Kalafina ~ far on the water ~ SP Final lives in Tokyo Day 1

I was actually working on a post on my visit to Nagano (not Nagoya, I keep getting that wrong and will have to correct my post on Kalafina's 8th Anniversary live Day 2 later, sorry) but it was taking a while because I was too busy having fun, relaxing and sleeping. :P  That's what holidays are for, right?  Especially one which is a bit of escapism from reality. :D

I was seated far right, favouring Wakana, 1st Flr, Row 24 Seat 78.

But I am back in Tokyo and was back on Friday to attend the Kalafina "far on the water" tour end lives. :)  Yup, the Kalafina lives are the biggest reason why I chose to come to Japan in Jan and also the biggest reason why I extended my stay by a week so that I could accommodate the 8th Anniversary lives last Friday and Saturday.  Those were really awesome lives and I gushed about them endlessly for the entire weekend. :P

Kalafina ~ 8th Anniversary Live ~ Day 2

 Ahhhhh.... I wish I had time to write this post last night when I was still so high from the live.  I still have very happy memories of it but if I wrote this post last night it would have been full of gush-a-minute. :P

However, I had to meet my good friend Itsuko for dinner and after that return to my hotel and shower, pack my bags, clear the room a little etc because I was going to go to Nagoya the next day with SY, my good friend and someone I travel to Japan often with.

Kalafina ~ 8th Anniversary Live ~ Day 1

Yesterday was a crazy day for me.  Originally I had only decided to go to the live on the 23rd and was super happy when I won the ticket.  Then I decided that since I was flying in on the 22nd, maybe I should just try and go for the live on the 22nd too.  So when I managed to win a ticket during the 2nd lottery draw, I was both excited and worried.  I knew that getting into Tokyo from Narita would take some time and if there were too many delays, it might be quite stressful or I might even be late for the live.

In the end, the flight landed early and I managed to get to my hotel by about 4pm to pick up the tickets and to rest a tiny bit before I had to head out to take the Chuo line across town to get to Shibuya.  And I have to say Tsutaya O-East was pretty hard to find. I got really lost even with Google maps on navigation.  And even after I managed to find the place where all the live houses were, there were so many people around, I didn't see the sign for O-East and could only find O-West.  I must have walked past the entrance to O-East 5 times and asked 3 different people who kept sending me to the correct general area.... but WHERE IS O-EAST???  was the only thing that was echoing in my heart and I was starting to panic a little as 6pm approached.

Japan trip Jan/Feb 2016 ~ Day 1.2

I have arrived safely in Japan. :)
Waiting for the train from Narita. It's nice to be back in Japan. :)

Japan Trip Jan/Feb 2016 ~ Day 1.1

Waiting at Changi Airport now. Off to Japan for more Kalafina lives, one Ieiri Leo live and some sight seeing etc. :)

Kalafina x Tanimura Shinji ~ Alcira no Hoshi

I'm now waiting at Changi Airport for my flight later this morning and thought that I would catch up on a little blogging.  I managed to get a Priority Pass to some of the lounges at the airport and it's my first time in one.  It's pretty nice.  There's food and drinks and comfortable seats.  There are also tables and power points and free WiFi.  It makes blogging or doing some last minute work pretty easy.  Hence, I decided that since I decided to bring both my tablet and my Surface Pro 3, I might as well use them well. :)

I think it was maybe two days ago that Kalafina announced that they will be collaborating on a song with Tanimura Shinji.  The song is called Alcira no Hoshi (アルシラの星) and will be the theme song for the BS日テレ. This isn't the first time that Kalafina has collaborated with Tanimura Shinji.  They collaborated on an episode of the music program Music Fair previously and I thought that it was a pretty amazing collaboration then.

Kalafina ~ Christmas Premium Live with Strings 2015 ~ goods unboxing

I'm going to do a picture heavy unboxing post of all the goods that I asked a friend to help me pick up at the Kalafina with Strings Christmas Premium Live 2015.  Yay!!! Thank you friend!! :)

I really want to one day be able to go to either the strings or the acoustic lives but Christmas is a difficult time for me to go travelling because my family does celebrate Christmas and it's expensive.  Sadly, although they have announced a three city Spring tour titled “Kalafina with Strings” Spring Premium LIVE 2016, I still can't go because I'll be attending Kajiura Yuki's YK vol.13 and travelling in Japan just a two weeks before the first strings live in Hokkaido.  I won't be able to fly back to Japan again for that because the even the last live in the three city tour, Tokyo, is only 20 days after my scheduled return from that trip. :(  So sadly, no chance for me to hear their voices in their full glory.  My dream is that they will one day come to the Esplanade in Singapore and sing either the strings or the acoustic lives but I think that is near impossible.  So I just keep dreaming..... :P

Ah well.... back to my original intention... unboxing photos now... :D

First up, the T-shirt.

ufotable ~ Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Background Art Book ~ unboxing

As promised to someone who left a message on the blog, I'll be doing this "unboxing" first. :)

This is the Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Background Art Book which was a book I did not wait to order at all.  I actually rather like background art and I often like it more than the character design actually which is probably a little unusual.  Most anime fans probably prefer character design, even if they really liked background art, they still tend to prefer character design.

Not quite back, but working on it. :)

Hello!!! I hope that the new year began well for everyone. :)  Well, I'm not quite back yet since I'm not actually gonna do any of my planned posts etc. :)

Just thought I'll write a short one to slowly get back into the habit of posting again. :)

I'm not sure how much blogging I'll do this year.  I really do have other projects I would like to really get serious about, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have left for the blog.  But I am still deeply in love with Kajiura Yuki and Kalafina's music so I would still like to talk about their stuff as much as possible.  And I still love Ieiri Leo and Suiyoubi no Campenella and lives etc etc.  So I'm not ready to retire the blog just yet. :)  Also..... this is the blog's 10th Anniversary year.  Woohooo!!! Okay, not that it really means that much.  There were some years I I didn't write very much at all. :)

I've taken photos of the Ieiri Leo 20 ~ 4th live tour BD which I receive last Dec.  It's a pretty standard release, so I should be able to breeze through this one if I don't get distracted. :)

I have some loot from the Kalafina Christmas live that I would like to share.  :D