Going to Osaka
Working out the Japanese trains is not easy for those that can't read Kanji. You might find that in some stations the Kanji has furigana above, or sometimes even romaji (the names in English). But this isn't always the case, and it can be quite tricky to work out the way if you don't know the kanji for your destination or any changes you need to make in the middle. Once you've taken the train a few times, though, you should get the jist of which trains will take you where, what the different lines mean, and so on. Another annoying thing I've found is that the trains don't necessarily list all the places they stop on any announcement boards, it just says what kind of train it is (Express, Limited Express, Local, etc.) and you have to have a look and see which stations that kind of train stops on. However, it's mostly the inability to read signs and Kanji that has me stumped for a little while before working it out. It doesn't help that every time I've been somewhere before now, I've had someone who knows where they are going, or I've made the journey several times before and now it's easy (ie to Kyoto Eki). In the morning, me and my friends, including Mayo and Taihei, two Japanese friends of mine who know how everything works, set off to Kyoto. First, we took the Keihan local (I think) train, and then changed to the express to get to Osaka Station. It was easy for us because we could just follow the lead of our Japanese friends, but I forgot to take note for later when I would be returning on my own, because I was too busy having fun.
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| Some of the group :3 |
Upon arriving at Osaka Station, we set off to the Pokémon centre, which is so close it's practically the same building as the station. On the way, I learnt two new Japanese words from Taihei. かざぐみ(kazagumi) which means windmill (at least the little paper windmills you get), as they were all outside the station, and かんらんしゃ(kanransha) which means ferris wheel (or at least the giant red ferris wheel in Osaka). Upon arriving at the Pokémon center, I proceeded to fangirl over all of the cute pokémon things, and spend around 5,500¥. I bought an おみやげ (souvenir) pen for my little sister, and then spent money on a cute pikachu tin of biscuits, a pikachu cake mold (because I wanted to buy a silicon cake mold for our crazy microwave/oven thing to see if I could make a cake anyway, so it may aswell be pikachu shaped), a cute phone charm - meowth holding some dango, and an Eevee mini towel, which would essentially be a flannel in England but in Japan they're typically used for wiping the sweat from your face because it's so humid (as gross as that sounds). I also bought a pokémon ball with a little stamp inside it because it's relatively hard to get decent pokéball props in England, and it will make a really good one. I wanted a pokéball, okay?
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| Pokémon Center Selfie |
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| Osaka. O.O |
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| So many Kitties! |
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| Taihei getting beaten up by a cat. KITTY PUNCH! |
The Girugamesh gig
By the time we had finished in the cat cafe, it was about 3:15, and I wanted to head to the Girugamesh gig to queue (silly me, more on that later). So we walked back to the station, where Taihei kindly ran through which train would take me to Umeda, the closest to the gig, and then how to get home after the gig. Taihei is a massive babe, and I would have been so scared going home without his guidance, so a big thank you to Taihei <3. After going through the gate, I really needed the loo, and to my horror, I came face to face with the realisation that there were only the Japanese-style toilets in the station, and I had my first using-a-crazy-Japanese-toilet experience. It was a bit scary, but in the end, it wasn't all that bad. I'd definitely, definitely still rather use a western toilet any day, though.
Upon arriving at Umeda, I headed straight for the gig. Once I had got there, it was about 4:20 (doors were at 5), and I was expecting a queue. To my horror, there wasn't one, despite seeing tonnes of girugamesh-shirted fans wondering around the area and I thought 'What's up with that?!', so I went to one of the guys hanging around in a Girugamesh shirt, who seemed to work at the venue, and asked him, in my broken Japanese, where I should go. He told me that I still had time, so I should look around the area, and that there was a main road with a few shops on nearby. I was really confused. Did Japanese people not queue? Had I misunderstood what the man had told me somehow? I went up the road and loitered, checking my facebook and twitter, and generally procrastinating, until I saw two girls walk past in Girugamesh shirts. I approached them, and they looked slightly startled. After all, I am a crazy blue-haired gaijin, and the area didn't look like the most reputable. There were lots of 'all girl servers' establishments and other seemingly slightly pervy places around, but I couldn't say exactly what they were. I told them I was a bit confused by the lack of queue, and they said that it was still a little early for that, which confused me as it was only half an hour until doors should open at this point. This is when I decided that I would google 'Do Japanese people queue for gigs?'. I found my answer there. Whenever you buy a Japanese gig ticket (which you normally have to do at a local conbini), it is printed and on the ticket you are given the number ticket you have bought. There were A tickets and B tickets. Essentially, the first ticket sold will have been from ticket set A, number 1. Once it gets to (around) 200, the B tickets started. I had no idea about this. I checked my number, and it was 154. I didn't know about the A and B at this point, but realised I could be 154th through the door, and felt a bit gutted. I guess this way is fair, because at least then those that bought their tickets early like true fans would not be disadvantaged by the fact that they might not be able to queue all day, but for me who didn't know, I felt like this could turn out to be detrimental.
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| My tickets. |
Once my ticket number was actually called, I headed inside and the stub was taken from my ticket. I also had to pay 500¥, which I wasn't sure which was for until they handed me a drink token. I'm not sure if it was necessary to pay that extra 500¥ or not, but it seemed like it was at the time, so I was kind of confused given I had already handed over just over 3500¥ for the ticket, but I was relatively pleased to get a drink out of it. Once I got inside the venue, I was surprised to see several people milling around behind a crowd gathered relatively sparsely at the front, and people queuing for merch. The venue was pretty small, considering we are in Girugamesh's home country, and it was smaller than the O2 Islington, the venue in London that they played in June. Since I wasn't going to get a place at the front, I decided to queue for some merch, just in case it turned out I couldn't get any later. Whilst in the queue, I heard a girl talking English behind me, and chatted with her for a bit. She was there with two or three other people who were teaching English in Japan. I bought a wristband and the white Gravitation t-shirt, and made my way back to the crowd.
I managed to stand about 5 rows from the front easily, even though there were around 300 people that should have got in before me. Here, I tentatively talked to a woman called Ie, who it turns out is also going to the Kyoto gig in November. I felt pleased that I was able to make a friend in Japanese. She told me that she used to study English and a little bit of French, and thought that the languages were really cool, but since she hadn't studied in so long, she had forgotten a little bit and was a bit rusty. She told me it was her second time seeing Girugamesh, and I said it was mine too, and I showed her photos, which she was really surprised at. She said that at Japanese gigs, people weren't really allowed to take photos (or if they were, it was pretty unheard of). I also told her that I'd had a VIP ticket in England and met Girugamesh and showed her the photo, which she was really jealous of. I showed her the drumstick I caught from Ryo, too, and I felt really truly lucky to have an experience that so many other people could only dream of.
We had loads of fun with the two opening bands, ALL OFF, who sung in English, and ヒステリックパニック(Hysteric Panic), who sung in Japanese. Both bands were relatively heavy, with ヒステリックパニック being the heavier of the two. The guitarist in ALL OFF was super cute. Both bands played a set that lasted around half an hour, and I bought one of ALL OFF's albums after the show. During the last song of the second support's set, they created a path through the crowd, which gave me the chance to get closer to the stage once people rushed to close it. I ended up in the third row back, and right in the middle for Girugamesh's set, which I feel is pretty sufficient. I was close enough to help hold Satoshi up when he came close and held a fan's hand at the barrier for a while during one of the songs. When Girugamesh came on, all of the fans pushed close together, so that I really wasn't far from the band at all. I can't remember the whole setlist, or the order that the songs were in, but songs included the Gravitation EP, Driving Time, Evolution, Crazy-Flag and Dirty Story. It was beautiful. Everyone was mushed up against each other, headbanging, moshing and generally having a great time. It was amazing.
Once the show had finished, I went to the Tower Records stall and bought Gravitation (as I only had it on iTunes prior to that) and got a free poster, which I haven't opened yet because I think I want to attempt to take it home (somehow). I then re-joined the queue for the Girugamesh merch queue and bought the Green Day style Girugamesh tee, Core Best - the tour exclusive CD - and a long towel, which people wear as a kind of scarf at gigs in order to wipe the sweat from themselves. Because gigs are hot anyway, but in Japan you get even more super sweaty. I then went to ALL OFF's merch stand and bought the 'Follow your Heart' album, as the guy on the stand said that the music played that gig was mostly from that album and one other. Each CD cost 2000¥, give or take a few yen, which is around £12 in real money. Then I went and spent my drink token, and talked to the guitarist of Hysteric Panic, who was very lovely and patient with my pants Japanese, and even quite impressed by it which was lovely. I then talked to the super-cute guitarist of ALL OFF, who was also super lovely! Even though my Japanese was terrible, I'm really proud that I could interact with people at the gig, instead of being totally and utterly useless.
The only thing I could have wished for more is a longer setlist - without support bands in England, their set was much longer, and I felt like I wanted more at the end. They also did not do an encore. I'm not sure if encores aren't a thing in Japan, but everybody dispersed pretty quickly after the gig, and I didn't see very many, if any, people waiting for Girugamesh to come out, and as I was pretty eager to get the train back, as I didn't really know what I was doing and knew it would take longer, I left too. After the show, I went home, and struggled my way through the train system, stupidly taking a Limited Express home, which took way longer than if I had taken the express and then changed to a different train down the line.
All in all, I had an amazing day.
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