The first day of the Ishigaki Island training camp has begun.

The four-day camp site mentioned above is the Okinawa Prefectural Ishigaki Youth Center. I will introduce the appropriate name for this youth orchestra summer camp and the contents of the facility later, but I am Hirokazu Tanaka from the secretariat, who will be the leader of the camp and will be mainly updating this column this year as well.
Where did my day begin? It was at Morioka Station at 7:10 in the morning.

From the right, the Iwate group was leading a meeting with the violin choir of fifth grader Yoshida Sakura, sixth grader Kitagawa Seiya, and first-year junior high schooler Takeda Takashi. I went all the way to Morioka to go on a business trip from Tokyo to Ishigaki Island, and the best part of working with the Tohoku Youth Orchestra is the archery exercise of shooting the bow. Since I was there, I drank some local Baeren beer the day before and ate some shorthorn beef and Morioka hiyashi noodles, chewing them thoroughly. Since I was there, I also took a mother-son commemorative photo.

Parents and children tend to look alike. That's only natural.
Now, people from all over the prefecture gather at Haneda Airport.

Toshio Yanagisawa, who participated in the entire camp, Nogi-san, who will graduate from TYO in March and aim to become a professional percussionist, and the person who is impersonating the Frog is not "Hiroshi" but Yutaka Watanabe, the head of the Fukushima office, and they took a commemorative photo. Behind them are the members and related people who are waiting to check in.

The long line to check in the instruments started 30 minutes before departure, so I was sure that some of the members would miss the flight. However, thanks to the efficient baggage handling at the ANA counter, all 48 members and their supervisors were able to board safely. Perhaps due to the typhoon or the amount of luggage we had, we departed 30 minutes later than scheduled.
The Tohoku Youth Orchestra's summer training camps are traditionally buffeted by typhoons, both in Miyakojima two years ago and in Sapporo last year, and this year was no exception, so last week I went to Namiyoke Shrine in Tsukiji to offer prayers with my junior colleague, Miyagawa Yutaka, who works in the administrative department.

The work vehicle reflected in the photo is a "turre," and its official name is a "turret truck," so it's unique to Tsukiji.

Of course, we prayed to the lion not only for safety, but also for improvement in our arts and crafts. We arrived safely at the Ishigaki Youth Center, with blessings from the lion.

Yuta Tomizawa, a university student who plays the tuba, even carried the double bass, and we are grateful for his dedicated efforts this year as well.

First, the Director greeted us at the entrance ceremony. On the right side, the office lady, Naomi Okada, is looking over to the right as the Director gives us some initial instructions.

Beware of snakes! There are warnings all over the premises!

moreover,

Be careful of coconut crabs! It is a "nature house" after all.

Now, let's take a look at the members' rooms. First up are the boys!

It's called Okinawa. Next is the boys' room.

The girls' room is a sweet room with two rooms connected together!

It's tatami though.

Training camps are events where the time is often moved forward. Dinner also starts at 5:30 p.m. In order to renew our feelings of gratitude each time, we decided to appoint someone to say "Itadakimasu" (thank you for the meal) and someone to say "Gochisousama deshita" (thank you for the meal). The person to say "Itadakimasu" for dinner on the first day was Yamazaki Hirohiro, a first-year university student who joined us this term. Yamazaki bought a double bass for TYO and brought it with him to the training camp.

I guess everyone was hungry after traveling all day to get to Ishigaki Island in Japan's Sakishima Islands.

Everyone was smiling and enjoying the dinner.

This is tonight's dinner.

After dinner, I had the opportunity to hear about Ishigaki Island and the Yaeyama Islands from Mr. Takakura Dai, Secretary General of the Ishigaki City Tourism Exchange Association, a local tourism association with which I also work.

Although he was born in Chiba, his father was from Akita and his mother was from Aizuwakamatsu, so he spoke about his empathy as a person from Tohoku and the appeal of Ishigaki Island and the Yaeyama Islands.

He also talked about the great Meiwa tsunami that occurred 240 years ago, when a tsunami over 80 meters high struck the area, killing about half of the population of 20,000 at the time. He also told us a magical legend about a village that heard a prophecy from a mermaid the day before and was able to evacuate and survive.

We also received various tourist brochures and memo pads as souvenirs. Thank you very much. After the meal, some members started making sounds in the gymnasium where we would be practicing from the next day, while others just wandered around the building, and before long it was pitch black. We also had some local astronomy volunteers come and observed the stars in Japan, which is said to be the most beautiful place, unaffected by the jet stream.

Although the rooftop of the Youth Center is a great location for observation, being located very close to the National Astronomical Observatory, unfortunately today is the day before the full moon, a fourteenth moon and a small full moon.

Although it is not shown here, he used a laser pointer to give us an explanation in a natural planetarium. Starting with the meridian and the ecliptic, he explained the North Star, the Big Dipper, the Summer Triangle, and so on. I wondered if there was an influence of Taoism via China, such as the local dialect name for the North Star (I forgot...). Anyway,

I took some photos in pitch darkness using a flash.

It was a night where it was hard to see the stars because of the moon, but the moon was beautiful. I was able to see it through this professional telescope.

If you take a look,

It was so divine that it made me want to worship it as the "moon". Everyone was delighted. Next, we were shown the real Saturn (a live light broadcast), and we were able to see the star with a ring clearly with our own eyes.

From the first day of the summer camp, we were able to have a valuable experience thanks to the kindness of everyone on Ishigaki Island. Thank you very much. Wish upon a star. We look forward to seeing you for the next four days.