Japan 2009: Arashi Anniversary Tour 5x10 in Sapporo Dome
Note: this entry is not concert report (you probably don't need another one of this), it is more like an encounter entry for me to remember my happiness :)
The plan for Saturday 14 was to go and queue up for concert goods in morning so we can come back to my hotel and throw everything away before going back to Sapporo Dome for concert. We were discussing whether we should pull the extreme of queuing up damn early for it or not. We checked weather forecast and they said it would rain on Saturday so we decided not to kill ourselves in cold and wet morning (which I don't know if that is the correct decision or not -____-")
While we were waiting for jmoo75 at metro station, we saw fans with 5x0 tour bags coming up from the platforms and that was about 9.45am since the goods selling started at 9 am so these people were probably the first one to buy them. We asked some fans about the colour of charm and she replied something back in Japanese, I didn't quite catch it until they said "Kiiroi....yellow". They are so kind to foreign fans XP We were people-watching for a while, it's like the whole metro station was flooding with Arashi fangirls. People coming up from platforms with bags, posters, uchiwas. As I was standing with my AAA 2008 bag, some Japanese fans were asking us for direction to dome. Thank god for fahfy's Japanese language skill, we were able to direct them to Sapporo Dome *lol* (side track: it's funny, people kept asking me for direction, I mean japanese people. I don't think i look anything like Japanese and worst of all, i do not know any Japanese)
Once we all were ready, we left for Sapporo Dome. We shared trains with quite amount of fans. I think some were gonna stick around the dome since morning coz they got all their gears ready (uchiwas, penlight). When we got out of the metro, we found some fans standing with paper asking for tickets. I have heard about this before, this is the first time I saw it. It was very early and they already started asking for tickets o___O When we got to dome, we were a bit shocked with the amount of people hanging around and the people in the queue.
Pictures say more than words, really! Let me tell you the condition we were in. It was pouring rain, not heavy rain but pretty much that would make you soaking. It was cold, from rain and from whatever it is. It was just plain cold. And the queue was so long that I spent in total of 3 hours to get my goods -______-"
As you can see from the pic above, the parking lot 1 is where they sold goods and when I got there, it was already full and people were queuing at parking lot 2 like almost half way. So we joined them at parking lot 2, not for long, the parking lot 2 was full. So the people started queuing at parking lot 3. I realised about parking lot3 around 12.00am when we were about to move to parking lot 1 (and we got to dome around 10.45am). The thing about the queue is you always move which is encouraging, however, it was as if like labyrinth, you can't really see the finishing point and you just walked and walked and walked. Under that condition, I started to doubt my decision on not getting up early for the queue. Anyhow, we got to the finishing point and started buying our goods around 1.30 pm. At that point, we all were absolutely soaked. Our clothes were wet, even our feet were wet since the water just got in from 3 hours standing in rain (even my 120 pounds boots cannot help me *sigh*). We went back to hotel for change and started drying the goods we bought.
We just laid everything on any space we had in the room. We were dead worried with the poster. Good thing it wasn't badly effected by rain. And now I shall present you the best drying method ever created by jmoo75, absolute genius *lol*
I laughed my arse off when I turned round and saw this. She really made use of everything in the room *lol*
We left quite late than expected so we had to rush to dome and got there just in time before the concert (well, it was 25 minutes late anyway which helped us).
The thing about Sapporo Dome that I really like is they only have 1 level and the rows are all high up so you can pretty much see everything that happens in dome. My neighbours on first day were okay but as most everyone has said about japanese fans that some are really quiet and just watched the concert peacefully. There were mother & daughters sitting in a row in front of me. The daughters were quite lively but the mother just sat through the whole concert. It wasn't like she didn't want to be there since she was holding Jun uchiwa all the time. So I guess, polite fan?
The concert was about 3 hours long and to get out of the dome you must wait til they told you to leave (I guess it is necessary, esp. when 60,000 people are inside). It took us about an hour to get back to hotel which considered fast coz jmoo75 who sat at arena block B arrived at our hotel like 2 hours after the concert was done -____-"
We bought food from Lawson and just talked about the experiences :)
The next day, we had free morning so we did some sight-seeing around Sapporo and came back around noon to get dress for the concert since concert on Sunday will start 2 hours earlier than usual (4 pm that is).
The crowds were still big. Pix above I took when we got out of metro and walking towards the dome. Now, let's discuss a bit about the fans. Usually, Japanese fans would dress in the colour of their ichibans. Like this;
I guess it's good fun to dress up for the event and who knows, your boys might notice you too *lol* So let me try;
I didn't realise my stocking were that blue so I dressed in yamapair colour? *lol* I had my red flower hairpiece on which was like the bold move I made for the concert. Trust me, I don't usually do anything with my hair, not even tie in pig tail when I go out. So if you ever go to concert in Japan, be fun and dress up in your ichiban colour. Trust me, it's really fun coz you would know within a glance who like whom.
We got to the dome like an hour earlier so we looked around and checked out the cd/dvd booth inside. If you look for any arashi concert dvds or albums or singles, you might find them selling inside dome. For recent dvds, the price is still high. But for old dvds, I bought Iza now concert for 4,000 yen which is not bad. After some shopping, we went to our seats.
IT WAS AMAZING! Block 1 is right next to main stage and hanamichi where Arashi got on their moving carts *SCREAMMMMMM* You know what's so funny about our tickets? we got row 42 for both days and our seats are the first seat of the row on both days. It's like we were destined to be sitting on row 42 *lol*
The fans in my block for 2nd day were absolutely fun. They all sang and dances and did the hand movement like pro. I believe they all are like veteran fans of Arashi. As I discussed with some friends and they said seats in this block are actually quite expensive if they sell in auction site since the boys usually give fanservices around this block (and it was right....soooooooooooooo right!), so my theory is that some of my neighbours probably auction for these seats and probably travel from afar to see Arashi so they were cheery, shouting names, singing and dancing. And that really made it fun. I had a great time on second day. It was so fun to dance and sing without feeling like a weirdo and not to mention, to drool over the boys when they came around. (Not to mention Nino's Sapporo Daisuki and Sho's I love you soooooooo much!)
Now to sum up the whole experience;
- I must admit that concert in Japan is much more fun than concert in Taipei. I guess because of language and also the sense that after all they are having concert at their home.
- Although the dome is huge, much more huge than the arena, it is actually more fun as well. If you ever get tickets like on top of dome, never ever fear. Arashi concert is always fun, no matter where you sit (unless you are so craving fanservices then I would recommend you to sit at arena and still pray that they give peace to you).
- I love Sapporo Dome, I hope I will come back for more here :)
Arashi
Sho-kun: I probably couldn't describe Sho that well. He's just gorgeous, so gorgeous. You can probably notice him even sitting 200 metres away since you can notice his aura. His complexion is just brilliant, fair and healthy skin. He's absolutely gorgeous. He just makes me realise that if I am still crazy about him, i would probably be single for the rest of my life coz I would probably never ever see/meet anyone who is this gorgeous *lol* He's a real entertainer anyway. He always ask us to wave, to sing, to shout which get audiences to hype up. He still has that prime minister wave *lol* Gosh, I miss him dearly :(
Jun-kun: He's really handsome, really good looking. He was soooooooooo cheeky in concerts. It's something you don't really get to see coz usually you'll get this image of Jun-kun as a serious person but he's really cheeky and cute.
Nino-chan: You can always hear fans shout Nino name. I think he probably has most fans in concerts that I went. He's sooooooooo witty and funny. He's also still kind as ever esp. for fans on stand higher up. So kind, so cute.
Masaki-kun: Somehow he wasn't as lively as first day, I don't know if he was tired or worried about anything -*- But he was incredibly brave to say out loud that Sho didn't zip up his pants *LMAO* He was still lively and funny and the wave and smile he has can just brighten up the whole dome (seriously)
Oh-chan: He has the best voice ever. I know people have probably talked about this like millions of times but his voice is really good. I listened to his singing and it was as if they were playing cd. No wait....it's actually better than cd! He's a genius. Oh-chan is also kind, I was fishing all night. I guess he probably fished the whole fans in sapporo dome already *lol*
So to say how I feel now about the whole experience....
I LOVE ARASHI
The plan for Saturday 14 was to go and queue up for concert goods in morning so we can come back to my hotel and throw everything away before going back to Sapporo Dome for concert. We were discussing whether we should pull the extreme of queuing up damn early for it or not. We checked weather forecast and they said it would rain on Saturday so we decided not to kill ourselves in cold and wet morning (which I don't know if that is the correct decision or not -____-")
While we were waiting for jmoo75 at metro station, we saw fans with 5x0 tour bags coming up from the platforms and that was about 9.45am since the goods selling started at 9 am so these people were probably the first one to buy them. We asked some fans about the colour of charm and she replied something back in Japanese, I didn't quite catch it until they said "Kiiroi....yellow". They are so kind to foreign fans XP We were people-watching for a while, it's like the whole metro station was flooding with Arashi fangirls. People coming up from platforms with bags, posters, uchiwas. As I was standing with my AAA 2008 bag, some Japanese fans were asking us for direction to dome. Thank god for fahfy's Japanese language skill, we were able to direct them to Sapporo Dome *lol* (side track: it's funny, people kept asking me for direction, I mean japanese people. I don't think i look anything like Japanese and worst of all, i do not know any Japanese)
Once we all were ready, we left for Sapporo Dome. We shared trains with quite amount of fans. I think some were gonna stick around the dome since morning coz they got all their gears ready (uchiwas, penlight). When we got out of the metro, we found some fans standing with paper asking for tickets. I have heard about this before, this is the first time I saw it. It was very early and they already started asking for tickets o___O When we got to dome, we were a bit shocked with the amount of people hanging around and the people in the queue.
Pictures say more than words, really! Let me tell you the condition we were in. It was pouring rain, not heavy rain but pretty much that would make you soaking. It was cold, from rain and from whatever it is. It was just plain cold. And the queue was so long that I spent in total of 3 hours to get my goods -______-"
As you can see from the pic above, the parking lot 1 is where they sold goods and when I got there, it was already full and people were queuing at parking lot 2 like almost half way. So we joined them at parking lot 2, not for long, the parking lot 2 was full. So the people started queuing at parking lot 3. I realised about parking lot3 around 12.00am when we were about to move to parking lot 1 (and we got to dome around 10.45am). The thing about the queue is you always move which is encouraging, however, it was as if like labyrinth, you can't really see the finishing point and you just walked and walked and walked. Under that condition, I started to doubt my decision on not getting up early for the queue. Anyhow, we got to the finishing point and started buying our goods around 1.30 pm. At that point, we all were absolutely soaked. Our clothes were wet, even our feet were wet since the water just got in from 3 hours standing in rain (even my 120 pounds boots cannot help me *sigh*). We went back to hotel for change and started drying the goods we bought.
We just laid everything on any space we had in the room. We were dead worried with the poster. Good thing it wasn't badly effected by rain. And now I shall present you the best drying method ever created by jmoo75, absolute genius *lol*
I laughed my arse off when I turned round and saw this. She really made use of everything in the room *lol*
We left quite late than expected so we had to rush to dome and got there just in time before the concert (well, it was 25 minutes late anyway which helped us).
The thing about Sapporo Dome that I really like is they only have 1 level and the rows are all high up so you can pretty much see everything that happens in dome. My neighbours on first day were okay but as most everyone has said about japanese fans that some are really quiet and just watched the concert peacefully. There were mother & daughters sitting in a row in front of me. The daughters were quite lively but the mother just sat through the whole concert. It wasn't like she didn't want to be there since she was holding Jun uchiwa all the time. So I guess, polite fan?
The concert was about 3 hours long and to get out of the dome you must wait til they told you to leave (I guess it is necessary, esp. when 60,000 people are inside). It took us about an hour to get back to hotel which considered fast coz jmoo75 who sat at arena block B arrived at our hotel like 2 hours after the concert was done -____-"
We bought food from Lawson and just talked about the experiences :)
The next day, we had free morning so we did some sight-seeing around Sapporo and came back around noon to get dress for the concert since concert on Sunday will start 2 hours earlier than usual (4 pm that is).
The crowds were still big. Pix above I took when we got out of metro and walking towards the dome. Now, let's discuss a bit about the fans. Usually, Japanese fans would dress in the colour of their ichibans. Like this;
I guess it's good fun to dress up for the event and who knows, your boys might notice you too *lol* So let me try;
I didn't realise my stocking were that blue so I dressed in yamapair colour? *lol* I had my red flower hairpiece on which was like the bold move I made for the concert. Trust me, I don't usually do anything with my hair, not even tie in pig tail when I go out. So if you ever go to concert in Japan, be fun and dress up in your ichiban colour. Trust me, it's really fun coz you would know within a glance who like whom.
We got to the dome like an hour earlier so we looked around and checked out the cd/dvd booth inside. If you look for any arashi concert dvds or albums or singles, you might find them selling inside dome. For recent dvds, the price is still high. But for old dvds, I bought Iza now concert for 4,000 yen which is not bad. After some shopping, we went to our seats.
IT WAS AMAZING! Block 1 is right next to main stage and hanamichi where Arashi got on their moving carts *SCREAMMMMMM* You know what's so funny about our tickets? we got row 42 for both days and our seats are the first seat of the row on both days. It's like we were destined to be sitting on row 42 *lol*
The fans in my block for 2nd day were absolutely fun. They all sang and dances and did the hand movement like pro. I believe they all are like veteran fans of Arashi. As I discussed with some friends and they said seats in this block are actually quite expensive if they sell in auction site since the boys usually give fanservices around this block (and it was right....soooooooooooooo right!), so my theory is that some of my neighbours probably auction for these seats and probably travel from afar to see Arashi so they were cheery, shouting names, singing and dancing. And that really made it fun. I had a great time on second day. It was so fun to dance and sing without feeling like a weirdo and not to mention, to drool over the boys when they came around. (Not to mention Nino's Sapporo Daisuki and Sho's I love you soooooooo much!)
Now to sum up the whole experience;
- I must admit that concert in Japan is much more fun than concert in Taipei. I guess because of language and also the sense that after all they are having concert at their home.
- Although the dome is huge, much more huge than the arena, it is actually more fun as well. If you ever get tickets like on top of dome, never ever fear. Arashi concert is always fun, no matter where you sit (unless you are so craving fanservices then I would recommend you to sit at arena and still pray that they give peace to you).
- I love Sapporo Dome, I hope I will come back for more here :)
Arashi
Sho-kun: I probably couldn't describe Sho that well. He's just gorgeous, so gorgeous. You can probably notice him even sitting 200 metres away since you can notice his aura. His complexion is just brilliant, fair and healthy skin. He's absolutely gorgeous. He just makes me realise that if I am still crazy about him, i would probably be single for the rest of my life coz I would probably never ever see/meet anyone who is this gorgeous *lol* He's a real entertainer anyway. He always ask us to wave, to sing, to shout which get audiences to hype up. He still has that prime minister wave *lol* Gosh, I miss him dearly :(
Jun-kun: He's really handsome, really good looking. He was soooooooooo cheeky in concerts. It's something you don't really get to see coz usually you'll get this image of Jun-kun as a serious person but he's really cheeky and cute.
Nino-chan: You can always hear fans shout Nino name. I think he probably has most fans in concerts that I went. He's sooooooooo witty and funny. He's also still kind as ever esp. for fans on stand higher up. So kind, so cute.
Masaki-kun: Somehow he wasn't as lively as first day, I don't know if he was tired or worried about anything -*- But he was incredibly brave to say out loud that Sho didn't zip up his pants *LMAO* He was still lively and funny and the wave and smile he has can just brighten up the whole dome (seriously)
Oh-chan: He has the best voice ever. I know people have probably talked about this like millions of times but his voice is really good. I listened to his singing and it was as if they were playing cd. No wait....it's actually better than cd! He's a genius. Oh-chan is also kind, I was fishing all night. I guess he probably fished the whole fans in sapporo dome already *lol*
So to say how I feel now about the whole experience....
I LOVE ARASHI