Hello!

So I haven't posted in a while and lots of stuff has happened, so here's another long post





As of tomorrow I've been living in Japan for 2 months! Since then I've finally gotten settled in and am feeling quite comfortable here. I'm about a month and a half or so into my courses and they're still just as easy and super easy to keep up with. Homework (if I even have any) takes about 10 minutes as opposed to my usual 82394982398423423 hours back at UBC (a real calculated accurate number calculated by maths major meghan), and I barely have any studying to do which is lovely. Since I've been living with my host family for 2 months now I'm no longer painfully awkward which is also lovely. 

I've done so much stuff recently that I don't even know where to begin, but let's start with the most exciting thing, SEEING MY #1 FAVOURITE PERSON IN REAL LIFE. So my absolute all time favourite band is a Japanese boyband, NEWS, and my all time favourite human being ever is a member of that band, Koyama Keiichiro (the one I have a picture of at the bottom of my blog with captioned "gonna track you down" - I'VE TRACKED HIM DOWN). Koyama is also the head news caster of the news program "news every" and every day at the same time he goes outside the NTV building to do the weather, and I knowing this just had to go to NTV at that time to see if I could successfully see Koyama live in person. AND I DID. 
I had been having a kind of awful few days then (filed under: mental illness is a Fun Time) and that day I was kind of at my lowest and around lunch time I asked myself, "okay Meghan, what could make me feel better today," and the only thing that came into my head was "if I saw Koyama", so I made the decision to skip my pointless food class and head over to the NTV building (located at Shiodome).
I wrote a big report on my tumblr so I'm just going to copy some of it here, my tumblr has awful grammar and all that because it's just me freaking out so please forgive that, but here it is:

  I left kind of late from Waseda so I was worried I wouldn’t make it in time (Koyama usually goes outside everyday around 16:20~30 and I left Waseda at like… 15:40….) and kind of just told myself on the train there that I probably wouldn’t see him, but I was feeling sad anyway so I had nothing to lose.  

At around 16:10 I finally got to Shiodome, the stage of my dramatic run to the area Koyama films news every. Like it literally felt like a dramatic airport chase scene (if you’ve ever been to Shiodome station you’ll know it kind of looks like some big airport-y space. kind of.), i booked it off the train, ran up all the escalators and ran to the exit for the NTV tower, then ran up the escalators going up to the filming location. WAIT FOR ME KOYAMA

That took only like 5 minutes so I finally reached the place around 16:15, there were already maybe…30? fans waiting around the fences, Kihara and Sorajiro were on standby outside already and all I could see was a bit of the window to the studio. Since not many people were there I got to stand right at the fence, CLOSEST TO THE KOYAM. So for the next 10 minutes I stood there just waiting for Koyama to show himself, I was shaking so much, like I kept telling myself on the train I wasn’t even going to see him and there I was, about to see my absolute favourite person live in person in just a few minutes.
THEN. In the window, KOYAMA APPEARED. There he was. Koyama. This guy I’ve been seeing through a computer screen all these years, there he was. 5~10 metres away from me. My mind just shut down at that point. All I could do was stare. So for about 15 minutes we all just stood there staring in the window watching him prepping for the broadcast and then presenting, then thE MOMENT CAME, Koyama began walking out the door to come outside to join Kihara and Sorajiro. Before stepping in front of the camera, he stopped and looked in the direction I was in and bowed and waved quickly to us. Then he went to the camera and waited for them to go on air. He’s quite fidgety when he’s waiting for the filming to start, it’s cute ; w ;
Filming ended outside, then Koyama bowed and waved to the fans on the other side (they were across from the building on the other side of the elevated platform, I was on the platform Koyama was on) and then turned and bowed and waved in my direction, then he went back inside. Kihara was adorable going back in, Koyama was in a hurry because he had to be ready to film again, but since Kihara’s segment was pretty much done he waved a lot to everybody with lots of energy and was just a really precious old man.
BUT IT WASN’T FINISHED.
I’m going to use one of Inala from LJ’s screencaps to illustrate it, but basically after he was done outside he went back in here in front of the window to do the next segment

so we could all still see him, in my case, from where I was standing I could see his legs from under the board and his head because he’s very tall. He had to do a lot of waiting around, it seemed his legs were tired of standing and finally he sat down in a spinny chair right by the window and was just spinning around in it before he went on air (you 5 year old).
So we all continued to watch Koyama through the window finish up his segment and when he was done and about to leave the filming room, he went to the window (after he had taken off his suit jacket, why this, why are you doing this to me) and once again waved to everybody in every direction before leaving, you sweetheart, you ; wwwww ;
and then yeah, filming finished in the room with the windows so he left & we couldn’t see him anymore. So everyone left. Bye Koyam.

MY HEAD IS IN THE SAME PICTURE AS KOYAMA'S, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT

This is Sorajiro (the mascot) and Kihara, look, I was in the background!!!

Our wedding photo

Have I gone too far

He's the one at the front of the desks in the middle in the hat And then directly after his event ended I bolted out of there because wow, way too many people, way too many rowdy university students.  And that was my Waseda Festival experience. Riveting. Anyway, those were the most exciting things I've done, now I think I'll just post a whole bunch of pictures and describe them because I literally cannot recall all the things I've done recently, I've been so busy. Waffles at NOA Cafe on Takeshita Street in Harajuku! Meiji Shrine, located super close to Harajuku station Tonnes of weddings are always going on here  I wrote my wish! Translation: "I wish to be able to go to NEWS concert" (what did you expect) Crepes on Takeshita Street! I got a Strawberry Pudding crepe. The crepes on Takeshita are super famous At Harajuku station they had millions of ads for a show Koyama is doing, so naturally I had to get a photo in front of it Went to a cafe made after an anime, it had cute animal themed food. This was the "Llamamango Parfait" In the anime the characters are all animals, so in the cafe they have a giant panda bear and a penguin in a witch costume sitting at the bar seats As I'm a fan of AKB48, I went to the official shop and cafe in Akihabara Honey Toast! The most beautiful creation. I've been making my room feel a bit more home-y I don't think I've posted this photo yet, this is an old style Japanese toilet. They're somewhat rare to see now in Tokyo, but many train station bathrooms still have it.  Shibuya station!  Statue of Hachiko, famous meeting spot in Shibuya Shibuya's famous scramble crossing A picture from the other end of the scramble crossing Quiet street of Shimokitazawa, an area just a few stops from Shibuya with tonnes of second hand clothes stores and vintage stuff A summary of my life in Japan: eating sweets And I think that just about covers what I've been up to lately! Eating, seeing celebrities, shopping, and more eating. And more celebrities.  Anyway, I'm really enjoying myself here and it's proving to be a really nice break from all the stress back in Vancouver (I was kind of at my breaking point before I left to Japan, I really needed to get away).  Looking forward to the next 10 months! では、寝まーす。