The next day we left Hiroshima the way we came, with the Shinkansen, the fast train, on the same route back. Yet we did not go all the way to Tokyo but stopped in Nagoya, where the orchester was rehearsing the last today together with the orchestra from Seirei Junior and Senior High School for to common concert that afternoon. We felt already somehow experienced with the means of transport and mastered it – of course also due to our fabulous German-Japanese travel guide – without problems. We even received the train tickets as souvenir instead of leaving them to the counter. Of course they were punched and stamped to void them despite the time and date was over. Always go by the rules.
A quick baggage drop of and some changing of dresses at the hotel and off we were again to the concert venue, the Mizuho Cultural Theater. We arrived there by shared taxi well in time where we met our son again – in that way it was a return. He took quick notice of us but was too excited to talk long. The excitement of the whole trip and the upcoming concert in particular was clearly noticeable. Once the music started I had quite some shivers because the performance as well as the acoustics were – as far as I can tell – extraordinary. With a break of around 20 minutes over 2 hours of music was performed, first the Leinfelden-Echterdingen orchestra, the Seirei orchestra, after that both of them combined. The range of music was going from Bach to musical soundtrack medleys. During the concert and moreover around the actual stage performance I felt the vibes thta connected musicians all over the world.
While many of the musicians went back home with their guest families that hosted them for the last days, the other musicians and the visitors returned to the hotel where we checked in and due to lack of a proper lunch took off in smaller groups to get some dinner,
I followed the recommendation of the hornist who knew that about two metro stations away a big, futuristic mall with several restaurants should be, so 5 persons entered into what we thought was a metro station and tried to navigate ourselves to the desired place. First we hat to ask (with the help of a speaking translator), the Japanese lady did not only direct us to the right station but went with us all the way through a labyrinth of upper and underground hallways and finally explained us on how to operate, the ticket machine, what the fare was and which line to take and exit to jump off. We used our Suica cards to pay for the tickets, passed the entrance barriers and found the right platform. It’s not as hard as it can be, especially if people are helpful.