Day 2 was another busy day for us. I pretty much tried to cram in seeing as many people as I could in one day. I really need to apologize to everyone for such a tight schedule. (>_<) After waking up and munching on a granola bar, Krista and I left our hotel at around 10 am to start walking towards Times Square. We made it to Ippudo by 10:30 am and pretty much waited right in front of the restaurant until it opened. Tian came shortly after and we chatted as we waited for Eva to arrive. It was a good thing we arrived early cause we got seated not long before it began to fill up. I was so stoked to be eating Hakata ramen again because it was the one thing I missed the most from Kyushu. I was also super happy with our salad and our order of hirata buns. I think overall the portion was just perfect for lunch, even though I had secretly wanted extra noodles. Hehe. The last thing we ordered was their hitokuchi tarts. I'm so glad we managed to fit in Ippudo. I'm also really grateful to Tian and Eva for spending the morning with us. =)

Later on Tian walked us back to our hotel and we passed by the Best Buy Theater. There was already a HUGE lineup for the OOR concert and it was nowhere near opening time yet. I made a mental note to get in line earlier because the line up already wrapped around the corner. (@_@)

By the time we made it back to the hotel, Tammy was already there waiting. I bid farewell to Tian and then we went up to our room so Tammy could drop off her bags. Then it was straight to Uniqlo for shopping. I spent a small fortune inside the store and probably would have spent more if we didn’t limit our time inside. Afterwards we stopped by Paris Baguette for a snack. I tried their royal pudding, which came in this really cute glass bottle and their sangria peach tea. The pudding was really yummy but their tea was soooo sweet that I had to ask them to dilute it for me. LOL.

After dropping off our purchases, we were back again at Carmine’s for our early dinner. It was way too early to eat, but we knew we had to grab something before the concert. Since Carmine’s is a family style restaurant with really large portions, we ended up ordering just their four pasta special for the three of us. However, it still ended up being way too much food. Since we didn’t want to waste it, we ended up doggy bagging it and dropping it off at our hotel before we got in line for the concert.

Once we got back to the theatre, the line up had gone down a few blocks. It was pretty insane the amount of people coming to see OOR. I was totally expecting more Japanese/Asians in line, but the majority were Americans of all different ethnicity. I was so amazed.

As we waited in line, we tried to sell off our extra concert ticket. Both Krista and I took turns holding a little sheet of paper with ‘Ticket for Sale’ written on top. It was super embarrassing. It was also a futile attempt, because no one was interested in the ticket. Lol. Since we didn’t want to seem like we were scalping tickets, nor did we want the ticket to go to waste, Krista ended up just giving the ticket away for free. I’m sure we made someone really happy. =)

It started snowing while we were waiting, so everyone was really trying to bundle up to stay warm. After an hour of waiting, we finally started moving. It took another half an hour or so before we got through the door. Once we made it inside the theatre, I went to grab my t-shirt I had pre-ordered, while Krista stood in line for the con goods. Tammy and I went inside the theatre to check out the layout and surprisingly there were seats towards the back. We ended up grabbing seats, since it was already packed towards the front.

The concert itself started at 7:30pm. I was super happy when they started playing. They sounded awesome live and they pretty much coordinated all the ‘dance’ moves to the music. Taka was just hilarious jumping all over the place. I wish I could be the guy who gets paid to untangle his cords. LOL. I was a little sad that we were in seats, but I also didn’t want to risk being trampled by all the tall Americans if I was out at the front. =P

Taka was really cute speaking English to the crowd. His only fail of the night was during his intro, when he gave a shoutout to all the fans in LA. Me and Tammy just looked at each other questioning if that moment had really happened. LOL. But other than that, his English was quite endearing. I was also amused by his overuse of the ‘F’ word. I guess it makes him seem more American when he says that? The funniest part was when he was trying to instruct the crowd in English, telling everyone to squat down. Everyone was kind of confused by his choice of words and/or the actual action of having to squat down. Taka was like, “Did I say that wrong? Squat is really hard to enunciate.” Then when it seemed like he was getting impatient, he told everyone to “just get down!”. ROFL

Anyway, the concert was pretty amazing. The best part was when they came back for the encore and sang Wherever you are. Definitely one of my favourite songs. I also finally realized I’ve been pronouncing their name wrong the entire time. Apparently Japanese people say ワンオクロック – which literally is 1 o’clock. It was so cute when Taka asked the crowd what time it was. For a split second I was going to answer 9 o’clock, which was the actual time. Hehe.

Since we were still on a concert high after the concert ended, we went to Duet for two hours of karaoke. There was so much kanji/katakana reading fail, it was awesome. Finally we called it a night and made our way back to the hotel. Such a great way to end a perfect evening. =)