The view from the bullet train window, I've never seen Mt. Fuji so clearly (this photo does it no justice)

After sitting on the bullet train for 2.5 hours I finally arrived in Osaka and managed to find my hotel. Within only a little bit of time being in Osaka you notice that the people are about 45x nicer than in Tokyo, it's like the Canada of Japan (a guy literally apologised to the train door when he walked into it). After I checked into my hotel I headed out to the venue of the concert, Osaka-jo Hall, which is located right next to Osaka-jo (Osaka Castle) and because I got there about 4 hours too early I had time to wander around by myself.

Found Osaka-jo! 

I'm getting closer

My goal was just to get as close to it as possible without having to pay

I crossed the bridge and got this view of it

Then I was like ok that's enough of that and went to buy a famous Osaka specialty: Takoyaki. If you don't know what takoyaki is they're fried balls of batter with bits of octopus in them (takoyaki literally means "fried octopus") and they are DELICIOUS. It's been one of my alltime favourite foods forever so I was super excited to get to try ~authentic~ Osaka takoyaki. And it was as good as I had hoped it would be and MORE.

While sitting there on some stairs eating my takoyaki all of a sudden this lizard thing appears out of the corner of my eye (it's that little line on the right part of the stair railing thing in the photo)

A better picture of the lizard which I actually found out later was a "skink"

Then, sadly I do not have a photo of it because I was too startled, after the skink jumped into a bush a huGE FAT CENTIPEDE CRAWLS UP TO THE STAIRS OUT OF NOWHERE. I have literally never seen a bug that big with my own eyes. Like I'm not overexaggerating, it was at least 10 centimetres long and 3 centimetres wide, IT WAS GIRNORMOUS. So I did the Meghan reaction to startling things and just sat there staring at it until it disappeared into a bush. And then the skink came back.

And that's the story of Meghan's Crazy Safari Adventure.

After that I just wandered around some more and sat behind Osaka-jo hall until it was time to go in for the concert. THE CONCERT WAS AMAZING AND KOYAMA WAS SO HAPPY WITH ALL THE BIRTHDAY STUFF AND IT WAS ADORABLE. But if you want to know more about that you'll have to go to my tumblr or livejournal for my report because I doubt majority of the people reading this blog have any desire to know.

After the concert I met up with some of my Tokyo friends who also went to the concert and went wandering around the famous area of Dotonbori and had dinner.

This giant crab on the crab restaurant is a famous Osaka thing.

Coming up to the main part of Dotonbori

Famous Osaka Landmark: Glico Man! He has no relevance at all, he just sits there, running forever and ever

The canal running down Dotonbori

There's an area that is just a whole bunch of restaurants with giant figures on them, here's a giant octopus for a takoyaki restaurant

A giant pufferfish

A giant hand holding sushi

And another giant pufferfish (I love pufferfish)

I had another Osaka specialty for dinner: Okonomiyaki. The literal meaning is "Fried Whatever You Like" so basically you put whatever you want in it and you fry it. Typically though it's just a lot of cabbage and some kind of meat (usually pork) mixed in an egg batter with sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed, and fish flakes on top. Like takoyaki it's another one of my all time favourite foods and it tasted 24023x better in Osaka.

All our okonomiyaki and more takoyaki

Then I went back to my tiny hotel room to sleep. The next morning I woke up early and... went back to Tokyo. I would've stayed for much longer but... the very next day on the 2nd I had another concert to go to... in Tokyo. AAA's 10th Anniversary Concert in Nippon Budoukan!

I was second row of the stands and because they were doing a 360 stage I wasn't far at all. Perfect angle, super close, it was an amazing concert. 

In Japan we have a week of holidays collectively called "Golden Week" which takes place at the beginning of May. I had the whole week of the 4th-8th off school, but usually the typical Japanese student or salaryman only has the first three off (because those are the only days that are actually legitimate public holidays) and I pretty much had the best week ever. It started off with the NEWS concert in Osaka (technically that wasn't Golden Week yet but that was my first day off because I skipped school for it so), then the AAA concert, then on the Tuesday of that week I saw another band I love, Johnnys WEST, in concert, then on Wednesday I went to NTV (yes, again, who's surprised) and saw Koyama for like the 8th time, then on Saturday I saw yet another band I love, KAT-TUN, in concert as well. Definitely one of the best weeks of my life I'd say. (Can you tell I base all my happiness on idol boy bands...)

Aren't we a lovely couple.

Also here's a photo of me after seeing Koyama in front of the NTV tower sign

 

Such happiness.

And then upon leaving I caught the end of the broadcast with Sorajiro

 

(he's so cute I want to cry)

I went with my host sister, Mai, to Odaiba one day during Golden Week, here's the Fuji TV building (Meghan went to a TV building that wasn't NTV!?!??!?!?)

It wouldn't be a Meghan blog without a photo of desserts. Here's some mango pudding

I wandered around the back allies of Nakano

More of Nakano

So I've been collecting Koyama uchiwas... For idol concerts in Japan posters and stuff aren't allowed (they're too big and obstruct other peoples' view and all that) so in place of those we have uchiwas (or "fans"). As you've seen in my previous blog posts many make their own with words and stuff on them but for every concert they also sell official uchiwas of each member. Koyama has 19 official uchiwas from over his career, I own 18 of them(if you count there are 17 in this photo and that's because the last one is in Vancouver). I'm on a mad search for the last one.

I went to some park near my host family's friend's house and this thing is apparently being used for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

And I got this dramatic photo in front of it by accident

And a random photo in one of my favourite areas of Tokyo: Ikebukuro

And that's about it! 

I would comment on school but I rather not get into a big long rant here about it. Basically I'll leave it at Waseda's Japanese program is awful, the courses are designed horribly, and I often feel so frustrated I almost start crying. It's not that it's difficult, it's that it's just so mind-numbingly stupid. I definitely do not recommend doing Waseda's Japanese Language program, it's not just me, everyone I talk to has a bad opinion of it as well. 

While school is horrible, everything else is good and I'm definitely enjoying myself (outside of school), just yeah, I wish I was done with school already. 

I've got some exciting things coming up though, next weekend I'm flying out to Hiroshima for...another NEWS concert (can't get enough of that Koyama). Also will hopefully get some sightseeing and all that in because I've never been to Hiroshima. Then the weekend after that in Tokyo Dome I'm.... seeing another NEWS concert (this is the finale of the tour ok!! This is the last!!) and my friend Jimu is coming back to Japan for it so I'll get to hang out with her some more for a week. And I'd keep going but all my exciting plans are more concerts and idol things so... I'll stop. 

My idol bands make all the suffering at Waseda worth it.

Anyway, that's all for now

I leave you with another smiling fish