first encounter with sgi-gulf...

after one month in the land of the shimmering sands, i finally made contact with the sgi-gulf. ok, maybe not first contact, coz the first contact i had with them was an sms from a wd here, asking if i’m having any trouble getting an official introduction letter from sgm. apparently, their policy is not to have any contact with anyone claiming to be a gakkai member, until they’ve received an official introduction letter from the gakkai organisation the person was from previously.


anyway, as i’ve only moved to my apartment 2 weeks back, i was only able to provide my address (and other details) to sgm for them to issue the letter. so after giving them an appropriate amount of time (2 weeks plus) to prepare the letter, i asked my ywd from kl on monday morning if they’ve e-mailed it over to the person in charge here. she replied that they’ve already e-mailed the letter, and so i sent an sms to the wd who sms-ed me earlier, asking if they’ve received it. she promptly called me up to say that they did receive, and said she would like to meet up with me in advance, before i attend my first meeting, just to go through with me the guidelines of practising here in sandland.


coincidentally, there’s a recital by a famous guitarist, jason carter, that night and she asked me if i’ll be interested to go watch him play. this artist also gave a recital during a book launch of sensei’s book "the world is yours to change" (in english and arabic) in dubai recently. so apparently this wd and her husband liked his music so much that they’re going to watch his performance that night at a place called "the fridge". but as the wd is a japanese lady, i can’t really understand her english that well and thought that the book launch was going to take place that night itself. so i agreed to go...


she asked me to go to her house in mirdiff, which is right across dubai from where i’m staying. i was rushing a bit, coz i was at ikea earlier (finally!) getting my furniture. and then the taxi driver can’t find the street she mentioned in her sms, so we had to drive around a bit looking for her house and making several calls to her for directions. she was kinda worried when we arrived, coz she was standing outside her house on the street and when she saw my taxi stop, she rushed over to scold the taxi driver! "how much are you charging her?! going round and round like that!" :D


side note: the taxi drivers here are known for doing this "trick". if they know that you’re a tourist or new in town, they’ll try to take the further route so that the meter will give a higher reading and we’ll have to pay a higher fare!


but to be fair, the directions she gave in her sms were kinda vague, and i was the one who told the taxi driver to take the wrong turning. so it’s wasn’t his fault entirely lar... kesian, kena marah by a japanese aunty! :P that taxi ride cost me 35 dirhams (about RM29.75)...


anyway, i met momo-san and her hubby, nick-san (nick is caucasian) in their lovely villa. it seems that momo-san is everyone’s "mom" in the sgi-gulf here. after a brief intro, we did the evening gongyo together and then left the house for the "venue" (which i was still thinking as the venue for the book launch!).


we drove to this industrial area, with factories and warehouses all around... and the venue, the fridge, located in one of these warehouses. and then i realized that this can’t be a book launch, coz we need to pay 50 dirhams (RM42.50) to get in!


jason carter’s recital was scheduled to begin at 8pm, but we got there quite early, at about 7.10pm due to there being not much traffic on the road that day. and apparently, there was another earlier show at the venue, which we caught half of.

people were swinging and dancing in the air! these group of performers call themselves "aerial silk" and as the name suggested, they perform their dance routine on silks hanging from the ceiling...

someone used a very bright flash to take his/her photo, and i just managed to "tumpang" the brightness... as you can see, the fridge is just a big empty warehouse with lighting and sound system for artists to showcase their arts...

then at 8pm, jason carter's slot began upstairs. as i found out, he’s not going to be playing on a guitar, but on a harp guitar! this is my first time encountering this instrument...

it has 18 strings, the top 6 being the bass, the middle set of 6 are the normal guitar strings and the bottom 6 are the treble. interesting... i couldn't wait for the show to start!

this is how a harp guitar is being played... sorry if you can't really see the artist, coz i didn't wanna block the people behind me by standing up to take a photo.

for more info about jason carter, see his website here


anyway, i met 2 more gakkai members that night at the fridge, an italian girl and also another fellow malaysian ywd! never mind that i’ve never met her in m’sia before (she’s from pj)...


so that's my brief encounter with gakkai people here. we'll be having a gosho study meet next week and there's a chanting session every monday night at momo-san's place.