BIGBANG Japan Dome Tour - OSAKA!

If you ever wonder why all KPOP bands love to organized concert tour in Japan, you have to be there once! I grant you, Japan concert is a must-go in your lifetime if you’re a die hard KPOP fans!

Yes, the ticket are ridiculously hard to get, it’s all about your L-U-C-K! What i mean here is literally your luck, not just you, but anyone who wanted to get the ticket including Japanese themselves.

Here’s an explanation for Japan Ticketing System:

First, get contact with anyone you know who lives in Japan! You can’t buy the ticket unless you have a Japan address, so what if I don’t have relatives or friends living in Japan?? DON’T WORRY, I got a good source of ticket agent which i will mentioned later on.

Second, the rules & regulations, the Japan ticketing system is a lottery system (now you get what i mean by your luck), you pay a small amount of money (e.g. 1,000 yen) and get to enter the lottery draw lots for pre-sale, there’ll be total of 3 lottery draw lots (I’m not sure it’s applicable for all concert or just BIGBANG)!

Third, you DON’T get to choose SEATS! No, it’s a lottery draw lot, you get whatever has been selected for you, but consider yourself lucky if you get one, trust me, even from far, you’ll definitely enjoy the concert!

Here’s the ticket agent I contacted with, http://www.japanconcerttickets.com, go to the website, search an inquiry regarding what concert/date/venue you want to go, and Alan will get back to you with the details, price/postage/charges. Alan is a very helpful guy, you can ask him anything regarding the concert, and he only charged abit for the service at about $15-25! This is the cheapest I can search for so far!

Alan will send the tickets to the hotel/guesthouse you stay!! It’s just so convenient right! With all the information you ever needed such as Seats number/row/time/venue written in English on a small note!

So this is Kyocera Dome, the one I went to in Osaka, BIGBANG final concert for Japan Dome Tour! If I ever have the time, I will definitely attend all 3 final concerts!!

It’s amazing seeing this big dome slowly filling up with fans and thousands of BIGBANG light sticks!!

The crowd will warm up (chanting) when the music start playing so you’ll eventually know how their chanting works with the songs…

Play this video and you’ll know why it’s so amazing to go to concert together with Japanese, they sing ONE song during the waiting for encore!! It’s just way too a~ma~zing~~~

Osaka to Kyoto 1 Day Trip

Have you heard of Kyoto is amazing? It seems like it’s one of the best place in Kansai and indeed, I love this city!! It’s a very small city but the place is really nice. I went to Kyoto for 1 day trip which is totally not enough to discover the city, but since Kyoto station is just one hour away from Osaka station, you don’t have to purposely move all the way from Osaka  to Kyoto for 2 nights stay, with the magical JR West Rail Pass, you can make a separate 2 days trip to Kyoto!!

Upon arrival in Kyoto station, again remember to look for tourist center, Kansari area tourist center is amazing, they’ll usually have 3 counters which provide 3 different languages: English, Chinese & Korean. Grab a map and ask for the best way to tour Kyoto!!

A Kyoto City Bus One Day Pass is what I get for my 1 day trip. With just $500yen, you can hop on and off for all they city buses.

Here’s an overall 1 day trip:

• 10:30am: Head up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple (10min walk from Gojo-zaka or Kiyomizu-michi Bus Stop, Kyoto City Bus 100 or 206 from Kyoto Station). Sure, it’s mercantile and touristy, but it’s also beautiful and it’s got a great view over the city. By going early, you’ll beat the daily crowds. Whatever you do, don’t forget to enter the subterranean Tainai-Meguri.

• 11:30am: Walk down Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, two preserved streets, to Maruyama-koen Park to enjoy some greenery.

• 12:30pm: Walk through Chion-in Temple but don’t linger, since it’s under construction.

• 1:00pm: Enter Shoren-in Temple and enjoy a cup of tea overlooking the garden.
• 2:00pm: Have lunch at Kyoto downtown – Nishiki Market.

• 3.00pm: After lunch, explore Nishiki Market and the food floor at nearby Daimaru Department Store.
• 7.30pm: Head back to Osaka.

Basically, these are some of the best places you can cover in 1 day, even better if you’re coming for 2nd day, you’ll be more familiar with the bus route and you get to discover the city a bit more.

Osaka Day 1

DAY 1

KANSAI AIRPORT – RINKU PREMIUM OUTLET – KANSAI AIRPORT – OSAKA TOWN

Reached Kansai Airport, proceed to JR office and purchase the JR-West Rail Pass, note that you need to show your passport for getting this pass as the pass is only available for foreign visitors. This is the amazing JR-West Rail Pass which covers the whole Kansai Area, as you can see from the train map, it cover all of the major station such as Kyoto, Nara, Kobe and to Himeji, most importantly, it covers the Airport Express Train as well!

After purchased the JR West Rail Pass, I store my luggage in the baggage storage (check here for list of baggage storage location in Kansai Airport) and I took the shuttle bus from Kansai Airport to Rinku Premium Outlet. The reason why I’m doing this is because Rinku Premium Outlet is only approx. 20 minutes away from Kansai Airport and the shuttle bus cost only $100yen/way. Click here for the other transportation/directions to Rinku Premium Outlet. The shuttle bus from Kansai Airport is available from 9:40 to 19:10, click here for more accurate timetable.

Rinku Premium Outlet is worth visiting if you’re looking for branded items but not probably not the latest collection, the price is good as compared to those you can find in normal  retail shops. Looking for G-Shock or Air Jordan like me? You can find some in Rinku Premium Outlet but you definitely can’t get the popular collection. I saw Air Jordan 3 Son of Mars black/green selling at about $10,450yen.

After returned from Rinku Premium Outlet, collect my pre-booked ‘Wifi-to-go‘ (click to find out what is wifi-to-go) from Airport Post Office and finally heading to my guesthouse in Osaka town.

Osaka – J-Hoppers Hostel, there’s a very clear direction on how to get to the hostel, and the hostel is quite near to Fukushima Station, there’s a 7-11 just right next to the hostel, one good thing about Fukushima station is that the station is not as busy as the popular Namba Station, which means it’s good if you’re carrying big luggage bag you don’t have to worry about the crowd.

This is how the JR Kansai Wide Area railway map looks like!! But don’t worry, what you really need to understand and learn about is the Osaka Loop Line and you’ll eventually learn about the operation of the train and line, there’ll be a big digital board in each station where you get to see which train is coming next and how many minutes left for which train to arrive.

WARNING: All of the transportation timetable given in Japan is VERY ACCURATE!! So please be punctual!!

After checked in hostel, I took the booklet/brochures from hostel and start throwing questions at the hostel’s receptionist about places to visit and where to get good food. Then explore around Namba area and grabbed my dinner. The end of the day.

NOTE: There’s a vending machine inside the hostel which selling beer, so that’s pretty convenient!! Anyway, there’s a lot of different vending machines all around the street or district in Japan, so whenever you’re thirsty, you can coined in $100 yen and get a hot or cold drink!

Tokyo DisneySea

Everything about Tokyo Disneyland or Disneysea is on their website, the transportation, the timetable, the map or the entrance fee. Since I’m staying at Shinjuku, I was planning to take their shuttle bus which located at JR Shinjuku Station.

NOTE: JR Shinjuku Station is a huge station, please be early to catch the bus! Trust me, you definitely don’t want to challenge the Japanese punctuality! Because I was at the station at 9.45a.m to catch the last bus, I was told that the bus is leaving, so I ended up taking train, but it’s not that far though.

Go to the information counter if you want to take train, they’ll give a small note on which station to go and which station to transfer to. You’ll be alight at JR Maihama station and follow the crowd to Tokyo Disneyland Resort then head to the Disney Resort train line.

So you might have a little confusion about what is ONE park or TWO park, basically Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disneysea is two separated parks, if you asked me what’s the difference, I can’t really tell because I only went to Tokyo Disneysea.

After 6 passport means the ticket only allows you to enter after 6pm, and yes I did saw people sitting and queuing outside of the entrance while I’m leaving. I don’t know how they going to survived the cold because it’s freezing after the sunset!!

TIP: Tokyo Disneysea is not big, if you have more time, you should get ONE day pass for Tokyo Disneyland and do Tokyo Disneysea for After 6 passport (but please do this only in Summer!)

Be prepared when you enter the souvenir shop!! There’re too many cute stuffs to get your hand on (as compared to Hong Kong Disneyland)! And I’m pretty sure EVERYONE at least buy ONE item from the shop!

I ended up putting a beanie on my top and a scarves on my neck!

Signify enough for Disneysea?

The Toy Story MANIA! is really one of the long queue game!! Waited 1.5 hours for this game!

Disney really is a magical place which has the magic power to brings you back to your childhood!!

One of my favorite place!! Sing-a-long, under~~the~~sea~~

I missed out the fireworks!! This is one serious issue because we knows the fireworks is one of the best moment in Disneyland!! Damn, I was freezing and having my hot curry rice and totally forgot about the time!! Grrrrr~~~~~

And it’s the 30th Anniversary, who knows the firework might be a special one! T.T