19th post: adventures in pops, both j & k

Lately I've been too sick to have many adventures, but I've been trying to do as much as I can when possible.  A few weeks ago, we thought that maybe meat would perk me up a bit, so we headed over to Shin-Okubo for some Korean BBQ.  It was cheap and very delicious as usual, and afterwards we went to Happy Time for frozen yoghurt and fun times.

The lady who sells make-up at Happy Time was like "long time no see" and asked if Lynne had already left Japan.  She said to say hi, so hi Lynne.  All the boys who work at Happy Time are very cute, especially this one who looks like the other guy from You're Beautiful... Shin Woo?  Well, in my head he looks like him.  He is very shy and adorable, when I was paying for my fro-yo, he held onto my hand and asked what country I was from in a very shy and adorable voice.  Maybe he is not actually shy and adorable but a total player, in which case he is doing a good job.  Anyway, the crazy old make-up ajumma kept sending him over to practice his English on us.  He said "people are here, they are not Japanese", as if he was conferring this massive secret on us, then was super shocked that we'd realised they were Korean.  It was very cute.  I love him a little bit.

There were all these pamphlets and guys standing around trying to get people to go to the live k-pop house upstairs from Happy Time.  Here is a sample of the pamphlet.

We thought it was free, so we were like okay, why not.  The show was due to start at 8, so at 8 we headed upstairs, but this cute little chubby guy said it wasn't time yet.  We went outside and there was this weird line system where you had to line up and guys who were dressed in military style coats chatted to you, then you were shown upstairs in pairs.  Once we were upstairs, it was actually 1000 yen to get in!  But you got a free drink as well, which you could choose off a list.  They were supposed to be cocktails but mine just tasted like a melon soda.

The whole club had a very surreal atmosphere, a bit like a David Lynch movie.  You got seated at these tables in pairs and then the band members brought over your drink.  There were only nine tables

and the stage was actually bigger than the floor space and there was no way to leave once you were seated.  The chubby dude who had told us to come back later and this other guy who looked a bit like Mizushima Hiro, only not as hot, chatted for a while and then the chubby dude sang.  He had an amazing voice!  One of the audience members was his mum and she said he did really well.  Then Mizushima Hiro guy sang, he did like a jazzy number and kept making Kathryn do audience participation, which was amusing.  He was nervous because we spoke English and he sang a song in English but he didn't think his accent was very good.  He was pretty good though and very charismatic.  They did two songs each, and then they chatted for a while because the main act still weren't ready.  

The main act - ie the guys in the pamphlet, were called Sin (pronounced Shin).  The dude in the middle had blonde hair and was the gayest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.  Like, you'd need to invent new words to describe his gayness because they simply don't exist yet.  The dude on the left, Rai-Z looked like he was drugged up to the eyeballs and just like stared into space most of the time, except for sometimes he would randomly laugh and one time he tried to breakdance but failed.  Ken was okay but he played the saxophone, which kind of clashed badly with the backing tape they were singing to.  Blonde and very gay Aika talked a lot, and he directed it all at this yakuza-looking guy sitting in the front, who I reckon might've been a producer or maybe sponsor or something, or at least Aika thought so.  He talked about how he is in the same agency as Kara (very popular Korean girl band) and... other shows they'd played and other stuff that I kind of tuned out because he talked a long time.  They did like five songs but all I can really remember is the FT Island cover and this original song of theirs that was supposed to get the crowd riled up and involved the crowd yelling stuff out only nobody really did.  It was very awks.  But kind of hilarious.  There was one girl with a Sin penlight though.  She really loved Aika.

After the show we kind of wanted to get the hell out of there, but we were waylaid by this chick who I think was the manager of Sin and thought we were like bigwig record execs or something.  She took us over to the bar and gave us her business card and told us about their upcoming shows.  She introduced us to Ken, who looked much taller and better looking off stage - maybe because the other two weren't dragging him down?  We tried to leave again but chubby guy and Mizushima Hiro guy caught us by the door.  We told them they were very good and stuff as we were backing out, but then I couldn't get the door open so it was all incredibly awkward!

That is my story of when Happy Time turns into awkward and surreal time!

Last weekend was Arashi's waku waku gakkou.  That means like "exciting school".  They are doing that instead of having a concert this year, they say to save power but I think more like because they are overworked and on the verge of nervous collapse.  We didn't get tickets in the ballot system, so we acquired them elsewhere for an exorbitant price that was still like a tenth of what concert tickets would've cost us.  Anyway, we'd been planning our concert outfits for like a year, so at least we got to wear them!

Kathryn's t-shirt says "Sakurai" because her favourite is Sakurai Sho and her accessories are red because Sho is the red member of Arashi.  Mine says "Ninomiya" and my accessories are yellow for the same reason.  The t-shirts are in the style that Arashi wore for the Pika**nchi photobook in 2002, and we were also wearing appropriately colour-coded skirts and tights.  I wish we'd taken full length pictures of our outfits because they were super cute, everyone said so.

This is where we were sitting.  The concept of "Waku waku gakkou" is that each of Arashi is a sensei and they teach you valuable life lessons.  Most of the stuff they did was in that bit in the middle, so they were far away from everyone, but there were big screens around the top.  They did some things around the outside, like Ninomiya-sensei made everyone run a relay race and Sakurai-sensei made them collect buckets of water from little pools and take them up to the middle while Jun showered a mannequin version of himself so we could all learn the importance of water conservation.  I'm not sure what the point behind Nino's was, except that he likes to annoy people.  His yellow hair was very vivid and makes him look like the living dead.

In Aiba-chan-sensei's class, he made people do a quiz about sushi and then made sushi for Arashi to eat.  I was very hungry at this point and wanted to eat Aiba-sensei's sushi, not even in a metaphorical and possibly dirty way either.  Jun-kun-sensei's was kind of boring, it was about this chick giving birth, it was like a home birth and he sat with the woman while she was in labour.  There is no way I'd let Matsumoto Jun watch me in a state like that!  Sho looked very shocked by the video, I don't think he realised where babies came from up to that point.

They had portraits of what the senseis would look like in like 20 years time, but the pic didn't come out well.  Leader-sensei had a pointy beard, he looked like Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid.  His lesson was the best, it was about always showing a smile and how laughing makes your brain think it's happy. He made all of Arashi laugh to see who had the best smile but the smile-meter thing wasn't working.  He made Sho go down the end and ding this bell and say things he'd failed at recently so we could all laugh about them, and then they all had to do a silly dance.  Then he sang this song he'd made up, which was like "egao wa ichiban daiji na, egao wa ichiban suteki na" (smiling is the most important, smiling is the best) and on the na bits he'd do this funny face and dance, it was seriously the most hilarious thing I've ever seen in my life.  There was more to the song but I don't remember it because I thought my brain was going to explode from laughing.  It was worth the ticket price just for that.

After the lessons, Arashi sang "Furusato" and then went around the dome on carts so they could wave to everyone.  Honestly, they could've just done that for the three hours, that's what the people really want.

It was bedlam getting out, so we ducked down this little side street to get to the station, as there were lots of food places and we thought the trains wouldn't be so crowded if we ate first.  There was this restaurant that was playing Arashi songs, and they had a special Arashi menu!

The stuff on the menu was all puns on like Arashi songs or member's names, and they had pictures with funny little Arashi-related jokes written beside them.  I stole one of the photocopies because it was hilarious.  It was genius of them because within like five minutes the whole place was packed with people coming from the waku waku gakkou.

This is Kathryn with the menu and her drink which is called "Wild at Heart" after Arashi's recent song.  It was very yummy, it had like violet essence or something in it.  Actually, it might've been the "Face Down", because we thought with a name like that, you wouldn't want to drink too many.

These are the "Gantz balls".  We were a bit worried about the black sauce stuff but they were actually quite delicious.

This is the Lucky (fry) Seven (kakki fry)... bit of a stretch that one, maybe.  Plus there's only five of them.

This is the Sakurai Sho Lon Bau.  It was yum, or as Sakurai Sho would say "MAXIMUM umai".

The girls next to us had Kaibutsu salad, but I don't really get the pun with that, there weren't like monsters in it or anything.  They were very sweet and loved Jun.

So, even if I'm too sick to do anything else while I'm here, at least I got to see Arashi once.  And, you know, up and coming k-pop band Sin!