more fun stuff

Osaka was SUCH a blast, omg. and yes, i know I've been back for over a week now and am only just writing about it, but whatever. forgive me.

This is a picture of the shrine right by Laura's house, and I think it's just about the coolest thing in the history of ever. The whole area she lives in is awesome--Namba, for those of you who don't know, is code for downtown, where-it's-at Osaka. It really reminded me of Ishikwa/Isezaki area in Yokohama--really old, boro-boro kind of apartments with a fair amount of sketch, but right next to the major nightlife area. I felt right at home! XD And it's right by the Yoshimoto theater, so there's a bunch of お笑い芸人 who hang around there. as laura put it, it's "Yoshimoto by day, yakuza by night." (see what i mean about the ishikawacho similarity? as far as I saw, there was no 船の休憩室, but other than that the similarities were pretty striking. lol.

We also got to go to a concert! such fun. it was with 4 different bands, so they each played 3-4 songs--and Laura-tachi were originally going to get tix cause the main band playing was flumpool--who of course i know from them doing the Bloody Monday theme song, and also cause they're getting really popular (which ps the PV in the above link isn't necessarily their most famous one, but it's my favorite song).

BUT

the OTHER band that was playing at that concert was NICO!! i about freaked when i heard, soooooo cool! hehe. so i got to see them play for the second time. (and i may possibly have just bought tix to see their june show....)

anywho.

in other news... I went to go see the Cotton USA Awards yesterday. Japan loves to give out stupid awards to celebs, like "best jeanist" (person who looks good in jeans), etc and this one is the Mr/Ms Cotton Awards, to the person who is "natural and fresh like cotton." yeah.

anyway, they have a big press conf to announce the winners and this year it was Kuroki Meisa as Miss Cotton and Daigo as Mr Cotton. and as usual, Daigo was all kinds of lol. I mean, I honestly wonder whether he really is that stupid or not, cause some of the things he says... it's like 奇跡的なボケ level, I mean he's got to be doing it on purpose. ...Right?

we were told before going in to 注目 his 素敵な手袋--cause of course the gloves are his thing, but since he's a "rocker" he usually wears black leather ones. but in honor of winning the cotton award, he specially made cotton gloves for the very first time. and he kept going on about how awesome they were, and how he might wear cotton gloves more often after this (i doubt it).

he's a cutie. tho seriously...seriously...a dumb bunny.

Finally, PV! here's the latest Nico PV--they played this song at the concert last week, which made me incredibly happy. not the best quality video, but it's the only one posted so far. song is called Bigfoot. so of course...they have big feet. lol. and i swear they're channeling The Beatles or something at the beginning.

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EDIT: sadly the Nico PV has been removed already, so I've replaced it with flumpool's "Hana ni nare." note--not the same as the PV I link to in the text. "Labo" is my favorite song, but the "Hana ni nare" PV is prettier.