So...when I said in the previous post that we had to leave in a bit, I wasn't kidding. 30 minutes or so after falling asleep, the other guys shook me awake and I literally could not keep my eyes open. I stayed in that state until we arrived at the con center and got in line...sometimes no sleep is better than next to none >.<
We were getting up to go line up for the sign session drawing the next day (same day, really, but it was still like 3AM so it wasn't quite "day" yet :P)...during our planning the day before we decided to line up early to get in line for the drawing session as early as possible. The earlier you line up, the less people that have gone before you, and the less winning tickets that are gone...therefore increased chances of drawing a winning ticket lol. And more time before the session, therefore more chances to go through the line.
Plus we'd slept on the sidewalk every other night, why not do it again~
Anyway...everybody took their showers, gathered stuff up, and off we went. There was no desk attendant in the hotel on Saturday nights, apparently (I vaguely remember someone going down earlier to reserve a taxi but not being able to find a clerk then either...), so there was seemingly no way to get a taxi. Soon we decided to try the next hotel over since ours was pretty cheap and we figured that perhaps a nicer hotel might be more likely to have someone around? lol
Which actually worked out, as there was a person running the front desk at the next hotel over who we could see from outside...after some debate and "no you do it!", etc, Carlos ended up being the one to go in and ask the guy about reserving a taxi. I went in with him, but didn't actually do anything other than just look at some drinks, etc they had for sale in the lobby haha
The desk guy was nice enough to call and reserve a taxi for us, so we went outside to sit down and wait...and wait...and wait...
It seriously reached the point where Carlos was about to go back in and ask the guy what happened...but around that time the other American we met the night before showed up out of nowhere. We were all pretty confused haha, turns out he got bored in line and walked from the convention center (we knew you could, but didn't know the way...nobody had told us yet...), so he let us follow him back.
It was quite a trek, most of the walk was along this long sidewalk with trees and grass lining each side...this area was OVERLOADED with bunnies, it was insane. We tried to get pictures of them but the lighting wasn't nearly good enough :P
So many 'usa-chan peace' references here lolol
At the con center, we went ahead and opened the gate ourselves this time haha (it was actually quite heavy o.o) and walked in, found a spot in line and laid down for the night around maybe 5AM, and it was COLD. Like, really cold. But I basically passed out the second I hit the sidewalk haha, so I suppose it didn't matter.
Got a couple hours of sleep...then woke up to see that the guys were gone O.o Turns out security let people from the unofficial "Momusu line" into the entryways for the convention center to get out of the cold, so I made my way in there. Slept for most of this time, woke up a few times for a couple seconds only to fall back asleep. Also woke up quite hungry at one point during all this...luckily Manuel had brought some delicious German cookies for everyone to munch on :P
After another hour or two we were told we had to return to the line, so back we went.
At this point the convention lines had started filling up, and within an hour or so the sun had fully risen and we were surrounded by people...it got warm QUICK haha, to say the least. As people worked their way up through the barricades, Jim walked by...although he was quite a bit behind us (opted not to line up overnight with us lol, showed up that morning and got in line with all the other con attendees).
During this time, a Japanese ouendan group (for anyone who doesn't know what that is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cendan - also, an interesting fact...the chants Morning Musume fans do at their concerts are loosely derived from the chants ouendan groups do :O) showed up to entertain the lines and get the con attenders all riled up.
Photo 1
And seriously, these guys were AWESOME. Like something straight out of an anime lol (or Elite Beat Agents, since that game is all about ouendan :P), I couldn't do anything but just stand there with this dumbfounded half-grin on my face clapping along. Their 'catchphrase' - at least, guessing from what I saw at the convention - was "OSU!" (pronounced "OHSS!!!", basically? lol)...a way shortened form of 'ohayou gozaimasu', the greeting for "good morning"...although I'm pretty sure you can just use it as a standard greeting anytime (just be warned, it's very informal Japanese hahaha, so be careful using it if you encounter any Japanese people :P).
Anyway, they were definitely my favorite part of the expo outside of MM.
(VIDEOS FOR THE CURIOUS - or for those who love true Japanese badasses~
Video of them at the expo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxKkz7wT4S4 - this is one of the things they did for everybody in line
Video that shows, a little more clearly, some of their performance, although it's not from the convention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwK3KklVPYk - not exactly the same as what I saw at the con, but close enough...up until the 1:25 mark you can hear them say "OSU!!!" like 20 times haha
This one is especially awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8wTAlo1iPc -they're all saying stuff like "we know you're doing your best and we support you, we believe that you can surpass the borders within yourself etc etc", typical ouendan encouragement stuff
Another good one, advertising a DVD they released: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jhEWKsS-vo - as you can see it's all kinda silly, but that's a big part of why they're so unbelievably badass haha
Aaaaaaaaand one more, their own video they put together about their time at Japan Expo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83IVowfdU5E)
For some reason I get the feeling only a few of the people reading this will understand why they're so awesome...oh well lol
Anyway, after a bit everyone was allowed into the con center...wasn't nearly as hectic as the day before, at least until after con staff checked our passes. Then it was the same run all over again, bolting through the con center into the vendor's hall, dodging around people etc until we got to the sign session drawing line. Upon arriving, I was really close to the front of the line and, within a few minutes, did my first draw...but no luck :/
I quickly walked to get in the back of the line so I could go through again, pulling out one of the one-day con passes Steve bought the day before (which were distributed evenly amongst my friends and I earlier that morning). At this point the line was as long as it was when I went through on the day of the concert, maybe longer. After quite a while, I got close to the front again...and Carlos was going through the line with some pens and a bunch of sticky notes asking people to write birthday messages to Sayumi (turns out this was put together by the same Sayu fan who came up with the plan to sing happy birthday to her at the concert, I'm assuming later he put all the notes together in a book and got it to her somehow...truly a great fan...). Wrote my note ("Sayumi, happy birthday! Please continue to cutely do your best~ - Zac"...doesn't translate into English well but I believe that's what I wrote. A big gimmick of hers is always claiming to be the cutest member lol, which is why I wrote that ^^) and continued working my way forward. At the front, the girl running the booth asked me how long it took to get all the way through the line...I told her maybe an hour or so? She just nodded like "okay", guess she was just curious and recognized me from when I did my first draw :P
As for the second draw...STILL no luck ;___;
At this point it was close to time for MM's Q&A/talk show event, which I definitely wanted to go to (and so did Ed, Steve, etc)...but the sign session drawing would continue during the whole event, so attending the Q&A would cut into valuable chances for getting sign session tickets >.<
But luckily we had thought of that yesterday as well lol, and our plan was...Natsugaya to the rescue AGAIN. We all gave him the remaining con passes we had and he would continue to go through the line for us while we went to the Q&A. We figured the line would be shorter during a MM event so he'd have plenty of chances to go through and hopefully get us tickets. Nobody in our group had gotten one yet, so we were relying on him to hopefully have better luck...
I want to say that I actually walked to the Q&A by myself? Maybe not, it's hard to remember. Either way, got there, found people I knew and had a seat. I ended up sitting next to Jim at the front of the second section back in the audience, way over to the left...a decent haul from the stage, but we still had a good view. Gamushara Ouendan was there on stage doing MM chants/cheers, which was pretty cool haha
Photo 2
Soon this random French guy came along and asked if the seat to my left was taken...it wasn't, and I told him he could have it if he wanted. He sat down and we started talking, his English was poor to say the least (he listed off numbers, when we were discussing the prices of things, as "one zero zero zero dollars", counting on his fingers, instead of "one thousand dollars" haha)...but it was a fun conversation. Clearly he just came to this event because he could, I told him how I came from America and showed him my Aichan fan, the back of my outfit...his reaction was basically the same as Pascal's in the line for Friday's sign session - wide-eyed disbelief as he just shook his head haha
Also talked about how much it cost me to fly to France, how I went to Anime Expo etc etc...he was completely baffled, to say the least :P
After we stopped talking there was still a bit left before the event itself...you could hear the occasional person in the audience yell one of the members' names off in the distance, and usually the rest of the audience would cheer in response haha, I did it with Aichan's name a couple times. Again, the French guy was just kinda baffled at me.
A bit later the event itself started with a small intro video, just like at the concert everyone cheered for their favorite member when they came up on the screen, I screamed my head off when Aichan came along :P
After that, the girls came on stage and everybody stood up and cheered...I waved my fan and jumped up and down, etc. Then the girls sat down in these chairs that were placed on stage for them (which you can see in the picture above) and the Q&A started.
The format was pretty simple...this Japanese girl who was also on stage would ask the girls a question in Japanese, then state it to the audience in French...then whichever member the question was directed to would answer and the host girl would translate to French...then the same process again, for the most part at least. Of course, this presented a problem as no one I ran around with spoke French, including myself obviously...so I did the best I could to interpret for Jim while the host/interpreter girl was speaking French. Missed a lot, honestly, I was SO tired and forcing my brain to process Japanese, translate to English and then relay to Jim was honestly a bit much haha (plus I likely would have missed quite a bit even if I weren't tired >.<)...basically I just summarized what I could catch for him. Better than nothing, I suppose :P
Photo 3
Nothing terribly exciting in the questions, although there was one Aichan answered where, as the interpreter struggled to interpret her answer (which, by the way, seemed to happen with everything...lots of "uhhhhhhh" and awkward pauses, for some reason...you'd think they could find somebody who knows what they're doing for an event like this), the camera switched to Aichan...and she was making this adorable concerned face and watching the intepreter nervously haha, obviously worried because the girl was struggling so much. Once Aichan noticed the camera she kind of jumped and covered her face lol, obviously totally oblivious that it was on her until that point...everybody cheered and had a good laugh about that. Too cute ;______;
Anyway, once the session ended the girls got up and walked down this huge catwalk that ran in the middle of the audience, stopped at the end for a bit to wave and do cute poses lol, then walked back to go offstage...when they started that everyone swarmed the barricades surrounding the catwalk and waved, etc. I managed to get right up front and did my best to catch Aichan's attention, but no luck D:
Photo 4
Then began the rush back to the sign session drawing line. I was the first out of my friends to arrive and, once there, I saw Natsugaya was still making the rounds for us (such a great guy, seriously ;_____;) so I stopped to ask how many tickets he got...just one, apparently. Still better than nothing, obviously...hopefully there'd be time to go through the line and get more tickets so we could all get into the session...
Continued in the next post~
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