Japan trip Spring 2015 part 2a - March 21, Day 1: Liz Lisa Shibuya 109 Yui Kanno event

I was really unsure how I wanted to organize the posts for this trip. Last time, I did one post per general topic (general/Liz Lisa shopping/other shopping/food & site-seeing) and kind of just did a photo dump without a lot of explanation lol. This time, I think I'm going to try and organize it chronologically which can help be a little more location specific and will help me remember where we did certain things due to when we did them lol, and then add a few separate topic specific posts at the end. Hopefully, this won't drag on forever but I think I want to make a few of the posts shorter so I can just publish them sooner. We'll see how this ends up haha, I'm kind of just winging it.

This trip was somewhat spontaneously planned in November 2014. My brother's gf's family decided they wanted to go to Japan during spring break and invited us (my family) to join them. The airline tickets weren't outrageously expensive, so we just decided to go.
I got on a plane in Hawaii on March 19 and left at 05:30pm. I arrived in Japan on March 20 at around 10:30pm. S and I took the Keikyu Line from Haneda Airport to Shinagawa station, checked into the hotel, and basically just went to sleep lol. (My parents and the other family had flown in the day before so S and I were flew and arrived on our own.)

The next day (March 21), my plans included the Yui Kanno event at Shibuya 109!

I had browsed the Liz Lisa Shibuya 109 crooz blog for details and knew that if I wanted to take a Polaroid  with Yui Kanno, I needed to purchase at least 8640yen worth of Liz Lisa product (and if I wanted a photo frame and signature, that amount needed to include at least one of her collab items).

OOTD - Liz Lisa sleeveless lace top, Liz Lisa wagon skirt, Liz Lisa rose quilted bag, Liz Lisa lace-up back pumps, OTK socks and Charlotte Russe pom pom cropped knit

I knew that I would be waking up early (jet lag wtf), so my plan was to just wake up at whatever time and head over to Shibuya.

I left around 07:35am from my hotel room and got to Shibuya 109 at around 8:05am. A line had obviously been formed from much earlier, and it was pretty clear that it was for the Yui Kanno event because of all the girls dressed in Liz Lisa!

At around 8:30am, men who I interpreted to be Shibuya 109 security rearranged us a bit so that we were looping in the circular elevator area rather than down the side of the building along the street. Also probably worth noting that I'm writing this (and all Japan travel posts) from the perspective of someone who speaks/understands only a little Japanese. I took about 2 years' worth of Japanese classes in college so that helps me understand a lot of simple phrases, etc and definitely helps me get by, but a lot of shop staff and other people in service-related positions often phrase things really politely, and I have a lot of trouble comprehending it. But anyway, the security guys used a lot of hand motions, and I basically just followed whoever was in front of/around me, so the language barrier didn't affect me too much there.
I think there were around 25 people in front of me at max. There were less than that many people behind me at around 9:30am wtf so I probably could have arrived a lot later.

After the security guys finally finished rearranging us, this was my view. I was exactly the first person after the "turn" which faced me essentially onto the street, away from the entrance to 109.

Everyone behind me was facing the same way, so it would have been weird if I tried to face away from the street. At the same time, it felt weird to stare out into the street too...Also, most people who were waiting were entertaining themselves on their cell phones, and I was nervous that my phone and/or the pocket wifi would die (it was only the morning and I'd need it for the rest of the day as well), so I used mine for a bit, but after awhile my hands were wayyyy too cold anyway. It was my first day in Japan, I was still adjusting to being in anything below 70F (it was around 48-55F), and I only had a knit on because my first purchase was meant to be a faux leather Liz Lisa jacket (which I still needed to buy obviously but the mall wasn't open). I was stupidly dressed I guess, but it was only because I was so close to the "outside". I think if I was waiting closer to the entrance, I wouldn't be as "exposed" to the wind/weather etc because the building would be more protective wtf.

Minami and another Liz Lisa 109 shop staff came out at around 9:30am to show us examples of some of the Yui Kanno collab items - 2 dresses, cardigan, shoes and rose barrettes. I couldn't understand most of what they were talking about and explaining, so I got a little nervous in case it was important, but I felt like I still had a reasonable grasp on what the blog entry said, so I wasn't super worried.

Minami took a picture of all of us who had waited before Shibuya 109 opened, and it was posted on the official blog. I'm standing up in the "back row", second from the absolute left in white. The girls in my part of the line (after it turned) were supposed to be kneeling but the girl next to me and I decided it would be okay if we stood since we weren't blocking anyone and were so far away anyway lol. The people standing and farthest from the camera were all the girls in front of me in line. The kneeling girls are all those who came after me.

At 9:45am, we were led into the building. We were instructed to go up the escalator to the third floor and from there, we would be lining up on the stairs. (I semi-understood when they were explaining it, but again, language barrier wasn't much of a problem because all you had to do was follow the person in front of you.) Then we waited in this line until the store opened at 10:00am and then we moved a little as the first few people reached the register (I think? I couldn't actually see lol.)

It wasn't too long before I reached the actual store (from the stairs), and I could see that the line basically just went to the register. So essentially I was in line to check out even though I didn't have anything with me. I saw a few girls browsing in the store, but I wasn't sure about that and didn't think I should get out of line.

This is where things started to get a little "unknown" to me as someone who couldn't understand the instructions lol. A sales girl was going down the line and handing out shopping bags and taking reservation slips. It was my first day of my trip so obviously I hadn't reserved anything last weekend and was kind of confused because I thought I would be able to shop around myself. (Wrong.) The shop staff asked me something in Japanese that I totally couldn't understand and I mentioned "English" and then shop staff Ikumin was brought over to help me. (I follow her on IG @akaikumin and know she just came back from Australia so I was hoping the language barrier wouldn't be too hard.) I figured out that they were asking me what I wanted to buy so that I didn't have to get out of line. I knew what I wanted, but only one of those items were from the Yui Kanno collab and didn't realize I could ask her for anything in the store and also I was trying to speak in broken Japanese (mistake), so there was a lot of confusion on both sides, but eventually I managed to get the Yui Kanno collab rose barrette and essentially told Ikumin that I would get the other items I wanted. I saw the faux leather jacket on the path to the register, so I was confident I could grab it myself but was nervous about grabbing a few other things without actually leaving the line. The girl behind me in line had been there since about 8:15am, so we were pretty "familiar" with each other, but I had never talked to her once, and she seemed pretty content in keeping to herself on her phone, so I didn't want to try and talk to her in my barely elementary level Japanese. But when I was like 1 person away from the register, I somehow managed to ask her if I could go and grab something and come back and she seemed okay with that, so I took 10 steps out of line to pick an OP I knew I wanted and then came back and thanked her quickly. My plan was to purchase enough to get the jewelry box novelty though, so I knew also needed to also grab a small accessory somehow. I spotted a few close to the register, and when someone came to lead me to check out, I also grabbed something off a shelf to add to my order. Whew. I checked out and was given two tickets - one for the photo taking time and another that said I would be getting the signature and photo frame as well.

I was done with my purchase at about 10:45am. The photo taking session I picked was 12:00pm - 01:00pm.

Meanwhile, S's mission for the morning was to go to the Shibuya Sansui (fishing store) to purchase the rods he and his brother had ordered through email. They had to be packaged and sent to Osaka and arrive before we left in a week, so it was essential to get this done as soon as possible.

He met up with me at around 11:00am at Shibuya 109, and we walked over there together. It's about 9 minutes away if you don't get lost lol. (We got a little lost in that we went the wrong way a few times, but not like hopelessly lost wtf.)

I wanted to get back to Shibuya 109 at around 11:50am (ten minutes before the photo event) so I left S at Sansui at around 11:30am and made my way back in case I got lost again lol wtf.

I was a little early, so I went to the bathroom for a quick hair check, and then went back to the store. There were a few other girls waiting around but no concrete line created until around 11:50am when we started forming a line down the stairs.

Omfg I did so much waiting this day lol wtf.
I was about 10th in line for the photo taking. Even though my ticket said 13, I guess that doesn't matter for the order in which you get to take the picture. The first 5 or so girls/groups of girls took a really long time. The line didn't move in such a long time that I was worried I was actually in line for the 02:00pm session or something wtf. And there were still like 35+ people behind me, mind you. I finally got into the "secondary waiting area" which is inside the store at around 12:25pm. Minami tried to talk to me when I was finally next to go, but I didn't understand part of it, so I just told her (in Japanese) that I was from Hawaii because I didn't know what else to say lol. When it was my turn, she also told Chiharu that I was from Hawaii who told Yui Kanno I was from Hawaii lol. The next part went really fast. I think I handed over my shopping bags to Chiharu so I could "meet" Yui Kanno and take the picture. I was told where to stand and Yui Kanno kind of talked to me about Hawaii a little I think and then we posed and took the picture. One of the assistants (?) stuck the polaroid onto the photo board and Yui Kanno asked me what my name was so she could sign the photo while it was processing, took both of my hands to thank me, and then I was out! (I think.)

I knew the next part was taking photos with this floral heart thing so I went to do that next (it was immediately outside of the photo taking area which was sheltered), and I accidentally cut in front of the girl who had been in line in front of me! I thought the girl who had just finished with the floral heart was the only person in front of me/I was just next, and I had to apologize a lot to the other girl waiting, and it was very embarrassing. She insisted I go first anyway >,<. Ikumin was taking the photos for us. I handed her my phone and posed a bit, but I was already so flustered with the not speaking Japanese well earlier thing + accidentally cutting that I was totally uncomfortable lol wtf. Ikumin also asked if she could take a photo to post on the blog and I said okay. She made sure I was okay with both of the photos she took on each phone, and even had to redo one because my eyes were closed FML. At that point, I just wanted to get out of there lol. S had finished at the fishing store and was waiting for me anyway.

Photo posted on the Liz Lisa Shibuya 109 store crooz blog!

My shopping bag with my purchases on the left and the polaroid with Yui Kanno + signature + phone frame on the right. The photos taken were not the best of me wtf. Such a waste. Idk why but I was so uncomfortable and also LOOK uncomfortable and made such weird smiles wtf! I also meant to bring these lilikoi fruit bars (from Hawaii) to give to either the shop staff or Yui Kanno to help explain that I was from Hawaii (and therefore sorry my Japanese is so crappy), but in my haste in getting ready in the morning had forgotten them! Aiyo. FML.

Here's what I bought from Liz Lisa. (Picture taken way after the day purchased.) 

Riders faux leather jacket in beige, logo floral OP in pink, Yui Kanno collab rose barrette in pink, rose and bow hair clips in pink + Yui Kanno collab print jewelry box novelty in pink

I think I want to do a blog post with all the Liz Lisa items in it/coordinates after I finish blogging about each day's activities, so they'll all be in one place. (I hope that ends up being a good decision lol.) Also because I haven't even had a chance to take photos of a lot of the items, and I don't want to delay blog posts I could easily publish otherwise because of that, so hope you don't mind the wait!

Okay so that all happened from about 8:00am to 12:30pm. Was it worth it to go so early? Tbh I don't think so considering at around 9:15am, the line of girls behind me wasn't that long and I probably still could have gotten a slot for 12:00pm (versus 2:00pm). Even at 9:45am, it didn't seem like there were very many girls. I'm not sure how the line looked past 10:00am though. I had previously read about others' experiences with Liz Lisa events saying that girls would be lining up at 5:00am for some of these, but I definitely didn't want to go that early, especially on the first day of my trip in what I consider very cold weather. When I left for the morning, I was thinking even at 8:00am, I might not get a spot in the first 50 but that was totally wrong wtf. I'm not sorry I went though even though the pictures of me were so fugly. If I could do it over again knowing what I know now, I would. And would probably go, at earliest, around 09:00am and just try my luck with that later time.

For lunch, S and I walked around Shibuya intending to go back towards Sansui and just ended up in this soba place on the first floor of some building, I think. He led us in the wrong direction to the store anyway (which I mentioned but he ignored wtf).

I like to eat ramen, but actually have never eaten soba before (and I don't particularly care for udon), but it was pretty good. I just wanted to get something simple and hot. We had seen a picture of chicken karaage in the window for this restaurant, but apparently that either wasn't available for lunch or just not available wtf. But it was okay anyway.

Afterwards, we went into a convenience store and a Bic Camera. We just needed to kill a little bit of time before our next planned activity.
...which I will write about in my next blog entry since this one ends kind of concisely with the event here!

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  Japan trip Spring 2015 posts
Part 1 - Pre-trip planning
Part 2a - March 21, Day 1: Liz Lisa Shibuya 109 Yui Kanno event
Part 2b - March 21, Day 1: Hawkeye Owl Cafe
Part 3 - March 22, Day 2: Kawatsura Strawberry Farm, Chiba, Shinjuku
Part 4 - March 23, Day 3: Tsukiji Fish Market, Yokohama, Machida
Part 5 - March 24, Day 4: Omiya, Ikebukuro, Takadanobaba, Asakusa & luggage forwarding
Part 6 - March 25, Day 5: Shibuya, Shinkansen & Osaka
Part 7 - March 26, Day 6: Tennoji MIO, Nara Deer Park
Part 8 - March 27, Day 7: Kobe (steak), Namba/Shinsaibashi & Keiko
Part 9 - March 28, Day 8: Kyoto, Berri & home
Part 10 - Hotels and Pupuru pocket wifi review
Part 11 - Liz Lisa shopping items/coordinates
Part 12 - Liz Lisa x My Melody 6th collab OPs and hand towel 

Japan trip Summer 2014 posts
Japan trip Summer 2015 posts