Cancellation of 2020 Ultra Music Festival

It's been interesting over the last few days to watch the reaction to the cancellation of the Ultra Music festival in Miami.  The cancellation was due to the coronavirus, and it was big news since it was one of the leading music events to proactively cancel this year's show.  With 170,000 attendees last year, it's a pretty major event.  The festival was supposed to take place on March 20th through 22nd inclusive, to coincide with Miami Music Week, and was cancelled on March 5th.  Actually, I should clarify, the festival was "postponed" for a year, so the same DJ's that were scheduled for this year will play next year, and peoples' tickets for this year will be honoured next year.

Most of the reaction on social media was one of unhappiness from DJ's and from attendees.  As a DJ, and someone who enjoys attending music festivals, I understand that.

I also have a fascination with studying infectious diseases.  I think that really started around fifteen years ago when I first read a book called The Great Influenza by John Barry.  That book piqued my interest, and although I'm not a medical professional, I started to read more about disease outbreaks.  There are dozens of books available about this subject, and I've probably read them all.

First of all, here are a few basic facts that people should be aware of before I continue this post:
1.  The virus and the disease that it causes have two different names.  Most people refer to this as the "coronavirus" outbreak, but that's not really the most accurate term, since coronaviruses are a group of viruses, and the one we're having a problem with now is a specific type.
2.  The current virus is called SARS-CoV-2.
3.  The disease that it causes is called COVID-19.
4.  The effects of the disease can be fairly similar to influenza.  However, COVID-19 is not the same as influenza.
5.  Handwashing and social distancing are great precautions to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

When the cancellation was announced, the main reasons why people were upset included:
- The epidemic had not yet hit Florida.  At the time, only one case had been identified anywhere in Florida, and it wasn't in Miami.
- Many people who contract COVID-19 experience the same symptoms as a cold or flu.  The mortality rate is low, especially for the demographic of most festival attendees (young adults).
- Influenza already kills tens of thousands of people each year in the US, and festivals aren't cancelled due to influenza.
- People already have travel booked.  Those people will still end up going to Miami to party, rather than wasting their flights.  The parties will just be more spread out.
- Disneyworld often gets more than 100,000 visitors per DAY to their four theme parks, and they aren't closed.


To be honest, these are all valid arguments!  But speaking as someone with a hopefully unbiased look at the situation (since I wasn't going to this year's festival), let me make some suggestions about each of these five arguments, and why I think the festival organizers did the right thing (even if it was the city that forced them to cancel).

1.  "The epidemic had not yet hit Florida."  Agreed.  At the time of closure, the number of confirmed cases in the US was so low that only about 1 in every four million people were confirmed to have contracted COVID-19.  However, I've studied infection rates of various diseases for years (which is irrelevant).  More importantly, qualified medical professionals and infectious disease specialists have done the same thing.  The potential for explosive spread of COVID-19 is quite high.  I think in a few weeks, once we reach the period during which the festival was supposed to take place, there will be hundreds or even thousands of confirmed cases in Florida.  At that point, people will look back and admit that the decision to cancel was wise.  Already, in the 3 days since the cancellation, Florida is up to 14 cases.  Although the infection rate could slow down, this also has the potential to explode.  Here's a good website to monitor:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Edit, March 21st:  The Festival would be taking place right now if it had not been cancelled.  And yes, there are over a thousand confirmed cases in Florida.  Considering the difficulties in getting people tested, there are probably more than ten thousand actual cases.

2.  "The disease is not much different than a bad cold or flu."  Agreed, for some people.  However, this isn't entirely correct.  Worst-case reports in some regions indicate that as many as 20% of people "require" hospitalization.  So there are a lot of salient points arising from that.  First, even if that number is highly exaggerated, a large scale infection will completely overwhelm medical facilities in even the most advanced health-care systems.  This means that some people in critical condition who really need advanced medical care will die, due to lack of resources.  Although data is incomplete, there are indications that the mortality rate of people under the age of 50 is probably quite "low" at only around 1%.  However, in a worst-case scenario, 60% of the population could eventually get this.  Actuaries would point out that if 60% of 170,000 people come down with COVID-19, and the mortality rate is 1%, that means that about a thousand attendees would die.  That's a number that is unlikely, but it's not impossible, and shouldn't be ignored.  Although young people in excellent physical condition are at lower risk than the general population, some people in their 20's and 30's are dying.

3.  "Influenza already kills tens of thousands of people each year, and festivals aren't getting cancelled."  Agreed.  I don't think a lot of people realize the true global impact of influenza, which killed an estimated 34,000 people in the US in 2019 (plus half a million hospitalizations).

4.  "People already have their travel booked, and will still go to Miami to party."  I agree.  Cancellation will not mean that nobody shows up, and nobody expected that would be the case.  However, cancellation of the festival does mean that LESS people will show up.  It also means that people will be more spread out, and thus any community transmission will be reduced.  It may not be possible to avoid an outbreak, but it's possible to reduce the size of the outbreak, and that will help everyone in the long run.

5.  "Why isn't Disney World closed too, since they get as many attendees?"  Rather than using Disney World as a justification for why Ultra should have been allowed to proceed, perhaps Ultra should be used as an example of why Disney World will have to consider closing.  It would not surprise me if Disney World was closed by the time Ultra was supposed to take place.  And if it's not officially closed, I am pretty confident in saying that if the spread of the infection continues on the trajectory that I expect, Disney World will become a ghost town anyway as people voluntary avoid crowds.  Since Ultra was cancelled, SXSW was also cancelled.  I'd expect cancellations in the next few months from a number of other festivals, such as Coachella, Electric Daisy, the Governer's Ball, and more, if the outbreak continues on its current trajectory.  And what about the Olympics?
Edit, March 10th:  Coachella is now affected.
Edit, March 20th:  Pretty much everything (except the Olympics) is now closed or cancelled.  And the Olympics will probably be cancelled within days.  Countries are being locked down, and those that haven't been, should be.

Ultimately, this isn't about a single event.  This is about trying to proactively limit the spread of a significant infection, before it gets out of control.  It isn't about stopping an infection; it's about trying to slow it down to give the health care sector time to mount a better defense.  Will it be possible to have vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 soon?  Maybe eventually, say in about 12-16 months time.  Massive resources around the world are being thrown at this goal.

In a major epidemic, the first goal is containment.  That genie may be out of the bottle soon, as we're starting to see evidence of "community transmission," which means that people are getting it from sources that can't be traced.  That's not good.

Ultimately, I think that our best hope is to slow down the epidemic.  Eventually, there's a good chance that many of us will get COVID-19.  Diseases are a part of our natural lives.  If we can slow down the epidemic, our health-care systems are less likely to be overrun, which means that the cases in critical condition are more likely to get the resources that they need to survive.

The United States in particular has what is considered to be a world-class healthcare system, but when you're not a US citizen and you can look at it from the outside (as I can), it's easy to see the flaws.  The US is the only major country in the entire world without free and universal health care.  In this day and age, that's unbelievable.


I'll leave you with three thoughts:

1.  Social distancing has proven to work, repeatedly, in this and previous epidemics for many different diseases.  As COVID-19 cases become more prevalent around the world, expect more voluntary and forced social distancing.  Governments in various countries will try to implement various degrees of distancing, including various types of travel restrictions, quarantines, and lockdowns.  This may seem unlikely, but trust me, you should expect this.

2.  The best thing that we can do individually to help minimize the spread of SAR-CoV-2 is to practice basic sanitary measures, including frequent handwashing, and avoiding contact with others if you're starting to get sick.

3.  In the US, where there is no free and universal health care, many potential cases are not getting tested for two reasons:  ineffective leadership, and because testing isn't free for many people.  The number of cases is therefore probably being heavily under-reported.  The US currently has the highest fatality rate of all major case clusters (countries with 100+ cases), at almost 5%.  But this is most likely due to one of two factors:  (1) either under-testing means that there are more cases than anyone knows about and therefore that mortality rate is currently artificially high, so the real rate is lower; or (2) more people are dying in the US than elsewhere because there is no free and universal health care, therefore many victims can't afford proper medical treatment.

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

Mix: Bolivia, "Live in Antarctica 2010"

Ok, here's the second of the three shows that I played while I was travelling this past month, and it's the one that will undoubtedly be the most popular. This one is just over an hour long, and it's mostly my normal style of progressive house, with a tiny bit of trance, house, and tech-house all mixed in. Lots of vocals.

To the best of my knowledge (and Google's), this is the first DJ mix ever to have been recorded live in Antarctica (and put online). When I first found out about the trip two years ago, I thought to myself that it would be interesting to have a live show recorded there, to put on my website. After all, a lot of other DJ's can eventually hit shows on six of the seven continents, but Antarctica has to be a tough one. I then searched the net and couldn't actually find any. Of course, there has been lots of regular music recorded there, since a lot of the people at the various bases have instruments, so there is a lot of live jamming happening there all the time. And other people have written songs (including electronica tracks) that are Antarctica themed or that feature sound recordings there. But no DJ sets. I kind of quietly held my breath for the last two years, wondering if I might end up being the first. At the moment, I think I succeeded, which is kind of cool.




The challenges of doing a show down there are a bit unexpected. Doing a show on a ship that is anchored somewhere offshore is technically still "in Antarctica," but I wanted to go a step further. We had an overnight camping trip there, which I figured would provide the perfect opportunity. However, it wasn't as easy as it might seem.

Antarctica is almost entirely a pristine and rugged wilderness. I love it. As a heavy environmentalist, I was pretty concerned on the way down that I'd see tourist activity that would frustrate me. However, that was not the case. There is an organization called IAATO (the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) which is comprised of about four dozen companies, and they are a self-regulating agency which ensures that tourism doesn't leave any impact on the continent. And the staff from our expedition (Quark) were extremely diligent, which I found to be extremely reassuring. Let me illustrate by going over a few of the rules we had to follow:

- Not allowed to disturb wildlife, ie. we weren't allowed to approach closer than 5 meters to any penguins, although the penguins generally don't seem too scared of humans. Penguins would often approach us a lot closer than that, but it had to be them coming to us, not us getting close to them.
- Not allowed to walk in trails that the penguins use.
- Not allowed to bring ANY food onto the shore. An example used to illustrate why this was a problem: a chocolate bar contains egg products. When they are manufactured, the candy isn't cooked to a high enough temperature to completely kill certain bacteria or pathogens in the eggs. This doesn't matter to humans, but this could introduce a fatal organism to a penguin or other bird which could wipe out an entire colony quite easily.
- Not allowed to bring ANY beverages onto the shore, except bottled water. Similar reasons as above. Talk about a "dry" event.
- Not allowed to leave human waste behind. That's right, we weren't allowed to pee in the snow. Human waste had to be brought back to the ship when we departed. An important consideration since we were there overnight!
- Our boots had to be disinfected and sterilized each time we got on or off the expedition ship. The risk there was that one of us would step in some penguin poop and it would get onto our boots and then be transferred to another colony, and somehow infect that second colony and wipe it out. Unfortunately, this rule is in effect because there have been some colonies wiped out that they think were because of this problem.
- Our expedition staff had to go use snowshoes and tramp out trails for the human visitors to use. If we stepped off a trail and went down through the snow to our waist (which definitely happened a few times to each of us), we had to fill the boot hole afterwards, so a penguin wouldn't fall into it and get trapped and die.
- Obviously, things like kleenex and plastic wrappers in our pockets had to be monitored carefully, so they didn't fall out and create litter.

I was really glad to see that all these kind of rules are in effect. But when thinking about doing a live show there, I also had to consider that there was no electricity, and amplified instruments were not allowed because the sound would really carry, and might confuse and upset the penguins.



So anyway, we spent a night camping overnight on the shore on November 25th, at a place called Paradise (Danco Island, but maybe it should be renamed Dance Island). There were thirty of us in the group, the maximum that Quark could get a permit for. We didn't have tents; we were just in sleeping bags, sleeping on the snow. I know that a lot of people immediately would think at this point that we were crazy. Perhaps, but to a Canadian, camping in the snow is not that strange (well, at least not to some of us). And a bunch of people in our group were definite techno fans, so I figured that there was a way to pull it off. I took the laptop and did a set with Ableton. Obviously, it was a pretty quiet set, for a pretty small but appreciative crowd. The laptop was no louder than human voices, but in the quiet, it was good enough for people to dance to. We didn't have any fancy lighting effects of course, but then again it was summer there, so the sun never sets. The only real problem was that my laptop is a few years old, and even though I charged it fully before we went to shore, I had less than an hour and a half of battery life. So the set is only slightly over an hour long.

Because I was working on a laptop without even a controller, I had to do everything with the mousepad. To make sure that I got a good sounding set, I had to play extremely conservatively. Luckily, once files are properly warped in Ableton, a crab-eater seal could have probably produced a good sounding set. There are absolutely no effects in this set. I didn't even play with the EQ 3's. I just started and stopped tracks (overlapped, of course), and made basic volume changes (usually sharp changes, and there were only a few times that I tried to do smooth fades with the scroll pad). Also, I usually always kept a third tech-house track or house loops playing in the background at just under half volume, to give the set the continuity that I needed, and keep the sound full all the time. Ableton is amazing - between the "background track" trick, and using a basic DJ mastering plug-in to keep output in a tight range, this is actually a great sounding set. A lot of people are going to really enjoy it.

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

I started the set with one of my own tracks, "Global Underground (Alone In New York)." This particular remix is pretty trancy, and it was done by Gregg Morrish. If anyone wants to download it, you can grab it for free from my Dropbox Folder.

Here are the track listings from this particular set:

01. Bolivia, "Global Underground" (Gregg Morrish Remix).
02. Timo Garcia & Amber Jolene, "Lady Luck City Lights" (Solee Remix).
03. Green Velvet, "La La Land" (Pleasurekraft Sideshow Remix).
04. Ivan Gomez, "No Name" (Sisko Electrofanatik Remix).
05. Gabriel & Castellon, "Hit The Bottom" (Original Mix).
06. Jon Rundell, "Top Shelf" (Original Mix).
07. Hugo & Marshall, "Mortal Coil" (Original Mix).
08. Milkwish, "Gotta Be Moved" (Mario da Ragnio Remix).
09. Lewis Lastella, "Pumpz Up The Volume" (Original Mix).
10. Tarska, "Midnight" (Lee Nova Techmix).
11. DJ Crash & JAVE, "Ice Cream" (Original Mix).
12. Hernan Paredes, "Right Now" (Extended Mix).
13. Max Bett, "Mad Clinic" (Original Mix).
14. Angel Stoxx, "I Dropped My E On The Dancefloor" (Original Mix).
15. Luca M, "Grumpli" (Original Mix).

As mentioned, I had about a dozen other tech-house tracks and some house loops playing subtly in the background. For example, listen around the seven minute mark - you'll hear one track that I dropped out for about two seconds from 7:27 to 7:29 (I don't know why). I'm not listing them here, because I don't think any of them are readily identifiable.


Finally, just in case anyone wants to see something cool, Shadow set up his Canon on a tripod for the night, and set it to take a time-lapse sequence throughout the night. He turned it into a video and put it onto YouTube. It's neat because there was a penguin colony inland from us, and during the night, a lot of them came and started wandering through our camping area. The lens cap cover blew sideways during the night, but you can still see what happened throughout the night (including our ship circling around in the bay, and a very light snowstorm that blew through during the night). And you can also click here to see my full photo galleries from the trip.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkAHY3zjOGk

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

Mix: Bolivia, "Live in the Drake Passage"

Here's the first of the three shows that I played while I was travelling this past month. This one is just over two hours long, and it's a drum & bass mix. The next two shows were progressive house and tech house, my normal style. It's been quite a while since I've done a drum & bass mix (probably five or six years), but even though I don't play it very often, I enjoy listening to it. This doesn't mean a permanent switch in style, although I would definitely play other live DnB sets if someone booked me specifically to play that kind of show.

This set is interesting because this is the first time that I've ever recorded and made a live set available that I did with Ableton Live. And actually, although I've been doing my radio shows lately with Ableton, this is only the second live show that I've ever done on a laptop (the first was in Vegas in 2008 for DefCon 16, but I didn't record that and put it online). However, because I couldn't carry a full set of DJ equipment in my luggage for the trip, I ended up using Ableton for all three sets, instead of mixing on vinyl or CD's.

  

A little background about the trip: this was not a traditional cruise. It was a smaller ship, an "expedition ship," not a cruise ship. A large group of us had been planning this for a few years, thanks to the efforts of a good friend of mine (Pinguino) from Los Angeles. I met Pinguino several years ago in Seattle when I was playing at an illicit rave under an interstate overpass. We were talking about places that we'd like to travel, and I mentioned Antarctica. She told me her name, and said that she loved penguins and also wanted to visit there. Fast forward a year or two, and she emailed me and asked if I wanted to be an official DJ for an expedition trip. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. By the way, the profile photo that I currently have on my Facebook fan page and MySpace page was taken by Pinguino that night under the bridge - she's a professional photographer among other careers.

So anyway, almost one fifth of the passengers on the trip were part of our special group. Lots of DefCon people, lots of photography/film professionals, lots of really fun IT people. Although I could have played in the lounge every single night of the trip, I really wanted to focus more on the trip than partying, so I planned to focus on doing only three main sets.

This was the first set, from November 22nd. This was our third night on the ship, almost all the way through the Drake Passage, so we were getting into calmer waters and nobody was really too seasick anymore. I had wanted to do a Drum & Bass set at some point, because I hadn't done one in years, and the group that I was travelling with was definitely receptive. The Drake seemed to be an appropriate place for it. Chaotic, just like jungle music. Let me put things into perspective: the Drake Sea is known as the roughest sea in the world. When we were entering it, the Captain slowed down so we wouldn't hit a Beaufort Category 11 storm full-on. If you look up the details on a category 11 storm, you'll see why. Waves approaching fifty feet! Our ship was less than twenty feet from the waterline to the main deck. You can see the problem. Incidentally, even when we were crossing in "calmer" conditions shortly afterward, we had some waves approaching about twenty feet, and the spray was hitting my cabin porthole one night (main deck, third story of six). Also, the photo above was taken in the lee of the Cape Horn, in calm seas, before we actually got out into the Drake proper.

So in the midst of all this, on the night before we officially arrived in Antarctica, Pinguino came to me and said, "It's time, we're ready to party." The ship's crew let us use the main lecture hall for the night, and after most of the others had a few beverages, I played this set.

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

I prefer to listen to drum & bass that is fairly jazzy, not the really hardcore stuff. This set progresses from some fairly relaxed tracks at around 165bpm, to eventually hit some pretty aggressive tracks at close to 175bpm. Personally, I prefer the first three quarters of the mix, although for a live set, the more aggressive tracks are more appropriate. My audience wasn't really a dance audience though, they were all just chilling and enjoying the music and the good company. To be honest, the last five minutes of this set is pretty hard stuff, and I wouldn't normally ever play this aggressively if I was making mixes for myself. Most of the tracks are pretty new stuff. Not much else to say. We had a good night, and went out to take a lot of photos of penguins a few hours later.

I'll have the second and third set available here on the blog in the next couple of days. Set number two, a progressive house set, is a little over an hour long and actually recorded while we were camping in Antarctica (possibly the first live recorded DJ set in history that was made available on the internet). Set three is a full three hours of tech-house, for a full-on party in the ship's lounge on "Titanic Night."


By the way, if anyone is curious, here are the track listings from this particular set:

01. Black Sun Empire & Jade, "Deadhouse" (Original Mix).
02. Chewy Lay, "Struggle" (Original Mix).
03. WPL, "Port Of Call" (Original Mix).
04. False Angel, "Redemption" (Aural Imbalance Remix).
05. Hot, "No Problem Dub" (Original Mix).
06. Smooth Stab & Aelyn, "These Words Between Us" (LofiSky Atmos Remix).
07. Command Strange, "Soul Booster" (Original Mix).
08. Command Strange, "Next Time" (Original Mix).
09. Kulprit, "Babylonian" (Original Mix).
10. Bad Weed, "Cherry Oh Jugglin" (Original Mix).
11. DJ Rusty, "System Failed" (Original Mix).
12. Wax Pusher, "Two Toke Pass" (Original Mix).
13. BComplex, "Reflections" (Original Mix).
14. Submorphics, "Revalation" (Original Mix).
15. NW2, "Pink Socks" (DJ Pleasure Remix).
16. Mutated Forms, "Shapes And Colours" (Original Mix).
17. Danny The Wildchild, "Die Clown" (Original Mix).
18. Grandad, "The Door" (Original Mix).
19. DJ Sly & MC Bassman, "Stone Cold" (Original Mix).
20. Black Sun Empire, "Extraction" (Original Mix).
21. V8, "Digital Damnation" (Original Mix).
22. Rockwell, "DJ Friendly Unit Shifter" (Original Mix).
23. DJ AlfE, "Born Bad" (Original Mix).
24. Sawgood, "No" (Ozma Remix).
25. Od, "The Fly" (Original Mix).
26. DJ Pleasure, "Venger" (2010 Mix).
27. Nanotek, "The Vengeful" (Original Mix).
28. Digital Era, "Dance Mother Fucker" (Original Mix).
29. Arsenic, "Start The War" (Original Mix).

(And since I was using Ableton, I had a lot of other random loops playing here and there throughout the mix).



If anyone reading this is a member of any Drum & Bass message boards where other people might enjoy listening to this mix, I'd really appreciate you sharing the link to this post. Here's the specific URL:
http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-in-drake-passage.html


Also, you can click here to see my full photo galleries from the trip.

---------------------------------------

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

Osaka, Japan - DJ'ing at Oasis Lounge

I flew to Osaka (Japan) this past weekend for a show. Although I’ve travelled pretty extensively before, this is my first time in Asia, so it’s been a great adventure so far.

I started by trying to fly to San Francisco for a visit on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, I flew through Montreal and then Chicago. I got to Chicago with no problems, but when I arrived there, I found out that there had been a huge snowstorm there the previous day, which had cancelled over a thousand flights. It was really nice outside at the time, with very little snow on the ground, so I didn’t really think that there were going to be any problems. However, when I got onto the plane, the airline eventually said that they couldn’t fly us to San Francisco because there were no pilots left in the airport – the pilots for our flight had been diverted to fly another plane earlier, to help catch up on the backlog of stranded passengers.

This didn’t seem like it would be a problem – they said that they were going to fly in a different crew from New York to take our plane to San Francisco, so the delay would only be a few hours. However, by this time, the storm had moved so it was over New York, which meant that it took a couple hours longer than expected for that crew to get out of LaGuardia. By the time they arrived in Chicago, the airline decided that those pilots couldn’t take our plane to San Francisco, because it would put them over their daily flight time limit. Our entire flight ended up getting cancelled, which was a disaster because that put all of us into the huge pool of people waiting to fly stand-by. I then ended up getting bumped off or passed over for the next four flights to San Francisco, as the airline tried to slowly catch up on the backlog.

In the end, I did get to San Francisco, but not until after midnight (about twelve hours later than expected). I was a little disappointed by that, because that was the stop on the trip that I was looking forward to the most. However, on a positive note, it was the one night on the trip where I could mostly easily deal with not showing up. Hopefully I’ll be able to reschedule for a visit later this spring, or maybe right after the summer ends.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, and the flights to Vancouver and then Japan were uneventful. We crossed the International Date Line, so it suddenly became Friday afternoon instead of Thursday afternoon. I was a bit nervous getting into the airport because my passport was only valid for two more months and Japan requires a foreigner’s passport to be valid for six months from the time of arrival. However, I had the itinerary to prove that I had a flight already booked to leave the country a week later, so that didn’t turn out to be a problem. Dan Elliot from the Oasis Lounge picked me up at the airport, and took me directly to his club, where I started to orient myself to the Japanese culture. A few hours later, a friend of mine (Ian Warney) showed up. Ian is a DJ and is living in Osaka teaching English. We went out for a night on the town, and I met a bunch of people that evening.

 

On Saturday, I spent the day touring around Osaka, and taking photos. That evening, I played at Oasis, which turned out to be a very fun night. Ian found me again on Sunday night and we went out for more sightseeing, and then we ate at a nice restaurant in a skyscraper overlooking Osaka.

So far, Japan has been great. There are far fewer foreigners here than I had imagined, but that’s about the only real surprise. The only big challenge so far has been trying to figure out the subway system. I’ve been on subways all around the world (London, New York, Paris, Moscow, and a ton of other smaller cities) but the Osaka subway has been the most confusing that I’ve seen, by far. The fare varies depending on how far you are going, and you have to buy a ticket getting on, then electronic gates scan it as you leave your destination station and don’t let you out if you didn’t pay the right fare. If you didn’t pay enough, you have to go back to another machine and do a “fare adjust” on the ticket. The Osaka (and Toyko) subway systems are not one large system, but instead are a whole bunch of separate lines run by different companies, so transfers can get complicated with ticket changes. Finally, there are very few signs in English, to make things even more confusing. However, after a few days, it was starting to make sense to me. Some of the stations are incredibly busy though – there is one station which has an average of three MILLION people per day passing through it. That’s pretty impressive, considering that the subways shut down at 12:30am and don’t start again until 5:30am.

A few other interesting notes so far:
- The cities are very clean compared to North American cities.
- There is apparently very, very little crime in Japan, and people feel completely safe and comfortable walking around anywhere in the cities.
- I have only seen a few children in the entire time I’ve been here – the Japanese must hide them away somewhere.
- I thought that I might get away with not running into anyone I knew during my visit, but on Sunday night a friend who had gone to university (Kyohei) saw me downtown and luckily had the time to spend an hour or so touring with us. That was an interesting coincidence, considering that Osaka is pretty big (nine million people, I think).
- There are far fewer Western chains than I had expected (lots of Starbucks & MacDonald’s and KFC, but that’s about it).
- A small but noticeable percentage of the population wear face masks in public and while working, either to limit the spread of diseases, or to protect them from smog & allergies.
- The amount of seafood is astounding – it is available everywhere, even as snack food in convenience stores.

Needless to say, I’ve been able to take a ton of interesting photos so far. I’ve got two photo pages up on my website now from the Osaka portion of my trip, and I’ve tried to add many more observations about Japan in the captions to the photos. Here is a link to the Osaka photo pages:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_osaka2007a.html

After I left Osaka on Monday morning, I had three days scheduled in Tokyo, so I’ll write more about that part of the trip in a few days.

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

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I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca