dandanflyingman

[dandanflyingman]

Today lots of Chinese New Year festivities happening around Central. Gung hei fat choy.

[dandanflyingman]

Last Days In Japan

Well I'm back home now. Been sort of in a semi-comatose state these past couple of days. Our last day in Japan saw us waking up late once again and rushing like crazy out of the hostel. Taking the train back to Narita airport was a nice ride, we passed by rural parts and houses - it reminded me of when we were heading from Nagoya to Tokyo (I think), I looked out the train and saw the sea, streams and a large empty bridge. I won't forget that.

The trip with my friends turned out to be a really fun one. Sure we got lost a lot, walked 5.6km at one point and became human popsicles on the streets but it was all good in the end. We got to see a lot of shrines, temples, culture, clothes, places and people. I think we laughed way too much and cracked too many lame jokes. We got to see the freaking Gazette live in concert, see The Ghibli Museum and eat lots and lots of yummy stuff. Miss Japan already.

I learned lots and saw many things that will definitely help me when making new work. See you guys later! Thanks for reading. BOOYAH. Sora ni kazashita te no hira~~ *does magical floating castle rose dance*

[dandanflyingman]

Day 24 in Tokyo

Here are my friends donning taiyaki and crab headgear. Ooh yeah, you guys are SO cool.

Today is our last full day in Tokyo so we headed back to Cat Street yet again to shop like crazy. We were meant to go to Ginza and look at the red light district tonight but we lost Ada in a massive wave of people and ended up going to Harajuku to see if the McDonalds there had wifi...it didn't. So we ran up and down Takeshita Street and went into every.k/jpop.store and lolled at anything that had Sexy Zone on it before rushing out shamefully. Mar did another of those chance machine thingos with Shhhexxy Zone on it and won me ANOTHER Sato Shori keyring hahaha. So wrong. Yesterday Gazette...today Sexy Zone. Why.

[dandanflyingman]

Day 23 in Tokyo

Last night we were still buzzed about being at The Gazette concert, which led to us waking up late this morning. Our hostel has a lock out time from 11am till 4pm and if you don't get out, you get fined. I woke up with the biggest sore neck ever (from headbanging), reached out to my watch...10:45am. I was like O____O but with more red veins in my eyes.

Anyway took 5 minutes to get ready and off we headed to Akihabara again, then Tokyo, then Shibuya, then Harajuku and then Shinjuku. We wanted to go to Tokyo just because it was called that, and ended up seeing the Imperial Palace. It was nice for 2 minutes before we scooted over to Harajuku to find Sex Pot Revenge, which took about and hour and a half to find. I ended up not getting anything from there because the staff annoyed me and were a bit rude. Onwards, I managed to get to stores that sold Baby The Stars Shine Bright, Milk and H.Naoto, all were real funky and frou frou. We also went to this neat vintage toy store somewhere in Harajuku called Spiral - it's a bit hidden so find the sign pointing to it.

Still mucking around Harajuku, we came to a Jpop/Kpop(?) store that sold idol images and stuff...*coughcough* in my moment of insanity, I played a game that lets you have a heart shaped keyring of an idol member - there I was in front of the Sexy Zone machine. I glance over to my right to see a group of high school boys giving me the eye (pssh yeah okay, but why are YOU in here), I pop in my 200yen and turn the wheel (Sexy Zone is a boy group with an 11 year old who annoys the crap out of me, I only like Sato Shori soo...I was hoping for anyone else but the 11 year old) and then out pops a face, at first I think it's the 11 year old and rage for a couple seconds until I found out it was actually Shori hahaha...it's now hanging on my bag next to my Black Moral bear (that combination is so wrong).

Tonight we had yummy crepes and met Ada/Mar's friend Momoko again who took us for dinner and drinks. Ada...I don't know what to say...she had one and a quarter of a cocktail and she already knocked over her glass and headed to the bathroom. That girl should never ever drink. She was hilarious afterwards though.

Anyway one more day till heading back home. Ja!

[dandanflyingman]

Day 22 in Tokyo

Today was the day...the day of THE GAZETTE CONCERT! Venomous Cell Tour. Lordy Lord. So me and Mar have been Gaze fans for a long time now (especially Mar) and we finally were able to see them live in Yokohama. When we got there, we immediately felt underdressed after seeing all these cosplayers and black visual kei looking people...me? I had a flowery skirt on =_=

But onwards, we got a couple of things from the concert merchandise including a bag, towel and matching bear keyrings. We then spotted a couple of particularly well done cosplayers in the crowd and Mar nervously asked for a photo with them...in her blank mind state, she could only think of a peace sign pose.

The concert started off with Infuse Into...it was so exciting, especially when it switched to Venomous Spider's Web right after with a bang. Literally an explosion that freaked me out a bit. The first few songs were from their most recent album Toxic and a few recent singles and I hadn't actually gotten used to most of them so I couldn't tell which song in particular was playing until Untitled came...that was so good. My favourite parts were Filth In The Beauty, Headache Man, Clever Monkey, Ruthless Deed, 13Stairs, Cockroach, Discharge, Linda...there was so much headbanging, rock signs and yelling. We even followed the crowd and did the hand dancing. Linda in particular was fun for that. It was extremely exciting to see Ruki and the rest close up and coming near us. I can't believe they played 18 songs and then 6 encore songs and then an extra one. 

I really liked the talk Kai gave and Reita's bass solo. After the last encore (un-ko-re!) something awesome came on the screen, showing when the DVD for this tour was coming out and then...a single...no wait...also an album! Everyone started screaming! There was this really nice tune that played as we watched The Gazette's image changes throughout the years from 2002 till now...of which they will now be working on their 10th Anniversary tour!! THE DECADE!! The whole room burst out with excitement. It was BRILLIANT, everything was super fantastic awesome. All that screaming, singing, jumping and head bumping...damn it was a good concert. Gazerock is not dead!

[dandanflyingman]

Day 21 in Tokyo

The day was spent at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. After stopping by Shinjuku for some brunch, we popped back onto the train to get to the museum but the (only) train there was delayed for about 20 minutes...and we were already late for the time listed on our ticket. So after doing some Amazing Race sprinting and cursing, we made it to the museum. I seriously want to live in that place, it's so awesome in there but unfortunately we couldn't take photos inside. There is a very small spiral staircase inside that we used to get up to top floor, where you go through a small door and see a kids only area of a lifesize catbus from My Neighbour Totoro and giant sootballs. Next to that is a gallery filled with the amazing hand painted backgrounds from Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and a few others. From there is the souvenir shop of which I bought a couple of things...but anyway, go down the steampunkish elevator and come to the second floor where you can go explore scenes from the films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and then you can sit in a huge furry catbus. The windows by the way, are stained glass windows with characters from all their films. In another room you can see how they make the films and draw storyboards and post animation works...it was all so magical, I think I was going to puke rainbows.

Outside in the cafe, I got a milk coffee that comes with a Ghibli themed chocolate drawing on the froth - mine was a hat from Howl's Moving Castle...I really wanted a sootball. On the rooftop you can find that statue in the pic above that's from Laputa; Castle In The Sky. On the bottom floor, there's a dark room with melodic music box melodies playing and amazing animation works. The best in my opinion is this huge machine that has Totoro character figurines in each phase of an animation (like how a flipbook would work). The machine spins them around really fast and then a light appears to make the figurines animate, that was serious eye joojoo right there.

I really liked the museum, it was so nice to see how they created their films and what they were inspired from.

[dandanflyingman]

Day 20 in Tokyo

Today we headed back to Harajuku and Shibuya to explore the fashion districts. I really like Japanese street fashion so it was excitement all day. I reckon during winter, the kids probably don't hang around as much along the street but we did see a couple of lolitas. Lots of brand names to check out including Spank, Super Lovers, Cream Soda...I was frothing all day.

Spent about an hour in this one shop along Cat Street called Mocha I think? They have all this awesome vintage jewelry that are relatively cheaply priced. I got a cat ring (cos it was Cat Street...hohoho). Also explored Kiddy Land, soooo many toys o_o

Oh yeah and while at Shibuya station, I got to see the Hachiko statue T_T that was so cool. Hachikoooooo (google if you don't know what that is).

Anyway day 21 shall be at the Studio Ghibli museum. Let's go!

Btw, I have lots more photos that I post on my Facebook instead so after the trip, I'll upload the whole lot here as one of those video type things yeh. 

[dandanflyingman]

Day 19 in Tokyo

Today was spent in Akihabara and of course the first thing we come across is the Gundam Cafe. Akihabara; otaku/electrics land…the amount of anime images was just @_@ mind explosion. I was a little freaked out at the WEIRD stuff you can find there…stuff that is illegal is most places >.> Japan has some reeeeallll pervs. 

Well lots of maid cafe action in Akiha, unless there was a butler cafe, I wasn’t gonna go in haha.

In other notes, the lady who rooms with us is the loudest woman EVER. She gets up in the morning, stomps over to her bag to shuffle amongst her plastic, gulp like a camel and chew like a cow and then constantly flick lights to see which one will turn on. Then she turns the air conditioner on and off and sets it to cool throughout the night and then blabs loudly in Chinese on her phone. Woman is gonna find a frog in her bed soon.

[dandanflyingman]

Day 17 & 18 in Tokyo

We spent a day travelling from Nagoya to Tokyo, taking a 6 hour train ride where there were hardly any free seats. Was so tired that day and it was in the middle of the night by the time we got to our new hostel so I didn't take any piccys. Our hostel is okay but I really miss Hostel Ann in Nagoya, it was amazingggg there, so clean and nice. The night before, me and Mar stayed up till 3am talking to two guys, one of which school in Fiji! What a coincidence. 

So suddenly coming here to a place where we had to make our own bags and carry our heavy bags up three flights of stairs...T_T well...I sobbed about the last hostel even more haha.

But we're in Tokyo! Today we headed to Harajuku and later on Shibuya, meeting up with more of Mar/Ada's friends. The buffet lunch was goooood and relatively cheap, considering the amount of food I stuffed in my mouth. Didn't spend much time exploring or shopping but I did see Hysterics ;D Onwards to tomorrow!

[dandanflyingman]

Day 16 in Nagoya

Picked huge strawberries in the Aichi area today! I think I ate about 30 of them...had to get my moneys worth. Headed to Satsuki and Mei's house (from My Neighbour Totoro), it was so awesome to see everything like it was in the movie, even the clothes neatly sorted away in their drawers.

Above is the sky as we were leaving the area. Thanks to Ai and Yukie for showing us around! Later we met with another of my friends' friend and had beef tongue galore, one of Nagoya's must haves.

[dandanflyingman]

Day 15 in Nagoya

Travelling here is sure a pain, it's so expensive...my eyes popped out of my head. It took forever to get to the Toyota Museum, we left at about 8:30am and got there at 11am? We went on the tour which was free (yay). To be honest, I'm not interested in cars at all and the tour felt like a school trip where I needed to take notes...I still listened though so I guess now I know a few things about how cars are assembled hah. The robots welding the cars was pretty cool though. I enjoyed trying out the cars in the museum though, pretending I owned them and oohing at the coolness.

Met Ada's previous homestay family who were all nice; gramps especially was very funny : D and they gave us blessed daruma dolls :3

So far Nagoya is pretty quiet in many parts but the area we're in comes to life at night.

[dandanflyingman]

Day 14 in Nagoya

Today we arrived in Nagoya! While switching trains, we got to stand amongst snow that hadn't melted away yet, ahhh snow. Travelling was a whole day affair pretty much. Our hostel here is very nice - there are a lot of Arashi fans here staying for their concert.

Ate the chicken wings Nagoya is known for, which were good but weren't spicy at all. Going to go to bed now, I'm so tired. 

[dandanflyingman]

Day 13 in Kyoto

Green tea parfait is so good, I forget which restaurant we had it in but it was amazinggg (it was somewhere in the Nishiki market area - look for a window displaying a mass of mostly strawberry parfaits and one big rotating one). Actually all the food in that place looked so good...I really wished I hadn't eaten breakfast so I could have chowed down on some.

In Animate, a manga crazy store, I found a whole bunch of art supplies including those nice copic markers! The ones you find in Japan and is expensive-as everywhere else. I sweated off 2kg while making a decision of which set to get (ended up getting the above).

Also met Ada's cool university professor who shouted us dinner and cake - dinner in a nice dodgy Chinese-Japanese place haha and cake in a charrrming French patisserie.  

[dandanflyingman]

Day 12 in Kyoto

It was snowing today!! WOO! Fushimi Inari shrine first with lots and lots of gates and stairs...and climbing...and death from climbing (and we only went halfway). I am so unfit. Afterwards, had some ikayaki on the steps near the shrine, and that's when it started to snow! Woah! It was most exciting. It pretty much kept snowing afterwards on and off, getting pretty heavy at some points - like when we went to Kyoto station. We went through the skywalk and explored the place, what a huge station...the stairs...my goat; I could not survive those, they were insanely long. 

At Kiyomizu, the snow came down really heavily, it made everything look super special awesome. It was freezing, but still awesome. Udon was our friend afterwards in Gion. 

Welp that was today; I also bought a keyring thingy of that little white guy in My Neighbour Totoro, I don't know what it's called so I just named it Shirototo-kun. 

[dandanflyingman]

Day 11 in Kyoto

Today's adventure took place in Arashiyama. We decided to take the oldest train in Kyoto to get there; it took about 2 minutes to start the engine every time it stopped. All that didn't matter...especially when you get off the train and see a huge mountain in front of you. There are a lot of souvenir and food shops but the best thing is the tasty air mmmm -sniffffff-

Walked pass the river, up the mountain a bit (the areas with paths) and stared at the scenery. I suppose it's hard to describe what we saw even with pictures because everything was so...vast...and mountainy; it was such a pretty sight. Anyway, after fantasizing for a bit about walking so far that we would travel to feudal Japan, we came to the bamboo path (pictured above). I would build my house in there - out of bamboo.

Oh dinner today was so delicious - egg rice, soba noodle soup! So good especially with the green tea...and then green tea & roasted tea ice cream, it's so yummy.

[dandanflyingman]

Day 10 in Kyoto

I love Pink Latte. That is all. 

[dandanflyingman]

Day 9 in Kyoto - Shogatsu!

明けましておめでとうございます!

My fitness level is really bad, I'd stand at about 10% fitness. So when we rented bikes and rode uphill to visit shrines...well, I almost fainted afterwards - seriously, I spent around 20 minutes trying to recover, forcing blood back to my brain.

My goat, I'm not going to force myself like that again. Well, I had niku udon for new year's breakfast in this little Japanese restaurant; it was by far, probably the best thing I ate here...it tasted like...friendship and magic. I don't know but it was good.

We saw Kinkakuji's golden building and the surrounding gardens and waters, zomg it was so purdy. What made things extra special were the ladies and little girls in their kimonos, they all looked so snazzy. Became a little Japanese and lit a candle there for health and then wrote a message on a piece of wood wishing for you know, general goodiness...and adventures!

Rang a bell, clapped and prayed at Imamiya shrine. It was cool. Oh below are tiny manga we found in our hostel's lounge haha. Happy new year~