Two Nights of 2PM at the Tokyo Dome
Preparing to Depart
Until this trip, I had never been to Japan.
Unless you count the time I transferred flights in the Tokyo airport on my way to a conference where I will always remember being outsmarted by the toilet.
The toilets in Japan are all very smart.
So, when my friend Colleen said that she wanted to go see one of her favorite K-pop groups, 2PM, who were playing a reunion concert after a 15 year hiatus, I of course jumped at the chance. Colleen is the curator of all my K-drama and K-pop experiences and I have enjoyed all the music and entertainment that she has introduced me to. Also, my personal philosophy is that if you have a friend who finds joy in something, you should support your friend in getting to do that thing.
So, we decided we would go to Japan and see 2PM.
Really, Colleen was going to do this whether I came along or not.
Colleen also wanted to see the cherry blossoms and so we decided we would fly in a week earlier and go further north to Hokkaido prior to the 2PM concert and then make our way to Tokyo via bullet train. The trains are among the many marvels of Japan and make you realize what the US could have, but doesn’t.
While reserving flights to Japan isn’t difficult, getting tickets to see 2PM was near-impossible for a non-Japanese person, deliberately so. Much of this is to prevent scalpers from buying up all the tickets. However, acquiring tickets proved to be one of the most difficult logistical parts of the trip. It begain by having to enter a lottery. Utilizing her research skills, somehow Colleen figured out how to do the lottery thing on her own, and then because we wanted to increase our chances of getting tickets, she walked me through the process too. It took hours to get this set up.
First, I needed to put a VPN on my phone that would make the phone look like the phone was in Japan.
Then, I needed to download a Japanese ticket app, e-Plus, to my phone, where the electronic tickets would eventually show up.
Then, I had to join two 2PM fan clubs because one wasn't enough and the initial lottery was only going to be for people who were fans in both their fan clubs. If you were in both clubs, then you got to enter the lottery before people who were only in one and obviously before the fans who clearly were not fans because they were not in a fan club.
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| My membership card (sent to our hotel in Tokyo by our kind sponsors for getting tickets) |
All this was done on my phone and in Japanese.
I do not speak or read Japanese.
However, google translate is a magic device and so as a result, this was done with Colleen’s phone on google translate hovering over my phone so we could navigate the different menus. Once we had the memberships in place and e-Plus downloaded to the phone, we then had to prove we were located in Japan. We accomplished this task because Colleen and her husband Brian have friends who actually do live in Japan. They kindly let us use their home address and phone numbers. Once we hit submit on the e-Plus account, they needed to be ready to receive a confirmation phone call. Once we had that set up, we applied for the lottery for two tickets for both nights.
And then we had to wait to see if we would get our tickets.
In the meantime, Colleen began to meticulously plan our trip and decided that she would go a few days earlier to be sure she saw the cherry blossoms.
It was a bit more than a month before we learned we both won the lottery and we were both now in possession of two tickets for both nights! Yay!
However, this was not the end.
Then, there was some sort of convoluted process where a real live person had to show up at a convenience store in Japan to “purchase” the tickets or something like that. Colleen handled this through some sort of international third party and I don’t really understand how or why this had to happen since we are talking about digital tickets. Still, it seems to be an anti-scalping tactic.
Anyway, after we had secured our tickets, there was a second lottery to get premiere seats and so we entered that lottery as well. For the original seats, we did not have to put the name of a companion in, but for the premier seats, you did. So once Colleen had entered the lottery for the premier seats, I couldn’t because my name appeared on her entry. At least we think that is what happened.
Another month went by and we found out we had “won” an upgrade to the premier seats for Saturday and then had our other seats for Sunday. It also seemed impossible, or potentially very difficult, to sell or transfer the remaining tickets, so we were basically sitting on four tickets for two people for each night.
Never fear – we did find additional concert goers (from Hawai‘i) for the second night.
I asked AI to make a graphic of these steps for clarity
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| AI Generated Workflow of Getting 2PM Concert Tickets When Not Living in Japan |
That accomplished, we could move on to the other aspects of our trip.
I did absolutely no planning beyond getting my plane ticket and purchasing a few hotels, one at the airport for the first night. Colleen planned everything with the help of Chat GPT and produced a 16-page itinerary for our trip. It turned out that in addition to cherry blossoms, it was Golden Week in Japan, a week of national holidays and family get togethers and so it was likely to be crowded wherever we went. Thus, she wanted to book train tickets early in case things got super busy.
After hundreds of hours of planning on Colleen’s part and me packing a bag and finding my passport, it was time to depart.
Crossing the international date line means that we lose a day heading there and gain it coming back. So, I left the morning of May 1st and arrived the evening of May 2nd after an 8ish hour flight. I had filled out all the online travel paperwork prior to departure and so clearing customs wasn’t hard. I had also watched the informational video (Colleen had provided these in the itinerary) on how to get from the international terminal to the domestic terminal and so I figured that out without too much difficulty. It helps that the airport has everything written out in English as well as Japanese.
For those who may travel, I recommend these to you:
Haneda Airport Transfer: International to Domestic
How to transfer to domestic terminals
My first night was spent at a hotel in the airport. Despite the self-check in option, it was clear nobody thought I could do this on my own, and so a very helpful hotel staffer checked me in. I’m not going to turn down help, especially after a long day of travel.
Perhaps one of the coolest things about Japanese hotels is that they come with pajamas! All the hotels. I have pictures.
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| Unflattering picture of me in the hotel pajamas |
The hotel rooms are smaller as a general rule than hotel rooms in the US, but in addition to pajamas, they also all came with tea pots rather than coffee makers, which is also a huge advantage over American hotel chains where I have to bring my own portable tea pot if I want tea that doesn’t taste like stale coffee.
The real test of international travel would begin the next day – not only did I need to check in for my flight to Sapporo, but once I got there, I also would need to take a train from the airport to the city and then the city subway to our hotel.
All by myself!
Sapporo
Fortunately, Colleen had written out explicit instructions and provided helpful videos for how to do this as well.
🚆 Train: JR Rapid Airport → Sapporo Station (~40 min, ¥1,150), taxi ~$100
NEW CHITOSE Airport to SAPPORO Station by TRAIN
I then wrote out all the steps and tried to follow them.
While I did manage to purchase a ticket for a reserved seat on the train from the airport to the city center, for some reason I never really understood, I needed a second ticket. As I was standing looking bemused, a helpful stranger tried to help me. When he couldn’t, he brought me to a train station employee who then helped me purchase the second part of the ticket. It had something to do with a ticket and then a second with my seat on it.
I think.
Also, the ticket machines are nearly sentient – they know when you are putting tickets in and then spit out the ones you will still need. Once, Colleen and I had to put 4 tickets in simultaneously and it just spit out the two we still needed.
Anyway, I made it onto the train to the city, made it off the train at the appropriate station, managed to purchase an IC card – these are rechargable cards you can use for the subway across Japan, as well as some vending machines, and then managed to get on the subway going the correct direction to the stop near our hotel. The one issue I have with subways is that when you pop up to the street again, it is generally difficult to orient yourself in the appropriate direction. That being said, after three or four wrong starts, I got headed in the correct direction and found the hotel!
The helpful staff walked me through the check in on the self-check in machine again. Technically, I couldn’t get to my room until the afternoon, but as I learned, Japan has very easy baggage storage everywhere – in hotels, in train stations, in the airport. They will even send your bags ahead of you to your next stop on super cute trucks with a cat logo.
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| These trucks are the ones that ship bags and presumably other stuff |
So I stored my bag, and waited for Colleen to get back from her morning activities.
After all the travel, this would be my first day being a tourist. I would only have one day in Sapporo before we moved on because we were on a very strict schedule.
Using our IC cards, we took the subway to Maruyama Park where everyone was enjoying the day. We stopped for ramen at the Holistic Biol Caf̩ Veggy Way Рa vegan ramen place by the train station. The ramen was tasty but the potatoes fried in some sort of rice flour were amazing. It turns out that Hokkaido is known for its potatoes and ice cream. We ate a lot of both, though these potatoes were definitely the best.
We spent a bit of the afternoon wandering through the park. While peak cherry blossom season was done, there were still lots of beautiful trees.
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| More Cherry Blossoms |
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| More Cherry Blossoms |
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| Cherry Blossoms |
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| Scenic Bridge, Scenic Path, and Very Vocal Crows |
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Woodsy Stream Scene
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This is where I learned that a) Colleen is afraid of bears and b) there are bears roaming the public parks and cities in Japan. There is even an app for bear sightings in Japan. This makes us good traveling companions because I’m not particularly afraid of bears, but I am very afraid of talking to people. Thus, I took on all bear repelling responsibilities for the trip. Colleen had to talk to people. Needless to say, I got the better end of that deal because we saw no bears.
After walking around the park for a few hours, Colleen deployed her translation and talking to people skills to get a taxi to the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art.
The museum was packed, in part, well technically based on where all the crowds were, entirely because there was a Pokémon exhibit.
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| Pokemon |
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| I'm sure people who follow Pokemon will see whatever this is referencing |
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| Cool Pokemon Cat |
With only some minor translation confusion when the very nice people in front of us gave us a coupon that turned out to only be for the Pokemon part and we wanted to see the whole museum, we purchased tickets and perused the galleries. In addition to the cool Pokemon art, there was a wing whose exhibit was about female artists (almost nobody was in there) and then some interactive exhibits on the top floor.
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| We just followed the line |
Outside of the chaos of the Pokemon part where the lines were super long, it was a peaceful and enjoyable venue and we sat for a bit looking out the window while I had a snack from the museum coffee shop and Colleen bought what turned out to be coffee (not hot chocolate) from a vending machine but then couldn’t throw it out because there are no places to throw out trash. This is a thing country-wide – there are very few trash cans anywhere and also no trash on the ground. Another huge difference between the US and Japan. In the US people just throw their trash everywhere. Not so in Japan – trash is your responsibility. No trash cans are in parks or normal venues. I did see a few in train stations right by vending machines, but that was it. She ended up dumping the coffee down the drain in the bathroom.
We made our way back to the hotel by subway and got ready for heading out to see the tower in Sapporo Station. The train station is many things – it obviously has trains, but it also has a ton of shopping, and in this case a really cool tower view that you paid about the equivalent of $6 to see.
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| View from the Tower of the City |
Then it was on to get some dinner.
Colleen had made a long list of places to eat in each city and sadly we didn’t get to try most of them. We did, however, get to try soup curry, one of the specialties in Sapporro and it was delicious. In what seems to be a regular thing, we had to wait in line to be seated, which ended up not being too long, but also meant this place was not intended for long leisurely dinners, but to eat and leave so the next group could sit down.
When we left, the line was as long as when we got there.
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| Waiting outside for a seat and my amazing curry bowl |
Heading back towards the hotel, we got ice cream and saw the city lights but didn’t stay out late because we had to get up pretty early to catch the train to our next destination.
Sapporo NorboribetsuHakodate
Colleen’s early weather report had said there was a 14% chance of rain today, which was good because our stop in Norboribetsu was to go hiking. However, the weather was considerably worse – it was pouring. All day long.
We left the hotel pretty early to be sure to catch our correct train and I was introduced to the wonder that is a 7-11 egg salad sandwich.
Hawai‘i folks who travel to Japan already know the amazing thing that is egg salad because everyone raves about them. First, 7-11 in Japan has real food for sale, not the chemical junk they sell in American 7-11s. They also have their own branded wine (which I learned about later).
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| 7-11 Wine |
Given we were heading out early, I picked up an egg salad sandwich to eat on the train. It was delicious and I had many of them over the next few days.
I also got a plastic rain coat because we would soon be hiking in the rain.
It was about an hour’s train ride to Noboribetsu Station and then we were going to catch a bus up to Jigokudani – Hell Valley.
We did battle with the luggage storage locker, got all our luggage into one, purchased our bus tickets, then got on a standing room only bus that barreled up the windy road towards Noboribetsu.
There were so many people on the bus and it was so rainy that the windows were steamed up and we couldn’t really see where we were going.
The town was pretty touristy with several hotels and lots of shops selling demon themed souvenirs.
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| Cool Light Pole Made from a Tree |
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| Demon Club |
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| Colleen with cute umbrella and Demon |
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| Bigger Demon |
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| Blue Bigger Demon |
We wandered up the hill towards the park, bought some cute umbrellas to help with the rain, and tried to figure out the best path to the foot baths where you could sit and soak your feet in the sulfur water.
It is worth noting that the garbage trucks played music.
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| The rain made it more steamy |
We never made it to the foot baths, either because we went the wrong direction, or because it was further than advertised.
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| Colleen with Umbrella in the Woods |
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| View of the Steam |
Either way, while it poured rain the entire time and my feet were completely soaked, it was an enjoyable experience to get to hike. I honestly don’t know why I don’t use an umbrella in the woods more often!
We saw no bears, but there were tons of people because it was still Golden Week. Lots of families were out enjoying a rainy walk through the woods just like us. We were definitely not alone in our woodsy adventure, which was good if some bear had jumped out at us. As we were walking back down towards town, we could see people waiting to pull into the parking lot – the Japanese clearly are unafraid of a little rain.
We found a nice café for lunch and enjoyed warming up inside and drying out a little (though my feet didn’t fully dry out until that night). Had more ice cream, because you can never really have enough, and then caught the bus back down to the train station.
Fortunately, we got to sit on the way back down. At some point on our trip Colleen joked that we are old enough that it isn't fun to stand but not old enough that people want to give up their seats for us. I guess we shouldn't complain.
Our next stop was Hakodate Station where we would spend two nights at the La’gent Stay Hakodate Ekimae hotel, which turned out to be across the plaza from the train station and easy to find.
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| Cherry Blossoms here too! |
The plan that evening was to try to take the city's ropeway tram to the top of Mount Hakodate to see the sunset and night views. It turns out that views are a thing in Japan and they are ranked. This one was one of the three great views of Japan, so clearly a must see. However, from what we could discern from the sign at the train station that would flash between Japanese and English, the tram was closed today because of the high winds. So we decided to wait and try it the next day since the clouds and rain meant it wouldn’t have been a super nice sunset anyway.
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| Hakodate had really cool sewer covers |
We went to dinner at a small restaurant at the train station that, it turned out, sold a local Japanese wine.
I didn’t even know Japan made wine, but they had both a white and a red. I attempted to order a glass, but they gave me the entire bottle. It didn’t seem worth the effort of trying to clear this up since the bottle wasn’t all that expensive. The wine was actually pretty tasty – light and flavorful. Despite really liking wine, I’m not good enough at descriptions to add much more. Colleen even tried some and liked it.
We went back to our hotel, the highlight of which was the Onsen. I had once been to an onsen in Taiwan when I was there for an academic conference. So I kind of knew what to expect but was excited to get to go to this one. I put on my hotel pajamas and slippers and went down to the second floor where the onsen was.
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| View of where you go in. Obviously no pictures allowed inside |
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| Another unflattering picture of me in my hotel pajamas |
Our next day was filled with activities – starting with taking a cab to Goryokaku Tower, another place to see a view. This activity was also packed with people, though the line and elevators were very efficiently managed. The tower overlooks the Fort Park and hosted a diorama of the history of the area and the building of the fort.
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| They had a glass window in the floor so you could see how high up we were |
We took in the city views for awhile and then tried the ice cream in the tower because Colleen's research had said there was locally flavored ice cream here. Upon reaching the ground level exit we found the actual ice cream place that sold local flavors. So we had to have more.
We then went over to the Fort to walk around. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of people out enjoying the sun and views.
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| The tower from the fort |
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| People enjoying rowing in the moat |
Then it was back in a Taxi to the Hachimangu Shrine which was on the other side of the city and partway up the mountain. We had sort of decided on taxis today because of all the travel across the city.
Then we took an Uber, which it seemed was just a different way to call a Taxi, towards the Motomachi Historic District where there were some historic churches and a famous view down a hill – the Hachiman-zaka Slope.
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| I'm not sure where the first best is... |
We walked around there and down the hill and towards the Red Brick Warehouse district close to the waterfront.
There was a tourist sign that showed all the different attractions in the area, one of which was the oldest concrete telephone pole in the town. I asked Colleen why that wasn’t on our itinerary since it was clearly a point of interest. She just said she had to make choices. Fortunately, it wasn’t too out of the way to see the concrete telephone pole so we took a little detour on our way to the warehouse district.
We were the only tourists there.
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| Modern Pole for comparison |
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| Me standing by the oldest concrete electric pole |
We did, however, inadvertently run across the Mama de Core bakery which was also on our list of places to go and so despite having had two servings of ice cream earlier, being really full from lunch at the Very Very Beast Diner where I had the Japanese equivalent of a loco moco, we ate cream puffs shaped like little bears.
Because we hadn't be able to get to the mountain for the view the night before, we took a taxi to the top for the sunset and views. Little did we know we were supposed to hire the taxi for both ways. Given the language barrier we didn't really get this point, thinking we would take the sky train back down despite the fact the taxi driver tried to confirm multiple times that we had a way back down the mountain.
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| Sunset |
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| Sunset and City view -- you can see how packed it is on the right |
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Not only was it cold and windy, but it was packed -- hundreds of people all crammed together to see the view and sunset. It was a spectacular view and well worth it. We stayed up there until well after dark and then began to think about how we were going to get down. The tram wasn't an option -- there was a line an hour long at least and we didn't have tickets yet. So that meant trying to find a new taxi. However, all the ones sitting up there had been hired by smart people who booked round trip. Fortunately, Colleen is not afraid to talk to people -- I may have just tried to walk down -- and she found us a cab relatively quickly.
We went to the hotel bar upon our return, called “The Sovereign,” which had a nautical theme to it. I was too tired to go to the onsen from our day’s adventures, even though we had taken a lot of cabs, we still had walked about 7 miles.
Onuma Hakodate Sendai
I started our next day’s adventure with breakfast at the hotel buffet. There was fried chicken, venison burger sliders, chocolate au pain, shrimp katsu, and of course potatoes. They had a super cute robot tray collector wandering around, though I never figured out how to put my tray on it.
Today we checked out of the hotel, stored our luggage and took the train to Onuma-Koen Station where the plan was to rent e-bikes, bike around the lakes there, and stop and walk around the “floating islands,” which don’t actually float, but we can pretend.
Helpful people waiting to rent us bikes were standing at the train station when we got there and walked us the block over to the place to rent bikes where we were given a short tutorial on how to use an e-bike, told not to lock them, and then to go “clockwise to the left,” which we took to mean counter-clockwise. Off we went and it was super fun despite being a very windy day.
When we got to the islands we parked our bikes, didn’t lock them, and then spent an hour or so wandering the looped islands with different styles of bridges connecting them. I can't imagine leaving an unlocked bike just sitting in a park in the US. Another pretty substantial difference.
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| Evidently there were bears here too |
Then it was back to Hakodate where we ate at an American themed very popular restaurant where we again had to stand in line – Lucky Pierrot. This is a chain of sorts and there were restaurants all over the city, all busy with lines. While American themed, the definition of “burger” is a bit broader here – I had the Chinese Chicken Burger.
Getting to Sendai was our first trip on a bullet train. I was so excited to get to experience this given it is yet another place where, beyond the superiority of their egg salad, the Japanese surpass us.
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| They look kind of like dophins to me |
We boarded our bullet train to Sendai from the Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto station and in many ways, they were quite similar to the normal trains – there was plenty of overhead storage, the seats reclined and were quite comfortable, and we had assigned seats. What was most interesting to me was not how fast they went, but how quietly they flew along the tracks. It really is such a wonderful way to travel.
Our hotel in Sendai was also attached to the railroad station, but this one was even bigger than the prior ones we had experienced. Still, following the signs led us to the hotel through floors of restaurants. The view from my hotel room was really lovely, but feeling the sway during the earthquake was a bit disconcerting (at least I think this was the hotel where we felt the earthquake).
We really only had one full day here but two nights so the next morning Colleen got up and got us tickets for the loopel bus – a tourist bus that allows you to get on and off at different points of interest throughout the city.
Our first stop was the Zuihoden Mausoleum which was a beautiful and scenic area with large trees and signs warning us of bears.
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| Bears AND Boars? |
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| Many of the shrines had been rebuilt to look like the older version, often after a massive fire, war, or other disaster |
We wandered back down the hill and through a neighborhood, then hopped back on the bus.
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Mail scooter delivering the mail
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The next stop was Sendai Castle, which really was just the foundation of the castle, but still offered a really great city view and a view of a really large Buddha across the way (which we did not get to) but was really big.
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| View of city from Sendai Castle grounds |
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| Beef Tongue |
We then stopped at the Osaki Hachiman Shrine and our last stop was at the Senda Mediatheque which was part library, part co-working space, part art gallery. We happened upon an exhibit of children’s books that was fun to look at, but no photos allowed.
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| Other visitors to the Shrine were also going to see 2PM! |
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| Shrine dwelling Roosters |
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| There was an interactive part to the exhibit where photos could be taken |
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| I had a beer from the vending machine because I could! |
Sendai
Tokyo
Our last leg took us from Sendai to Tokyo again on a bullet
train then from the train to the subway in Tokyo that, I will say, I was a bit
anxious about given traffic and stuff, but since we arrived after rush hour it
was not too bad.
The subway took us quite close to our hotel – the Tokyo Dome Hotel which is conveniently right next to the Tokyo Dome where 2PM was going to be playing. After dropping our luggage at the hotel because early check in isn’t really a thing here, we took the subway to Kagurazaka, where we had lunch at the Canal Café.
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| Water bird and very green water |
Evidently, this is where French cuisine meets Japanese excellence at everything. We wandered the small streets and enjoyed seeing the local areas, including an old geisha-district.
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| A fire hydrant, but I don't know how it works |
Then back at the hotel there was to be a short meet up of international fans of 2PM which turned out to be about 2 dozen middle aged mostly white women, one man, and someone’s teenaged son. Here is where I learned that everyone gifts 2PM related gifts sort of like at Burning Man, but for 2PM. I didn’t have anything to give, having not paid attention to the memo on that score.
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| Gift from one of the 2PM fans |
I hung out for awhile, but given the lack of bears and the very obvious presence of people who were strangers, I went back to my hotel room to recover from my social experience and left Colleen to commune with her people.
Saturday, May 9th was the exciting first day for us to see 2PM!
We spend some of the morning at the Koishikawa Botanical Garden where we saw a tree grafted from the Isaac Newton's apple tree and a grape trellis with grape vines grafted from Mendel's grape vine. There was a really beautiful Japanese garden part that was my favorite.
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| Grafted from Isaac Newton's tree |
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| This rock shaped like a sweet potato is a monument to the sweet potato and its role in staving off hunger |
While a large area, there didn’t appear to be any bear issues here either.
We found a cute sandwich shop for lunch but then it was back to the hotel to prepare for the concert.
Both nights the 50,000 person stadium was sold out. Colleen got a room facing the dome and so we could see the crowds gathering.
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| Basically all women heading into the event |
For our first night, we had “premium” seats which turned out to be on the floor by stage left. The stage itself was enormous – with a large main stage and two runways going off left and right. We got swag on the way in as part of our special fan status – a t-shirt and some other things. Everyone was really excited and there was such good energy. Venue staff were marching around with signs that said absolutely no photography during the show or they would remove you from the venue. We were all sitting waiting for the show to begin and Colleen was making friends with the other people near us.
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| Everyone has a wand -- the newer ones sync to the stage's light show |
Then it was time – the lights dimmed, the three hour show began. It really is a special experience to be in a mass of 50,000 people all directing their energy towards one thing. The group did not disappoint – each song was choreographed and included not just the singers but an entire phalanx of background dancers. Towards the finale I counted over 75 of them! From the moment it started, those of us on the floor stood up and nobody sat down again (except for me when they were talking in Japanese since I couldn’t understand them anyway). At different points, the shot streamers in the air (that had special words from the group on them), they went up in air balloons and were floated around the arena, they also rode carts around closer to the back part of the stage. There were videos to go with the music, and different sections of the stage would elevate up or bring them beneath the entire apparatus. It was a show. We had all been given a poster with a saying on it – upon a signal everyone in the entire audience held up their posters for the group to see.
When it was over, the crowd was so well-ordered that we all just sat back down until we were called to leave. Crowd management really is an art the Japanese have mastered. As we walked back to our hotel, many of the rooms facing the Tokyo Dome had 2PM signs in them.
2PM Day 2
The second concert was set to start much earlier than the Saturday event and so we didn’t have much planned for today. The doors would open at 1PM. Fortunately, close to the hotel was the Koishikawa Korakuen landscape garden, a lovely walk through a well manicured garden. It was so close to the Tokyo Dome that we could hear 2PM practicing inside. It is hard to believe that after the action-packed performance of the night before, they were practicing today and would then perform again tonight. The physical demands of the show alone would be substantial.
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| The bridge was designed so that a circle could be seen with the reflection |
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We did this in the mid-morning and then relaxed while waiting for the concert to begin. Two other folks from Hawai‘i had traveled to Tokyo to use our tickets for this second night. We all went in together and once we got them situated in their seats, went to find our own. Being on the first level, we were still pretty close to the stage, but not nearly as close as the night before. However, from here we could see the entire stage set up, which was cool.
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| The full stage set up |
Like the night before – the second night began with an explosive first set that was about 20 minutes. Then there was a talking interlude in Japanese. Fortunately the fans in this part of the all sat down for the talking parts before standing up again for the music. Each segment of music would get the crowd energized, then there was some time to talking to let folks rest, then back up to peak excitement again.
It goes without saying that the crowd as 98% female. The second night I counted about 20 men that I saw personally in the throng of thousands. They had clearly been brought there. It was also a much older crowd which I guess makes a bit of sense given they were on a reunion tour after 15 years, meaning for a “boy band” they are kinda old themselves. This did not, however, deter the crowd from screaming their heads off when they hit the part of the song I’m your man by ripping their shirts open. The crowd went wild.
Each night there were three costume changes and Colleen said the last one is always into whatever t-shirt they are selling as merchandise. The second night was mostly the same but they were streaming live the second night so there were some differences – a cake got wheeled out at one point to celebrate them, they did a montage of fans sending messages that the band watched and seemed appropriately touched by, though as Colleen noted, they are all actors.
Cynic
It ended with the big news – that they were going to play another return show, this time in South Korea. Before the concert was over, the hotel next to that venue was sold out.
Tokyo Home
Our last day in Tokyo we were able to wander a bit more and see more of Tokyo given our flights home were not until the evening. We went to Senso-ji Temple, which it turned out is where all the other white people were. We had not seen many white people at all on our journeys so far, but this particular temple was packed with tourists.
We found another shrine, this one with a little pony named Akari who was born May 15, 2010 and evidently will gradually turn white as she ages (but this is definitely not turning gray). She is a "wish for a bright and peaceful world" according to the google translate of the informational sign. I now have the little gift shop version of her.
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| The Sacred Horse of Kanda Myojin -- Akari |
Even though you are not supposed to eat in public, I sat and surreptitiously ate my potato pastries while Colleen checked out the temple. Then we wandered down towards the Sumida River.
We took a train over to an electronics area that was kinda cool and filled with anime stores and stuff.
Our final travel decision was if we should take a taxi to the airport or the train – and we decided on the taxi, mostly because it was rush hour and we had luggage.
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As I sat in the airport lounge as the sun was setting, one of the staff said that if you peaked through the window you could make out Mt. Fuji in the distance.
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Perhaps next time I visit I’ll get to see it up close.
All things considered, my first trip to Japan was pretty amazing. I saw many cool sights, traveled by bullet train, got to see K-pop in the Tokyo Dome, and despite many adventures in parks and at shrines in the woods that warned us about them, we did not get eaten by bears.
