecting flights to Nashville, so we had to spend the night in Houston. Fortunately, we found one agent who was able to get us on a flight early enough to make our gig. Still, it was touch-and-go. It was our roughest performance, but the atmosphere was far from formal, so it didn't matter too much. The stage had a rather exuberant hand-painted backdrop. The other acts on the program included a lot of zydeco, bluegrass and the like. After our performance, lots of photographers showed up to photograph our fantastic dancers in the park's lush greenery.

For many Japanese, American food is a bit of a problem--too rich, too greasy, too much. Fortunately, my teacher and I were introduced to a great, inexpensive sushi place in Nashville. Later, we were able to tour around a bit to see some of the music scene. We went to a fairly small and simple place called the Station Inn--it was cozy and much more my style compared to some more famous places that seemed over the top to me.