Madonna live at the Osaka Dome

This past weekend was a three-day weekend in Japan because Monday was Respect for the Aged day. In celebration, I went to Osaka for a Madonna concert. I have never seen Madonna live before, and she is an amazing performer. It was quite a show. On Saturday, my friend Susanne came to Wakayama City and we had dinner with Theo and Shogo at an all-you-can-eat-in-90-minutes restaurant. Needless to say, I was quite stuffed after about 60 min, but I pushed on. Then we headed to a 24-hour bookstore (crazy, I know) and picked up a few books. I am buying lots of kid’s books that tell you what things are in English and Japanese. Who knows, maybe by June, I’ll have the vocabulary of a three year old!
Sunday morning Susanne and I headed to Osaka fueled by a breakfast of coffee and cake. It was like when I was little and Grandma Frazier let me have leftover birthday cake for breakfast. We went to a really crappy part of town because people had suggested a cheap hotel there. Erring on the side of safety, I decided that we should find other accommodations. So we got back on the subway and went to Shinsaibashi in Umeda and found a much nicer hotel in a great shopping area. We shopped for a little bit, then headed to the Osaka Dome.
We arrived about 5:30 and found our seats, which weren’t too bad. A little far, but an unobstructed view. Theo and I spent about 10 min. texting each other and standing and waving to try and find one another, but never did. I wanted to get better pictures of the stage, so we snuck down to the lowest part of our section, which was basically field level. Soon the concert started and instead of being rude and walking in front of people to return to our seats, we found two empty seats in the 2nd row on the end and stayed there. We had an excellent view of the stage. As I said, Madonna puts on quite a show. Her singing was perfect, even while dancing around stage for 2 hours. And she’s 50! She sang old and new songs, only a few I didn’t know. She was accompanied by a Muslim-looking guy, whom she referred to as “Frank Sinatra,” for a few songs. He had such a beautiful singing voice, both in English and whatever the other language was (Arabic?). The dancers just blew me away with their strength and choreography. For one song there were monkey bars set up across the stage and the male dancers glided through and around them like a Cirque de Soliei show. They also did a roller skating routine and break dancing, which I love to watch. She put a 70’s beat to some of her older songs which I really liked. Sometimes live performances don’t sound as good to me, but in this case, I enjoyed all the songs better than the originals on CD. How she danced and sang for 2 hours, I do not know, but it was an excellent show. I would absolutely see her again!
On the way out, I helped the clean up crew out by removing one of the posters advertising the concert with Madonna’s picture and the info in Japanese. Soon, everyone was pitching in and taking the posters down! Aren’t we helpful? :)
Susanne and I went back to the area around our hotel where there is a Mexican restaurant that everyone says is the best. It was pretty good, but I’d say more Northern California Mexican, than Southern. And we all know that nothing beats San Diego Mexican food! But it was a nice change.
We left Osaka after a little more shopping on Monday, and headed to an outlet mall in Rinku Town. The outlets were very nice, and finally, with an almost empty wallet, we headed home.
By the way, all the Madonna pictures were taken with my cell phone. They turned out pretty well!