Things To Do Around Metlife Dome (Belluna Dome)

Hi! Chances are you stumbled across this blog post because your favourite idol group is having a concert there, and you realized - like me - that this concert venue is out in the middle of nowhere Saitama (Tokorozawa, to be exact)... and not in the middle of Tokyo proper.

Of course, it's not like it's impossible to spend your day in Tokyo before you head over, but if you've already explored a lot of Tokyo already, and want this opportunity to see outside of Tokyo, this is the blog post for you!

(the concert I went to!)

The Terrain

The area immediately outside of Metlife Dome isn't very overly developed. In fact, it borders between a more suburban and countryside area. There's a lot of plazas that line the main road leading to the dome with large parking spaces (to take advantage of extra income by making people pay for parking).

It is also quite hilly in some parts a bit further down the road.

Not exactly an inviting place, but it is very walkable. If you want to see more local neighbourhoods in Japan, this is a good place to get a view of how most of Japan is like.

Yamaguchi Kannon

This is your closest attraction to the Metlife Dome. I didn't get to go due to time constrains, but from the pictures, it seemed like a really interesting temple to visit.

It might also be wise to find a toilet here if you are a lady attending a concert at Metlife Dome.

The toilet situation at the concert I attended was TERRIBLE.

There weren't many toilets in and near the dome. By the family mart, there is a set of toilets and there are also toilets inside the dome area, but at my concert just one hour out from the concert, there were more than 100 people lining up at the outside toilets and more than 600 ladies waiting for a toilet inside the dome area.

If you can find a toilet here on this excursion before you head back to the dome, I highly recommend it.

The Totoro Forest

If you're a casual hiker and love Totoro, this is a hike for you.

The nature around these parts consists of Sayama Hills, which spans through areas in Saitama and Tokyo. A local foundation wanted to protect the nature in this around, so they lovingly set almost close to 60 checkpoints in this "Totoro Forest".

It would be impossible to do all the checkpoints in one day, especially if you are planning to attend a concert, but a few of these Totoro Forest checkpoints are about a 20 minute walk from the Metlife Dome.

(From https://www.totoro.or.jp/intro/)

Particular, checkpoints 1, 3 and 15 are manageable walks if you have one or two hours to spare. You can choose to cover more ground around these checkpoints if you have more time.

Checkpoint 1 is a charming little forest entrance that has a light circular trail going deeper into a forest to checkpoint 45 and some surrounding ones. This seems a popular trail for locals as I saw many children playing in the area and other hikers. It also has a few benches and nice resting spots for a lunch break or snack break.

Is there anything in particular to see at the checkpoints?

Not particularly.

Just a lot of lovely nature and a nice hike! Have to enjoy the journey, right?

(cute little bench area outside of someone's property)

Checkpoint 15 is a up a very hilly road to a huge open cemetery. It does give you a lovely view of the town below, and I think that's sort of worth the hike to.

I hope this helps someone looking for a day's activity and don't want to risk being late commuting in from Tokyo.

Kannichikan - Cheap Korean lunch buffet in Osaka!

I watched a lot of videos recently about cheap Korean buffets in Korea, where you can basically have a decent and healthy meal with a decent amount of choice in Korea. They're all usually pretty simple dishes, nothing fancy - but Korean staples.

I didn't think they would have something like this here in Osaka, but apparently they do.

And it's apparently rather famous?

After all, BTS seemed to have visited this place before. And many other celebrities as well.

Kannichikan serves a lunch buffet from opening until 14:30PM, at a cost of 1400 yen. Which you are probably thinking: "well, that's not cheap at all... in Korea, the cost is half that!"

Well, yes... but in Japan, foreign foods often have a premium price attached to it, so I would still say it's a decent price. Plus it's smack in the middle of Nipponbashi, a heavy traffic tourist area. So there's that too.

The interior of the restaurant is quite huge, and by the time I arrived - which was 15 minutes or so after opening - the place was already quite packed of Sunday folks trying to enjoy this cheap buffet too. As I was alone, I was sharing a table with a pair of ladies sitting at the other end of the table. So yes, you may need to share a table if you are a small party coming here.

I think you can make a reservation, but I heard that if you have a reservation, you cannot partake in the lunch buffet.

With the lunch buffet, you have an option to add a soup bowl (like a sundubu) for an additional cost. I opted out of this, which turned out to be a good idea as the buffet itself was already good enough for me.

I do have to say the options aren't huge. There a lot of small dishes and pickled veggies (banchan) in the buffet, the steamed egg, two or three meat dishes and toppokki. You can also build your own bibimbap, which is ok I guess.

The buffet could use some light soups, and some desserts would have been nice?

My tablemates wanted some corn tea instead of just plain water, which I thought was a legit comment. It would have been nice too.

But for the price I'm paying, I suppose it scratches a Korean food itch and while the food wasn't GREAT (I feel like I could make a better toppokki lol), it's fine. It fits the Japanese palate overall - not too spicy, has bibimbap (idk why Japanese people are so obsessed with bibimbap), and it's a good sort of intro to Korean food. Plus, it's filling. So there's that.

The star of the buffet was this fried chicken though.

It's not spicy at all, but it was very crispy and fresh. Definitely something I would come back for.

Have you been here before? What are your thoughts?

The Lovely (And Magical) Night Illuminations at Kitano-Tenmangu (Kyoto)

As someone living here and traveling a lot around the country, I find that my standards of what I find impressive or "wows" me have definitely gone up. I don't want to be that kind of snob, but it just be like that you know? The cherry blossoms and plum blossoms are all nice, but it really just loses its magic over time.

So I was really on the fence when I was in Kyoto, about to take a bus from Sanjo to Kitano-Tenmangu. I saw the line for the bus and I really had half a mind to just say "fuck it"... and go back home.

After all, I have been to Kitano-Tenmangu many times. I usually visit during the autumn season, as a part of the shrine runs along a stream and it's littered in Momiji. It's truly spectacular if you can catch it at the right timing.

These are my photos from back in 2019, and this wasn't even peak yet:

The most spectacular part of Kitano-Tenmangu's momijis is that it completely surrounds the path and acts as a canopy above you - so the red and orange colors also engulf you as you walk through the garden/park.

So knowing what I know, I was sure Kitano-Tenmangu's Plum blossoms wasn't going to disappoint. On the Keihan website (a true lifesaver, btw), they have a Ume tracker that tells you when everything in the area is full bloom or not. And this was yesterday's forecast (March 4th):

And truly, I was not disappointed. At all.

At the moment, I would say while most of it is in full bloom, it will probably last up for another week at least until March 11th, 2023 if the weather holds up. A lot of the bloom is still just peaking through. But if you have time this week, I recommend you going.

The entry fee is 1200 yen - which is rather steep - but the night illuminations also gives you a free snack ticket you can exchange for a snack and some tea at their makeshift teahouse. Last entry for the ume blossom is around 7:30PM, I believe.

There are two sections for photos & viewing -

one area that faces the shrine:

The dot up there is the moon. Unfortunately my camera phone just isn't exactly up to the task to capture the moon, but it was a beautiful night. There's another building in here that was lit up with just a LITTLE bit of ume peaking through:

Another area that has a tiny pond - an entire ume garden, literally.

This is where all the magic happens:

The ume garden area is quite huge. There's paths snaking in every which direction surrounded by ume trees and a pond right in the middle of it all. At night, this spot is truly magical - like a fairy tale land with candied trees. It helps with the little dangling candles on every tree.

There is a elevated platform that helps you gain a view from a higher spot and through the tree lines just a tad bit:

I imagine this is more helpful during the daytime, so this is still lovely nonetheless.

Here is the pond from the other side:

There was even the infamous monkey performer that seems to make its way to perform in a lot of the shrines across Kansai (maybe even Japan?). The last time I saw this group, they were over in Shitennoji... I wonder if they're all the same group just performing in different places...

But I didn't stick around to watch. Not my type of thing.

Instead, I went to get my snack and hot tea to warm my fingers. At this point, they were so cold I was losing a bit of mobility. When I was taking photos by the pond, I was so scared to drop my phone in there since my fingers were so frozen. Haha.

And that's it!

I hope you get a chance to catch the ume blossoms and the kawazu-zakura (next blog post!) that's blossoming around this time. Here's me trying to get a photo with the ume before I go:

And a shrine cat:

And the awesomeness of the actual shrine.

It was still opened around 6pm when I arrived for the illuminations, but by 8pm when it was just after the cut off time for ume blossom's last entry, this area had already been closed for the day. So if you want to see the shrine, do go here before you enter to view the blossoms.

Entry is free here: