Hey hey, all. How goes it? I'm actually writing this on the WordPad programme on my computer at the moment. For some reason lately, my internet has been extremely fickle. It's really quite frustrating. But in case of me having to post this late, I am writing it on the sixth of June, Wednesday. I promise, and I apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may have caused. I've sent a couple of text messages to friends who may be able to help me, but thus far, none of them have replied. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people never seem to be around when you legitimately need them?
EDIT: Turns out that my friend was generous enough to lend me her internet, so yay! I can update~!
I write this with a full, happy stomach, having just invented what is possibly one of the most delicious desserts ever. I fried up one side of a piece of bread [buttered, of course], then added a layer of apple jam and cinnamon on it. And with some coffee to wash it all down? My goodness, I felt like a genius.
Honestly, I don't know how many money-saving ideas I'm going to have this week--I've got a couple, but I guess we'll find out as we go along, won't we? Another sparce week on pictures, I'm afraid--my camera batteries died and I haven't yet replaced them. But lots of interesting things, and the photos I do have, I enjoy. I'll figure out something to post at the end again to make up for things, and I'll definitely be buying batteries before Sunday [I'M GOING TO HARAJUKU, GUYS! FINALLY.].
Starting off with Thursday, then, which I remember beautifully this week.
"Why," you ask?
Well, let me tell you all about it!
I told you a while ago that I bought tickets for a concert for my friend and I, right? I want to say that I did--it was back in April.
These here beauties.
Those tickets were to see one of my favourite musicians ever, a wonderfully talented fellow by the name of Miyavi.
This guy.
I would happily marry him if he weren't already married.
Perhaps I would marry him twice. Maybe three times.
And Thursday, beautiful May the 31st, was the day of the concert.
So, I'm sure it's needless for me to say, I was a ball of energy and excitement on Thursday, and pushing through my two classes was torture--to make matters worse, I had an exam that day in my Japanese class, and I also found out that day that I had another exam the next day. Still, I managed to make it through the classes, and I even accomplished a bit of studying for the next day's exam.
It was during lunch time, though, that I found out that the friend that I'd asked to go with me the first time would be unable to make it. She had warned me in advance that she might not be able to go, but she wouldn't know for definite whether or not it would be the case until the day of, which is exactly how it turned out. I'd told another friend of mine that he was on standby if it proved that she couldn't go, to which he agreed--until he found out about our exam the next day. When I gave him a call, he said that'd he'd have loved to, but he wasn't going to be able to, because he really needed to study. Fair enough, I suppose, but now I faced the problem of finding someone to go with me.
After scrambling around and asking about five different people and letting them know that I had a spare ticket if anyone wanted to go with me, finally a timid girl from Vietnam that I hadn't really spoken with before stepped up and said she'd like to go. She hadn't heard anything by Miyavi except for what I'd played for the class in a presentation the Friday before, and she also hadn't been to a concert [or just a club] before, but when I asked, she said she was sure that she wanted to go. I was a little shocked, especially after I said that it was a rock concert and, to be honest, she didn't seem like the type to like Miyavi all that much.
Wonder of wonders, I made a new friend on Thursday, and was forced to re-learn the fact that looks aren't all they seem. She speaks English very well, so we were actually able to have some splendid conversations, and I came to realise that this shy girl from Vietnam is really awesome. I didn't really doubt that she was, to be honest--our paths had just never had the opportunity to cross before, and as such, I hadn't gotten the chance to know her. We walked home from school together, as we finished classes at the same time, and met back up after about thirty minutes to leave for Shibuya to go see the concert. My new friend seemed to know where she was going, and got us on all the right trains, only panicking briefly when we had been having some sort of conversation about something that I can't recall--we weren't sure for a while if we had gotten on the right train that went straight to Shibuya, but after checking, she had been right. About an hour after leaving Fuchinobe, we arrived in Shibuya.
Earlier, I'd had a friend of mine look up instructions to get to the club for me from her smartphone, since I wouldn't have the time to look it up when I got home. She wrote out which trains would save me the most money, and drew a map for when I arrived. Fortunately, the club was very close to the station, so I assumed that finding it wouldn't be a problem.
I was semi-right, at least.
This is Shibuya, though.
There are people in Shibuya.
And a lot of things to look at and get distracted by.
Things like this. Hahaha.
And this.
I've seen the real one! It made me really miss New Orleans.
We arrived about an hour early, thank goodness--following the map that my friend had drawn, we got to the right area, but afterwards we couldn't find it. So, we were on the right block, but beyond that? I was expecting the club to be, like a lot of the clubs in Japan, in the basement floor, and most things in a basement have some kind of flag hanging off of the building to let you know it's in the basement. We stopped and asked one person where the club was, to which she admitted she did not know, and suggested we ask the police.
So we went to the police. He knew where we were going, and he told us, so we went that way. We still couldn't find it--so we asked for directions again, and this time the person again didn't know where we were going, so we wandered around some more. Finally, we backtracked a bit and started over, combing through a new part of the street and asking yet another person who did not know.
Getting frustrated, we looked around just a little more and finally stood under a building, examining the map my friend had drawn and considering asking for directions.
I looked up out of exasperation and want of a change of scenery, and lo and behold, what do I see?
I didn't hear whether or not I could take photos, but let me tell you. The Japanese stereotype of someone polite and calm at all times is a complete lie. On the surface level and in formal situations, sure, they're calm and polite. But once you put them in a place where they know they can let loose and let it all hang out? They are just as rambunctious as any American. I had heard that Japanese concerts weren't at all like US ones--instead of bouncing around and having a mosh pit, they would, supposedly, just stand still and behave and maybe wave their hands a bit.
That must have been for some other concert for some other musical genre, because this mosh pit was just as rowdy, if not more, as any of the ones that I've been in during my concerts in the US. I almost felt bad for my new friend, as she'd never been to a concert before (much less a real rock concert)--it seemed a little like baptism by fire to me--but when I looked over after it had all begun, she had the biggest grin on her face, and was just as lively as anyone else in the room.
I had wanted to take photos, but once I realised it was a moot point, I finally gave up and put my camera back in my pocket, and just let myself enjoy the music. I haven't seen Miyavi since my first time seeing him back in 2010, so I was very happy to have the opportunity to not only see him again, but to see him in Japan. He gave, like always, a wonderful performance, and he looked and sounded so happy. It seems like he's got a new single coming out next month; I'm looking really forward to it. There is also going to be a "premium" concert some time next month, which I had initially planned on going to as well, but when I finally mustered up the willpower to look up the tickets, they were already sold out. Japan doesn't play around when it comes to selling tickets, it doesn't seem. My goodness.
After the concert, I found a little stand for pita sandwiches run by a guy--I think he was from Turkey. He seemed really pleased when I knew the song playing on the TV--it was Tarkan's Simarak, or however that's spelled, and a really good song. Maybe I'll attach it and a song by Miyavi to compensate for this week's lack of photography. Anyway, I bought myself a beef pita sandwhich, which was delicious, and my friend and I headed back towards the station. We got back home at around 10:30PM, after which we said our good-nights. I headed back to my room and wound myself down for the night.
What a beautiful day it was.
Friday, I hadn't had anything planned, and classes were average at best. I met up with my conversation partner again, though, at our usual time, and she invited me to go with her and a couple of her friends to a place in Tokyo called Roppongi, which is known for its bars and clubs.
I'd nothing better to do, and I wanted to meet new people, so I agreed. We met up again later that night, dressed and ready to go--it was going to be my first all-nighter out and about.
This is one of the more famous areas of Roppongi; it's a shopping mall, apparently, or something like that [I'm really not sure, not going to lie]. I didn't have the chance to go in and explore, but my friend did get this lovely photo for me, as my camera had died by this point.
Here is where we get to the only money-saving tip that I can really think of for this week: Roppongi is notoriously expensive, but if you're a girl and you know where to go, you can get in for free on certain days of the week/weekend. My friends knew where to go, and this saved about 2,000 yen right away. Also, get dressy, girls. Japanese guys seem to like buying girls drinks, and it doesn't matter the cost. I'm not a heavy drinker, so I didn't really ask for much, but the moral of the story is, the only money I spent in Roppongi was for travelling there and for breakfast at the ramen shop the next morning.
Saturday, I got back home at around 6:30 in the morning. I took myself a shower, messaged my friend so that she would know to wake me up at 1:00 PM so that we could go out and do some shopping. My friend did indeed call me, and I groggily climbed up to her room on the promise of coffee waiting for me. We met up some of our other friends in Machida and did a bit of shopping and wandering around, also going by the burger spot that I went to before with a friend previously. I bought myself a new shirt for under 1,000yen, as well as a belt loop chain for 400yen. Not terrible, but a bit of a splurge, since I hadn't bought anything at the concert like I had planned to. There had been CDs, but I have everything of his already.
Sunday was a birthday party of a friend of mine, one of my Dutch friends, and so I went to celebrate with that and a soccer game. It was quite fun.
Monday, I started getting sick, so I didn't much feel like anything. Sunday night's sleep proved to give me a neck cramp because the pillow the dorm gave me does not give me good sleep all of the time, so I decided to buy myself a new pillow--a pillow shaped more like the ones I'm used to. It's lovely, but by the time I got to my dorm on Monday evening, I felt terrible.
Turns out, I caught myself a lovely little virus, and so for Monday and Tuesday, I was feverish and sore.
So I stayed home from classes and anything else on Tuesday, and today I returned to class.
So not much new.
And really, that's all for now.
Ready for some new stuff?
Here goes:
This is Miyavi. He is my darling~
This is the song that I knew at the pita sandwich shop.
Apologies for the crazy screenshots.
Have a good week, all! I'll be telling you how Harajuku went, definitely, and what I discover~
Take care, all! Have a good week!
-RD
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