Entries this day: Beach_morning NIN Post_nin

Beach morning

9:37pm JST Saturday 8 August 2009 (day 14381)

Soness and I woke up a bit later than normal on Friday morning and slowly got some breakfast then headed down to the beach for a run. She runs 5k on occassion, and this is the first time she has invited me to join her. I was like, "Five Kay??? That's almost a million miles!" cause it seemed like it might be more difficult than I could do, but .... I did it, plus did rock hopping afterward (which I really thought I'd really be too tired to do after the run).

Was definitely a bit winded and my stomach had been hurting, but pretty much I was able to do it with no worries, and I'd consider doing it again. If not again and again every day, which I might, later.

After the run, I encouraged us to get some water, and then she encouraged us to get in the water, which I did, enjoying (for the first time) body surfing, including some super fun backwards body surfing surfs (fall back with the wave and let it carry me, but be sure to close my mouth cause the water has a tendency to gush in!)!

We were sorta in the way of surf boarders, so I felt a bit endangered at times with surfboards surging toward me on waves, but one of the best brief moment was standing as a girl on surfboard went slowly right past me in knee deep water, and we gave low and high fives. (mine was low, and hers was kinda up, cause she was crouching on the board). She said HI and I was like HI and thought, wow cause she had braces. Didn't talk to her past that, though; I don't need any more confusion.

Went rock hopping for a bit, and slept on the rocks for a bit, then wanted to get Soness out of the water (she was surfing on someone's board by then) so we could go to Nine Inch Nails....

NIN

12:54pm JST Saturday 8 August 2009 (day 14381)

The only thing I cared about in the afternoon was seeing Trent in his last-for-a-while concert in Tokyo.

The best, _best_, *best*, -~!BEST~- thing about the show (I mean besides the music) was the rain. The rain started when the show started, and the rain ended when the show ended. Just perfect perfect. There was just a sprinkle during the first song, but then after "Closer," the rain poured down and Trent goes, "Now this feels like a fucking Nine Inch Nails Concert." and I was like "yeahhhh!" and then almost as an afterthought he goes, "if you're leaving because of the rain, you're a pussy." I go, "let it rain! Go home pussies!" though I'm not necessarily proud of that language now, it seemed to fit the moment.

Thanks to Soness using my phone to call her phantom friend Akiko, we scootched our way relatively close to the front. Not nearly as close as I had been in Studio Coast, but well closer than in 1996 when I had a neck brace and stayed way in the back, but let me not digress.

I had my phone out so that I could use NIN:access to text live from the show... but it wouldn't work! I hadn't logged into the app for a while (my fault), but it seemed to be a combo of my not being logged in, and not getting good reception in Marine Stadium. Sorry about that, fans who wanted to attend.

Trent looked really good, well toned, with huge arms and I like his short hair, which I first saw in Studio Coast, I think. Looked like he was wearing ear plugs, which I think is pretty smart.

Because I couldn't text live, I didn't bother to record the set list, but here's what I remember:

• ?

• Closer

• I'm afraid of Americans

• Burn

• The Fragile

• ?

• The Frail

• Survivalism

• The Hand That Feeds

• Hurt

Not necessarily quite in that order.

Before "I'm Afraid of Americans," he goes, "this is a song we did in 1996(?) with our friend David Bowie," and everyone was all, "whoooo!!" etc.

Before "The Fragile," Trent was like, "thank you Tokyo," and "Thank you for coming; this is our last show in Japan... wait no it's not, what am I saying.." as I was yelling "TOMORROW!!! TOMORROW!!!" .. man I would love to zoom down to Osaka to see their last show in Japan. damn. Then he goes, "let me catch my breath.." and maybe that's the point that the crowd was a bit quiet, and I shouted, "THANK YOU, TRENT!!" No reply, but I'm sure he heard it, then poured his heart into "The Fragile" as a bit of a break before the bumpin' songs started again.

As the intro tone for "Hurt" came on, just to show off my mad song identification skillz, to Soness I was like, "this next song is 'Hurt'" and quietly (quiet for a concert) recited the first few lines. I sang along with Trent, but not too loudly. I know he ended with "Hurt" cause I was hurt to see them head off stage and the emcee roll on to thank "Nine Inchi" for a great show.

I had great fun bouncing around with the crowd and Trent put on quite a show for us, giving his all, as always, and I'd definitely be willing to shell out some bucks (or yen) to buy a DVD from the show.

Post nin

1:20pm JST Saturday 8 August 2009 (day 14381)

To finish out the concert, the next band was My Chemical Romance, of whom I've heard, but whose music I've not heard enough to know any offhand. Soness asked a nearby fan to sing a couple lines and she was like, "oh yeah," but we left anyway, figuring the mad rush would make the trip home slightly unbearable.

The trip home, however, was great. Because the stadium floor was padded with about 2 inch thick rubber mat, which was all wet from the rain, a couple of guys were doing slip-n-slide, sometimes crashing into innocent bystanders, one time sliding straight toward me and I stood with legs spread and dude slid right between my feet. Soness had a few slides and did relatively well despite wearing a shirt (the guys' bare skin significantly helped with sliding). I got a couple of pics of her.

Though she said it was quite fun, I told Soness that I didn't need to slide; I had slid plenty of times in my life, and this wasn't optimal sliding terretory for me..

Headed back to the station, enjoyed ice cream (I got my favorite: Popping Shower), and then headed to our train line.

Train arrived with a thousand empty seats, each of which cost an extra 500 yen to use. I was like, "yes!" cause I knew it would be fast and relatively comfortable to Tokyo. Turns out, not only was it fast and comfortable to Tokyo, it was only one stop to Tokyo! As in, we got on, and the next stop was 20+ minutes later in Tokyo!

Took another train at 500 yen extra for guaranteed seats and headed back to Chigs. Lovely lovely night.

Thank you, Trent. Thank you, Soness.

I think I'm going to write one of them a letter.