oh! i think Haruna's english got better now. hahahaha .love.

danhenry54 wrote:oh! i think Haruna's english got better now. hahahaha .love.

I was thinking the same thing.

Hello again. Just thought I'd share some of my experiences from my recent 3 week visit to Japan. Whilst in Tokyo we happened to stroll up Jingu-dori, which runs from Shibuya to Harajuku, & were very pleased to find the SCANDAL Shop open! On our two previous visits to Tokyo it had been well & truly shut. So, I gratefully bought a "Tenth Anniversary Festival" T-shirt & a "Best Halloween - SCANDAL" T-shirt, an extra "YELLOW" towel, a "Tenth Anniversary" 12 inch by 6 inch metal plaque & another pack of pin-badges. I also picked up some other SCANDAL merchandise that was on display only to be told by the rather sullen shop assistant that I couldn't buy them because I didn't have a SCANDAL MANIA card. Now I know & appreciate that there are two SCANDAL Official Shop web-sites, one for merchandise that can be shipped to Japan only & one for overseas only, but to be actually in the shop with merchandise in one hand & cash in the other & be told I can't buy them made me feel like something of a second-class fan.

Anyway the "Tenth Anniversary" T-shirt was great & I really enjoyed wearing the "Halloween" one in the Hard Rock Café in Osaka the following week-end when it actually was Halloween. The Japanese seem to have really gone for Halloween, even though most of them don't seem to have any idea what it's all about, but they love to dress up & party.

So, the next week-end & on to Osaka & a pilgrimage to the "Studio Brotherz" building across the road from Kyobashi Station, where they used to practice at night & where you also find the famous (or infamous) "SUKYANDARU" neon sign proclaiming the club if ill-repute in the basement & from which, as we all know, the girls took their name. On then a couple of blocks to the "Caless School of Vocal & Dance" where they all first met up & made their plans to form a rock band & take on the world (or at least Osaka first, the world later). What determination drove them! The staff at the reception desk were very friendly when they understood that we two gaijin were big SCANDAL fans & allowed us to wander round while we tried to visualise them as teen-agers, ten years ago, trooping through the doors, getting changed in the locker room at the side & scrambling upstairs to the practice room. Fascinating. There is also a large ground floor practice room but it looks very formal. Our visit to the "Shiroten" in Osaka-jo Koen was not so successful as the Park was being used as the assembly area & start of the Osaka Marathon that week-end & was cluttered with baggage lorries, marquees, portaloos & some 30,000 runners & thousands of officials, volunteers & spectators. So there were no bands busking (that we could see) & it was hard to visualise SCANDAL being there - but never mind, we had paid our visit.

And so concludes the "SCANDAL odyssey" part of another very enjoyable 3 week trip to Japan. When we got home I found my "Tenth Anniversary Festival" double-DVD (with a really nice poster) from CD-Japan waiting for me & the confirmation of my pre-order for their new "Video Action 2" DVD. Oh, I'll just mention that I put in a pretty good time running the Osaka Marathon, all 26.2 sweltering hot miles of it.

To Kudo Maharizu may I say "Hi, there" & thanks for your friendly greeting at the O2 which seemed typical of the positive camaraderie noticeable in SCANDAL fans.

To Qberto, regarding the "Perfect World" version of Shojo S, I take your point, but both HARUNA & TOMOMI developed into improvisation very quickly after intro-ing on the Shojo S riff & MAMI didn't seem to bother but went straight into improv. Incidentally, on the "Tenth Anniversary" DVD they went back to the standard version. However my point was that the "new" Shojo S showed the way to unstructured playing which developed into the Jam Session & showed us a side of SCANDAL that I, for one, hadn't seen before & would very much like to see more of.

To Scandalsuki may I say that, in my opinion, if a concert ticket says "6 o'clock entry" on it then "6 o'clock entry" it should be. What internal arrangements may or may not have been organised by staff is irrelevant. How happy would people have been if the weather had been different & they were kept waiting in the pouring rain for an unnecessary half an hour or more? 

Finally, might see people next week-end at Hyper Japan Christmas Market at Tobacco Quay in London. Bye for now.