私はジョニーの店に行ってきました!
Greetings from Japan!! It's so different here and so fascinating! I love it! Every minute is so amazing here and I feel like we'll never fit everything in and we probably won't, but I hope we can!
This post is going to be about my trip to the Johnny's shop in Harajuku today. I wanted to get it down before I forget anything about my experience. Other things we've done will be posted periodically!
First off, I would like to thank the amazing je_help, who created all you need to know to find Johnny's stuff anywhere in Tokyo. I easily came across the place where you are to meet the staff to go to the JE store. I thought I was being smart this morning and timed our arrival to the store at just about exactly 10am. I figured since it was a Thursday that all the kids would be in school and I wouldn't have to deal with too many people. WRONG. There was a line wrapped around the small "park" area which is really just a small island at an intersection where people take smoking breaks. So I got into the back of the line and it wasn't too long a wait as it moved steadily. The JE store staff communicate via walkie talkies to tell how many people are leaving from room to room in order to bring more people over. They allowed a group of about forty each trip.
When you walk up to the store, you immediately get led down a set of stairs and take a right. There were two Johnny's purikura machines that I sadly forgot about after the excitement of getting my pictures. There were teenagers, women my age, and middle aged women all over Arashi's wall. They by far had the most pictures and were most definitely the most popular. The room is super tiny and just has walls of pictures with numbers on them that you fill out on your sheet how many you want and which ones. They had sets from Lotus all the way down to Face Down from the start of the room to the end.
Now these aisles are designed to have two lines go through and look at the pictures and write down what you want and keep moving to the side. This was NOT the case. It was mayhem. Just wall to wall girls. My husband stayed out of the way and all of them were gathered around the Wild at Heart and Face Down photosets with the majority of girls gathered around the Face Down group shots and Aiba's shots. Aiba has so many fans! At least he did in that group of ladies! I had to literally PUSH my way through to the Face Down photos b/c that's all I wanted and used my height to my advantage and stood on my tip toes to see the pics and numbers. I got those and shoved my way down to Nino where it was crowded, but I bought most of the set. Then I skipped over Jun and Ohno's shots and went to Sho's which were next to the door (LOL.. LIKE A SUPERNOVA) and had no one around them. Ohno and Sho had the fewest people surrounding them, but I think it's b/c they're near the door that it was thin.
Then you walk up to the street again and are led inside the building into another queue and on one wall is assorted goods from random groups. No Arashi goods were on the wall. Just Kinki Kids, Kisumai, and HSJ. Then they had the "new" photo album books and photo frames. They also had Johnny's official penlights, but they were 1600 yen and I had already counted that I had 53 pictures (way more than the 30-40 I was limiting myself to) so i just bought a photo album. All the shop photos are lined along a wall and the staff go and grab them for you. They're amazingly quick at this. I spent 8550 yen in the store, but I didn't feel bad b/c I saw SEVERAL totals in the 13,000 yen range. I noticed that the majority of people in line with me were buying Arashi or Kisumai photos. No one else really had much else. Meh. It's good to know Arashi is still the most popular.
Pictures! I has them!
Here is a pic from the line of Harajuku Station. It's SUPER close so it's easy to find the meeting place for the store. Also, do you recognize it?? Hint is the first Pikanchi movie.
Here are some pics of the line once I got to the middle of the line. Women of all ages in this line.
And what everyone is most concerned about in this post....
Husband picked out the Ohno Face Down pic. He said he liked it the most and that Ohno is being Ohno in it. IDGI.
Here is the photo album and my long ass receipt! They asked me to check if it was correct. Uhm... sure? LMAO The way they key in the shop photo numbers is crazy. So quick! The book held all of my photos plus about four more pages so there is still room.
It was a neat experience and fun to be surrounded by Japanese fans even tho it seemed they flailed in a lot more subtle way than I would at home. The woman in line in front of me smiled knowingly at me so she understands the Arashi love! YAY!
VSA just ended and I loved watching in real time. So much fun!
This post is going to be about my trip to the Johnny's shop in Harajuku today. I wanted to get it down before I forget anything about my experience. Other things we've done will be posted periodically!
First off, I would like to thank the amazing je_help, who created all you need to know to find Johnny's stuff anywhere in Tokyo. I easily came across the place where you are to meet the staff to go to the JE store. I thought I was being smart this morning and timed our arrival to the store at just about exactly 10am. I figured since it was a Thursday that all the kids would be in school and I wouldn't have to deal with too many people. WRONG. There was a line wrapped around the small "park" area which is really just a small island at an intersection where people take smoking breaks. So I got into the back of the line and it wasn't too long a wait as it moved steadily. The JE store staff communicate via walkie talkies to tell how many people are leaving from room to room in order to bring more people over. They allowed a group of about forty each trip.
When you walk up to the store, you immediately get led down a set of stairs and take a right. There were two Johnny's purikura machines that I sadly forgot about after the excitement of getting my pictures. There were teenagers, women my age, and middle aged women all over Arashi's wall. They by far had the most pictures and were most definitely the most popular. The room is super tiny and just has walls of pictures with numbers on them that you fill out on your sheet how many you want and which ones. They had sets from Lotus all the way down to Face Down from the start of the room to the end.
Now these aisles are designed to have two lines go through and look at the pictures and write down what you want and keep moving to the side. This was NOT the case. It was mayhem. Just wall to wall girls. My husband stayed out of the way and all of them were gathered around the Wild at Heart and Face Down photosets with the majority of girls gathered around the Face Down group shots and Aiba's shots. Aiba has so many fans! At least he did in that group of ladies! I had to literally PUSH my way through to the Face Down photos b/c that's all I wanted and used my height to my advantage and stood on my tip toes to see the pics and numbers. I got those and shoved my way down to Nino where it was crowded, but I bought most of the set. Then I skipped over Jun and Ohno's shots and went to Sho's which were next to the door (LOL.. LIKE A SUPERNOVA) and had no one around them. Ohno and Sho had the fewest people surrounding them, but I think it's b/c they're near the door that it was thin.
Then you walk up to the street again and are led inside the building into another queue and on one wall is assorted goods from random groups. No Arashi goods were on the wall. Just Kinki Kids, Kisumai, and HSJ. Then they had the "new" photo album books and photo frames. They also had Johnny's official penlights, but they were 1600 yen and I had already counted that I had 53 pictures (way more than the 30-40 I was limiting myself to) so i just bought a photo album. All the shop photos are lined along a wall and the staff go and grab them for you. They're amazingly quick at this. I spent 8550 yen in the store, but I didn't feel bad b/c I saw SEVERAL totals in the 13,000 yen range. I noticed that the majority of people in line with me were buying Arashi or Kisumai photos. No one else really had much else. Meh. It's good to know Arashi is still the most popular.
Pictures! I has them!
Here is a pic from the line of Harajuku Station. It's SUPER close so it's easy to find the meeting place for the store. Also, do you recognize it?? Hint is the first Pikanchi movie.
Here are some pics of the line once I got to the middle of the line. Women of all ages in this line.
And what everyone is most concerned about in this post....
Husband picked out the Ohno Face Down pic. He said he liked it the most and that Ohno is being Ohno in it. IDGI.
Here is the photo album and my long ass receipt! They asked me to check if it was correct. Uhm... sure? LMAO The way they key in the shop photo numbers is crazy. So quick! The book held all of my photos plus about four more pages so there is still room.
It was a neat experience and fun to be surrounded by Japanese fans even tho it seemed they flailed in a lot more subtle way than I would at home. The woman in line in front of me smiled knowingly at me so she understands the Arashi love! YAY!
VSA just ended and I loved watching in real time. So much fun!