Back on February 12th, Yoko, Yumi and I caught the early morning Shinkansen up to Osaka for the weekend. Our plan--To see Taylor Swift live in concert on Sunday evening.
Yoko's travel agent friend got us the BEST deal ever. For 17000yen (about 200 bucks) we got round trip Shinkansen tickets (It would usually be like 150 each way) plus two nights in a nice hotel.
We got to Osaka, and had a fun time exploring the city the first day. Look what we found:
Miso Soup in a can! lol! My life is complete!
Yoko was sooooo excited about this Billboard. I guess this Guriko man is really famous in Japan? Something about him being the first spokesperson for mass produced chocolate in Japan.
My picture here is just capturing the essence of her excitement.
That night we also found an all you and eat AND all you can drink place for 1200 yen. It was actually a Shakeys! So lots of pizza for the right price. The weekend was so exciting from all the deals we found. Yoko and Yumi splurged on me, buying me a $6.00 cardigan which would still be my favorite thing to wear if it hadn't gotten so hot recently.
I just thought this was a funny picture. No. bike. parking. please.
On Sunday, we decked ourselves out for the concert, and headed on our way. The concert hall is right next to Osaka castle, so we stopped by.
The concert happened because I got many of my students into Taylor Swift with a lesson plan I made from her music video: "You Belong to Me." I think it was 4 girls that decided that they were going to go to the concert. But in Japan, the concert ticket system is kind of weird. Concerts are super popular, but it isn't first come first serve, usually. You place yourself in a lottery, and if you win the lottery you have to pay for the tickets. For really popular groups, winning the lottery is really hard. But Taylor is still kind of new here, and I guess the girls didn't realize how easy it would be to win the lottery. So 3 of the girls signed up for the max of 4 tickets. And they all won. So these poor 4 students were stuck with 12 tickets at 8000 yen a piece. I was able to convince Yumi and Yoko to help me take some tickets off their hands, and they found enough friends from my school and Christina's school to use all 12 tickets! So I basically went to the concert with 9 of my students too :) But I can't put their pictures up here, of course. I wish I could. I seriously want to adopt 2 of the girls.
The concert was AMAZING. I'm not so into Taylor Swift anymore. I was really into her, I think, because she seemed like the perfect idol for my sweet students. I feel much more comfortable showing Taylor to them than any of the other people that barely wear clothes and cuss and you know.
At the time though, that concert was like my life. I turned into a crazy person when Taylor was walking through the aisles, singing. Everyone turned into a crazy person. I really understood mob mentality for the first time.
It was amazing to be in a huge concert hall full of Japanese people (I only saw a couple other foreigners) that knew all the words to Taylor's songs better than me. Seriously, music is the best way to learn a language. :)
By the way, we were in the 12th row! 12th row!~ ~~!! It was sooo cool to be so close!
aaah, I forgot how cold it was the whole time. I couldn't not wear these stupid ski gloves at all times! :) Oh, and I realize how much better this picture would have been if Yoko or Yumi took on Ken Watanabe's stance and chin touch. :)
Osaka was amazing, and I need to start combing through all my pictures now to see what other kinds of things I missed blogging about. Yakushima is still coming soon!
Peace!
Looks like a lot of fun! When are you coming home?
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