Yesterday was really tiring. Shopping day. The woman of the house couldn't stand not shopping for three days straight (believe me, it's a record, especially for overseas trips) so we spent the day shopping. Not surprisingly, most of the stuff we bought were from Japan, or so said the storekeepers.
( Photos under the cut )
More of nature!!
We went for mountain activities on Monday. Visited this cosy cafe nested in the depth of the mountain, linked to the outside world by a narrow one-lane road.
It was a terrible journey, having to plan the whole Mentor Outing which started as a 6 mentor groups' outing and ended up being the entire Group 4 outing. Juggling the planning, coordinating, overseeing with tight deadlines for my actual job was almost a nightmare (I'm talking about no proper lunch, 3 Subway cookies for dinner everyday, and a first-in-last out scenerio. Somehow I can't tell whether I'm just too inefficient or too hardworking). Plus family issues I want to avoid facing. But somehow, I enjoyed the journey, which reminded me of my 'glorious' SSC days. And the result was no disappointment either.
I didn't actually realise the sense of satisfaction derived from being one of the few behind this Mentor Outing until I was organising my photos and discovered these gems.
( Personal photos inside. )
( Encouragement. )
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showjuro for the beautiful card.
tenjostyle for remembering me as well. I was really happy to receive it last year, but even after vox disappeared, you remember me among the zillions of fans on lj. <3
tsuriken_pg for giving me the family name of Matsuo.
Last day in Tokyo!
Made last min plans to meetup with Cass and pass her the Ohno shop photo and we decided to visit the JFC. Or rather, I dragged poor her along with me in search of the, as she put it, "basement".
Oh before that we had lunch at a really good sushi place. Not too expensive, and the food was really fresh. I love the tamago roll. ^_^
And then, we walked around trying to find the JFC. Was quite a failed attempt, although we managed to make it eventually. So, for the benefit of the generations after us....here're some photos to hlep you find your way to that basement. XP
I'm more of a JR person, so this is coming from a JR point of view.
( Directions to the shrine called Johnnys Family Club. )
We left the JFC feeling satisfied (maybe not for Cass, but hey girl! GANTZ's difficult to hit so don't get too disappointed! There's still GANTZ 2! haha!) and went magazine hunting all the way to Shinjuku.
By then I was feeling quite unwell already, because I had caught a cold, so I was cold, feeling heavy headed, and preventing my nose from running. =( Parted and then took the train to meet my family. Well, on the way, I saw the ones to make me feel just a tad better.
Quite a good trip this time, meeting a lot of fan friends. =) Like, finally, someone who sees Yuma the way I see him, and thinks of Meisa as I do! YAY! lol...And of course the amazing concerts! Expensive tickets, but worthed it. I'll continue working hard at work to earn the tickets next year!
Ja ne.
OMG. They're so cute playing telephone on tv! And poor Ohno is ALWAYS bullied by Nino. kekekekek
Went to meet Cass for lunchie today!
I'm quite glad that yesterday's KTV didn't do too much damage to my throat.
We had a nice walk down Takeshita in search for gloves and then stopped by at a ramen store (really good ramen, for a non-ramen-fan like me) before dropping by the JE shop. I bought 4 photos, but returned to the hotel only to realise that I've got those already. *FAILS* Then we went back to Takeshita in search for my Ohno-birthday-pap-photos!! Managed to find a few, as posted in the 2nd last photo below.
Oh and here's a really nice photo of the leaves changing colour.
After parting with Cass (poor girlhas a term paper to complete), I went to the train station to catch a train to Odaiba. But while on the platform, I remembered that I had to help S-san get her Takuya magazine. So, I had to go to Shibuya....and the train for the opposite direction came. Without a thought, I hopped onto the very crowded train, and then realised that the train was bound for Shinjuku! Wrong direction!! But if I were to stop at Shinjuku and take the train back, I'll be squeezed to death at that station. So, I took the train all the way to Shin-Okubo (only because it was the first station where I didn't have to walk far to get to the other platform LOL) and waited for the train.
While waiting, I saw two ladies snapping away...at these....
Hehe!
After magazine shopping, I went to find my bro and we played some arcade games!
My character....Who do you think he resembles?
Yummylicious dinner at a Thai restaurant! The prawn toast is super aromatic and delicious!
And these are the spoils for the day.
I was quite sad that the Jun one's a bit folded, because I dumped it into my bag without thinking. =( But it's lucky enough that it didn't get soaked by the mitsuya cider drink that spilled in my bag. CLUMSY ME.
( Beautiful Mt Fuji! )
I'm dying.
Of happiness.
It was 4.40pm.
At Harajuku.
Only 4 tickets left.
One was at the 2nd level stands.
Another pair was also 2nd level stands.
Last was an Arena.
Block C6.
I have no idea where that block is, and I know that Arena doesn't guarantee a good seat.
But I went for it. Like...30% cheaper than my Friday stands seat. The storekeeper said I was lucky coz that ticket really became much cheaper now.
And then, I rushed to Dome, reaching at 530pm. Found the gate (which was really far from the main gate 22). I saw that Gate 11 was right at the side of Dome so I thought that it was a seat very far left. But no.
When I entered the Arena and saw the board with the blocks' location printed, I nearly died. The block was only 3 blocks away from the hanamichi joining the main and center stage. I went to the seat, and then REALLY died. My seat was only 3 rows away from the left hanamichi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like, so lucky!!!
Concert audio clip, only for friends. Please refer to this post for the password.
Since it's Ohno's birthday soon (and 'my birthday' today), I'm opening up the post to public for 24 hours. But please, please, please DO NOT SHARE/REUPLOAD. It's not exactly legal doing recordings, and I still want to enjoy my future concerts happily. Onegai ne!
MediaFire
Not very high quality and not full because my recorder died halfway =( It's only up to Aiba's part in the second stage greeting.
Brief concert reports from others!
Nanao
Yarukizero
Jen
Arisa
No full concert report, because I suck at those and I'm sure someone else can write a much better one.
But I'm gonna just jolt down what I can remember from the day.
( So, it ended up very very long. Not guaranteed to be accurate. My memory is bad. )
Concert audio clip, only for friends. Please refer to this post for the password.
Part 01/02
Not very high quality though. There's a 1 min 20 sec blank at the start so just skip over.
Other con reports:
Yarukizero
Nanao
Had actually arranged to meet 2 fans on lj today...but one didn't turn up (strange enough, she emailed later saying that she was waiting for hours but we didn't turn up...what exactly happened??) so I went ahead with the other to the JE shop. My first time with someone at the JE shop since Rika a few years back! We met at 9, waited till slightly after 930 before giving up and heading to the JE shop. Surprisingly (since I've been reaching the shop at around 10 each time and never had to queue) there was already a queue. But we were quite front and managed to enter the shop at around 1005.
Good for us. Or rather, for me since she (let's cal her K-chan) didn't buy much. It soon got crowded but as the crowd started building up at the Arashi corner, I was already near the end of the ordeal. Photos for myself, Angel, Yen and other fan friends amounted to a 3-digit number, but I had already controlled myself a lot! Still, Jun in Hatenai Sora was too irresistable! I bought almost all of his individuals. A few great Juntoshi and Ohmiya ones too, of course.
Then it was a bit of shopping at the unofficial shops where I became a happy fangirl.
I finally found the In A Rush photobook, completing my photobook collection! 
Also bought a lot of live photos with precious moments. K-chan was amazing, remembering which costume came from what performance and what incident happened at which performance, such as the Jun-randomly-eating-banana-during-MC photos below.
( Live photos under a cut because I regreted looking at them and spoiling my concert surprise. Don't want to spoil yours! )
It was quite inconvenient today because of the rain...and really cold since I didn't bring my gloves along. Hopefully it won'train on Friday!
We went to do more sightseeing yesterday, with a new tour guide. She's much better I feel, in terms of smiling, friendliness, English, knowledge of good places to go and initiative. Aniwaes, we went to Lotte World, which I absolutely loved but didn't get to ride anything except for the pharoah 3D virtual show. =( It's a place to go with friends, not family. Not a family who's afraid of the smallest things. Aniwaes, I also saw the hot air balloon ride featured in Creating Destiny. XP I think it's really destiny coz on the previous tour, I walked past this shop in Insadong that was used as Yeo Jun siter's pastry shop in the show.
After Lotte World, we went to this precius stone workshop where gm bought some jewelry. Then it was to 63 Building to view the nightscape!
We went to the Wax Museum next!
I'd be happier if it was Yong Ha's role instead of Yon-sama's. I didn't even watch Winter Sonata lah! But, just for fun!
( ALOT of photos under the cut, all from the YB novel )
Photos from Day 2, on the way down from the onsen ryoukan, we saw the beautiful Mt Fuji up close! Our dear driver (omg I totally like him! He's quite cute, in a boy-next-door kind of way too!) stopped by the roadside so we could take a photo (the first one). The second one was taken in the car.
( Crazy Arashi under the cut )
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timeasmymeasure
