[29-08-2009]

Three Nanchatte Renai release events were held today – all in Yokohama – and I had won tickets to all three of them. GETS! I was hoping that today would go without a glitch as my brain was too excited to function properly, and my body was starting to tire (I had 3 blisters on my feet!!!) My hopes were in vain though as I don’t know much about Yokohama and we had to find the venue before we could heave a sigh of relief, sit back, relax (yeah right) and enjoy the shows / handshakes. gordokaba advised me of which exit to take at Yokohama Station but as we had got off the train at a different end of the station we couldn’t find the right exit. We walked up and down the road we thought was right, asking various people if they knew where Yokohama Blitz was, occasionally making people overreact by saying ‘it’s an Arena’* lol. In the end some nice girl told us we were too far away and need a taxi…FAIL! After taking a taxi we got to the venue all anxious and panic stricken but still had enough time to buy a shed load of goods before queuing up. Even though I had bought 3 packets of green glow sticks from Shinjuku’s Donki Houte two days earlier I still bought three of the official Risa ones that they sell at Hello! Project release events. Had to be done! I also bought the Event V and a number of photo sets for my friends on Hello! Online, as I’m a nice girl ^^

Queuing up for the event gordokaba gave me the mobile phone and mail that I needed to get in, and once my bag had been checked I was given my random seat ticket. My ticket for this event was floor 1 (ground floor) row H, seat 37. This meant I was 8 rows back to the right side of the hall (if I remember there were 40 seats across). Both gorkokaba and zorrander got seats on floor 2, with gordokaba getting a really crappy seat right at the back. We went our separate ways into the hall and sat down waiting for the event to start but about 5 minutes later gordokaba came down and scared the shit out of me. It turned out that someone asked him to change seats and he had managed to get a pretty darn awesome seat in the 11th row. Even though it was further back then mine there was an aisle between the 10th and 11th rows, then the 11th row onwards were elevated up slightly from the rest of the seating (about a foot higher) which gave a perfect view of the stage. I was extremely jealous!!! We stood near the wall and chatted for a while and noticed that the seats either side of gordokaba’s were not being taken up, so about 10 minutes before the event started I moved my bag and sat in the seat next to his. Then about 5 minutes before it started the guy who owned the seat came in and gordokaba asked him if he wanted to swap with me. He was in a rush so just looked at my row number and took the swap instantly! I’d say he’d probably have declined if he thought about it for a while, but this meant I had an awesome seat next to gordokaba, elevated up so no wotas could get in my way! WIN WIN WIN!

The event was amazingly awesome. They sang their 10th single – I Wish, 20th single – Go Girl Koi no Victory, 30th single – Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii jan and 40th single – Nanchatte Renai. I don’t know much wota-gei but after watching so many concerts I at least know when to OI OI OI or UE UE *phew* I’m a little shy when it comes to dancing in front of people – especially people I know – so I was a bit wimpy, but having gordokaba next to me cheering really loud (GAKI-SAN!!!) made me try a little harder. After the show we were waiting for the handshakes and I was getting really nervous. gordokaba picked up on this as I kept doing little things that I don’t normally do lol. Probably rubbing the back of my head and sighing loudly whilst looking at the floor gave it away ^^; After what seemed like a life time they started letting people out in single file and it wasn’t until our turn to leave that we noticed they had let the upper floor go first, hence why it took so long.

Going out in to the main foyer where the handshake took place we had de-bac sprayed on to our hands so we didn’t pass on any bugs, but it was done a bit too close to the girls as you had to rub it in really fast before we got to them. Not good when you’re all sweaty!!! I was really started to panic now and had nothing planned to say to the girls, which was probably a good thing as anything more then ‘arigato gaozaimasu’ and I would’ve probably spewed over them. Getting closer I could see that Risa was first in line…OH SHIT!!! This is the worst possible thing that could’ve happened as I was hoping she would be stood further down so I could seem a bit cooler when I got to her. No such luck. They were stood in this order…maybe;

RISA > LIN > SAYU > REINA > KOHA > AIKA > JUN > AI > ERI

(need confirmation, but I know Risa, Ai and Eri are right)

The handshakes were incredibly fast and I was getting pushed / pulled along by my backpack. Unless you were lucky enough to get someone in front of you to hold the queue up you didn’t have a chance to say much except for the customary ‘Thank You’.

RISA – I didn’t move forward when the staff ushered me too so I made a gap between myself and the person in front (I was scared alright?!) When she saw me walking towards her she went ‘OOH’ then wore her trademark huge smile. She grabbed my hand, shook it and said arigatou gozaimasu followed by sank-yu. Whether she recognised me from the dinner show or L.A. I don’t know, but she seemed like she recognised me a bit. She was so sweet and gave me her full attention until I had moved on ♥♥♥

LIN – Lin was her normal OTT bubbly self. She also greeted me with an “Ooh!” then said sank-yu slightly better then the other members had so far. I don’t dislike Lin, but as she’s not one of my top favourites I don’t remember much of how she dealt with me.

SAYU – Sayumi squeezed my hand so hard I nearly cried T_T Not quite, but for a petit idol she has a killer shake! I don’t know if she does this on purpose, but when she’s talking to you (even just sank-yu) she looks at you with this “I want to rip your clothes off and have rampant sex with you right here right now” stare. Sexy as hell and not good for my mental state when I’m in the incredibly close vecinity of nine eight uber hot girls who’d I’d not kick out of bed for anything. I wanted to convey “yes I will let you ravage me but not in public okay” back with my eyes but I probably only managed “nervous spewing imminent – beginning countdown 100-99-98-97…” ^^; Sayu’s such a whore ♥

REINA – Before this trip myself and .Brian decided that some of the noises Reina makes remind us of Young Link. I actually have a Young Link ‘woah’ as my message alert and whenever I hear it I think it’s Reina. Maybe she provided the voice? When I got to her she did a Link style “OOOH!” really loud. REALLY LOUD! Must’ve been because I’m ① Female and ② Foreign. It was an awesome welcome and made me realise that they not doing this whole thing on autopilot. She said sank-yu really loud too, which reminded me of L.A where she bellowed HELLO! at me in the final autograph session XD

KOHA – Koharu was her usual fuck this shit self and as such I didn’t get much of a reaction from her. Just a handshake and sank-yu. Her attitude is the thing that makes her so awesome, so I’m glad she didn’t act any other way.

AIKA – Umm…she said arigatou gozaimasu I think… It’s Aika…I don’t care!

JUN – Jun’s so cuddly cute and had the best English accent out of the group. I actually got a thank you very much from her which was cool.

AI – Ai so tiny!!! I already knew this from seeing her in Cinderella but this was the first time she was stood up right in front of me (in L.A I was only close when she was sat down). She gave me an awesome huge grin but it was nowhere near the one I got from her in L.A. She also said sank-yu and continued grinning at me until I had moved on to Eri and gordokaba had rocked up to her. Silly girl :3

ERI – Even though I didn’t get a loud greeting from Eri what I did get was a very prominent ‘I KNOW YOU!’ reaction ♥ People will probably say I’m talking ball shit, but one thing I have no interest in is making things seem better then they were just so I look awesome. Eri totally 100% recognised me and the only time I’ve met her before this is in L.A, so it had to be from that. I was the stupid girl wearing a Stitch hat so it wouldn’t be that hard to forget me, but then these girls are incredibly busy so at the same time it would. The whole time we were shaking hands (which isn’t very long), she was looking at me like we were reunited long lost friends. It was pretty awesome ♥♥♥

I walked around the side of the area and it was all over *sigh* gordokaba had a huge grin on his face and I was probably doing the same. We made our way out in to the blistering Yokohama heat to find zorrander and a shop lol. None of us had eaten breakfast and my throat was so dry I was in desperate need of a drink. We went to Family Mart, I bought some Orange Juice and a Snickers and then struggled to eat it. That’s how nervous and excited I still was!!! The first event / handshake was over and it was amazing, but zorrander and I still had two more to go. Even though the day started with some hitches our final day in Japan was already awesomely epic, and the best was yet to come (for me)

End of Event 1

(If anyone is wondering where Day 08 is, I’ve written it up but it needs a crazy amount of tweaking before I post it…sorry)

* Yokohama Arena is in a different part of the city and is pretty famous. Yokohama Blitz on the other hand, is not known by many people lol