busy busy busy

I did more last weekend than I think I've done in the last year.

On Thursday me and my friends went to karaoke.
On Friday we went shopping.
On Saturday we went to a festival in Osaka and visited the Osaka Castle.
On Sunday I went to a Matsuura Aya concert.
On Monday we had a holiday, so we went to the Hirakata amusement park.

On Tuesday I woke up feeling like death with my head pounding, and promptly began to sneeze my brain out all day. I think I wore myself out.

Karaoke

Karaoke was AWESOME fun, we got a private room with couches and chairs and a big screen tv, and you can order food and drinks like a restaurant. I sang my girly j-pop songs, but no one else knew them, so we settled for singing english songs, ie: Madonna, and the Beatles, and other fun songs. It was a bit expensive, so we're going to try and find a cheaper place next time.

Shopping

On Friday I went shopping and bought a new watch because mine stopped ticking, and a new backpack because I forgot to pack one. I wanted to buy SO MANY CLOTHES but I restrained myself.

Danjiri Festival and Osaka-jo Castle

On Saturday we went to Kishiwada in Osaka for their Danjiri Festival. Each temple constructs a huge float, and hundreds of people pull the floats around the city. And they go REALLY fast too. There were the regular festival type booths along the sides of every street, like carnival booths, selling food, and with games to win prizes. I have pictures and even video's, so you can see it as soon as i figure out how to upload it all.

We also went to the Osaka Castle, which is now just a museum. I took a billion pictures of the outside because it's so pretty.

Matsuura Aya Concert

On Sunday I went to Osaka by myself for a Matsuura Aya concert. It was SO AMAZING!! She did all her cute j-pop songs with the fancy costumes and the dancing, but she also did an acoustic bit with just her and a guitar, and she had a live band backing her for the rest of the songs. It was SO GOOD.

I was standing in line to get tickets, and I had to wait for everyone who had reserved tickets to go first, so I was standing off to the side. Then some guy came up and said in english, "Are you waiting for a ticket?" It was some guy from the fanclub who had 2 tickets, but a friend backed out, and he asked if i wanted to buy it for HALF THE PRICE! Hell yes!! It was good because the seats were right next to each other, so i could just follow him to find my place. I NEVER would have figured out how to get to my seat by myself. And he spoke really good english, so we talked about Matsuura Aya, and Fujimoto Miki, and our favourite songs. I'm pretty sure he was the typical Aya fan, a 30-something single guy who works 20 hour days as a business man and lives in a one room apartment. I think the only fun they have is at j-pop concerts, which is kind of sad.

Actually, I was surprised that it wasn't all just old men at the concert. There were kids and teenagers, and girls my age and even some older ladies. The old men did outnumber everyone else though. I got really good seats, I wasn't on the floor, but I was in the second row on the second level, which is good because I didn't have to stand the whole concert to see over all the fanboys at the front who stand up and dance and cheer the whole show. I wanted to sneak out my camera and take a video, but I didn't want to get caught. It would have been awesome to have a video as a memento, though.

Amusement Park

On Monday we went to the amusement park in the next town over. We took Jenn's host sister Nene, who is ten. She was cute, but by the end of the day I was ready to give her back to her parents. Everyone wanted to go on all the roller coasters, but they make me sick. I went on a few, and just felt sick to my stomach and got a massive migraine. All the other rides were fun though.



And that's about it for last weekend. I think this weekend I'm going to take it easy. I need some rest.