A truly truly great day. Wake up early, off to Shinagawa (Stella Ball… the big concert hall place) to go to the AKB48 “Sakura no Hanabiratachi 2008″ single handshaking event. Get there at 9.30am, buy 8 copies of the CD ( = 8 tickets to the handshaking event… at the time of your choice), obviously i chose 4 of each of the 2 times Haruna was there.

(we ended up with a lot of copies of this CD, lol… ended up leaving random copies in toilets and giving copies to maids and random people in maid bars)

Anyway yes, a handshaking event, the first proper one i’d attended. Basically everyone lines up and you briefly get to shake hands with the singers on stage (while being pushed along by the bouncers, lol).

So yes… 2pm, the first handshaking event, everyone queued up outside, we were finally let in, queued up inside… not sure what everyone else was going on about saying they were “nervous” as i wasn’t nervous at all. That all changed however when it was my turn to go stand up on the stage and shake hands, lol… heart suddenly starts beating 10x faster. Shook hands with the other girls, fairly happy, but the main reason i was there was at the end of the stage… Haruna… she had a gorgeous pink dress on (*dies*), so my first time shaking hands with her the guy in front of me informed her we were all foreign fans (the 3 of us that were together the first time)… as for the 2nd time through, i managed to briefly blurt out that i was from England. Left the stage, and looped around again for the 3rd time and said i was a big fan… she seemed happier at this point (along with the other girls on stage being generally displeased with the fact i was mostly rushing past them to get to Haruna, lol………. sorry Mariko T_T). Fourth and final time for 2pm i went back and shouted out the name of her drama series that started last week (Coin Locker Monogatari – watch it… it’s great), and yet again she seemed happy. We really weren’t given much time with the girls, the bouncers kept pushing us along… i basically got 2 words out each time. >_<

Loitered around until the 6pm handshaking event… where of course Haruna was there again… suffice to say this one was far far better…

There were less people so basically we got to spend more time “talking” to them, my first time up on stage again i basically said “hello again” to Haruna and she looked happy to see me in a “ah! you again!” way, lol… along with me saying “Happy Birthday” to Risa (whose birthday it was today). 2nd time around i said i was from England again, and Haruna said English was hard (in Japanese of course… she basically understood no English, lol… living up to the image of her being a bit of an airhead… awwwwwww). 3rd time around (we were getting a fair amount of time to speak to them now) and Haruna told me to watch her (above mentioned) drama tonight, and i said (in Japanese) that i’d seen last weeks episode and that i’d be watching today (which i just have… literally just before writing all of this) and she looked happy… at this point i was still holding Haruna’s hand while being pushed along the line, lol……. i almost forgot to shake Mariko’s hand next to her, but just about remembered, and apologised to her, lol… she seemed to be understanding. …and my last time around, i basically said it was my last time, and Haruna said “until next time” along with the rest of the girls saying “bye bye”……. i think Haruna was pleased at me being her first western fan that’s spoken to her, lol, her face always seemed to light up whenever i came around again… along with Mariko next to her looking interested in what i was saying to Haruna. It’s only a pity she understands basically zero English, lol (however my extremely basic Japanese seemed to be good enough).

She’s so goddamn georgeous… and basically the same age as me, lol. It was really odd watching her drama earlier and thinking “i shook her hand and spoke to her in person a lot today, lol”. You just feel like you want to hug her, lol… like a teddy bear or something. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

And well, after all that epic we went back to the Korean BBQ place, had some tongue (not great… tastes like spam mixed with beef and a bit chewy), and their expensive “premium” meats (which were great), and then we went off to LittlePSX again. By the end of the night we had filled up our 3rd point card, and i’d got a photo with Nami yesterday (best maid in the world, lol… she kept coming over and making conversation), and today with the girl we’d nicknamed “Tigger” (due to the tiger striped ears i guess, lol).

All in all a great great day… i want to hold Haruna’s hand again while looking into her eyes and smiling… and then hug her and bring her back to England, lol. Sooo soo very perfect!