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mandssisters · 7 years

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Laditude - GOTR takeover Latitude 15th July 2017

The road to Latitude was a long road, the 8 hour drive made me feel like I should have been in the states travelling to a local gig! Whereas in the UK…… a LONG DRIVE!

Arriving Thursday for the weekend, we set up basecamp amongst Waitrose shoppers! (Personally I am more Lidls) (more Waitrose later) A great pitch location within short walking distance for the Sausage Pork Shack (that’s breakfast sorted) and loo’s…. close but not too close! Despite packing lite the load was indeed heavy!

Off to the main festival site for the afternoon evening. Latitude had a character all of its own. Delightful wooded areas, the river, the waterfront stage, comedy arena, lake stage, theatre and other music zones. The main stage Obelisk Arena was set at the bottom of a natural hill so made a great arena, unlike other festivals at the back was a GA set of tiered seats. Great idea.

Lots of quirky stalls to spend one’s hard earned cash. Merchandise purchased. Finally I get my hands on a Garratt Tee shirt. Can you ever have too many t-shirts? We found a tasty food stall making great Tibetan cuisine, a real treat.

The lockers. When booking we selected the option of a secure locker, in the mind you see a gym locker, the reality was quite different. All very organised and secure, but only the size of first edition Harry Potter! The struggle was real to get all the newly purchased merch inside! At the cost of the camera, latitude pint glass and knitted cactus…… cannot have everything in life.

Being a tad tired we head back to camp and attempt to sleep……….. The hours between midnight and 7 am can be long can’t they!!!!! At least I rested!!!! Such a relief the Scousers next door had a great time……festival life.

Friday, exploring day. Pink Sheep, Lakes, river banks, gondola rides, comedy, ballet, music. We saw and heard it all. Went to see Charlie Fink in the theatre a very touching play. Another highlight being the BalletBoyz.

Demonstrating the high end nature of this festival, we browse a “living jewellery gemstone stall” tempted by the lapis necklace should or shouldn’t I spend money…. the lady next to me spots an amethyst lazer cut silver ring, the stall holder points out that it is indeed to most expensive item on the stand, her friend, what £200…. errrr no £2000. Lady next to me, places it on the hand stares at it for around 30 seconds and says, I’ll take it. The stall holder close to tears of joy can’t quite #believe. She pays on her credit card saying I’ll tell the husband later he just bought me a pressie. When in Rome the Lapis is indeed purchased! Bargain.

The 1975 were headlining so we decided to sit on the back row, what a great view and great set. This was the last date of the current tour, hardcore fans had been barriering it all day. An emotional good bye until October 2018! We’ve all been there. It was a chilly evening many layers were on, I was as usual rocking the homeless look. Back to basecamp to “warm up”. #fail.

A much better nights sleep, the ear plugs working their magic. Must have got at least a 6 hour snooze. The weather looked ok for the day, warm, but not hot, sunny but not on fire, but maybe light showers in the afternoon.

Pack a sweater and poncho, don the wellies.

Mixing up the day with a cheese and baked bean toastie for breakfast. Every night the festival ground itself is vacated and you camped off site. Festival Gates open around 10am, so we head back down and wander to the Obelisk Arena. The arena is taped off until the site is declared ready. It is has been transformed overnight into a GOTR stopover/takeover. With Willis flags flying proudly around the arena and new stage surround added. We meet a Nanny that is paid to sit on site over the weekend to make sure her crew are behaving! This was her 10th year! Tempted by the offer of a £70k a year job in Dubai we refused!

B, G, S, and F arrive! Yay! The gang are here. A very causal dropping on the tape and the cruise to the barrier is easy. Wot no bag search, hole punching of tickets, queueing for wrist bands, and steps, front row and never had been such a breeze!

The stage is very high, I guess because of the hill, also down the front there is an uneven layer of sand/gravel which makes for a messy seat! Hiding cables I guess but ruining the arse of the trouser!

The very best sound check for a good 30 mins prior to their opening set. Seye is working with Gorillaz on the Humanz tour. I think his absence was definitely noted. Wot no WE OK in Sight! They had a tough crowd, first up, early in the afternoon and to a bit of a lame crowd. Maybe the Waitrose crowd don’t wake up until after the sun passes the yard arm. Good set none the less.

Ben appears on stage to announce Lucy Rose, this was indeed the largest audience she had ever played in front of. I can’t remember much of her set as I was “struggling”, all I can say is thank god for Tang Tastics. Never have I needed you more! Lucy I am sure did a great acoustic set. #tired.com

It suddenly gets really crushed and tightly packed down the front, all exit plans are now waived from the mind. Milky chance, nope I hadn’t heard of them, but clearly Waitrose Kid shoppers had. It was rammed down there with mosh pit circle dances gaps and barrier ramming being undertaken. Oh it was fun! They were very good. Just what the soul need post L.R.

Glass Animals next, again, crush fest, the stage dressing was a large golden pineapple, this brought a smile to my face…… party like a 🍍 #fondmemories they were really good, a great tonic. Bashing out tune after tune. Clearly they were having a great time as well. The fan base of course bringing inflatable pineapples and pineapple sunglasses, said pair live on in DDD thanks to the careless actions of a fan! But the careful squirrelling of said DDD fan!

More peeps than ever now down the front for Two Door Cinema club. Great stage graphics, great tunes, saw them at Glastonbury last month and they never disappoint. Surviving all three of the last acts was a bit of a feat of endurance, but we did it.

The teenage Waitrose shoppers had now dispersed by around 20% so we now had room to dance around again. Leon Bridges was totally awesome and oh so talented, he had all the moves, very 50s rockabilly but with a modern twist. Great soul in his voice. It’s not every one who can carry off the cricket whites look! He did a blinding set.

By now it was 2045 hours and only 45 mins until Mumford!

Throughout the day the stopover was old Skool and used linen fabric backdrops to showcase the artist. Mumford indeed went old skool and had the same stylish graphic set up. I don’t think we will see the May pyro stage set again.

2130 and OMG the boys were right on the button. They blew me away from the start. Opening with Snake Eyes, I’m not sure where the bounce came from, (hula hoops) (Capri sun) (Tang tastics) (sesame bars), but it was there from the first chord. Loved this show.

The tunes flowed, the chaps clearly having a blast and enjoying it as well. Very much a festival set, mixing it up. Hearing the songs from Johannesburg again, Baaba Maal throwing his shapes and the beauty that is Si tu Veux, Marcus taking lead on Wona, it was a real carnival set. I will never tire of hearing those songs. Love love love.

Up and coming artist Maggie Rogers and fellow takeover artist joined them for Awake My soul. Sounding beautiful.

Too soon it was Ditmas, will he or won’t he risk the Waitrose run…. of course he did! We did worry about the quantity of inflatable sofas, picnic blankets, camping chairs in the arena! NO one got hurt! He made it back to the stage!

Encore to Blind Leading the blind. Then the gathering of friends and fellow performers for “With a little help from my friends”. Another classic, spotting JQ, Leon Bridges, Maggie Rogers, The Very Best, Gill Landry. Marcus shaking the life out of a tambourine never fails to make one smile. What a great takeover. Latitude loves the Sons.

As per Marcus’s instructions we took the aftershow party to Jack Garratt. That boy was at the top of his game. It’s not many that can pull of a matching shirt and shorts combo, but he wore it with pride. We sang, we laughed, we dance the sole out of our wellies. What an atmosphere. Epic. Blinding. Outstanding! Can’t wait for his formal return with album two. I think it’s fair to say Jack loved it as well, doing his mini “celebratory Ditmas” run around the front pit hi fiving everyone.

Still buzzing from Mumford and Jack, we head onwards to the GOTR bar and the Sunset Arena for a spot of chilling and lounging with HBOV. It’s a lovely area to chill on a log and to reflect on a great weekend, well done chaps, you pulled off another blinder. High five. 🍹😎🌲🌳

Now nearly 3am we decide to call it quits for the day and head back to the comfort of the tent……. nope we didn’t find it.

Sunday… sorry to have missed you Fleet Foxes 🦊 but homelands beckons. Thanks to the person who donated the freecycle tent ⛺️ other people’s waste! 🤓

#mumford and sons #mumford & sons #marcus mumford #Ben Lovett #ted dwane #Winston Marshall #GOTR #gotr stopover #latitude

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greatplanettahoe · 7 years

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Japan Log Day 1

I kind of want to create a log of my time in Japan. I think it’d be fun, and from what I’ve heard, I’d be able to remember my trip better! There may be a day delay for me, at least for day one because that was all flying and lemme tell you, after a 13 hour flight, a 3 hour flight felt like NOTHING, haha. I felt like I played on my DS for a half hour and it was over. So, I don’t know when entirely I’ll post these, or if anyone cares, but I don’t. Because it’ll be fun for me to look back on and remember ;)

Day one - The day of insane travel

Our journey began as most other journeys do, of sitting at home, counting away the hours and having panicked thoughts of what you still need to do and what’s been done. My way of coping was to blast music - sorry Tegan - and stare blankly at a wall. Not productive when packing was half done. Luckily, I got everything ready about an hour before my friend came to pick me up. About ten minutes before, I began to stress clean. I guess that’s exciting? Lilia’s parents graciously took us to Vancouver In'tl Airport (YVR)- Canada. The car ride felt short. Shorter than I thought it was to get to the border. Right before we hit, we got to see the tiny little peace arch. Cool! Going in, the border guard is looking over our passports, doing the routine questions.

Then, he leans in and goes “Alauna?” and I sheepishly correct him as he clearly wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce my name. He informs me that I need to sign my passport and I need to do that before I check in at the airport otherwise they may not let me fly. OOPS! Luckily Lil’s dad had a pen that I could use otherwise I’d have to hunt for somewhere to sell a pen at the airport at MIDNIGHT! Getting into the country, I receive a text from my mobile provider. CONGRATS! T-Mobile works in Canada text/data free, call 20c/min. Neat!

After a pretty good wait in line - China Eastern is apparently a very popular company - and chatting with the nice lady in front of us we reach the airline official. Neither of our passports scanned into the computer. Probably because Lilia’s is 9 years old, mine’s 1 month. He was very kind, making sure that we knew our layover was between two different airports in Shanghai (more on that later, ugh) and asked us if we had any illegal items to which we both said no. He smiled and said “I trust you two, you both look very trustworthy”. He then noticed that we were seated at least 10 rows away from each other. With our permission he changed our seats to be together. Once he got our tickets, he pointed out what information we needed to know. Lilia got seat C, he was going to be in seat B, I in A …. wait. There is no seat B! :P With a very heartfelt thank you, we asked where the gates were and said our farewell.

Getting up to security, was a very small line with a long wait. It looked like the officer’s battery had died on his scanner and had to get a new one. Oh well. After that, it took about 2 seconds to make sure our tickets were valid - phew! and go onto phase two with the bag screening. They instructed us to put laptops in a separate tray. Confusedly, I ask the man why. He mentioned because laptops could be bombs. Which, I never thought about and by the look on my face, he must have understood and had a small smile as we thanked him. Lilia got through security fine. The metal detector beeped for me. Contrats, I’m wearing a bra, because that was literally why the detector beeped for me. Past that, we walked through a small mall with a bunch of stores, and very glittery flooring. Our gate was easy to find, and had a subway near us. We just got chips and ginger ale as we both weren’t feeling fantastic.

There’s not much meant to be said for the flight. Although, as it took off, Lilia looked at me and said; “I regret every jet I crashed in GTA 5”

It was nearly 13 hours and insane. Neither of us slept much, which sucked. But, at least it was quiet as pretty much everyone else did sleep. Except for one guy in the row beside us whose entertainment screen wouldn’t turn off and he was trying to sleep so he had his jacket backwards to cover his face LOL. I did kind of feel bad for him since it was legitimately malfunctioning. Their movie selection was pretty bomb. Lilia and I synced up our screens so we watched Furious 7 together. The airline provided us dinner. I accidentally got shrimp noodles, which thank you that my medicine works, and Lilia got some sort of beef patty and rice. There was also some sort of custard that was similar to cheesecake, but not entirely. It was delicious. We both tried to sleep for a while. Gave up. We got breakfast which was two adorable hash-brown patties, an omelette, and a very undercooked, disease sausage link which neither of us touched. At that point, Lilia started up Day After Tomorrow, and I started Secret Life of Pets … which got interrupted a total of a billion times. I managed to finish SLoP right before they cut off entertainment for landing purposes.

The drive after landing and getting to our gate was probably half the time of our flight. We get another text from T-Mobile. Welcome to China! Your phone has free texting, call 20c/min, and 2g unlimited data! AWESOME!

Immigration was easy, whom also informed us that our connecting flight was in a separate airport, security was easy (they have thermal screening, so that was definitely interesting!), and getting our luggage was SUPER easy. Customs, we had nothing to declare so went through that line no prob, and exited the airport into a throng of people all shouting ‘taxi!’. One guy dogged us for a long time and we eventually rolled with him as the bus to take us to Honquaio was in another hour and we only had four before our other flight. Driving in Shanghai is terrifying. Our driver nearly creamed 2 people on mopeds, and almost hit countless other cars. I never want to drive in Shanghai. As nice as the city was, there was no telltale building style, and all the buildings were insane colors. I saw an apartment complex that was hot pink. OK. We arrive at the airport, to where the cabby swindled us out of a little more money than what we agreed on, but both of us were tired and didn’t care at that point. The line in this airport was about two times longer than YVR, but went quickly enough. Again, getting to our gate was super easy, and we had about an hour of downtime before boarding.

Second flight felt way too short, and they provided us with spaghetti and another of those delicious cluster squares! Hell yeah. I think I played my DS for the entire time, but it was hard to tell since the flight felt super short.

Getting into Japan, immigration was NUTS. The line was insanely long, although it went quickly. Got fingerprinted so if I crime in Japan, they’ll know it was me. Shucks. Too bad I wasn’t planning on anything anyways. We both had our first experience with a Japanese western toilet which I’m now convinced they all have bidets since our hotel toilet has one too. FYI, the seats are very warm when you sit on them, and the one in the airport played gentle music to mask the fact that I had the best racehorse pee in the universe. Sorry, TMI? We get ANOTHER text from T-mobile. HOORAY! Your phone works! Free text, 20c/min call, 2g unlimited data! WHAT?! I wasted $40 on SIM cards before we left, and now we don’t need them! Oh well, lol.

Hitting up the international ATM, my card was declined. WHAT!? I had called my bank, so they should know I’m here! I managed to get the attention of an airport lady who graciously tried helping, but it declined for her too. Lilia was able to get out some cash. What the heck?! We asked the airport lady where the Keikyu line was and if Pasmo was over there, and she instructed us what to do. We thanked her for her time and assistance. Meanwhile, there was another American having the same problem as I. I noticed his card had a chip. Lilia’s didn’t. Ding ding, it’s the chip. We got sodas and some Japanese candy and a fruit cup, got Pasmo’s and went to the station towards Kawasaki - after a little help as we didn’t see our stop.

The train wasn’t too terribly crowded. But, went approximately the speed of a fighter jet. My shoulder and back is still sore for hanging on for dear life while making sure my luggage didn’t go anywhere. There was a lady I kept bumping into and I kept apologizing whenever I did though she just smiled and told me it was OK. There was also a nice man there who watched us to make sure we were OK and whenever another train passed us, make a slight thunking noise, probably had a great internal laugh at my face whenever I had a slight panic about it.

Getting off the station and heading down some steps, there are apparently designated sides which you move. We went down halfway the wrong way, realized, and moved over with our luggage. Sorry! Walking here is definitely interesting. There’s people crossing the streets, not even really looking. I think we saw 1 personal car on our walk to the hotel.

Getting into Noanoa was easy. Manager was SUPER nice, got our luggage taken to the room, and let us stay in the spa room while we waited the last hour before the official check-in time. While there, Lilia opened up her fruit cup, which has jello instead of juice, and I had my candies which were DELICIOUS, and apparently limited time, so guess what I’m buying more of once I get cash? Because Japan is a very cash-heavy type of country.

Our hotel room is a little small, but nothing we can’t handle. I’m sure Lilia feels weird actually being on par or taller than most the people we’ve passed walking to the hotel. We spent half the day exploring the tiny room, seeing what was on TV and being very confused over a child’s show before turning it off. We figured out google translate, and have translated pretty much everything in our room. We still need to figure out the unit on the wall, but we at least know lighting, what the controls are on the bidet, and how to work the mechanical nightmare that is the shower. We put on a Youtube show that we both like, and I crashed just before 7PM after roughly 24 hours of travel and not sleeping. Lilia poked me awake and we officially went to bed around 7PM.

We have not eaten since at least noon on the flight, and it’s going on 14 hours. Yeesh.

Our plans today, as I’m finishing this up around 2PM, is to visit an actual bank so I can hopefully withdraw cash, find somewhere to eat, and hit up a couple parks and museums. There’s also the Keihin Fushimi Inari shine that we’ll probably explore. Today is slotted to be a low-key day as we’re both pretty tired even after sleeping for a solid 12+ hours.

Note: Edited for easier reading

#Japan Log #Day 1 #Japan Trip #This blog is a day behind just fyi

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