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.
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
I met up with 2 people today!
One at the JE shop to pass her some yen for 2 auction items (an Ohku folded fan and Ohku goldfish hp strap!). I was a bit blur due to the lack of sleep so I forgot to bring like a lot of essentials. My camera (gosh! I saw so many Arashi CM posters around but I couldn't take any photos!) and my list of contact numbers to call.
So, I ended up standing outside at the queue waiting, waiting, waiting.........There was someone whom I suspected was the person I was waiting for, but I had no guts and waited till the very last min before I went to ask if she was. And it turned out that she was! She forgot about the attire she had described to me about and wore something entirely different from what I expected. lol. We had a nice short chat about the concerts, about fandom, tickets and stuff. Aiba-chan ichibaner. =] We got quite high discussing about the concert! Ahh....that was so enjoyaable, fangirling about the concert.
Then I rushed back to Ebisu station to meet Jen. Couldn't call her because...yeah, I forgot my contact list. So, I just waited....and then she appeared! Yay!
We went to Ebisu Garden for brunch and tea. It was really enjoyable talking to her, a fellow Singaporean who could understand all the Singlish, the mix of Chinese and English and Malay and dialect and whatnot. She was at the concert on Friday too, so we fangirled a little over the concert happenings. Quite glad about that because she brought up some things I didn't notice/had forgotten. And since she was a JunxAiba girl, there was some kind of connection ne. In fact, it felt like I was meeting an idol. HAHA. Because she was one of the very first Arashi fan I knew when I entered fandom...so, to meet someone I 'knew' for so long through the net is a really amazing thing. And to think that we were meeting for the first time in Japan and not home country we share!
She kind of influenced me to give KwP a try. I hope I did the same to her for My Girlfriend Is A Gumiho. Good things are meant to be shared!
And I'd like to add that the strawberry shortcake at that tea place was superb. =]
After that, it was shopping with my family. I went to Tokyu Hands and finally found the thing I've been looking for over the past year. A clear, hard case for my posters! I've bought one back to Singapore, but the size was too small. So I tried my luck, at Jen's suggestion, at Tokyu Hands. I asked the store person for one that could accomodate the Johnny poster, and when he came out with the B1 size, it was darn big! Really big. Now I wonder how I'll put it in my room!
I'm going to try getting tickets from that Harajuku shop tomorrow. Who knows, they may celebrate Oh-chan's birthday in advance! But if I really go to the concert again, I'll not be able to do any shopping for the whole of next week! Tough choice....
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!
PHEW! Finally finished up translations for WISFC ep5. O.O And now I can catch up on all the online going ons! The above was taken at the Seoul Incheon airport on Sunday. Not because of the face on it but because of the English. Just for laughs!
And yes, I'm back already. I'm so glad to be back, really. My skin was sprouting rough, sore patches all around, but after I returned to Singapore's air, with aa night's sleep, the patches started to get better without me applying any medicine! I love the humid air!
I already knew that a parcel arrived for me when I was in Japan, but still, I couldn't help but feel giggly when I saw the box sitting on my desk!
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 )
I'm like super duper tired, so this is gonna be short.
I went to Yonsei University today to have a look at my potential exchange school, and gosh the place is so beautiful! The campus looks like a Hogswarts castle with English-style buildings and rich greenary, complete with a maze-like garden. The only complaint I have is that the campus is situated on slopes and the Biz school is right at the top, so by the time I reached the building, I was panting hard.
The weather was really cold today. I wore like, four layers! The worst part were my hands...I bought gloves, but it wasn't enough. Sometimes I had to take my hands out from the gloves and within that few seconds, I can feel the chill already!
Samantha had told me that the Uni was at Sincheon station. So I took a train there, but when I looked at the neighbourhood map at the station, I couldn't find the Uni. It turned out that the station was Shinchon station instead! Fortunately, it was on the same line so I just continued taking the train along the line.
After Yonsei, I went to Myeongdong. It took me two transfers (once at City Hall station and once at Seoul station). I'm glad that it was relatively easy to understand the train lines and figure out where and how to transfer. This is one thing I prefer over Tokyo. The subway lines at Tokyo are too complicated, and as there are more than 1 operator, sometimes the transfer requires you to get out of the station and walk quite a bit to the station for the other operator. Here in Seoul, you just walk inside the station itself. However, it's quite strange that for some stations where the tracks for both directions are next to each other instead of separated by the platform, passengers have to pass through the ticket gantry on the correct side or they'll be unable to get onto the train towards the correct direction. Or maybe I just didn't look carefully for a passageway across. Also, the train map at the ticketing machines was so small! There was only one, and attached to a stan by the side of the machines. So, you have to crowd around that tiny map and squint to see the transfer stations etc.
I bought quite a lot of things at Myeongdong, and went into this idol shop. There were Japanese tourists inside and I heard the shopkeeper talking to them in Japanese. XD Demo, I couldn't find anything YB-related. Not even JGS-related! Not popular enough?
I had a few interesting encounters today:
1) I was buying train tickets at Samseung station to the Uni when this man at the machine next to mine asked me how to buy tickets to this particular station. In Korean. I guess it was because I was using the Korean interface for the machine that he mistook me as local. So, I just told him I can't speak Korean (in Korean, ironically) and decided to purchase tickets using the English interface in the future.
2) I was walking around Yonsei Uni when this student asked for directions. Again, I said I couldn't speak Korean.
3) The third incident happened at Myeongdong where I was browsing in this shop and the shopkeeper was really 'friendly'. He kept recommending me clothes that he feels match my style. I understood him, but I got tongue-tied for a response. So, when I made payment, he asked if I was a Korean. I said no, and he asked where I was from. Gosh, this is like the basics in Korean class, yet I got tongue-tied and just managed a weak "Singapore". Haha, he then smoothed my ego saying that I understood Korean good enough when I told him I could only understoof a bit of Korean. XD Nice shopkeeper! And when I paid him using the old 10k won notes, he was so amazed. O.O he was like "These are old money!" Are those very rare right now?
4) This totally dampened my mood. The last shop I visited was this shop selling Korean souvenirs and idol stuff. I grabbed two copies of this Korean magazines featuring SS501, and the shopkeeper immediately came with a basket and said, "You can put them in here." In Mandarin. I haven't even spoke a word! Does my appearance betray my ethnicity? And she had to follow me really closely throughout my stay in the shop! Argh!
Overall, Myeongdong is definitely worthed the hype. It's at least 3 times as huge an area as HK's Mongkok, and the human traffic flow at least 3 times as well. As most shops are selling winter goods, I didn't buy too much. But, imagine it being summer. With that large an area, it must be shopping paradise!
Off-topic, but I just finished watching Liar Game Season 2 ep 5. Hate the cliffhanger a the end! I have a feeling that that bespectacled guy betrayed Akiyama and Kanzaki. T.T
Cold!
Seriously, that's all I can remember from today.
It was a -9 ~ -4 degress celcius, and we spent much of the day walking outdoors, visiting Gyeong Bok Gung and Myeong Dong.
( It's too cold for summer singaporean girl! )
I'm in Seoul now!
Here's an update of my last few days in Tokyo! For the last day on Sunday, I was suddenly tasked, out of the blue, to babysit this person. What does that mean? That means that I wass practically stuck to the game centers with video games and such. No shopping, no muncing, no walking around sightseeing. Not that I was very very keen to do those, but I'd prefer my last day there to be spent in leisure...
Aniwaes, so we went to the game arcade at Shinjuku to play this 3 Kingdom card game that he loves. However, there was a tournament at 2pm so that game machine was only for public use till then. Well, with the great memory I'm so proud of, we decided to make a bet on my memory about having seen a sign indicating that there are such game machines at the 4th floor at Palette Town. So, we headed for there...and found it. XD I'm amazing!! I only saw the sign once, and like many days before, yet I remembered! muahaha...
Aniwaes, we were looking around the area for the machines (hiden at a corner) when the song above came on.
( Yeah, the shift from vox means that the audio clip is no longer available....=( )
When we went to Asakusa on Wednesday, I saw this group of Japanese school girls squealing "Kawaii~~~" as they took photos with this caucasian baby. "Look here!" "One more!"
Today, at Venus Fort, I spoted this two Hindu woman requesting for a photograph to be taken with this Japanese lady in kimono.
lol.
Aniwaes, tomorrow's the last day I'll be in Tokyo, and then it's next stop Seoul! Somehow, I didn't buy so much at Tokyo this time round, perhaps because this doesn't feel like a holiday to me (and I usually spree only on holidays). I've been here so many times, there's a strange feeling of ease when I come here, somewhat like a second home. I hope to buy more at Seoul. XD Hopefully, I can find some YB merchandises! Oh, and I just want to mention that I really appreciate how meticulous our driver-san is. I noticed that he didn't wear glasses yesterday, and because of that, I nearly couldn't recognise him. I asked him about it today and he said that he wore contact lenses yesterday because it was a rainy day (gosh, Japan's weather forecasts are so very accurate!) and his glasses will get misty when he open doors. That's our dear driver-san!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timeasmymeasure
