By LISA BRITTON

Baker City Herald

The Geiser Grand’s spirited guests had quite the show last night as a crew of 14 from Fuji TV broadcast from the hotel for a live New Year’s Eve show aired in Japan.

This is the third visit for director Takayoshi Nakayama, who films segments for the show “Unbelievable.”

This visit was the biggest yet – in addition to being live, the show featured Japanese celebrity Mikie Hara and psychic medium Rosemary The Celtic Lady, founder of the American, Canadian and UK Associations of Psychics and Healers.

Japan is 17 hours ahead of Baker City, so the filming began at midnight and finished at 6 a.m. this morning.

The Japanese film crew has been in town all week, filming around the

historic district to make a commercial promoting the live broadcast.

Baker City and the Geiser is the only location outside Japan that was

featured, and it is the first live broadcast that’s not news or sports.

Rosemary had never heard of the Geiser Grand, and its ghost stories, before she was contacted by Fuji TV.

“They called me to come in and tell me about the spirits,” she said. “It was an honor that they asked me to do this.”

Her experiences support the stories.

As she was getting ready for bed Wednesday, someone knocked.

“I open the door. No one there,” she said.

The same thing happened at 1:01 a.m. and 2:01 a.m.

“It brought me right out of sleep,” she said.

Then the Lady in Blue, the spirit most seen by guests, appeared – in her bed, which was a little too close for comfort.

But the ghosts of the Geiser are friendly, one even a bit mischievous,

she said Thursday afternoon following the first rehearsal.

Nakayama first came to Baker City 12 years ago to film an episode of “Unbelievable” featuring the Geiser’s ghost stories.

He returned in September of this year to capture more footage for a 4?-hour special, which aired Oct. 7.

Barbara Sidway, co-owner of the Geiser, has spent quite a bit of time this week with the Japanese crew.

During conversations through a translator, she found out more than 25

million watched that October broadcast, and more than 400 million

searched “Geiser Grand” on Japanese Yahoo! in the weeks following the

show.

Fuji TV expected the same size audience for the live broadcast, and those viewers include people from Korea and China.

“It’s truly amazing,” Sidway said. “It could be transformational for Baker City.”

Even this week had an impact, she said, with the film crew reserving

the Community Connection bus for transportation and hiring local

contractors to wire the hotel for the broadcast (four phone lines just

for Thursday night).

“And money all over downtown – they love the Co-op, the dollar store and Ace Hardware,” Sidway said.

The crew reserved about half of the hotel’s 30 rooms.

“Basically creating a whole studio in a hotel full of guests who don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

The broadcast will be available to view on the Geiser’s Web site by 3 p.m. today. The site is www.geisergrand.com.

To learn more about Rosemary, visit her Web site: www.rosemarythecelticlady.com.