Showing posts with label Johnny's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Johnny's. Show all posts

(Japan Oct 2016) Day 12: Visit Tokyo

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Day 12 (11 Oct 2016): Visit Tokyo. Stay Tokyo

Somehow, after visiting Tokyo so many times, I've still yet to visit Meiji Shrine.  Therefore, we decided to squeeze in a short visit to Meiji shrine in the morning before meeting my friend to go shopping at Harajuku.

One of the entrances to the long pathway to Meiji Shrine is located just a short walk away from Harajuku station. 
From there, it is about 10mins walk along the pathway to reach the shrine itself.









After about 10-15mins stroll, we reached the shrine.






After a short visit at Meiji Shrine, we started heading out towards Harajuku station where I'm supposed to meet my friend.



Harajuku station's train platform

Just across Harajuku station is Takeshita Dori.  

After meeting up with friend, we decided to go Yoshinoya for a quick lunch before going crazy in all those Johnny's related shops along Takeshita Dori.


Ok, lunch's over.  



Here's kinda when I left my hubby to walk around on his own while he went to catch Pokemon and taking down PokeGyms...and my friend and I went to the various Johnny's related shops.

You can see this shop selling tees, there's this tee of the dog which Takaki (from Hey! Say! JUMP) drew on Itajump as well as the Durian mascot for Little Tokyo Life tv program. Heh.

Here's 1 of the many shops selling un-official photos of the various Johnny's groups.  




This shop sells uchiwa accessories

 We also went to the official Johnny's store at Harajuku. 

The skies were dark by the time we were done with shopping.
Then I met up with my hubby after saying goodbye to my friend.





 This store along Takeshita Dori sells 1 of our fav snacks.  
The outside is crispy, while the inside filling is creamy custard. 
There's usually a queue outside the shop for this.





 After we are done with Harajuku, we headed back to Shinjuku, where we bought some food back to our hotel room to eat. 
Shinjuku

my dinner

Go next to Day 13: Visit Tokyo (Harajuku + Kichijoji)

(Japan Oct 2016) Day 9: Watch Hey! Say! JUMP concert at Yokohama Arena

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Day 9 (8 Oct 2016): Watch Hey! Say! JUMP concert at Yokohama Arena. 
Stay Tsurumi (Kawasaki) 


This was the day I've been looking forward to for this trip.

Going to my first Johnny's group concert (Hey! Say! JUMP) at Yokohama Arena!
Months ago, I've made plans with a fellow HSJ fan (who happens to be working at Japan) and I went with her to this concert.
(Johnny's groups are groups managed under Johnny's & Associates, and they are: SMAP (well, they disbanded last year though), TOKIO, V6, Kinki Kids, Arashi, Tackey & Tsubasa, NEWS, Kanjani8, KAT-TUN, Hey! Say! JUMP, Kis-my-Ft2, Sexy Zone, ABC-Z, Johnny's West)

To give you an idea of how difficult it is to be able to attend a Johnny's concert as a foreign fan:
1) Only fanclub members are able to ballot for the tickets to the concerts

2) In order to join the fanclub, you need to have a Japanese address, Japanese phone number, and be able to make payment for the subscription fees at the post office at Japan.
Therefore, it is extremely difficult for overseas fan to be able to join the fanclub unless they have contacts in Japan whom are able to help them.

3) You have to win the ticket balloting in order to be able to get the concert tix.

4) It is actually forbidden to resale concert tickets (but there will still be people who does so anyway) and even though the original selling price of a concert ticket may be around 7000yen, but resale costs might cost anywhere between  20k to 150k yen!!!
If the resale ticket you've bought have been reported as a resale ticket, you will be denied entry to the concert even though you have the ticket.  There are also times when they will counter check the name printed on the ticket against the fanclub membership card's name to make sure that it is the same person at the concert entrance.

Luckily for me, my friend is a fanclub member so I went with her.

For this particular concert, it was located at Yokohama Arena, which is just about 10mins walk from Shin-Yokohama station.
Since the North Entrance of the station is nearest to the concert venue, so we both arranged to meet up near the North Entrance.
When I arrived there, I saw alot of fans (you can kinda tell who they are supporting by the uchiwas they are carrying or the member color coordinated outfits that they are wearing) gathering in groups with their friends.

One thing to note though, almost all of the toilets in this area will have LOOOOOOONG queues since there are sooo many people heading for the concert at this time.  It took me at least 15mins to queue for the toilet, and it was a toilet near the upper floors of the station building since the bottom few levels' toilets had even longer queues.


It was raining by the time we started walking towards Yokohama Arena, and even though I don't know the way, it is easy to just follow the crowd. 





Screenshot of the concert venue, from the concert DVD 

Staff are EXTREMELY STRICT about no photography at the concert venue.  
During the entire concert, I saw many staffs walking up and down the stairs, watching the rows of fans to ensure no one is taking photos.  If you are caught taking photo, you will be asked to leave the venue.
Even when I was just taking out my bottled drink from my bag, I already noticed that a staff was watching my actions to determine if I am taking out a camera or not.  


Screenshot from the concert DVD

Screenshot from the concert DVD

The streamers that I managed to pick up during the concert. 

After the concert, we followed the crowd back to the train station. 









After bidding farewell to my friend at Shin-Yokohama station, I headed back to Tsurumi station where my hotel is at, to meet up with my hubby whom I've kinda left him to roam about Kawasaki on his own while I went for the concert. Heh.

After resting at the hotel for awhile, we headed out to Landmark Tower for some Pokemon and JUMP shop shopping.








Next up, is the Jump shop that's located just across from the Pokemon shop.
There were quite a number of Haikyuu products.

















Can't really remember what we ate for dinner on this day though.  Probably we just bought some food near Tsurumi station and brought back to our hotel room to eat.




Go next to Day 10: Visit Yokohama