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 CD so that they all can listen to it inside the shop.

My uncle (Occupation: chef; a.k.a bodybuilder…He won several prize at a master’s body building competition) came to see us today.  Nova and Susie introduced him as special guest at the concert. (Thanks!) He loved our performance! 

After our 2nd set today, one gentleman bought our CD and came up to meet us.  He said he had tears in his eyes after he listened to us.  On the way back home, I saw him at the station and we took the same train.  On the train, he gave me such a nice comment and I cried.  He said our rendition of “Kawa no nagare no youni” was the best he’d ever heard.  He said he could feel Nova’s and Susie’s voice and my piano.  He told me they were individually beautiful, but at the same time they all are harmonized perfectly, and our united soul within the music touched his heart deeply.  Then he said he recently quit his security guard job, which he did for 20 years.  He quit because it gave him too much stress and now he’s been trying to get himself back to normal by going out and listening to music.  He used to play tuba.  He said we made his day….I said he made our day.   

At times things can be stressful but there are lots of people who love us, our music and our friendship.  I always keep in my mind how fortunate we are to be supported by them. 

- Shinobu

Shinobu in the green room before one of Bella Sorella’s sets:

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 time for shopping.  Two days ago we went to a lovely vitage shop, where Shinobu bought us all kimonos!  They are absolutely gorgeous!  We picked up some other nice gifts for our family and friends.  More to come…

- Nova

  

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 the United Flight Attendants came to hear us perform.  One of the songs we sang on the flight was “Sisters.”  In Laurie’s honor we sang this song during the performance she attended.  We hope to have Laurie on our flight back to San Francisco!  Thank you for coming Laurie it really meant a lot to us!!!

- Nova, Susanna & Shinobu

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 and Ashiya to see us perform.  It was an honor to meet them.  We hope you enjoy the photos…

- Nova, Susanna & Shinobu

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 it is tiring… but lots of fun.  We’re adding a couple of pictures.  The first is with a two young fans who purchased our CD.  The second is from one of our performances yesterday.

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 while dipping our feet in the hot spring.  After Shinobu headed home on the subway, Nova and I went grocery shopping - BY OURSELVES!  It was a sucess! We are havnig a wonderful time, and Shinobu has been teaching Nova and I quite a bit about Japanese culture.  We are so lucky to have her as a friend and part of Bella Sorella.  We are having a nice time and miss everyone very much!!!

- Susanna

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 that some of Shinobu’s family live nearby and were able to see us peform on Saturday.

We hope you enjoy the pictures… we’ll be posting more photos soon…

- Nova, Susanna & Shinobu

PS. Nova added:

The phrase, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” could not be more appropriate for Shinobu and her lovely family. Shinobu’s family greeted us with love, smiles, congrats and beautiful gifts. It was an emotional moment. It was like meeting your long lost relatives, that you had never met, but were thinking of you and loving you from many miles away. I will never forget this moment.

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