I woke up in the art society room in the medical school and was already running late to meet my friend Jin. I rushed home and got showered and ready then headed over to Shinjuku to meet him for lunch! He was over visiting from Seoul and we are going to meet up when I go over there to visit a few weeks later. It was just a quick lunch as I needed to head to Saitama to meet Yuka for the 2NE1 CONCERT! I had to get a couple of trains as Saitama is the prefecture above Tokyo. As you get further from Tokyo people definitely start to stare a lot more. I had to stand the entire journey which was a bit shitty.
I arrived in Saitama waaaay early so I took some pictures of the surrounding area. I don't why I expected it to be a bit less of a city but it was just like any central area in Tokyo. Skyscrapers everywhere etc. Lots of girls started to walk past with 2NE1 t-shirts and bright pink bags! I NEEDED TO HAVE ONE. Yuka arrived and we went to a Korean restaurant for dinner (as we thought it appropriate). 2NE1 is an amazing young Korean girl band. They have made some of my favourite songs ever so I was so excited when Yuka said she bought me the tickets. For dinner I had this weird Korean pizza thing and Yuka ordered us this pomegranate vinegar juice? Also weird but kind of tasty. When we got our bill we got popcorn flavoured sweeties. An interesting experience for the taste buds indeed.
We were running really late so had to like run to Saitama Super Arena. It was empty outside the arena when we arrived which means the concert may have already started. I seized my opportunity to buy a bright pink 2ne1 bag though. We went through the NO CAMERA CHECK and I told them I didnt have one on me when it was in my pocket. I even let them search my bag knowing full well ahah. We ran to our seat and oh my good lord when we opened the doors the music blasted into our ears. The arena was shaking because everyone was going nuts for the opening song (also my favourite song, gutted I missed the opening). We got taken to our seats and I was so overwhelmed by how fucking massive the arena was. SO many people singing and dancing and generally going bonkers. I had never been to a pop concert before! I had only ever been to small venue death metal concerts (lol).
There was this older man in front of us who was dancing and singing along to EVERY song. He knew all the words, every last one of them. Very creepy. All my favourite songs came on and I sang along to the words I knew (even the korean), some of the people around me looked so shocked. They laughed at me :(. The dancers on stage were absolutely delicious half naked korean men, I wish I was closer to the stage grrr. The concert itself was pretty amazing and at the end they played my favourite song AGAIN. A really great concert. So interesting that Korean bands sing their songs in Japanese for their Japanese audience. They even release whole albums in Japanese. Could you imagine Cheryl Cole releasing an album in French? She can barely speak English, the stupid cow.
Anyway, after the concert we ran out to avoid the thousands of people who were heading to the train station. I think I may have actually been the ONLY white person in the entire audience. I didn't see one single foreigner on the way out or at the station! I said my goodbyes to Yuka and headed back in Shinjuku to go for a few quiet drinks in Shinjuku before heading home! :) A great day!
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