Bakuryu in Japan

Bakuryu

Germany1065 Posts

April 28 2012 17:53 GMT

“There is a fine line between dreams and reality, it's up to you to draw it.” ~B. Quilliam

Hey all, it’s my “little” blog about my trip in Japan from 5th march until 12nd march.
I just want to say that I’m sorry that my English is so bad…. It’s hard to change it up every sentence…
And I’m sorry that it took more than 1 month to finish it -.- (perfectionism sucks…)
I hope it’s not too much of a text-wall…. If anything is wrong, please tell me.
Edit: Because of picture restrictions, I had to use 3 posts…

+ Show Spoiler [Introduction] +

(this blog is not only for TL people, so some parts might be obvious for some people..)
My name is Mike Lange, I’m 22 years old and from Germany. Besides working as an electrician, my hobbies are more or less only related to gaming. I’m “quite good” in Starcraft Broodwar, nicknamed the Moustache Zerg in the foreign scene (foreign = outside korea). I managed to win 135$ last year with starcraft, it’s fun. (That’s why this blog is on a Starcraft forum)…
I also like some anime and similar stuff. I used to watch the old Digimon series and other shows on RTL2 (German tv broadcaster) 10 years ago. The recent ones that most people know would be Detective Conan, Naruto and One Piece. Besides them, I also like K-On (pretty popular in japan), Durarara and Gosick.
But it’s not only about the “simple” anime shows. It’s about how the thoughts of many people managed “to give life” to some things, creating new worlds, like turning dreams into reality.
The two best examples would be Vocaloid and Touhou.

+ Show Spoiler [What is Vocaloid?] +

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid
Basically it’s a synthesizer where u can make your own music. There are many different vocals. The most known vocal is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku
It’s really hard to explain it objective.
Hatsune Miku is the first of Crypton Future Media’s Vocaloids from Vocaloid 2, which is why Miku has the “01”. Kagamine Rin and Len are “02” and Megurine Luka is “03”. Those 3 (or 4) are the most popular ones. There was basically no limitation in creating a song. It could be a really slow one, or a heavy metal one. There are thousands of different songs available at Nico Nico Douga (= similar to youtube). Some songs:

+ Show Spoiler [What is Touhou?] +

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou
Touhou Project is a series of games, mostly a bullet hell shooter, developed by ZUN. There are many different characters (50+), nearly all female.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Touhou_Project_characters
Every character has a theme song and the “main” characters have at least 2-3 theme songs, all composed by ZUN. There are also some 2D fighting games made by ZUN.
But now comes the fun part.
There are many different circles/artists, remixing the songs in their own way. The most known song is Masayoshi Minoshima feat. Nomico – Bad Apple!!

Other examples would be:

There are many fan-made games/remakes. There are Touhou style games of Mario, MegaMan, Castlevania, Pokemon…
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Fangames

+ Show Spoiler [Preparation] +

My Japanese is non-existent so I burrowed some Japanese learning books from my cousin, who is currently learning Japanese. Because of some “real life” problems, It was way more busy than predicted so I had no time to learn any Japanese -.-
I made a blog earlier about why I want to go to japan:

Ok, my goal was the Vocaloid concert, but I still needed a concert ticket. I found a forum post where somebody was offering his ticket for sale. I directly responded and I managed to buy the ticket from Jukka, a Finnish guy, who will also go to the concert. We talked a little and he told me that some of his friends will also be around. I took the same hostel so it would be easy to meet in order to get the concert ticket from him (sending it to me would have taken too much time). With limited spare time,
I prepared some prints about the locations I want to visit in Tokyo and stayed up at like 1 am Monday (5th march, my day of flight)

+ Show Spoiler [Day 1, Monday] +

It‘s 5 am in the morning. I’m on the first train in my hometown Crailsheim, ready to start the adventure.
[image loading]

Listening to Hatsune Miku – Light Song makes me pumped and I check if I brought everything with me.
[image loading]

Equipped with a backpack and a big suitcase, I think I can buy some stuff.
I also had some prints with me where I noted various stuff, like where I want to go, which train to take and all.
So while travelling to the Stuttgart airport, I needed to change the train in Stuttgart. I took a train 3 minutes earlier than I should and it was the wrong train, but because the first 3 train stations were the same with both lines, I changed again and got on the right train. Phew.
So I never was at an airport before, nor did I fly on a plane before, so I had no idea what I need to do and all. Luckily my friend WendiGo could help me with that. That’s also why I wanted to go to the airport as early as possible, just to be sure I don’t miss my plane.
So at the airport I asked around a little bit, then checked in with my e-ticket at an automat. Checked in my suitcase, proceeded to the security gates, everything dandy, found the gate of my flight pretty fast and there I was w8ing for my flight.
[image loading]

I arrived at around 7.30 so I had to wait for some time. I realized that I forgot to exchange money but I’ll just change it in Japan. My flight company was Scandinavian Airlines, the abbreviations were SK or SAS, so I already felt being corrupted…
Next to the flight screen, there were ads being played, and I saw an ad where I was like “wtf I wouldn’t think that they would use that in a “german” ad”. I tried to get it with my cam but I couldn’t catch the ad anymore. I searched the internet but I can’t find it -.-
It was a LG 3d-cinema tv ad which had a mutalisk flying out of the screen to show the 3d effect.
Ok, my first flight was fun, time flew by and the 1 hour was over in a second, landing in Copenhagen at gate B8.
[image loading]

That wasn’t my plane, but I had nothing to do so I just took a picture of it. I browsed through my prints, checked the Tokyo metro system again to make sure I know how to get to all places I want to visit. I was listening to namapann – Desire Drive and Sonic Generations – Stardust Speedway (US) and after about 1 and a half hour of waiting, my next flight was finally displayed in the fourth screen which displayed flights.
[image loading]

“Let’s quickly go to gate C40 and wait there” is what I thought, tried to read the map layout of the airport and started walking.
After realizing that there is no C after gate B19, I decided to follow the arrows instead. So after 10 minutes of walking and like 15 arrows, I was at the beginning of the B gate aisle. I finally realized how the map worked and worked my way to C40.
What felt like 20 minutes and 30 arrows and 1 shopping district, I arrived at the C aisle, oh good….
An interesting thing was that as I got closer to C40, I saw more asian people around me, must be a sign…
10 arrows later, I was at a passport control. I stopped before the passport control, and saw there were 2 ways to get controlled, 1 for all passports, and 1 for Europe only. Both had a person in the booth looking in my direction. It didn’t matter which I took, so I took the one for all passports, and when I walked closer, the guy in the booth was fist pumping. He most likely made a bet with his friend, where I would go^^. So with a grin on my face, I walked by and I began to hate arrows.
[image loading]

I think I get it now…. So after 5 more minutes walking, I finally arrived here
[image loading]

So close… well the doors to C40 were still closed so I had to wait here for another hour. Time to listen to more songs: Sonic Generations – Stardust Speedway (JP), nomico - dreaming
There was a single “no photographing” sign next to the entrance to C40.
I didn’t get that “no photographing” sign at all, because that was the only sign I saw in my course of 1 hour walking through the airport… but I needed to go through there for my flight so I didn’t took photos after that sign.
When I got through that door/place, I was crowded by asian people, most likely all Japanese.
From here on, everything got announced in 3 languages, english, danish and Japanese. Of course Japanese stuff got announced by a Japanese girl. The problem was u could hardly understand the English version at all, so I and 2 other germans, who were waiting across me, were wondering together when we should enter and all.
We then finally entered the plane, I was relieved that there was a bottle of water for each seat, because I hardly ate/drank something on my way. The plane was an A330 or A340, not sure, and I sat in the middle of 2 japanese girls, sweet. I was fiddling around with the touch screen which each seat had, realizing that it was kinda buggy then just waited for takeoff.
My row was (from left to right): Japanese guy, Japanese girl (looked like they were friends/lovers), me, the Japanese looking girl who was actually French.
I and the French girl were hopelessly trying to figure out how that touch screen works. 1 hour later I realized that my touch screen buttons “on/off” and “menu” didn’t work, so I mostly used my remote/controller. There were a bunch of movies, music and games available but it happens that the system sometimes bugs and has none of them ready….
We got various stuff to eat, and an immigration card which u need to fill out when u fly to japan. Because of 1-2 airport shows about custom controls my dad was watching, he told me some stuff about that card, but it didn’t really help… I asked the French girl for help but it’s her first flight in 8 years so she also had no idea. (I then saw in her passport that she was French).
When I finally finished the card even though I had no idea about 1-2 things, I played some Sudoku (extreme), because that was the only game with skill I could find -.-
Nearly finishing the Sudoku, my touch screen froze, great…. Then played some Tetris, but after 20 minutes I was too bored of it and played more Sudoku without freezing.
It was an 11 hour flight, in the night (time of arrival in tokyo was around 6 am Tuesday), so I tried to sleep. Problem was, I wasn’t able to fall asleep at all. So for around 3-4 hours I tried to fall asleep while listening to music…
At around 1 am Tokyo time, toilet was calling me, but everybody around me was asleep, and I can’t just wake a sleeping girl… so at like 3 am, I finally fell asleep, woke up 1 hour later because the stewards (some were Danish, some were Japanese) turned on the light again, but I rushed to the toilet when I realized that the French girl also woke up…
More in Day 2

+ Show Spoiler [Day 2, Tuesday] +

We had breakfast in the plane and then arrived in Narita airport in Tokyo.
I already knew how to follow arrows, so I did that to get to the immigration office, in order to give away my immigration card. He also took my fingerprints and a picture of me.
Then went down to get my suitcase, and got to the baggage control. I one I went to had a really cute Japanese girl. She asked me where I want to go and all. She then decided to check my suitcase so I had to unpack all my stuff. Once realizing that only like 1/6 of my big suitcase was full, she was like “oh, shopping”, I couldn’t disagree on that. While my suitcase was taken away to be x-rayed, I explained to her that I will be going to the Hatsune Miku concert and she was rather surprised “oh the real Hatsune Miku?” She definitely wins the cutie award. She then took a quick peek into my backpack and then I could move on.
So I was finally there in Japan. Because of the lack of sleep, I took some time realizing what I should do. First exchanged the money, then I brought a 2 day special metro ticket and then thought about somehow getting into Tokyo. I was like, ok let’s try taxi. Nobody knew where the hell I wanted to go even though I had the printed google map with me and once I saw the potential price of 23,500 Yen (~235 euro), I immediately abandoned that. I went back into the airport, found a Korean group with a group leader talking in Korean, and searched for the train station.
[image loading]

This looks more like it.
Every screen displayed in Japanese and English (alternating between them), so u didn’t really have to be good in Japanese in order to find out where to go next.
Brought a ticket for the Narita Express and headed through the gates to the train station.
[image loading]

That’s the ticket. It saved me 20k Yen (~200Euro)…
The train came, I wanted to go in but I quickly caught the announcement that we shouldn’t enter because they are cleaning the train. Some other foreign woman didn’t get the announcement and tried to enter another 2 times….
Anyway the train felt like a class 1 trip.
[image loading]

I saw 1 anime ad outside the train but was too slow to catch it. But I feel that I came closer xD
When I arrive Tokyo station, I was surrounded by Japanese (what else xD) and searched for my next train station.
[image loading]

That’s security for ya. Anyway I already developed some sort of arrow-phobia but I had to follow them…
[image loading]

Felt like 200km… but while I was searching for the train station, 2 japanese girls with basic English started to help me. 20 minutes later, they asked me simple stuff, I knew they were 18 years old and then I realized that I followed the wrong arrows -.- anyway, we went to the next gate, I was confident my special Tokyo metro ticket would work, but it didn’t. We went to the “gateway keepers” in the booth next to the gate and asked why it didn’t work. For 3 minutes the guys in the booth talked with the 2 girls, all 4 weren’t able to explain to me why it doesn’t work or what the problem is… nice…
Then they used some standard phrased English sentences from a book asking me to show the narita express ticket and I couldn’t find it -.- I searched for it for like 5 minutes, but then the gate keeper let me trough, the girls told me that I was lucky. They were really helpful and even brought me a ticket to the station I wanted to go. But that was only like a third of my total way because I had to change train 2 times. So at the gate to the next train station, we said goodbye and I went to the next station.
I wasn’t able to ask them for a picture because of some stuff that happened in the meantime…
At one upward escalator, I had to fasten my shoe, so I bend down while standing on both feet while my left hand was at the handrail. One of the two girls wore some sort of jacket-into-long-skirt jacket which went until her knees. She was always in front of me when we used an escalator. So while bending down, my head was like on the height of my hips, which was like 15cm above her knees and I also had my head looking downward…. Just saying…
1 minute later they asked me with some translation program what I was doing earlier, but the question was scrabbled and I didn’t get it… I realized it like 10 minutes later -.-

ANYWAY, I managed to get from Tokyo station to Otemuchi station with the help of the 2 girls, and decided to ask the next gate keeper why my ticket is not working. Because I remembered that I took a picture of the “lost ticket” and I thought this works now. This gate keeper also had no English skills and after 5 minutes trying to find out what was wrong with my ticket, I used his Japanese metro plan to show him if I can use the special Tokyo metro ticket for my next trains, his actions showed me that I should just try it in this gate, and it worked oO. So I used the ticket from now on and zigzagged through the metro system in order to get to my destination Asakusa. I guess there were another 30 arrows or so T_T.
In the end I finally reached daylight in Asakusa.
[image loading]

“Finally no more arrows” I thought that when making that picture… looks like I trolled myself…
Using the sun as a compass and using the map I printed from the hotel website I started looking for the hostel. I first thought I walked the wrong way because I encountered a pink “Asakusa station” sign, which was in the wrong way on the map, but the sign was connected to the Asakusa station of the Toei line, which was blue on my map, and the pink one was the Asakusa station of the Asakusa line *head explode*.
After walking for like 1 hour, I finally found the hostel… (at around 5 pm).I didn’t know which map I should trust because they had like 2-3 different ways of displaying each street and the exact location of the hostel…
[image loading]

God was I relieved. I checked in, paid with my credit card which I didn’t use before, so I was happy that worked too and proceeded to my dormitory room.
[image loading]

There were 8 beds in the dormitory room, I just picked a bottom bed in the corner.
While I was preparing my bed and stuff, a guy named Sam came in, his bed was next to mine. 3 minutes later, somebody was knocking on the door asking for me. His name was Miikka, he’s a friend of Jukka, the guy which sold me his concert ticket. I didn’t get how they found out that I just arrived, but Miikka said that he got the concert ticket ready and he was going to get them. I continued preparing my stuff while it knocked again and Jukka came in.
[image loading]

Oh yeah I was happy now, I got the ticket for the concert on Friday. But that’s not all. Jukka suddenly asks me if I want to buy a concert ticket for Thursday. I was actually dumbfounded by that. He told he that it will not be the best seat, but I was like “why not?” and brought it.
[image loading]

We were also talking about what to do tomorrow, I decided to tag along with them then I realized that Sam is also part of the group, they weren’t exactly sure where they wanted to go, either Akihabara or Nakano Broadway but I was fine with anything because I was so sleepy….
After I prepared everything, I just went to bed at 7 pm because I was so sleepy.
More in Day 3

+ Show Spoiler [Day 3, Wednesday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 1] +

So I woke up pretty early at like 6 am. Not knowing what I should do, I listened to some music. Some songs were Kagamine Rin - Ouka Ryouran, Megurine Luka – Evil Princess Eye, Sonic Generations – Crisis City Act 2 and Rooftop Run Act 2. God I love those violins. So at around 8 am I went down to the lobby for breakfast, and picked a random free place. 3 minutes later there were 5 French speaking girls sitting at “my” table… well after breakfast, I went around in some historic part of Asakusa with temples and stuff.
[image loading]

After that, I was on the way to get some money from the ATM which was nearby and then I saw this nasty sign on the street.
[image loading]

I’m really waiting for the “don’t smoke while standing” sign.
So while walking around, I encounter some things which are unfamiliar to me.
[image loading]

I’m not used to see all that cables hanging around because here in Germany they are 90% underground (if it’s in the city). But in Tokyo, it looked like there was a pole every 5 meter.
Additionally, Tokyo had left-hand traffic (Germany = right-hand traffic), which was also mostly used for pedestrians (escalators and all). It took some time for me to adjust to that.
I returned to the hostel at around 10:30 am, asking Jukka when we will head out, but they were still partly sleeping so I should return at 12.
Alright, more time to check out the shrines.
[image loading]

Returning to the hostel at 12, Jukka, Miikka and Sam were waiting. The place they wanted to go was the Nakano Broadway and a guy named Jan joined us. So the 5 of us set out and I had no idea where we were going, so I just followed the group. I thought we were going to the nearest subway station, but because I had no idea, I kept following. We took a stop at the nearby Lawson, buying some food/drinks.
[image loading]

Feeling like flash, I drank the pocari sweet, but I didn’t like it. While drinking, it tasted like water, and in the end it had some taste of lemon/lime. It was like some stale lime bottle 
So while walking I always had Sam’s bag in front of me.
[image loading]

Jukka brought it for him last year. Sam also had 2 Miku badges on it at the front…
Some minutes later we went past the nearest subway station (Tsukuba Express) to a different subway station (Tawaramachi). At the first gates I could still use my 2 day special ticket, but then we had to change to a different line where my ticket wouldn’t have worked anymore, so Jukka assisted me on buying the Suica card.
[image loading]

This card totally reminds me of Suika. It was some sort of Pre-paid card for the subway gates.I only used that from now on.
I don’t exactly remember at which station we changed the line, but it took quite some time.
[image loading]

That was on the way to Nakano Broadway. The red haired guy is Miikka, Jukka is the black haired guy right in front of me, and Sam is the one to the left with the beanie.
[image loading]

My first shopping experience in japan, OK, we parted at the entrance and had around 2 hours to check out the stores in this “street” which consisted of 3 floors. I first went up to the third floor with Jukka and Sam, but after some stores, we just lost each other and went on alone.
[image loading]

Oh yeah I think I’m right here. The first stuff I bought was a Megurine Luka petit-nendroid figure.
But there wasn’t much else in that store, so I went on to the next. It was a store full of Mangas, I didn’t even have time to check them out, Sam already checked them and found nothing, so I continued my search. Next store was full of figures, mostly figma, I wanted to make a picture but it wasn’t allowed. I still bought a Luka and Yui figma figure. Next store had similar stuff as in the picture above, mostly about k-on, I bought a small Yui figure which also has some sounds and I also bought some sort of k-on metallic plate. Nice, so I walked around some time, found a part of Mandarake, and when I entered it, my immediately thought was “oh no….” some seconds later I realized that it was full of Touhou and I thought “NOOOO T_T”.
(I won’t use the standard words so this post can’t be found by searching for those words^^)
Hm.. How do I explain this, let’s just say this store was filled with stuff I can buy, but can’t import.
Great, I browsed through to see if there were ones I could import. There were like 5 other guys browsing through that stuff in the shop, looked quite normal. Being depressed, I took a look at the ones sorted by artist, directly found an artist that I remembered. I recognized the cover of 1-2 but I couldn’t remember if I can import them…. Feeling depressed, I went on in the shop and realized that they also had some normal merchandize. After some time I saw some Touhou figures in a box in a corner, I bought a Patchouli one (Vinyl series) and I also bought some fan made Touhou RPG, which had some extra illustrations, so that had to be bought.
[image loading]

Those were all finished puzzles, I didn’t want to buy them because they were rather big, and I already bought a good amount of big stuff.
[image loading]

Oh yeah, the Gachapons, I saw one with k-on, and realized that u can only use 100 yen coins on them and I just didn’t have any ready to use it . But from then on I started collecting the 100 yen coins in the pocket of my jacket so I could use those later.
It was already near 3 pm so I went to the meeting spot at the entrance.
Miikka was the first to come back, we talked about what we bought and stuff. I expressed my concern that I hardly found anything about Touhou (only that one part of Mandarake) and asked him if it would be different if we went to Akihabara. He gave me the “you have no fucking idea” look, the look u would make if somebody asks if Flash is any good. Alright, I guess I have to check it out then.
After everyone was back at the meeting point (and Jukka got out of the arcade), all of us check out the Mandarake again because Miikka wanted to show Jukka some stuff. Jukka ended up buying a Miku bag.
We all were hungry at that point, so we went to the sushi bar which was directly at the entrance of the Nakano broadway.
[image loading]

I’ve never eaten sushi before but it tasted ok. It was more of “don’t think, just eat”. Jan translated the “instructions” for us, so we knew how to order and all.
After eating, we headed back to the hostel, but Sam wanted to check out Akihabara again and I also wanted to go there, so I followed Sam.

+ Show Spoiler [Part 2] +

Once in Akihabara, u can feel something is different.
[image loading]

That SEGA building is full of arcades on 7 floors…
We walked down the street, into some small shop, but couldn’t find anything. At the corner we saw:
[image loading]

While walking down the big street to the first store:
[image loading]

So yeah definitely something is different here. There were also another SEGA building in the street. (the one on the first of the two pictures is tagged “Club SEGA”)
While I was busy taking Photos, we walked past like 10 Maids trying to advertise their Maid café. Every 10 meters there was a Maid advertising.
We then arrived at the first store in Akihabara.
[image loading]

20 minutes later we were out of money and had to go. WTF. Sayle for your wallets safety, never ever go to Akihabara. Just don’t, I’m serious.
Oh god… ok so we went into that store and I just followed Sam because he was there already at Monday, we skipped the first floor because it didn’t quite have anything that would interest us. The second floor had some Vocaloid and K-on music. I didn’t think, I just grabbed stuff. I bought Vocarock Collection 2, wowaka – Unhappy Refrain and HTT – Singing! (paying with a 10k bill). I also saw an album from AVtechNO, but didn’t buy it.
We then proceeded to the third floor with Sam’s comment “there should be more at third floor”.
While going upstairs I saw the poster of the 3D Youmu action game which came out recently, that game was quite nice.
At the third floor, I literally went “Holy shit…” because nearly the whole floor was covered with Touhou music/games.
So while jamming to IOSYS – Hatate’s Bakkoi Murder Case and IOSYS – The Lovely, Freezing, Tomboyish Bath, Cirno’s Hot Spring while watching those videos at the screen, I “slowly” began to browse through the music. “slowly” in a sense of picking without thinking, just that what looked nice.
So I picked UI-70 perfeitas flores de cereja/unplugged, K2 Sound – Spark, Silver Forest – Vermillion Summer, C-Clays – Cerca and then I turned around, realizing that I hear a remix of Murasa’s theme being played, and saw a fan made Touhou game being played/displayed at a different screen. I saw all kind of Touhou games there (also the one I bought at Nakano Broadway) and took Ten Desires and The Memories of Phantasm with me. I wasn’t totally sure what The Memories of Phantasm was but I think I remembered that it was the Anime episode, so I just had to buy it.
I tried to think and realized that by buying those I would hardly have money left, so I bought them all (with another 10k bill) and Sam and I were happy.
There goes my safed 20k Yen -.- (check Day 2 where I save some money…)
Outside, I still had the “WTF just happened” face on.
But we had no other choice then returning home because we were out of money (and there is no way to draw money from in Akihabara).
[image loading]

With the Tsukuba Express we went back to the hostel. Back at the hostel, I wasn’t satisfied. I Couldn’t even finish the third floor -.- .It felt like we just took a glance at the third floor then I was out of money…
Ok I was set, got some more money and headed back to Akihabara on my own. I can do that alone!
Well once I came out of the subway station, I realized that I was at the wrong entrance….
With the map in my head, I followed the right hand street around the subway station. I came across a small store filled with figures. 15 minutes later I bought 4 figures and used another 10k bill for it. OK no more random stores now, let me just finish the third floor of Toranoana. (I bought Yuyuko and Youmu from the Vinyl Series and some Ritsu and Mio figures).
Lucky for me, that was the only store on the way to the Maid dreamin… I think there were 2 more stores on the way, but I stayed focused so I didn’t check them.
Back into Toranoana, back to the third floor, I tried to think this time. I searched for some artists and some songs and bought Silver Forest one with a Japanese name... (it had Youmu on it = bought), Halozy – Tonic Triangle and 2 TAM albums, both in japanese. (One had Murasa = bought, the other one had Byakuren playing Violin = bought).
At that moment I was thinking, that I can’t just buy 100 Touhou CDs, I also need space for other stuff.
It was also near 10 pm and I had no idea when the last subway will depart. So I ended my shopping tour for the day and headed back. I still had the feeling that I didn’t finish checking out that third floor….
I’ve never spent so much money for shopping in such a short amount of time xD
More in Day 4

+ Show Spoiler [Day 4, Thursday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 1] +

Waking up at around 9 am, I realized that I bought so much yesterday, that I’m already forgetting what stuff I bought, so I started making a list.
[image loading]

At the top is Touhou stuff, middle is Vocaloid, and bottom is K-on. I already needed a second column for the Touhou stuff…
While making the list I directly placed my stuff into my bag.
[image loading]

As u can see there already isn’t that much space left because of all the figures…
I didn’t want to buy more figures because of that and I need more Vocaloid/K-on stuff and NO MORE Touhou CDs….
[image loading]

That was my bed btw. To the left at the bottom bed was Sam, on top of Sam’s bed was some Australian guy I think, not too sure (the red towel belongs to him). On top of my bed was a Singaporean guy, but I hardly saw him, he arrived somewhere around mid-Wednesday. He had a cold on Wednesday night and I could hardly sleep because of him… The White suitcase belongs to him. To the right of my bed was some older Japanese guy (with like 6 different suits and more than 6 bags full of clothes) and on top of his bed was some American guy, who arrived around mid-Thursday.
Before I could check my stuff, I talked some stuff with the Australian guy, and he told me that he is some sort of traveler, working for 3 months in a country then moving on to the next country. He does that since the middle of last year and his last stops were Australia and New Zealand. He had problems converting his money because the exchange rate varied based on his exchange place. I didn’t have problems with my exchange rate^^. He is into developing some software and searched work… I call him “software guy” from now on.
Yesterday Jukka told me that we would meet at 12 again, so I still had some time to walk around a little and eat something.
[image loading]

It tasted like fish chips with rice, liked it.
[image loading]

That still boggles me.
So at 12 we 5 set out to Suidobashi, in order to go to one of 4 Family Marts (who open at 1 pm), in Order to get concert exclusive stuff and the first 1000 of each Mart will get a special clear file for free.
[image loading]

Everyone followed Miikka again and in Suidobashi, we still followed him to get the Marts.
Family Mart number 1:
[image loading]

That line went around the corner…. The teal Miku bag in the middle is from the concert store. We all wanted that bag. In order to find a smaller queue, we went to the next Family Mart.
Family Mart number 2:
[image loading]

Ok we were all grinning, nobody wanted to line in. Jan was questioning why he even was with us, (He wasn’t that of a Miku fan) Miikka responded with carrying stuff and lining in^^. We then went to the third Family Mart.
While going to the third Mart, we just managed to find something….
[image loading]

OH FUCK that car…. I seriously need that car.
Everybody went on to the next Mart so I also had to go or else I would have lost the group.
Family Mart number 3:
[image loading]

If u lost closely u can see that the queue makes a sharp U-turn and is nearly back at the beginning.
Everybody was grinning again, and we decide to split our group. Miikka and Jan went into the line, and the rest went on to the 4th Family Mart.
[image loading]

Saw that building on the way there.
[image loading]

And here we are, waiting in the line of the 4th Family Mart.
The Family Mart was like 50 meters in front of us around the corner, but it had a big space in between because of the parking lot u can see on the right side of the picture.
Two Officers (?) were checking that everything went smooth in that line.
[image loading]

Sam with his 2 Miku Badges on his Miku bag and he wore a Miku T-shirt.
[image loading]

Jukka checking his phone/listening to music.
So while waiting, I saw that we are not the only one with awesome stuff.
[image loading]

They most likely got them in the concert store…
[image loading]

That’s the same bag Sam has.
Every 5 minutes, some guys went out of the queue and suddenly started to run, we didn’t really know why…
After 40 minutes of waiting we came pretty close to the entrance.
[image loading]

Sam helped me with that one ^^
We all could clearly hear Hatsune Miku – Romeo and Cinderella which was played at the store.
[image loading]

So we were the next group which could go in.
I went in last from that group, Sam and Jukka in front of me. We got directed in by some staff member and were stopped at the end of some queue of people inside the store. The moment we got stopped in the store, the 3 of us nearly instantly realized the Miku stuff lined up to the right of us. After some thorough thinking for 0,2 seconds. We all just started grabbing stuff xD. After that we lined up in the queue inside the store, which was like a spiral, for the cash desk. Just now I began to think about the stuff I took, saw that the T-shirts had different sizes but I managed to pick the right one. After paying, I went out and got my special clear file. YAY, mission successful.
I took some more Photos of the store
[image loading]

Damn messed that up 
[image loading]

After we all checked our loot,(I bought a black T-shirt, a black scarf, a set of 3 clear files and an art book I guess) we went back to the third Family Mart to check out what Miikka and Jan got.
[image loading]

They were still in the middle of the queue.
[image loading]

The tall one is Miikka and right next to him was Jan.
We had to wait now until Miikka and Jan get in so I went back to that awesome car.
[image loading]

When I went back, it wasn’t one queue anymore.
[image loading]

People were lining up in a second queue, most likely a queue only for shopping, not for Miku stuff/clear file.
We began to question why this queue was longer than ours and moving rather slowly. And we realized that each of the 4 Family Mart store had different Miku stuff and clear files, which was also why suddenly people began to leave the queue and started to run.
[image loading]

So the third Family Mart had Snow Miku stuff.
[image loading]

After 40 minutes, Miikka and Jan finally made it inside, but some Snow Miku stuff was already sold out. Jukka really wanted the Snow Miku clear file from Jan, but Jan didn’t want to give it away.
We went back to the subway station, and crossed the first Family Mart by doing so. We saw that the line extremely short now so we just lined up again.
[image loading]

That was next to the entrance. This store also didn’t have Snow Miku stuff which was most likely why this queue was rather short.
We went in and bought some additional stuff, I just bought a set of 6 glow sticks and lined up again in the queue inside the store and got my clear file in the end.
[image loading]

It was around 3 pm and we decided to go back to the hostel to bring back all the stuff we bought and then go to the concert at around 5 pm.

Bakuryu

Germany1065 Posts

April 28 2012 17:53 GMT

+ Show Spoiler [Day 4, Thursday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 2] +

Sam wanted to go to Akihabara again and I joined him because he wanted to show me some other stores. So back in Akihabara:
[image loading]

We went past the Toranoana store, and the second store after it was:
[image loading]

I followed Sam again so we skipped the first floor. Second floor had some Vocaloid goods, I bought 2 clear files, we then proceeded to the third floor. Those damn third floors. It was full of K-on goods (key-chains, T-shirts, poster…). I just bought a Ritsu T-shirt and didn’t want to buy anymore stuff now because I have no idea how much space I will have left after both concerts…
The next store Sam showed me was rather hidden:
[image loading]

It was a Touhou only store which had nearly everything. The first floor consisted of poster, bags, T-shirts, clear files, key-chains and other small stuff. Second floor consisted of music/games and similar stuff. In front of the Second floor there was a bunch of Gachapons. Sam tried his luck at one which had 6 different Miku badges and a “surprise” one. In his first 2 tries he gets the same 2 badges he had on his bag. I couldn’t help it but I just had to laugh. On his third try, he gets the surprise one which was…. Kaito, we both had to laugh at his luck. Ok clarifications. If u want to get something with Miku, getting Kaito is like the black sheep. Rin and Luka are still good, Meiko is kinda ok, Len is like half “black sheep” and Kaito is just T_T. While laughing I tried my luck at a Gachapon with 6 different Yuyuko versions and I directly got one of the ones I wanted xD. I tried again on a different machine but only got Hina and Akyuu (took me 30 minutes to find out who she was^^).
Without pushing our luck further, we left the store, but I knew I had to come back later…
We went to a big Mandarake store, but it was closed so we headed to…
[image loading]

Our next stop was the K-Books store in that building.
I followed Sam, we skipped the first floor again, and the moment we got to the second floor by escalator, I recognized another “can’t import” thing. Not this again -.-…. It was a Vocaloid one this time, I quickly checked through the 2 aisles, but didn’t see any more of them so it wasn’t that depressing. There were around 8 guys and a girl in those 2 aisles, it again looked like the most normal thing in the world.
I found Sam in front of some Vocaloid CDs, I glanced over them but couldn’t find anything I really wanted (keep in mind I didn’t want to buy anything anymore today…).
I turned around and saw some figures displayed. It had the Rin figma figure, still at 4k (also saw one in Nakano Broadway). I bought the Luka one earlier and have the Miku one already at home, but they weren’t that expensive (around 2k). Then I checked the stuff which was placed on top of the shelves and saw a 1/8 PVC figure of Patchouli, I looked at it for 5 minutes but decided to not buy it. I was still searching for a different version of her.
I checked through the other aisles and saw some Touhou Wallscrolls, but they were really expensive (6k and up) and the Patchouli one wasn’t like I wanted it to be…
Sam wanted to buy some stuff with his credit card because he hardly had any money left. They tried for around 15 minutes, but then Sam still had to pay in cash. Why is this guy so unlucky…
Outside the K-Books I tried a Touhou Gacha again and got Cirno, yay.
Time was ticking (nearly 5 pm) so we headed back to the hostel to prepare for the concert.

Back at the hostel, Miikka was waiting for us in the lobby. He told us that he left a message for us at the hostel reception because he didn’t know when we would come back. Then a guy approached me, asking if I would be the person from the same room as him, and he told me that the hostel reception had a message for me…. The guy that told me that talked in german with me and he was the American guy who had his bed in the same room as me. He told me that he was living for 10 years in Germany, which is why he could talk german. I then went upstairs, got the note from the door, back to the reception… He then gave me the note, saw Miikka still in the lobby and was like “oh that’s the guy who made the note”. Yea….. Well Miikka and Jukka went out eating so they left the message that we should meet at Suidobashi.
I took another 7Up from the vending machine and then we moved out.
Jan didn’t come with us (no concert ticket? :D), so it was only Jukka, Miikka, Sam and me.
We first went to Akihabara to meet with another guy who will join our group for the concert.(We had to change subway station in Akihabara anyway)
After some waiting he finally came and we headed for Suidobashi. The guy that joined us was An. Don’t know where was from, but he looked asian^^ (sry An xD). He also had some white furry cosplay hat, sort of… so it was easy to find him.
[image loading]

Oh yeah, we are getting close. The concert was in an underground hall, the building was the entrance for it.
[image loading]

I tried to make a Photo with many Miku bags from the concert store on it, because literally everyone had one.
We walked by some crowd of people, which were lined up to get some Photos from the cosplayer.
Miikka and An wanted to smoke so I took the time to catch some cosplayer.
[image loading]

After that we lined up to get to the concert store, well it was a pretty short line so we got in pretty fast. We saw that many things were already sold out, like the shirt and towel I got from the Family Mart. So there were only like 3 things left to choose from. I got a set of what looks like postcards and a grab for the badges. That was kinda funny. An was nearby and I just hear him going “oh really?”. At the badge box, u could get as many badges as possible, but only by grabbing once. I took as much as I could and then went over to the concert store to get postcard set.
There was also a Cospa store inside, so I got a Miku bag (with extra key-chain = less thinking, more grabbing). At the corner of the desk, there was a Project mirai café card with Miku and Luka on it, no idea what it was, but it was for free so I took it as fast as possible. There was also some new stuff being displayed.
[image loading]

We met aside from the crowd of people to cool down a little bit and check out the stuff we bought.
Miikka wanted to see what badges he got so he sat down and unwrapped each badge. The other 3 quickly joined him. I was standing by, saw that, and said “Do you really want to do that now?....”
[image loading]

I think An responded with “sure, why not?”. … So I sat down and began unwrapping my badges. After 2 minutes of unwrapping, An said “This feels kinda awkward.” ..…I’ve been thinking that the whole time…
An was happy with his catch of 20 badges, I counted mine and had 23, booyah. Miikka had 29 lol. We exchanged the doubles we had and then went out of the store to line up for the concert. Well we at least tried to. After walking down the building for some time, we finally saw the end of the queue and quickly lined up.

+ Show Spoiler [Part 3] +

The queue felt at least three times as long as the one at the Family Mart.
[image loading]

That was the line behind us about 2 minutes after we lined up, and the next one was the line in front of us.
[image loading]

It only took us 10 minutes to get into the concert because the queue was moving pretty fast.
Near the entrance was a nice statue.
[image loading]

Actually It was hard for me to get hyped because everything just felt so surreal.
But An next to me was pretty hyped.
We all entered , had to show our ticket, then had to pay 500 yen. Everybody was like “why?”, but I luckily had one 500 yen coin. We got a different coin for the 500 yen coin, and then we got some small package with some small things and ads, didn’t even check it by now….
We split up inside the building because Jukka and Miikka had seats in the arena (the big blob in the middle) while Sam, An and me only had balcony seats. An won 2 seats in some lottery, gave 1 of the seats to Jukka and I bought that “not so good seat” at Tuesday, so I actually bought An’s second seat and was next to him.
While splitting up, we realized that there was a “free drink” on the coin we got, so we went to the drink to get the free drink and we also got some sort of silver Meets Port hook. Then Sam got the drink and we were like “whats with that hook, it doesn’t even have miku on it”.
An still needed some time to get his drink. In the meantime some asian guy approached us, he said that there was some sort of collectible card inside the small package we got earlier and he wanted to exchange his card. I was like oh sweet what do I have. I checked and I got Miku, Sam got Rin and the asian guy had Luka. The asian guy then wanted to change his Luka for Sam’s Rin and Sam agreed. We both didn’t quite get why he would want to change Luka for Rin…. Because I wanted Luka, I then exchanged my Miku with Sam’s Luka^^. Then An finally came with his drink, he directly checked his card and it was Len (if I remember correctly), so I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. Sam was at a different balcony seat so went on alone.
An and I then went on to our place and waited for the concert to start. There first was some introduction with a group of dancers, we hardly cared, we just wanted Miku.
I wanted to make some photos with my camera, but the guy next to An reminded us that photos are forbidden (he also had some special battery powered glow sticks)… 2 minutes later, a staff member appeared in the hall (one staff member was 5 meters away from us), checking around for suspicious stuff. After they left, the real concert began. An was apologizing for the bad seats, but I didn’t care, I was at the fucking concert. Now I do have to admit that u couldn’t really see the faces of Miku and all the others from that distance, but I still could see that Luka’s moves were sexy. (if I remember correctly)First were some Miku songs, then Luka songs, then some songs with Rin and Len. I used the Miku, Luka and Rin, glow sticks in the beginning and had the other 3 ready in my bag, just in case. Then the first Len song came and I quickly searched for his glowing stick, I found a orange one and a more-like-red-orange one. I used the orange one and it turned red, damn. So I just used the other one which turned orange. After the last Rin/Len song, An and I were wondering what will be next. Suddenly, a wild Kaito appears. An and I were both surprised and u could see at the amount of blue glow sticks that not many were prepared for Kaito. But I still had the blue glow stick left and used it. Oh yeah the concert was awesome, really nice light show and I just couldn’t wait for the one on the next day (Because my seat will be better there).
After the concert, I entered some sort of shock state for like 5 hours. Just looking like O_O.
Back outside, I took some more photos.
[image loading]

That’s An.
We lined up in some queue for the concert shop again because he thought there would be new stuff but that wasn’t the case. More cosplayer~~
[image loading]

We meet with the rest of the group near the entrance of the shop again and wondered what we should do next. Sam told Jukka and Miikka about the trading card inside the small package and they quickly searched for their card with big hope. Jukka got Meiko and Miikka got Len. Everybody was laughing. Miikka said: “Atleast it’s not Kaito..” A American guy named Mark joined the group, he was also at the concert, and he knew some places to eat in Akihabara, so we went there.
While going over the street to the subway station, it looked like everybody was focused on moving on. There were 3 cars on the right side, I only managed to catch one.
[image loading]

When I checked the photo for this blog, I realized the writing “AZUNYALOID” Azusa + Vocaloid? xD
I wanted to take more photos but in my shock state I had to make sure I don’t lose the group.
An left us in Akihabara because he had to work on the next day. He also didn’t have a concert ticket for the second concert.
So… we went eating at…
[image loading]

some Italian restaurant, clearly made sense here.
I hardly talked because I was busy with the concert in my head. Mark and Miikka were talking about how they were travelling through japan. I just went with some sort of pasta.
Mark knew the place, so he told us how we order and pay. Miikka suggested that the oldest guy should pay….. and that totally backfired because it was Miikka himself who was the oldest xD.
After eating we just went back to the hostel.
WHAT A DAY.
When we entered our room (Sam’s and mine), the American guy told me in german to turn off the light, (looked like he was preparing to sleep).
We went to bed (at around 11 pm), but I couldn’t fucking sleep for another 2 hours or so (still shock state).
30 minutes after we went to bed, the American guy got up again and turned on the light and sat near the door of the room doing something for 3 hours(with lights on), I think he was reading some book or idk because he hardly made noises (I thought he left the room because I couldn’t hear anything).
When I was lying on the back, the light managed to shine above the curtain directly into my face. Oh god WTF is he doing there, just turn out the god damn light -.-
I think I fell asleep at around 1.30 am….
More in Day 5

+ Show Spoiler [Day 5, Friday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 1] +

7 am, glow sticks still glowing.
[image loading]

That’s the bag we got from the concert store.
[image loading]

I’ve never felt so baller.
But then I looked outside
[image loading]

It’s raining, WHY. On Miku day T_T.
Well I had to go to get some money and it wasn’t raining that hard so it was kinda ok. After walking past it for the eighth time, I decided to take a photo of it.
[image loading]

The 4 of us met at 9 am this time, trying to go early to the concert store to get more stuff than last time. The store opens at 10 am and the concert starts at 2 pm (But u go in starting at 1 pm). So yeah we got to Suidobashi and in front of the concert store and realized that there was already a big queue. 3 minutes after we lined in, a staff member announced that his counter says 400 people already lined up, so we were at like position 370 or so.
[image loading]

It was raining the whole time…
After 20 minutes, the store opened and the queue finally started to move.
We got past the Miku statue again.
[image loading]

The queue was winding 7-8 times in different directions so it was hard to see the real distance to the store.
[image loading]

20 minutes later….
[image loading]

Another 20 mins later, I could take a peek at the “whats already sold out” poster.
[image loading]

An announcer told us when something new was sold out.
Another 15 mins later…
[image loading]

That was the line behind us. So while waiting we thought about all the stuff we want to buy. An wanted Miikka to buy a parka for him (number 8 in the poster above). I really wanted to get the poster and the led light (number 18 and 20). Miikka also wanted the led light.
As we got closer to the store entrance, more and more stuff was sold out. Miikka and I were joking about how the led lights will be sold out when we are in the store. The poster I wanted to buy was sold out when he got to the last straight in the queue.
[image loading]

At that point, the parkas were sold out. That’s like 20 people away from the entrance. Miikka and I had hopes that “at least the led light is still in”.
We got in, I directly headed for a cash desk, Miikka was at the one next to me and had on in front of him, but the person in front of my just finished so I was “1 person quicker” than Miikka :D. I give my ordering sheet to the girl at the desk, she got all my stuff (set of 3 clear files, another set of glow sticks, American Miku sort of key chain and something I can’t describe), the last was the led light. She started searching for the led light, I saw a staff guy with a led light behind the “scenes” walking around, many were searching for something. After 2 minutes of “led light?” we realized that the staff guy had the last led light in his hand. The girl turned to me and said that there are no led lights anymore. OH CMON that can’t be true. But it was and I continued without the led light -.-
I got to the Cospa store again and bought a different Miku t-shirt. Then I found Sam again, told him about our led-light “luck” -.- and he saw the petit-nendroid packages u could buy at the Cospa store.
Sam tries, he gets Meiko. I tried, I got Meiko. -.- luck just isn’t with us anymore. We both couldn’t really buy another one because we saved our last 500 yen coin for the “free drink” coin and only had 10k bills left. At the corner of the desk I saw the Project mirai café card again, but couldn’t remember if I took a card already, so I just took another one.
We had more time until the concert than last time, so I took the time for more photos.
[image loading]

We then lined up again for the concert, Miikka bought the 1 grab for badges again and he unpacked each one while we were waiting. Only 3 Kaito out of 24 badges ^^. So we went in again, payed 500 yen again and got our free drink. This time with a green “meets port” hook… So while I was checking which trading card I got this time, I walked to the locker where Sam, Jukka and Miikka already were. I had Luka, so now I got 2 Luka. Sam got Miku and had 2 Miku now. Jukka and Miikka both got Rin. Miikka directly realized that Sam got an extra Miku and traded it for his Rin. Miikka was happy for his Miku, Jukka next to them was rather baffled that he is still stuck on Rin/Meiko.
We parted at the lockers, I went with Miikka (the seat I originally bought was 1 of 2 seats Jukka won in some raffle (I think), he sold the seat to me because he bought a better one (row 3 seat 8)). Sam only had a balcony seat again (I think? Actually not sure now^^) so he left earlier.
We checked the plan on where we would sit and realized that Miikka and I were exactly in the middle (row 13 seat 31 and 32).
We got to the seat and I somehow tried to place all my stuff so that it’s not in the way. Miikka saw a guy who handed out some glow sticks. I jumped out of my seat, grapped 1 glow stick which felt to the ground, hid it behind my back and wanted more from the guy. But when I got to him, he already gave all away so he gave me his glow stick which he had in the beginning, luckily I got the one from the floor

.
This time I was more prepared with my glow sticks, had them all attached to my trousers.
OK, I was so fucking pumped now, just let it start already. First announcement and dancers again, then staff member around again and then it started.

+ Show Spoiler [Part 2] +

Just consider everything in all caps now, if it is in caps, it should be in even bigger caps.
./caps on
I was in the center of the arena. IN THE MIDDLE. I was around 3 rows behind the full body close up of the camera, which u can see on the video. IT WAS SO FUCKING AWESOME, can’t describe it otherwise. Always rhythmically moving the glow sticks. First 6-7 Miku songs, ending with Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, moving the glow sticks to that song was awesome xD. After some Miku song, Miku introduced the band, and I was like NO FUCKING WAY, the concert was accompanied by 4 violins. It even had a violin solo before a song *head explode*, only downside was that they were a little hard to hear. After Miku, everybody was guessing who is next, I was prepared for everything and always had the hand at the blue glow stick (for Kaito ^^), but then Meiko came out and showed some sexy moves. Then Len came with Butterfly On Your Right Shoulder. Then Luka came with Just Be Friends. OH GOD vcaefqlmyxpadjkp!!!!!!! asnduwehfuiqwf!!!! *brain overload*… then Luka + Miku with Magnet and World’s End Dancehall …. vqavragfjhzuiz!!! I was too shocked to shout “Luka” after some songs, fuck. Then some Miku songs again, then Rin with Meltdown, then Rin + Miku with Promise, JESUS Promise is so fucking awesome. (I like Promise way more than Colorful X Melody which was played at last day’s concert). Then back to Miku songs again till the end. There were also songs I don’t remember when they were played but were really nice. Stargazer, Po Pi Po… There was World is Mine, the first live Miku song I saw, even better with glow sticks. There was Melt, I could always cry when I hear this song because it’s so fucking beautiful. There was Ai Kotoba, once I heared the beginning of Ai Kotoba I was soooo happy. THAT SONG IS AMAZING AND 100% MORE AMAZING WITH GLOW STICKS. I was extremely hyped in that song because I like the silent part of it so much.^^
There was Romeo and Cinderella, Miku had a really sexy outfit in that song.
There was Spica, Spica is also really awesome and at some point they shoot out sort of silver tinsel, I catched one stripe of it in the air and “used” it together with the glow stick for the rest of the concert.
Then came the Encore part, we all screamed “Miku” for like 5 minutes straight. Some announcer “made us stop” because Miku would come soon. After no Miku for like 30ish seconds, we all began to scream Miku again for another 1-2 minutes. Then Miku made us stop and started the next song.
We had World is Mine a second time (more to that later) and then 2-3 other songs. There was a slow song near the end (I think third to last, don’t know the song name…), that was so beautiful I had tears of joy. When I was about to cry, I told myself “u can’t just cry now, u have to man up. This is not a video u can pause, if u cry now u will miss stuff”. But eventually, the concert had to end T_T. It was the last Miku 39’s giving day concert by Sega (I think?) and I was part of it. BOOYAH!!
If they use this concert for the DVD, there is at least one situation where I can 100% say that’s me. The problem is that they had some technical difficulties with Miku’s speech near the beginning of the concert, which is why we had World Is Mine twice. And because of that mistake, it might be that they will use the night concert for the DVD… only one way to find out, I have to buy the DVD…..
Just so u get an idea of how the concert was (video from 2010):

./caps off
The fuck just happened……idk anymore I was shocked for the rest of the day (~4 pm now)
The moment I got out of the concert hall, I realized that it was still raining, harder than before -.-
[image loading]

Sam, Jukka, Mark and Miikka with the umbrella. Directly after the concert.
[image loading]

Jukka’s bag he bought at Nakano Broadway at Wednesday.
An wanted to meet with us at Akihabara after the concert at around 5 pm or 6 pm…. Nobody could remember. Anyway we set out for Akihabara in the rain. Jukka and Miikka both had an umbrella but I couldn’t always slip under it…
In Akihabara there was no An and my back began to hurt (because of the concert). Took some photos out of boredom, I could hardly talk because I nearly lost my voice while screaming Miku at the concert.
[image loading]

We then searched for a random internet hot spot so we could contact An. Walked around in the rain, my back was still hurting…. After taking some shelter in a McDonalds, Jukka could contact An and we finally meet each other.
An/Mark then took us to some Japanese style restaurant, I was in no mood to make anymore photos because of the rain. We all ate various stuff(hard to explain) and explained An how awesome the concert was, what he missed, the moment his parka was sold out and all that stuff.
After eating, Mark had to go and the rest of us went to the arcade (the first big Sega building from Wednesday). An showed off his Project Diva Arcade skills, he was quite good at it^^. I also gave it a try but ye… I extremely failed because of 4 things. 1) I’ve never played any arcade game before. 2) I’ve never played any Project Diva game before. 3) Playing songs which I can play on the Insane version of osu! (Just Be Friends, Romeo and Cinderella) on “normal” difficulty with different hit sound timings makes for wrong reflexive moves… 4) still shocked from the concert xD.
So I rather watched the other people play and enjoyed the atmosphere. There were some nice Vocaloid poster inside the arcade building but taking photos was forbidden….
We left the Arcade at around 8 pm, An left us, and went back to the hostel. I think it finally stopped raining. Back at the hostel, I just went to my room and wanted to sleep. I was talking a little with Sam because it was his last day in japan, he had to leave pretty early in the morning. Wanted to take another photo from him but meh, had to catch up on some sleep and my back was still hurting….
More in Day 6

+ Show Spoiler [Day 6, Saturday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 1] +

I woke up at around 8 am, Sam was already gone. I decided to pile up the stuff from both concerts in my suitcase, and I realized I hardly have place left to use. Got another 7UP and now my foot is hurting while walking (because of the concert). No pain no gain. I think the others were still sleeping and we didn’t have anything planned for today, so I took the time to slowly checkout the stores at 10 am in Akihabara I visited earlier with Sam. First to the Animate. Checked the second floor again which had some Vocaloid stuff but nothing I really wanted. To the third floor with all the K-On stuff. Saw a set of 8 petit-nendroid like figures with sound, from which I already bought the Yui one at Nakano Broadway. Many other random K-On stuff, didn’t want to buy the wallscrolls because they were rather big/expensive. Bought a K-On character metal tag, a bigger metallic plate and some sort of extra device for a IC card, which changes sounds every time I use the IC card. I thought I “finished” the floor and went back to the stairs, but then I saw a way behind the stairs and suddenly I’m surrounded by Touhou stuff, great…... So I checked through all the Touhou stuff, bought a PCB style box for cards, a Yuyuko strap and various badges. There were also some Touhou figures, I saw the Patchouli one, which I saw at the K-books store some days ago, but at a higher price. That really tempted me to buy the figure at the K-books store now….The “back side” of the second floor had some K-On figures, but nothing I really wanted.
Next was the “hidden Touhou store”. While singing to some Touhou remix, I properly checked all the stuff this time, bought a fake Yuyuko credit card, a “what looks like table cloth” with Youmu, oh god that was insta-grab, a t-shirt with many Touhou chars on it, a clear file with even more Touhou chars, a hand fan with Youmu and Yuyuko and a bag with Sakuya. I more or less went with “1 of everything”…. The salesman placed something for free inside my bag, I checked it and it was some thin plastic plate with a creepy Suwako… I wouldn’t even take that for free….(cmon… creepy Suwako…)
Went to the second floor and tried my luck at the gachas again, got Reimu, Flandre and Yuuka (I bought different ones earlier so I didn’t get doubles^^). I looked around in the second floor and reminded myself to not buy anymore Touhou CDs. Then I got a serious déjà vu feeling, “not this again…”. More stuff I can’t import, Touhou only T_T . After looking around for 10 minutes I realized, that there were some Touhou wall scrolls used as a curtain for a “18 only” side. Wait a minute, there is an aisle full of those things which is not in the “18 only” part? so I concluded those will be without any “problematic” stuff. I bought one with Youmu and Reisen, one with Patchouli, Flandre and Remilia and one with Ran (+Yukari and Chen if I remember correctly). I left the store with a happy face.
Next was the big Mandarake complex.
[image loading]

Check out that mystery floor.
When Sam and I went there last time it was closed, but now it was open. I don’t like that shop at all, it had 7 floors divided into Toys and CDs and so on, but on each floor, u just couldn’t find the stuff u were searching for because it was all over the place. At the middle of a side was a small part full of Touhou CDs, which I quickly passed, then it had shelves of random animes, suddenly a cabinet of different K-On figures… After 5-6 different anime cabinets there was another cabinet full of different Touhou figures (it was the furthest away from the Touhou CDs). I nearly missed that cabinet… and then I bought the Shikieiki and Komachi figures from the super deformed series and a petit-nendroid Patchouli.
On to the K-Books store, getting the Patchouli figure, but it wasn’t there anymore -.-….. I looked around for some more small stuff and saw a small Youmu poster which was hanging from the wall, I took it off the hook to have a closer look at it but then I didn’t manage to get it back on the hook so after 5 minutes I just placed it at the side of the shelf….
Found no other small stuff, so I headed home, walking past the Club Sega building.
[image loading]

A cute Miku mascot.
Back at home I encountered the Singaporean guy, he saw my bags from the Miku concert and told me that he was also the Miku concert. That’s the only thing we talked and I never saw him anymore. I then checked all the stuff I bought in my 6 bags so I could place them in the suitcase
[image loading]

And I realized something was broken….
[image loading]

The Patchouli figure had a book in her right hand, but the hand with the book broke off, I didn’t even open it…
Patchouli without her book…. not gonna happen, so I immediately stopped checking my stuff and set out to the Mandarake again. With my sign language, I tried to explain to the guys that I want to exchange the figure(had the receipt with me) and I didn’t open the package and it worked :D.
When I went to the Mandarake again, I saw a group of people lining up in front of the exit of a parking lot. After I exchanged the figure, I decided to just wait with the group for some time and after 20 minutes, a car drove out of the parking lot, everybody was waving, I saw a hand inside the car waving and some guys were shouting “Kanako”. So if anyone knows, which celebrity was in Akihabara on the 10th of March at around 6.30 pm, please let me know….
I went back to the hostel, listening to the K-On gadget for the IC card (I used the Suica card because I use it every time I use a gate for the subway station) and decided to make a photo of this figure after I walked past by it for the 6th time or so.
[image loading]

Looks like an extreme small version of Shirahoshi to me xD.

+ Show Spoiler [Part 2] +

At the hostel, I saw Jukka in the lobby with his notebook, but went to my room first to continue packing my suitcase. In my room, the American guy was talking with the “Software” guy. I just listened to the conversation while checking my stuff. So the American guy was explaining how his company is searching for new antidotes, how they are tested and released and all that stuff. He also had to travel sometimes to meet some business partner or similar… don’t remember exactly. The Software guy talked about his Mac software and how he tries to get free internet everywhere… The American guy looked interested but both had to go so I was free to check all my stuff and placed it in the suitcase. The Tetris practice in the plane really paid off.
[image loading]

The exchanged figure, now with the hand not broken, but it looked like it had a predetermined breaking point at the hand which is why I handled the figure with special care now because I don’t want it to break again.
I joined Jukka in the lobby and told him about the stuff I bought, the exchange adventure and the random lining up. Miikka and Jan were planning to go clubbing in Shibuya (I think) all night long, but I didn’t want to join that. Jukka was also in Shibuya earlier in the day and bought some more CDs (I think). We went to his room in order to exchange my Luka trading card from the concert (I had 2) for his Meiko.
I was thirsty for more shopping, so I wanted to go back to Akihabara. It was around 8.30 pm when I left for Akihabara and some stores were closing at 9 pm so I was just looking around for more stores.
After the Toranoana and the Animate, there was a small store at the bottom of a Softmap buiding.
[image loading]

When I entered it, I directly recognized the Puella Magi Madoka Magica music, the video of the song was also displayed at a screen. I saw the glow sticks, where I one for free from the guy inside the concert, and also the battery powered glow sticks the guy next to An and me had in the first concert.
After the first song/video, the randomizer was stuck or idk because it played Magia 4 times in a row…
I looked around in the store and found something I didn’t think I would find. It was a Gosick key chain with Victorique. While walking around in the shop and checking the stuff which was place near the ceiling, I found some Vocaloid plushies and bought a Luka one. They only had 3 Luka, 3 Meiko and 5 Kaito left.
But I didn’t find anything else so I left the store and 2 minutes later they closed it.
I walked down the street to find more stores which I could check out at Sunday.
Found only one store but it was already closed, I think that was next to it:
[image loading]

So I went back on the other side of the street.
[image loading]

Eh… yeah.
Project mirai café… ringing bells? I had those 2 cards from each concert with Project mirai café on it. Jukka told me that he and An wanted to check it out on Sunday because it just opened (after the concert I think). It should be in the same building as the K-Books, but I couldn’t find it….
Instead I found some cars in front of the K-Books store.
[image loading]

While taking those photos, I saw a car in the distance with green neon lights at the bottom.
“Must be some pimp car” I thought. The car drove by me, still like 10 meters away, but I could see the Miku painting/picture on it. Damn I need to be faster with my camera….
While walking to the subway station, I just took a picture of this nice glowing building.
[image loading]

In front of the subway station:
[image loading]

It says “10th of March, 9:56 pm”. I took like 5 photos of that clock because some lights were always in the way of the numbers, the 10 still looks like 18 here. (I clearly had nothing else to do xD)
The subways still arrived every 4-6 minutes (on Saturday night..)
At the hostel, Jukka was back in the lobby with his notebook. After I told him about my night trip, I just went to sleep.
More in Day 7

+ Show Spoiler [Day 7, Sunday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 1] +

I think I woke up around 8 am again. Took a shower and a 7UP, and looked at my suitcase. Hm, not really much space left, like literally nothing… the only real space I had left was my backpack. OK last shopping day in japan, better buy everything which I can still take with me….
So I went to Akihabara again, but it was only 9:30 am when I arrived there, so no store was open (they open at around 10 am). I checked the opening time of the K-Books building for the Project mirai café (I think it was 11 am) and then went to the Mandarake, because I didn’t know when it would open.
In front of the Mandarake building (more or less the same place where I randomly waited yesterday), I saw a group of girls in red dancing while following a slow driving red car. Everything was filmed^^.
Maybe it was for some show or an ad… I didn’t want to disturb them with my cam so I went on to the Toranoana. It was past 10 so the store was open.
I immediately went to the “finished” third floor. This time, there were also other Touhou games in the shelves, so instead of only buying The Great Fairy War, I also bought UFO. Listening again to the IOSYS songs from the collection album, I just couldn’t hold it anymore and took the collection album and a violin album from IOSYS which was right next to it.
OK I think I got enough Touhou CDs now….. I checked around some more and suddenly found a “The Memories Of Phantasm” CD, which was different from the one I already bought earlier. I was thinking that if that is the fan-made anime episode, it could be either a demo of the real thing I already bought, or episode 1 and 2, but I wasn’t quite sure if they already released the second episode… Because I couldn’t decipher it, I didn’t buy it…
I think I really “finished” this damn floor now, so with a open mind I went to the stairs and realized that there is a 4th floor. Checking it out can’t hurt me. I think I was wrong……….
The 4th floor was full of MORE Touhou stuff. Mostly figures… -.-
More than 15 1/8 PVC figures were lined up in a cabinet, I really wanted to take a photo of it but there was a “no photo” sign. Instead of the camera, the sign had Aya with a camera^^…. Still not allowed… So yeah I checked through the different figure versions, saw like the whole Vinyl series, the whole 1/8 PVC series… and then suddenly I was very happy…
I found the damn figure I was searching for the WHOLE week and it was in the store I first entered -.-
It is a Patchouli one from “I have no idea which version it is”. It’s cute, I just need it. Insta-grab, checking my wallet….. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. The prize of the figure was around 5300 yen, I only had 4000 left. Just why did I had to buy the CDs…
Aborting every mission I had, I went back to Asaskusa as fast as possible to get money….
On the way to the subway station my swift right hand (with the camera) found that:
[image loading]

So while getting the money and coming back to the Toranoana, I was thinking about the second The Memories of Phantasm CD again. I’ve made my mind that I would just buy it now, even if it would be some sort of demo.
Third floor, got the second CD. Fourth floor, my figure is still there, phew. I proceeded to look around in the nearly discovered fourth floor.
There were Zippo lighter with engraved Touhou figures. There was a old styled clock with a chain (Sakuya’s clock? Couldn’t take a closer look…) which was the most expensive thing I saw, around 22000 yen.
There was a row of Touhou cards for a Touhou trading card game (like Yugioh for example) and I just bought a starter deck with Murasa on it. I have no idea how the card game gets played, nor do I think that a Japanese manual will help me, but I needed something for the PCB style card box I bought yesterday^^.
I also bought a Youmu keychain.
Oh yes I finally had the figure I was looking for, but now I was really scarce on free space.
Continuing my mission to get “free” small stuff, I went to the K-Books, took the small Youmu poster which I had troubles with yesterday, from the same hook where I left it and looked around for more small poster. Found another one with Youmu and Yuyuko in schoolgirl uniforms.
I then decided to check out the Project mirai café again, and found it on the 5th floor in the K-Books building. I could hear Matryoshka by Miku and Gumi being played in the café, but u had to reserve a table to get in, so I looked through the stuff which was in front of it. Some plushies (2 Miku versions but no Rin or Len), and some smaller goods, also some other anime stuff which hardly made sense… But there were 8 Gachapons, with the same stuff in each, in a row at the wall. They had Project mirai badges of Vocaloid. I tried my luck and I first get Miku, then 2 Rin, then Meiko. I walked a little away from the machines to look at the badges I got and 2 japanese guys were trying the machine. They were suddenly like “oh man…” and I could hear one guy saying “Kaito…” xD. So I tried another machine after them and got another Miku, hahaha. Tried again and got Kaito, well I didn’t have him so it was ok. Walked around a little and found a handout for the new Luka figure, which I directly took.
Next stop was the “hidden Touhou store”. I couldn’t leave japan without buying at least 1 wall scroll.
The store had a good amount of wall scrolls (20+, big and small ones) which I didn’t mention before, because I couldn’t find anything worth buying. I bought a Sakuya one and a Yuyuko one (I already have 1 Yuyuko wall scroll but I don’t like it that much). This time, the salesman placed another free thin plate inside the bag. It was Sanae in a X-mas outfit, way better than the last one….
Mission successful, I got everything I wanted.
It was shortly after 1 pm and I had no idea when Jukka and An wanted to go to the café, so I decided to head home to the hostel.
But back on the streets in Akihabara….
[image loading]

Walking on the big street is fun :D

+ Show Spoiler [Part 2] +

At the hostel, I found Jukka in the lobby with his notebook. He told me that him and An want to go to the café in like 15 minutes and that Miikka cant join because his left ear is ringing really hard (because of clubbing yesterday with Jan, music too loud). I told him about the badges I got from the Project mirai café Gachas and he directly bought my second Miku. Then I quickly went upstairs and checked all the stuff I bought and remembered that the Toranoana salesman placed a small box for free in the stuff I bought.
[image loading]

It was the Toranoana White’s Day box at the right with the candy next to it. I remembered that he wasn’t the only salesman at Toranoana who placed something inside my stuff today/yesterday, I so checked them all and 3 White’s Day boxes. It’s not allowed to import any food back to Germany, so that could have gotten nasty…
So Jukka and I went to Akihabara and met with An and his friend Daniel who joined us. I don’t know much about Daniel, except that he is not a Miku fan. So we went to the café introducing each other and stuff.
At the café, we bought some small plates with Miku and Luka on it. I was spectating how their luck with the gachas went and exchanged my 2nd Rin for Len. Nobody managed to get Luka. Daniel tried once, got Kaito. There was a machine near the cash desk where u could exchange a 1000 yen bill for ten 100 yen coins so u could use them for moar Gachas. I got more coins just in case I find another Gacha I want to try later. The coins tempted me to get that cute Luka badge now no matter how long it will take….. first try: Meiko, second try: Luka. Damn that took long.
So the 4 of us reserved a table and took a seat.
[image loading]

Ok where do I start… the photos were made from my place, u could see the Miku statue in the second photo and we could buy “Miku” or “Luka” as a drink. After Jukka and I realized that each drink was with a tankard, we both bought both drinks.
As u can see, it’s allowed to take photos inside that café. You don’t have to say that twice to me…
[image loading]

Bakuryu

Germany1065 Posts

April 28 2012 17:53 GMT

+ Show Spoiler [Day 7, Sunday] +

+ Show Spoiler [Part 3] +

So back to the seat, An was playing with his Nintendo 3Ds and Project mirai which he recently bought.
In the package, there was also some kind of bag for the Nintendo 3Ds, except it was weird.
[image loading]

An commented it with: “This bag looks like it’s for a 8 year old child…”
It isn’t even teal...
[image loading]

So we got our drinks, Jukka and I directly took the tankards and put them in a safe place. Daniel was the only one who used it…
[image loading]

I drink both drinks. After I took a sip of “Miku” I said: “The Miku one tastes kinda weird.” The other 3 were laughing, I didn’t get it. I also didn’t understand An’s response because the other 2 were still laughing but meh, it really tasted weird…. Never tasted something similar so I can’t describe it, but it was still ok. “Luka” tasted like a strawberry milkshake, more milk than strawberry.
Daniel asked me if the Project mirai café is like I would have imagined my dream Vocaloid café to be. I didn’t really know how to answer the question, because I never thought about it xD. I think I just said “ah yeah..” without thinking about it.
[image loading]

Jukka trying out An’s Project mirai.
After the drinks, I took “some” more photos from the café.
[image loading]

Our bill:
[image loading]

That’s 4 Miku and 2 Luka ^^
[image loading]

I’m not touching~~
[image loading]

Not even Aya can stop me now
[image loading]

+ Show Spoiler [Part 4] +

We left the café and searched for a place to eat which wouldn’t be expensive, so we headed outside.
So we went more into the small side streets, found another car.
[image loading]

There are 7 TV screens in that car.
[image loading]

And that was screen number 8.
[image loading]

Found something I might regret.
[image loading]

And suddenly we were surrounded by a good amount of people and like 20 Maids lined up in order to give out their hand outs. No idea why exactly here.
[image loading]

We couldn’t find the place they were searching for, so we went back to the main street so we could get to Mos Burger.
While we were walking to the Mos Burger in the middle of the big street, Daniel told us that Sega must hate his fans, because everything we can get is in some sort of raffle, like the concert tickets, gachas, petit nendroid packs… we couldn’t deny that…. I added: “Blizzard isn’t any better…” But I think nobody got that…
Daniel then said something bad about Miku, it was something about being a little bitch or so. Silence. We 3 stared at Daniel….. I thought “somebody remind me why he is with us?”
Then Jukka said: “You can’t say that….
[image loading]

Hard to make photos while not losing the group..
So we arrived at our destination.
[image loading]

The guy at the right is Daniel, I think I have no other photo of him.
So we just ate a burger and An wanted to hit the arcades again and Daniel left us.
On the way to the arcade:
[image loading]

It looked like Mio but I’m not sure now… and I realized the small poster at top right window but it’s really hard to identify.
We went to the Club Sega arcade this time (the one which had the Miku mascot). I didn’t want to embarrass myself anymore so I didn’t play, instead a watched the others play on the big screen. An realized that there was like a dry run set of buttons where u could train for free and played to the song on the big screen. Jukka told me about a Project Diva Arcade card you could get from a machine some days ago, we couldn’t find such a machine in the other arcade, but in here there was one so I got my card which I can use to save my progress/scores.
After some rounds, they had enough of it and we left the arcade. An also parted from us.
Jukka said that Miikka found some Miku stuff in a store in the K-Books building. The Ganking store on 4th floor had some stuff, I bought a Miku wallscroll and a set of 6 plush-key chains.
Miikka joined us and showed us the Miku cards he found in the same store, Jukka directly bought it.
Miikka then took us to a completely different store, again a sort of “hidden Touhou store”
[image loading]

I had not really time to check through it, because they were finished rather quick. I saw some Touhou T-shirt again, wanted to buy another one but they didn’t have my size.
[image loading]

Don’t know who that is but it looked cute.
Back outside, Miikka left us and Jukka and I wanted to check out Toranoana again. I realized that I bought nearly no Vocaloid music… I needed to change that…
But I took a detour to the K-Books, Jukka had a K-Books Point Card with Miku on it, so while trying to express myself with no Japanese, it took some time but I figured out that the Miku card is not available now, (maybe that was only last year when Jukka got his card) so I took the one that I found the best…….. I have no idea who it is… photo of it later.
To the Toranoana, I found Jukka just leaving the store. I told him about the Point Card and then went to the third floor for Vocaloid CDs. I was searching for the AVTechNO CD I saw at Wednesday, but couldn’t find it anymore… After some searching, I found wowaka – world0123456789 and maya – Fake or Fate. I also tried to think about “different” Touhou CDs/artists, took a Sound Holic meets Toho album. Then I remembered that Alice’s Emotion = RedAlice and directly bought Alice’s Emotion – Radiata (but it was listed under RedAlice)…
The salesman placed another thing for free in my bag and I decided to end my shopping tour. It was already around 7:30 pm, but the subway still came every 7 minutes.
In the hostel, Jukka was with his notebook in the lobby again.
I had no time, I needed to play Tetris….
Real life Tetris is no fun…
I ended up with 2 line pieces not fitting anywhere…
[image loading]

Oh yeah I checked the free stuff the salesman placed inside the bag, it was a Miku badge.
The wallscrolls are the line pieces, the long one was just long… and the small one was a little too long to fit in between the Yuyuko figure and the left wall, great…
Then I realized that I can use the small place at the top side of the suitcase (u can see it partly on the right side in the picture).
My small blue bag was placed next to the Yuyuko figure, and the rest just barely fit into my backpack.
Man I’m really good at Tetris.
The small Patchouli figure had a special place….
That’s it, my last day in japan 
At around 9 pm I went down to the lobby where Jukka was and I said goodbye to him, Miikka and Jan.
Back to my room, I was preparing for sleep, then the older Japanese guy with the 6 different suits and bags came also in (check beginning of Day 4 for my roommates), he was partying or idk because he wore a kimono under his jacket. Anyway… I just went to bed…
More in Day 8

+ Show Spoiler [Day 8, Monday] +

(check beginning of Day 4 for my roommates…)
At 6 am, an alarm clock from the Software guy went off. After 2 minutes if ringing the alarm clock went “hey, I have better things to do than waking you up you lazy guy” or similar… after like 3 minutes, it looked like everybody was awake except the Software guy. The older Japanese guy searched for the alarm clock, found the “alarm” mobile phone and handed it to me. I just saw the “unlock” option, unlocked it, then it stopped…
I packed everything already yesterday night, only had to return my bed sheets.
I quickly went to the Lawson to get some “breakfast”.
I returned at like 6:29 am. At 6:30, the alarm of the software guy went off again, he was still sleeping, I quickly took the mobile phone and hit snooze.
So I made my bed and tried to finish before the mobile phone will ring again, but shortly before I finished, it run again on 6:45. I didn’t really care and just hit snooze again xD.
I returned my bed sheets, had everything with me and left for the Narita airport.
The special place the Patchouli figure had was between my left hand and my pack of tissues in my jacket. Just to make sure it doesn’t break again…
[image loading]

I wanted to go early to the airport because I never traveled to it, so idk how it would work out. (my flight was scheduled on 12:30 [around noon]).
So I went to the Asakusa station of the Asakusa line. I just took the first entrance I saw and it had no elevator so it took some time to get down the 50 stairs.
In the hostel there was a guide on how to get to the Narita airport, so I knew how to buy the ticket and where the gate of the line to the airport was. I saw other tourists waiting for the subway, but they didn’t enter the first 2 subway. I was confused, so I also didn’t enter them. After checking the stations again, I took the third subway, the other tourists were still waiting.
At a station called Oshiage, I saw a train labeled Keisen sky line (which was the line I needed to ride).
So I quickly changed train and was on the right train^^.
I just wanted to make sure that the Patchouli figure is still ok so I more or less checked it every 5 minutes…
At the airport I was a little surprised because I needed to show my passport (and maybe get my stuff checked) before I could get out of the subway area into the airport area. They didn’t check my stuff and I went into the airport and searched for my airline terminals.
[image loading]

I was so early, that the terminal for my airline (Scandinavian air – SAS) didn’t even open.
After waiting for one and a half hour, my terminal was displayed and I checked in my suitcase.
It weighed 16,8kg. When I checked in for my first flight it was only 9kg, so all the stuff I bought weighed 7,8 kg.
I then went through the security and proceeded to my gate and was still like 2 hours too early.
I tried to make a photo of a plane starting, but I could only catch one landing.
[image loading]

Yeah it was a little too late… but that was my flight.
[image loading]

Another 11 hour flight…. I was at the window this time and a japanese guy who was like in his mid 30s sat next to me. I just watched every movie that looked worth watching… Mr and Mrs Smith, Happy Feet 2 and Yes Man are the ones I remember. We had like 3-4 meals on this flight (compared to 1 meal and a “breakfast” in the flight I had to japan) I also watched some documentaries, one about tortoises and one was How I made my Millionaire.
Nothing really to tell about, just wanted to pass time.
So I arrived at Copenhagen at C 28, the figure was still alright, and I had to pass another security gate.
I placed my stuff again in the boxes so they could get x-rayed while I walk through the “door”, everything nice except that my jacket needed to be checked again, so I had to wait next to it.
When the security guy took my jacket I instinctively tried to get to the Patchouli figure, but his hand sign made me stop getting closer to my jacket. Then he took everything out, it got x-rayed again, and everything was fine.
[image loading]

The figure is still ok, phew.
So the escalator after the security took me to a very familiar place….
[image loading]

Yes, the arrows are back. I was in the area between the passport control and gate C40 where my flight to Narita was 1 week ago. I phoned my dad to figure out how I would get home from Stuttgart to Crailsheim because and figured out that I will most likely take the last train of the day.
I arrived in Copenhagen at around 4 pm CEST time and had to wait 4 hours for my next flight.
I was starting to get tired after watching 4 movies and being awake for 20 hours. Again I was so early that the gate of my flight wasn’t even displayed. So I wandered between the passport control and C40 for the next 2 hours. At around 6:30 pm, I found out that my flight was at gate A25. GREAT, I knew from the map that getting there would take some time. So I got through the passport control, walked 5 minutes to get to the main corridor, another 10 minutes to get to the B corridor, followed the main corridor for another 5 minutes until I finally saw “A”.
But that isn’t the end. I walked the A corridor for at least another 15 minutes, the scenery changed 3 times like I would change buildings, walked over like 5 “flat escalator”. It took like forever to get to the gate and because I already were walking for over 2 hours to kill time/not fall asleep earlier my feet started to hurt. I didn’t even look for arrows anymore, just no…..
[image loading]

Checking my figure every minute or so, I think I was sure it was safe…
The plane arrived before I would fall asleep. In the plane it only took 3 minutes after the start for me to finally fall asleep. I woke up like 10 minutes before we landed again (flight only took 1 and a half hours). I first checked my figure, still ok yay.
I tried to remember which train to take/when to change train so I panicked a little in my lack of sleep.
Back in Stuttgart, everything went smooth. I quickly found my suitcase, opened it to quickly check if it’s really mine and then proceeded to the red/green gates.
I took the green gate and really hoped that they wouldn’t check me.
Lucky me, I wasn’t checked, just had enough to buy the train ticket and even managed to get 1 train earlier then calculated (the one at 10.08 pm instead of 11.08 pm).
I changed train at Stuttgart main station.
[image loading]

And finally at around midnight I was back in my hometown Crailsheim…
I took it slowly because the sidewalks on the way to my home were with paving stones and I didn’t want anything to get damaged inside the suitcase^^.
At 1 am Tuesday, I was back in my home sweet home, the Patchouli figure survived, I was happy and just went to bed….

+ Show Spoiler [Back at home] +

I found time to unpack my suitcase on Thursday:
[image loading]

I need a bigger room…..
Nearly forgot the stuff in my wallet
[image loading]

The figure still safe :D
So… I could hardly walk in my room and had to make sure my cat doesn’t walk over all that stuff.
The next day, my cat walks over the CDs and 1 CD case got a crack -.-
Luckily it was only the top part and I could exchange it easily, I also directly placed the CDs elsewhere.
Because I had to catch up to everything that happened in the week I was away, it took some time watching 30ish proleague vods, reading (more like skimming) 4000 Skype messages and trying to resist talking to everyone about what I did in Japan or else I would have written/explained this blog 6-7 times already…
I then began writing this blog, 75% of the stuff still unopened, I only listened to the CDs I bought.
[image loading]

Ehm….. yeah… I used all the receipts to reconstruct everything, what I bought when and all.
It was quite fun writing it, thinking about all the fun we had, the concerts, project mirai café, Akihabara, the 100+ stairs to/from each subway station, the artificial chirping of a bird in the subway stations…. I miss Tokyo 
2 weeks later after losing every important starcraft match I played, I finished the “japan” part in my blog, listening to all the music CDs I bought. I first was disappointed by the 2 TAM albums, but now I really like them. I’m glad I took the Alice’s Emotions album, which is really nice. IOSYS is IOSYS ^^. I really like the wowaka albums, Unhappy Refrain is full of my favorite songs.
[image loading]

I think I should place that stuff somewhere now….
Problem was I had to clear the whole “shelf” you can see to the left and my whole computer desk with its drawers in order to make space for all the Japan stuff.
I sorted out some really old stuff…. Playstation demo CDs from 98, school stuff from 8 years ago (hidden in the drawer)….
After another week:
[image loading]

I already had the Miku figma figure. It took me like 1 hour to place the damn microphone + stand in Luka’s hand because it always fell off….
The Patchouli figure has to stand up there or else it doesn’t look at me.
[image loading]

God the Youmu and Yuyuko figures are sooo cute.
[image loading]

Nails to the rescue. The Miku clip at the right was also inside the Miku bag I bought from the concert store. The right keychain strap is Yuyuko.
[image loading]

I looked closely at Sakuya’s wallscroll but I can’t figure out if she has pa- *knifed*
[image loading]

Hm I just placed the rest here for now, many things still unopened. Left side is from second concert, right side from first concert. The Miku bag is from the first concert though and I already had the K-On bag. The bottle was also for free in the Miku bag. At my backpack in the background there are the other 3 Plushie Vocaloid keychains. All the CDs are at the bottom of the shelf.
I’m still worrying where to place everything….
I missed to take a photo of some other stuff back at home, but I can’t do it now because the battery of the camera needs to be charged and my dad will take the camera with him to Italy for the next weeks.
After I went through everything I bought, I realized that I missed some stuff.
1) Need more Touhou CDs.
2) More Vocaloid CDs, I was mostly so busy thinking about all the other stuff that I rarely had the time to check through all Vocaloid CDs. Also I’m kinda sad that I couldn’t get the AVTechNO CD.
3) At the Toranoana, 4th floor, I was looking at a raffle box of small Touhou figures (like the petit-nendroid from the concert, u don’t know what u get). I really wanted to buy at least one because the Sakuya figure was really nice. On the box it had Cirno at place number 3. But it had a circled 9, which was crossed out and a 3 was written next to it. Then I saw the Patchouli figure – out of money – getting money – buying Patchouli – leaving store….. I forgot about the raffle box -.-
4) The Animate store which was full on K-On stuff, I think I could have bought 3 more t-shirts there and some other goods. I couldn’t find the time to check that store out again.
5) Some more Touhou CDs of artists I couldn’t find because of not being able to read japanese (at least 5 artists).
6) I have literally nothing of Rin, I don’t get how I managed that. I didn’t want to buy the figma figure because it was 4000+ Yen (compared to Miku/Luka with around 2600 Yen). I couldn’t find the Rin plushie, no stuff from her in the project mirai café. The only things I have of her is the plushie keychain from the set, the project mirai badge, and I think some badges from the 23 I got from the concert store.
7) I was searching for a Patchouli wallscroll, but I didn’t like the ones I found, which is why I bought the figure(s) instead.
8) In all my Touhou CDs, I managed to have 0 remixes of any of Sakuya’s songs (only like 2 remixes of whole EoSD -.-). But I really like Flowering Night and Lunar Dial 

This remix directly makes me want to play the game again.
9) There were 3 or 4 stores which I saw but didn’t have the time to check them out…. And it still feels like the tip of the iceberg.
10) …… I might have not mentioned it before, but I just need more Vocaloid and Touhou CDs. I think I could stuff the whole suitcase again with only CDs (that might be too much, but like 20-30 more CDs).

I think that’s it. Word says I’m at 29 pages now (photos are 1 line).
I want to thank electric[bob], Sayle and WendiGo] for helping me preparing my journey.
I want to thank Jukka, Miikka, Sam, An, Mark, Jan, Daniel for having a great time together in japan.
Last but not least, I want to thank Jukka again, who made this whole journey possible.
1000 times Thank You Jukka

+ Show Spoiler [Advice for other people going to japan] +

If you somehow managed to read my whole blog u will realize that I was only in Asakusa (hostel location + the temples), Nakano (only Nakano Broadway), Akihabara (shopping and more shopping), Suidobashi (concerts and the fun with the family marts)… and that’s it.
So it was like 99% shopping, hard to give any advice here…. Just that if u like anime, u have to go to Akihabara. In Tokyo, travelling around with the subways is really easy (ok not THAT easy, but because there is a train every 3-4 minutes there is like no waiting time). Directly get a Suica/Pasmo card and your good to go. Everything is also in English at the subway/in the train/the announcements in both.
… I don’t know any other advice .

Tl;dr:
“We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.” ~Louisa May Alcott

Game

3191 Posts

April 28 2012 18:18 GMT

Wow there is so much content for me to look through. Will edit soon, long been anticipating this blog!

T.O.P.

Hong Kong4685 Posts

April 28 2012 18:22 GMT

Awesome blog. I just started learning about vocaloids like Hatsune Miku recently.

Lucumo

6850 Posts

April 28 2012 18:28 GMT

Hm, doesn't look like you did anything worthwhile there

yB.TeH

Germany413 Posts

April 28 2012 18:54 GMT

took me forever just to scroll through all of that xd

Vaelone

Finland4400 Posts

April 28 2012 19:06 GMT

On April 29 2012 02:53 Bakuryu wrote:
I used to watch the old Digimon series and other shows on RTL2 (German tv broadcaster) 10 years ago. The recent ones that most people know would be Detective Conan, Naruto and One Piece.

I'm Finnish but a long time ago the RTL2 anime series were my introduction to anime as well, even though I didn't speak a single word of German. This being from back when they had like Dragon Ball, DBZ and couple others.

I don't really like traveling and I'm not a big anime/Japan freak but I will definitely try tovisit Japan one day, been on top of my to do list for a while now.

blubbdavid

Switzerland2412 Posts

April 28 2012 19:14 GMT

Mmmmh I want to go visit Japan too one day...and Korea ofc.

surfinbird1

Germany999 Posts

April 28 2012 19:39 GMT

#10

Nice blog, even though I didn't understand half of it because of all the anime/whatever it is.

cLicK

Canada450 Posts

April 28 2012 19:42 GMT

#11

I ENVY YOU SO MUCH T_T. I watched the concert on youtube :'(

MIKU <3

lol, I remember my first anime convention, you can't help but buy stuff, when your caught up in the atmosphere and the goods are right there ^^;; hehe. My money dissapeared instantly. And Akiba looks absolutely amazing :D.

Thanks for sharing!

KazeHydra

Japan2788 Posts

April 28 2012 19:53 GMT

#12

I'll admit I was lazy and just looked at all the pictures but even that took some time lol. I'll go back and read some other time. Vocaloid concert is indeed awesome. I was at the one in LA last July and although no doubt not as good as going to one in Japan, it was still a blast. Miku opening with World is Mine and seeing (and being part of) the entire audience jump in united excitement and Luka with her Just Be Friends ^_^ Ironically, the worst part was they had her talk in English which sounded really bad lol. Going to Japan is still at the top of my to-do list but I'll get it done eventually! Makes me love/hate these Japan blogs hehe.