Well, we’re coming to the end of my trip to LA. There were no Morning Musume related events at Anime Expo of the final day of the convention (seeing as Morning Musume flew out of LA at around 1 pm if I’m recalling correctly). Day 4 consisted of shopping and just hanging out with friends. A nice little relaxing day to finish off a hectic and most amazing weekend.

Seeing as there was nothing pressing for the day, johpan and I slept in. I woke up to the sounds of Roger Federer and Andy Roddick battling it out for the Wimbledon title. (And I just have to say, YAY FEDERER!! CONGRATS ON YOU 15 GRAND SLAMS!! ^_^)

After the match ended, my cousin and her husband took johpan and I to Royal/T Cafe because they know we like Japanese things, so they figured we’d like to go to a maid cafe for brunch. The food was quite tasty. Their miso soup was awesome – it had huge chunks of tofu and edamame in it! This was the first time I’d had miso soup with edamame. It made it super nommable. I also had a miso chicken sandwich. My cousin ordered a kobe beef burger which looked delicious too. I think they next time I’m back in the area I’ll have to stop by there again and get the kobe beef burger.

After that, johpan and I took a bus down to Little Tokyo to meet up with CFB, CK and OpsMonkey. We stopped by Kinokunia, where I was hoping to pick up the latest UTB (seeing as C-ute’s leader, Yajima Maimi, is this month’s cover girl). Unfortunately, they were sold out of UTB except for the October 2008 issue (which I didn’t want – only Mano Erina from H!P was in that issue). Instead, I got the final issue of Fruits Basket (Vol. 23 – I have the entire series now!!), and a learning kanji text book and work book.

We wandered a little bit around Little Tokyo before an “emergency” came up which resulted in CK leaving us a littler earlier than planned to pick up CFB’s roomates who had gotten lost in LA.

As we waiting for CK to deliver CFB’s roommates, we (CFB, johpan, OpsMonkey and I) headed back to CFB’s hotel and just chatted. OpsMonkey had to leave shortly after we arrived to spend time with some relatives. The goodbyes were heading into full swing.

johpan and I spent the rest of our time until our cousin came to pick us up at CFB’s hotel room, where his roommates eventually got back safely, and Paul of Hello! Blog eventually came to hang out as well with 2 of his friends.

My cousin eventually came to get johpan and I at around 7 pm, and that was the end of our epic wota-weekend.

Overall thoughts on the weekend

I am so glad that I decided to attend Anime Expo this year. Back in late February or early March, my car’s transmission died and I had to shell out >$2500 to replace it, so at that point in time I figured that I’d have to skip out on Anime Expo. It was only about a month prior to the convention that I finally decided that there was no way I could miss this momentous event. Luckily, I had tentatively booked the time off of work already, so when I finalized my trip, there weren’t any problems work-wise.

Being able to meet people that I have been chatting with online for over a year was also amazing. Hello! Party in general was just pure awesomeness, for I had never been in contact with most of the people I met there, the buzz and energy of just being in the same room with so many fellow Hello! Project fans was great. I definitely don’t get that at home.

There isn’t much I can say about the convention as a whole, seeing as I only attended Hello! Project events (with the Exception of the Power Rangers panel), and those all seemed to be exceptional cases seeing as there was no photographs, video or anything of the sort allowed. People complained about the line ups for everything Morning Musume related, but really you can’t really avoice them. I think the first day of autographs was little misleading as they sent us into a room thinking we were up next, only for us to find out that we were being put into a second line… But other than that, things were quite reasonable from my standpoint.

But seeing Morning Musume in person… Everything surrounding that was just absolutely mind blowing. I was getting excited as we kept getting closer to seeing them in person, but I never would have imagined the reaction I would have when I finally saw them. In the moment when I realized the Koharu cosplayer was ACTUALLY Kusumi Koharu, I thought my heart would burst out of my chest.

The only fandom that I’ve held on to longer than my Hello! Project fandom is Hanson, and I think the fact that I was able to see Hanson live so soon after I started liking them made it less of a shock to my system when I first went to a concert of theirs (I was 13 when I first saw Hanson live – I’ve seen them in concert 6 or 7 times since then, I think), and it was also not quite as daunting when I got their autographs.

For Morning Musume, it was a long 8 year wait before this first glance, and it seems that those 8 years really gave me the time to get psyched up, and for my system to kick me in the face when I finally saw them. XD

This entire experience has completely revived my love for Morning Musume. When I got back into Hello! Project in 2007 after a nearly 2 year break (not that I dropped H!P all together, but I wasn’t following the releases and tv appearances very closely – or the scandals and news very closely for that matter), it was the kids (with Miyabi at the forefront) that had caught my attention. I couldn’t get into the 8th generation, and Koharu had not been a favourite of mine from the moment she joined (for the last Morning Musume song I had really been into before my break was Koharu’s debut, “Iroppoi Jirettai”).

Now, seeing these girls live has given me a greater appreciation for what they do. They all learned a bit of English for this trip, and it was adorable listening to them greet the crowd in English at the concert. Since coming home, I have listened to nothing but Morning Musume voluntarily. I also ordered my custom frame for the autographs… That should be ready in about 2-3 weeks, so I’ll be sure to post the final product once I get a hold of it. My wall is getting impatient. XD

I have to give a big thank you to Anime Expo for getting Morning Musume as a guest of honour and allow us international fans this opportunity to see them outside of Asia. And of course, a huge thank you to Tsunku, HANGRY and Morning Musume for coming out to LA for the weekend and giving us an awesome experience, and UFA for letting it all happen. This was seriously an experience of a lifetime for me and one that I will never forget.

For those of you who stuck through me through my long winded and detailed experiences, thanks! I would have posted these entries (which are basically journal entries) on my person livejournal, but my friends on there don’t care too much for my Hello! Project love, so I thought it would be better to give the recount here, so fans who attended could get the experience from another point of view, and for those who couldn’t attend they could get a tasteof how it was for a long time Hello! Project fan.

With Morning Musume’s 40th single on the way, I’ll get back to the regularly scheudled progamming on my blog. Hope you all enjoyed my Anime Expo 2009 (featuring Morning Musume) series! ^_^