one of the best days!

so yesterday had to be one of the best days EVER. me and my sis got to see hikaru utada...in person! AAAGGHHHHHH! she's promoting her second english album, "this is the one", and sephora is hosting album listening parties in california, new york, and florida. considering she's one of our FAVE singers of all time, we jumped at the chance to see her in hollywood. so here's my recap of the day's events...

my sis picked me up from work, and we headed over to the hollywood & highland complex. got there at 4:30, an hour-and-a-half before she's supposed to show. turns out that since this is a sephora promotional event, the suits are handing out wristbands to people who had rsvp-ed the event. RSVP?!? i didn't know there was chance to rsvp for this event! well we weren't the only ones, and so while the "cool" people got wristbands, we were shooed away by security. we were told if there were any wristbands left over at 5:30, they would be distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis. ok, we can deal with that. so we fell in the super long line that wrapped around the complex.

tick tock tick tock, time goes on. it's 5:30, and the word is that all the wristbands have been given out. apparently they weren't expecting this many people to show. HELLO! it's HIKARU UTADA for goodness sakes. she has the top-selling album of all time in japan, 12 #1 hits, she's #24 on the top 100 japanese pop artists of all time, and she's #10 on the top 30 japanese singers of all time. people have to win a raffle to be able to buy a ticket for her concerts! so the suits are telling the people in line that "if you do not have a wristband, you are NOT getting in. you are wasting your time". they kept repeating themselves over and over again, and a few people did get out of line to cry in the corner (figuratively).

we stayed put. unless someone literally picks me up and takes me out of line, i'm not budging until 8pm. even if we don't get in, this is probably the closest we'll ever get to her. after another 20 minutes or so, the "standby" line starts moving. that's promising! the suits are accommodating a few standby people...they are partitioning the looooong line into sections, and as space permits, letting people into the store. a suit then puts a divider in front of me while letting the people in front of me go ahead. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! i start pleading with him: "please. there are only two of us. we've been here for so long. we're from the inland empire..." i think he didn't want to listen anymore because i could have went on and on, but he let me and steph through. HAH!!!

so we got in. we got to see her. it was an album listening party, so she didn't sing, but she did talk about her songs. she also had a little q&a session with the fans. that was cute...especially her story of too much alcohol and weirdly chewing a towel through the night. :-)

when she left the store, there was an announcement that there would be a limited number of signed posters and giveaway bags at the door. it was a stampede. people were rushing out of the store looking for the giveaways. since it was so chaotic, after about 40-50 people left the store, the suits shut the doors. i happened to be one who got out. then i noticed that they hadn't started giving away anything. what! i needed to get back inside. so i went up to one of the security guys, in my most panicked voice, "please. i got separated from my baby sister. i think she's still in there. i can't find her anywhere!" yeah, he let me back in. SCORE! hey, don't judge! she was still inside the store. granted, she is 20 years old, so she's not really a "baby", but she will always be my "baby" sister. hehe. since i couldn't get through the crowd, i ended up being right at the front, where they were giving away the bags (sadly, the posters were already gone). so i scored a bag! i met with my sister outside when all the chaos was over and done.

so yeah, what a rockin' day. i saw hikaru utada!!!

house hunting...

JEEPIS! Looking for a house can be a pain in the behind. Buyer's market? HAH! Not really. There really isn't a lot of selection out there. There are plenty of short sales and foreclosures, and that means you battle with a bank. So regular sales are really hard to come by. But we're definitely jumping in the market. So hopefully we'll find something...