The Hotel Japan Shiga(志賀).  It is located on the Shiga-kogen(高原, plateau) in Nagano area, which has a nickname, Japan Alps.  Not so hot even in the summer and even cold at night.  There are lots of ski resorts around.
 

A Waseda(the best private university in Japan. It has a similar academic tradition with Korea University, which I graduate from ) Academy.  They call it a detention camp because elementary students are almost locked into a hotel and forced to study for the summer.  They are going out for a morning exercise( a Radio 體操).  

We did it too every morning at 7:15.

 

The rooms have a bath but was locked for the orchestra members so we needed to get down here to get shower.  Also, shower was not allowed for the member during the day time when practice is going on.

A breakfast.  Food was OK but I brought Go-chu-jang just in case I want to eat some spicy food.
 
 

The practice went on from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and I had a nap during the lunch break from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m.  Practice was really intensive and surprisingly virtually no one sneaked out and enjoyed the nice weather.  This is the spot I had naps.

A name tag and stamps for the morning exercise.  I joined the orchestra in 2006 so I must be 33rd member of the orchestra but somebody wrote it as 29th.  Also my name is pronounced as So Ryo-Kun in Japanese.

A path way to the back hill of the hotel.  It leads to the ski slopes.

 

I was sleeping in this room but during the day I practice in room 552.

A professional JBL series speaker in the lobby.  The owner seems to have a passion for music.  Many classical CDs and LDs.  Great sound.

The lobby.
 

A collection of dolls playing musical instruments.  The owner must be a serious collector.

A chorus dolls.  So cute.

The freshmen members.  Their skills are improving really fast.

The room 456.  I only stayed there while I was sleeping.


 

Japanese people are very well organised and even for an informal party, they are reserving seats.  Seats were assigned by lottery to prevent members only seating with their close friends.  This way, people were forced to make friends.  For the meals, same system was applied.

A feast.  I didn't know Japanese people eat vegetables such as cucumbers with soybean paste as Korean do.  Sandwiches were served for individuals and small snacks and grapes.  Food was enough even though I thought it was not enough.

A 19th generation(期) sen-pai(先輩; a senior) wearing a provocative suits playing violin.  I heard he is a medical doctor.  

 

Brass member's performance. A broom guitar playing girl was impressive.

 

High school girls? Nope.  Japanese men tend to prefer younger female and it is a fantasy for them.  When they appeared, there was about 3 seconds of odd pause in the air.  What were they fantasizing?

Cello members were doing some talk show.  Most sound performance of all.

Watermelon smashing man.  I didn't understand what they were saying but it was hilarious.

A full moon night.  I will miss it.



 

Cello part "Con-pa"(Kon-Pa; a word from English word 'company' to mean a socializing among members).  We were doing "Ping-Pong-Pang" game.  If you make a mistake, you have to drink.  Koreans have similar drink games but more complicated and you have to drink a whole class of beer.  But they were asked to drink 1/4 of beers only.  I got caught 4 times.

A string quartet performing at the  last concert.
 

This was my first concert.  It was called ichi-nen-sei an-san-bu-ru (freshmen ensemble).  We played Handel's Largo.