if I never have a cent...

Mari's parents arrived in town yesterday for Mari's singing debut. Along with Mari's cousin Youko, we all went down to Yokihama and sat through some twenty other performances before seeing Mari's.

She blew them all away with her version of "the sunny side of the street". Some of the others were good, but honestly it all had a bit of a karaoke feeling (with one or two exceptions). Mari's had much more verve and it felt like the work of a real entertainer, and was particularly impresisve given that she's only been practicing for a total of four interrupted months. Way to go Mari-chan: living the dream!

P.S. I was forbidden from photographing the other singers for some reason, but went ahead and recorded the whole thing with both still and video cameras.
P.P.S. As the only gaijin present I was asked to repeatedly pronounce my name (auf Deutsch) into the microphone. No one seemed to believe that a surname could be so alien.