Visual Kei Date

I'm going to counter my last Debbie Downer post with some stuff I've been doing that's pretty fun.

On Saturday, my awesome friend took me to Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Harajuku to check out some fun visual kei stuff (and some equally fun, unrelated stuff)! If you don't know what visual kei is, you should Google it (haha). Visual kei is my favorite type of music. It's difficult for me to find other people who like the same music as I do, so when I found out my friend liked it, I was pretty excited.

I should probably apologize; I brought my camera, but I wasn't in the mood to take pictures. Don't get too mad, though! I'm visiting Harajuku and Shibuya on Saturday (with another friend)!

Our adventure started off in Harajuku. We looked around in a few interesting shops, like an idol shop full of rows and rows of celebrity pictures that you can buy; a costume stop full of elaborate, sequin-y costumes that Lady Gaga visited; a cute clothing store where I bought a dress for only ￥1900; and, most importantly, we got CREPES. Crepes are a specialty of Harajuku. I chose a strawberry cheesecake crepe. They literally put a small slice of cheesecake inside. HEAVEN. Definitely going back on Saturday. My friend showed me a place called Closet Child, where you can get visual kei merchandise for reeeally cheap. I'll have to keep an eye on my wallet, haha.

Next, we went to Shibuya because my friend wanted to get some makeup at 109 (AKA Ichi-maru-kyu), a well-known department store in the area. I didn't buy any makeup because I'm still kind of clueless on how to use it.

After some browsing, we decided to hit Shinjuku. I saw a few more visual kei-themed stores before going to little HEARTS. in the ALTA building to accomplish what I had come to Shinjuku for: attend an in-store event for Moran, a band I like.

An in-store event is pretty much a signing, but depending on what time you go there, they do different things (like a talk, a handshake event, or a signing event). I had to buy their new single to get in, but I was planning on doing so anyways. This experience was actually really annoying because there was a looot of waiting involved. The event description never mentioned that the talk would take place before the handshake event (which is the event my ticket was good for), so we had to wait around until the talk finished. We got there at around 5 and I didn't end up getting to enter the place at 6:30.

Luckily, my friend and I are clever! little HEARTS. is part of a shopping mall, you see. It was on the 5th floor and there were about 4 other stores around it. It had a very open design. The store officials told us to wait on the stairwell on the 3rd floor (to keep us from seeing the band, I guess), but my friend and I thought, "Well, they can't keep us from SHOPPING on the 5th floor, now can they?" So, we pretended to shop. Our timing was great, because we got to see the band enter the room for the talk. Actually, they stayed outside of the door for about a minute. My friend and I pretended to shop for purses while we stared at the singer, since talking to him would have gotten us in trouble with the little HEARTS. officials. We're clever fangirls. :P

Anyways, I finally got to the signing event and got my CD booklet signed.

I love this. They all spelled my name differently. I didn't prepare anything to say to them, but they asked me where I was from and, well, how to spell my name.

Then there's Hitomi's (the singer's) signature:

He asked if he could sign inside the booklet and then was all BIG HANDWRITING.

Overall, getting the signature was worth it, but I don't think I'd do it again...or I'd just learn the system better.

I'm really excited for Saturday, but I'll tell you why in the next post, probably.

/cliffhanger