Taylor Swift Japan World Tour 2011

The Girls and I outside the Budokan

For Christmas, my parents typically send a small gift to each of us, and then send money, so we can all just buy something we really want/need. This year, we took that money from them and bought Taylor Swift tickets. Taylor was playing at the Nippon Budokan arena (known world wide for its great acoustics- a lot of live albums are taped here...though Scott didn't think the acoustics were that good!) on February 16th and 17th. The dates actually fell on the girls Mid-Winter break, so they did not have school on Thursday or Friday!


What Hanna did most of the concert

It started out with Hanna declaring a few days before that she "DID NOT LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT" anymore...uugh. She held tight to that idea, and was not very excited to go. I thought for sure she would change her mind once we got there- but, that didn't happen. She paid attention for about 1/2 the concert (at first, complaining that this was her "first" concert, and we were "making" her see Taylor Swift!), but then played on my iPhone, sat down and listened and eventually just laid across our seats and tried to sleep (we didn't get out of the concert until 9:30, so she was tired). The good thing is she did not ruin it for any of us- not much complaining or crying....


Singing on the Stage by our Seats

..which was great because Maya had an ABSOLUTE blast. It was both girls first concert, so she didn't have any idea of what to expect. Her first words were "is she going to just sing the whole time"...then, she completely got into it. She stood on her chair, sang her little heart out..I have never, ever seen her so excited and pumped up about anything in my life. It was so fun for Scott and I to see her so excited. There was a small stage set up right to our right- we were literally as close to it as you could get. Part way through the concert, to our delight, Taylor Swift walked down the Aisle to this stage and sang three songs there- two to three feet away!


On the Stage right next to us!

She sang Fifteen, Fearless and You Belong With Me right in front of us, then proceeded to walk off the stage and walk around and high five a lot of the kids! Maya got a high five and a guitar pic from her- she kept saying "I am NEVER going to wash my hand again", "I can't believe she touched me"- she now says her left hand is her "lucky" hand! It was in my opinion, the absolute best first concert experience ever, and worth every penny. Taylor Swift puts on a nice show, had a great voice and is really just a great role model for kids- it was clean, exciting and fun!! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Murphy!


At the End of the Concert