Takeo Ishii 石井 健雄 - German Yodel Master

Yodeling is not just music but an art that not everyone can master. During my early days in Zurich, I loved to visit yodeling events. I remember that Bavarian type of yodeling sounded somewhat different than traditional Swiss yodeling. Besides the all-time best Franzl Lang from Germany, there is one impressive yodeling master from Japan that I like to remember. In 1291 early Alpine shepherds discover how to yodel by alternating their voices between natural singing tones and falsetto pitches. Shepherds began using the distinctive calls to round up cattle and communicate with others across the Alps. Although yodeling was probably being used back in the Stone Age, the choir singing of the yodeling songs only developed in the 19th century. Interestingly, Switzerland has an international yodel festival which is hosted every time in a different city. Through the festival's days, lots of artists from all over Switzerland, reach the host city.

The Japanese yodeling star Takeo Ishi (in German Takeo Ischi) that is still active continues to impress yodeling fans all around the world. There isn't much the public knows about him and I was told that Takeo is a very humble and nice person that identifies his style of singing with the surrounding alpine habitat. He is probably not someone who could live in a big city, the opposite would be Takeos favorite. The more nature, the more mountains the better!

Takeo was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. In high school, he was a loner, but it was during this time that he first heard yodeling on the radio. Following his father, Ischi went to university for mechanical engineering. In his spare time he became engrossed with the zither and the hammered dulcimer and learned to play these instruments. Using Franzl Lang's records, he taught himself to yodel and began performing on Japanese television. During a six-month period where he studied abroad in Germany, Ischi went to Switzerland, where he sang at a beer hall in Zurich. He soon started earning money from this. From there he sang in front of Lang, his idol, and Lang took him under his wing. He performed on television with Maria Hellwig, and after that became known in German language circles as the "Japanese yodeler".

Ischi met his wife Henriette in 1981 and proposed to her three years later at an onsen (hot spring) in Japan, where he yodeled his proposal to her. They married in 1985 and had five children, of which four sons named Maximilian, Michael, Andreas and Lukas, and one daughter named Julia. A humorous collaboration with The Gregory Brothers, "Chicken Attack", was released on January 25th, 2017, garnering over 4 million views on YouTube.

Experience the alpine atmosphere in Switzerland

Davos as an example is a small town of superlatives: this holiday destination with the international ambiance is the largest resort in the Alps for mountain holidays, sports, and conferences, at 1560 m the highest town in the Alps and a high-altitude health resort with a long tradition. In the center of Davos, visitors will find a wide range of accommodation and excellent shopping, with numerous boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. At night, too, there’s plenty of entertainment, with bars, discos and a casino.

The first situation we usually run into is that people who want to visit “Switzerland” assume that the first and best (and sometimes only) stop should be its largest city, which is Zurich. Unfortunately, Zurich is the most expensive city in the world for travelers, and it’s not really very interesting. Geneva is a very famous city (though not for tourism reasons) on a lovely lake of the same name, but it’s also notoriously dull and lacking distinction. Rick Steves puts it well by saying that “Geneva is pleasantly situated on a lake, like Buffalo or Cleveland.” The point is, you don’t want to go to Geneva unless you’ve got something specific in mind that you want to see there.

If you have 4 or fewer days in Switzerland I wouldn’t visit any of the cities listed above. If you have 5 or more days and especially if you want to include a proper city then I’d recommend 1 or 2 days in Bern. For a longer trip, and especially if you want to visit the French part of the country, then a day in Lausanne is worthwhile. Many people (me included) don’t feel as if they’ve scratched the surface of a new country if they haven’t spent at least a day or two in the largest city. Zurich is certainly pleasant and a useful transit hub so spending one or two nights there wouldn’t be a mistake. But Zurich isn’t even close to being a city like Paris, Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, or even Vienna. If you skip it in favor of spending more time in the outdoors, you won’t be missing much.

Schilthorn observation deck and restaurant

The cable cars (mountain lifts that carry up to 80 people at a time) from Lauterbrunnen to Gimmelwald and from Gimmelwald up to Mürren are short and fairly cheap, but if you keep going up two more segments to the top, you reach the Schilthorn observation deck. It’s expensive (around US$100 round-trip from Lauterbrunnen to Schilthorn) but if the weather is clear this is very worthwhile and will be your single best memory of Switzerland.

There is a rotating restaurant (with prices similar to normal Swiss restaurants) and a bizarre and anachronistic James Bond attraction based on it being a key location in the 1969 movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The Bond thing is included with the lift, and it’s worth a look.

But the main thing you come here for is the 360-degree view from one of the highest peaks in Europe. Again, the weather here is key, but fortunately, all the locals track the visibility on a minute-by-minute basis. If it’s clear up top while you are in the area, it would be a terrible shame to skip it based on the high price. But even if it’s cloudy up top, there are still plenty of wonderful things to see and do in the villages below.

     Japanese Av Star