aishitsuzukeru’s blog

My First

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:40:01 -0700

So, this weekend I was really busy traveling around Japan again.

On Friday after work, I went to Numata, which is about 20 min. by train north of me. I met with some JETs and we went to an Izakaya (bar). At about 8pm, after we had a few drinks, the floor began to rumble. I didnt think I was THAT drunk, but I started to doubt myself.

Come to find out, it was an earthquake!!!

The epicenter was in the prefecture to the East of Gunma, Ibaragi, and its magnitude was 5.1. Although it wasnt too strong in Gunma, I still felt it. The whole building was shaking... but it didnt last long.

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My Quarter mark accomplisment

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:29:34 -0700

So.... it has been one crazy and random weekend!!!

But I am officially a quarter of the way through getting to see all of the prefectures!!!!!

First, let me introduce you to Yuuma-chan. He is the mascot of Gunma, and will be traveling with me all over the country from now on.

Saturday was the Maebashi Hanabi Taikai (Fireworks Gathering), and there were like 3000 fireworks to be set off over a two hour period in the center of Maebashi. All of the new JETs were going to reunite for the first time to watch them, but I had to go meet up with Keith (papa) at Shibukawa station at 8:37 because the last bus to Ikaho leaves the station at 8:58... which totally sux, but that's what happens when you live in the inaka.

Anyways, we were shooting the shit, catching up with each other and then Keith was telling me how much he wanted to go to Matsumoto-jyo (Matsumoto Castle). And I am all about going to castles. Plus, this is my first chance to challenge my Everest and go to a few prefectures. We were also planing to go to this village called Shirakawa-go, but it ended up that we couldnt make it. I'll get to the reason later.

So, on Sunday morning we start out going to Nagano city to go to 善光寺 (Zenkoji) which is a temple that was founded before buddhism in Japan was split into the different schools, built in the 7th century. It was a pretty cool site, but it had been vandalized in April (i believe) of this year when they decided to pull out of the torch ceremony for the olympics.

After Zenkoji, we traveled west (i think) to Matsumoto city. This is one of the top three castles to visit in Japan, the others being Himeiji and Kumamoto. It is famous for its black exterior and roof shape. It has all kinds of different names, but Matsumoto castle is the easiest for me to remember.

After Matsumoto, we took a Highway bus through the Japanese Alps to Takayama in Gifu. The reason we were going here was to go to Shirakawa-go, which is one of the last traditional villages in Japan, and was the most recent addition to the World Heritage list. So we got there at about 8pm, and luckily Krystel lives there. So Krys met us at the station and we walked over to her part of the city. We ate at Gusto, which was amazing, because of the drink bar, and then went back to her place. There we had a celebratory beer, me for passing my quarter mark of prefectures visited, and Keith for passing his half way mark. Then we tried to plan our trip for the next day, kampai'd and talked till the wee hours of the morning.

The next day we got up and went to the station to get on the bus to Shirakawa-go, but we realized that their buses were kind of far and few inbetween, so we couldnt go and make it back to Ikaho by night. So we decided to go to Toyama and Niigata instead. This way, we were on our way back to Gunma and visiting places we've never been to.

Toyama was pretty nice, we stopped in this place called Inotani, which is on the outskirts of Toyama city before we got to the city center. We were there for about an hour, and it was a really pretty place in the mountains with a river running through it and a nice red bridge. The town was pretty tiny, and there weren’t that many people around, but it was a good place to relax and explore while waiting for our next train. When we finally got to Toyama, we were starving! Luckily we chose to eat at this REALLY good restaurant. Had Special mixed tempura don, which was like one big tempura of shrimp, ika, and scallops, all which come from the sea of Japan and are famous out of Toyama. I mean, this stuff was sooo delicious I am thinking of going back some day. After we had that awesome lunch, we went to Toyama castle. It was pretty small, and they were doing construction around the area, so we didnt go into the castle because it was just too far, and Toyama was just too hot to be walking around in unshaded area. But we did take pictures of the castle, which we agreed was good enough. The we got on another train and made our way to Naoetsu, Niigata.

In Naoetsu, there isn’t anything you can do if you are only there for an hour since it’s a beach city, and the main attraction is a park that is quite a distance away. So we just stayed in the train station, bought some onigiri, and watched the Olympics. From there we went to Nagoya and caught a shinkansen back to Takasaki, then the Joetsu line to Shibukawa just in time to hop on the last bus to Ikaho.

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My Adventure to see... 花より男子F x Loft in 渋谷

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:03:31 -0700

That's right folks.

Kiyomi has done it again! another HanaDan inspired journey out to Loft in Shibuya!!!

all of the products sold here were sold at the TBS store... and probably still are being sold there... but I'm not sure.

They didnt have any of the first set of charms (tsukushi uniform and saturn charm) cuz those were all sold out... but they did have a display with the "exact" phone and saturn necklace used in the dramas. They were/are also selling the dramas on dvd and blue-ray i believe.

I was rushing to go there because it was supposed to end on July 20-something, but because the movie is making billions, they extended the display!

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My Packing

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:19:47 -0700

Now it's the final countdown, three days... and I'm in Tokyo... one week, and I'm in Gunma!

Packing till the last minute, as always.

Papa's keeping me company.

I hope I get internet at my place soon!

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My new favorite song: KissHug/aiko

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:13:16 -0700

KissHug
作詞・作曲：AIKO

友達だなんて一度も思ったことはなかった
あなたに出逢ったその日から

変わってしまったものもあるけど
変わらないことの方があなたもあたしも多いよ

暑い帰り道に見えなくなるまで
本当に小さくなるまで見ていた
あなたが好きだったの　今も今も

夏髪が頬を切る　また年を重ねてきっと思い出す
あなたの影　あたしの言葉

You Love　You Love　ああ

三つ目四つ目と数えた　星の涙に願う
あなたの側にずっといたい

まだ知らないことだらけの背中と
背中を合わせて聴こえてきた音
壊れても仕方ないほどに熱い

光に手をかざして　隙間から見えた通り雨　陽炎
あなたの影　あたしは思う

You Love　You Love　ああ

暑い帰り道に見えなくなるまで
本当に小さくなるまで見ていた
あなたが好きだったの　今も今も

夏髪が頬を切る　また年を重ねてきっと思い出す
あなたの影　あたしの言葉

泣き顔　怒った顔　突然唇に触れた唇を
側にいると誓ったあたし

You Love　You Love　ああ
You Love　You Love　ああ

I Love

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My Japan Trip... Nihon ni ittekimashita!!!

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:17:04 -0700

That's right vox world... Kiyomi is back from her adventure in Japan!!!!

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My first sign of Arashi was Ohno on the way to Umeda in Osaka!!!
Surprisingly there wasn't too many AU or HanaDan ads in Osaka... in fact, this is the only one that i could find the whole four days I was there....

Then the adventure really began when I traveled to Tokyo.

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In all the train stations, I saw the ads for HanaDan x ANA for Hong Kong and Las Vegas...

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And an ad for the video game....

Then Arashi really started popping up everywhere... In Harajuku... and on the Yamanote....

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Every morning when I got to the JR station, I was greeted by Sho-kun... who was excited he won't get lost this summer in Hawaii....

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Aiba on the way back to my hotel from Shibuya

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Then I saw MatsuJun in Ueno excited about having his phone be his own movie theater this summer

But it was all about the Hana Yori Dango Final Adventure for me....

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Then I went to the TBS studio in Akasaka, I saw them setting up for a live broadcast of interviews before the movie. They were recreating the F4 lounge, and there were pix of the cast all over the outside of TBS. Each pillar had a member of F4 and Tsukushi on it with a little quote.. i didn't take pictures of them all though... :'(

Then when we got inside TBS's main buliding, there was another display and Boobo was wearing a HanaDan Final shirt and holding a bouquet of flowers right at the entrance of the door! There was also a display for Mauo there! The reception desk was also decorated with HanaDan final theme stuff (i should've taken a picture of it) and the fliers for the movie were next to it, so I grabbed like 5... or more... hehehe.

After looking like totally obsessed fans, we headed over to the TBS Official store... HanaDan Final goods!!!!!! There was everything there!!! Boobo wearing a HanaDan Final shirt, the Tsukushi shirt (which i didnt see her wear in the movie), clear file folders, pens, senbei, keitai straps, charms, dango, the tiara, towels, note pad paper, ID/Badge holder, the photo book, a Tsukushi collaboration ring, and the Venus no hohoemi tiara. They were also displaying the limited edition post cards (that came with the pre-ordered tickets, which i have two sets of!)!!! I was going crazy...Originally i had grabbed everything, but....

I only bought the charms and the cell phone strap.

I ended up also getting the special strap from Family Mart that was actually better than the one being sold at the TBS shop. It has crazy swarovski crystal action going on there. (on a down side, i didnt go into a famima.. which i should've done, cuz of all the crazy hanadan stuff... but oh well...)

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I was super pumped on Friday night, to the point where i wasn't tired at all, even though my family and I had been out all day.. but when we got to the hotel i was sooo stoked because the HanaDan Final special was on TBS, and I didn't know it was gonna be on because I had been without internet for so long... but watching it live was exciting... since I didnt win the contest to actually go.

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But I did head over to Ebisu Garden place before I watched the movie... figured it'd be a good way to hype myself up... and it turned out to be a good idea since it showed up in the movie too!

Anyways, I watched the movie on Saturday (opening) night at Ikebukuro Humax theater. We decided to go there because it is a small theater and we figured it wouldn't be too crowded. We got there two hours early to get our tickets, then made our way to HMV next door to pass the time and ask when Aiko's single was gonna be released. There was a lot of people seeing the movie on Saturday night, and a lot of them had pre-purchased tickets like I had.

They were selling the special Theater goods there, but they weren't selling the one thing I wanted, the pen!!! So I ended up buying the Venus no hohemi tiara necklace.

Oh well, ooh, and there was a program I probably should've bought it, but I didnt... And this theater was selling a special Drink set with floats representing each character.

Let me just say that the movie was awesome. It was soooo awesome that I watched it a second time at the TOHO Roppongi Hills Cinema at 9:45am Sunday Morning before I left to fly back home to Hawaii (and it wasn't only because I still had another ticket).

I didn't really do the research on the theater, so I was surprised when I got up to the second floor to see that that's where the filming for the drama too place. I frantically took my camera out and snapped some quick pix on my run to theater 7. One because i was soaking wet from the rain, and two because it was already 9:46 when I had bought my ticket.

Here they were selling more magazines than the Ikebukuro theater was, but still no pen! I was super sad, but glad to have seen the movie twice.

Anyways, here's the link to the intense summary of the movie for those who can't wait to see it.... HanaDan Final!

will post pix of my goods later!!!

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My Hana Dan Obsession

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:58:46 -0700

OMG!!!!
Seirously sooo much HanaDan merchandise....
They just updated the website.. and TBS is releasing goods!!!

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and then the site has new features too!!!

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My 22

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:06:09 -0700

now i feel old.
Actually, I'm not 22 yet. I was born at 9:16am... so i have like 12 hours.

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My 自己紹介

nobody@vox.com(aishitsuzukeru) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:19:40 -0800

初めまして。寺尾トリシャともうします。ハワイ州のカウアイ島出身です。現在、２１歳です。サンディエゴ州立大学で日本語と言語学を勉強しています。今まで約７年間、日本の文化や言語を勉強してきました。２年前には、福岡県の西南学院大学でサマープログラムに参加して、日本語を学びました。さらに日本語だけではなく、日本の文化についても一ヶ月でたくさん学んだので、もっと日本に興味を持つようになりました。ALTになったら日本の社会や文化についてもっと学べると思い、このプログラムに参加したいと思いました。今日は、どうぞよろしくお願いします。

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