In Okinawa w/ Miyavi - Sharks and Music

9:00 AM - Aquarium

Looks kind of like the complex in Jurassic Park, doesn't it?

The next day, both Rosie and I and most of our little group of new friends went with a large group to the Okinawa aquarium. The aquarium is apparently quite famous in Japan, and every person I spoke to before the tour expressed a desire to visit it. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get to the there by bus.

The aquarium was located in its own park, beatifully manicured, downwardly situated so that the sea just seemed to open up before you. At the bottom of this hill/park, was the aquarium, with a statue of a swimming shark propped up outside. It was HUGE! I couldn't wait to see the real thing. Once inside the complex, the view of the beach was absolutely spectacular. We took our time walking through and seeing what there was to see. However, the real draw of the aqarium was the sharks. There was little doubt of when we had arrived in the area of the central tank: every railing, staircase, and floor overflowed with people.One entire wall was taken up with the thick glass of the tank. Inside there was smaller fish, massive mantas, and a couple of the huge sharks. When they swam low enough, it was truly impressive to see how large they were in comparison to the people in front of the glass. We stood for quite a while to admire them, then went down to get a closer look.

It was pretty sad to think how small the tank was, how like a prison it must feel to them. I

suppose whales often have to endure this sort of cruelty, but it was the first time for me to see it done to a large shark. It was certainly amazing, though.

Down by the beach we watched a dolphin show. It was pretty funny, actually. They invited a family up on stage, mother, father, little daughter. As they were walking along a very narrow, slippery part of the stage raised stage, the mother slipped and fell right into the dolphin tank. It was quite scary/exciting, but then she came flying out of the water on the dolphin's nose and the joke was up; she was a trainer. I was happy to have fell for the trick. Other than that, it was kind of sad to watch. The tank was incredibly tiny. I kept thinking of how non-existent animal rights are in Japan. I know Rosie was thinking about it too, or something similar.

We had fun altogether though. On the way back to the bus, we all stopped in the restroom to check ourselves out before heading to the live house for the concert. We took a group picture in front of the mirror:

Sometime Later - HUMAN STAGE Live House

We arrived at the live house a couple hours early. Everyone flew off the bus and immediately got in line for the goods, which were set to open up in half an hour. We occupied ourselves chatting and watching Miyavi's videos on Rosie's iPod. We asked around to see who had what number and found out, while I had #2, two of the other girls in our group plus their roommates made up #3,4,5! Amazing! Poor Rosie was much farther back in line, but it was a pretty tiny live house, so I hoped that would work in her favor. As we curled along the sidewalk to the venue doors where the goods were, we saw the sign for the concert; it was sold out! Go Miyavi!!

After gorging ourselves on goods, we headed back to the bus to drop off our stuff and take a breather. Soon enough, we headed back out again to get in line for the show. I was absolutely vibrating with nervous energy. It was somewhat disconcerting to stand in the #2 spot. We were all lined up on the sidewalk, parallel to the venue. Where I stood in front, with all the other low numbers behind me, I had to stare across the open space at the 2nd half of the line, the high numbers, that lined up directly across from us. Made me feel really guilty, like all those people not only must hate me for being in front, but for being a foreigner too. Sorry! I tried not to look at them.

Once inside the venue, I found a space on the bar to wait. The two oldest women in our fanclub tour (meaning, they could have been mothers to some of the other fans there) ended up standing next to me. Turns out they were actually from Gunma too, Maebashi, and had been excited yesterday at the dinner party when they heard I lived in Gunma. Small world!

The concert itself was pretty good, but already I can't remember what happened. It was a little less exciting than expected, however. All my previous interactions with him had left me with such high expectations, I was let down more than I otherwise would have been. It was clear that Miyavi was trying to devote his attention at this concert mostly to the local Okinawa fans, who were all in back. I could appreciate that though, and was just enjoying being up close and personal again. This being the first live in the tour, he was pretty energetic but didn't have much room to move around on the tiny stage. He played a couple new songs. My absolute favorite moment of the night was his new song "Gravity". This song was unlike anything I've ever heard him play. A very dark song, he sang at first unaccompanied by his guitar, so you were focused totally on the sound of his voice, then suddenly the guitar would just CRASH down.... it truly felt like his heart was breaking, his world was coming apart, so much pain, anger, and confusion was contained in his voice. It made my heart ache just to hear it. I was amazed that anyone could so acutely replicate those emotions... The whole time I wondered what memory he could possibly be feeding from to fule such soul wrenching vocals. I found out later that he had said what it was in the intro, but I had been unable to hear; the song was about his reaction to the news of Michael Jackson's death, a major idol and inspiration to him.

That one song is really what made the whole concert. I can't even remember the rest except for, at one point, he was in the middle of a song and suddenly just stopped playing. I thought he was going to tune his instruments or some such thing. Then he spoke in a steely no-nonsense voice, staring straight into the back of the room, and asked someone to stop taking pictures and put their camera away. From the fact that he said all of this in English, then asked "Where are you from?" (I didn't hear the answer) I gathered that the offender must have been a foreigner. Then he added that he just wanted everyone to enjoy the concert. He wasn't mean about it, but his tone made it clear that this was not something he was happy about (he has always been crystal clear on his opinion of cameras in his concerts). Having your idol give you a crushing, disappointed glare... I wondered who could be stupid enough to want to risk such a thing. Gods, I hadn't even done anything and it was hard to bear the feeling of his disappointment. Obviously whoever was the offender was not really much of a fan, or they couldn't have endured that.

After the concert was over, we all slowly filed our way out. While I was waiting for my friends, this white chick comes up and starts talking to me. It struck me that she must have been the idiot with the camera since she was the only other obvious foreigner there beside Rosie and myself. Needless to say, we didn't encourage conversation.

All and all, it was a really fun day. The saddest part was that the concert marked the end of our trip. Tomorrow we would be flying back to Tokyo. No more Miyavi. Even still riding the high from the concert, I couldn't forget that sad fact...