konflakes
Well-Known Member
As some of you might know, namely the people who frequent the General Anime Discussion thread, I've just returned from a 13 day holiday in Japan that started on the 15th of October up to the 27th. Of which I spent almost 2 days travelling. And I am here to share my experience, as well as a day-by-day breakdown of what I did while I was there. Also, keep in mind that I went there with my family, which included parents and an elder sister. Which also meant that shopping days were inevitable.
In Japan, I have been to and/or stayed at Narita, Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Mt Fuji.
Also, wall of text warning.
Waking up early in the morning, I caught a 6 am cab to the airport where I did uneventful things like eating breakfast and walking to the boarding gate. Flight was delayed almost an hour. Flew to Hong Kong in 3-4 hours for a 3 hours stop-over, ate lunch, boarded plane and headed to Japan via another 3-4 hour flight.
Hong Kong Airport
This is where it gets interesting.
As the plane approached Narita International Airport, strong winds from the typhoon that was about to hit Japan started to affect the plane. There was plenty of shaking, rumbling, ominous drops which left a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach every time it did so. Overall, I found it fun, almost like riding a rollercoaster.
Landed at Narita Airport just fine, proceeded to take a comfortable "limousine bus" from the airport to a nearby hotel from an international chain called "Radisson". Hotel was pretty good, best hotel I would stay at in Japan until the 22nd. Had a good night's sleep.
Raddison Hotel room (Sorry its blurry)
Remember how I said that typhoon winds were affecting my flight as we neared Narita? Yeah, it hit in the morning. Luckily, Narita was at the tip of the areas affected by the typhoon's wind and rain. So, not much damage was done this day. Apart from some minor flooding that halted traffic until around 10am. I was supposed to leave as early as 8 to catch a bus back to the airport so that I could catch another bus to Tokyo Disneyland but clearly, that was not meant to be.
So after having a free buffet breakfast and waiting a couple of hours until 10 for the hotel staff (which were all very nice and professional) to inform us that the bus for Narita was leaving soon, we hopped on and promptly headed off into a 4 hour jam. Yeap, a 4 hour jam for a journey that took us 30 mins the previous day. Kudos to the bus driver though, for driving off onto the highway and paying the toll to get us to the airport earlier. I suspect we would have taken another hour or so to get to the airport otherwise.
Just a little of the view between the hotel to the airport. Lots of farms.
With that out of the way, the bus from the airport to Disneyland was smooth enough. However, there was a problem. By the time we got there it was already 3pm and way too late for us to start derping around Disneyland. So with that in mind, we requested a refund for our 3-day passes and to trade it for a 2-day pass that would begin the next day instead. Oh, and this place also has what I believe to be the only DisneySea in the world. So given that we would have to choose one day to go to Disneyland and another for DisneySea, we chose to go to DisneySea first.
Then went walking around the shopping places next to the hotel, which was the Disney Ambassador Hotel. Really expensive, but for the experience, meh, guess it wasn't too bad. Staff were dressed in what looked to me to be nut cracker uniforms. At this point the difficulty in conversing with them started to manifest itself. But basic words were used and we survived. Had a nicer dinner, ate Beef Udon.
Donald Duck themed hotel room. For 4 people.
I have got to say, this was the single most exhausting day in my entire time in Japan. I spent over 12 hours in DisneySea queuing for rides. Excuse my memory lapse for this was pretty early in my Japan trip and I can't remember exactly what rides I rode and in what order. But I do remember rides such as a nice simulation ride called "Storm Riders" that placed us on a plane and brought us to the heart of a typhoon and where we "launched" a device into the heart of the storm to destroy it. And then shit hits the fan and the storm blows the device/missile back at us and suddenly, the missile busts through the actual roof of the ride. Shit was pretty damn cool.
There was also an Indiana Jones indoor coaster that wasn't too big on the sudden drops but had plenty of high speed sharp turns and cool effects like some kinda smoke colored with lights to look like fire being blown into your face. There was also a giant boulder that rolled towards our faces and the car we were in had to reverse to get away from it. The Toy Story ride was also really fun but left my arms aching like after a fappathon. Basically, you are seated in the ride and it winds around the area with large screens on the sides and you use a gun attached to the ride to shoot at the targets. And to shoot, you are required to pull a knob attached by a string to the back of the gun. And what made my arms ache was probably me spamming pulls on the knob.
Hmm.. Let's see.. not much else of particular note. Was not able to take most of the hard core coasters because the waiting time was ridiculously long. Otherwise, I enjoyed the sights. For some reason or other, on that day, there was a fairly large number of school girls and boys around the place. All in all, absolutely exhausted, could barely walk/stand and pretty much dead on my feet.
Just some of the buildings there.
Also stuck around til after 8 for their water show. Majestic as fuck. Never knew Mickey fucking Mouse could be so awesome.
These pictures don't really do the show justice. Suffice to say it was on a pretty damn grand scale and was epic.
Returned to the hotel tired as fuck, went to the convenient store located in the hotel lobby and bought some onigiri (rice balls) for dinner. They tasted great, especially the salmon one.
Woke up even earlier in the morning, because our hotel provided us with early access to the park, so instead of waiting till 8.30 to go in, we would be allowed in at 8.15 instead. This meant that we would be able to get a Fast Pass the moment the park opened and would not have to queue for it. Basically, how Fast Passes work is that you take a ticket for the ride that you want, and you can only do this once per ride, and on that ticket, there would be a timing. You return at that timing and they will let you in a special queue take takes priority over the normal queue. I quite like that system as it allows u to run around to the other rides while carrying that Fast Pass to the popular ride without worry that you would not be able to ride that ride due to lack of time.
Anyway, upon entry, first thing we did was to get a Fast Pass for Star Tours, before heading for the Buzz Lightyear ride, that was pretty similar to the Toy Story ride in DisneySea. Except it was less interesting and the shooting was not as fun as the knob yanking. Basic point and shoot.
The entry area before Star Tours, a simulation ride. With that retard C3PO as the pilot.
Right after that, we went to the Captain EO show. Now, this was something interesting. It's a short film starring Michael Jackson with him singing and dancing and acting. This was made right after he turned white so he didn't look terrible yet. And his dancing was still awesome. Definitely very entertaining and memorable.
Finishing up the first area, we then went on to the next interesting looking area, bypassing several that had many kids-oriented rides and decided to take the Mark Twain river boat that went one round around a small island. There were fake deer, fake people, fake huts. And a whole bunch of not-fake ducks swimming around. After that, had lunch which was delicious fried chicken. One piece of regular friend chicken and one piece of black pepper friend chicken. With some wedges and a pastry biscuit thing.
This was at the dock before getting on the boat.
What the boat looks like.
And the view from the boat. Inclusive of ducks.
Lunch. Fried chicken. Juicy. Very delicious.
After lunch, took a Fast Pass for the Haunted Mansion, was looking forward to it. While waiting for the Fast Pass timing, walked around a little, ate some ice cream, which tasted amazing, then loitered around until it was time. Went for the ride. Sorely disappointed. Turned out it was merely a themed ride for "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and not an actual haunted house. Wasted time.
Was exhausted from the previous day and at this point, I could hardly walk around anymore. So, I sat at a bench and played Pokemon X on my 3DS while my mum and my sister went shopping around. After an hour or so, I got up and decided to take a look at some of their souvenir stores and their claw catching machines. Left pretty early because we needed to leave the area and get to Tokyo to check in our next hotel.
The shopping area was the entrance to the park itself. Also, the Disney castle.
Umm, got to Tokyo just fine. But ended up getting a little lost while trying to get to the hotel. Took an extra 30 mins or so to get there. Again, was already exhausted enough from the last day, compounded with today, so the walk was agony. Finally got to the hotel, called Tokyo Grand Hotel, wasn't really grand, just a small and pretty cheap hotel. Had dinner at a family restaurant across the road from the hotel called "Jonathan's". Hamburger steak with breaded prawn and breaded something that was really creamy inside, and rice. Also went to convenience store nearby and bought packed bread for breakfast. Note that this trend of buying packed bread for breakfast persists throughout the rest of the trip.
Dinner
Woke up at about 7-ish, ate bread, left around 8 - 8.30 am to make our way to a Hinode Station that would bring us to Odaiba. Didn't get lost, got there early, around 9.15 - 9.30. First stop was Venus Fort, closest mall to the station and a very popular tourist spot. Shops don't open until 11. So we spent some time at the Starbucks, which was open. Drank coffee, relaxed a little. Sister wanted to run around the Hello Kitty theme park thingy they had there. Decided to make it the last stop in the mall. Went around, looked at the shops, mostly branded clothes like Burberry, Galliano etc etc. Bought myself a pair of jeans, Levi's. Had lunch at an apparently Hawaiian style Japanese food restaurant. Had um, hamburger steak again. This time it had cheese and tomato...paste/puree/sauce on it. It was good. Beef was juicy and tasty, and the tomato and cheese went well with it IMO. Sis then went to Hello Kitty place and I went to the arcade next to it and looked around at the UFO catchers.
Venus Fort, part of Palette Town. No, this is not the hometown of Ash, and no, I did not find Professor Oak here for my first pokemon.
Coffee was good. Roasted Almond Caramel Frappucino. I think.
Right in the center of Venus Fort. A nice fountain.
Left Venus Fort/Palette Town at around 3pm. Walked through the park area in the middle of the island towards Diver City, the shopping mall that the Gundam was in front of. Arrived at Gundam. Took pictures. Checked out their Gundam Cafe that was at the foot of the building about 10m away from the Gundam. Did not really look like a cafe to me, it had a bunch of Gundam character goods and sold some creampuff things that were in the shape of Gundams. Am not really a fan of Gundam so just looking around sufficed for me. It also started raining just as we reached the Gundam, so I took quick pictures before going indoors. Took a break inside for awhile because we were tired of walking around. Ate some Krispy Kreme donuts.
Walking across the park. It was very windy, and the air was cold, like 20~ish celsius. Compared to the constant 30-35 celsius we get in Singapore, this was heavenly.
At last, we arrive. They say it isn't functional. They say.
At this point it was already about 5pm and the sun had set, which to me is unusual. I've been used to a 6.30-7pm sunset in Singapore, so this seemed early to me. Went back outside, it was still raining a little but the rain was more of a fine and sparse mist at this point so I ignored it. Took more pictures of the Gundam with the lights on now that it was dark. Returned into Diver City, shopped around, went to H&M, stuff was on discount everywhere, 50% off and shit. Bought a pair of 1000yen headphones and a 300yen belt. Belt was a good investment as I forgot to bring my belt to Japan. Headphones were crap but it was cheap, so whatever lol.
Clearly they were lying, look, they turned it on!
I don't even know what the fuck this is or what that sign says.
Had dinner at McDonalds, can't remember what burger I ate. Went up to the top floor to see a Gundam museum thingy. If I recall correctly it was called Gundam Frontier or some shit like that. They had hundreds of Gundam figures lined up row after row after row in one of the rooms. The main areas sold Gundam merchandise, including hats, shirts, and even sunglasses. Some of the sunglasses looked pretty good but it was pretty expensive at around 300 USD for the cheapest.
Holy shit man, seriously. The sheer number of Gundams.
After this, we left Diver City and walked to the station and returned to the hotel. Packed up everything and prepared to move the luggage to the grand hotel we would be staying at.
Woke up early at around 6 am to walk over to The Prince Park Tower Tokyo, a 5 star hotel. We left our luggage with them and took the hotel's shuttle bus to a Hamamatsucho Station/Bus interchange. From there, representatives of the tour group we would be following brought us to Tokyo Station. From there, we took a Shinkansen, bullet train, to Kyoto. Upon arrival we were once again guided to a hotel called the New Miyako Hotel, where we were given our lunch. A serving of beef stroganoff with the tiniest portion of rice I had ever seen in my entire life. Oh, but this did not mean the food was bad at all. The beef was fantastic, the rice was tasty, pathetic as the serving was. We also had access to the appetizer and dessert buffets, where there was roast beef seasoned with wasabi, scallops/mussels, prawns/shrimps, fish, and unagi sushi.
Appetiser, Main Course, Dessert. Seriously, look at that rice portion. Its fucking tiny.
After lunch, we were picked up along with others from the hotel and brought to our first destination: Nara.
Nara was about an hour's drive away from Kyoto by coach, so we were entertained along the way by a very entertaining Japanese tour guide. Not gonna lie, his accent made his jokes more amusing.
Our first stop was at Todaiji Temple, which apparently used to be the largest wooden structure in the world. Until about 1998 or sometime or something, idk, ask wikipedia. But it was pretty grand and admirers of architecture and design would definitely like it. I found it pretty impressive or maybe even imposing, especially as I walked up the road towards the temple. The giant statue of Buddha in the temple was really pretty damn huge.
Guardians of the temple! Giant nipples guy A and guy B!
And this guy was just snoozing at the top of the stairs of the entrance.
The actual temple.
Giant Buddha statue inside the temple. The guide claims around 20 men can fit on the palm of its hand.
Pretty cool miniature model of the whole temple.
Apparently, in ancient Japans, fires were as common as rain and so the building on the left, which was the original, was burned down. Several years/decades/centuries/millenia later, the one on the right, the current one, was rebuilt, smaller than it originally was.
Not going to bore everyone with too much text spam, so moving on~
There were also plenty of deer or Shika, roaming throughout the temple grounds freely. So these deer were apparently the messengers of the gods and are considered sacred. Well, obviously after coming all this way to Nara, and being around these deer, we just had to feed them. Me and my sister bought a stack of deer biscuits/crackers which I'm fairly certain is called Shika Senbei. The moment the stack of biscuits hit my hand, they came. 5, maybe 6 deers were on me in an instant. I hadn't even removed the paper strips they used to keep the stack together. I had to hold the biscuits high above my head and keep walking to keep it away from them. The damn deer kept biting at my jacket and stepping on my shoes. 1 little fucker even headbutted me in the crotch. Lucky for me, the ones that followed me were the tamer ones and the biting/butting did not hurt. They also remove the horns from the males, except for the younger ones that were still growing horns. Unfortunately for my sister, she attracted the attention of a fairly large male and his headbutting left her a couple of bruises. Overall though, it was a really fun experience.
The fuck you staring at bitch, imma rip your heart out and feed it to ma does.
More deer.
After slapping all those deer around, we then proceeded to our next location, Kasuga Taisha, a Shinto shrine famous for its many stone lanterns lining the paths up to the shrine. Less words to be put here, its all sight-seeing and design/architecture appreciation. Also, more deer found here.
Lots of stone lanterns. And some special ones. And gold ones.
This tree is said to be hundreds of years old. I was just pretty excited to see the lightning shaped papers and ropes. I see them all the time in anime so it was pretty cool to see it in real life.
Afterwards, we were sent back to Kyoto and our hotel, the Karasuma Kyoto Hotel, not a particularly luxurious hotel, but it wasn't bad at least. Still exhausted from the last 5 days of the trip, we slowly made our way down the road to check out their shopping-dining street. Finally decided on Yoshinoya, the international Beef Bowl fast food chain. Except in Japan, their special beef bowl, with large strips of beef that was seasoned differently from their regular bowl and also larger, was priced at approximately the same price as a small regular beef bowl back here in Singapore. Definitely feeling shortchanged now that I'm back lol. As usual, bought bread from convenience store, returned home, cooled off, showered, slept.
This was fucking delicious. This beef bowl. Only 520 yen, which converts to about 7-8 SGD. Which is what I would pay here for a regular bowl that looks like this:
Don't get me wrong, the regular one tastes great but just that the special one tasted much better.
Disregard the handbag on the bed, this is my sister's picture of her room. Didn't take one of my own but its exactly the same.
This day started at about 8am. We were picked up from the hotel by the tour bus, which goes around to other hotels picking up others who paid for better hotels than us, since we were on a budget, lol. The bus then brought us to our first stop in Kyoto:
Nijo Castle. It was really grand, the design on the gates the roofs etc etc. Inside the main castle, we were not allowed to take pictures due to the conditions of the paintings inside the walls. A fair bit of the artwork were restorations while the clearly older and worn looking ones were originals. The garden outside however, was free for pictures. And pictures it was I took. The garden looked fucking gorgeous. All that green, the lake, just wow.
Just some of the shots of the gate, the main building, one of the corner towers etc etc.
Just pure beauty.
Next stop, Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion Temple. I'd heard great tales and descriptions. It looked great. The gold of the pavilion was really bright and really eye catching. The wind let up and the waters were still. The reflection of the temple in the water. It looked fantastic.
An overview map of the temple area.
Stunningly bright gold. Guide claimed that hundreds of years ago when it first opened, the queue to see it led out the entire compound and one would have to wait over 4 hours just to see the pavilion.
After Kinkaku-ji, the next stop was the Kyoto Imperial Palace. We actually had to fill out forms with our names and stuff because important foreign government officials like the US's favourite Bush have stayed there when they visit the country and I assume there will be others to come. Design and architecture, once again, was superb. A lot of emphasis was put on the roofs, which were layered bark. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Warning, picture spam above.
After the palace we were taken to another hotel to have our lunch. This restaurant was a lot less grand than the previous day's. We were served a chicken steak with teriyaki sauce. Which was presented so...plainly. Its like the cooked the chicken, slapped it down on the plate and poured some sauce on it. And served it. Not gonna complain about their dessert buffet though. The mini vanilla rolls were absolutely heavenly. Also had a short break here, so we went over to the shrine next to the hotel before the bus came to pick us up.
Appetiser. Apparently that's called "Chinese Soup". Its essentially just minced chicken and egg.
The chicken steak I mentioned.
Apparently this is a "Fertility Shrine". Fitting then, that the symbol of fertility is the rabbit.
I just had to take pics of these. There were so many of them.
Still To Be Continued Again (Also saving my edits after typing out each day to prevent accidental closing and losing all progress)
In Japan, I have been to and/or stayed at Narita, Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Mt Fuji.
Also, wall of text warning.
October 15th, Day 1: The Flight
Waking up early in the morning, I caught a 6 am cab to the airport where I did uneventful things like eating breakfast and walking to the boarding gate. Flight was delayed almost an hour. Flew to Hong Kong in 3-4 hours for a 3 hours stop-over, ate lunch, boarded plane and headed to Japan via another 3-4 hour flight.
Hong Kong Airport
This is where it gets interesting.
As the plane approached Narita International Airport, strong winds from the typhoon that was about to hit Japan started to affect the plane. There was plenty of shaking, rumbling, ominous drops which left a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach every time it did so. Overall, I found it fun, almost like riding a rollercoaster.
Landed at Narita Airport just fine, proceeded to take a comfortable "limousine bus" from the airport to a nearby hotel from an international chain called "Radisson". Hotel was pretty good, best hotel I would stay at in Japan until the 22nd. Had a good night's sleep.
Raddison Hotel room (Sorry its blurry)
October 16th, Day 2: The Typhoon
Remember how I said that typhoon winds were affecting my flight as we neared Narita? Yeah, it hit in the morning. Luckily, Narita was at the tip of the areas affected by the typhoon's wind and rain. So, not much damage was done this day. Apart from some minor flooding that halted traffic until around 10am. I was supposed to leave as early as 8 to catch a bus back to the airport so that I could catch another bus to Tokyo Disneyland but clearly, that was not meant to be.
So after having a free buffet breakfast and waiting a couple of hours until 10 for the hotel staff (which were all very nice and professional) to inform us that the bus for Narita was leaving soon, we hopped on and promptly headed off into a 4 hour jam. Yeap, a 4 hour jam for a journey that took us 30 mins the previous day. Kudos to the bus driver though, for driving off onto the highway and paying the toll to get us to the airport earlier. I suspect we would have taken another hour or so to get to the airport otherwise.
Just a little of the view between the hotel to the airport. Lots of farms.
With that out of the way, the bus from the airport to Disneyland was smooth enough. However, there was a problem. By the time we got there it was already 3pm and way too late for us to start derping around Disneyland. So with that in mind, we requested a refund for our 3-day passes and to trade it for a 2-day pass that would begin the next day instead. Oh, and this place also has what I believe to be the only DisneySea in the world. So given that we would have to choose one day to go to Disneyland and another for DisneySea, we chose to go to DisneySea first.
Then went walking around the shopping places next to the hotel, which was the Disney Ambassador Hotel. Really expensive, but for the experience, meh, guess it wasn't too bad. Staff were dressed in what looked to me to be nut cracker uniforms. At this point the difficulty in conversing with them started to manifest itself. But basic words were used and we survived. Had a nicer dinner, ate Beef Udon.
Donald Duck themed hotel room. For 4 people.
October 17th, Day 3: The DisneySea
I have got to say, this was the single most exhausting day in my entire time in Japan. I spent over 12 hours in DisneySea queuing for rides. Excuse my memory lapse for this was pretty early in my Japan trip and I can't remember exactly what rides I rode and in what order. But I do remember rides such as a nice simulation ride called "Storm Riders" that placed us on a plane and brought us to the heart of a typhoon and where we "launched" a device into the heart of the storm to destroy it. And then shit hits the fan and the storm blows the device/missile back at us and suddenly, the missile busts through the actual roof of the ride. Shit was pretty damn cool.
There was also an Indiana Jones indoor coaster that wasn't too big on the sudden drops but had plenty of high speed sharp turns and cool effects like some kinda smoke colored with lights to look like fire being blown into your face. There was also a giant boulder that rolled towards our faces and the car we were in had to reverse to get away from it. The Toy Story ride was also really fun but left my arms aching like after a fappathon. Basically, you are seated in the ride and it winds around the area with large screens on the sides and you use a gun attached to the ride to shoot at the targets. And to shoot, you are required to pull a knob attached by a string to the back of the gun. And what made my arms ache was probably me spamming pulls on the knob.
Hmm.. Let's see.. not much else of particular note. Was not able to take most of the hard core coasters because the waiting time was ridiculously long. Otherwise, I enjoyed the sights. For some reason or other, on that day, there was a fairly large number of school girls and boys around the place. All in all, absolutely exhausted, could barely walk/stand and pretty much dead on my feet.
Just some of the buildings there.
Also stuck around til after 8 for their water show. Majestic as fuck. Never knew Mickey fucking Mouse could be so awesome.
These pictures don't really do the show justice. Suffice to say it was on a pretty damn grand scale and was epic.
Returned to the hotel tired as fuck, went to the convenient store located in the hotel lobby and bought some onigiri (rice balls) for dinner. They tasted great, especially the salmon one.
October 18th, Day 4: The DisneyLand
Woke up even earlier in the morning, because our hotel provided us with early access to the park, so instead of waiting till 8.30 to go in, we would be allowed in at 8.15 instead. This meant that we would be able to get a Fast Pass the moment the park opened and would not have to queue for it. Basically, how Fast Passes work is that you take a ticket for the ride that you want, and you can only do this once per ride, and on that ticket, there would be a timing. You return at that timing and they will let you in a special queue take takes priority over the normal queue. I quite like that system as it allows u to run around to the other rides while carrying that Fast Pass to the popular ride without worry that you would not be able to ride that ride due to lack of time.
Anyway, upon entry, first thing we did was to get a Fast Pass for Star Tours, before heading for the Buzz Lightyear ride, that was pretty similar to the Toy Story ride in DisneySea. Except it was less interesting and the shooting was not as fun as the knob yanking. Basic point and shoot.
The entry area before Star Tours, a simulation ride. With that retard C3PO as the pilot.
Right after that, we went to the Captain EO show. Now, this was something interesting. It's a short film starring Michael Jackson with him singing and dancing and acting. This was made right after he turned white so he didn't look terrible yet. And his dancing was still awesome. Definitely very entertaining and memorable.
Finishing up the first area, we then went on to the next interesting looking area, bypassing several that had many kids-oriented rides and decided to take the Mark Twain river boat that went one round around a small island. There were fake deer, fake people, fake huts. And a whole bunch of not-fake ducks swimming around. After that, had lunch which was delicious fried chicken. One piece of regular friend chicken and one piece of black pepper friend chicken. With some wedges and a pastry biscuit thing.
This was at the dock before getting on the boat.
What the boat looks like.
And the view from the boat. Inclusive of ducks.
Lunch. Fried chicken. Juicy. Very delicious.
After lunch, took a Fast Pass for the Haunted Mansion, was looking forward to it. While waiting for the Fast Pass timing, walked around a little, ate some ice cream, which tasted amazing, then loitered around until it was time. Went for the ride. Sorely disappointed. Turned out it was merely a themed ride for "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and not an actual haunted house. Wasted time.
Was exhausted from the previous day and at this point, I could hardly walk around anymore. So, I sat at a bench and played Pokemon X on my 3DS while my mum and my sister went shopping around. After an hour or so, I got up and decided to take a look at some of their souvenir stores and their claw catching machines. Left pretty early because we needed to leave the area and get to Tokyo to check in our next hotel.
The shopping area was the entrance to the park itself. Also, the Disney castle.
Umm, got to Tokyo just fine. But ended up getting a little lost while trying to get to the hotel. Took an extra 30 mins or so to get there. Again, was already exhausted enough from the last day, compounded with today, so the walk was agony. Finally got to the hotel, called Tokyo Grand Hotel, wasn't really grand, just a small and pretty cheap hotel. Had dinner at a family restaurant across the road from the hotel called "Jonathan's". Hamburger steak with breaded prawn and breaded something that was really creamy inside, and rice. Also went to convenience store nearby and bought packed bread for breakfast. Note that this trend of buying packed bread for breakfast persists throughout the rest of the trip.
Dinner
October 19th, Day 5: The Odaiba (or Gundam Statue island)
Woke up at about 7-ish, ate bread, left around 8 - 8.30 am to make our way to a Hinode Station that would bring us to Odaiba. Didn't get lost, got there early, around 9.15 - 9.30. First stop was Venus Fort, closest mall to the station and a very popular tourist spot. Shops don't open until 11. So we spent some time at the Starbucks, which was open. Drank coffee, relaxed a little. Sister wanted to run around the Hello Kitty theme park thingy they had there. Decided to make it the last stop in the mall. Went around, looked at the shops, mostly branded clothes like Burberry, Galliano etc etc. Bought myself a pair of jeans, Levi's. Had lunch at an apparently Hawaiian style Japanese food restaurant. Had um, hamburger steak again. This time it had cheese and tomato...paste/puree/sauce on it. It was good. Beef was juicy and tasty, and the tomato and cheese went well with it IMO. Sis then went to Hello Kitty place and I went to the arcade next to it and looked around at the UFO catchers.
Venus Fort, part of Palette Town. No, this is not the hometown of Ash, and no, I did not find Professor Oak here for my first pokemon.
Coffee was good. Roasted Almond Caramel Frappucino. I think.
Right in the center of Venus Fort. A nice fountain.
Left Venus Fort/Palette Town at around 3pm. Walked through the park area in the middle of the island towards Diver City, the shopping mall that the Gundam was in front of. Arrived at Gundam. Took pictures. Checked out their Gundam Cafe that was at the foot of the building about 10m away from the Gundam. Did not really look like a cafe to me, it had a bunch of Gundam character goods and sold some creampuff things that were in the shape of Gundams. Am not really a fan of Gundam so just looking around sufficed for me. It also started raining just as we reached the Gundam, so I took quick pictures before going indoors. Took a break inside for awhile because we were tired of walking around. Ate some Krispy Kreme donuts.
Walking across the park. It was very windy, and the air was cold, like 20~ish celsius. Compared to the constant 30-35 celsius we get in Singapore, this was heavenly.
At last, we arrive. They say it isn't functional. They say.
At this point it was already about 5pm and the sun had set, which to me is unusual. I've been used to a 6.30-7pm sunset in Singapore, so this seemed early to me. Went back outside, it was still raining a little but the rain was more of a fine and sparse mist at this point so I ignored it. Took more pictures of the Gundam with the lights on now that it was dark. Returned into Diver City, shopped around, went to H&M, stuff was on discount everywhere, 50% off and shit. Bought a pair of 1000yen headphones and a 300yen belt. Belt was a good investment as I forgot to bring my belt to Japan. Headphones were crap but it was cheap, so whatever lol.
Clearly they were lying, look, they turned it on!
I don't even know what the fuck this is or what that sign says.
Had dinner at McDonalds, can't remember what burger I ate. Went up to the top floor to see a Gundam museum thingy. If I recall correctly it was called Gundam Frontier or some shit like that. They had hundreds of Gundam figures lined up row after row after row in one of the rooms. The main areas sold Gundam merchandise, including hats, shirts, and even sunglasses. Some of the sunglasses looked pretty good but it was pretty expensive at around 300 USD for the cheapest.
Holy shit man, seriously. The sheer number of Gundams.
After this, we left Diver City and walked to the station and returned to the hotel. Packed up everything and prepared to move the luggage to the grand hotel we would be staying at.
October 20th, Day 6: The Kyoto-Nara-Osaka Trip/Tour
Woke up early at around 6 am to walk over to The Prince Park Tower Tokyo, a 5 star hotel. We left our luggage with them and took the hotel's shuttle bus to a Hamamatsucho Station/Bus interchange. From there, representatives of the tour group we would be following brought us to Tokyo Station. From there, we took a Shinkansen, bullet train, to Kyoto. Upon arrival we were once again guided to a hotel called the New Miyako Hotel, where we were given our lunch. A serving of beef stroganoff with the tiniest portion of rice I had ever seen in my entire life. Oh, but this did not mean the food was bad at all. The beef was fantastic, the rice was tasty, pathetic as the serving was. We also had access to the appetizer and dessert buffets, where there was roast beef seasoned with wasabi, scallops/mussels, prawns/shrimps, fish, and unagi sushi.
Appetiser, Main Course, Dessert. Seriously, look at that rice portion. Its fucking tiny.
After lunch, we were picked up along with others from the hotel and brought to our first destination: Nara.
Nara was about an hour's drive away from Kyoto by coach, so we were entertained along the way by a very entertaining Japanese tour guide. Not gonna lie, his accent made his jokes more amusing.
Our first stop was at Todaiji Temple, which apparently used to be the largest wooden structure in the world. Until about 1998 or sometime or something, idk, ask wikipedia. But it was pretty grand and admirers of architecture and design would definitely like it. I found it pretty impressive or maybe even imposing, especially as I walked up the road towards the temple. The giant statue of Buddha in the temple was really pretty damn huge.
Guardians of the temple! Giant nipples guy A and guy B!
And this guy was just snoozing at the top of the stairs of the entrance.
The actual temple.
Giant Buddha statue inside the temple. The guide claims around 20 men can fit on the palm of its hand.
Pretty cool miniature model of the whole temple.
Apparently, in ancient Japans, fires were as common as rain and so the building on the left, which was the original, was burned down. Several years/decades/centuries/millenia later, the one on the right, the current one, was rebuilt, smaller than it originally was.
Not going to bore everyone with too much text spam, so moving on~
There were also plenty of deer or Shika, roaming throughout the temple grounds freely. So these deer were apparently the messengers of the gods and are considered sacred. Well, obviously after coming all this way to Nara, and being around these deer, we just had to feed them. Me and my sister bought a stack of deer biscuits/crackers which I'm fairly certain is called Shika Senbei. The moment the stack of biscuits hit my hand, they came. 5, maybe 6 deers were on me in an instant. I hadn't even removed the paper strips they used to keep the stack together. I had to hold the biscuits high above my head and keep walking to keep it away from them. The damn deer kept biting at my jacket and stepping on my shoes. 1 little fucker even headbutted me in the crotch. Lucky for me, the ones that followed me were the tamer ones and the biting/butting did not hurt. They also remove the horns from the males, except for the younger ones that were still growing horns. Unfortunately for my sister, she attracted the attention of a fairly large male and his headbutting left her a couple of bruises. Overall though, it was a really fun experience.
The fuck you staring at bitch, imma rip your heart out and feed it to ma does.
More deer.
After slapping all those deer around, we then proceeded to our next location, Kasuga Taisha, a Shinto shrine famous for its many stone lanterns lining the paths up to the shrine. Less words to be put here, its all sight-seeing and design/architecture appreciation. Also, more deer found here.
Lots of stone lanterns. And some special ones. And gold ones.
This tree is said to be hundreds of years old. I was just pretty excited to see the lightning shaped papers and ropes. I see them all the time in anime so it was pretty cool to see it in real life.
Afterwards, we were sent back to Kyoto and our hotel, the Karasuma Kyoto Hotel, not a particularly luxurious hotel, but it wasn't bad at least. Still exhausted from the last 5 days of the trip, we slowly made our way down the road to check out their shopping-dining street. Finally decided on Yoshinoya, the international Beef Bowl fast food chain. Except in Japan, their special beef bowl, with large strips of beef that was seasoned differently from their regular bowl and also larger, was priced at approximately the same price as a small regular beef bowl back here in Singapore. Definitely feeling shortchanged now that I'm back lol. As usual, bought bread from convenience store, returned home, cooled off, showered, slept.
This was fucking delicious. This beef bowl. Only 520 yen, which converts to about 7-8 SGD. Which is what I would pay here for a regular bowl that looks like this:
Don't get me wrong, the regular one tastes great but just that the special one tasted much better.
Disregard the handbag on the bed, this is my sister's picture of her room. Didn't take one of my own but its exactly the same.
October 21th, Day 7: The Kyoto-Nara-Osaka Trip/Tour Day 2
This day started at about 8am. We were picked up from the hotel by the tour bus, which goes around to other hotels picking up others who paid for better hotels than us, since we were on a budget, lol. The bus then brought us to our first stop in Kyoto:
Nijo Castle. It was really grand, the design on the gates the roofs etc etc. Inside the main castle, we were not allowed to take pictures due to the conditions of the paintings inside the walls. A fair bit of the artwork were restorations while the clearly older and worn looking ones were originals. The garden outside however, was free for pictures. And pictures it was I took. The garden looked fucking gorgeous. All that green, the lake, just wow.
Just some of the shots of the gate, the main building, one of the corner towers etc etc.
Just pure beauty.
Next stop, Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion Temple. I'd heard great tales and descriptions. It looked great. The gold of the pavilion was really bright and really eye catching. The wind let up and the waters were still. The reflection of the temple in the water. It looked fantastic.
An overview map of the temple area.
Stunningly bright gold. Guide claimed that hundreds of years ago when it first opened, the queue to see it led out the entire compound and one would have to wait over 4 hours just to see the pavilion.
After Kinkaku-ji, the next stop was the Kyoto Imperial Palace. We actually had to fill out forms with our names and stuff because important foreign government officials like the US's favourite Bush have stayed there when they visit the country and I assume there will be others to come. Design and architecture, once again, was superb. A lot of emphasis was put on the roofs, which were layered bark. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Warning, picture spam above.
After the palace we were taken to another hotel to have our lunch. This restaurant was a lot less grand than the previous day's. We were served a chicken steak with teriyaki sauce. Which was presented so...plainly. Its like the cooked the chicken, slapped it down on the plate and poured some sauce on it. And served it. Not gonna complain about their dessert buffet though. The mini vanilla rolls were absolutely heavenly. Also had a short break here, so we went over to the shrine next to the hotel before the bus came to pick us up.
Appetiser. Apparently that's called "Chinese Soup". Its essentially just minced chicken and egg.
The chicken steak I mentioned.
Apparently this is a "Fertility Shrine". Fitting then, that the symbol of fertility is the rabbit.
I just had to take pics of these. There were so many of them.
Still To Be Continued Again (Also saving my edits after typing out each day to prevent accidental closing and losing all progress)
