Tokyo Five

My beautiful first grandchild is five-and-a-half years old already!

Growing so fast!

My second grandchild is already almost two years old now. He’s also so wonderful!

Well, this morning, my third grandchild was born! She’s so beautiful too!

I’ve seen Guns N’ Roses on three of their Japan tours over the years (I’ve only seen KISS and the Japanese band ET-King more times).

I first saw Guns N’ Roses on their “Use Your Illusion” tour in January 1993 at the Tokyo Dome.

I still have the T-shirt I bought after that show.

The next time I saw them was almost exactly thirty years later on their “We’re F’N Back!” tour in November 2022 at the Saitama (Japan) Super Arena.

The Japanese band Loudness were the opening act. It was my second time to see Loudness.

Yesterday (May 5th, 2025), I just saw Guns N’ Roses for the third time on their long-titled “Because What You Want N’ What You Get Are Two Completely Different Things” Tour in Yokohama (Japan).

Here are some photos I took at yesterday’s show:

On September 29th, 2024, I saw Iron Maiden in concert in Yokohama on their “The Future Past World Tour“.

It was great!

The café at the venue was selling two Iron Maiden inspired drinks…a sports drink and a beer cocktail.

They gave an Iron Maiden coaster with every drink.

I bought the “Senjutsu” beer cocktail.

My Iron Maiden drink coaster.

“Eddie” !

“Can I Play With Madness?”

One of their stage backdrops had Japanese writing that said such things as “Iron Maiden”, “time machine”, and “Hell on Earth”…but also “supermarket”, “beer”, etc.

The front of the Japan-only Iron Maiden T-shirt that I bought.

The back of the Iron Maiden World Tour T-shirt that I bought.

Almost four years ago I wrote a post when my first grandchild was born.

She’s already almost four years old now…and she’s a perfect angel!

Well, yesterday she became a big sister! My second grandchild (and first grandson) was born yesterday.

Exactly one hundred years ago today (September 1st, 1923), Tokyo was hit by a massive earthquake.

It’s called 「関東大地震」(“The Great Kanto Earthquake“).

It was at about noon on that Saturday when the powerful earthquake suddenly struck. Many buildings collapsed and many people died. But the earthquake itself isn’t what caused most of the death and destruction, actually. As it was lunchtime, most people were cooking (with gas stoves), and because of that, the strong jolting of the earth caused massive fires to break out and spread throughout the city. More homes were destroyed and more people died from the fires than the earthquake itself.

The earthquake also broke water lines and caused water wells to become contaminated.

And, another tragic consequence of the Great Kanto Earthquake was the panic caused by the false rumors that spread that said the fires, the broken water lines, and the contaminated water were caused by intentional sabotage by Koreans living in Japan.

Those rumors were false, but, unfortunately, they led some people to become vigilantes and actually kill many Koreans living in Tokyo.

Nowadays in Japan, September 1st has become “Disaster Prevention Day” to remember the tragic losses of the Great Kanto Earthquake and to learn what to do when an earthquake or other natural disaster strikes.

I, of course, wasn’t alive in 1923. But I have been through many earthquakes in Japan. Most notably, the Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck Kobe, Japan on January 17th, 1995, and the Great Tohoku Earthquake that struck north-east Japan on March 11th, 2011. That one shook buildings even down here in Tokyo. And, like the Great Kanto Earthquake a hundred years ago, most of the death and destruction on the March 11th, 2011 distaster wasn’t caused by the earthquake itself…on that day, it was mostly caused by the terrible tsunami wave that came right after the earthquake.

As I wrote in this post, I’ve basically stopped blogging. I occasionally add a new post…but very rarely. But Steve “Lips” Kudlow of the heavy-metal band “Anvil” agreed to do a short interview with me.

Click here to read the interview.

As I wrote in this post, I stopped blogging a few years ago…but, I wanted to write a special post because I saw a KISS show on their current Japan tour.　(Here is another blog post I wrote about a KISS concert I went to six years ago).

(I still use  Instagram. Please feel free to follow and comment on my account there (you can comment on any of this blog’s posts too, and I will reply!)

I titled this post “End Of The Road” because it’s the name of KISS‘s current tour (coincidentally, I titled my “official” final blog post “End Of The Line“, which is similar).

I saw KISS at the Tokyo Dome on December 11th, 2019 on this tour.

This was the setlist:

1. Detroit Rock City
2. Shout It Out Loud
3. Deuce
4. Say Yeah
5. I Love It Loud
6. Heaven’s On Fire
7. War Machine (Gene Simmons breathes fire)
8. Lick It Up
9. Calling Dr. Love
10. 100,000 Years (w/ Eric Singer’s drum solo)
11. Cold Gin (Gene Simmons bass solo & blood spitting)
12. God Of Thunder
13. Psycho Circus
14. Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll
15. (Sukiyaki)
16. Love Gun (Paul “flies” to mini-stage)
17. I Was Made For Lovin’ You (Paul “flies” back to main stage)
18. Crazy, Crazy Nights
19. Black Diamond

20. Beth (special guest Yoshiki (of X-Japan) on piano.)

21. Rock And Roll All Nite (Yoshiki on drums)

Here are some photos I took:

My blog is titled “Tokyo Five” because my wife and I have three children (who have all become adults)…(My “About Me” page).

My oldest daughter has gotten married earlier this year.

My new son-in-law is “Tokyo Six” now!

And…the day before yesterday they had a baby!

I’m a grandfather now! 🙂

My new granddaughter is so beautiful!! ♥

My lovely granddaughter makes it “Tokyo Seven”!

I used to post on this blog regularly…but three years ago I began to get tired of it and wrote a final post that I was retiring this blog.

But recently, someone requested I do an interview with them (actually I have gotten a number of similar requests over the years…and normally decline), and I decided to add a “one time” post.

As of now, I’m still not returning to blogging…but I did this interview today.

Click here to read the interview.

I started this blog almost exactly eight years ago.
It receives, at this time, an average of 1,000 visitors a day.

I appreciate all of the visitors to this blog…especially the ones who leave comments.
That’s what makes blogging enjoyable and is the reason I continued this blog for so long.

It was fun for me to blog…and I’m happy that my blog was fairly popular.

But recently it has become a bit of a chore to write blog posts…and, as this was meant as a hobby, it shouldn’t be like that.

So, for this reason, I have decided to retire this blog.

By all means, please read the blog posts that I have written from 2008 March 26th (when I started this blog) to today (2016 February 14th)!

I am, of course, still living in Tokyo with my family. So, if you leave a comment on any of the posts on this blog…or if you Contact me, I will continue to reply as I always have.

Thank you for your understanding.