9 posts tagged “japantrip200710”

Here's the final entry about my 200710 Japan trip :)

20071014
Today, leaving the beautiful Furano and Biei.
The skies kind of reflecting the feeling, it rained.

The photos were taken from inside the bus to the Furano station.
From there, we took local then express train to Takigawa then Sapporo.

Sapporo, from the small area we walked from the station; looks similar to any cities in Tokyo.
The similar brand shop signs etc; albeit less crowded.
The layout of the city streets were like gridlines, which reminded me of Melbourne centre business district rather than the windy-one-way-streets of some Tokyo cities.
Maybe perhaps it's straight after leaving the beautiful and scenic Furano and Biei, seeing these rectangular grey buildings kicked up a tint of letdown-ness; and it's more so since it reminded me of Melbourne a bit hahah <- really REALLY didn't want to go back lol.
Anyway, we came across this "garden" part with a mini tower in the middle of the city.

After that, we walked back to Sapporo station to have lunch.
Btw, I like the Mister Donut in Japan very much!! (there's no mister donut in melbourne, and the donuts in melbourne taste bad and too sweet lol)
(yay! Nino-colour tray!)

Then we board the train to Shinchitose airport to catch a plane bound for Haneda.
See you again, Hokkaido!

Reached Tokyo in the evening.
Hello again, the buzzling atmosphere and skyscrapers.

20071013
Got up reasonably early for a full day of Furano/Biei exploration.
The air's fresh and crisp, trees and grass're covered with a fine dust of first snow.
It was beautiful!! (albeit very very cold lol)
We drove towards the direction of Biei, which is the next town from Furano.
Again, stopped at various hills/garden viewing point to admire the great scenery.

Snow still remained at the shaded area, and found a snowman sitting on the bench heheh.
That sunflower was the last one on the field, the rest of them're already preparing for winter.

And then we went to another flowers and potato farm for a stop, and met a random Hokkaido cat in the carpark lol.
Oh, that place has THE BEST korokke I've ever had *_* Chooo-delicious!
They used the fresh farm potato, the taste's so pure, so good and not oily at all!
Cold cold weather + hot delicious korroke = arashiawase~!

On the way to our next destination, I spotted this NIJI 虹 sign from the car!
It's random but I was so happy <- arasick xD
Then we arrived at Takushinkan 拓真館 - a photo gallery of famous landscape photographer Maeda Shinzo 前田真三
The location's beautiful too, a little european style small building surrounded by the birch trees garden with yellow and red leaves. So so so beautiful! <- running out of vocabs.
Also, this never happenned to me before, I stepped into the gallery, took a first look at the photographs displayed there and went T_T it's so breathtakingly beautiful that I just went T_T lol.
Check out his photobooks if you're interested, the following is the one I bought, which includes photos of Biei in Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.
Here're just a small portion of the photos I took, including the birch garden.
We also ran up to a hill behind the garden, the view's spectacular *_*
It's like in the middle of some beautiful illustration books, or a Miyazaki anime.
It's ashame that I couldn't capture the whole "widescreen" view of the scene and the beautiful hills.
Go to Biei, my friends, go to Furano and Biei!

And, like any good Arashi fan, conciously or subconciously I tend to take photo with 5 objects in it... like the follow trees... one tree for each member of Arashi lol.
Then we resume our explorations to different places, nonetheless beautiful :)
Yup, had to have the lavender ice-cream again. It was chooo-delicious! (albeit sooo cold xD)

Next, Kaikuugama pottery皆空窯!
The place where Nino's Takuro stayed and learned his pottery skill in the dorama series :)

And the Takuro-cup is used as a plant pot at the display outside ^o^
There're "Yasashii Jikan" theme displays inside the gallery too, such as the Takuro chawan, photos of Nino making the pottery, articles etc but we're not allow to photograph those. The other ceramic pottery at the place was also very very nice! Although the price can be expensive as they're artistically handmade.

And well....... I bought the Nino Takuro-cup from here.
'cause I came all the way from Australia for this, 6300yen? A very meaningful souvenir for myself heheh.

Next, we're on our way back to Furano, and then visited another dorama-pilgrim spot: Rokugo no mori 麓郷の森 of "kita no kuni kara" 北の国から. I've never watched this series (also by Kuramoto Soh 倉本聰) but my friend liked that series so we went. It's a beautiful woods, it has a very nice and calm atmosphere. On the way out, it was sunset, spectacular!

Yes, chasing Nino-chan all the way up to Hokkaido lol.
This time is the dorama location of "Yasashii Jikan", in Furano and Biei of Hokkaido.

Continue from previous entry, woke up  to the sunrise of Hokkaido in the train and soon arrived to Sapporo.
From there, took an express train to Asahikawa and changed to a local train bound for Furano.
Takuro here I come xD
Furano is a quiet and charming little town (again, so clean!) mainly trades on tourists during ski season, tourists visiting the breathtaking scenery of flowers and hills (close to Biei too), and of course the J-move/dorama pilgrims (the classic "Kita no kuni kara" was filmed here, as well as "Yasashii Jikan").

Once we reached Furano station, we could feel the cold and fresh air. Yes, it's very cold, my jacket was definitely not thick/warm enough but nevermind; the cold temperature somehow enhanced the excitement too for some unknown reason hahah.
And then we went to a car rental place next to the station, rent a car and drove to Farm Tomita (lavender and all sorts of beautiful flowers and plants). The scenery on the way was just amazing, so beautiful, so calm, so wide, so green, roads so straight. I love this town!

A short while later, we reached Farm Tomita. Most of the summer flowers were no longer, but the scene of late autumn greens and leaves were nevertheless beautiful. Plus, there would be more crowds/tourists during summer time, so perhaps it's nice being here during this colder season.
Still, there're beautiful flowers remained.

We also walked up the hill to admire the trees and scenery.
The sky was a little overcast, with huge clouds overhanging the mountains/hills; sometimes the sunlight shined through which created a lovely scenes of shadow plays on this great landscape.
Then, it rained/drizzled a little, under rays of sunshine.
So. Need I say more?
Nino's Niji appeared! Arashi Rainbow ^o^

After spending time with Nino Niji aka Arashi Rainbow for awhile, we walked back to the Farm Tomita shops area and tried the lavender softcream (icecream), it's sooo freezing cold yet the icecream tasted sooo delicious!! I so miss it!
Then, we continued to drive around Furano, stopping at various gardens/hills to admire the beautiful scenery.
Then late afternoon approached (look at the dark clouds! The temperature also became colder and colder) we decided to head to hotel to check in and then visit Mori no Tokei 森の時計　^o^

It's convenient that we're staying at New Furano Prince Hotel as Mori no Tokei is in the vicinity of the hotel (in the woods of course). Also, Ningle Terrace and Soh's Bar (both designed by "Yasashii Jikan", "Haikei Chichiuesama"'s Kuramoto Soh) are also at the same area. And since Furano is kind of a J-drama pilgrims place, there are many exhibitions and displays of Kuramoto Soh's earlier classic "Kita no kuni kara" 北の国から(from the 80s, 90s?).
Also note that, the lobby and souvenir shops were playing Yasashii Jikan soundtrack non-stopped, really added in the
"atmosphere" xD
Here're some displays at the hotel -

Then we exit the hotel on the side door and followed this pathway to the woods leading to Cafe Mori no Tokei ^o^
(btw, at this time the temperature was freezing cold! Real Hokkaido temperature! I could feel how Nino's Takuro felt already, temperature wise xD)

But once we entered the cafe it's warm though :)
It's as exactly as Yasashii Jikan's! (with the soundtrack playing too of course)
I ordered a coffee and the snow-melting cake, it was delicious!
After relaxing at the cafe for awhile, we headed back. On the way we went to Ninguru Terrace and looked at the craftworks... then it started to rain.. wait, it was SNOWING! FIRST WINTER SNOW in Furano of this season!! The wind became stronger too so we quickly walked back to the hotel (it's so freezing cold but so excited!!)
Then just had dinner at the hotel restaurant, looking at the amazing snow from outside the window while we ate *o*

But did pick up the photobook of Yasashii Jikan at Ningle Terrace.
Saw the Nino's Takuro cup too, 6300yen *_*

So so so cute T_T

Okay, will get back to the concert report another time lol.
So, after bidding farewell to all my wonderful Arashi buddies after Dome Day 2 concert...
(sayonara janai yo, mata aeru kara) <- Nino's line's so useful ^^
I was off to meet another friend, kinda RL stuff.
But did go to Odaiba (my friend's choice lol), Nippori (my choice), and Ueno 'cause we're taking the railway to Hokkaido!

We took the river cruise from Asakasa to Odaiba, looking at various bridges and city/villages along the river; it was nice.

btw I was kinda obsessed with cats too.. I'm happy that I was able to spot a few random cats around random places in Japan. The first cat I spotted was the black and white one in Asakasa the other day (as shown in earlier photo), and then spotted this random cat at the beach of Odaiba. So here I was, squading, and staring at the cat squading and staring at that sewage thing (?) for a few minutes lol. And then due to lack of things to do (my friend only wanted to get on that cruise and not interested in Odaiba lol), we went to this Toyota exhibition thing and rode on the E-com car. That's the car we took, reminded me of Sakurasake lol.

The next day, 20071011, Nippori.
We took the JR line and stopped at Nippori and walked all the way to Ueno (with our light luggage to Hokkaido as we'd be taking the train that evening lol).
I always wanted to visit those sakamichi (坂道) area, old (but SO CLEAN) hilly narrow streets with residences' potplants on the side, old bicycles, <- again, all are my obsessions ^^;
And again, spotted this neko-centric little shop/cafe, with some real cats inside too yay =^-^=
Oh, the lunch was fantastic!! Again, these are just a portion of the many photos I took.

Honestly, each time I attempted to start writing thoughts on my first Arashi concerts, I became very much overwhelmed. All the warm emotion and energy rising up like typhoon, huge storm, sheer Arashi.
Thinking back on those two days're very surreal, very dream like; yet the feeling is strong and real.
I'm extremely lucky to have seen our boys, Aiba+Jun+Nino+Ohno+Sho (alphabetical order), all five amazing individuals of Arashi, live.
Albeit inside the huge Dome, albeit at times they appeared to be so small due to the distance; they are real.
Their energy and warmth, their dedication, their hard work, their sincerity; all have transmitted to us.
Live. Real. I can't explain it.
When they first appeared on stage, the reality of it still hadn't hit me until much later when they performed "A Day in our life" on the centre platform, in which my eyes did the happy rain.

Again, I am very very very thankful to you.

So let's start, I'm just gonna criss-cross both days 2007-10-07 and 2007-10-08 randomly as I type :)
20071007, we met at the station at 1pm, today with Rion, Natsu, Marie.
Viqqi also met up with us for the concert goods, but she's attending the Day2 concert instead.
I'd never known Viqqi nor Marie before this trip but so glad to have met them :)
The queue wasn't that long, took us less than one hour to get to the selling point.
Apparently many fans started queuing at 6am so I guess the goods crowds had been reduced since then ^^
I picked up the t-shirt, pamphlets, tote-bag, penlight, some photo sets, and Nino-chan uchiwas (big and small lol).
My will power of not purchasing posters has won again hahah.
But I regretted very much that I didn't get the uchiwas of Ohchan, Aibachan, Shochan and Junchan T_T
I was watching my budget you see... anyway, "next time". hahah.

And here're some photos, they're taken using Rion's camera as I was too much of a wuss to smuggle my vidcamera into the Dome lol. (Speaking of which, you might as well read Rion-chan's recap of the concerts - Dome Day1 and Dome Day2 she's done a great job recapturing it all :))

After we've bought the goods, we were sitting around chatting and waiting for the entering time. Btw, queues to the washrooms were so long o_o It's better to be a fanboy than a fangirl in this case....
At around 5:15pm-ish, we said good-bye to Viqqi and started to enter, going through security check point for all our bags and off we went inside.

The Dome was indeed huge but it's smaller than I'd imagined, maybe it's because we have quite a good seat :)
I can see the whole layout of the stages clearly. The same thing can't be said for Day 2 Arena area though, 'cause I'm just not tall enough and I'm not the high-heels wearing type lol. Yes, Arashi did appear to be closer and larger, but I had to stand on my toes and tried to see them between people's head LOL. So Day 1's seat was definitely better for me lol.
Here're the photos inside the Dome, taken by Rion, very subtlely lol (Day 1 and Day 2). And I took that Time monument outside.

Here's my rough sketches of the stage layout:
We're sitting of the right side on both days, I coloured the stages with orange colours. The main stage sort of sprawl into both sides, then one large moving stage platform run in the middle to the back stage. In the middle there's the single person size moving stage running parallel to the main and back stage. They also had moving bus platforms that run along side the pink area extending the backstage (are you confused now? xD anyway, watching the Dome DVD may give you some idea lol)

So, on Day 1 I can definitely see clearly, it's zannen that Nino-chan didn't come around to the right side stage often though. Plus, he performed Niji on a piano keyboard on the left side, so far away, Nino-chan. I only had a clear view of Nino when he rode on the moving bus platform, that was the closest! The distance between us was like 10~15m?? Well, it's close enough to see his face and sweat (NINO~ I screamed xD).
Also, the Ohmiya "kiss" was on the right stage so we all had a great view. I don't know if they actually kissed on the lips but Nino and Ohchan whole face were definitely snuggling very tightly and affectionately eeeee anyway I'm ahead of myself lol.

On Day 2, as you can see in the sketch, it's Arashi between people's head for me when we all stood up LOL. But I did get quite a close view of Aibachan, Jun-kun, and sometimes Ohchan when they come around the right stage though :)

Also, Nino!! During Hadashi no Mirai, he's on that single person moving stage travelling to the right side and stopped right behind (infront if we turned around) of us! And we got the spot-light! He must have seen us when he turned around for a short while! Although I couldn't see Nino's face since the spot light was so bright LOL. But the distance was like 5m!! YAY NINO XD

Another performance that I enjoyed very much was "Love Situation", it's good view for both Day 1 and Day 2 since they're performing on the backstage and moving stage platform running in the middle. One of the favourite part was when Ohchan+Jun's stage travelling towards to the main stage from the back stage crossing under Nino+Sho+Aiba stage travelling the opposite direction. It's like a ship travelling under a moving bridge xD The whole song and dance was so awesome and energetic and fun to watch!

Apart from Love Situation, Cry for You was awesome too! It's so grand with the openning (they didn't not wear mask) and light show. I can see Aibachan clearly since he's on our side (right side) but Ninochan's far far away on the left stage. The laser was spectacular though. Then Ohchan, Junkun, Shochan appeared on the main stage. Ah. Beyond words!!

Here's some of my impression when the Arashi get close to us. The top sketch here was when each of them came around to the right side stage.

Jun has this sparkly aura around him, I can't explain it! He really looking to each faces of the audience with his beautiful piercing eyes, you can feel the heat, his face in concerts was just godlike, so beautiful and radiant *_* my love for Jun shot off the scale in Dome!! (I think Jun saw us too? lol)

Aibachan's so enthusiastic, so lively, so cute! I think he saw us (our direction anyway lol) many times! Aibachan is like a sun, a singing dancing skipping hopping bright bright sun, so warm and cute too *_*

Ohchan also came around to the right stage some time, looking through the audience, giving "peace" left right and center. I think he saw us too XD Maybe he recognized Rion? =3 Ohchan was of course a bit less energetic than Aibachan (well, it's Aibachan we're talking about) but you can feel the calm and happy happy Ohchan-ness when he approached ^^

Shochan didn't come around the right stage too often. But he's so cute on Day 2!! Radiating Sho bright red energy warming each and every fangirl (and fanboy) in the Dome!

Nino didn't come around too often, but then I was happy enough from the aforementioned encounters lol.
Oh, Nino was super energetic and genki on Day 1, sliding to the stage, fell on the ground many times for fun, super super energic with his cute fluffy hair; I'm so very very glad!! Also, he sang very very well too!!
And there's of course the  OHMIYA KISS! On Day 1 (the view was spectacular), Ohchan was walking to the right stage singing Hero, Aibachan and Shochan were on the left stage so I didn't see them clearly... Nino was on the main stage following Ohchan (maybe 8~10 steps behind?) but towards the end of the song Nino caught up Ohchan on the edge of the right stage, held hands, and then affectionately pulled Ohchan to his face and snugged *_* they didn't turn off the light, bright and clear, my happy tears flowed down and hugged Rion who's on my right side eeeeeee!
On Day 2 I was more prepared, but not less over the moon! alkdjfaljdf

Speaking of tears. I was like Aibachan on Day 2, T_T non-stopped following his speech, the emotion was just so high, so happy and so high. Happy for them, happy to be able to be with them in these few hours. I love each and every one of their performance, the cute feathers, the MC, the speeches, all their solos, Fight Song, Happiness, their encores.

20071006
As mentioned on previous entry, I went back to the Kiiroi Namida event in the morning ^^
Then back to Ikebukuro to have lunch and ready for the last episode of Mago Mago Arashi.

20071005
After the Kiiroi Namida event in the morning, Mec got dragged came along to my search for Ippeikun in Kagurazaka.
We stopped at the Iidabashi station and took the Kagurazaka-dori exit and was welcome by this sight, Ippeikun here I come! :)

Even without Haikei Chichiue-sama and Nino's influence, I always wanted to visit this town as I'm obsessed with Japanese old narrow streets, down-town, sakamichi, shitamachi, bikes, telephone-poles and lines (plus Y-shape streets, railways etc etc).....
So here're two of the many many street scenes I took -
Then I spotted Ippei-kun outside a bookshop!
Then I came across this Japanese dessert shop and wanted to try the Taro-icecream (taro! TARO!).. and guess who I spotted at the cashier place?
Ippei-kun again! So, seeing Ippei-kun while having the delicious Taro-icecream was like a double-dosage of Nino, so nice :D
Then we're off to Canal Cafe! Which is just next to Iidabashi station.

And there were fishies in the canal! Most of them were black colour but there's this one with orange colour! I named him Nimo, he's wicked like Nino-chan :D And yes, have to take this photo, the coffee at Canal Cafe, with my Haikei book ^^

Then went back, satisfied, and watched Arashi getting bored at the 3 hours special Music Station special lol. You can tell Nino couldn't wait to get home to play his game.. Sho was being nice and nodding his head mostly.. Jun has the most expression (such a pro!)... Riida was just spacing out... and poor Aiba-chan seem to have aged ten years in those three hours o_o
I enjoyed their talk and Happiness performance very much, so did Arashi I guess, a chance for them to be less bored lol.

PS: Will reply later, I'm late for dinner now o_o;

20071005
Got up early for the Kiiroi Namida event :)
Me and Mec met up with Rion and Natsu at Kouraku-en station to get to Tokyo Dome City for the event.
It's nice meeting Natsu, primarily a Nino fan ^^V
Once we exit from the station we walked across this bridge where we could see the Dome on the right-side + front, it's so huge. Arashi's gonna have a concert there on Sunday, I hope I can see them well o_o
On the left side of the bridge was the huge roller coaster.

Took us 15 minutes to find the actual location of the Kiiroi Namida event, as the Tokyo Dome City's so huge.
Spotted my first ever Kiiroi Namida poster on the street leading up to the location!
There were some people there already, waiting for the door to open at 10am. There were not many of them, perhaps it's a weekday (Friday ^^). Once the door openned, we're the first to enter in, no queues whatsoever. Here's the view when we stepped in, stairs leading down to the exhibition. *snaps snaps snaps* more pictures lol.
Here's the live size Arashi on the main display wall:
The clothes they wore, Aiba's guitar, Nino's manga, Riida's painting, Sho's novel...
(oops, we shouldn't have taken these... too late now)
Then there's Nino's character's room :)
And of course, the goods outside the hall
It's a small hall and not crowded, so we're done with the event earlier than we anticipated.
Then the four of us taking a brief rest and fanning at the sitting place outside the hall.
I presented Ohno-koala and a painting to Rion... and took pictures of Ohmiya (Ohchan-koala and Nino-chan painting on my mini totebag lol). It's so random but fun heheh.
Then we went for lunch and did some goods hunting ^^
After that Rion and Natsu went back to continue with their concert t-shirt making, and Mec followed me along to Kagurazaka... Ippeikun here I come!! (next upate ^^)

PS:
Btw I came back to the Kiiroi Namida event the next day 'cause I forgot about certain goods.
So these're some of the things I ended up getting lol

And during this 2nd trip, I spotted the Kiiroi Namida sticker on the train :D
Yes, I couldn't stop taking photos of that live size wall.....
And on the way back. I spotted this police/security man...
so I stalked him and took a photo while he's walking..
You get an Arashi cookie if you could spot why :DD
 

Seriously, I don't know where to start!
So here's done sequencially:

20071002
Only had 2 hours sleep (doing last minute things) and got up at 4am,
took a taxi to the airport to catch the plane.
Wait in the airport.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
If I were Nino I would have saved the world 20 times.
Yay time to board the plane.
Some of the absolute certainties in life: tax, and babies crying in the plane.
So I plugged my ears into Arashi ipod... yeah yeah yeah.
10+ hours later, I looked out the window, the land of Arashi with brilliant sparkly nightlights like stars of a dome concert waving at us. Wave.
I miss Tokyo.
A few hours later, I'm back to my homebase, a hotel in Ikebukuro.
Knocked on the door of my online friend of 5 years, Mec, she came all the way from the UK to attend DreamBoys.
It's funny, we got to know each other via manga/anime fandom (hikago, tenipuri, hxh) and now we're both into JE.
She's all about KT (she goes JinJinJin), I'm all about Arashi (I go NinoNinoNino).
What a grand reunion.

20071003
Slept so well. Got up and get ready for Harajuku. Mec's coming along too.
Then Rion appeared on the train platform!
I'm so glad to have finally met Rion, she's exactly as she is in online, very kind, considerate and friendly ^_^
We then went to Johhny's shop. Surprise. No queues to get in! Perhaps it's due to the shop's been expanded.
But once we're in, it's packed with fans gawking at photos and busily jotting down the photo numbers.
I never had the habit of "collecting photos" but my will power was definitely no match to Arashi's rainbow power so by the end of it I find myself queuing up purchasing twenty odd photos of Arashi lol. While we're queuing, I was showing Rion and Mec my sketch book, which caught the attention of the two fangirls queuing infront of us. We started chatting and fanning, they're K8 fans and excited to know that JE has many overseas fans too. Because of them, we're able to find our way to the well-hidden Johnny's Family Club, I like random encounters like that :)

The entrance sign to JE Famikura -

Inside the place there're display walls on both sides filled with JE groups posters and things, a big monitor screen at the back of the room and a smaller (nonetheless big) monitor screen hanging on the side.

Took some photos of posters (I like Nino's drawing of muscle on his own bicep lol), Arashi messages, Jun's trophy awards -

and also Arashi appearances on the screen. We were waiting for Arashi's turn, waiting for such a long time too because they had a long segment featuring KinkiKids 10th anniversary.
But it was worth it when Arashi finally appeared! I was too excited that I forgot to "video" it, I kept taking photos of the screen instead lol. These are just some of them of the photos I took.
(Nino-chan's so cute tying up his bang like that eeeee)

Then we went to have lunch.
I was talking about how I'd been craving for korokke and Japanese hamba-gu while/after watching Yamada Taro Monogatari. So ta-dah. We all selected the hamba-gu set lunch! It was cho-delicious!!

Then we went for karaoke!
The karaoke ppl gave us the highest floor (I thought we're gonna be like singing Pikanchi on the roof or something) but when we entered the room, it's big! The tables were stacked along one another so it just looked like an Arashi concert stage platform so I jumped onto the table and started doing Arashi concert xDDD <- baka.
Kickstart the session with Arashi Happiness and some air-guitaring and off we went enjoying the next few hours Arashi karaoke Yeah Yeah Yeah ^o^
After that we went to Rion's house to have Arashi kai with some Arashi videos.
(and yes, I drank Arashi water C1000 the whole trip xD)

Thanks again to Rion! It was one of the best days!! My friend Mec said it's in her top 3 of her whole 3 weeks trip, she's very thankful for your hospitality :)

20071004
Today Mec and I just did some shopping at Ikebukuro before meeting another online friend Claudia, and her friend eli. It's nice finally meeting Claudia, she's so lively hahah. :)
Highlight: I found Nino's shiratakimen no soup at long last! There were just three left at the combini store so I grabbed all three xDD Apparently okoge no soup has been sold out lol.

While eating (it's so little, you can finish in two slurps!), I caught Sho saying "oishii~" on tv, what a timing lol!
Sho was on tv, going to different prefectory and locations for the special survey shows, so excited to see him on tv!!

Next, Kiiroi Namida event the next day, next update :) <- I need to go through the photos and do some re-sizing heheh.