By Lolli, on November 26th, 2009
[28-08-2009]
Fukui Ikkimasu!
Yep…today was the day that we made an epic 4 hour journey to Ai’s hometown of Sakai City in Fukui prefecture! I decided way before embarking on this holiday that I wanted to visit the areas where Ai, Risa and Eri grew up and preceded to make preparations before I had even booked my flight and hotel. Eri’s from Tokyo (although I don’t know what part) so I’ve obviously covered her hometown repeatedly. But I’ll be honest in saying that I would like to know exactly which part of Tokyo she’s from so I can visit specific places she may have roamed when growing up. Risa’s from Yokohama so I went there twice (three times with the upcoming Nanchatte Renai events) and got to visit the places she mentioned in the infamous Osaka Koi no Uta Music Fighter. But again, I wish I knew exactly which part she’s from as Yokohama is a vast city. Ai’s hometown on the other hand I had never been too, and if I wanted to visit it I’d have to locate the place first :S Having only Wikipedia to go by I found out that she was from Sakai City in Fukui prefecture but Sakai City is not actually a city in our sense of the word, but is a merger of four towns (Harue, Maruoka, Mikuni and Sakai). I didn’t know specifically which town she was from so originally I just planned to visit the general area and a couple of tourist attractions that are there. Luckily for us Ai was recently on a Fukui TV shows called Iiza Ee Day which helped us slightly by offering more Ai related things to do whilst we were there. I hadn’t actually watched these two shows (although I had downloaded them) but zorrander remembered that she visited a biscuit factory in one and when he researched the factory we found that it was in Maruoka. As soon as we knew that we decided that would be the first destination we’d head for.
On the evening of the 26th I spent a fair amount of time working out which trains we needed to get and how much time we would be required to make this all do-able, but for some strange reason I couldn’t find the destination we needed – Maruoka – on Hypedia *grrr* Since coming back to the UK I realised that I had been spelling it wrong which is why I couldn’t find it…FAIL! Even though we did manage to get there in the end this mistake on my part meant we ended up in the wrong place first, although for part of the sightseeing I wanted to do it was actually the right place *roll eyes* We had booked our Shinkansen tickets the day before so were ready to rock and roll with reserved seats for the journey between Shinagawa and Maibara, which was good as that was the longest part of the journey at just over 2 hours. I didn’t sleep well the night before because I was worried I hadn’t done enough planning / research to stop us getting lost, plus I was also worried about oversleeping and missing out on the whole trip. This meant I slept for the majority of the journey >_<
maibara station…
Upon reaching Maibara we started to realise that we were already heading into ‘rural’ Japan which was pretty cool, but this is where my earlier planning cock up came in to play. Because I couldn’t find Maruoka on Hypedia I went for another place I found that was in the general direction that we needed to go in. This place was called Awaraonsen. Luckily my ‘pick a place any place’ decision was on the same train line as Maruoka, but unbeknown to me two types of train run along the track – a Local and a LTD Express. In order to get from Maibara to Maruoka we should’ve changed trains in Fukui, but as I thought we’d go to Awaraonsen we could use the LTD Express to travel directly there quicker, which we did. Unfortunately the LTD express only stops at the ‘bigger’ stations and ploughs through all the smaller ones, so we passed through the stop we wanted without even knowing it lol.
  
boars made out of bowls and stuff at awaraonsen station
Upon reaching Awaraonsen we left the station and started to look around for some kind of map. The area was more built up then we expected and luckily had a tourist information centre near the exit of the station. After looking over a map of Fukui for 5 minutes and comparing the Kanji place names I wrote down on my iPhone, the Japanese woman behind the desk decided to give us an English guide as we were leaving! Like gah dammit woman, you could see we were struggling yet you didn’t get out from behind your desk to help us out!!! BITCH! Once we were back outside I looked through the guide and confirmed that we were in the wrong place so we headed back in to the station. Once in there I decided to ask the very nice station attendant (who was female), where Maruoka was on the map and how we’d get there. Unfortunately I’m a little bit shy with my limited Japanese and because she was quite nice I kinda choked on my words lol. It took me two attempts to get “Maruoka wa doko desu ka” out >_< Eventually she showed me how to get where we wanted and even told me what time the train was coming as we needed to catch the ‘Local’. We had to wait 30 minutes for the next train so I studied the guide on the platform only to find that one of the tourist spots I wanted to visit was accessed from Awaraonsen (by bus tour). Tojinbo (Suicide Cliffs) is somewhere I really wanted to see as it’s kinda strange to visit cliff areas in Japan. Everyone goes to Tokyo which has a harbour / bay area and Yokohama has the same so cliffs would be really exciting for me (especially as I come from an area famed for it’s coastline), plus this was a spot where many Japanese people take their lives. zorrander wasn’t interested in the Suicide Cliffs and just wanted to get to Maruoka so I had to forget about that. Next time I come to Japan for an extended period of time I will try to go there.
maruoka station
Maruoka was very different to Awaraonsen in the fact that it was manly large, open spaces of country side with small clumps of houses stationed here and there. The air was clear and the only sound to be heard was that of birds and the occasional car. It was heaven after all the time we had spent in busy Tokyo and Yokohama ♥ Our aim in Maruoka was to visit the Satsukigase shop which Ai visited in Fukui Iiza Ee Day and to buy some of the Ai biscuits that she talked about on the show. zorrander had drawn a rough map but as there really wasn’t any landmarks to go by I knew we had a bit of a job on our hands. Luckily I remembered that it was south west of the station, and the fact that the station lies north-south meant I could get us going in the general direction. We walked in the right direction for about 10 minutes without seeing another person except for them passing by in their cars, so when we were walking past some houses zorrander stopped to ask a guy (the first guy we saw there) for directions to the shop. As anything other than the basic of basics Japanese is beyond me I let zorrander deal with this, although he only managed to pick up slightly more than me. Going by his hand signals alone (in my case) we started off again on our trek to get some biscuits. Roughly another 15 minutes after walking along the road we heard a beep and the old guy that we asked for directions pulled up in his pick up truck and told us he’d give us a lift. I was pretty bowled over by his generosity, especially as we were both foreigners with hardly any Japanese speaking ability between us. Either way I was glad of the lift because it would’ve taken us about 40 minutes to walk there ourselves >_<
  
satsukigase sign outside the shop / factory
Once he dropped us off at the shop we made our way in to buy what we were after – 1 packet of these crunchy peanut biscuits that she helped make on the Iiza Ee Day show and 2 boxes of the Ai Evangelion biscuits. Want an opinion on them? Crunchy Peanut biscuits are vile, so vile in fact that I sent the rest of them out with some presents I picked up (sorry guys…) and as for the Ai Evangelion biscuits…they were bland! Thinking back I expect it was really quite strange for the people working in the shop. Just from the general feel of the area I doubt they see many foreigners around those parts and they had two of them in their shop in one day! Actually…we were probably their only customers of the day lol (yes it was that quite there)
We decided to walk a different way back to the train station (or the general direction of the train station) and the way we chose was incredibly windy. I’m not particularly worried when it comes to my looks but one thing that I can’t stand is my hair being blown around everywhere, so I remedied it by wearing a beanie……in the sweltering heat! Saved me from looking like I got dragged through a hedge backwards but boy was I sweating ^^;
     
When we made it back to the station I realised that we had lots more time left in Maruoka so we set out on two missions. 1 – To find Maruoka Castle and 2 – To find some food! Once again I knew the general direction of the castle as it was marked on the guide we got from Awaraonsen, so this meant it couldn’t be too hard to find right? Right?…WRONG! We walked, and walked…and walked for miles and we couldn’t see any sign of a freaking castle. None whatsoever <_< Apart from the mountains that were in the distance Sakai City is 100% flat so using my theory that a ‘castle is a form of protection and thus should be sited high up so they have a perfect view of everything’ we looked around for an elevated building. There weren’t any… We carried on walking and walking until we came to a very small industrial estate and zorrander and I decided that we would walk just a little bit further through the buildings to see what was on the other side. Lo and behold…there was the bastard castle!
see the castle? it’s there I swear!
*if you click on the photo and view the original size you’ll find there’s a rotating Mc Donalds sign very near the castle*
To hell was I going to walk all that way to see a castle that – from this distance – didn’t look as impressive as the ones I’ve visited before (Himeji and Nagoya), so we decided to cut our losses and make our way back to the train station. On the way back we looked around for some place to eat at but there was nowhere. Near the train station there were two small shops but they mainly sold alcohol and stuff that was more than likely not what it looks like and as I wasn’t going to try my luck we decided to put up with empty stomachs until we reached our next destination – Fukui. Just to help you get a perspective of what this place was like (if the photos don’t help enough), we spent a fair few hours there and we walked a large area around the station. In the time we were there we probably saw a maximum of 5 people in total, plus a playground full of kids. That was it! If it wasn’t for the fact that we saw a few cars every now and again I would’ve thought we had stumbled upon on a land version of the Mary Celeste! It was really nice though and it’s a part of Japan I would love to visit again, but only for a day as it’d get very boring very quickly.
bye bye maruoka
hello fukui city
Fukui station’s nice… That’s about the only good thing I can say about the place. Harsh? Maybe, but this place felt like something and nothing. The station has been rebuilt recently so looks aesthetically pleasing from the outside, but the rest of the city is tatty and old looking. All the shops seemed like they were for people of a ‘mature’ age and nothing interested me in the slightest. Ai also visited Fukui City on the Iiza Ee Day show and whilst she was there they visited a galleria that she used to spend her pocket money in. I saw what it looked like in the video but neither of us had any idea where it was so we just wandered nomadically. We were actually primarily looking for something to eat but figured that if we found this place it’d be like a Brucey Bonus. I was leading us round some roads making sure I kept a track of where the station was then all of a sudden I spotted the galleria.
As we walked through the galleria I was looking at all the shops to try and figure out where Ai would’ve spent her money as a kid. My conclusion is that the stores have more than likely changed since she was a young whipper snapper as the place was full of boutiques only your granny would find interesting. What a let down. Upon exiting the other side we made our way back around the outside of the building and went to eat in Mc Donalds. I decided I’d had my fill of Fukui and we made our way back to the station to catch an earlier train to Tokyo. Sakai City / Maruoka was so different that it was nice to see but Fukui City was utter pants. Sorry Ai-chan…
On the Shinkansen from Maibara to Tokyo we sat next to a middle aged lady and I had a short chat with her. She knew we were English as she offered us the seats next to her on the train (it was packed) but the woman managed to dupe me to start off with. zorrander had put his headphones in and was listening to music so I was quite bored and she said something to me in Japanese. At this I started to say “gomen nasai, nihon-go ga wakarimasen” and she said in perfect English “Where are you from?” COW! Anyway, she thought it was kinda funny that we had travelled all the way from Tokyo to visit Fukui and just asked me one simple question…”why?” I couldn’t tell her that one of my favourite idols was born and grew up there for fear of having to explain myself, so instead I just settled on telling her some random crap. After the little conversation I fell asleep again for the majority of the trip ^^
Once back in Tokyo gordokaba and I met up in Kanda to have dinner so after looking around most of the restaurants we settled on Yakitori. I’m hoping I can find this place again because the food was absolutely amazing and boy did we eat a lot of it. In true lolli and gordokaba style we drank plenty of alcohol and ended up spending just over 12,000 yen – £65 at the time – on chicken and beer (some cabbage and rice too). I didn’t think this was bad but gordokaba was like WTF?! O_O when we had to pay lol. We said our goodbyes and I made my uneventful but drunken way back to the hotel to find that I was locked out of the room and zorrander was asleep >< After banging on the door periodically for 10 minutes I decided to give up and sleep in the corridor, but luckily zorrander opened the door just as I was getting comfy. I thought I’d sleep well that night what with all the fresh air and Japanese beer but no…the impending events of the next – and final – day were playing on my mind. I was already excited for what was to come…
By Lolli, on November 25th, 2009
It seems that all my hard work and overtime has paid off as I will be attending the Nine Smile tour final, which just so happens to be Koharu’s graduation concert *sob sob* At the moment I have no concert ticket because my ￥75,000 budget won’t stretch to what I want and I haven’t even booked my flight. The latter will be done tomorrow. So with that in mind it’s a bloody good job that I’m one of those strange people who enjoys working under the pressure of leaving everything to the last minute because…I will be flying out next Wednesday. Some of you may be thinking ‘￥75,000 for a ticket?! WTF? The original price is only ￥6,000′ but in the grand scheme of things ￥75,000 is not a lot. Tickets for the first 5 rows are changing hands for well over ￥100,000 a pop and a front row seat recently sold for ￥800,000!!! Ticket prices are insanely high due to the fact that the venue – Tokyo Welfare Pension Hall – doesn’t have a large seating capacity, plus Koharu is probably the 3rd most popular member of the group and as such many fans want to say goodbye to her. Even though Koharu comes in around the middle of my Morning Musume member rankings when I heard the news I immediately decided that I had to attend this show as it’s the first graduation since I became a fully fledged fan of the group. If I don’t go I know I’d regret it for a long time. Sadly there are other fans that need / deserve to be there more than me, but as they can’t go I will embody their appreciation and sadness for the graduating member, and will endeavour to express their support through ‘KO-HA-RU’ chants as much as I can. I know that this is going to be a very emotional experience for me and as such I’ve managed to persuade TerryXX to get a seat next to me (if we can), so when I’m crying like a fool I can actually spout incoherent crap in English and have somebody understand me lol. I don’t think he knows what he’s getting himself in too!!!
I already making myself all emotional just by writing this post, so as this event hasn’t even happened yet I’m going to try and make this a bit less glum. I’ve been working and planning this trip so much I actually forgot what songs were on the Nine Smile set list so after trawling through the thread on Hello! Online I found them and now I’m going to give my thoughts and expectations on each song.
♥♥♥
01. 3,2,1 BREAKIN’ OUT – I enjoyed this at the anime expo in L.A so I’m glad I’ll see it performed again here. I’m kinda thinking it won’t be used much after this concert although I could be wrong. It could become the new Mikan!
02. How Do You Like Japan? ~Nippon wa Donna Kanji Dekka?~ – My all time favourite MM/H!P song!!! This song is Risa’s baby and she always performs it with her OTT reaction queen enthusiasm – even when she’s ill. Very much looking forward to this d(^_^)b
03. Kimagure Princess – Boob Pumping and Butt Rubbing. What more could you ask for?
04. Nanchatte Renai – I’ve seen this song performed 3 times already so the only thing I’ll be looking out for here is Risa rubbing her hands down her boobs lol. What? >_> <_<
05. Genki+ – YES! YES! YES! Best song on Sexy 8 Beat (Shanimuni Paradise is a very close second) and I can’t wait to see it performed by the group without Yossi and Miki. In my opinion it’ll be much MUCH better then the original :P
06. Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou? Chinese version (All members) – I can’t wait to hear everyone singing in Chinese just for the lol factor. Hopefully it won’t sound as bad as I imagine it will <_<
07. Sukiyaki (Niigaki Risa and Kusumi Koharu) – My most anticipated song of the concert. I love Sukiyaki and having Risa sing it as a duet with Koharu means the performance should be a laugh. I’m actually just as excited about this song as I am about attending the concert itself ^^;
08. Haru Beautiful Everyday (Kamei Eri and Mitsui Aika) – I quite like the song but it’s not amazing. Hopefully having Eri on stage will stop me from wanting to stab myself when Aika is singing her lines…
09. Kioku no Meiro (Takahashi Ai and Tanaka Reina) - Awesome song which should look and sound great being performed by these two. Hopefully it isn’t lacking without the rest of High-King.
10. Aruiteru (Michishige Sayumi → Morning Musume joins in halfway) – Sayumi’s singing skills aren’t amazing but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt as her version of Lemon Iro to Milk Tea was my favourite out of the three Rokkies from the Resonant LIVE tour. One performance to look out for.
11. Aki Urara – Not a fan of the song but as something has to blow during this concert it’ll probably be this. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised *LMAO – when I started writing about this song Aki Urara started playing on my iTunes. Spooky!
12. Shouganai Yume Oibito – I wanna see this live just for the ‘pumping’ parts. Pity they won’t be wearing the same cream outfits as they wore for the PV but meh, can’t have everything.
13. Sakura Mankai (Takahashi Ai, Niigaki Risa, Kamei Eri, Mitsui Aika and Linlin) - I prefer the other Sakura Gumi song over this one but I’m still interested in seeing it. Just a pity they put Aika in there but then she suits this more than Otome Gumi.
14. Yuujou ~Kokoro no Busu ni Naranee!~ (Michishige Sayumi, Tanaka Reina, Kusumi Koharu and Junjun) – To be perfectly honest I’ve not heard this song before o_O I just watched a small part of it on You Tube (so can save my cherry popping for Japan) and from that little listen I prefer Ai no Sono ~Touch My Heart!~ over this. I can see it making for a lively performance though and I’m glad that Jun Jun’s been put in this group as she suits this style of song more than Sakura Mankai.
15. Dekkai Uchuu ni Ai ga Aru – Whenever I hear this song I think of the 24 hour TV show which is kinda like Britain’s Children in Need <_< Although I do like the song it always make me feel sad lol. This is probably where I’ll start crying about the graduation…
(Start of Coupling/with medley)
16. Bonkyu! Bonkyu! BOMB Girl – Awesome song to start a medley with! I wanna see Sayumi running backwards whilst singing the “ichi-ni-san-shi…” part so I hope they use the first half of the song here and the second half at the end!
17. Please! Jiyuu no Tobira – I’m really not a fan of this song and as such I’m glad that it will only be partially performed. I can’t say anything more really.
18. Handmade CITY – Holy Hentai Batman! Why the hell is this a medley song??? Hopefully the way it’s set up will make up for this fact, but god I love this song and it’s seems like an injustice to not play it in it’s entirety >_<
19. Odore! Morning Curry – Once again another awesome song put in to a medley. I have my fingers crossed that these two songs are incorporated together in some incredibly clever way *prays*
(Coupling/with medley ended with Bonkyu! Bonkyu! BOMB Girl again)
20. Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari (Full version, Junjun → Linlin → Mitsui Aika → Kusumi Koharu → Michishige Sayumi → Kamei Eri → Tanaka Reina → Niigaki Risa → Takahashi Ai) – Another YES YES YES! song! I’ve wanted a version of this with Jun and Lin for some time now and I’ve always hoped to see it performed live. It’s one of the few songs which makes me wish I could understand Japanese T_T
21. Naichau Kamo – Grrr! I dislike this song with a passion although I must admit that I say “COME ON COME ON COME ON COME ON” in a Kamo way in work lol. Maybe seeing it live will make it grow on me.
22. Resonant Blue – I like the song but I don’t like the fact that Risa and Eri got shafted in it (although not as shafted as Sayu, Aika, Jun and Lin). Highlights should be Ai-chan’s random leg shaking thing and Eri’s spazzy dancing XD
ENCORE
23. SONGS – The opening to this at the Platinum 9 Disco concert was amazing so I’m wondering what they’re going to do here. I’ll probably be slightly disappointed but I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
24. Love Machine – Old faithful like Berryz Kobo’s Special Generation. I’m glad this is in here as it’s another song I’d like to see performed live and I also think it’ll be a pretty good song to end the concert with. I wonder if Koharu will get her wish to do the opening “DEIAA” part instead of Risa. As it’ll be her last concert as a Hello! Project member I hope she gets to do this *fingers crossed*
Roman ~MY DEAR BOY~ was on the set list I got from Hello! Online as song number 22 but was not on the recording I downloaded of the Chiba concert. I didn’t listen to the whole fan recording so if it’s performed or not I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find out once I’m in Japan.
♥♥♥
All that’s left for me to say now is that I hope nothing goes drastically wrong so that I can’t attend this concert at all. The only thing I can see going wrong is that because of my fussiness I miss out on buying a ticket through Yahoo Auctions. If that happens I’m gonna have to go through a re-seller and that could be majorly costly, but I do have a back up plan in place for this, I think… All that stands between now and then is 60 hours of work, a 4.5 hour coach journey to London Heathrow and a 13 hour indirect flight via Munich. Hello boredom! It’ll be worth it in the end though ^^
GANBARORI!
By Lolli, on October 22nd, 2009
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
By Lolli, on October 15th, 2009
[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
By Lolli, on October 2nd, 2009
[27-08-2009]
Yet another sightseeing day but this time gordokaba came along for the ride, plus today was also the day we’d find out if we were lucky enough to win Nanchatte Renai release event tickets. First off we decided to check out the Sunshine International Aquarium which is located at the top of the Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro. I’m not really a fan of things from the sea – both to look at and to eat – but decided that this could be quite interesting, plus it was very near to our hotel. On the way to the Aquarium gordokaba received mail from Hello! Project to say that zorrander had won tickets to all three release events in Yokohama. Unfortunately my applications were handled by gordokaba’s friend and I had to wait for him to wake up before I found out. I was both majorly happy yet incredibly jealous that zorrander had got in to all three events and was on tenterhooks for most of the morning whilst waiting to find out about my own predicament…
Wandering around the aquarium was quite relaxing but I didn’t see anything different then what we have in the UK. Ohh I lie…they did have lots of turtles but that was the only real difference. There could’ve been more things that they had that were different, but a fish is a fish to me >_<
some kind of fish. this variety doesn’t go well with chips T_T
Luckily the Sunshine International Aquarium doesn’t just contain ugly fish but also had some small animals as well, the cutest of which were probably the Fennec Foxes. We had to go into a special enclosure to see them and could get pretty close to all the animals within the enclosure, but you wouldn’t want to touch any of them…HELLO RABIES (I’m joking…maybe) They also had smelly penguins and a cage / tank which contained one otter and some monkey type things. Pretty bizarre coupling if you ask me. Maybe they’re trying to make a monkey – otter hybrid animal and it’ll be their very own version of the Wuzzles…
Whilst we were in the aquarium they had a Sea Lion show which I was quite entertained by. The two Sea Lions we’re just doing different tricks trying to out entertain each other and win the most applause. I think the votes were rigged and it was an unfair victory. The other Sea Lion should’ve won!
    
kawaii fennec foxes
Upon leaving the Sunshine International Aquarium gordokaba decided to take us to see the huge Gundam at Odaiba. I’ve never watched an episode of Gundam but I know the general gist of the show and was very interested to see this because it’s a HUGE FREAKING ROBOT! I’m pretty sure that this is the 1/1 scale model that used to be in the Tokyo Bandai museum but that place closed down not long before I first went to Japan in 2006, and the Gundam was due to leave Odaiba at the end of August so I considered myself pretty lucky for getting this opportunity to see it. The whole time we were following the グンダン signs gordokaba was asking ‘can you see it yet’ so I was looking around everywhere like a little kid as it had to be noticeable, it just had to be. I mean the thing is freaking huge so how could we not see it way before we got to it? What I failed to remember is the Japanese are ninja masters so you don’t actually get sight of the thing until you’re quite close to it, where you see it’s head / shoulders over some trees.
trees are big, gundam is bigger!
  
I come in peace!
The Gundam was bigger than I imagined and the place was packed which was awesome. If you wanted you could queue up to walk between its legs and touch it’s feet. zorrander wasn’t interested in this but gordokaba and I were totally up for it so we went and got in line. The queue looked really long but we were only stood in it for about 15-20 minutes until it was our turn and the pair of us were the first in a group of people to go up to it’s left foot (about 20 people were let up at a time – to each foot). When we walked up to it we slapped it pretty hard just for the hell of it lol. It’s made out of fibreglass so sounded just like we were slapping a boat, like a hollow sound… Yes I am a little kid!
Leaving the Gundam we stopped briefly to pick up some shaved ice and then made our way around the coastline in the direction of Rainbow Bridge hoping to find somewhere to eat. The sun was starting to set over Tokyo so the views were really nice, and even though there were quite a few people walking around it was really peaceful and tranquil. I found it pretty cool that somewhere like this exists so close to Tokyo as it makes it really easy and refreshing to get out of the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. Whilst we were walking around Odaiba gordokaba’s friend rang to tell him the outcome of my Nanchatte Renai applications. The result was dun dun DUN…I won tickets to all 3 events!!! YAY YAY! I was now finally happy and walked around with a huge grin on my face for a while. All 3 events GETS! Now I just had to wait for the 29th to arrive, and it couldn’t arrive too soon. Pity I still had a day to go between now and then ;_;
   
After walking around looking at restaurant menus in Aqua City we ended up eating in an ‘all you can eat’ American Diner because it was the cheapest. The problem with Japanese restaurants is that there’s always queues for the good places and I think we were stood in line for about 30 minutes before a table became available *sigh* Because it was a one off flat fee I decided I was going to stuff my face with as much as I possibly could within the 90 minute time limit we were allocated. I shovelled in a fair amount of fried chicken, french fries and onion rings but ended up eating mostly pasta and salad washed down with Sprite (oh my gah…no alcohol!!!) After eating so much that I felt like I was going to throw up I decided I would try to fit some dessert in my stomach as well. I picked up some jelly and a piece of brownie and my body was adamant that it didn’t want it, but I’m the boss of me so it had it took it like a bitch, and it liked it!!! We left after only 45 minutes, hunger satisfied ^^
It was now dark outside and Rainbow Bridge was all lit up showing us why it has that name, although you can’t tell that from my photos as all the lights look the same colour when they’re not. It looked pretty darn awesome with the mini Statue of Liberty in front and Tokyo Tower behind but it’s just a pity they don’t have a special area specifically for taking photographs as we couldn’t get up high enough for the perfect shot. This one came out pretty well though so I’m pleased. We also walked back around to the Gundam statue to see if it was still busy and if it was lit up. Sadly it wasn’t lit up so I couldn’t get any photos of it in the dark, but there was still the same amount of people swarming around it as there were earlier. Bloody crazy!!!
rainbow bridge, statue of liberty and tokyo tower
We made our way back over to Tokyo and once we got to Shinagawa we departed company with gordokaba as he was going the opposite way on the Yamanote. When zorrander and I got back to Ikebukuro we decided to stop off at a Crepe shop (Crazy Crepes) that we’ve walked past at least twice a day since we started this trip to sample their products. I wanted a banana and chocolate crepe but they had no bananas left so opted for a strawberry one. It was incredibly sweet and would’ve tasted a lot better if it was warm but meh, I had popped my crepe cherry as I had never had one before. Not even in the UK. After getting back to the hotel we had some internets time, watched some Hello! Project stuff that I had on my laptop then went to bed. Because we had to be up pretty darn early the following morning to travel to Fukui it was imperative that we rested well, especially as we had done a lot of walking today and we had a whole lot more to do once in Maruoka!
End of day 07
tokyo 2016 olympics…gundam demands it!!!
[damn you Rio!]
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