Four encores in Nishinomiya

We're on a streak of concerts now, and have suspended sight-seeing for a while. Today we met at 7:30am to begin travelling to our concert venue. The Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Nishinomiya is beautiful, with grand floor seating and three wrap-around tiers above. The whole place is wood, with only aisle carpeting in strips. The chandeliers are beautiful too, and the acoustics were impressive. Literally every seat could hear the same, and no microphones were needed to carry the slightest words from the stage. Wow! At the same time, we had to watch out because their COULD hear us grunt, sniff, cough (that would be me), and otherwise mutter between ourselves.

It was also sold out - all 2000 seats for a 2pm matinee concert. And they were a terrific audience too, feeding us so much positive energy that we responded in kind with our best performance yet. We gave them four encores, and then they swarmed the stage to try the bells themselves. They were invited to do so, by the way, and they did. It was crowded but very fun!