This past Thursday night, a whole bunch of us friends at H-TEN (and Crossroad Church Nishinomiya) occupied one of two Ponta Deck sections on the first base side of the best stadium in all of Japan: Hanshin Koshien Stadium. Situated in the far corner of the first base Alps, there are two sections that have a long bench, two picnic-style tables, and a wood deck in between, the view from the top is hard to beat.
To purchase this deck seat package, you just have to get on the ticket sales sites early. Last season, regular seats went on sale in mid-February, and these deck seats went on sale at the start of March. The cost for weeknights was ¥48,000, and ¥56,000 on weekends or holidays (or games against the Yomiuri Giants, regardless of the day of the week). Since you receive 16 tickets, it works out to ¥3,000 a head on weeknights or ¥3,500 each the rest of the time. Of course, you can go with as small a crew as you want – you pay for the area, and can decide how many people you want to bring with you.
The area is nice and spacious. We had 14 adults, 2 toddlers and 2 infants, and we were still spread out nicely. It’s nice for kids because they do not have to remain on parents’ laps. You can stand and cheer, sit and eat, enjoy the breeze from the seaside, and since there’s another deck adjacent to yours, you can also make good friends with the crew next to you!
Here are some pictures of our evening. Sorry I didn’t take too many pictures of the box itself… and also it was too bad that our game got rain-delayed by 40 minutes towards the end. We who have little kids kind of had our hands forced into leaving early. Still, it was such a great time! I HIGHLY recommend you give this experience a chance. It’s like having a picnic at the park!
