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 [...]]]> [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!]

Today we went sightseeing around Tokyo, all in the name of H!P. To start off we decided to check out Ueno Park as everytime we passed through the station we could see the statue which Reina used in one of her HM@ Mou Tube videos. After getting off the train at [...]]]> [26.08.2009]

Today we went sightseeing around Tokyo, all in the name of H!P. To start off we decided to check out Ueno Park as everytime we passed through the station we could see the statue which Reina used in one of her HM@ Mou Tube videos. After getting off the train at Ueno we didn’t know which exit to take, although we somehow managed to take the right one – awesomes! After we found the entrance to the park we wandered around until we could find a trusty map (there’s almost as many street maps in Japan as there are vending machines…almost) as we knew the general direction we needed to go in but just wanted to be sure. The wooded area of Ueno Park was full of Cicada’s which did not please me in the slightest, but was a wet dream for zorrander. Needless to say, I kept my distance from them and flinched like a girly girl a few times when they flew past, but zorrander was getting as close as he could to them and taking photos. Don’t know why I’m so scared of them, but bugs / flying creatures scare the shit out of me…

saigō takamori statue

We found the statue we were after and took a few photos, then had a look at a small shrine that was nearby. One thing I do like about the Japanese culture is the Shinto religion and their places of ‘worship’. I don’t know why but I always feel a sense of peace when I go to them, so I was lucky to visit this one as it would become the one and only I went to on this trip (…). But this one had a pretty cool cleansing trough / fountain so I was happy enough with that.

grand fountain / national museum of western art – ueno park

After leaving the shrine we decided to take a walk to Shinobazu Pond which was not what I was expecting as it was completely covered with lilies and reeds. There really wasn’t much to see so we didn’t stay long before making our way back to the main park. The next place on our list before we left Ueno was a trip to the Hello! Project shop. I knew roughly where the shop is located in Ueno thanks to an online guide, but stupidly couldn’t remember if it was north or south of the station so had to ring gordokaba twice for directions *slaps self*. Funny thing was gordokaba was also unsure of which direction it was in, so after walking the wrong way for a while we had to turn around and go in the opposite direction lol. Once we got to the other end of the station I spotted the coffee shop that gordokaba had told me about, and it was plain sailing from there. After all that though, I wasn’t impressed with this Hello! Project shop and would say it’s the worst out of the three. It’s small and even though the stock is the same as the other shops, it just feels old and musty. I suppose it could have something to do with the ancient poster on the stairs outside…

faded poster fail…

Neither of us bought anything in the shop but zorrander picked up some fruit from one of the market stalls in the street outside, and I just bought a slice of watermelon. Fruit in Japan is GINORMOUS, and really refreshing in the Tokyo heat ♥

Upon leaving Ueno we decided to hit up Tokyo Tower as it’s one of those places you MUST visit whilst in Tokyo, even though it really isn’t that great. When I first travelled to Japan in 2006 I booked an ‘Ultimate Tour’ package and was fortunate enough to have my Tokyo hotel upgraded to a pretty darn posh one (female lift attendants in kimono anyone ^^). My upgraded hotel was right next to Tokyo Tower so I knew that if we walked from the station in the direction if the hotel, we’d get to where we wanted to be. It worked! We found Tokyo Tower and had a look around the two main observation decks, but we didn’t go up to the the highest one as we didn’t want to pay for it lol. Thing is, the view really isn’t that impressive. Okay, so I live in an area of the UK where there’s more green moorland and fields then houses, so seeing a place where there’s hardly any green areas is quite fascinating…for 5 minutes. Then it’s just boring shades of grey <_< The Landmark Tower observation deck was so much better because it’s on a harbour. Yokohama 1 – Tokyo 0!

yuke yuke monkey dance… ~samuii~

Inside the building at the foot of Tokyo Tower is the Guinness World Records museum (amongst many other things), which Morning Musume members have visited a couple of times. We decided that as we were there we’d take a look, but it wasn’t that amazing. Although it is fun recollecting about what H!P members do in these places though, and we had a laugh remembering them all standing on the scales next to this sexy guy…

them some moobs!

We spent a fair amount of time in Tokyo Tower so thought we’d best get some nosh as we I was starving. I saw a sign for Pizza La and decided to try it as Buono! advertise them but…they weren’t that good <_< I’m not that fussy when it comes to food (except for seafood), but the only meat I like on my pizzas is chicken. They didn’t have any chicken toppings and the only one that didn’t feature pepperoni was potato and sweetcorn. POTATO AND SWEETCORN – WTF?! I ate it – it was really bizarre. We also saw a waffle shop called Pink Dot which Buono! also advertise for, so I tried one of them as well. It was bland (do you see a pattern forming?). Although I do have to say it was fun watching the Buono! videos playing whilst we were waiting for our food.

chocolate buono! waffle

The last thing we saw in Tokyo Tower – and the highlight of my day – was Pikachu! As soon as I saw him I wanted to run up and hug him, but that’s not really something that a 26 year old should do. Plus it would’ve gained me some unwanted ‘OMG! LOOK AT THAT STUPID GAIJIN’ attention. As my brain and my body was battling against sense and stupidity some little kids ran up to him and hugged him instead. Oh, how I wish I was a kid again T_T

I hope the guy in the Pikachu suit has been police checked!

Outside of Tokyo Tower we walked around the wooded area outside which Eri, Jun and Lin briefly passed through in Morning Days 1, then we decided to stop off at the Hello! Project shop in Shibuya before going back to our hotel. We met up with gordokaba in the evening and had dinner in a Sukiyaki / Shabu Shabu restaurant called Momo Paradise (awesome name). Quick note – when you go to a restaurant where people are queueing to be seated, don’t just stand / sit down in the queue and wait. That’s exactly what we did and we ended up waiting ages whilst watching all the people that arrived after us go in before us because we hadn’t told them that we required a table…FAIL! I know that Eri talks about Shabu Shabu quite often so I really wanted to try that, but zorrander didn’t think he’d like it so we went for Sukiyaki instead *starts singing Sukiyaki*. We didn’t have a clue what we were supposed to do other than put the meat and vegetables in the pan, so when we started running out of liquid and the pan started to burn I quickly ushered someone over (I didn’t want any flames like the Yakitori incident). Who knew that the two pots of liquid on the table were for topping the pan back up…duh ^^; The meal was really nice and myself and gordokaba ate a lot and drank a lot of beer (as usual). Japanese food is really appealing to me this time so I was glad that I was getting to try lots of different dishes. Sukiyaki goes on my list of food to eat again.

shibuya hello! project shop entrance

Upon leaving the restaurant we made plans for the next day where gordokaba would be joining us for more Tokyo sightseeing. I then wobbled back to the hotel and had a good nights sleep ^^

End of day 06

Today was my birthday, so I did what every person who’s just turned 26 and is holidaying in Tokyo does. That’s right…I went to DISNEYLAND! Woo~!

bridge entrance to disneyland

On the recently updated Morning Musume profile Q&A’s Risa said that she comes to this place 4 [...]]]> [23.08.2009]

Today was my birthday, so I did what every person who’s just turned 26 and is holidaying in Tokyo does. That’s right…I went to DISNEYLAND! Woo~!

bridge entrance to disneyland

On the recently updated Morning Musume profile Q&A’s Risa said that she comes to this place 4 times a month, so I wanted to come here purely to appease my wotadom (hardcore wota’s should visit the favourite haunts of their ichiban’s) and to see if I could figure out why she likes this place so much. I’ve never been to a Disney Resort before as when the opportunity previously arose for me to go to one (Paris) it happened to be during the same week that Morning Musume were in LA, and I think you can probably tell what was more important to me ^^ Anyway…I wasn’t sure of how easy it would be to find the place, but once we started walking through Tokyo Station looking for the Keiyo Line it was pretty obvious we were going in the right direction as a good 90% of the people around us were wearing Disney themed clothes, or carrying Disney bags. My guidebook stated that the Japanese have a fond love affair with Disney, and I was already beginning to see this even though we were still in Tokyo >_<

disneyland would not be complete without a castle

First things first, we had to decide on Disneyland or Disney Sea. Tough choice but for some reason we opted for Disneyland, possibly because we were remembering things from a Hello! Morning that happened there (even though they went in to Disney Sea as well) Plus…who can forget the Mickey Mouse March??? We hadn’t had breakfast so after paying and going through the main entrance we decided to hit up a food place, only problem was there’s so many food places here which one did we want to eat at? Gah! Eventually we opted for a traditional Japanese breakfast of hot dogs, fries and coke. Yummy!

nom nom

Having done the important thing in stuffing our faces (although if I remember correctly zorrander only ate fries), it was time to discover what this place was all about. We had no idea of where to go or what to do first so we just wandered around the whole park. There were a few things that we HAD to experience whilst we were there, and those were;

1. Soy Sauce and Butter Popcorn (Risa gave it five stars on the radio show)
2. Mickey Waffles (Risa listed it as one of her favourite foods in her profile Q&A)
3. Toon Town (Morning Musume Mickey Mouse March >_<)

Toon Town would obviously be the easiest to locate as it’s marked on the map, but the other two things would require us to keep our eyes peeled and look everywhere. First off we wandered through Tomorrowland, saw the Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blaster ride and started reminiscing about the old Hello! Morning episode where past and present members of Morning Musume went to Disneyland. The Buzz Lightyear ride went on the list of things to do, but the queue for it was pretty long so we carried on wandering. It was whilst we were still in Tomorrowland that I noticed this…

found it!

…and had to try some. Regular box 300yen GETS! (zorrander very kindly bought it for me). In the name of wotadom I quickly threw a bit in my mouth, and very nearly spat it back out lol. Soy Sauce and Butter popcorn is seriously not good, but as I was being all hardcore and whatnot I decided I would not waste it and continued to eat the stuff whilst walking around the park. zorrander tried one piece – because I forced it on him – and that was all he had ^^; In the end I managed to eat about 1/3 of the box before my stomach began turning and decided enough was enough. Sadly, the remaining popcorn went in the bin T_T

sayonara disgusting popcorn!

We continued to wander around the park and NOT go on any rides when we heard an announcement for a Cool Down Splash show in front of the castle. We had seen the earlier show from a distance and decided this would be a pretty fun thing to get involved in as it was so damn hot, so rocked up in front of the castle and got ready with about 100 other people in the park. About 5 minutes before the show was due to start everyone began putting towels over their heads, and some people even put on those lame plastic macs that you wear on the log flume etc. Surely we weren’t going to get that wet? The show started, water was sprayed, and 10 minutes later zorrander and I looked like we had been in a flash flood. I kid you not, we were dripping wet! Because of the heat (hair…frizz) I had to go and buy a Stitch popper fastened towel with a hood that I saw people wearing, and decided to wear this around the park for the rest of the day – with the hood up :P

After this we got in the mood to go on something else and decided to hit up the Pirates of the Caribbean ride – due to the fact that it had a short queue. It was whilst we were queueing for it that I saw the American Waffle Company and figured we’d probably find the Mickey Waffles there. Lo and behold…

maple syrup

chocolate sauce

MICKEY WAFFLES!!! Unfortunately / sadly I have to report that Mickey Waffles taste like most dessert type things in Japan. Bland! Risa had let me down with two of her recommendations, and so far I wasn’t impressed with the chow on offer in Disneyland. I don’t quite know what I was expecting though…

After eating our bland waffles we wandered around the park some more before heading to Toon Town for some sightseeing. The area is 110% for kids, but because it was where the Mickey Mouse March was filmed we wanted to go and take some photos. In this area we decided to go on ‘Gadgets Go Coaster’ which is some wimpy roller-coaster for kids. Even though it was wussy and short it proved quite funny as it was a bit of a squeeze to get in to the cart, and was even funnier when trying to get out again ^^; I felt like my ankles we’re up around my ears, and I’m only 5′5″ lol. Poor zorrander had it a lot worse ><

the kid hanging on the side is fookin’ epic. didn’t notice him when I took the pic XD

people should remember this!

After walking around Toon Town and some other parts of the park that we hadn’t seen earlier, we decided on one final ride before calling it a day – Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters! The sign at the start of the queue said it would be a 60 minute wait, so we persevered and went for it. Thinking back to the Hello! Morning episode that I have referenced a few times, we remembered that KonKon was the winner of the challenge, and Sayumi had failed miserably. So we challenged each other to get the highest score. Part way through the ride I was winning with 10,000 points to 700 (yes…a 9,300 point gap), but somehow zorrander managed to hit the target that was worth something like 50,000 points so the end result was 51,000 to zorrander and 44,000 to myself. I was not happy about this. Really not happy! zorrander started to call me Sayumi and continued to do so for a while. I just moaned and groaned all the way back to the train <_<

Upon getting back to central Tokyo we made our way to Akihabara so zorrander could experience a Donki Houte store. I bought an orange Dragonball Z t-shirt with the Kame sign on, and a bag of Haribo Gummi Bears (another thing Risa had given 5 stars too), we then went back to Ikebukuro and picked up some food from Family Mart on the way back to the hotel. Sadly there was no drinking for me tonight, which meant no drunken train rides ‘home’ ;_; I did continue to wear my Stitch towel with hood up everywhere though, and had a very good birthday ^^

End of day 03

(I took loads more photos in Disneyland. If you want to see them all go here – EPIC JAPAN 2009 )

Also…if you’re wondering what the Mickey Mouse March is all about, here’s ya go!

Today was the day that Buono! held their second Rock ‘n Buono! FC concert. As you had to show FC membership to enter the event we couldn’t attend it, so we ended up holding a ‘Hello! Project shop sightseeing day’. YAY! First shop on the list was Harajuku, due to the fact [...]]]> [21.08.2009]

Today was the day that Buono! held their second Rock ‘n Buono! FC concert. As you had to show FC membership to enter the event we couldn’t attend it, so we ended up holding a ‘Hello! Project shop sightseeing day’. YAY! First shop on the list was Harajuku, due to the fact that it’s the nearest one to Ikebukuro.

harajuku’s takeshita dori

Unfortunately I forgot that the shops in Japan have completely random opening hours, and although we got there at 10:30am the Hello! Project shop didn’t open until 11:00am. FAIL! We walked down the length of Takeshita Dori which is the famous street in Harajuku, then stopped for breakfast in a sweet little diner type place. After satisfying our stomachs we walked back to the Hello! Project shop and had a look inside. I only really wanted the Nanchatte Renai photo sets, but they happened to be sold out so I bought Reina’s ‘Very Reina’ PB (PlusQ’s prize for the Hello! Online AX t-shirt comp), and Morning Musume’s Single M Clips DVD. As I had spent over a certain amount of money I had the chance to win photos by playing one of three games. The problem was I couldn’t understand the girl so in the end she forcefully slammed a child’s roulette style toy in front of me, and gestured for me to push the handle down lol. I came away with Risa, Miyabi and Airi photos. GETS!

‘rival’ outfits in harajuku

After leaving Harajuku we went to Shibuya to hit up another Hello! Project shop. My luck was in when I got there as they had the two Nanchatte Renai sets I was after, one of which was the last in stock. 2nd YAY! I also bought a Risa Happy Birthday standee, and won another photo (Risako). Zorrander also won Eri, Captain and Yurina photos which he gave to me, and that was the end of that. We left the shop and went to Tower Records to purchase 3 copies each of Nanchatte Renai, purely for the Event slips.

Final shopping stop of the day was Nakano Broadway where after wandering round the really random shops, I bought the most recent Kindai magazine with the ‘Memories and Memorial’ Morning Musume article, and an old Ribbon no Kishi visual book from Trio 2. Awesomeness!

Later on in the day we were invited to a H!P Kids Wota party that took place after the Rock ‘n Buono! concert. This was held on Odaiba so we got to cross the Rainbow Bridge on the driver less monorail type thing (not a monorail but meh), which was pretty cool. Miyabi’s birthday is on the 26th August so the Wota decided to celebrate it at this get together. A large banner was put up, birthday cakes were bought out, and we all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ ^^

miyabi banner

miyabi birthday cake

One of the Wota spoke English so we had a good chat to him about the extent of our fandom, and what we would be doing whilst in Japan etc. He told the other people in the room that Risa was our favourite member and I received a Risa Happy Summer Champloo~ photo, Risa Ribbon no Kishi t-shirt and a Risa Rainbow 7 t-shirt as gifts. Needless to say, I was very surprised but incredibly happy ^^

After drinking about 5 pints (every time I emptied my glass it was immediately refilled) I was feeling slightly intoxicated which meant I had fun on the train back to the hotel. Because we left as late as we could we had to take the last trains of the night and they were INCREDIBLY busy! This meant I had to stand on the first train. Not a problem normally as I stand up on probably 95% of train journeys, but because I was intoxicated I was leant against the door and had to try and hold myself up so I didn’t fall out everytime they opened >_< Would’ve been very comedic if it had happened though *ouch* The second train back to Ikebukuro was slightly better as I got to sit down, but I kept jolting awake whenever I started falling asleep which earned me some funny looks from the woman sat opposite. I got back to the hotel in one piece though, so all was good.

End of day 01