WARNING: Extreme fan-girling ahead!

First up, reply to comments! I'm not actually sure if any of you are notified when I leave a comment...

Leah: I did try out the nightengale floors! That part was actually really interesting, and the inside of the castle was beautiful, but after the super-tall Odawara castle... well, you know!

April: Birds are awful and I would have to agree that they are indeed worse than children. And actually the visit to the primary schools wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'll get to that later...

Alright! Moving on...

Tuesday Nov 2nd: Shopping in Osaka~!　大阪ぁ～！

Finally after a billion days of staying in Shin-Osaka, we headed over to Osaka!

YES finally I made it to Osaka!

What did I learn? Well, no new Kansai-ben sadly. But did I really expect to instantly pick up on a new dialect just from hearing random bits of it from passing strangers?

I did notice the average walking pace was different. A LOT faster than those slow-pokes in Yokohama. And Tokyo for that matter ( as long as it's not the morning rush hour). As someone who does not enjoy leisurely walking when I am trying to get somewhere, I was quite pleased with this faster pace.

But really, all we did in Osaka was shop. Much to Emily's dismay, I imagine! She's not one for all-day shopping excursions.

Sadly a day in the mall does not bring about very many exciting pictures. However! This particular mall was home to Mama and Baby whales!

Mama whale!

Baby whale!

...they were statues of course. Suspended in mid-air! Like magic! Magic steel cables!

On our way to.. somewhere else, I can't remember. Oh! To find lunch. On our way to find lunch, Marie and I spotted a particular sign in the Osaka station...

Here is the map that was on the corner of the sign... I wonder where this leads...


Giant Pikachu??


The Osaka Pokemon Center! No comments on my geekdom. Also no comments on my hair.

It was really just a store with lots of Pokemon merchandise. I bought things like plastic folders. Afterwards, we went for another parfait in this amazing parfait shop we saw earlier in the mall.

Again, dinner was unnecessary.

Then we went back for our final night in the hostel!

Wednesday Nov 3rd: Back to Yokohama! And the moment you all have been waiting for...

We had decided that rather than taking another night bus back to Tokyo, that we would ride the Shinkansen (better known as the Bullet Train) back! Tickets were EXPENSIVE, as I mentioned in my last blog. About $130 (~10,200 yen) one-way.

My thoughts? It was actually really fast! I'm not talking G-force or anything, but at least once during the ride I had the feeling that I was flying in a plane... on the ground. It was interesting. At the station they sold socks with Shinkansen pictures on them! Sadly though, they were for children; I had wanted to buy them for Papa!

Have some pictures:

Emily, me, Marie!

KC, Brenna!

A view from the inside of the train! Looks like a regular commercial plane, right?

We were able to get off the train at Shinagawa rather than going all the way to Tokyo, so we were able to get back to our HF's houses faster. Which is good, because we were all really tired!

BUT no time for rest, because as soon as I got back, I had to get to work on the scrapbook I was making for my HF! AND get ready for the most amazing day ever...

Thursday Nov 4th: MR. SPARKLYMAGICSPARKLE HIMSELF LIVE!!

Yes, finally that day had come! Remember in a previous blog I told you about buying a ticket for Hikawa Kiyoshi's concert? Well finally, it was concert day!

I left HF's place around 10:30am (the concert wasn't until 2:30, but it was all the way in Chiba-ken!) and eventually made my way to Hon-Chiba station after about 500 MILLION (read: 4) transfers! From there, I only had the vague map I had printed out to tell me how to get to the Culture Hall where the concert was going to be held. Luckily enough, I noticed a small group of old ladies contemplating the map outside of the station, wondering aloud where the Culture Hall is. Could it be...?

After listening in to their conversation (not unlike a creeper), another older lady came up to them and asked if they were headed to the Kiyoshi concert, to which they replied YES YES OMG YES. She offered to show them where it was, since she had been to this hall before. Not wanting to miss this opportunity, I interrupted (not unlike a creeping jerk) with a casual "Oh, you're going to Kiyoshi's concert? Would it be alright if I joined you? I've never been here before," to their great surprise. They were slightly puzzled at first, but sooo happy (they told me over and over again) that a young person, and a foreigner at that, was a fan of Kiyoshi! We walked to the concert hall together and chatted about where I was from, where I was staying, how long I'd been a fan, how many concerts I'd been to. These women were hard-core fans; the type that go to multiple shows in the same tour. We then looked at the merchandise being sold outside of the venue together, went and got a quick something to eat at the convenience store together, and pretty much became besties.

Sadly though, when it came time for the doors to open, we found out that our seats where in different sections. They said that they hoped to meet up again after the concert, but I knew that I would never be able to find them among the sea of old ladies who attended.

Let me break the audience down for you really quickly.

99% women over 55
0.7% their husbands
0.3% everyone else

I have never seen such a crowd of enthusiastic old women before. It was really amusing; especially the ones that were holding penlights getting ready for Kiyoshi to come on stage. Most of them had at least 5 penlights just for themselves! I made light conversation with the old lady next to me before the show started.

Then... the lights dimmed... and a familiar tune started playing...

... and then the sparkly wonder was on stage!

I won't do a play-by-play of the entire performance, but I'll recap the important bits:
- He sounded AMAZING. At least 500 times better than he does in the recordings. At least.
- He had 5 costume changes throughout a 2 hour show. 3 out of 5 were so SO SPARKLY. >The first was his costume for the single 'Tokimeki no Rumba':

Low quality picture is low quality. Way to fail me, Google image search. Oh well, at least the sparkles are quite visible!
>The second was just a suit jacket (in purple and black shiny SWIRLS). Well of course he had pants and shoes and a shirt as well, but that's not really necessary to mention, is it?
>The next was his outfit for his recent single, "Nijiiro no Baiyon"!

Google image search success! Golden sparkles! Definitely my favorite outfit.
>Next was... oh shoot, what was it? Oh yeah, a hakama! Was it a real hakama? Who knows.

Essentially it was this, but in green. One of his less-sparkly get-ups.
>Last but not least, for his encore... a blue plaid suit. The pants, the jacket, the vest, the bow-tie; everything in loud blue plaid. No sparkles, sadly. I think a sparkly black vest would have worked nicely, but that's just me.

- He sang (almost) all of my favorite songs! His performance of 「夜がわらっている」was seriously amazing. Well all of it was amazing of course, but especially that one.

It was probably my favorite day so far in Japan. I was certainly in my happy place.

After the show, I went a bought a tour book, and then starting making my way towards a road that I assumed would take me to Hon-Chiba station.

Turns out, I got a little lost and decided to ask yet another older lady where Chiba station was. She was nice enough to take almost the whole way there! Turns out we were sitting in roughly the same section during the concert. From Chiba station I got on an epic fast train that took me all the way to Yokohama. 4 transfers were cut down to 2! Success! I also managed to make it back to the HF's in time for dinner.

Ah now I'm tired. The cold still rages on, but now that I've restocked my ancient Chinese remedy, the cold should be gone soon!

For now, I'm off to bed!
Goodnight~