Day 1 - 27 Oct 04 (Wed)

And so I set off in the wee hours of the morning, at around 4+am, towards Changi International Airport. I had decided not to sleep the entire night before the flight, since it seemed highly likely that if I drifted off into dreamland, I would oversleep and miss the flight :) I ended up watching the last few episodes of [白い巨塔] that night~~~which might explain why images of 財前五郎kept haunting me during the flight O_o; (Sidenote: It is a really good series, based on a well-known work by 山崎豊子. The bond and inter-dependency between 財前五郎and 里見脩二were especially touching; how two people with very different values could still develop such deep respect for each other. It reminded me somewhat of 秦王and 殘劍in [英雄], when it dawned on the former that the person who understood him the most was actually his assassin.)

Anyway, I landed safely at Narita Airport, proceeded to obtain my JRPass and reserved Shinkansen seat tickets, and took the next Narita Express to Shinagawa. I remember this sense of anticipation hitting me as I walked out of Shinagawa station.

How can I put into words what it is about Japan that makes me want to go back time and again? It's not the perfect country of course, far from it~ But.. I guess it boils down to the word 'affinity'. Some places, some things, some people will somehow rejuvenate you more than others, and I suppose a few critical things about Japan have done just that for me.



Pic: Toyoko-inn Shinagawa-eki Takanawa-guchi - single room. In reality, the same room format is used for the double room as well, so be prepared to squeeze a little in a double room. There's another category of double rooms with a bit more space (cos the room extends into the balcony area) but such rooms are limited - only 2 per floor.


After checking in and taking a short rest, I made my way to Ikebukuro. First stop was DiscWave, where I wanted to pick up some old mucc CDs that I didn't have. They were playing mucc when I entered! ([大嫌い]live vers!) :) :) :) So yep, I gave them face too and bought more than S$400 worth of stuff from them.. many of the items I had been resisting from buying online for almost a year now, so I did not really feel the pinch...well, not until the credit card bill comes! :_)

I left DiscWave feeling very satisfied and excited..heehe..decided to pop by TokyuHands to get some stationery and stuff. Ended up spending more time there than I thought I would because the 2005 diaries were out and many of them were quite nice. Also I was quite enraptured by the rubber stamps section ~ wanted to get the hiragana rubber stamp set but decided against it in the end. Think I'll go get it next time.. it's hard to find such a large range of stationery in Singapore!

Onward ho to Shinjuku! Wanted to pop by Shinjuku's DiscWave but..sigh..i think i missed the entrance (it's so unnoticeable!) and seeing that time was running out, I decided to just pop by Like An Edison's 2nd floor to grab some of the old magazines. Finally managed to buy the old [79] magazines, yeah! :) :) :) & the funny thing is, as I was waiting at the cashier's for the girl to print out the receipt, I glanced to my left and suddenly realized that they had put up a half-mannequin wearing the mucc cym4 sweater. The exact same sweater that I was wearing so I felt like a walking advertisement! XD

So that was the first day.. went back to the hotel to pack up some stuff into the smaller bag (bag-in-a-bag, woot!) so that I didn't have to lug all of my luggage to Osaka & Kyoto. Knew I would be able to wake up on time the next day even though it was an early train because...because the adrenaline will do its job :)

Day 2 - 28 Oct (Thur)

Took the 8.17am Shinkansen to Kyoto and met up with yuj @ Kyoto Station! :) She looked great in her new Tatsurou-inspired hairstyle!! :).. We deliberated about where we should explore for the day and finally decided on 嵯峨野トロッコ列車, which is this old-fashioned train ride that would bring us past the surrounds of the Sagano-Arashiyama area, along the Hoza River.


We boarded the train at Torokko Kameoka Station~


The romantic train~ turned out less old-fashioned than I thought it would be. Looking at the picture, I think it was because of those bright colours!


..& I quite like the parts when we entered the mountain tunnels :P


Some view-shots. We were lucky~ weather that day was good!


Another view of the Hoza River~ some people were also doing rafting along the rapids.


When you reserve your tickets for the Romantic Train, choose Car 5 if possible because it's the only car that has glass overhead panes.

We dropped off at Torokko Arashiyama Station so that we could take a walk through the Bamboo forest there.


Yuj's pal peers out hesitantly from her h.Naoto bag :D


Halloween's coming!


Look, the station's even made a cut-out of a Halloween figure right at the entrance ;D

These decorations, the station's friendly stationmaster and an enthusiastic black-bean-sweet seller gave the station an unexpected cheerful atmosphere.


The walk through the Bamboo grove was quite peaceful. Thankfully there weren't droves of tourists to disrupt the tranquility.

We then decided to explore Tenryuji Temple 天龍寺, a world cultural heritage site that was built in 1339 on the direction of Ashikaga Takauji, the first Shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate, to console the spirit of the late Emperor Godaigo.


The temple grounds are quite vast. Besides the various halls like the one above, there are also well-kept landscape gardens and greenery.


In fact, the landscape garden created by Muso Soseki, the temple's founding abbot and famous garden designer, managed to survive the many fires throughout history, unlike some of the temple's buildings, and is considered one of the oldest of its kind.


Beautiful autumn leaves~


"The sounds of the streams splash out the Buddha' s sermon,
Don' t say that the deepest meaning comes only from one's mouth,
Day and night, 80,000 poems arise one after the other,
And in fact, not a single word has ever been spoken."
- Muso Soseki

We then walked Arashiyama, crossed Togetsukyo bridge and had dinner at an udon place across the river.


The sky drew dark quite early. The moon was round and bright that night, casting its image over the river and creating a picture-perfect scene.

We arrived back in Toyoko Inn Osaka Namba at around 8pm, but we were still toying with the idea of visiting SpaWorld. :) :) :) It's 3 hrs per entry, and yuj had printed out the online discount coupon of 700Yen per person. That makes it just 1700Yen per person per 3 hrs, quite an acceptable price for a mega-spa place like this that's smack in the middle of the city. After midnight the charges are higher, so if we get there by 9pm, we have more than enough time to soak in the baths!

So in the end...we went! :) *succumbs*

It was.. an experience in itself~ we were quite lucky.. see, they alternate the Asia and Europe 'Worlds' between the sexes. We wanted to try out the Asia World, and it just so happened that it was the womens' turn at the Asia World that month. Yippee~

I enjoyed the Japanese style baths the most~☆ It's the only one that is 露天, so I liked the feeling of immersing myself in hot waters while staring up at the full moon in the deep blue sky (all the time in my head it was playing mucc of course :D)~~~mmmmmm~~~heaven~~~
(*dismisses any thought that someone could be peeping from the floors above*)


The India massage baths were good too. Had a good chat with yuj there~


The Turkish baths had these 'power-shots' that hit you on your back and shoulders. I could only 'tahan' it for a short period of time, but I gotta admit, that and the India massage baths really helped to relax my shoulders.. they haven't felt so loose since .. gosh, I don't know when! In fact, we were just thinking that this would definitely be a good place for band members and audience alike to go to after a live...especially a mucc live! ;) Hey I wouldn't mind then if they mixed the mens' and womens' floors together :)....

There was a little incident where I realized I forgot to bring back my watch from the shower room. Luckily this kind old lady who was manning the locker area helped direct me back to retrieve it. She was really nice to us.. even told us about this new attraction that they were going to push out soon.. where you can find fishes swimming just beneath you in the spa! Think it's supposed to be ready by Dec.. looks like there will certainly be reasons to return to the place in future *grins*

Upon check-out, you slot into one of the machines this rather bulky wrist-watch they give you upon entry. The wrist-watch is used to clock in all the spa services that you use (if any), so the machine is able to detect that and spits out the bill to you. We were amazed at how the machine could swallow that entire wrist-watch, cos the wrist-watch was really quite huge! Scary! Imagine if a child's hand was to accidentally find itself at the machine slot - would the machine swallow it whole too?? heehee..

On the way back we stopped by a combini, and apparently some hiphoppish guys were staring at the mucc sweater I was wearing. They must think the sweater is cool!! =) (okay this is like a minor thing to write in a travel journal, but..but..it's just another mucc-related thing I want to remember, so there! =/)


Rabu-rabu hotel that we always pass by on the way back to where we stayed~ NO it's not where we stayed okay~~

And so ends the 2nd day~~~

Wait!! We weren't finished yet!! :D Heehee... not before we finished doing our nails Tatsurou-style back in our hotel room! ;D

Tomorrow...mucc live! ☆

Day 3 - 29 Oct (Fri)

*Pre-live jitters*

Woke up earlier than expected today...must be the adrenaline! Despite that, I had quite a good sleep, owing, I'm sure, to the spa visit the night before.

We decided to first make a visit to the Osaka Like An Edison store.


It wasn't hard to find it using the directions provided in their usual magazine advertisements. In fact, the shop's situated in quite a nice neighbourhood.


It's near a park (<--that's also the starting place for queues!). It was early so we were the only ones in the shop (though later on 2 other muccers popped in~they were cosplaying [Kuchiki no tou] jackets :D). One of the displays in the shop was a postcard with well-wishes from mucc to the Osaka Like An Edison store. Tatsurou drew himself with juicy breasts~~ O_o; and the only thing on their minds was..takoyaki!! XD!! We proceeded back to the Namba area. Wanted to search out another record shop, Jeez (that's the name of the shop!), but as it was supposed to be in America Town, which was just next to Namba Hatch, we decided to pop by Namba Hatch first to check out the situation there.
The word 'Hatch' is actually a play on words, since the hall is octagonal in shape and the number '8' is pronounced 'hachi' in Japanese. The word 'Hatch' is also used in the hope that the place will help "hatch" new musical talents into the scene.


That's the Minatomachi River just next to Namba Hatch.

At Namba Hatch, staff were still unpacking the tour goods.. we checked out the 'locker situation' (including 'back-ups' at the nearby train stations...yes, that was how serious we were! hey.. in a mucc live, the locker is of utmost importance!! *nods gravely*) and noted that there weren't that many people hanging around yet, so we went off in search of Jeez. After some walking, we found out that... that... jeez, Jeez is no longer around! Sob! Sigh~~~the plight of stand-alone CD shops...wonder if it's closed down or moved to another place..

Went back to our hotel for a short rest (preparation for the live!). Hey they were showing the old version of [白い巨塔] on TV! Quite interesting to see a different take of the story. Also shows how timeless the story is.

Anyway, we soon found ourselves walking towards Namba Hatch in eager anticipation.




I have written a full report of the live in the link below:

ムック 二〇〇四年 秋ツアー「騒乱秋興」~ Namba Hatch 29 Oct 04

The page is accessible via a username and password as follow:
-> username: mucc
-> password: YYYYMMDD (the date mucc was formed)
[Important: do not press the 'return' key after you have entered the username and password. Just click the 'Submit' button!]

I decided to keep the live report in a separate page from this one to spare the non-muckers the agony...because I think I went a bit overboard with the number of words =_=; Also, I hope people who access the page are those who like mucc, because I think they can better relate to what I wrote. Otherwise, I'm sure I'll get silly questions like "do your parents know about this?" or "do you travel to any other country besides Japan?" again.

Uhm. I hope all who read the live repo page enjoyed the report. ^^

Some pictures from the live~

Live goods!! :D


Post-live crowd


Post-live outside, just under the stairs~

After the live, we had udon and oden in a shop near our hotel. I didn't eat much because i was more thirsty than I was hungry! Then we returned back to the hotel...and played mucc's music in our room using yuj's CD player and mobile speakers! Each time a song that was played during the live came on, we'd try to recall what happened. :D That night, I couldn't sleep. After laying in a half-awake state for about an hour and a half, I thought I would make better use of my time getting up to pen down what I remember about the live, before I forget everything... After that, I still couldn't sleep!!! >_< Every time I closed my eyes, images of the live came flooding back :)

Day 4 - 30 Oct (Sat)

After heading back to Tokyo today, we decided to make a day trip to... Mito city! ^O^


Mito JR Station @ 15:13

On the train we were chatting about how Satochi was a surfer boy, cos Ibaraki-ken is close to the sea.

Lo & behold.. one of the first things we saw when we came out of the station gates was a surfer dude with his surfboard! XD


Although the sky was grey, the trees were in all their reddish splendour!


*points up* *points down* Isn't it pretty?




Senba Lake~


It was quiet that day. I enjoyed walking along the path beside Senba Lake and chatting with yuj.
Occasionally a student or two would ride by on their bikes.
We wondered if Tatsurou and Satochi were like them x years ago?


A pair of black swans..grazing?!

We detoured by to Kairakuen Park but by the time we got there, it was a bit too dark to see anything.

It had started to rain by then, and we walked some distance before taking our chance with a bus-stop. Luckily the next bus was on its way to Mito Station! *phew*

After we got our bearings, we set off towards our next destination... Mito Lighthouse - mucc's birthplace so to say.. YEAH!! ^^


I finally got to see Mito Lighthouse! Although we weren't watching any lives that day, but just hanging around outside, we could feel the vibrancy of the place.

There were a number of young bands coming in and out of the place with their equipment and stuff. Or just hanging around outside with their mates. I guess it's cos the livehouse has practice studios too.


The stairs up to the practice studios.
The walls were lined with live notices, and notices of bands seeking members or members seeking bands.
There's also a board outside with similar notices.


Entrance to the livehouse!


Our dinner...at a noodle shop just round the corner from the livehouse~ramen & gyoza!

We took the 7.50pm train back to Tokyo.. on the way back the train sped past Ishioka..this was the only decent photo I have from those few seconds..heeheehee

Hope to visit ishioka next time :)

Day 5 - Oct 31 (Sun)

31 Oct was mucc's finale live at Hibiya Yaon.

Luckily it didn't rain, cos it was an open-air venue.

Checking out the live goods! & muccrew photographer sighting! ^^

We originally didn't have good seat numbers, so we bought better seat numbers + sold ours to a yellow-cow. My seat was actually still quite behind. Peggy & Yuj very kindly allowed me to stand with them (the space of 2 seats can somewhat occupy 3 persons).

There are already quite a number of reports (in Shoxx, Fool's Mate, etc) about this live, so I don't quite feel like writing too much about it. Just some things I noted:

- Tatsurou's voice.. I really worry for him. I didn't sense it so much during the Namba live. During this live, though, it became quite evident. When his voice tore during certain songs, my heart was torn along with it. *pain ah*

- Yukke played well, but alas the sound system did not do justice to his playing. Muccrew are usually quite professional, though. Not sure what happened that night.. Perhaps it was just the acoustics of the place.

- The transition from acoustic to electric guitar during [溺れる魚] was much better than during the Namba live. Good job, Miya-kun!

- When Satochi was exiting after the main performance (before the first encore), he tripped over Yukke's bass. *Ouch!* He bowed v apologetically~ (^^)

- I finally got to see Yukke's MC session live! ^O^ He came out with rolls and rolls of black tape around both his arms, and with the signature black tape over his mouth too. What did he do? Well, he made us declare our love for him ^___^; and played a joke on us by saying there was a helicopter filming us from above (since Yaon is open-air), only to call all those who looked up "baka!"

- During the encore, the crowd went crazy..the band members went crazy.. Tatsurou mock-slapped Yukke :P, Miya went really close to the audience, all but Satochi were running all over the stage!! Yukke and Tatsurou exited earlier, so only Miya and Satochi were left on stage..to grab at other's hands to bow to the audience. :) There's a nice pic of that in UV mag :D


Pic of post-live crowd squeezing ourselves out of the venue~

After the live, we proceeded to pig out at an Izakaya in Shinjuku. ^^
~~★巨峰サワー大好き★~~

■Earlier in the Day■
Earlier in the day, we went to Harajuku, where both yuj and myself bought a pair of platform boots each. My first pair, woot! (^^) Wore them to the live that night and they turned out quite comfortable (& helped elevate me to new heights never before experienced, haha..)!

We also wanted to pay a special visit to Jishuban before the live. Whilst crossing the road to Harajuku JR station, we finally spotted a group of 4 cosplaying Raphael. At Jishuban, when I saw the lilies at the counter, I was deeply touched.

Day 6 - 1 Nov (Mon)

1 Nov..paid a visit to a friend's place..
& there was Rice's live~~


View from my friend's apartment @ Shiodome~

& mm..there was the unforgettable..●yummy cheesecake @ Shiodome!!● (^^)b


Outside Shibuya O-East before Rice live~

Rice's live was good. The livehouse was almost full.

I was somewhat standing alone, with Satsuki & Chacha in front of me, and Yuj and Peggy behind me. On retrospect, that was perhaps one of the best ways to absorb in Rice's performance. No doubt they have fast numbers, and the audience responded to these with high spirits. But to me, the best pieces that night were the slower ones. Perhaps because Rice's music is v much characterized by the cello's mellowness and Yuki's magnetic voice.

I shed quite a lot of tears that night, especially when [fake star] came on, and after.

Points to note:
- Rice live goods need improvement! ^^;
- No need to get lockers for Rice lives in future (unlike Mucc).

Day 7 - 2 Nov (Tue)

Last day in Japan.. there wasn't much time. Just enough time to pop by Ikebukuro DiscWave, take lunch at a French restaurant with Yuj and her friend, Seat, and then rush over to Shinjuku to do some more last-minute CD shopping (CDs again ah!).

★Looking back at the trip..★
I feel I've enjoyed every part of it.. I think it's my best trip so far to Japan.
覺得這次的旅行收穫滿滿. 是我到目前為止最充實的日本之旅﹐最如我願而完成的一次旅行.

Maybe it was a combination of everything I love, from mucc to rice to raphael to roaming mito to cd shops to 2nd-hand shops to japanese stationery to japanese food to onsen to autumn sights to friends like yuj & satsuki & pat & bc & little ethan and new friends like chacha & peggy & june & seat.

^__^