Wicked Osaka..

Wow.. what an experience!
If you get the chance to go to Osaka and the show is still on, GO SEE IT!
(Go see it Cassie! You'll love it!)

The theatre is actually situated in a high-rise building on the 7th floor, so it was odd to attend a theatre not in its own building.
Went and collected my ticket from the box office and because the doors weren't open to the theatre, decided to check out what was in the actual building. Found this neat SONY store and chocolate shop, so being me bought 2 chocolates.. but still haven't eaten them yet as she put them in a pretty box!!

The whole building was decked out in wicked stuff, even Osaka station across the road! It was fun hunting for signage to take photos of.

When the doors opened i headed in.. i think i was the only gaijin (jap for foreigner) who walked through their doors for the day, maybe even the month! haha
I did notice though that everything in the theatre including advertising, cast board, food and beverage list was all in Jap.. so it meant i had no clue who i was seeing, what they were advertising or what i could eat and drink!
But what surprised me the most was when i walked up to one of the many merch booths and the girl who served me could speak perfect english!

Don't even get me started on the merch they have here.. it's 100x better than in Aus! They have your t-shirts, cd, programs (2 types, one in japanese which i got, and an english version which is the around the world in one short day book! haha).. but then they have pencil cases, book covers, items to hang off your phone, pens, bags, wicked teddy bears... even food!! If i had a lot to spend, i would have bought a lot more than i did today.

The production as a whole was amazing. I thought at one stage i would either get bored or tired as i wouldn't know what was going on.. but i could understand it all which was good. I think the mini USJ version helped me out with that one..
I did notice though, either they cut out a lot of the jokes (i noticed some had been from the script) or the japanese audience just don't like to show emotion. At first i was the only one laughing.. then i stopped as i noticed no one else was. And they didn't clap after every song! It was so odd!! I did notice though that the script has been changed quite a bit to relate to the audiences here. Thank god for Glinda as the comical relief is all i can say..

But i have to say.. overall.. it was an amazing production. I still cannot believe that i actually got to see it :-) Watch out aussie cast, i think the Jap crew may have just taken over your spot as no.1 in my eyes ;-) The cast put everything into the performance.. the dancing is outstanding, their voices are out of this world (especially Glinda and Elphaba.. watch out Lucy and Jemma), when they tumble they fall so hard you can hear their bones crack on the stage (even nessa-rose does a decent job with her fall), the wizard literally gets tossed against the wizard head when fiyero finds him.. and glinda at one stage starts to bang her head against the bed/matress when elphie won't tell her a secret! It's crazy stuff!

A few technical problems but i dont think anyone but me would have noticed haha. Their stage is narrower and shorter i think than ours, so the staircase is different. The music sadly doesnt flow as well because of the different dialogue but it was still well done. The costumes are very similar to the ones in Aus, but i think Glinda's bubble dress here has more sparkle. Her wand is different to ours.. she actually has 2 different wands for the show.. the second one is just wire so she bashes the hell out of it when she throws it down haha. Oh, and i have now seen every ballgown this production has to offer :-D
Have to say though.. the guy who operated the dragon.. wow dude, you're going to break that thing one day!!

Did i mention their curtain call went for nearly 10 mins? Haha, it was great!! They deserved it.

Once wicked had finished, i then wandered around Osaka station for nearly an hour trying to find an ATM. I had no luck, so went to the tourist info place and they told me to go into this building and a post office ATM would be there.. well, i found 5 atms but no post office one. So tried them all and my card wouldn't work. After another 15 mins of trying to work my way around the streets to another building where an international atm was meant to me.. i seriously felt like stopping in my tracks and crying i was so frustrated and lost. The map i have has no street signs, but then again.. there are no street signs here!
So i gave up on trying to find an ATM and got a message from Tadasi wondering if i was at USJ. So i popped into USJ on the way home and met up with him for a bit, then finally found an ATM outside of the park so i took out money for tomorrow/tokyo and headed back to the hostel.

Big night of packing tonight.. then catching the train to Tokyo hopefully around 12. Fingers crossed i make it there safe!
I think that's all from today.. if i remember more i'll update this post later :-)