29-08-2009

For the third and final Nanchatte Renai event my luck had run out and I ended up with a pretty crap seat…

I-33…pants!

‘I’ meant I was 9 rows back from the stage and seat 33 was near the far right of the room. This wouldn’t be an issue to most people but as the seats we’re all on same level – and I’m a short ass – I couldn’t really see anything throughout the whole event *sigh* All I remember was that the guy next to me was an Eri fan and seemed to be just as clueless with the chants as I was lol. Because of that we kinda played off each other which was pretty fun ^^

Because I have nothing of interest to say about the show as I couldn’t see much, I’ll move straight on to the handshakes. Once again the girls were standing in the same order but this time they all seamed kinda knackered:

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

RISA – Risa was slightly surprised to see me yet again so kept repeatedly saying sank-yu and grinning until I had moved on to Lin. This reminded me of L.A when she was right up in my face saying sank-yu sank-yu sank-yu because I told her (through a translator) that I was going to the dinner show. So awesome. I wub you Risa ♥

LIN – Lin just said a simple thank you to me whilst shaking my hand. She is always bubbly though, and wears the same 8D look all the time lol.

SAYU – Sayu gripped my hand quite firmly again, but not as much as the first time. Bit of a shame really as I wanted some feisty contact from her again *sigh*

REINA – Reina was the same as the the first event – kinda surprised and loud! A part of me wishes that she took as long to shake peoples hand as she does to sign her autograph. Would be pretty awesome but the people at the back of the line would be waiting a few hours for their turn >_<

KOHA – Sadly I don’t remember what Koharu was like during this third and final event, but I do remember that she is very VERY tall. I know Jun Jun is taller but I think I notice Koharu’s height more because she’s so skinny >_<

AIKA – I’m struggling to remember all the details from this event so to hell do I remember how Aika was with me. I don’t care to remember either. Next…

JUN - Again I don’t remember what Jun was like at this event. I think by this point I had reached my awesomeness limit and my brain had started to give up from all the internal spazzing out it was doing over meeting Risa. That’s my excuse in any case…

AI – I also don’t remember anything about Ai… It might eventually come back to me, but Ai is always so professional with everything that there wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary here. Well…NEARLY always professional, seeing as I had already got a uncharacteristic reaction from her at the second event, but I would’ve remembered if she had done something random again.

ERI – Eri’s handshake on the other hand, I do remember! She greeted me with a really huge grin again and we said thank you to each other as we did the last two times, but when I was walking away something random happened. As I was walking off I let go of her hand and pulled away…slightly, I was part way round the makeshift wall when I squeezed her hand / fingers again and she squeezed back lol. It was probably an involuntary reflex on Eri’s part but dang, if there’s such a thing as hand sex I did it there and then with Eri! It was so orgasmic I could still feel her fingers on mine for a little while afterwards lol. Yes I’m lame…no I don’t care!

♥♥♥

Upon leaving the event we were all in desperate need of food and after looking around Yokohama station we opted for a really cheap Ramen place. This was my first time trying Ramen and if anyone wants to know what it’s tastes of then I’d liken it to Minestrone Soup XD It was enjoyable although because I was on the last of my budget at this point I only went for the regular version. Next time I have one I might spend out and get one with a piece of lamb in or something…

After this zorrander went back to the hotel whereas gordokaba and I decided we’d hit up a Hello! Project party that was taking place in Otsuka. Unfortunately once we got there we found that the party had already finished (it was a day party…what’s that all about?) so did what we do best – went on the hunt for more food and beer. We managed to find one of those pretty cool ticket machine restaurants where you buy a ticket for the items you want – including alcohol – and the staff collect them from you and bring back your food when it’s ready. The only things on the menu that interested us were fried chicken, chips and of course, beer ^^ I bought some chips and a beer with the idea that I’d get more later if wanted but gordo came up with the ingenious plan of buying a load of tickets all at once, yet use them a few at a time. The waitress kept coming to our table to collect our tickets (I went to the machine a few more times) but everytime looked really confused. The last time she came out with a serving of food and beer she checked through all our ticket stubs and looked even more confused. She then asked us in Japanese if we had anymore tickets to which gordo got his extra ones out and showed them to her…bad move! When she saw them she went off on a major rant, all in incredibly fast Japanese with equally as fast and over exaggerated hand gestures @_@ After she finished her tirade and walked off gordo was completely bewildered and had no idea what it was all about but I had managed to work out that once you buy a ticket from the machine it tells the kitchen staff what to cook. He had bought all these items which the chefs had knocked up, yet the waitress had no idea who it was for as he was hiding the slips lolololololol. Was so fucking funny and we spent the rest of the time in fits of giggles about the whole situation. The restaurant stopped serving beer at 10pm (we knew this as gordo tried to buy more and the same crazed waitress shouted “NO MORE BEER!”) so we left.

Straight after leaving the restaurant we hit up a convenience store to buy some MORE beer went to sit in a nearby park to drink like some foreign bums. After looking at some pretty cool ‘interactive’ map of the area (I was pushing the buttons like a little kid) we made our way in the direction that we thought a run of the mill Park was in, but instead we ended up in a Children’s Park ^^; This didn’t overly bother us though, so we sat on some little stone seats near some hand washing facilities, drank our booze and talked about anything and everything. We were even lucky enough to have a member of Morning Musume join us in putting the world to rights. That’s right…

…Kame likes Kirin ‘taste of autumn’ Beer which I have to say, tastes like regular beer. Actually, can anybody tell me what autumn is supposed to taste like? o_O

There were some kids and their mom’s in the park – playing in the sand pit – and when they left they came to use the hand wash in front of us. As they did gordo and I were scrutinised over by the pair of them in the degrading way that only kids can get away with. You can just imagine what was going through their little heads lol. We left the park sometime before midnight and I had to say my goodbye and thanks to gordo on the station platform as this would be the last time we’d see each other. It was really kinda sad and I was a little bit upset on the short train ride and walk back to the hotel in Ikebukuro. In fact, I was so deep in my thoughts about this being the end of such an awesome trip that I failed to realise I was walking across a side street without first checking it was safe to do so. I was soon brought out of my drunken zombie like state by the screeching of brakes to my right, I looked up and some guy on a push bike was a hairs breadth away from me and giving me this shocked / angry glare for obviously getting in his way whilst he was cycling down the road. In true Lolli style I acknowledged him with a slight nod of the head and said “SUP” then carried on walking. It wasn’t until I got in to the lift at the hotel that I realised I’d nearly been in a potentially nasty accident with a cyclist lol. I would not of enjoyed spending my last night getting patched up in hospital, well…unless the nurses were hot <_<

I got back to the room, got changed and passed out in bed. I slept well – probably thanks to the Cola Shock I drank – and I had a Morning Musume related dream. Sadly the next day I had to fly back to boring UK…

End of Event 3 / End of Day 09 / End of Epic Trip to Japan

T_T

29-08-2009

gordokaba unfortunately didn’t win a ticket to this event, so zorrander and I were left to face the music alone. After queuing up and having my phone mail and bag checked I was given my seat ticket. What did I get? Dun dun DUN!

C-2 yeah baby yeah!

This is the third time I’ve had a 3rd row seat at a Morning Musume event – Cinderella the Musical Final, L.A Concert and now this – I’m considering adopting 3 as my lucky number!!! That being said, even though I had 3rd row I was a little disappointed because seat #2 meant I’d be over the far left side of the stage, but fortunately my worries were short lived. Once I got in to the hall and found my seat I realised that it wasn’t as far to the left as I’d imagined and I’d still have a nice viewing angle across the stage. Not only that but the 1st and 2nd rows started about 8 seats in from the 3rd row so I pretty much had a front row seat, apart from I was 2 seats further in distance from the stage – if that makes sense?! My not bad seat shot up to an Oh My GOD! seat and the only way it could’ve been better would’ve been front and centre. My luck had finally come in…my blisters were finally worth something! Hallelujah!

Whilst waiting for the show to start I had a little chat with zorrander who was also lucky and got a seat in the 6th row, practically centre, and decided to pimp myself out with green glowsticks and bracelets in the hope that Risa would spot me at least once during the whole show. They sang the same four songs - I Wish, Go Girl Koi no Victory, Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii jan, Nanchatte Renai – and for some reason being near the front made me get fully immersed in the chanting and glowstick waving. Although it could’ve actually been because I had no-one I knew near me so I had no need to get embarrassed ^^; Being near the front also made me pay more attention to the MC’s and even though I didn’t understand much of them some funny things did happen – like Eri’s shoe coming off after the first song and her having to run off stage to get it fixed / replaced, and also later on Eri calling Sayumi ‘Shige-san’ 3 times, and getting moaned at about it each time lol. Silly Eri ♥

During Go Girl Koi no Victory something happened which made me take one step closer to complete wota happiness. Risa came over to the left side of the stage during part of the song, saw me, and broke in to a huge eye scrunching grin and started waving furiously at me. Everything slowed down and at that moment in time I think I began to understand what a deer caught in headlights feels like. I only managed to muster up a small, lopsided grin and wave back weakly…FAIL! I know at the end of the L.A concert she blew a kiss to myself and zorrander, but that was more in our general direction whereas this was solely aimed at me. Being 100% recognised by my idol meant instant death and ascension to heaven (or some place similar). The next logical step from this will be for her to recognise me when we meet again, then to get her to remember my name (like gordokaba), and to have my photo taken with her. I have a long way to go……GANBARORI!

The rest of the event carried on as normal, and if anyone else noticed me or waved in my general direction I wouldn’t know. I was still on cloud nine over Risa lol.

After the show came the obligatory handshakes and because I was in the 3rd row I wouldn’t have to wait as long as the first even, although the 2nd floor still went first. Whilst waiting for my row to be called I decided to do something in an attempt to make myself stand out a bit more (not that being white and female doesn’t make me stand out enough) so I put on the Tanemaru headband that I bought from the Yokohama Y150 events. I no doubt looked completely and utterly stupid just like I did when I wore a Stitch hat in L.A, but as Stitch gained me some great ground – Jun Jun ♥ – I figured it’d be worth a try.

We filed out, de-bac’d our hands and I was faced once again with the objects of my obsession. The girls were stood in the same order as the first event:

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

and everyone was pushed along uber fast, just like last time.

RISA – Upon seeing me she wore her trademark huge grin and greeted me with a HELLO! ^^ She then said sank-yu a couple of times whilst bowing and shaking my hand profusely lol. Unfortunately she didn’t acknowledge my Tanemaru headband at all, but I’m pretty sure she understands that I’m one of her hardcore fans. If only I lived in Japan, I’d make her realise that for sure ^^ (I’m not talking about stalking…)

LIN – I don’t remember much about Lin Lin as I was still spaced out from the Risa wave and handshake. I don’t actually remember what she said to me, but she speaks good English so I’ve no doubt she said thank you. Sorry Lin Lin…

SAYU – After Sayu death gripped my hand at the first event I had planned to do one of two things when meeting her this time ① Say ‘itaiiii~ if she does it again ② Give her a taste of her own medicine. I decided on the second option as I knew my Japanese wouldn’t be coherent in the state I was in. No, not even a simple word like itai would come out right lol. I squeezed her hand pretty damn hard at she gave me this O_O look. I know I didn’t hurt her because I am aware of my own strength, but you could definitely tell that she was expecting that lol. After that I didn’t get the ‘I wanna rip your clothes off’ look from her so I was slightly disappointed, but inwardly I was laughing my ass off because I shocked her. Hopefully that left a lasting impression of me in her mind! :P

REINA – After what I did to Sayu I was still mentally lol-ing whilst dealing with Reina. As such I don’t actually remember what, if any interaction happened between her and I. There more than likely wasn’t any, just a handshake and sank-yu’s exchanged. LMAO SAYU!

KOHA – Koharu noticed my Tanemaru headband and commented about it to me. I actually have no idea what she said but recognised the word Tanemaru and couldn’t help but notice that she was pointing at my head / it. She looked at me for some kind of response but as I had no idea what she said I just smiled and did a little bow, shook her hand, said thank you and mentally berated myself for failing in Japanese. That’s the second time Koharu has tried to make some kind of small conversation with me, and the second time I just smiled and bowed…FAIL! Now she’s graduating I won’t get a chance to redeem myself which sucks… Anyway LOL @ SAYU!

AIKA – Hahaha I death-gripped Sayu’s hand and gave her a shock, who was that I just passed? Aika…oh…nobody cares…

JUN – Jun Jun just shook my hand and said thank you in perfect English. Nothing more, nothing less. To be perfectly honest I can’t remember much about her so I’m gonna assume that nothing happened.

AI – Ai was slightly spaced out during this event and as such was working on autopilot until I rocked up. She was dealing with the guy who was in front of me, turned to me gabbed my hand before looking at me and went Ari…*looks at me* SANK YU! with a huge Ai-chan grin ^_____^ She’s must be so used to saying arigatou gozaimasu and obviously wasn’t expecting an English person to be there again. Kinda sweet really.

ERI – Eri gave me a huge grin when I was crab shuffled / pushed up to her, grabbed my hand and shook it so softly – yet passionately – and said sank-yu. I was still being pushed along to GTFO, but I was so enraptured by her smile and soft skin that as I walked away I didn’t actually let go of her hand properly!!! We had to walk directly around a corner from the handshake booth so I have no doubt that I dragged her with me, especially as I stumbled backwards slightly because we were still ‘joined’ lol. I know she’ll never read this but Eri…I’m sorry *bows* I know it didn’t faze you because we had an awesome ‘interaction’ at the last event, but I still feel kinda bad for being so retarded at something as simple as a handshake *bows some more*

After being ushered to leave the building I waited for zorrander to come out and then we went to find gordokaba. Whilst we were in the event gordo very kindly bought some of the blind packaged photos and did some wheeling dealing on our behalf to get both Risa photos for me (and both of Aika’s and Risa’s photos for zorrander) – thank you gordo ^^ Whilst sat in the food hall area a Japanese girl who recognised gordokaba came up to chat to us. She had been to the Ai & Risa dinner show and was quite surprised / impressed when we all said that we were there too. After finding out where we were from and who our favourite members were (not that it was hard to guess – member t-shirts yo!) she gave us some boiled sweets from Fukui as a present then made us shake her Nanchatte Renai Hamtaro’s hand before she left. Kinda bizarre but hey, we were in Japan after all! I was still nervous / excited about what had happened and what was to come at the last event, and was STILL incredibly hungry. I couldn’t eat though! Instead we just hung around the food hall before heading off to make our way to the final event…

End of Event 2

[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