Tokyo Trip: Day 4 3/4/2010

Before the night's end day before that, Fatin told me to wake up early the next day because the plan was to go to National Diet Building but it's a saturday so it's closed but it's ok cause I get more sleep. So, we went out of hotel probably around 8.30am for the first item of the day which is the Imperial East Garden. When we were there most of the sakura trees were not in bloom anymore but even so,there were still some trees that's still blooming.I think that day's weather compared to the rest of our stay there might have been the nicest with the sun shining together with the warmth .The days before that were dark and cold to me.So after walking around, (which was quite tiring cause the garden is so big) we plunk ourselves on the grass,ate and chatted.It's really a nice feeling.By the time we were halfway on our food, the garden is almost full with people having their picnic as well.There are a lot of people around the garden painting the landscape and taking pictures of the flowers. Quite a number of them are quite old too, I think it must be nice growing old in Japan.

After lunch is Roponggi. We just went around and visit Tv asahi. I think Roponggi is a posh area similar to bukit bintang area here. We then took the next train to ginza. There, we go to sony building which is crowded with people. I took a video of the ginza crossing, one of the busiest crossing in tokyo. There were so many people crossing and japanese walked so fast just like singaporean so even I felt intimidated walking there.Next is Akihabara. It's an electric town in tokyo but I shall call it the geek town. We walked into 1 mall that's just like lowyat only so much bigger and triple the amount of people there.Seriously, there were so many people and most of them were playing ds outside the lift and outside the store. Anyhow, if fatin live in tokyo that will be her town.That will be the place she frequented every week perhaps she will even be 1 of the otakus outside the lift playing ds together.

I also saw some of the "maids" from the maid cafe promoting their cafe. I don't really get men's obsession with maid uniform.

After that, it was raining and it gets too cold and we were too tired so we head back to the hotel reaching maybe around 9pm++. Oh we took the 1 day open metro ticket that came with the purchase of airport limousine ticket so no money was spent on that day.

Tokyo Trip: Day 3 2/4/2010

The itinerary for this day is to go to Tsukiji fish market,odaiba and tokyo tower.We went out from hotel by 8.30 am to go to tsukiji.Actually,the activities in this market started way earlier than when we arrived which is the auction which started at 6am but we skipped that.Every seafood in tsukiji is huuugee.The octopus looked like it can swallow you alive (ok exaggeration here).But 1 thing I'm impressed of the fish market is that it doesn't stink like how market should be.There's no awful stench and it's really clean.The car?/motor? they use to transport the ice boxes are pretty cool too.Like fatin said there are so many good looking guys in tokyo that even the ones that work in the market are cute.

We just bought some food there and head on to odaiba.Oh I forgot to mention that we bought the 1 day metro ticket.It really helped to save a lot if you plan to get to many places in 1 day.Next, after getting to shimbashi station we took the 1 day open ticket for yurikamome to get us to odaiba and goes around it.

In odaiba,we first went to the decks tokyo beach to have the food we brought at the platform opposite a park.Then walk along the beach,bought some postcard at the souvenir shop and post it.Even buying the stamp at the post office is quite a challenge there if you don't know how to speak japanese.Then, we went to aquacity,I'm not sure but I think this is the place with the disney shop.The merchandises sold at this shop are cheaper than the ones in disneyland cause maybe it's the last season's ones (could be winter) so if you don't mind buying the last season's merchandise then stock up here.Suprisingly,there's also a mini statue of liberty here (kinda random right).There's also a cat souvenir shop which sold cats merchandises, although it's a well known fact that I don't like cats but even to me the merchandises look tempting.Oh we also went to fuji tv which has a cool structure with the globe thingy.There, we took the elevator to the 24th floor to look at odaiba from above for free.I can't believe that I go to the building where they film vs arashi which meant I could be in the same vicinity with arashi that day!! (total fangirl mode).

We went to the panasonic center and toyota showroom after that.I'm not really a fan of cars so I won't elaborate on that but the panasonic center was cool.That was my 1st time viewing a 3d tv.The staff there can talk in english and really helpful, they even offered to take photo for us with super mario.

We also went up the big ferris wheel in odaiba said to be in guiness book of record once.Actually 1 of my wish was to ride the big ferris wheel if I ever go to Japan so yay fulfilled!.The ferris wheel lit up really pretty at night along with the rainbow bridge.One thing bothering me till now is that while we were near the ferris wheel there's a club nearby there, (zepp tokyo) and there were so many girls lining up to buy merchandise of a band.We took a look at the poster and I thought to myself that I want to google about that group when I get back but of course I forgot the band's name.Maybe the band is still not that big yet but it bothers me that I can't remember the name.

After that,we went to tokyo tower.We have to do a bit of walking to get there from metro station.There were quite a lot of people there being friday night but tokyo at night was so pretty.There's even a cafe up at the observatory level with a dj and a band.I remembered clearly that the band at that time was playing one of my favourite song (chiisana koi no uta).It was just one of those moment that stuck with you,looking at a very nice view at a strange city with your favourite song playing at the background.There's a medallion machine there for souvenir.I didn't bought it but fatin bought the medallion and it's really cool.It will come out like a shilling and you can put whatever wordings you want on that shilling.There's a souvenir shop up there too, we bought some stuff and later learnt that there's another souvenir shop at the ground floor of the tower with cheaper price -_- ,but there's not that much choices compared to the one up there (pujuk diri sendiri).

We reach back to hotel around 10pm.Memang productive giler that day and we walk so so so much until every part of our body aches.Before we slept I was watching this concert on tv and I remembered that I wanna google the singer performing on that concert too but again I forgot his name once I get back.It's so frustating cause fatin told me earlier to write his name cause she knew I was gonna forget but I didn't.I was so confident that I will remember his name.Haih.

p/s: I didn't write much about our transportation to every place cause I don't know much about it.Fatin will write all about our transports and our budget there so go to her blog for more info.

Tokyo Trip: Day 2 1/4/2010

The flight to tokyo from singapore took around 7 hours so we reach Narita airport around 2pm Japanese time.Japanese time is earlier than the malaysian time by an hour.Going through immigration like what fatin said is hell.There were so many people and I think we have to queued up for 1 and a half hour.On the bright side,that's kind of a good practice for us since we did so many queuing up later on at disneyland and disneysea.Then we had to go through customs which is nerve racking cause he asked to check our luggage.I didn't bring any drugs or explosive of course,but I did brought rendang,daging dendeng,sambal ikan bilis,nasi impit and some beras for our supplies there which actually cannot be brought in to japan.Anyway,saved cause he just asked to look at fatin's luggage and then we took the airport limousine (which is actually just a bus) to shinjuku station.The weather at that time was 19 degrees which is not that cold but since we just arrived I do felt cold.Looking out from the bus,we get to see the inside of the offices in japan which is just like in their dramas,so cramped with coat hangers at every section.From shinjuku station we took the metro to nishi-shinjuku which is just a station away and the nishi-shinjuku station is just opposite our hotel (Hotel Rose Garden,Shinjuku).Since it's our first time taking the subway I have no idea that there's an elevator that we can took to the platform at the lower ground so I hauled my 19.4kg luggage down so many flight of stairs which at that time felt like it's never ending.Not only that,when we just got in the train,the station attendant asked us to empty the train.I found out later that there will be a certain train that will not be stopping at all stations so at certain station they will asked all the passengers to empty the train.So we have to go out from the train again and wait for the next train.If you do not understand japanese like we do,just follow whatever the others do.Only board the train when the others do and empty the train when everyone else went out cause the announcement will only be in japanese.The plan for that night is to explore shinjuku but by the time we checked in it's 6pm+, we were tired,need to bathe and not to mention half of the beras I brought leaked out from the plastic and strewn all over my luggage so I spent the evening picking them up,so we just stayed in that night,have dinner and slept.

Tokyo Trip: Day 1 31/3/2010

On this day we weren't in tokyo yet.This is just the start of the journey.We flew by air asia to singapore at 3pm I think and reach Changi around 4.30pm.We planned earlier on to take mrt from changi to somewhere in singapore to spend away our time since our next flight to tokyo is at 6am the next day.I know sounds like a lot of waiting time right,well it is.By the time we went through immigration,take our luggage,go to toilet etc. it's 5pm + by the time we took the mrt which means time for office hour to end so the mrt was rather packed.We didn't do any research about where to go in singapore before that so we just go to the safest bet,orchard rd.Well that's the only place other than sentosa island that I knew of.Ate at the pizza hut for dinner (I know,sounds boring right but their menu is more extensive than Malaysia so it's all right),walk around a little bit and go back to airport by 10pm.Singaporean sure walk so much faster than malaysian it's kinda funny.Now,in singapore we were to take our next flight from terminal 1 but that's the most boring terminal out of all terminals changi have so we went to terminal 3 and lepak there for a bit until 2pm and came back to terminal 1.Our flight took off at 6am and since we stayed up the whole night before,I dozed off right away when we were on the flight.I don't even realized when the flight took off.We boarded Delta airline which we booked in october or november I can't remember.The halal food and the movie list is passable I guess for Delta.Well, moving on...

Tokyo Trip:Intro

Ok I think I really need to start blogging about my tokyo trip since I have memory worse than a goldfish.Not to mention,I said to fatin on our way back that she might not be blogging about this trip until 6 months later but what do u know,she blogged earlier than me!!As everyone who read this blog might know,I went to tokyo for 9 days from 31st march to 9th april with fatin.So it had been 1 week since I returned.I will be blogging according to days.So here's the start.Ok I have no idea why I bother to put an intro but since I have already typed this might as well post it.