L'arc en Ciel concert and other stuff
Okay, a bunch of things to talk about.
First, my father has lung cancer. He got the definite diagnosis yesterday. The good news is, they caught it super-early. The bad news is, they can't operate to take out the tumor (it's somewhere that it's too dangerous to go at), so they'll have to figure out some kind of treatment for it. I just talked to my dad on Skype for an hour or so and aside from some nasty coughing attacks he seems the same as always. I don't have any immediate plan to come back to America, but I guess there is a chance it may hasten up my original idea of coming back to visit in December. I am mostly trying not to worry about stuff right now. The other good news is that my dad lives 2 blocks from one of the best hospitals in Philly, so at least I know they should be able to take care of him.
(PS - for the record, he wondered if all of my friends from high school/college still think he's crazy. I assured him that at the very least, Aiton still fears him, even after 15 years.)
Second, on a happier note, today was an awesome day.
I met up with![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teravell in the early afternoon. She was in town from Gifu so we could go see the L'arc en Ciel concert at the Tokyo Dome. She was also dressed a lot more fashionably than me (I tried, but apparently what I think is in style now was actually in style two months ago). Oddly, she bought 4 tickets, and I had recruited Pau to come with us a while back (that's what he gets for picking a ton of L'arc the first time we did karaoke together), but her tentative 4th person ended up having to cancel at the last minute. So we walked to Kua'Aina in Kanda for lunch and ate huuuuuge avocado burgers, and I tried to think of people I could call on short notice. I tried to call Krispy, no luck, then called samuelp, who was like "Arc en what? Huh? Uh, sure, I'll go to the concert."
So, Laura and I ate our food and then walked back to Ochanomizu station and went back to Suidobashi that way. (Seriously, we walked from the Tokyo Dome to Ochanomizu station the first time around, via Jimbocho. I'm a dumbass.) We met up with Pau and Sam and then went over to the Dome, first stopping to buy concert goods. I got a set of 7 pinbadges from the 7 cities they went to on this tour -- Shanghai, Taipei, Paris, Seoul, Hongkong, Tokyo, and Osaka. Laura bought a ton of stuff for herself and her sister and her students back in Gifu and whatnot. They only sold tour t-shirts in small & medium sizes, and well, I can finally fit into a Japanese L fairly comfortably but an M would be a little tight for me. Then we took a picture in front of the Dome:
Going into the Dome itself was really surreal for me. Our seats were fantastic... if we had been watching baseball. Row 7, right behind first base. Unfortunately, we were watching a rock concert, and they had filled up the entire field with seats, covered up the outfield seating, and built a huge stage in front of the centerfield scoreboard. Pau even said "I think we should sing some ouenka." As it is, the experience of the concert was not entirely unlike going to baseball here -- first, everyone had glowsticks and we didn't, because we just didn't know we should buy them. Which was kinda like not having cheer sticks at my first baseball game. There were many similar experiences, hero-interview-like speeches by band members, jumping routines like the Inaba Jump, a part where the band switched their lineup for Punk-en-Ciel or whatever and had Tetsu singing, Hyde on guitar, Ken on drums and Yukihiro on bass. And so on. It culminated in them actually using the Tokyo Dome baseball PA system and introducing the band as if they were a baseball team. "First batter: Drums, Yukihiro. Uniform Number 303. Second batter: Bass, Tetsu. Uniform number 69. Third, Guitar, Ken. Uniform number 5. Fourth, vocals, Hyde. Uniform number 666."
(This explained why I saw a girl in a Hanshin Tigers jersey with "Tetsu 69" on the back. I mean, I know they're from Osaka and that he's recorded as Tetsu69 in the past, but the announcement made it all come together.)
As it is, well, when I saw L'arc in Baltimore in 2004 I remember then thinking that it was about 5 years too late, because I didn't really like Real and I was fairly unfamiliar with Smile. Well, now I am also unfamiliar with Awake and with Kiss. Wheee. So 9 years late now! I guess the concert went on for 3 hours, and the songs I actually knew well were Caress of Venus (True), Sell My Soul (Ray), Loreley (Heart), Forbidden Lover (Ark), Driver's High (Ark), Stay Away (Real) and Ready Steady Go (Smile). I'm vaguely familiar with My Heart Draws a Dream and Daybreak's Bell, I guess, since I have heard them in commercials, but that's really about it. Well, and Punk-en-Ciel they played Feeling Fine and Honey, which I guess I knew. But I'm not sure they played anything this time that I was super-excited to hear. (Like last time I remember thinking the entire concert was worth it for 花葬). Laura was into everything though and I mostly tried to dance along until my arms got tired. Oh, one other thing is that the theme this time was pirates for some reason. They had the entire stage set up as a pirate ship, and there was various times where they had the lighting/etc look like the ship was fighting something, or in water, or on fire, etc, and then for Punk, they actually drove a mini-ship from the outfield stage around to behind home plate.
I can't believe those guys are like 40 years old now. Tetsu is still crazy at least.
After the concert, well... er... we ended up going BACK to Kua'Aina for dinner. They must have been really surprised to see us (though Pau and Sam hadn't been with us before). This time I got a roast turkey sandwich instead of an avocado burger. It probably wasn't good to eat all that, except I am sure that walking there and back twice was probably good for me too, so who knows.
And after dinner, we went to karaoke! That was way fun. We sang a LOT of L'arc songs (no big surprise there), Sam sang some anime stuff, I actually sang a song in English -- Pau and I did "Heat of the Moment" together due to hearing it at the Tokyo Dome last week. (He has such a good voice.) We also did some Spitz songs together. Oh, and he sang with me for Moeyo Dragons 2007, so I sang along with him for Rokko Oroshi. Laura and I did a bunch of stuff together, we mostly succeeded at things like Taiyou no Uta and Tooku Made, completely failed at Sakuranbo, and stuff like that. My personal accomplishment was doing 東京の屋根の下、which is a kinda jazzy-maybe-enka-like song from about 60 years ago. It makes me happy to sing it and I hope to try again the next time I go to karaoke :) My personal disappointment was that the place didn't have Fighters Tamashii, which I was totally looking forward to trying.
We walked back to Suidobashi, and then went our mostly-separate ways. I rode with Laura to Nippori, where she went off to find a place to stay in Minami-senju, and then I rode home and my dad called on Skype, and so on.
OH, I forgot to mention that I saw a great movie on Saturday night.
It's called "After School", directed by Kenji Uchida, and it basically completely exists to screw with your head. Once you think you've figured out everything going on, there's a complete plot twist to tell you that you were totally wrong. But at least it's presented in an interesting way. I mostly saw it because I ♥ Masato Sakai, although he wasn't in nearly enough of it; the premise is mostly that his character has gone missing and a bunch of people need to find him. There was way too much of Yo Oizumi and Kuranosuke Sasaki, both of whom I don't like due to asshat roles they played in doramas at one point or another, but they weren't bad in this. Oddly, though, I had heard this was a comedy-mystery, and it is a comedy in a weird way, there's a lot of VERY subtle humor ("This isn't a toy store!", says Oizumi when he finds out Sasaki really runs a porn store) but the real real point is the plot twists. At one point Sasaki asks Oizumi, "How can you really know who anyone is?" and tells him to grow up... but the point is that it turns out the people who claim to know each other well, really DO know the truth about each other. But it doesn't seem that way for most of the movie.
Eh, hard to explain. I'd say go see it if you can. On the other hand, don't go see it on a Saturday night. That part sucked. I wanted to get dinner and then see the movie, but due to the mall area being so crowded, I basically just had time to get my movie ticket, buy some fries at the movie concessions, and eat that as dinner during the movie. Whee.
Okay that's all bye.
First, my father has lung cancer. He got the definite diagnosis yesterday. The good news is, they caught it super-early. The bad news is, they can't operate to take out the tumor (it's somewhere that it's too dangerous to go at), so they'll have to figure out some kind of treatment for it. I just talked to my dad on Skype for an hour or so and aside from some nasty coughing attacks he seems the same as always. I don't have any immediate plan to come back to America, but I guess there is a chance it may hasten up my original idea of coming back to visit in December. I am mostly trying not to worry about stuff right now. The other good news is that my dad lives 2 blocks from one of the best hospitals in Philly, so at least I know they should be able to take care of him.
(PS - for the record, he wondered if all of my friends from high school/college still think he's crazy. I assured him that at the very least, Aiton still fears him, even after 15 years.)
Second, on a happier note, today was an awesome day.
I met up with
teravell in the early afternoon. She was in town from Gifu so we could go see the L'arc en Ciel concert at the Tokyo Dome. She was also dressed a lot more fashionably than me (I tried, but apparently what I think is in style now was actually in style two months ago). Oddly, she bought 4 tickets, and I had recruited Pau to come with us a while back (that's what he gets for picking a ton of L'arc the first time we did karaoke together), but her tentative 4th person ended up having to cancel at the last minute. So we walked to Kua'Aina in Kanda for lunch and ate huuuuuge avocado burgers, and I tried to think of people I could call on short notice. I tried to call Krispy, no luck, then called samuelp, who was like "Arc en what? Huh? Uh, sure, I'll go to the concert." So, Laura and I ate our food and then walked back to Ochanomizu station and went back to Suidobashi that way. (Seriously, we walked from the Tokyo Dome to Ochanomizu station the first time around, via Jimbocho. I'm a dumbass.) We met up with Pau and Sam and then went over to the Dome, first stopping to buy concert goods. I got a set of 7 pinbadges from the 7 cities they went to on this tour -- Shanghai, Taipei, Paris, Seoul, Hongkong, Tokyo, and Osaka. Laura bought a ton of stuff for herself and her sister and her students back in Gifu and whatnot. They only sold tour t-shirts in small & medium sizes, and well, I can finally fit into a Japanese L fairly comfortably but an M would be a little tight for me. Then we took a picture in front of the Dome:
Going into the Dome itself was really surreal for me. Our seats were fantastic... if we had been watching baseball. Row 7, right behind first base. Unfortunately, we were watching a rock concert, and they had filled up the entire field with seats, covered up the outfield seating, and built a huge stage in front of the centerfield scoreboard. Pau even said "I think we should sing some ouenka." As it is, the experience of the concert was not entirely unlike going to baseball here -- first, everyone had glowsticks and we didn't, because we just didn't know we should buy them. Which was kinda like not having cheer sticks at my first baseball game. There were many similar experiences, hero-interview-like speeches by band members, jumping routines like the Inaba Jump, a part where the band switched their lineup for Punk-en-Ciel or whatever and had Tetsu singing, Hyde on guitar, Ken on drums and Yukihiro on bass. And so on. It culminated in them actually using the Tokyo Dome baseball PA system and introducing the band as if they were a baseball team. "First batter: Drums, Yukihiro. Uniform Number 303. Second batter: Bass, Tetsu. Uniform number 69. Third, Guitar, Ken. Uniform number 5. Fourth, vocals, Hyde. Uniform number 666."
(This explained why I saw a girl in a Hanshin Tigers jersey with "Tetsu 69" on the back. I mean, I know they're from Osaka and that he's recorded as Tetsu69 in the past, but the announcement made it all come together.)
As it is, well, when I saw L'arc in Baltimore in 2004 I remember then thinking that it was about 5 years too late, because I didn't really like Real and I was fairly unfamiliar with Smile. Well, now I am also unfamiliar with Awake and with Kiss. Wheee. So 9 years late now! I guess the concert went on for 3 hours, and the songs I actually knew well were Caress of Venus (True), Sell My Soul (Ray), Loreley (Heart), Forbidden Lover (Ark), Driver's High (Ark), Stay Away (Real) and Ready Steady Go (Smile). I'm vaguely familiar with My Heart Draws a Dream and Daybreak's Bell, I guess, since I have heard them in commercials, but that's really about it. Well, and Punk-en-Ciel they played Feeling Fine and Honey, which I guess I knew. But I'm not sure they played anything this time that I was super-excited to hear. (Like last time I remember thinking the entire concert was worth it for 花葬). Laura was into everything though and I mostly tried to dance along until my arms got tired. Oh, one other thing is that the theme this time was pirates for some reason. They had the entire stage set up as a pirate ship, and there was various times where they had the lighting/etc look like the ship was fighting something, or in water, or on fire, etc, and then for Punk, they actually drove a mini-ship from the outfield stage around to behind home plate.
I can't believe those guys are like 40 years old now. Tetsu is still crazy at least.
After the concert, well... er... we ended up going BACK to Kua'Aina for dinner. They must have been really surprised to see us (though Pau and Sam hadn't been with us before). This time I got a roast turkey sandwich instead of an avocado burger. It probably wasn't good to eat all that, except I am sure that walking there and back twice was probably good for me too, so who knows.
And after dinner, we went to karaoke! That was way fun. We sang a LOT of L'arc songs (no big surprise there), Sam sang some anime stuff, I actually sang a song in English -- Pau and I did "Heat of the Moment" together due to hearing it at the Tokyo Dome last week. (He has such a good voice.) We also did some Spitz songs together. Oh, and he sang with me for Moeyo Dragons 2007, so I sang along with him for Rokko Oroshi. Laura and I did a bunch of stuff together, we mostly succeeded at things like Taiyou no Uta and Tooku Made, completely failed at Sakuranbo, and stuff like that. My personal accomplishment was doing 東京の屋根の下、which is a kinda jazzy-maybe-enka-like song from about 60 years ago. It makes me happy to sing it and I hope to try again the next time I go to karaoke :) My personal disappointment was that the place didn't have Fighters Tamashii, which I was totally looking forward to trying.
We walked back to Suidobashi, and then went our mostly-separate ways. I rode with Laura to Nippori, where she went off to find a place to stay in Minami-senju, and then I rode home and my dad called on Skype, and so on.
OH, I forgot to mention that I saw a great movie on Saturday night.
It's called "After School", directed by Kenji Uchida, and it basically completely exists to screw with your head. Once you think you've figured out everything going on, there's a complete plot twist to tell you that you were totally wrong. But at least it's presented in an interesting way. I mostly saw it because I ♥ Masato Sakai, although he wasn't in nearly enough of it; the premise is mostly that his character has gone missing and a bunch of people need to find him. There was way too much of Yo Oizumi and Kuranosuke Sasaki, both of whom I don't like due to asshat roles they played in doramas at one point or another, but they weren't bad in this. Oddly, though, I had heard this was a comedy-mystery, and it is a comedy in a weird way, there's a lot of VERY subtle humor ("This isn't a toy store!", says Oizumi when he finds out Sasaki really runs a porn store) but the real real point is the plot twists. At one point Sasaki asks Oizumi, "How can you really know who anyone is?" and tells him to grow up... but the point is that it turns out the people who claim to know each other well, really DO know the truth about each other. But it doesn't seem that way for most of the movie.
Eh, hard to explain. I'd say go see it if you can. On the other hand, don't go see it on a Saturday night. That part sucked. I wanted to get dinner and then see the movie, but due to the mall area being so crowded, I basically just had time to get my movie ticket, buy some fries at the movie concessions, and eat that as dinner during the movie. Whee.
Okay that's all bye.
no subject
no subject
I'm kind of afraid of Aiton.
Therefore, I am utterly terrified of your father.
I hope knowing that makes him feel better.
no subject
Out of curiosity, is he an ex-smoker? Being one myself, I always worry about the increased risk of cancer I gave myself by smoking for 10 years.
no subject
no subject
That they caught the cancer early increases
no subject
i'm sorry. *hug*
no subject