Paris 2018: Amaitsuki X Angerme - 1
Angerme were due to play La Cigale on the 3rd of June in their first overseas concert in Paris! Some friends of mine were going to this as they were big fans, I'm not exactly but I did know and really like some of their songs (especially when they were known as S/mileage) so I tried to get a premium ticket once they went on sale (mostly for the experience and meeting friends again)
I didn't get one, they sold out amazingly fast and there were problems with the website so everyone ended up with 2 tickets? I was making plans to go to Japan around this time (which ended up happening in April) so I put it in the back of my mind.
HOWEVER
Something amazing happened, my friends Momo & Youshu ( who I met irl in 2014 in this post) co-created a dance & singing cover group 10 years ago called Amaitsuki (clicking this might help to see who I'm talking about later on) which has fortuitously lead to me meeting many great people within the group and naturally becoming friends with them too. Momo is one of my best friends and such a great person, we've been friends for over a decade, so not seeing her for 4 years has really sucked.
Youtube
Soundcloud
The group is still going strong and celebrating it's 10th anniversary this year, and they entered into a contest to perform as the opening act for Angerme with this video:
Click to viewTHEY WON
Going from covering Angerme and other Hello!Project groups on Youtube and conventions to standing on the same stage as them is HUGE, and they did it with all of their talent and combined efforts!! It's really something to be proud of.
Now for me, suddenly this changed from being another event I sadly miss to being an UNMISSABLE event, I hadn't ever seen Amai perform in real life before, and France is so close by and easy to get to, it's a one hour flight and I was an idiot for not attending on other occasions, especially when I was invited to come for many years and didn't go.
Now, at this time I had just come back from Japan a month ago and my finances were... shit.. so this was a really bad idea! but... somehow I pulled enough together to get an Easyjet flight and a hostel and everything was going to work out just fine. I even planned a Disneyland Paris trip on Saturday so I could finally see the Paris park :D
Yes, nothing at all was going to go wrong...wait...WHAT THE FUCK!?
Easyjet cancelled my flight.
Not that they actually told me this, I got a Google alert at some point in the afternoon and went to the website and it was cancelled. Easyjet offered me a free transfer or a refund (plus a hotel for the night that I didn't need) but... the only transfer they would give me arrived 2 hours before I was supposed to leave on Monday :( (Even worse is I believe I am entitled to compensation but they wiggled their way out of it, and I got nothing in the end)
Despite them actually having other flights from nearby airports or the ability to book me onto another airline they were super unhelpful and didn't even have a number to call or anything.
I was completely stuck and couldn't fly so i had to look at other options, the train took 8 hours, but because I was booking it only a few hours before I needed to leave the tickets were either sold out or first class, so it would have cost over 250 euros one way which was way too much. Easyjet was taking forever to refund me so I had barely any money either so I had to book 2 coaches.
Oh my god. I've flew to Japan faster than this.
Glasgow -> London. 22:00 -> 07:00. 9 hours
London -> Paris. 08:00 -> 17:00. 8 hours (with time difference)
17 HOURS TOTAL
I was supposed to arrive on Friday at 9pm after a 1 hour flight, but I got there at 5pm on Saturday. Fucking hell.
It was so uncomfy and I barely slept and just had petrol station food along the way...ugh...
I did listen to this cool song going through London.
My hostel booking was also for the day before, I had emailed and called a few times but no-one responded to me as it was out of hours for them, so I just had to go there and hope for the best. Luckily with some negotiation and a really nice receptionist who liked my Cowboy Bebop shirt I was able to stay for the night.
However, the Disneyland Paris trip was now totally screwed because of how late it was :( I wanted to spend a whole day there.
I made it!!! only 21 hours after I was supposed to be there.
The room was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, plus it was totally empty when I arrived, pretty lucky. I did meet a nice French guy (well... nice at first XD) when I was getting ready to leave, and I said I had been before etc, etc
Luckily, some friends of mine from America were also in town for Angerme ( who I met in New York in 2014 for Morning Musume in this post) J-Triumf, Rayle & Kitaoji, so we met up at the nearby Parc des Buttes-Chaumont! it had been 4 years since I met them too so this was also really cool! A double 2014 reunion.
The Temple de la Sibylle, we did try to get to it but ended up looping around the park instead x)
There were a lot of people around having pique-nique and we weren't really sure why? other than it was hot and Saturday of course. Including a large amount on a big hill with music, but while we were walking along a path below a bunch of people were peeing in the bushes so that the people on the hill couldn't see them but we and everyone else below could see everything, that was interesting, haha.
There were lots of lovely views!!
This bridge was bouncy as hell, made by Mr. Eiffel!
The park was really great, we were trying to figure out for most of it if it was man-made or natural but there were before pictures dotted around the park that let us know that was true, but it was really impressive! so much hard work must have gone into making it.
We were getting hungry so we headed for the nearest place we could find, after some indecision we went for Dynamo near Colonel Fabian (and my hotel, hohoho)
I picked the Dynamo burger and it was... so good...
If Tiramisu is on a menu, I will buy it. Look at those ~layers~
I was so pleased as I knew I wouldn't have been brave enough to go to any restaurant by myself or even eat that night at all so super big thanks to Jtri, Kitaoji & Rayle for saving my life <3
I also hadn't eaten since the Lion bar I bought at a Calais petrol station at 8am that day so this, really, really saved me. Thank you so much.
While we were there some guys in a van got into an argument with a guy on a bike and he ripped off their wing mirror so they got out and chased him and we heard POP POP POP POP and they guys chasing apparently ran so.... uh... mmm it really sounded like someone had a gun?? anyway the food was nice!
I was joking with Rayle that it would be pretty funny if the juice from the lemon she was squeezing on her food would hit me in the eye and probably because I said that... it did.. owowow
so then I stopped myself from saying it would be pretty funny if those guys shooting came over here and I slumped over dead in my meal, I have too much power to bring misfortune to myself :)
I headed back to my hostel and met one of my room-mates called Aiden who just flew in from Australia, we got along really easily and it was really nice to meet him, UK & Australia bonding I guess? haha. The French guy who was a little stern kind of had an argument with the American guy Grantham in our room about towels? but then of course we ended up talking about Trump and kept telling him to stop apologising, it's not his fault XD anyway it was a nice experience.
I thought about making this just 1 entry but it's too long so...
NEXT! Concert Day!! --->