Holding my thoughts in my heart
Here's a general post about my Tokyo trip, with pictures. There however aren't so many pics this time as in my post about the previous trip back in 2009, because many of the places I visited now, I had been to before, so I suggest you check that post if in need of more pictures of the places.
As I had only 5 days to explore Tokyo this time, and I had time-tied plans for two of those days, there wasn't much new in my trip. I did have two new experiences this time though, so I'll concentrate on those in this post. All in all, my trip this time was mostly, aside of the L'ives of course, about fangirling (for various subjects) and shopping.
Like last time, my hostel was in Asakusa, this time really close to the Senso-ji Temple. Back in 2009 when I went there before, the temple itself was being renovated and wrapped in plastic, so it was great to see now what the temple itself looked like.
Due to the location of the hostel, this time I approached the temple from a different direction and noticed that there was more to the temple area which I had missed the previous time. On the side of the temple, there were various smaller shrines and monuments surrounded by nice little greenery.
I especially loved the little pond with a bridge going over it, and the beautiful Koi carps in the pond. One carp can be seen in the third picture, and the Senso-ji Temple is in the background of the last two pictures.
There also was a small amusement park next to the temple, which I found a really amusing contrast. XD The amusement park was actually right next to my hostel.
I also took a walk in Yoyogi park after a shopping spree in Harajuku, walking to the Meiji-jingu shrine, where I hadn't been before.
That's the entrance to the shrine area, behind the Torii gate. There were many other gates placed every now and then over the road leading to the shrine, starting from the park entrance. I didn't go into the shrine itself, in fear of unintentionally behaving badly, as I'm not sure how to act in Shinto shrines.
The Yoyogi park wasn't anything great in the form of pretty flowerbeds, in fact, I didn't see any in the part I visited. But damn, the trees, what practically made the park, were huge and tall! It was also amazing that while being between Shinjuku and Shibuya, the park was almost completely silent. The only sound of traffic that came through the trees was when a train passed the Harajuku station right next to the park.
On the second day of my trip, I went to see the SP Kakumei-hen movie, like I had planned. The theatre I had chosen was in Odaiba, the small island in the Tokyo Bay. A funny little detail was that the monorail going to Odaiba had an ad about the first SP movie DVD release in the train doors. After buying the movie ticket, I took a walk by the shore.
You can see Roppongi Hills in the end of the Rainbow Bridge in that picture. Besides the bird drying its wings, I got to see other wildlife, too: fishes jumping out of the water. I had never seen that before and actually had to stand by the beach staring into the water to clarify that yes, I had seen right. It happened so seldom and fast though that I sadly couldn't take a picture of it.
I also went to visit the Venus Fort mall, and on my way there, I noticed that the route had changed since I last was there. To my displeasure, while it was like this back in 2009:
it now looked like this, with a construction site on the left:
Yes, the paved and cleared area has a lot less icky insects which there were a lot in the woods, but it's also hotter. .___. And let me just say, that city doesn't need to be any hotter in summer time. But I'm happy to say that this time the weather wasn't as hot and suffocating as it was on my previous trip.
With my SP geeking only intensified by the movie, I just had to go see the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. XD;
You can also see a little of the National Diet Building (which is where most of the Kakumei-hen movie took place) in the right corner. The water in the corner is the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace.
And my SP geeking didn't end there. There's a small park near the police department where a couple of scenes were filmed for the new special episode, so of course I had to go there as well. The park was pretty, especially the pond that was right by one of the entrances:
However, I was set on finding this certain place from the park:
Which I did:
So, for a while I just walked by the fountain, taking pictures and fangirling to myself how Ishida met is daughter there and it was such a cute scene. XD;
On the day before the first live, I braved myself to face the huge ant nest that is Shinjuku station, where I had gotten hopelessly lost in my previous trip. I had two places to visit in Shinjuku, and the first one was the Square-Enix Showroom. The Showroom was rather small and divided into two sections. The first floor had various merchandise from their games, which were affordable, and the Tonberry and Moogle plushies were too cute to be true. In the second floor, there was an exhibition of more expensive merch; figures and character jewellery were neatly arranged in showcases with spotlights and everything.
While I was drooling at the jewellery, I remembered the main reason I had come there: there was a lifesize Sephiroth waxdoll somewhere in the floor of the showroom. So, I looked down and almost jumped out of my skin; I was standing directly at the foot of the doll! I'm so happy that there was no-one else in the room with me at the time because I must've been an amusing sight. XD; The doll was really cool and for a long while, I just walked around and over it, admiring how well it was done. The doll had its eyes closed and it was so lifelike (or as lifelike as a doll of a perfect-looking CG character can be) that it looked like he could've opened his eyes any minute.
The poor thing didn't have legs, though. But better that way, now he can't run away from a fangirl attack.
In the corner of the second floor, next to the cashier, was also this:
I'm not sure if that is the costume worn by the Egoass himself in the Dirge of Cerberus promotions, as the plaque didn't say anything about Gackt, nor did I ask the staff about it. But I think it would be silly to make one for Gackt to be worn in the promos and another for the showroom...
Later that day, I attended the L'Arcaraoke, an event with foreign fans to celebrate L'Arc's 20th Anniversary. As the name suggests, we rented a room for karaoke where we'd sing L'Arc songs, with a couple of solo songs sneaking in the list as well. I had tons of fun and it was so great to get to hang out with other fans! I lost my karaoke virginity to Ibara no Namida, and I can't think of a better way to have lost it. Though, that song was sung as a duet with the_plate. I think the first song where I sang alone was DIVE TO BLUE. I also completely failed singing spiral. ^^; Apparently we made a lot of noise and attracted some attention to us, as at some point, people had gathered outside the door of our room. XD; But as there were 9 of us, almost all of us Caucasian girls, loudly singing together, I can understand the curiosity we awakened. All in all, the karaoke was really fun, a perfect way to spend an evening before the live, I got some of the best memories of my life and now I want to do that before every L'Arc live I'll attend!
As I had only 5 days to explore Tokyo this time, and I had time-tied plans for two of those days, there wasn't much new in my trip. I did have two new experiences this time though, so I'll concentrate on those in this post. All in all, my trip this time was mostly, aside of the L'ives of course, about fangirling (for various subjects) and shopping.
Like last time, my hostel was in Asakusa, this time really close to the Senso-ji Temple. Back in 2009 when I went there before, the temple itself was being renovated and wrapped in plastic, so it was great to see now what the temple itself looked like.
Due to the location of the hostel, this time I approached the temple from a different direction and noticed that there was more to the temple area which I had missed the previous time. On the side of the temple, there were various smaller shrines and monuments surrounded by nice little greenery.
I especially loved the little pond with a bridge going over it, and the beautiful Koi carps in the pond. One carp can be seen in the third picture, and the Senso-ji Temple is in the background of the last two pictures.
There also was a small amusement park next to the temple, which I found a really amusing contrast. XD The amusement park was actually right next to my hostel.
I also took a walk in Yoyogi park after a shopping spree in Harajuku, walking to the Meiji-jingu shrine, where I hadn't been before.
That's the entrance to the shrine area, behind the Torii gate. There were many other gates placed every now and then over the road leading to the shrine, starting from the park entrance. I didn't go into the shrine itself, in fear of unintentionally behaving badly, as I'm not sure how to act in Shinto shrines.
The Yoyogi park wasn't anything great in the form of pretty flowerbeds, in fact, I didn't see any in the part I visited. But damn, the trees, what practically made the park, were huge and tall! It was also amazing that while being between Shinjuku and Shibuya, the park was almost completely silent. The only sound of traffic that came through the trees was when a train passed the Harajuku station right next to the park.
On the second day of my trip, I went to see the SP Kakumei-hen movie, like I had planned. The theatre I had chosen was in Odaiba, the small island in the Tokyo Bay. A funny little detail was that the monorail going to Odaiba had an ad about the first SP movie DVD release in the train doors. After buying the movie ticket, I took a walk by the shore.
You can see Roppongi Hills in the end of the Rainbow Bridge in that picture. Besides the bird drying its wings, I got to see other wildlife, too: fishes jumping out of the water. I had never seen that before and actually had to stand by the beach staring into the water to clarify that yes, I had seen right. It happened so seldom and fast though that I sadly couldn't take a picture of it.
I also went to visit the Venus Fort mall, and on my way there, I noticed that the route had changed since I last was there. To my displeasure, while it was like this back in 2009:
it now looked like this, with a construction site on the left:
Yes, the paved and cleared area has a lot less icky insects which there were a lot in the woods, but it's also hotter. .___. And let me just say, that city doesn't need to be any hotter in summer time. But I'm happy to say that this time the weather wasn't as hot and suffocating as it was on my previous trip.
With my SP geeking only intensified by the movie, I just had to go see the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. XD;
You can also see a little of the National Diet Building (which is where most of the Kakumei-hen movie took place) in the right corner. The water in the corner is the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace.
And my SP geeking didn't end there. There's a small park near the police department where a couple of scenes were filmed for the new special episode, so of course I had to go there as well. The park was pretty, especially the pond that was right by one of the entrances:
However, I was set on finding this certain place from the park:
Which I did:
So, for a while I just walked by the fountain, taking pictures and fangirling to myself how Ishida met is daughter there and it was such a cute scene. XD;
On the day before the first live, I braved myself to face the huge ant nest that is Shinjuku station, where I had gotten hopelessly lost in my previous trip. I had two places to visit in Shinjuku, and the first one was the Square-Enix Showroom. The Showroom was rather small and divided into two sections. The first floor had various merchandise from their games, which were affordable, and the Tonberry and Moogle plushies were too cute to be true. In the second floor, there was an exhibition of more expensive merch; figures and character jewellery were neatly arranged in showcases with spotlights and everything.
While I was drooling at the jewellery, I remembered the main reason I had come there: there was a lifesize Sephiroth waxdoll somewhere in the floor of the showroom. So, I looked down and almost jumped out of my skin; I was standing directly at the foot of the doll! I'm so happy that there was no-one else in the room with me at the time because I must've been an amusing sight. XD; The doll was really cool and for a long while, I just walked around and over it, admiring how well it was done. The doll had its eyes closed and it was so lifelike (or as lifelike as a doll of a perfect-looking CG character can be) that it looked like he could've opened his eyes any minute.
The poor thing didn't have legs, though. But better that way, now he can't run away from a fangirl attack.
In the corner of the second floor, next to the cashier, was also this:
I'm not sure if that is the costume worn by the Egoass himself in the Dirge of Cerberus promotions, as the plaque didn't say anything about Gackt, nor did I ask the staff about it. But I think it would be silly to make one for Gackt to be worn in the promos and another for the showroom...
Later that day, I attended the L'Arcaraoke, an event with foreign fans to celebrate L'Arc's 20th Anniversary. As the name suggests, we rented a room for karaoke where we'd sing L'Arc songs, with a couple of solo songs sneaking in the list as well. I had tons of fun and it was so great to get to hang out with other fans! I lost my karaoke virginity to Ibara no Namida, and I can't think of a better way to have lost it. Though, that song was sung as a duet with the_plate. I think the first song where I sang alone was DIVE TO BLUE. I also completely failed singing spiral. ^^; Apparently we made a lot of noise and attracted some attention to us, as at some point, people had gathered outside the door of our room. XD; But as there were 9 of us, almost all of us Caucasian girls, loudly singing together, I can understand the curiosity we awakened. All in all, the karaoke was really fun, a perfect way to spend an evening before the live, I got some of the best memories of my life and now I want to do that before every L'Arc live I'll attend!