Yngwie Malmsteen and Takamoto-san

Well, it was the first full day at being in Japan.

It was filled with mountain climbing (via car) and lolly gagging.

The mountain climbing was unbelievably scary, there was railing when you didn't need railing and no railing when it was a matter of life or death if you slip up once. To make matters worse, 90% of the roads going up the mountain could only fit one car at a time. It was exactly like Indiana Jones style when he's like wall hugging across a huge casm.

When we finally got to the top (which took like 30 minutes of constant screaming and turning), the view was beautiful. You could see the ocean, and all of Sasebo. The buildings look so small and insignificant compared to the towering mountains that they were on. The sight was literally breath taking, being hundreds of feet in the air made it hard to breathe. It felt like you were breathing in nothing and I found myself to be constantly gasping for air just from a simple walk up the stairs.

The descent was even scarier, you would easily accelerate because the roads were so steep. Good thing we made it in one piece.

Later in the day, around 5 pm we went to my dad's friend's house to eat dinner. Let me tell you, his mom is a beastly cook. I mean everything was so delicious I wanted to keep eating but I got really really stuffed that I took the biggest nap in my life. My dad's friend's name is Takamoto-san, he's really nice and a fellow guitarist.

Turns out, his favorite guitarist is Yngwie Malmsteen and when he was my age he bought a Yngwie Malmsteen Custom Fender Strat. It was pretty old looking though. He decided to actually give the guitar to me as a welcome to Japan present. I was speechless, and I was just playing it for like several hours and in the car too. He also gave me some Ernie Ball strings, but the high E string was rusty and broke when I was putting it on... lol. So I had to keep the ancient high E string on. It doesn't sound as good as the other new strings (which weren't rusty) but still I can atleast play.

So before I decided to put the new strings on, I decided to clean it. It had like dust and weird crimson red and black marks everywhere. I must've spent an hour just cleaning and polishing it. Now it looks like something you can shred on. The strings also are made for lower tensions, so I have to keep it at atleast half a step lower or else it hurts my fingers. The pick ups are all authentic (DiMarzio YJM Pickups and a DiMarzio HS-3 Stack Humbucker Pickup). The fret board is scalloped meaning that the frets indent creating a wave shape through out the whole neck. The tone of the guitar is a lot different than my S Guitar (Standard Vintage Fender Stratocaster), the sound when flipped to the upper pick up reminds me of the sound that you hear in the recordings when Yngwie is soloing. Its a nice smooth and metallic sound. When it's switched to the bridge pickup, it sounds really crunchy and pretty deep. Its a great guitar to have and I'll be definately playing it a lot.

Now I have to decide in which types of songs that I'll play it in.

I didn't have a wire cutter with me so I had to keep the excess string on, so now it looks like I have like noodles sticking out of my tuning pegs. I guess it makes it look cooler. I can't wait to plug this baby into my amplifier. I think I'm going to learn how to play Red Devil and make a tribute to Takamoto-san for giving me this super awesome guitar.

He also gave Seth a 5 string bass. I forgot what brand it is, but I do know that it's the same bass guitar as the bassist has in Alien Ant Farm. So this will make recording a lot more better.

Later we'll be getting an electronic drum set, so just stay tuned for that. Well I think thats all for now. Peace, love and keep rocking out!