23/11/12 - Hyper Japan and The Alcoholympics

This weekend was long, but incredibly fun! 

On Friday, I got the train down to London at about 11am (I maaay have skipped a couple of classes). I took my suitcase home, got changed, then headed off to Earls' Court for Hyper Japan. My outfit was pretty boring, though, because I wanted to get there as quickly as possible:

Really awkward photo, sorry.

For those that don't know, Hyper Japan is a fairly new Japanese traditional and pop culture event, running once or twice a year. I'd only been to the very first one (a few years back), and it's really improved a lot! I hadn't actually planned to go to this one, but then it was announced that some of The MICRO HEAD 4N'S (Zero (ex D'espairsRay), Shun, Ricky) would be there. 

I arrived at Hyper Japan at about 5pm, right before MAIFO's meet&greet started. 

Surprisingly, we were allowed to take photos! The band members (especially Zero) would actually pose for the camera when they weren't signing things haha.

It was really strange to see Zero (who doesn't seem to have aged at all since about 2006) up close, because I've been such a big fan of him/D'espairsRay for about 4 years, and by the time I got to the front of the surprisingly short queue to meet them, I was really nervous, which I hadn't expected at all haha. They were all very nice, though. C: They weren't selling CDs, unfortunately, but they all signed my ticket and shook my hand. After everyone's stuff had been signed, we were allowed to take photos with them! 

 I look super awkward because... well, that's how I felt haha. I was also trying to bend down a bit to be closer to their height.

Shun was also giving out stickers like the one you see at the bottom. 

After, I found Dodo and Gigi, and we went to NINJAMAN JAPAN's signing. I don't have pictures of them, but they were all adorable and super friendly. C: 

Pinky had a lot of trouble remembering the date, and after some discussion, we decided it was the 23rd. He also seemed to like my horns haha. 

After the signing, we looked around the event, ate okonomiyaki, and drank loads of free Yakult (they were giving it out all weekend, for some reason) until MAIFO's talk show a couple of hours later. We also ran into various members of MAIFO and NMP several times, and we were generally very awkward because we were taken by surprise haha. To keep seeing Zero was the most surreal thing ever, especially in a place like that. At one point, we ran into both of the bands at once in the very small elevator room, and we just sort of awkwardly rushed into the elevator and waved to them. I think that's when this photo (from Shun's Facebook) was being taken:

I bought Mameshipamyupamyu tights 8D

MAIFO's talk show was pretty much them being interviewed by some presenter guy (with an interpreter) about the band's recent activities, how they were finding London etc., and a few more personal questions. I can't remember many specific questions, but it was interesting! 

After the talk finished, Dodo and I had to rush off to Nick's house for THE LONDON 2012 ALCOHOLYMPICS! \8D/ 

Dodo and Randa decided (but wouldn't explain why) that we would be Team Hotspice. Here is our team:

I don't think the other two teams even bothered to come up with team names, but we came up with individual member names too lol. Due to a mishearing, I was Mama Hotspice. 8)

The first round was a relay race. It was outside and dark, so I didn't take pictures, but team members had to take turns at completing an obstacle course (which was not easy in spiked litas), then making (and drinking) a Jagerbomb at the end. I think we lost that one haha.

In this round, one player from each team had their hands cuffed behind their backs, then they had to race each other to drink 3 shots from the floor without spilling them.

The next round involved lots of cups of wine being spread on the floor, some of which contained money. One member from each team had to quickly drink the wine to collect the money at the bottom. The player with the most money at the end (not us lol) won. 

In this round, players had to drink as many alcopops as they could in a certain amount of time:

Scumbag Fin

Sam and Dodo got hold of my phone.

...

In the next round, one player from each team had to lie on the floor, and a second player had to pour Rekorderlig (strawberry and lime flavoured cider) into their mouth. First to finish won. I chose this round because Rekorderlig is pretty much my favourite drink ever. 8D Unfortunately, I started laughing hysterically about 2 seconds in, which caused Rekorderlig to get poured all over me, which just made me laugh more, and long story short, we lost that round horribly (although this did mean I had more Rekorderlig left to drink at my own pace after, which was nice). 

The last rounds were outside, so I couldn't get decent photos. One was a kegstand, which I am thankful I didn't have to do. The final round involved the whole team racing the other teams to finish drinking (with straws) a bowl of various unknown alcohols (and raw eggs, apparently, but I couldn't really taste them). 

The winning team: