Hello! I have not updated in 2 months, whoops.
Got a bit busy with the end of school and life and all that.
Since 2 months have gone by now and I've done a lot of stuff I decided to make two separate posts, so this is the first one for June!
I started off June by travelling to Hiroshima!
Of course, I was going there for another two NEWS concerts.
Hiroshima was a super pretty city, everything in it is quite new since the entire city was destroyed in WWII by the bomb. Looking at it now though you would never have guessed.
On the first day we went to the Peace Museum which had various things found after the bomb and a lot of depressing stories about children who died because of it. It really puts you in a depressed mood, but the museum is pretty well done. It's just interesting seeing all the stuff you once saw in your history textbooks in secondary school in person, especially the A-Bomb Dome: one of the only buildings left standing after the bomb.
This is one of the peace monuments near the museum, the A-Bomb dome can be seen in the distance through it
This is the children's monument - it was made in honour of a girl who survived the bomb but shortly developed leukemia because of the radiation from it and started making tonnes of origami cranes (a symbol for peace) to wish to get better. Sadly she did end up dying from the cancer, there weren't many stories of survival (I told you, this place is depressing).
When you reach the end of the park you see the A-Bomb dome from across the river.
That was about all we did that day before the first concert (which was amazing by the way).
The next day we decided to come out to one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan: Miyajima, one of the 3 most scenic views in Japan (if you remember, in March when I went to Sendai I saw one of those 3: Matsushima).
Miyajima is an island so you need to take a ferry to get there.
Seeing the first glimpse of the famous Torii gate
Miyajima is also famous for its abundance of deer. Tonnes of deer just wander around and try eating all your stuff.
Here is one eating a tourist's map
He's really going for it
Wolfing it down
Aaaaaand he finished eating the map
He is really cute though
Me petting the map eating deer!
More deers sitting around waiting to eat tourists' maps
A map of the island
There's lots of shops and stuff selling lots of local food and souvenirs
Miyajima is famous for its oysters so I got some fried curry oyster bread and some fried oysters, both of which were DELICIOUS.
Anne and Gaelle got some corn on a stick and the crazy map eating deer ganged up on us trying to take it while also eating their clothes. Luckily for me I shovelled my fried squid on a stick into my mouth before they could attempt to steal it out of my hands
On our way to the famous torii gate!
This post says "Japan's 3 Scenic Views Miyajima"
A very Miyajima picture. A deer and the torii gate in the background
And the scenic view! The torii gate. When the tide is out you can walk up to it but it's nowhere near as pretty as it is here with the water around it
Me and the gate
There's also a shrine on the water
There was a martial arts lesson or something going on at the shrine
Time to leave Miyajima to get to the second concert! (Which also was amazing)
I was on like the 37th floor of the hotel and this was the night view I had of Hiroshima
While in Miyajima I bought a special Chuugoku region limited Kitkat and momiji manju!
The daytime view from my hotel room! You can see the ocean past the buildings.
After the first two days my friends Anne and Gaelle took the night train back to Tokyo while I stayed one extra day. So with my extra day I decided to see the last bit of tourist sites on my own. First up was trying Hiroshima style okonomiyaki! It's similar to Osaka style okonomiyaki except the main difference is that the Hiroshima version uses noodles. I think I may like it even more than the Osaka one.
Then I headed over to the A-Bomb Dome again to see it up close. First I found this monument that I didn't stop and read what it was so I have no idea what it is, but here you go
The description for the A-Bomb Dome
And the A-Bomb Dome up close
Then after that I walked all the way to Hiroshima Castle. Hiroshima's transit system isn't the best (majority of it is a tram that costs more money than it should) and the city is pretty small so I ended up walking everywhere. Even with that though it still took me about 30 minutes to walk to the castle.
The castle from afar!
One of the gates
The remains of some kind of police building
And the castle!
Then on my way out of the castle grounds I found some pigeons and got distracted for 10 minutes taking photos of them
I love those pigeons
Then after that I couldn't think of anything else I could do so I walked all the way to Hiroshima station (another 30 minute walk), sat in a cafe and had a drink, then got on the bus to the airport and flew back home to Tokyo.
The next weekend I ventured out to Odaiba! I've been a couple of times already so there's some photos in previous blog entries.
This time I went up to the FujiTV observation deck
The view from FujiTV! You can get a good view of Tokyo from here
FujiTV has a lot of TV related things to see, here's the set of Mezamashii TV! (The Japanese TV fan in me is freaking out)
They had lots of celebrity autographs, here are some foreign celebrity autographs. (Justin Bieber's 12 year old girl signature, Jamie Foxx, Nicolas Cage, Edward Norton signing his name in Japanese...)
More of the studio!
More of the view from FujiTV, this time a view of more of Odaiba
Then I went to the wax museum!
Chilling with Prime Minister Abe.
The Dalai Lama stopped by
Then David Beckham started working out
Me and Oshima Yuko!!!! She is so tiny
Had to get an up close shot of us
Me and Wada Akiko!!!
Then Einstein showed up and taught me about relativity and all that
Then I had a chat with Da Vinci
And then I took ET home
Komanechi-ing with Beat Takeshi
Up close with Beat Takeshi
Maeda Atsuko!!! Gotta get a photo with all the AKB48 members
It was difficult getting a photo with her since she was sitting in this weird bubble thing
and the best part, my overall goal in coming here: MATSUKO DELUXE, MY ANGEL
This is my favourite picture
Me and my childhood hero
I'm so happy
After the wax museum I went and finally saw the giant gundam
Oh Japan.
Then I got distracted by a pufferfish
THEY'RE JUST SO CUTE I CAN'T HANDLE IT.
Am I in New York or am I in Tokyo
Afterwards I went to Tsukishima, a place famous for melon bread and monjayaki.
Monjayaki is kind of like okonomiyaki except it's more of a liquid-y consistency and it's from Tokyo (more specifically Tsukishima). I had it for the first time coming here and it was AMAZING. You pick from the menu things you want to put in it, like cheese and different meats and all that, then you receive it in a bowl and you have to cook it yourself on a grill.
Cooking the monjayaki! It may look gross, but it is really, really good. I may like it even more than okonomiyaki (both Osaka and Hiroshima style...)
Then I went to go eat the other food Tsukishima's famous for, melon bread! I went to this famous shop that I saw on TV (....Koyama ate melon bread from it...)
My bag of fresh melon bread
LOOK HOW DELICIOUS IT LOOKS. it was so good.
Random outing to Shibuya, went to karaoke and got giant honey toast *_*
Basically this blog is about Meghan eating things.
Shige (member of NEWS) had been to this Tsutaya the same day I was here to sign this board for his book that came out. I keep missing Shige.
A couple days later I went to Hakkeijima Aquarium in Yokohama!
My favourite show, ItteQ, has a segment where Chan Kawai (a comedian) goes around the world and collects weird aquatic animals and brings them to Japan to show kids and they all end up here at this aquarium! Here's a giant crab in their display.
And here is me doing the ItteQ pose in front of the giant crab
Hakkeijima has a whale shark so a lot of the zoo has a whale shark theme going on. Here's me in front of the "whale shark mouth tunnel"
I think this was the first time I ever saw a walrus and wow, walruses are HUGE. You can't even tell how huge they are by this picture but WOW.
The penguins were one of the best parts
This is their huge fish tank that is seen in a lot of Japanese dramas
Me in a Japanese drama
The underwater tunnel!
I FOUND THE PUFFERFISH
This was the strangest animal I've ever seen, it glows in neon colours and it has legs. The fish has legs. Tiny insect looking legs.
MY FAVOURITE, THE ISOPODS.
Feeding the koi! They're crazy beasts.
The whale shark!
I FOUND BELUGAS
MY BABIES
THEY'RE TOO CUTE, I'M GONNA EXPLODE.
[aggressive sobbing]
(belugas are my alltime favourite animal okay)
The dolphin tunnel!
Dolphins flying above
Me with my dolphin friends
I feel like I want to get married in this tunnel.
Walking around Hakkeijima, it's really pretty.
That weird diamond building is the aquarium
A HERD OF JELLYFISH
Inside a submarine
Found this walrus contemplating life
And a seal tunnel
My souvenirs from Hakkeijima: a beluga mug and a beluga container
A while back I found a phone case with one of my favourite mascots (the TV Tokyo mascot, Nanana - a banana. Because TV Tokyo is channel 7 and 7 in Japanese is "nana". Genius, just genius) and because when I move back to Vancouver I'm going to get an iPhone 6 I bought the iPhone 6 case despite not having an iPhone 6. But I wanted to use the case right away so bad so I... crafted this. You don't know how many people have laughed at me for this. It's a good conversation starter.
The next weekend after the Hiroshima concerts NEWS had the last two concerts of their tour in Tokyo Dome! I painted my nails in NEWS colours for the occasion. (Idol bands usually have a certain colour for every member)
My outfit for the concert - because my beloved Koyama's member colour is purple I wore tonnes of purple.
The night after the first Tokyo Dome concert we all went to eat at "Bubba Gumps" which apparently is a thing in America but I hadn't heard of it until now. To get the attention of a waiter you turn this sign over to show a sign that says "STOP FORREST STOP" instead. I found it amusing
Last day of the tour! Here's the display for it outside Tokyo Dome!
And the tour sign while waiting to get in!
And so the NEWS tour ended. I saw it 6 times. It was amazing and getting to see my favourite band who inspired me to keep up with Japanese and come to Japan was definitely one of the best experiences I've had and I feel so blessed to have been able to finally see them in person.
The next day in post-tour depression I went to Tokyo DIsneyland! Tokyo has two Disney theme parks, Disneyland and Disney Sea. They're similar though Disney Sea has a bit more emphasis on the ocean theme (it's right next to the ocean too). In 2013 I went to Disney Sea so this time I went to Disneyland!
It was June but Disneyland was still all decorated for Easter. Yeah, Japan doesn't really know anything about Easter.
These!!!!! These were great, they're called "Little Green Man" which is funny because in Japanese "man" is for manju, the type of food this is. Oh the puns. So yeah, these were manju and the filling were different ice cream flavours. Really cute, so delicious.
Also got disney pizza. It actually tasted like regular pizza, surprisingly. Here in Japan pizza is typically flat bread so I was surprised.
Managed to see a lot of the parades just by sitting around and queueing up for rides
THE POOH BEAR RIDE!!!! My favourite Disney thing is Pooh Bear so I was very excited.
Also ended up catching their special crazy light parade
Then got a Mickey shaped waffle before leaving!
Then the next day of course I went to NTV for the 283497283rd time.
They put Miyagawa's trophy he won in Switzerland (?) with Funasshi (long story)
And of course, the area where I see Koyama all the time. (The window under the clock is the studio)
After seeing Koyama for the 283492837th time I went to the trendy area of Jiyuugaoka!
Why did I go here, because Koyama went to this exact shop for a TV show....
And he went here: Sweets Forest
I'm not even going here just because my Koyama did, I love sweets more than I love anything in the entire world (aside from.... Koyama....) so of course I had to come to an entire area of shops dedicated to sweets
The inside of Sweets Forest, it's full of just a whole bunch of kiosks selling various sweets
Here's one of the things Koyama got when he came here! They have a special sign mentioning it too
So of course I got... exactly what Koyama got when he was here. The berry cheesecake, and a banana whip.
A few days later I went to Harajuku for more idol times.
Saw the NEWS billboard!!
And I FINALLY saw the NEWS truck. In Japan advertising is no joke, when popular artists have CDs/DVDs coming out they get special music trucks with their faces on it that blast their music and drive around to promote it.
More NEWS promotion...
And more...
Then a few days later I went back to Tokyo Dome to go to an event by two of my other favourite bands, Arashi and Hey Say JUMP! IDOL OVERLOAD!!!!!!!!!! It was great.
Then at the end of June I went to a place in Tokyo near Sky Tree called Kappabashi. Kappa is a type of Japanese demon that looks like this thing. This place is known for lots of kitchen equipment and plastic food for restaurant displays
Tanabata decorations! Tanabata is a Japanese holiday where you make wishes and hang them on bamboo.
Creepy kappa on a building.
Then I walked to Ueno and sat at Starbucks looking at the pretty, menacing looking sky
And that's June!
Despite all my issues with school it was a really good month! Full of more idols! Life is good.
Now I must make an entry for the month of July!
