Every day....GIRL'S DAYYYYY

So yesterday we went to Odaiba to see Girl's Day.  For those that watch lots of anime, or at the very least have seen an anime that takes place in Tokyo at some point, you have seen Odaiba.  It's the big, fancy, touristy place that still manages to maintain a homogeneously Japanese presence despite being so. It's where that big ferris wheel that shows up in anime all the time is, and it's where all the shopping malls are.  It's right on Tokyo Bay, and this is never more apparent than when you're flying around in a train car 100 feet above people's heads.  As seen here:

                                      

Here's the Statue of Liberty!  Behind it you can see the Rainbow Bridge, which becomes considerably more amazing when you know that it's actually a two-story bridge with a train track.  Because it is.

In Odaiba, there are a LOT of nearly spontaneous events going on.  Below is one such event, a singer whose name I couldn't read.  She wasn't terrible, but she's new, and that was at least somewhat apparent.  More importantly, however, there was an enormous line outside for a visual kei band called
 Golden Bomber.  They're actually pretty important, and their appearance was outdoors, so we got to see them from around 200 feet away.  I would have taken a picture, but at the exact moment I pulled out my camera a staff member came around waving a sign that said I couldn't.

This is just a store in one of the Odaiba malls that had a giant pillar full of Rilakkuma stuff.  Rilakkuma is a bear(?) that gets made into all sorts of stuffed animals and merchandise.  It's like Hello Kitty but slightly more hilarious, because it might actually be a man in a costume.  No one knows.

WE ALSO WENT TO THE FUJI TELEVISION STUDIO AND THERE WAS A ONE PIECE EVENT AND THIS STATUE WAS THERE AND IT WAS GREAT.

In one of the malls we found an Indonesian restaurant, which was kind of new.  I don't even know of any in Georgia.  Here's the wall.  I don't know whether or not the decor is authentic.

This is what I had.  I don't remember what it was called, but it was lightly fried tofu with coconut.  It was also pretty spicy, which I've been hoping to eat for a while.  It was pretty good.  A+ would eat again.

It turns out that we were very near the life-sized Gundam that has been all over anime news sources since it was built.  A Gundam is a type of giant robot that is used as a military weapon in the fictional universe in which the series takes place.  It's very popular in Japan, and it was really nice to see the big Gundam (even though the Gundam show that I like is the one Gundam fans hate).

We decided to line up a bit early before the Girl's Day concert, but the line ended up being a crowd because you get in based on your number.  It was held at Zepp Diver City (a pun based on how that sounds like "Daiba City"), and here's the sign!

Here's another sign! This one was over the merchandise table, which didn't sell too well because it was nothing but expensive jewelry.  If you bought said jewelry, you got a pre-written autograph from one of the members, but it was REALLY expensive jewelry.  Not entirely worth it, considering after the show we got to shake hands with all the members anyway.

Here's the crowd.

In Japan, every concert has congratulatory flower arrangements bought by fans for the group.  Every concert.  Even a pretty small thing like this.

Below is Minah's sign ball, which is a ball she signed and threw into the crowd.  I didn't catch it, someone else did and let me take a picture.  Minah (and Yura) are my favorites.
For reference, this is what Girl's Day looks like:
EVERY DAY GIRL'S DAY

Minah is on the far left and Yura is wearing the blue pants.  And now for my wonderful concert story:  I do the "rock and roll" hand gesture at Korean pop concerts because I know I'll probably be the only person in the audience doing it.  That way, if one of the performers does it too, I'll know that they saw me.  It hadn't worked until yesterday.  During the talk session, I was jumping up and down doing it with both hands, and Minah looked right in my direction and did it back to me.  Then she covered her eyes like she was keeping the light out of them so she could see me more closely, and when she did she smiled and motioned at Sojin (second from the left) to look at me.  Waves were exchanged between the three of us.  I am 100% sure their conversation went something like this:
Minah: "Sojin, look, a white guy!"
Sojin: "Oh, where? HI!"
Because being the only white person (they didn't see Wesley) really helps you stand out at these things.

After the concert everyone got to shake hands with all the members, and when Wesley and I came by they said "Thank you" in English.  Everyone's hands were very soft.

Here's the group of people we ended up with before and after the concert.  You'll notice that a few of them are pretty old, but again, uncle fans are pretty harmless over here.  None of them speak English, either, so that was a lot of fun.

Here's Odaiba at night.  That big spike sticking out of the ground is the singular support for a pedestrian bridge, and I think it's the only one of its kind.  I didn't walk on it, but it's just kind of neat.

Sculpture things!  They were pretty so I took a picture.

If you didn't play Pokemon Red or Blue, you won't get this, but if you did then you're probably pretty happy.

For whatever reason the bridge to the station had a big, unattended block of ice on it.  No idea why, but whatever.

Even Perfume can't convince me to drink alcohol, but I still liked the billboard.

This is a garden that was on the Ikebukuro or Shinbashi (I forgot) train platform.  I have no idea why it's there or who tends it, but I still enjoyed it because it has no business being there.

At the One Piece store, I bought these things.  They're packages of bath...stuff that are themed after the One Piece characters pictured on them.  From left to right we have Brook (brown and smells like tea), Perona (pink and smells like strawberries), and Whitebeard (white and smells like milk?  That's what it says.)
Tonight we're going with Perona.

Also we missed the last train last night, so Wesley had to stay at my house.  He's gone now because it's 9:18 P.M.