The funny thing is, half of this entry was written in 2008 and completed only now. Most of the details have already become fuzzy, but thanks to the AAA 2008 DVD we get to live through their wonderful Kokuritsu performance again and again. Written because.. I owe myself -_- and it wouldn’t make sense to write about 5×10 if I haven’t finished this.
You must be wondering why I am taking forever to write this concert report.. but all I can explain to you is, AAA was overwhelming and even words alone can’t describe how fabulous the concert was =) oh yes besides that I was busy to death in school.. Everytime I recall about the concert, there’s always something fresh that sticks out from my memory and I guess this is what you call unforgettable ;)
15 November – Concert Day 1
As I was saying, the Satoshi智 and Masa雅(ki)… uchiwas took hours to make from the uchiwa ribs I got from daiso. Having not owned one in my life, they ended up in the wrong size as compared to the official ones which are larger, I realised only afterwards. Despite the silly mistake, I think the Ohno one is still cute hehe, and I had fun lining the silver ribbon for the border and wrapping it around the handle and taping the end with black tape. It was like… a magic wand! XD
Unbelievably I completed this entry, wooo! Sorry if my thoughts on the concert became disconcerted (pun fully intended :D) and my sentences became repetitive and weird. THIS IS THE FANGIRLING SYNDROME, MWAHA. I will describe the concert and set list in a little more detail in my next entry. Keep visiting! XD
13 November
My mum and I took the 730am flight to Shanghai Pudong airport instead of the 1030am one because in this way we would have so much more time after we arrived at noon to settle down and explore. As usual we were doing intensive last minute packing on the previous night, and I didn’t catch a wink of sleep because I was making uchiwas till it was 430am (had to be at the airport by 6).
Anyway these are the photos you all wanted to see haha. We sat first class, our second time; first was when we flew to Taipei last April. I chose the chicken fillet set for breakfast, while my mum chose to have something more local, prawn noodles. Leg space was so abundant, needn’t worry about having leg cramps from sitting with my legs tucked in for too long.
I love the view outside the window! Especially the picture with the sun and the one with bits of clouds hovering over the sea and casting reflections/shadows over the surface. What a wonderful sight to begin the trip with :)
As the time to touch down grew closer, I had interesting views of the land; Shanghai’s, if not neighbouring states, industrial and agriculture areas. Then finally, Pudong airport at around 1230nn. Thank God for the sunny yet breezy weather!
The cab ride from the airport to our hotel ‘A-Live’, which I reserved a promotional room for 299rmb a night, took about 50 minutes. Though the prices are not the cheapest around, I definitely raised my eyebrows when I realised the hotel reception was only located at level 3 which means that anyone could simply walk in and out of that building or even go upstairs. It was worse when were were allocated a corner room, with literally a corner short and that made walking almost impossible after we placed our baggages in there. There seemed to be free internet access from the wire provided, but the socket was damaged so I called the reception and they offered us the room next door. If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have gotten a bigger room with proper internet access. But one thing that irked my mum was that, in the haste of moving (we had already unpacked before I called them) our things to the new room, her bottle of perfume disappeared. She double checked when we came back to Singapore; must have been the cleaning auntie, who very kindly explained to us she “would return it immediately if she found any lost items, don’t worry, we’re always looking out for things like that”, who cleaned the room immediately after we moved our stuff. Oh well.
Nearby our hotel at Nanjing West Road 南京西路, was the street with lots of local eateries, desserts and barbecue stalls, which led to yet another street further down, that looks more like a proper shopping and food district. It was the place Sam Sean Macson and I had Subway at.
Went down a basement of a random mall, my mum wanted to try teppanyaki and so we did. How many times must I tell myself not to trust Japanese food in Shanghai unless it’s of an authentic shop? This was rather.. cheap and tasted like Chinese food. I promised myself to eat at the Sakae teppanyaki again!
In search of Nanjing Pedestrian Street 南京路步行街, we had spent hours walking aimlessly (ah, this is the reason I don’t think I can learn driving). In other words, we were quite lost, I had to smack myself for not being able to recognise the way there at all. My plans for the day was to visit Huang Pi South Road 黄陂南路/Shan Xi Road 陕西路, Nanjing Pedestrian Street and Xu Jia Hui 徐家汇 the city area, but because so much time was wasted as we walked round and round People’s Square 人民广场, we only had time for Nanjing Ped Str and The Bund. By the way, the weather was even cooler in the night, around 14 degrees?
This clock tower, which I remember was an art museum, was along the street where the guys and I hung out for a nighttime photoshoot the other time. And then another tower which has lights that change colours constantly. I really like this aspect of Shanghai; their buildings in the city area are so interesting!
AT LONG LAST, we arrived at Nanjing Pedestrian Street on a thursday night, relatively crowded for a weekday. I practically didn’t shop for anything, but just accompanied my mum and brought her around.
The entire street led to The Bund 外滩 overlooking Pudong and all the famous buildings of Shanghai and of course the Oriental Pearl Tower which I’ve never visited lol. It was kinda similar to Hong Kong’s Ave of Stars, but I think the distance of The Bund is greater. Walking from the middle to one end took ages since there were so many things to see and laugh about (YA the typical quarelling of a stall owner and an unsatisfied customer, a big hooha they created with their yells, but it’s not that big anyway if you get what I mean LOL).
Bunny ears for 5rmb ($1) each, very cute and very common, within a distance of 100m there are probably 5 other sellers with these and other hairbands featuring mickey/minnie ears and lighted up devil horns (MAOU!! the red one!).
Movable stalls on carts could also be found everywhere. This particular stall sold boiled hotdogs and such on skewers, just when we were about to buy one to try, someone’s hand knocked into the lamp and it fell into the soup. As though nothing had happened, the man removed and placed the lamp upright again, and.. we turned and walked away.
Of course, The Bund being a tourist attraction, people come up with all sorts of funny (sometimes useless) items to entice baka tourists. This one wasn’t bad, a very interesting type of kite which looked pretty against the nightsky.
14 November
The morning of friday! In our hotel room, and wheeeee, looking at the dusty floor and tables, it doesn’t seem as though they even cleaned it before we moved in. Whatever, we wore our shoes and the hotel slippers all the time anyway.
Shanghai food for brunch and a banana+strawberry smoothie and milk tea afterwards.
We roamed around People’s Square and shopped at an underground mall conveniently, not D-Mall though it was a place I really wanted to bring her to. And I got for myself a new pair of jeans, that’s about it; my mum didn’t spend much too.
This evening we were to visit Huanglin and his housemate’s apartment for steamboat! We first made our way to Red Town, after being stuck in a terrible jam during the peak hour, and it was already dark by 5pm. We met Lily who was on her way home and I exchanged a few words with her before quickly going up to the AKQA office (it was about 630pm) to find Fionnie who happened to open the glass door, welcoming us. Upon entering the office, the familiar smell and feel gushed over me; Tony was smiley as usual at his desk; Sin En and Jolene’s look of surprise; Sin Yew, Vincent, Ella and Joe at the other side of the office as well as a new guy who had taken over Sean’s seat. 久しぶりですね! Later on I heard from Sin Yew that Nick had taken over my seat, lol, having moved over from the accounts side. It was so great seeing all of them again ^.^
I passed the pineapple tart and sugi goodies from Bengawan Solo to Sin Yew, to be passed to everyone on monday, that Sean and I bought for them. While waiting for Vincent and Ryan to settle some project stuff, they told me the Guerlain website (designed almost entirely by Ryan) and desktop widget, which I worked mainly on for several weeks during my attachment there, for their 180-years campaign has gone live! I’m so glad they trusted me enough to actually use my widget design and animation especially (when they could outsource for freelancers) for the “Plant Orchids” section. XD Well, I also spent some time catching up with dear Jolene and Sin En (the NUS interns I told you about) and passed them some snacks from SG haha. I’m so gonna miss them again man.
Sin Yew led the way to Huanglin’s house via the main gate, and on our way there the guys Vincent and Ryan stopped by several convenience stores to buy seasoning for the food. My mentor Huanglin’s temporary house was near Xing Fu Lu 幸福路, and we passed by the Chinese restaurant that served pretty decent spicy food where Sean Sin Yew and I had dinner at on the evening it rained dogs and cats. He had decided to take a break from working and move back to his own town on the 20th (yeah so he left already) which was why staying with his friend/ex-colleague was only temporary. I brought 4 designs of coke cans (he’s a collector) from Singapore and the light-weight clay from daiso for him. This gathering at his house and plans to whip up dishes (oh yes guys in SH CAN cook) was initiated by all three of them Ryan Vincent and HL, a way of welcoming me back to SH =) really sweet of them!
We had a wonderful time talking and crapping and eating too much. After a month of leaving SH, I still miss the lunchtimes spent with the colleagues and gatherings we all had. Not to mention, Shanghai food! My mouth waters just thinking about 鱼香茄子 (a brinjal dish) uwaaaaaa~~ HL’s housemate is a funny guy who shared a lot with all of us. Halfway through the meal HL brought out a HUGE and heavy clay figure of a monster character that he handcrafted, which sadly had bent over and was distorted because he had placed it directly under the aircon which generated heat (I don’t know why haha). Jaw-dropping! the details and textures. I really must show you sometime, like link to his blog or something.
Besides steamboat, they also cooked the famous da zha xie 大闸蟹 (what do you call it.. hairy crabs or something?) which Sean and I were suppose to try before we left SH but didn’t get to because of the lack of time. They’re pretty tiny and cute! But I didn’t quite know how we were suppose to eat them.. Vincent was also talking about the mythical character in 白蛇传 who hid himself in a crab LOL. He demonstrated by cleaning the meat off the crab’s face (wth hahaha) and then revealing a ‘face’ inside. It was amazing! Really!
At the end of the meal I secretly took a shot of the table lol. Quite a small house I must say, the table was sandwiched between a bed and a sofa bed, had a bit of space for TV and a cabinet on the right, then further behind would be the tiny kitchen, washroom and then the door.
And there, friday night ended with this fruitful gathering. It was only one day to the concert, OMG!!
…to be continued.
Firstly… I’m back in Shanghai again (since I’m done with VPESS, and FYP proposal is due only at the end of this week) for a 5 days 4 nights trip, apart from showing my mum around and doing a wee bit of shopping, to attend Arashi’s concert! It’s their first time holding a con here and the tickets are in very high demand. Even the hotel we are staying at is Arashi related; A-live Design Hotel (their newest album? “Dream A-Live”, and no, it wasn’t the reason why I chose this haha. *but why is the key card also purple!*) located at Nanjing West Road, an area very accessible to food, shopping and the MRT.
-while im struggling with textman…arashi’s..in shanghai-_- says:
arghhh ur in shanghai
…arashi’s in shanghai
maybe ur in the same hotel
x.x
lol ok nvr mind my imagination
i was tinking of full house -.-lest ; AAA!!! says:
ahahah OMG you got me imagining…………..
LOL
sho showing up at my door
OMG!
to borrow shampoo, or something
*oh the influence of dramas.. T___T if you get the joke, haha*
We’ve been here for two days, visited the AKQA office in the evening and had steamboat with some colleagues at HL’s place for dinner =) Tomorrow, or rather this evening, my mum and I are gonna be at Arashi’s concert omgicantbelieveit! The concert venue is called Shanghai Grand Stage, near the SH indoor stadium. When the venue was first announced, I found it kinda weird for a jpop group to perform there instead of the latter because the seats are arranged in a semi-circle facing the stage and it feels more like a venue for orchestras and stage plays. But apparently other popular singers have had shows there in the past, so I assume it’s not gonna be that bad afterall.
I’m not about to describe the whole process of buying tickets in detail; it’s too long and nerve-racking to recall. Maybe next time? I have my reasons for spending so much on this concert that’s not even in Japan. All I can tell you now is:
August >> Got news about AAA
August – Sept >> Checked for updates almost daily at Superdome, the official organisation promoting AAA. (the way they did things was… SCREWED UP BIG TIME I TELL YOU)
Sept – October >> Managed to miraculously register and book two tickets from Superdome for the 15th Nov show. Paid 2000rmb for two lousy tickets that the man delivered. So pissed that I decided to buy another two tickets for the 16th Nov from scalpers on Taobao.com and paid a frigging large sum of X amount.
November >> 15 (it’s today!!!!) & 16, concerts at 7:30pm
If you look at the seat map above, my tickets for the 15th are at on block 5 row #10. Tickets for day 2 are fabulous – arena, front area row #13 (which I heard, is in fact the 8th row because the ‘first’ row starts at #6 cause of the special arrangements for the extended stage) and pretty near the stage! Sweeeeeeet~!
Oh did I tell you? I decorated uchiwas (Japanese fans) with ready made ones from daiso for my mum and I! Ohno for me and Aiba for mommy! Yeah!! And talking about uchiwas, I was discussing the concert goods with Ade and Erfa just now……
Adel says:
can you imagine on the bus from ntu to boon lay
wah damn hot
and then i use ohno’s uchiwa to fan myself.* * * * *
-while im struggling with textman…arashi’s..in shanghai-_- says:
SAY HI TO ARASHI FOR ME XDest ; AAA!!! says:
why not i make one (uchiwa) with your face
then you can say HI
Lol. Concert goods start selling at 12nn or something outside the concert venue, but it’s not as simple as going to a shop, grab your stuff and pay. No doubt there’s going to be an insanely long queue way before noon (maybe even now??), and I plan to start queueing at 2pm or something. Grabbing, if I can make it all the way to the counter in time before the constarts zomg, member uchiwas, pamphlets and maybe a couple of others for myself and friends who requested.
-while im struggling with textman…arashi’s..in shanghai-_- says:
*CoughkidnapmatsujunformeprzCough*
:3 so yahhhh have a great time^^
YOU BET!! ;) Off to sleep now, although I’m getting butterflies in my stomach, already. No, wait, I can’t sleep T____T”
FACE TO FACE WITH ARASHI! LIVE!!!!! <3
