But i spent so much effort planning for my japan trip and i had such a fun time there i just wanted to blog down every detail for my own entertainment.
Also, if ever u guys want to go on a free & easy Japan trip, think this would be useful lo. I used to think it's an impossible task, but surprisingly, with a fair bit of planning, a fair bit of thick skin, and a bit of language, it can be done with relative ease and a whole lot of fun.
In fact, I was very surprised to find that i had even more difficulty with the language barrier in hk as compared to Japan, and I went with only what little bit of jap language i retained from 7 years ago, and some mugging on the train rides lor.
Wonder what that meant abt my grasp of the Cantonese dialect, die liao lar, liddat.
Anyway, i apologise for the lengthy prose, you guys can just skip to the pretty, pretty photos of sakura.
After doing months and months of research, and started planning for this trip since 1 year ago, it really seemed quite surreal when the day finally arrived to embark upon my Japan trip. I felt like I was dreaming.
This was in part due to the fact that I only had 2 hours of sleep so I was probably still semi-conscious at the airport.
I only reached home at 10pm the night before (hmmph), and had to frantically do all my packing then. (I couldn't pack that morn, becos, essentially, I couldn't do anything that morn. then after the gd news, was a trip to my grandfather's and then to my hairdresser for a badly needed haircut.. where i fell asleep. scary thing, falling asleep at the hairdresser, not in a Sweeny Todd kinda scary, but more like a i-hope-i-dun-end-up-botak way, ended up getting my hair curled without my knowledge lor! heng is temporary one)
Usually, on our trips tog, we were always almost the last to check-in and board the plane (note i said, always almost, and not almost always), so this time, becos my mum kept telling me must check-in 2hrs before boarding, and I also confirmed with rm (they're taking the same flight) who said the same thing I made Liang come pick me at 3.30am so that we can reach the airport at 4am for our flight at 6am.
Lo and behold! We reached at 3.55am, and not a soul was in sight (at least to my bleary sleep filled eyes). We completed our check in at 4.03am, even with the 'special comprehensive' questioning with questions like 'where did u pack ur bag" and "who pack ur bag for u", resulting in me giving very incredulous looks and saying, "err.. myself???"
Liang then made alot of mas related jokes:
"who pack ur bag?"
"maaaa..... ther"
-_-"
By 4.10am, he had already grumbled umpteen times why we're here so early.. and saying how only silly people go so early lor.
Tried looking arnd for jerry they all but didn't see them...
When we boarded the plane (We were among the last again, cos we fell asleep at the food court), I asked them what time they reached and they said, "3.45am" -_-" hahaha
Our airplane meals:
Mee goreng and Chicken omelette (ew!)
Spent the 7hrs re-watching Enchanted, and watching Robots (good!) , playing that silly mahjong tiles game that I suppose is found on every airline cos we saw that on air france too, and talking to jerry.
Arrived at 2pm, and it was cold!! I got abit worried, cos i only brought my one and only thin holiday jacket that I wear to everywhere (even indoors), and Liang was very shocked by my silliness. I put on a brave face and said, "no worries! i very strong one!" only to hear jerry say, "is that all you're wearing???" Hmmph he's a fine one to say lor cos he looked like he's just going to lt29!
First photo in Japan (at the airport, while queuing for customs):
After a bewildering time looking for the JR (Japan Rail) pass tickets place (for anyone going to Japan, the JR pass is a MUST. Even tho it's 300 plus, but can use like siao. On their bullet trains, local trains, buses and even ferries! Liang is very impressed, "wah! this JR so li hai, I must go back and buy their shares!" -_-"), and feeling a momentary panic "OMG what the heck am I going to do in the next 6 days with the language barrier??!!!", we managed to get our reserved seats on the Narita Express to Shinjuku, and parted ways with the rest, who are embarking on a long, long looooooong train ride.
First meal in Japan:
Unagi bento.
The first of many, many many more bentos to come
What happened at the bento stall:
Liang *points to sample* : One. *points 1 finger at bento lady*
Bento lady: hai. smth smth smth (that I dun understand)
Liang: can make hot??
Bento lady *stares blankly*
Me: errrr..... atsui??? *makes fire action* [I actually learnt this word as "the weather is atsui", hope the bento lady is not inwardly rolling on the floor laughing at me]
Bento lady: ah! kochira? (=here?)
Me: yar!
Bento lady: hai! smth smth.. mate smth smth [which i translated to Liang as 'must wait for awhile', smoke him abit]
But in the end, we managed to get our "atsui" bento to eat on the train, so Liang was rather impressed.
An interesting sight to behold on Japanese trains is that everyone eats on trains. Then after eating they will very neatly cover everything up, and at the station, painstakingly separate their rubbish into respective paper, plastic bottles or paper cups bins.
Very impressive!
There's also a train lady (usu an extremely cute Japanese girl) pushing a trolley of tidbits, bento boxes, bottled drinks and coffee, who will call out her wares in an (extremely act-) cute voice, and will bow to u if u buy from her. The ang mohs usu buy from them, I forced Liang to buy from the train's vending machine even though he wanted to buy from her so that the girl can bow to us.
We arrived in Shinjuku in no time.
The station was filled with tons and tons of people and most of them were running to catch their trains.
Tried to take photos of the scene, but cannot leh.
[throughout this trip, i have tried to take photos of alot of chio people but always too late to capture them.]
I was also blown away by the hustle and bustle of the city itself.
Anyways, thanks to my trusty map printed from hotel website, and astute sense of direction (hmmph), I managed to find the hotel without once stopping to ask for directions. Needless to say, I was very. very. very. very proud of myself.
We also chanced upon a little peaceful shrine next to our hotel, it was so beautiful we just had to go in to take photos.
I took many, many what i like to call "desktop worthy" photos.
We stayed in the Sunlite Shinjuku Hotel, and as of most (cheap) hotels in Tokyo, there is only one word to describe the room: tiny, and two words to describe the toilet: incredibly tiny. One can literally sit on the toilet bowl, and brush teeth and bathe all at the same time cos everything is within arm's reach.
After checking in, we stumbled around the area looking for somewhere to eat. Rm actually gave me the address to 'the best tempura ever' but sadly, in my haste to pack, i forgot to bring.
We accidentally walked along the fringes of the kabukicho (aka red light district) [but didn't really see anything, think we were (sadly) too early], and ended up at the BEST and MOST popular ramen restaurant in Tokyo.
How do we know this? Because the shop told us. Literally. A humanless voice was shouting through loudspeakers in english, chinese, japanese and korean. "Prease try eet" it said, rather cutely.
They also ranked their popular dishes from no.1 to no.10, haha very cute. And the moment we stepped in, we were greeted (the head waiter will shout out smth, then every other chef/waiter will greet us enthusiastically too) and immediately shown to our seats in 2seconds, given water in 5seconds and the food arrived in 90seconds.
Very, very impressive.
And the food is good.
I especially love my hard boiled egg with the jelly like yolk.
The weather became very, very,very cold at night.
I at first wanted to go Tokyo Tower one (cos most of the jap dramas i watched featured the Tokyo Tower and it was very beautiful), we asked our hotel manager how to go, and he explained the fastest way would be to take their local subway and walk 20minutes. If we take the JR local train (where we can use the JR pass) it would take 25min on foot.
Liangl was very shocked.
Actually I already knew all these from my research, not that i was purple-ly keeping it from him, i just wanted to wait for a more opportune time to break the news. Like when we're actually walking there.
So because the poor guy is so cold he can hardly talk, I decided to scrape my romantic Tokyo Tower plan for cheapo Tokyo Metropolitan building plan, where we can also go to the 45th storey Observatory deck and see the Tokyo nightview and it's free some more.
On the way there, I spotted vending machines selling the familiar Royal Milk Tea.
Which was also sold in Ah, haha, and came highly recommended by friends who said that it's damn nice and when they were in Japan, they had to buy it every 100m or so to keep themselves warm.
When I bought it in Ah, the can was so freaking hot, i had to wrap my white coat around it. In Japan, by the time i collected my change and got round to opening it, the can already cooled to lukewarm liao sigh.
A freezing fifteen minutes walk later, we arrived at the building to find it teeming with tourists. Was very surprised, tot only i'm cheapskate enuf to go there.
Shinjuku nightview with a tiny Tokyo Tower in the distance:
Scolded Liang for the sleepy face, so the next time i told him to take a photo he did this:
This, i suppose, is their equivalent of bars. I saw alot of working people drinking and eating yakitori inside.
And then, we dragged our tired freezing feet back to the hotel.
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