http://bellasorella.net/blog Fri, 07 Jul 2006 06:18:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Greetings from Japan!  We've finished performing at the Villaggio Italia, and we are now taking some time off to see the rest of Japan.  Our first stop was Tokyo, which was an absolutely amazing city.  We stayed at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, which is located right across from the Tokyo ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/07/07/out-and-about-in-japan/ Well, we are nearing the end of our time at the Villaggio Italia and are getting ready for yet more adventures in Japan.  We are continually amazed at how gracious people are here.  Everyone has been extremely nice to us and it seams that everyone we meet has gifts for ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/07/02/our-time-at-the-villaggio-italia-is-coming-to-an-end/ We saw the Chinese acrobatic dancers show the other day in the Italian Village.  It was Susie’s idea to go see them.  The group consists of about 15 men/boys and 15 women/girls.  They all blew us away.  I still can’t believe on how anybody can be so flexible.  What amazed us was ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/07/02/chinese-acrobats/ There is a clothing alteration shop in Italian Village.  All of the ladies are so nice and they did great work on our dresses.  One of the ladies came to see our performance today and she was impressed by our performance and had tears in her eyes.  She bought our ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/27/a-heart-warming-story/ We are having a great time in Japan!  We have been very busy performing twice a day but we were able to take a break and listen to the San Marcos Orchestra also performing here at the Villaggio Italia (picture below).  Oh, the food was fantastic too... We've also had some ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/27/test/ We flew United Airlines from San Francisco to Nagoya, and as we commented on our post titled "We're in Japan," we had a great flight; we even gave an in-flight performance.  The flight crew was so nice and they made the 12-hour flight very enjoyable.  The other day, Laurie, one of ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/26/fly-the-friendly-skies/ Many of you may have seen Shinobu's husband Grant at Bella Sorella's performances setting up the sound equipment, keyboard and poster.  We often refer to Grant as Bella Sorella's chief engineer :-)   The other day we were very fortunate to have Grant's mother and grandmother come all the way from Tokyo ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/26/more-family-comes-to-visit/ We're having a great time performing. Although it is very hot, we've have been attracting good crowds to our performances.  The fans are especially appreciative of the song that we learned in Japanese: "Kawa no nagare no youni."  We have been performing twice each day, and we have to say that ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/25/a-performance-update/ We've  completed our first week in Japan.  It`s been a bit rough getting use to the time change.  We are taking advantage of the fact that we are getting up so early by going for morning walks around the neighborhood.  After our last performance yesterday Shinobu, Nova and I ate a crepe and enjoyed it ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/25/hot-springs/ We performed for the first time at the Villaggio Italia on Saturday and we had a blast.  We performed some of our new songs such as Nella Fantasia, Finiculi Funiculla and a song in Japanese we learned just for this trip called Kawa no nagare no youni. We were so happy ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/18/our-first-performance/ Well we survived the 12 hour flight to Japan and arrived safely in Nagoya.  Actually the flight went by quite fast...  the flight attendants found out we were heading to Japan to perform and they twisted our arms :-)  to sing a couple of songs.  We sang the Lakmé duet ... http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/17/20/ We are getting ready for our trip to Japan.  We thought we would share this great card from Susie's niece Melanie...     http://bellasorella.net/blog/2006/06/11/2-days-to-go/