JAPAN MATSURI IN LONDON 2012
The first time I attended this kind of event and I totally enjoyed it. I thanked my lucky stars that I was off that day! It was held in Trafalgar Square, one of London's tourist attractions last Saturday (6th October). They built a main big stage for the performers, which most of them came from different areas in Japan just for the event. In there, they showcased Japan's culture in dance, music, instruments, etc. and there's even a cosplay a well. There was a karaoke-singing talent contest as well and the lucky winner won a trip to Japan (how I wish I have a talent for singing, I was so envious I want to cry!!!). The area was lined up with different booths for Japanese foods, games (like the ones in animes and dramas), items from Japan like Japanese dolls and charms and many cute little things. I saw a booth selling takoyaki so even though the queue was very long and it's expensive (6 pieces cost £5, I could buy a proper Chinese noodles with that!), I queued up just because I want to know how it taste like. Sad to say, I'm disappointed in it! I don't think it's a proper takoyaki like they do in Japan. For one thing, they just deep fried it unlike what they do in Japan, where they use a proper takoyaki grill or something like the ones we see in animes/dramas. But the most thing I'm disappointed about it is the content of the takoyaki.... inside is a little itsy tiny bit of octopus legs and the rest of it is just flour. And then I saw a stand for okonomiyaki but even though I want to try it, I digress... it's more expensive than the takoyaki!
And then when I was walking around, I saw a wall board where you can write whatever you want! The first time I did a "graffiti" and I end up writing Kis-My-Ft2, NEWS, Kat-tun, HSJ, K8, Arashi and yamapi. I want to write more like ABC-Z and some others but I'm already on my hands and knees finding a space but I can't find anymore and there are loads of people writing on the wall as well. I used up like 3 permanent marker pens + my back, legs and knees were hurting already. I think I spend around 45 minutes - 1 hour on the wall. Also, I kinda feel guilty because I wrote over on some messages but then again, if I don't wrote it like the way I did, it won't be read/seen... and while writing that, I'm thinking about all the fanboys and fangirls in the world who's trying to spread JE and jpop! so I did my bit, spread JE/jpop in the UK ^__^ and I'm not the only one who think that way! somebody did a "graffiti" for AKB48 as well!!!
Actually, one of the highlight of the event was a UK-based jpop singer, Naomi Suzuki together with her band, AJ Unity. She was doing the MC-ing all day and she was the 2nd to the last performer (the last was the London Taiko Drummers, they are excellent!). She sang 4 songs, 2 of them is from her charity-released single for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake. I don't really know her or her band but they're really good and apparently, they were in the top 14 in the US official radio chart for their song Jupiter...
OK... so enough about my day trip to the Japan Matsuri event because you might be getting bored or something ^__^! here are the scans for the November issue of Potato, Wink Up and Duet. Since some of the members are in the stage shows, up-coming dramas/movie, tv shows, etc. like Dream Boys, Priceless, Bakaleya. etc., I included those as well in the scans. And there's scans of the boys individually... that is supposed to be a fold-up poster (that's why you can see the fold-out lines in taipi... and I'm sorry but I don't know how to remove it) but as I said before, I'm not in the habit of removing the fold-out posters from my magazines and I don't even know how to stitch it so I just do it like that... but I hope you enjoy the scans anyway! ^___^
http://www.mediafire.com/?row7dkdptk6t2b4
and as usual, please ask permission or at the very least, just give a proper credit if you're going to repost it anywhere else and please do not hotlink... thank you and you're welcome to those who are giving their thanks and comments! I do apologize if I don't respond to your comments or to those who's sending me PMs and it takes me a while to respond! Truth be told, I only log in here if I'm giving the link to the scans or if I'm going to download something from the community. But I'm really happy and do appreciate all your comments..... now, gotta go! it's past midnight and I haven't had my dinner yet and I need to wake up early tomorrow. I need to be at work at 8:30 and will finish at 19:30 (it's going to be a long day T__T) so I'll apologize again if I don't respond to your comments/messages quickly/at all!!! oyasuminasai minna.... hugs! ^____^