Kawagoe Festival 2017

One of the three major festivals in Saitama prefecture, the Kawagoe festival is an autumn festival that occurs every year on the third Saturday/Sunday of October. The whole town gets in on the action, with gifts, snacks, drinks, and floats flooding the city streets. Despite threats of bad weather, I was able to see a […]

Musical Instrument Museum

One of the places that anyone has to visit in Phoenix is the Musical Instrument Museum. It’s located in the northern-most reaches of Phoenix proper, but going there is a must. It is, to my surprise, the only global musical instrument museum in the world. And when they say it is a global instrument museum, […]

Antelope Canyon

Continuing on the natural wonder theme I have developed for Arizona, I wanted to see one of the most photographed places on Earth: Antelope Canyon. One photograph taken in this canyon sold for over a million dollars, and the image of this place can be seen as wallpaper on Mac and Windows machines alike. It […]

Preservation Hall

One of my main missions for this trip was to see some authentic New Orleans jazz. Having known nothing about the city prior to landing, it was a bit intimidating trying to find venues. After an unsuccessful trip down Bourbon Street, we thankfully met up for a Music Gumbo walking tour, and our guide gave […]

Best Nine of 2016

A big thing to do on Instagram is the top nine most-liked pictures from the year (you can follow me @ajgarnica). Since the new year is here, I thought I’d do a retrospective and examine my top nine photos and explain them a little more in detail.

Ballet Arizona: The Nutcracker

I’m quite the novice when it comes to ballet, much like musical theater. Given the holiday season, I decided to take the plunge with my wife and go see The Nutcracker, as performed by Phoenix Ballet (Ballet Arizona), at the incredibly beautiful Orpheum theater in Downtown Phoenix. I went into the performance knowing next to […]

ASU Gammage: Beautiful Review

Having my musical theater exposure begin with Nazis and more Nazis, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. At the start, I couldn’t tell you which songs she wrote or sang, only that she had done both. I certainly couldn’t have told you what the musical was about but […]

Dia De Los Muertos Festival

This year, being busy Halloween weekend, I wanted to check out Phoenix’s Dia De Los Muertos Festival. It’s part of my cultural heritage that I never really did much with growing up nor as an adult up until this point and I wanted to change that. From the description of the festival on their website, […]

ASU Gammage: The Sound of Music Review

My second show at ASU’s historic Gammage theater saw me witnessing The Sound of Music. I remember seeing this as a child in the form of the Julie Andrews movie. I don’t quite recall many details other than it was very long, she sang with the children, and they had to escape from a church […]

ASU Gammage: Cabaret Review

I’m not a bit musical theater person, but I’ve found myself surrounded by those who are very much into the scene. With the coming ASU Gammage season, I’ve decided to take the plunge and see if I could find some musicals that are more my speed. First on the docket is Cabaret. Note: There will […]