Ba-Ba-Big-Bang

So after the Golden week festivities I had a week of work then it was off to Chiba. Chiba is a city located close to the water near Tokyo. South east of the main city was my destination for the best concert I have ever been to. It took months of waiting and hoping but even after the earthquakes and tsunami's the concert was still on. With a change of name from love & pain to Love & Hope the concert was going to give tons of money to earthquake victims. The concert featured BigBang and was held at makuhari messe.This is BigBang.
This is a photo from the concert we were at. I went with 3 friends and 2 teachers who were the ones who introduced BigBang to me in the first place. We arrived in Tokyo snagged lunch and ran over to the tower records in Shibuya where there was a giant poster and a huge display of clothing they have worn and I picked up their new CD which is the first Korean CD to top Japanese music charts at number 1.
We ran into a forever 21 and shopped for almost 2 hours. There was a random Canada restaurant where I ate nachos for the first time in one year. The next plan was goods!!! It means merchandise/swag related to the concert. They were sold out that night but said at 12 the next day the would re-open so we made plans to head back the next day. We stayed at the maple hotel.
Goods line....Thats all I can say...I underestimated true fans ability to line up at the buttcrack of dawn waiting for stuff. In japan if you like a band it is difficult to just buy stuff relating to a group other than waiting in goods lines. When we got in line(we were an hour early) it was already 2 hours long. So we waited... and waited and waited. Luckily everyone was very calm and orderly. We had no water and chairs so we just stood there in line. As the line moved things began to sell out.(another problem with japan concerts) The worst was you had to wait for people leaving the line finished with their shopping to walk past you while you waited in line. There were plenty of sighs of いな！！(the sound of jealousy) By the time I got my stuff I thought I was going to die...
But swag was accomplished
I headed to the hotel and we got ready for the concert. We took the bus back to the concert hall and lined up in another orderly line. Once in we realized our seats were sweet and we just sat back and relax watching BigBang music videos. Security was a joke, conversation about camera:
Security man: Do you have a camera?
Me: Yeah
Security man: no use.
Me: Okay
Security man: ticket please.
Fair enough....
The concert started pretty abruptly and was awesome from start to finish. VI and Sol did most of the talking because they are the only ones who can speak conversational Japanese. Everyone was screaming and jumping and they sang every one of their best songs. I can't express how awesome it was. The fans were going crazy and BigBang was riding around on scooters and segways.
Here's the whole gang afterwards. We were exhausted because the concert lasted 2 hours. Highlight of the concert was :
VI: Amazing singer live, not sure how he sounds better live.
SOL: Being damn sexy and giving away his clothes at every turn.
TOP: He doesn't even dance anymore, he just stands there looking smexy.
G dragon: Leaping around like a crazy man even though he was injured and his awesome songs with Top.
D-lite: His solo song baby don't cry. Amazing!!! He is by far the best singer in the group.
Thus we headed back to Nichinan after the best concert ever!
more to come

Golden Week

Well golden week ended in a blur of events. I drove our whole Kyushu trip and about died doing it. Hours upon hours of navigation into mountains with the boxy mobile. The car was a bit too small and we didn't get too lost except in Kumamoto. First up was Yuifuin and Beppu where we hit up the hot spring town with plenty of sulfurous smelling water. It was cool to see blood red and bright blue pools of water. We also ate eggs that claimed to add 2 years to your life it you ate them. We spend the night in yufuin was was vastly different that Beppu. Where Beppu was large and busy, Yufuin was serene and quite. It was definately inaka, but our Ryokan was gorgeous with a gorgeous view. We had access to private onsens and had an amazing Japanese style dinner and breakfast. We headed out that rainy morning to Mt. Aso(a volcano) and arrived around lunch time. We were going to hike but the rain proved too much so we took a cable car to the top.
It was an awesome view point at the top and afterwards I had the local delicacy of Kumamoto Beef curry. That night we stayed in a cabin at the base of the mountain and slept on the flattest futon known to human kind. Although that place was very clean and neat. We hit up a random restaurant we I ate some omu-rice. The next day was the longest drive consisting of at least 8 hours of driving. On the way out we hit up a place called farm land in the middle of no-where. It had these pod like houses and pools where small fish could clean your feet


Once in Nagasaki we headed out for some shopping. We didn't make it very far because we were exhausted . We snagged some okonomiyaki for dinner and went to bed at the worst hotel I have been to in Japan. It was just old, but not dirty so I didn't mind too bad. We hit up the local spots the next day because we had two days in Nagasaki. First was a shrine where I got omikuge , its like a fortune from a shrine and this one happened to be in English. Note the top of the picture is cut off it says BAD LUCK!!
It was devastating but at least I could tie it up and dispel the bad luck. Next was glover garden established by a man of Scottish decent. It was beautiful and was packed. Except we went straight to the tea house because we were starving. We got a parfait and some delicious tea.

After Glover we got tons of castella cake. No joke we bought at least 10 boxes of castella between the three of us and then we proceeded to eat it. Its like a dense cake soaked in sugar and baked. Its the staple food of nagasaki along with champon ramen which I also ate. We headed to the peace park which was incredibly sad but very informative especially with the recent threat of nuclear problems. We ended the day in china town eating delicious foods and shopping . The restaurant we went too was highly recommended. The next day we headed to shimabara and took the ferry across the water to Kumamoto city.
Here there was a giant castle and it was a gorgeous day. This guy posed with us and I couldn't stop laughing because he looked like a host samurai.... We spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out and spent the night in a super hotel. The drive back was terrible to say the least. We took a ''short cut'' sending us into the mountains for around 2 hours with little gas for the car. It was horrifying and I will post a video of it shortly. I was almost hit by an old man flying past us on a one lane road that was meant to two way traffic. good times. Got to Nichinan around 7ish and passed out later. And thus the swag
Other things of note were:
-buying a random watermelon in the middle of no where for $18 which is cheap.
-Random man in the massage chair room that we scared the shit out of, he bowed at least 5 times and left(he also had host hair). Also there was this creepy exercise rider machine(very questionable)
-Getting told to be quiet in our hotel room.
-There was a hole in the shower at the crappy hotel.