A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Purchasing Studio Ghibli Tickets at Lawson

Studio Ghibli is a fantastic place to visit while you're in Japan, but figuring out how to buy the tickets can be pretty infuriating. From the United States you can order them from travel agents, but you'll end up paying a lot more. If you're in Japan (or have a friend in Japan) they can buy them on the Loppi machine at Lawson, but it's not the most simple or intuitive process, and it can't be done in English.

To make it more frustrating, Studio Ghibli has a link on it's website showing instructions in English on how to buy the tickets, except that many of the steps are missing. If you follow their guide, you won't be able to finish if you can't read Japanese, and even if you can it may still be a struggle. 

My sister is coming to visit soon, so John and I bought tickets and I took pictures of each step along the way to fill in all the information that is missing.  If you follow all these steps, you should be able to get the tickets you want, assuming the tickets aren't sold out.

That's the other thing - tickets are limited and sell out incredibly quickly. Currently, tickets go on sale at 10:00 am on the 10th of the preceding month (e.g., tickets for April go on sale March 10th). I bought tickets 45 minutes after they had gone on sale, and my first choice of time (noon) was already sold out and I had to go with my second choice (2:00 pm). Granted, this was for a weekend date during cherry blossom season, so I can only imagine demand is higher than usual, but be aware that you should purchase your tickets as far in advance as possible. The last time my sister visited we tried, but failed, to get tickets because we didn't plan far enough ahead.

This is the home screen of the Loppi Machine. The green button is for Studio Ghibli tickets.

This screen shows which months tickets are available for. 月 is the kanji for month, so 3月 is March, 4月 is April, etc. Choose your preferred month.

Don't worry, this screen doesn't mean tickets are sold out. Just touch the orange button at the bottom.

Select your preferred date. Don't let their calendar display fool you, they list the week starting with Monday and ending with Sunday, rather than the Sunday-Saturday format you may be familiar with. As you can see, the museum is closed on Tuesday. (Confession: I accidentally bought tickets for Sunday when I meant to buy them for Saturday. Sigh.)

Select your preferred time. You have 30 minutes from the time your ticket states to enter the museum, so don't be late! (e.g., 12:00 pm tickets allow you to enter from 12:00 to 12:30)

Click the highlighted button to confirm your selected date and time. If you've made a mistake, use the arrow on the upper left (前に戻る) to go back a screen.

Select the number of tickets you need. The top choice is for adults, the middle choice is for children age 13-18, and the bottom choice is for children age 12 and under. After selecting the appropriate number, click the orange button.

If you see this screen it means that tickets are sold out for the date and time you have selected. Click the orange button then go back and try for a different time or date.

If you see this screen it means that the tickets you requested are available! Now it's asking you to create a point card, but you want to skip this step. Click いいえ on the left.

This screen is asking for your name. It will not actually be printed on your tickets, only on the receipt that you take to the cashier. (In my case the clerk did not ask for identification) UPDATE: in an effort to prevent ticket scalping I've heard that Studio Ghibli is now putting names on tickets and actually checking IDs. If you need to know how to write your name in Japanese, you can use this website. You'll want to use the hiragana, not the katakana or kanji. Be sure to type a space between your first and last names by using the button on the top right of the keyboard (一字あげる). I got an error message when I didn't do that.

After you type your name in hiragana on the top line, press this button to convert it to katakana on the second line. 

This screen is asking for your phone number. If you don't have a phone number you can enter your hotel's or make one up. If you make it up, enter 03-(4 digits)-(4 digits).

Again, confirm that you've selected the right date and time for your tickets and touch the orange button at the bottom.

Don't panic!  Nothing is wrong, they're just confirming yet again that you really want to buy these tickets.  Click はい.

Yay! You've succeeded in reserving tickets! A receipt is printing out of the machine right now. You have 30 minutes to take it to the cashier and pay for the tickets. After 30 minutes your reservation will be cancled. When you pay, they will print your Ghibli tickets out on a machine behind the counter and give them to you in an envelope.

I Can't Eat That!

I try to be an adventurous eater.  I love to cook and I'm always trying to expand my kitchen repertoire. In the last year I've added a couple Indian dishes that I'm really proud of, and I'm trying to expand into Korean food.  I might be late to the game, but these are not foods I ever experienced growing up in Western North Carolina.  Being in Japan has definitely made me branch out and try foods I never would have dreamed of, and I'm proud of that too. (For the record: raw beef - pretty good, octopus - not bad, squid - hate it!) But if I'm being completely honest there's a picky eater inside me and I have to work hard to overcome some of my nervousness about food. Cooking is a really good way for me to do that.  Once I feel like I really understand the food it loses a lot of it's ability to intimidate me, but I've still got areas for improvement.

Eating in Japan was a lot scarier a few years ago when we though that John was allergic to shellfish. I'm not really sure how it happened, but John has either outgrown his allergy or it was just a sensitivity that's gone away, or else he's crazy and it never existed, but he got a blood test a couple years ago to narrow down exactly what he was allergic to, and it turned out to be nothing!  The allergy was never life threatening, but we always worried that the next time he was exposed might be, so it was a huge relief to learn there was nothing to worry about.  Having a food allergy in Japan can be really stressful for a number of reason.  The first is that if you're not very good at Japanese it can be hard to communicate it to others and be confident that you've succeeded.  Another reason is that Japanese restaurants are far less willing to make substitutions to accommodate dietary needs.  Several times John had the really baffling experience of telling someone he was dining with that he couldn't eat shellfish and then being served it anyways, sometimes only discovering this at the end of the meal.  We were so confused!  Did people not understand what shellfish was?  Did they just not care?

John is taking Japanese lessons now, and he thinks he's come upon at least a partial answer.  In Japanese, saying that you can't eat something doesn't mean you physically CAN'T, it means you don't want to.  The people John was telling probably thought that a little bit wouldn't really bother him, as long as it wasn't a prominent part of the meal.  Thank goodness he wasn't really allergic! Now that I think about this, I've been asked questions that I always thought were strange like, "can you drink green tea?"  Of course - why couldn't I?  But those people were probably asking if I would like to. According to John's teacher if you really can't eat something it's important to explain the reason or else it will probably be interpreted as a preference, not a necessity.  In Japanese "allergy"is アレルギー , note that it ends with the "gi" sound, not "ji" as you would pronounce it in English.

In other news, one week from today we'll be in Guam.  I can't wait!

Freshly dyed hair always makes me so happy. 

Blinging out my nails in true Japanese fashion.

Milestones

Yesterday John and I were watching the final game of the Japan Series (the Tohoku Eagles beat the Tokyo Giants) and I understood all of the dialogue during one of the commercials.  It was a great feeling.  A week ago John and I were out having dinner and we had an entire conversation in Japanese. Granted it was very short, but it was just us joking around in a completely natural way.  It's so exciting to have these moments when I can really recognize the progress I'm making.

I've recently started studying again, and I can already tell the difference it's making.  I quit studying almost immediately after we arrived, and looking back it was definitely a defense mechanism.  I was so overwhelmed and intimidated when we got here.  By refusing to try there was no way I could fail - this way at least I was in control of my inability to speak or read.  While it was probably something that I needed to do in the beginning I'm feeling my more settled and secure in my life and I'm ready to start learning again.  It's not easy and it's usually frustrating, but I think it will be worth it.  Otherwise it's been a good week.

Watch out for perverts on the train!

Healthy homemade lunch with Raku

Holiday cups arrived November 1

Japanese Facebook Advertisements

One of the things about being in Japan is that the internet assumes I read/speak Japanese.  I completely understand why, and I'm not complaining.  It's just funny to watch a youtube video preceded by an advertisement that I can't understand, or to have Japanese ads show up in my facebook news feed.  With all the news about how much tracking and individualized marketing there is on the internet it makes me smile that at least some of them haven't even figured out in which language to target me.  Sometimes the ads are really weird, and I can really only guess what they're selling, so I've taken some screen shots of the funniest ones to share with you.

I'm pretty sure this is for a drink that has placenta in it.  Yuck!

I have no idea what this is about, but it sure looks creepy.

I like to imagine that 96.4% of witches endorse whatever this is selling.

No idea.  Is the cat begging for her food?  Why does she have so much green tea?  Why are a book and some unidentified object floating behind her?  And what is that disembodied face saying?

I can actually read this enough to tell you that it's advertising laser hair removal...in intimate areas.