Found this MTV – inside: Yu Aoi, that they probably aired for the release of Dandelion back in 2007 with photographer Yoko Takahashi (aka. Yoko-san) who photographed Yu on Travel Sand (USA, and a bit of Mexico) and Dandelion (Russia).

No subs, does anybody know what they are talking throughout all the video? After the break~

— June 18th 2009 EDIT —

Thanks to kitty once again for the translation!

Aoi Yu: This is Mr. Yoko Takahashi, who traveled with me for my photobook. I mean, the photographer. *laughs* That wasn’t a very good intro, was it?

Aoi Yu: Cute! How cute! When you come out of the parking spot, you have to go really carefully, right?

Takahashi: You’ll probably want a smaller car. It’s a stick shift, though. Why don’t you get your driver’s license for a manual transmission automobile?

Aoi Yu: I know… I’ve been thinking I need to get my driver’s license.

Takahashi: The inside is really cute too.

Aoi Yu: Yeah.

Aoi Yu: The plan (for the photobook Travel Sand) was to go to Death Valley.

Takahashi: It was more of a joke..

Aoi Yu: Right, we kinda said it as a joke.

Takahashi: It got up to 55 degrees (Celsius. 133 degrees in Fahrenheit for the Americans) in Death Valley. It was so hot, so we thought it would be fun to go somewhere super cold next time.

Aoi Yu: If we traveled somewhere that was -45 degrees..

Takahashi: A 100 degree difference!

Aoi Yu: That’s right. We would be able to experience a 100 degree difference. So we were like, let’s go! Although perhaps we should’ve gone to a cool place after a hot one!

Takahashi: But I definitely thought that a winter landscape would suit her.

Aoi Yu: And we even got to ride on the Trans-Siberian railway.

Takahashi: Right, right. Last time we traveled by car ( note – for the previous photobook ), so we decided to change things up and take a train. These types of little things…

Aoi Yu: Yeah, a lot of these

Takahashi: A lot of these little things.

Aoi Yu: We gave it a lot of thought.

Takahashi: We went to Habarovsk ( Russia ) from Niigata ( Japan) by plane. In Habarovsk we went around the neighborhood, barging into houses being like, “Let us take pictures!” “Look, it’s that elderly man’s house,” stuff like that. After we took some pictures, we got on the Trans-Siberian railway at Habarovsk until Irkutsk. There we went around the villages and mountains to places were the minority peoples were likely to be. From there we traveled by plane to Vladivostok, and then we came back to Niigata city. The airplanes were awful!

Aoi Yu: The planes! (laughing) It was like, how do you sit in this?

Takahashi: There was no reserved seating… And the seats reclined so far back one had to wonder if they were broken.

Aoi Yu: And when we were about to take off, the overhead baggage area started making noise, “BAM! BAM!” But all the Russian people didn’t even bat an eyelash at it. And when we were waiting for our connecting flight, the chair in the waiting room was completely broken! I couldn’t sit, it was so tilted! I was like, this is supposed to be a chair, not a slide!

Takahashi: And then we went to one of the villages there…

Aoi Yu: Spontaneously.

Takahashi: Spontaneously. We asked an elderly woman to show us her house. Upon entering…

Aoi Yu: Right, on the dinner table there were this hat, this cute hat…

Takahashi: A fur hat.

Aoi Yu: …just sitting there.

Takahashi: Even before going there, we we wanted to buy a hat…if there was a cute one. But we couldn’t find any.

Aoi Yu: We couldn’t find any we liked. And then we went inside and… there it was…it was almost unreal…

Takehashi: Unreal!…What was that all about, anyway!?

Aoi Yu: I don’t know! I’ll never forget that picture! It was as if someone was telling us, “here you go!” So I asked the lady… I knew I would regret it if I didn’t ask her. I asked, “Would you mind selling me that hat?” And she was like, “Of course, no problem!” We were really lucky. I fell in love with that hat. I wore it all the time.

Takahashi: That hat really was cute.

Takahashi: It was like a school club trip on that train. It was really dry inside the train so we were always drinking tea. The hot water was located at the far end of the train car and you had to go and draw the water using your own cup. And for some strange reason, Aoi Yu acted like my junior at school, always being like, “Do you want more tea? I’ll get some more!’, and I would be like, ‘Please!’ She worked really hard!

Aoi Yu: I really couldn’t help out with anything else, so I became the person in charge of mealtime.

Takahashi: She would arrange all the foreign food, wash plates, things like that. She acted like the younger student trying to please her senior.

Aoi Yu: I would sometimes neglect my duties. Sometimes.

Aoi Yu: Everyone ( I’m assuming she’s referring to the photographer and the rest of the staff ) was completely out of it, kinda lounging around, not worrying about anything. And then it would be like, “Oh, let’s try taking a picture.”

Takahashi: Right, right. I would say something like, “Let’s take a picture,” as if I had just remembered. ( the purpose of the trip ) We wanted to ride the railroad just a little bit longer, right?

Aoi Yu: I wanted to ride it all the way to the end.

Takahashi: Right.

Aoi Yu: All the way to Moscow.

Takahashi: If you take it all the way to Moscow, from one end of the line to the other, the ride takes 8 days 7 nights.

Aoi Yu: We only rode for 3 days, 2 nights. It was over in the blink of an eye!

Takahashi: I wouldn’t mind not being able to take a bath for a week.

Aoi Yu: Me too..

Takahashi: I don’t think that’s something an actress should do.

Aoi Yu: I guess that wouldn’t be very good.

Takahashi: After that long, we’d probably be all damp with sweat.

Takahashi: It was such a strange country…

Aoi Yu: And yet it’s so close to Japan! I was surprised at the distance. I mean… I’ve seen it on the map, but only after going there did I come to understand how close it really it.

Takahashi: It just happened that way. What I mean is…

Aoi Yu: Yoko didn’t wear any makeup either.

Takahashi: Well, yeah, I didn’t wear any makeup either.

Aoi Yu: When we were shooting pictures for Travel Sand, Ms. Muto didn’t have any makeup on. Ms. Tannai (the stylist) who came with us this time also didn’t wear any makeup. Everyone is more surprised when I actually do wear makeup. Like today, for example, it’s really kind of embarrassing.

Takahashi: I get really nervous! It’s like, “She’s wearing makeup!”

Aoi: Please don’t look at me like that.

Aoi Yu: When we were in Siberia, I got really swollen. My eyes were like, whoah.

Takahashi: But that was, in a way, good. You wouldn’t usually get to see that side of Aoi. Looking at it, you think, “how cute!” … “Who the hell is this??”

Takahashi: How would one put it into words… she doesn’t come off to strong. That’s a weird way of putting it, isn’t it? It’s kinda like she becomes one with the scenery. That’s what I like about shooting her.

Aoi Yu: That’s kinda embarrassing.

Takahashi: She’s not like a model. What I mean is… Well, in any case, she’s a strange creature.

Aoi Yu: Not as strange as you, Yoko.

Takahashi: Where will we go…?

Aoi Yu: Well, we went to a hot place and then a cold place. Now we have to head to someplace way up high. And then, to switch it up, we’ll have to go someplace low.

Takahashi: Disregarding all of that, where do you just want to go? For the next photobook? Do you have a place in mind?

Aoi Yu: I want to go to Africa.

Takahashi: Africa, huh? I’ve yet to set foot on the African continent.

Aoi Yu: Let’s go!

Takahashi: The great Savannah and Aoi Yu … A giraffe and Aoi Yu.

Aoi Yu: …chasing after me.

Takahashi: Right, right, right! So I guess next time you’ll probably be dressed pretty light.

Aoi Yu: I was dressed super heavy this time around.

Takahashi: This time around it’ll be just a loincloth.

Aoi Yu: And go *mimics African tribal dance*? Hahaha. How will it turn out?