2024年10月25日

Hitting two three birds in one stone! It’s definitely a dream come true for me as a Genshin fan. 🥹

2023 is honestly one of the best years I had, being able to complete my goals to travel to two new beautiful countries (South Korea and Australia) – not to mention fulfill my dream of treating my family on a trip to Japan. Unfortunately, with all those trips in mind, I wasn’t able to prepare myself when Hoyoverse announced a series of Genshin Impact concert to be held in selected countries in the world (Philippines left behind as always *sigh*).

It was truly one of my regrets from last year even though I knew there will be a next time.

Fast forward, Genshin 2024 concert was announced around mid-2024, and once again I was in a dilemma. This year, I was planning to save for a bigger goal and lie low on travelling _{and shopping,} but I’m like, “fuck it, we ball”, and booked anyways.

As much as I want to attend the one in Tokyo and visit for the nth time, I knew getting tickets would be a lot more difficult so the easier options would be the neighboring countries – Singapore and Malaysia. I had a chat with one of my co-workers in Australia last year and he recommended me Malaysia (ofc he’s Malaysian). It’s funny coz he hates SG and the beef is REAL lol. Since I haven’t been to Malaysia, I thought why not.

In preparation for the concert, I thought I should gear myself up and buy a light stick. Fortunately, there were still plenty of shops selling the official Genshin concert light stick from last year. The thing is that I troubled myself carrying this to Malaysia and yet I wasn’t even able to use it at all. 😆

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Melodies of An Endless Journey

The concert was held on October 19 and we flew in KL a day before. The event venue was in Calvary Convention Centre which is actually pretty far from where we have booked our place in Bukit Bintang.

Due to some *cough* unfortunate circumstances (grab booking was cancelled thrice and the driver missed the expressway exit OTL), we arrived at the venue few minutes late. Surprisingly, A LOT of us were, so we had to queue and that took us additional more minutes. (Malaysians 🤝 Filipinos when it comes to being late lol).

Lesson learned: BE AT LEAST AN HOUR EARLY WHEN ATTENDING CONCERTS! _{especially if you’re in a foreign country}

We missed nearly all the Mondstadt parts and when we finally got seated, my favorite, Liyue, started playing. My stress and anxiety disappeared in an instant. Liyue is one of my favorite tracks and is very special to me because of Genshin Impact’s first ever Lantern Rite event (this event is actually what ignited my love for the game – and Xiao 😝).

The concert lasted for almost three hours which I think is superrrrr duper worth it! Flying to KL was definitely worth it! According to this setlist, they are covering until Fontaine region, but they included about 3-4 Natlan music as well. The orchestra did an amazing job and it was truly a blissful moment for me and all fans who attended.

100/10 would love to watch again.

Last year, they included a FREE glider and extra primogems but sad to say, not this time. 😢 At least I finally have this pretty concert ticket, which is nice.

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Malaysia Truly Asia

I’m usually picky when it comes to traveling to another country – I prefer visiting during cold months, but Malaysia in October is surprisingly not that humid at all. Apparently, their monsoon season is from October to December and while we experienced a heavy rainfall once, the weather was still pretty decent albeit mostly cloudy.

We stayed in KL for a few days and I personally think Malaysia is underrated. Good food, nice people and not too expensive! They also don’t have one of my biggest icks on SEA countries – clusters of motorcycles trying to cut through the traffic. I could be biased because we stayed in the City Centre, but this kind of urban planning is not even on par with the business districts here in PH. It just sucks because they pretty much have the same cost of living (in comparison to Metro Manila), but you get better services over there. Definitely less corrupt as well. 😬😬😬

The probable downside as a tourist is that you need to do some research because a lot of establishments are already cashless. It’s also quite difficult to tell the locals apart due to its diversity but fortunately, most of them speak English very well.

I could be biased for now, but…

Malaysia > Singapore & Thailand (sorry SEA bros)

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Conclusion

Thanks to this kinda(?) spontaneous trip, I managed to tick the following off my list:

✅ Attend a Genshin Impact concert
✅ Experience a concert outside the country
✅ Visit a new country (Malaysia 💖)

“But it’s just a game… why put so much effort? You’re an adult now, why spend money on childish things?”

Genshin made a huge impact (no pun intended) on my mental health during the pandemic. I wanted to go to therapy that time due to depressive events that’s not necessarily caused by the pandemic, but more of personal reasons. I literally wanted to disappear, and it was Genshin that saved my life.

Next goal is probably go and try AFA (Anime Festival Asia) because we are all about healing feeding that inner child with adult money. 😆