Just back from a short 4-day trip in Tokyo, Japan with Leon and I must say, it was really fun and an eye-opener about the uniqueness of the Japanese culture for me! We left for the airport at 4am to catch the 6am Delta flight that will reach Narita airport at around 2pm.
Upon arrival, we bought train tickets to Ueno Station to get to the hotel, called
Ueno Touganeya, which was pretty comfortable, clean and nice, not to mention rather affordable for a hotel that looks quite high end. First up, we walked along the streets which sold funeral stuff all the way to Asakusa to visit the temple. It's probably a 1-1.5k walk but because it started raining, it was rather irritating and felt really long. Finally when we reached, the temple was kind of empty - probably because of the rain and that it was getting kind of late. Nevertheless, I managed to buy some cute panda rice crackers which I thought would make good souvenirs (cost 105yen at this time) but I thought it was rather interesting to display the sights of Tokyo in a unique manner. It's located at one of the shops on
Nakamise-dōri, the shopping street in front of the
Sensoji temple. The shopping street sells many traditional souvenirs and snacks like mochi, senbei (rice crackers), kibidango (rice balls with suace) and anko (bean paste). We also walked up to the Sensoji Temple to take a closer look. This temple is actually a must-go in Tokyo because its one of the largest in the city and the most colourful and the oldest. Its a must to walk through the main gate called
Kaminarimon (Thunder gate), symbol of the temple and Tokyo. Because of the rain, we didn't go further to visit the Asakusa Shrine built in 1649 by Tokugawa Iemitsu, a pagoda-like building on the left.
Next, we headed for some shopping at Taito,
Ameyoko Shopping Street. It was rather late and also rainy so many of the shops are closed or closing. We saw a store selling
taiyaki (bean paste pastry) & we bought one with custard filling to try. It was really yummy, steaming hot in the cold weather! After looking around for a while and walking over to the supermarket to buy some cereal, we went to a sushi-bar which Leon frequented to try some Japanese authentic sushi (105-605yen) and with compliments from the chef, we had some panda-style sushi! :D Finishing dinner, we walked around the area, crossed a bridge to look at Tokyo Bay ( i think) and headed back to the hotel for a nice hot bath to prepare for the next day.
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| On board to Tokyo |
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| first ride in tokyo |
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| short door |
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| Panda bun i ate |
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| Skytree view |
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| Thunder Gate |
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| shopping area at night |
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| touristy stores |
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| the temple |
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| huge lanterns |
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| bridge across tokyo bay |
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| moving chopsticks |
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| supposed to be leon..took me a while to intepret |
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| supposed to be me..lols |
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| me in a yukata |
On the second day, we woke up early at about 530am to run and was quite surprised to see that it was already bright and sunny - like 9am in Singapore. We ran from our hotel to
Ueno Park (where there was supposed to be sakura viewing) then all the way to
Tokyo Central Imperial Palace..Should be around 10k i guess? At least it felt like...And we ran past Akihabara (no time to go) and Tokyo Train Station, one of the landmarks in Tokyo.
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| Tokyo Central Train Station |
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| breakfast on the go! |
We then went back for a shower and got breakfast on the go from Douter and caught the JR train which took 3hours to
Kusatsu Town for the onsen which costs 5000yen per person (do bring your own towel or it will cost another 3000yen to purchase one). Kusatsu is actually an old town dedicated to hot springs and the town was pretty quaint and popular amongst the Japanese elderly wanting to soak in warm sulphuric waters that promises to improve blood circulation for better health.
Warning: do what the Japanese do - it's a nude bath with no frills so do not stare at others.
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| Old school train! |
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| Steamed buns with interesting fillings (100yen) |
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| Filtering the sulphur |
After a relaxing experience at the onsen, we travelled back to central Tokyo and at night we went over to
Shibuya, to experience the fast-paced way of life and the night life there. And of course, crossed the famous Shibuya cross junction and attempted a photograph.
Tip: a good way to photograph the movements would be actually to go to the Starbucks facing the road and people-watch from there. We walked around for a while and also went to the largest Uniqlo in Tokyo. Bought a pair of jeggings for 1290 yen and I was also tempted to buy a pair of floral skinnys for 1290yen which really looked pretty on me :D Thereafter we went to
Shinjuku to get to
Korea Town (Shin Okubo), an enclave for the Korean community in Japan. It was a rather long walk but a rewarding one. We ended up at Korea town and it was rather ironic because we were supposed to indulge ourselves in Japanese, not Korean commodities. hahahas..
Tried plenty of sample kimchi and Korean food till we were rather full (tip to save money in Japan!) Well, we did try a hotteok from one of the stores and the Korean hyungnim was really friendly and made conversation while cooking. Cute ;)
We left Korea town in time to be the last few to enter the
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building on the 43rd storey (202m above the ground) before the last entry at 1030pm.
And another cheapo tip - it's free entry if you want to see a good view of Tokyo city below :)
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| Paranoma view |
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| Photos like this require experience |
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| View from Starbucks.pardon the reflection |
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| HD pictures do look surreal |
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| Jeans I was tempted to buy:/ |
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| People, people everywhere |
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| Cute puppy in the pet shop |
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| View from Tokyo Metropolitan Building |
We started the day by visiting famous
Tsukiji Fish Market (which I have read about in Anthropology class) in hope to catch the bidding for tuna but sadly we arrived too late to see the last group enter the restricted section wearing luminous vests, with their cameras ready. Thank God that a helpful old man (whom I've forgotten his name), who used to be a wholesale trader, offered to take us around, into the restricted sections. A dress was fine but DON'T think about wearing new or nice shoes there because they do get smelly and soaked. But I did get some interesting insights of the market :) Cool thing. I liked the morning hustle and bustle of the area, with the traders riding on funny vehicles, zooming in and out of the carpark, going about their daily business; I've never experienced something like that before!
After 2 hours spent there, we went back to the hotel to wash up. Then we headed to
Kamakura where the famous Giant Daibutsu
(Kotoku-in) lies. It cost 200yen to enter and additional 20yen to enter the Daibutsu (which is quite dumb because you can't see anything). Then we went on a short hiking trail of about 2k for a seaview. It was quite a tough course with all the tree barks and loose soil but it was a good thing that the weather was good and there were no bugs. It led us to a shrine and down to the beach. We were rather lucky that there was a Hawaiian dance beach festival at the beach and it was really cool to see pretty exotic girls dancing and also the kids enjoying themselves while building giant sandcastles! <3 We explored the town of Kamakura and I realised I loved this sort of laidback town a lot. There was a shop where we bought 2 buns and the lady was super nice and gave us an extra donut! Thank God too, for the awesome weather.
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| Hiking trail - see what i meant? Good workout though |
It was a last minute decision but I'm glad we went there eventually -
YOKOHAMA! :D
The great thing was that I managed to change Leon's idea of the city - it was bright, sunny and has a vibrant culture. Second-time lucky! We wanted to go to the Red Brick House because Leon said that it was an artsy place and when we were there, there was the Frulingsfest! A German festival to celebrate the coming of Spring:) I got to experience somewhat of a Rastafarian culture in Japan which was worlds different from the typical Japanese culture.
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| Oldest ship that landed in Japan |
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| Paranoma View - See the famous ferris wheel? |
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| Selca^^ |
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| Some famous surfer |
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| :D Love the place |
Lastly, we headed to
Mori Towers Observatory Deck . The cost is pretty good - for us to go up to the 52nd storey, it costs 1000yen for students and it is inclusive of the art gallery entrance fee! We paid an additional 500yen to visit the Skydeck (53rd storey), which is an outdoor observation deck. The wind was really strong so we were only out for about 20min. But it was absolutely breathtaking. It was a good decision to go there rather than the Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree (and of course, being the cheapo me!). I felt that it was a way more classier place and honestly, the gallery was the best (and the best exhibition) I've ever seen! However, they did not allow phototaking and I apologise for not being able to share this amazing experience with you. For your information,
Roppongi Hills is like the Beverly Hills of California, or Gangnam of Seoul; where the rich stay and I thought that it was an interesting way to experience Tokyo. In the exhibition, I saw art pieces of Rodin, Magritte that I recognised and the pieces really touched my heart, because it was about LOVE! :) My favourite, though, was Sophie Calle's piece about the breakup letter - she reproduced the breakup letter by her ex and gave it to 153 people and videotaped the way they expressed their emotions after reading it.
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| Mori Towers |
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| Tokyo Tower |
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| One of the exhibitions that allowed photography |
This is a super cool website about Roppongi Hills in lieu of its 10th anniversary:
http://tokyocitysymphony.com/
This was by far my favourite day :D
On the last day, we woke up early to head to
Mt Takao/Takao-san for a short hike to the peak to try our luck at catching a glimpse of Mt Fuji. We took a cable train up to the trails and it was a 30-45min walk/hike up to the top and back down, we took the ski lift..which was my first and whoa, it was rather scary; with legs hanging and no security bar :s Both rides cost 420yen but the ride down was way cooler. If I do ever come back again, I hope to climb the rest of the mountains (4 more) and reach the highest peak about 800m high! The view was pretty and I was glad the weather was good.
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| View from the top |
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| Ski lift downhill |
We rushed back to the hotel to check up before going over to Asakusa to catch the last day of the annual
Sanja Matsuri - a 3-day celebration which is one of the 3 main festivals in Tokyo and involves carrying of mikoshi (portable shrines).
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| Dog won 1st! :) Cute |
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| Toyko skytree in the distance |
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| interesting street food! |
After that, we went to the supermarket for some last minute shopping at Takeya, Uniqlo and hung around the streets of Ueno before heading to the airport.
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| Supermarket in Ueno which is super cheappp |
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| Train pass! |
And there concludes my short but interesting 4 days in Edo.
