Japan, Weeks 9-11

Sorry I’ve been so long in updating… first things were not exciting and I just didn’t update out of laziness, and then things started happening really fast… and week 10 I was pretty much just completely out of order, haha.

 

 

 

Basically nothing happened during week 9… it was just the normal get up, go to work, come home, do homework, go to sleep week.

EXCEPT.

Those of you that read my blog consistently already know that that was the big week of my trip, because I finally went to see the GazettE. (There is already a blog entry on this that you can go read.)

And it was so much fun that I’m going to go again! I have already bought a ticket to see them in Ōmiya on November 9th, and I am going to pop in on the 8th to see if there is a spare ticket I can buy. I enjoyed myself so much and it has made me feel so good, so confident that I want to go again as many times as I can.

Why, you might ask? The basic answer is that to see the band whose music saved me and inspires me, and continues to save me and inspire me, and see those people who have been saved by their own music, and who strive on despite overwhelming difficulties, who have succeeded despite their pasts and who enjoy what they do, enjoy seeing their fans, and make music just to save people like me… seeing them in the flesh cements the inspiration. I can make it through. I can make a difference, I can do what I dream of, and I can endure through anything, because these people are real, in the flesh, right in front of me.

So I want to see them again and again, because despite being a part of the crowd of thousands (which is extremely fun inof itself), they make you feel like you are the only one there. They make you feel like they are there for you.

Or maybe I’m just being dumb and fangirlish, but that’s the feeling I got. They want every single individual to feel like this is their time, this live is for them, this music is for them, and they make you feel like everyone in the livehouse are friends, family… you’re all in it together. And that, along with the individual inspiration, is something that makes me feel so good that I can never put it into words.

So I want to go again.

 

 

With that said, the physical demand of the live put me basically out of commission for the next week. xD The day after, I could barely walk. I just laid on the ground and slept half the day to let my body try to recover (and remember I’m already sick!). My neck and back and shoulders were in pain probably up until the Thursday from the headbanging and furisuke. But it was totally worth it.

Week 10 was another one of those work-go home-do homework-sleep weeks, just that I was so exhausted I hardly noticed it at all.

The big event of week 10 was that I finally got a haircut.

As you can see, it was desperately needed since I was unable to see.

Mana, my manager, took me to a huge mall in Urawa (in the main part of Saitama) to the Unix salon, which is a very high-class salon, there. (And I know that some visual-kei/Jrock star goes to a Unix salon, because they’ve said so on Twitter. I want to say it’s Ruki or Kamijo, but I could be wrong.) I got a cut with the director, which is the second-best stylist in the salon.

It was pretty interesting. Along with the haircut, I got a shampoo/scalp massage and a neck and shoulder massage. :D It was nice.

I hate to say it, because I love my stylist in America, but this is the best haircut I’ve ever had. Itagaki took very good care to do exactly what I told him to do to the best of his ability (to the point where he would pick up my iPod and look at the picture I provided him as reference for my fringe, put it down, cut a tiny amount off my hair, then look back at the picture). My hair feels so light now! And it styles out sooo nicely, because he point-cut it and razored it into random feathers, so it looks quite nice even when I don’t take a huge amount of time to do it.

And it feels nice to not have a ton of weight on my head. :3

 

 

This last week, week 11, I headed into Ibaraki to finally start doing test assessments. I was really nervous, but it ended up being a lot of fun, and I was well taken-care of.

Some pictures of the hotel, and views out of the windows.

 

I was in Kashima, part of Kamisu, which is a sort of out-of-the way place. But it was very nice, had a lot of really nice-looking buildings… it kind of reminded me of Anchorage, minus the greenery and mountains and cool weather.

I went into a school (and actually into it, not seeing just a few rooms) for the first time! It was quite an interesting experience, and a lot of the kids seemed scared of me the first day, but they warmed up to me the second day. The first day, a very friendly third-grade girl approached me and told me that everyone thought I was ikemen (Japanese for a very good-looking guy. GUY, not girl), which made me laugh and extremely happy. I am an ikemen! One of my life goals has been easily accomplished.

By the second day, I had a chorus of students following me down a hall as I left, shouting “Hello! Hello! Hello!” over and over again lol. It was so cute. Japanese kids are sooo funny. x3

 

Me the day of, sporting my new haircut and my men’s blazer. I am totally an ikemen.

Setup for the assessment~

Woohoo Japanese sliding doors!

Lunch the first day, yakiudon. Quite good.

 

And then I returned to Tokyo~

 

 

 

So, random picture time!

 

Had a really beautiful sunset sky in Hatogaya. I’m glad I got pictures.

 

 

Castella! A very nice little snack for only 98~

 

I bought the WOWOW channels so that I could watch the Summer Sonic digest. GazettE was the first day~ Unfortunately Ruki sounded like he might have been sick. 8C And the whole first day was really a flop, it was terrible. The second day was really really good though. :3 Finally saw X Japan and Yoshiki the femme.

(It’s too bad I didn’t figure out how to get WOWOW before they aired the U2 360 concert digest! 8C 8C 8C)

 

 

I got a strawberry jam castella treat from Mikaido when I was having cravings. It was sooo good x3 Soft and spongey~

 

I ran out of the straightening shampoo I brought over for America, so I have to use Japanese shampoo now. Nothing wrong with that, just that they don’t have straightening shampoo xD So I got the “nature smooth” version hoping it will keep my hair sleek.

 

Rose fragrance to give my apartment a nice relaxing scent.

 

Tres leches doughnut that my department head bought me before I went to Kamisu.

Also a pumpkin sweet bun. This thing was HUGE. x3;;

 

Delay due to obstacle thing. Yay Engrish!

 

Ochanomizu station, on the platform.

 

 

This is Iidabashi, where I work. I’ve never really posted pictures, so while I was waiting at the station to be taken to Tokyo, I snapped a few shots.

 

Curry udon!

 

This is what I had for lunch and dinner for awhile. It was a donburi with pork, egg, and kabocha. Because of the egg and the kabocha it was a bright yellow colour. x3 It turns out that this was actually the least tasty thing I’ve made my entire trip here, but that’s most likely because I forgot to buy one of the main ingredients (thought I didn’t need it) and I probably underseasoned everything else. It wasn’t too bad, just added a bit of soy sauce and it was all right. But definitely far from the best.

 

Did the Rukikubi for a night before I got my hair cut. I need to practise more, but I will say that I like the makeup I settled on for this very much.

 

I love my Blackmoral bandana. <3 Too bad I don’t have a nice Japanese face for wearing it. ;__;

 

This was an advertisement at the 7-11 we went to to get lunch in Kamisu. Win.

 

 

That about sums it up for the last few weeks. I’ll be travelling around a lot the next month for work, and I have the (hopefully) two GazettE concerts in a couple of weeks, so I’m looking forward to that.

 

 

 

I’m still not ready to go back. I don’t want to go back at all. I really want to stay here. I’ve found myself here, and I’m so comfortable here. I have my moments where I do feel really lonely, but it is never bad enough that I’ve even thought, “I want to go back.”

 

But I must go back, so the least I can do is keep working on building my confidence and learning more about myself, so that when I do go back, I can be strong, steadfast in my ideas, unwavering in my view of myself and what I want, and strong enough that I will not bend to the demands to be be anything but me.

 

That way, I will survive until I’m able to come home again.

My Life According to the GazettE.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 20 people you like and include me (presuming I'm someone you like). You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Repost as "my life according to (band name)"

 

 

 

Are you a male or female:
"Erika"

 

Describe yourself:
"Ruder"

 

How do you feel:
"THE TRUE MURDEROUS INTENT"

 

Describe where you currently live:
"Bath Room"

 

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
"Ganges ni Akai Bara" ("Red Rose in the Ganges")

 

Your favorite form of transportation:
"VORTEX"

 

Your best friend:
""Kore ga Yokatta n desu..."" ("This is for the Best...")

 

You and your friends are:
“Silly God Disco"

 

What's the weather like:
"DIM SCENE"

 

Favorite time of day:
"BEFORE I DECAY"

 

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
"VENOMOUS SPIDER'S WEB"

 

What is life to you:
"Nausea & Shudder"

 

Your relationship:
"Reila"

 

Your fear:
"Chizuru" ("One Thousand Cranes")

 

Thought for the Day:
"TOMORROW NEVER DIES"

 

How I would like to die:
"Anti-Pop"

 

My soul's present condition:
"AN UNBEARABLE FACT"

 

My motto:
"HESITATING MEANS DEATH"

 

 

 

 

 

Did this one more based on content than on the title of the song. Though some of them are for titles only. See if you can figure out which is which.

 

the GazettE Tour ‘11 VENOMOUS CELL at Olympus Hall Hachiōji

IT WAS AMAZING.

 

Ready for unnecessary details?

 

 

 

I woke up at about 7 (lol no choice in that) and spent most of the morning taking my time and getting ready. I honestly didn’t feel like wearing anything I had but I ended up with this ensemble:

Hooray for losing weight.

 

My hair turned out really nicely too. I switched up the order I used hair products, which was a huge risk, but it worked out very well.

 

 

I headed out around 12:35. Hachiōji is pretty far – I had to take the metro into Tokyo, then two trains (including a rapid express) to get to Hachiōji around 2:30 xD There were some Italian fans on the train with me into Hachiōji though, so that was interesting to talk to them for a bit.

I was meeting someone so I waited in the plaza outside the station. There was a set of cosplayers milling around, so I got a picture:

 

They were really cute and very nice. Uruha gave us directions to the hall (which was awesomely right by the station in a shopping mall xD More below) and actually ended up leading us there haha.

 

We went in and got goods, then went back out and waited for the venue to open lol.

For goods, I got:

The PC case, which is unfortunately juuuuust barely too small for my laptop, but I can certainly use it for other things and I certainly will.

The tour pamphlet with beautiful photos.

The Reita bandana. For how simple the design is, it’s really quite elegant… in the GazettE sense of the word haha

 

And finally, the big t-shirt. “Big” is not the word I would use for this shirt. I would actually use “ginormous” and “small children may drown in this” as adjectives.

It’s like a small dress on me, and it was knee-length on a lot of Japanese girls I saw wearing it. It’s really a very comfy shirt though.

 

 

Back to the live xD

When I went out I looked back and saw this and went DURRRRRHEY because while I had been waiting for the girl that was with me to come I was trying to use my iPod to figure out how exactly to get to Olympus Hall. Had I looked up and was I able to read, it wouldn’t have been so difficult and I wouldn’t have had to ask Uruha for directions xDDD

 

This was another group of awesome cosplayers. When I approached and asked for a picture, Uruha said, “Oh, irasshaimase!” which is what store owners call when someone enters the store xDD

 

Another cosplay group that WAS doing Ureita posing until I asked for a picture haha

 

 

When I got my tickets, we were in the tenth row on the first floor! The PSC fanclub didn’t tell me where my seats were so I had been waiting anxiously the whole time lol but apparently, hearing from other foreign fans who use PSC, the seats are always really nice, so this made me happy.

 

 

 

WHEN WE GOT IN:

 

The picture doesn’t even faithfully show how close we were. I was maybe the length of my apartment away from the stage, and I was right smack in the middle. Ruki was directly in front of me almost the whole time.

 

The quick member rundown is:

1 – Ruki doesn’t look as small in real life as he does on video… but you can tell he’s tiny, tiny, tiny xD
2 – Uruha is actually really masculine haha
3 – Aoi does, in fact, have horrible fashion sense (see below)
4 – Yes, Reita IS that masculine in real life, but he is reaaaaaaalllllllly slender haha SO I DON’T KNOW HOW THAT WORKS
5 – I… couldn’t see Kai at all so I can’t tell you anything haha

 

The setlist was:

1. INFUSE INTO 
2. VENOMOUS SPIDER’S WEB 
3. SLUDGY CULT 
4. VORTEX 
5. THE SUICIDE CIRCUS 
6. BEFORE I DECAY 
7. HEADACHE MAN 
8. RUTHLESS DEED 
9. 痴情 [Chijou]
10. UNTITLED 
11. AGONY 
12. MY DEVIL ON THE BED 
13. VERMIN 
14. FILTH IN THE BEAUTY 
15. COCKROACH 
16. PSYCHOPATH 
17. TOMORROW NEVER DIES 
18. OMEGA

—encore—
19. Ride with the ROCKERS 
20. REMEMBER THE URGE 
21. A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 
22. Maggots 
23. DISCHARGE 
24. LINDA～candydive Pinky heaven～
—double encore—
25. 関東土下座組合 [Kantou Dogeza Kumiai]

 

 

(Warning, kind of just non sequitur, I’m just writing things as they come to mind.)

 

We managed to get them out for two encores… it took them so long to come out for the first one I was afraid we weren’t getting one haha.

The main live was really exciting, though. it was super high-energy with a lot of really loud and heavy songs. Reita actually finger-picked a couple of songs… I think it was from about SLUDGY~, and I noticed him playing with a pick again at RUTHLESS~. It was really impressive. *___*

Ruki has a massive amount of stage presence. I went in determined to make sure to watch everyone equally, but it was extremely difficult to look away from him. He just drew you in. After Ruki, Reita has the most stage presence. Uruha has none at all lol. I hardly even noticed him most of the time, which was probably helped by the fact that he kind of just stood there and didn’t interact that much. Aoi was all over the place, skipping around and… uh… TRYING to interact. He tried to interact with Uruha a couple of times but was completely ignored, haha. He crossed over from Uruha to Reita once and kind of leaned down and looked up at Reita like he was trying to look up some girl’s skirt… xD;; Aoi, please.

It seemed like there were a lot of technical issues… there were three or four times in between songs we sat in black for four or five minutes as staff went running across the stage. Uruha left the stage at least once, I think… and once during black Reita was kind of stiffly huddled over by his amp fiddling with his bass and Aoi went over with him for a bit. Reita looked EXTREMELY unamused most of the time… it was quite scary, actually. Everything sounded fine, though. Ruki’s voice was spot-on the entire time. That man has a good set of lungs and quite a voicebox.

Actually, thinking of it now, Uruha was kind of looking at Reita a lot… I wonder if Reita was having a bad day. :/

Also Ruki was super-cute during the MCs. He was really funny too, cracking jokes left and right. Once he was doing his “All right Tokyo?!” and he held out “Tokyo” so he was still going after we all answered… and then we answered again when he finished haha. Then grinned and said, “That makes me feel happy.” He tried to do it again a few minutes later and completely failed because he started laughing as he tried to hold out the word. A couple of times he said, “Guys, there’s no energy here!” and we answered and he just sat there grinning like a moron, haha. Sooo cute~

I was so close to the stage and directly in front of Ruki, so I saw very little of Kai during the live. Poor Kai xD

A couple of the highlights were:
*Ruki’s pimp cane during MY DEVIL ON THE BED. It was all covered in glitter and everything.

*During HEADACHE MAN, my row was moving along the floor as we jumped and did furisuke during the chorus, and as we headed back into the line of gaijin on my right, we all crashed and then kind of stood there reeling and laughing while we tried to get going again. Reita was watching us crash and grinning to see our fail xD

*I’m pretty sure Ruki was locking eyes with me all of Chijou lol he (me and everyone else in the venue right? but he and I were on the same eyelevel SO IT MUST HAVE BEEN ME)

*When Reita and Kai came out to do Ride with~, they met in the middle of the stage, Kai held out his hand, and Reita slapped it and spun around. Kai just kind of stood there with his hand out for a minute, and when Reita stopped and was facing him again, Kai stuck out his foot. Reita looked at it for a second, then looked at the crowd and pointed to Kai as if to say, “This guy, huh? He’s a screwball.”

*After Kai gave his MC during the encore, he said, “Okay, I’m going to sit down now,” and plopped down onto his stool x3 Cute~

*Aoi came out for the encore in a coral pink and gold skirt that reached the ground, a pink and teal flower-print shirt, and a faux fur-trimmed duster xD;; It was lollably amazing. RUKI DRESS HIM PLEASE

*During LINDA, Reita did his spinny thing across the stage towards Uruha, who was standing there looking at him with this expression like “Get over here, you idiot”. When he got close to Uruha, Reita stopped, posed down on one knee, and held his fist out for a fistbump. Uruha just kind of stared at him like “Burhur?” so Reita gave up and as he put his arm down, Uruha reached out to fistbump him xD

*For the second encore, Aoi came out, looked at his watch, and said, “Dude, it’s late. Time to go home.” So we all yelled at him and he nodded and everyone else came out on stage haha.

*During Kantou~, Reita took off his bandana and stuffed it down the front of his pants… and then a few minutes later turned and threw it at Kai :| lol and it got caught on a drum and someone had to come and try to get it off while Kai sat there laughing.

*Also during Kantou~, Uruha crossed the stage, went over behind Reita, pressed up against his back, knocked his pick hand away from his bass, and played random strings himself. After a bit, he knocked Reita’s other hand away and played the bass himself while Reita stood there with his arms up x3 (I squeed.)

 

We all rocked out really hard… I think we were all dead by the time Kantou~ came, and that went on for maybe fifteen minutes. But we all did the jumping and furisuke anyway. Everyone was dripping with sweat and completely exhausted when it was over.

Me after the live as I was waiting for the train to pull in. My hairstyle was nonexistent before even the main part of the live was over.  And my makeup melted haha. I was so pumped though. I would have kept going for another hour or two if the live had gone that long.

 

It was a really amazing live. The crowd was really high-energy, the atmosphere was positive, the Gazemen looked and sounded amazing (despite all the problems). And I loved it. It was (most definitely) probably the most fun I’ve had in my entire life.

I think I really needed this, more than just to really rock out and headbang to heavy music and scream to get frustration out (that was really nice though). I needed to see them, and I needed to see Ruki, who is an amazingly inspiring person to me, in the flesh. I needed to see that they are real people who enjoy what they do and enjoy changing people’s lives, and with those people that I admire and respect and who inspire me, I needed to have a good time. (And everyone did have a good time, even Reita, who was grinning and looking much, much, much happier by the encores.)

It was easily done and I feel so good. I still feel really good, really positive, really refreshed, even more inspired.

 

To top it off, on my way home, everything was quiet (except for the train from Hachiōji to Shinjuku loaded with people who had just come out of the live). I don’t know if it was just because it was a quiet and late night or if it was because I was effectively deaf, but it was really nice to come out of the concert with the loud music and movement and singing and shouting with that band I admire so much and just have it be… really quiet and contemplative for the better part of the ride home. It helped me to compound everything I had seen and felt, and think on it, and really take everything in and hold it. It was really a perfect night.

And that’s all that can be said and needs to be said about it.

 

 

 

Do I recommend seeing them live? Absolutely. The price of the tickets, the long day, the waiting in line, the exhaustion and sore muscles and everything was more than worth it. You need to see these guys live. You might not take it to heart like I did, but you’ll still definitely enjoy yourself in the crowd with other enthusiastic but extremely kind fans as you jump and dance and interact with the band.

 

 

I’m going to figure out today if I can go to the Ōmiya Sonic City live. If I can, I will do it without hesitation.

 

And that’s that.