FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Buying Japan Baseball tickets
View Single Post
Old Jul 23, 2016, 4:16 pm
  #47  
jphripjah
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Programs: Hilton Diamond, IHG Spire Ambassador, Radisson Gold, Hyatt Discoverist
Posts: 3,620
I figured I would toss out my experience buying Japanese baseball tickets.

I've been able to buy tickets from some teams direct from the team website. Those were Hanshin Tigers, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, and Orix Buffaloes. All three give you a QR code when you buy the ticket. For Hanshin I had to scan the QR code at a kiosk outside the ticket office at stadium and it prints ticket. For Nippon Ham Fighters (Sapporo Dome), I could just walk up to the turnstiles and scan QR code and they give you a little stub reminding you of your seat. Haven't been to the Orix Buffaloes game yet (it's in Kobe, they sometimes play there, usually at Osaka Dome).

I understand the Yomiuri Giants have an easy online ticket purchase system also. The Yokohama Bay Stars offer online purchase but I couldn't get past their account creation setup.

I've also bought 4 tickets from 7ticket.jp, the 7-Eleven ticketing outlet. You have to create an account, which requires using Google translate to understand the website and inputting your name in Japanese characters to set up the account. Kanji, katakana, I can't remember. There are various websites that will translate your name or into Japanese and then you can copy + paste that and set up your account. You give them your email address in English characters.

Once your account is set up, you can pull up the games you are interested in and see the available seats and prices and pick the exact seats you want. The challenge though is that each login requires you to enter a CAPTCHA code, which is of course given in Japanese/Hiragana, even when you are using Google translate to use the site.

The way I found to do that is using this site:

http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hiragana.htm

It gives you a Japanese keyboard and allows you to select/type Japanese characters.

So what I have been doing is using the split screen feature on my macbook, with the CAPTCHA code on one side of the screen and Japanse keyboard on other side. It's just a matter of studying each character of the code carefully, finding and typing them with the keyboard, then when you have all five characters, cutting and pasting them into the CAPTCHA answer box.

I'm getting better at it. When I first tried this I would make 3-4 mistakes before getting the CAPTCHA right, now I can usually get it on the first or second try. The only advice I can give is that if you're not sure if you are selecting the right character, you probably aren't, a lot of them look alike but when you find the right one it's pretty obvious you have it right.

You select the seats and place the order and then it gives you until 11:59 p.m. or 11:29 p.m. Japan time the next day to collect tickets at a 7-Eleven. I think this means that if you want maximum time, you order the tickets shortly after midnight Japan time and you'll have almost 48 hours.

You print your order and bring the printout to a 7-Eleven cashier, it has a bar code, she scans it, prints tickets, you pay.

I ordered 3 tickets from 7ticket.jp the night before I left the USA, printed out the orders, landed in Japan at 7 p.m. next night and stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way to hotel and collected them. If you haven't been to Japan before, they have a lot of 7-Elevens, their ATMs are also one of the best places to get yen, as most other ATMs in Japan won't take foreign cards.

I realize you can buy tickets from the 7-Eleven ATM/copy machines but I didn't want the awkwardness of trying to get a cashier to help me do this, and I like studying the seating charts and pricing and picking the exact seat I want (box seats on aisle if possible and not right behind home plate).

A few other points -- for some stadiums when you look at the seating chart you will see a large empty box of a blocked off area in the first base box seats and third base box seats. That are is for the cheerleaders and, at least in the Sapporo Dome, the dancing robot. They only dance between innings.

I got eighth row, third base box seats at the Sapporo Dome, I don't recommend sitting that close there. The seats in the first twenty rows don't have much seat pitch, so you see more of the head of the person in front of you then you would expect and I felt just a little like I was in a basin and couldn't see deep down the left field line or some of the foul territory along the third base side back behind the plate. So I recommend sitting 20th row or higher if you have box seats at the Sapporo Dome.


I'm on the train from Sapporo now down to Sendai. The run down to Hakodate is not Shinkansen, but I've got a nice seat, 6D, solo seat in the Green Car on left side of train with view of water as it hugs the coast. Seat configuration is 2-1 in back of car and 1-2 in front of car, going left to right, with 6D, 7D, 8D, (and to a lesser extent 9D) towards front of car appearing to be the best seats for view.

Last edited by jphripjah; Jul 23, 2016 at 6:03 pm
jphripjah is offline