Birthday and Golden Week

05 May 2012

It's been a while since the last time I wrote something, so I figured, let's put up another one ;)

Exactly one week ago I had my 22nd birthday, and it happened to coincide with a school-planned bus tour and a party hosted by the ryuugakusei ouen family after that. We went to visit a museum about the history of the most important buildings in Matsumoto. After that we went to place where they make miso, the most important ingredient of the Japanese miso soup. We could also taste miso soup ourselves, but it's one of the few Japanese foods I don't like, so I opted out XD

Even before I went to Japan I figured it would be a memorable 22nd birthday, and it was. Only not for the reasons I thought. Because around 12 o'clock that night we were brought to the hospital by Sato-sensei, because Manon had a very bad migraine and needed stronger medicine than she had with her. Luckily the hospital could provide her with painkillers that worked and we went home again. Let's just hope that will be the last time I see a Japanese hospital from the inside...

Now for something else. As some of you might know it was Golden Week in Japan the last week. Because there are a few holidays close to eachother most Japanese have a free week and use it to take a short vacation. Because we still had to go to school on Tuesday and Wednesday we couldn't do that, but we made a last minute decision to go to a Takarazuka show in Tokyo.

There are 4 different seat ranks in  the theater; SS, S, A and B, SS being the best and B the "worst". Because Manon and I didn't want to pay as much we decided to go for the A seat while Janneke and Jolene bought an S seat ticket. We also rented opera glasses for 500 yen so we still got to see quite a bit of detail ^_^
The show we went to was Tsukigumi's "Don Carlos/Shining Rythm!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk_Zw9BvbZw).

Of course, when one's in Tokyo one also does some shopping. When we arrived in Shinjuku by bus from Matsumoto, we took the subway to Harajuku, now as the fasion district of Tokyo. There's a street there called Takeshita-dori, and they sell Gothic Lolita, punk etc. One of my favorite shops there has to be Closet Child, which sell second-hand clothing, assesories and cds. I bought a shirt there from which I think is h.Naoto, a famous Japanese punk designer. I also bought a pair of shoes at the Bodyline store <3

Later that evening we went to Akihabara to check out some cd stores, and I bought one of the cds I've been wanting for a while (Toxic from the GazettE, in case anyone is wondering ^_^).

The day after was the musical which started at 11 and ended at 2. Of course we couldn't resist to buy some merchendise at the Quatre Rêves and Takarazuka An where they sell second-hand Takarazuka merch. At 9 in the evening our bus left for Matsumoto again where we arrived a little after midnight. It was a really awesome 2 day vacation ^_^

Until next time, またね！

~Marlies / マーリス