yokoso japan! - Part I Tokyo
travel report: japan, 23 dec 06 - 5 jan 07
back in japan again, after 2005's trip of hits and misses (read previous japan report entrances & exits).
didnt want to spend a bland christmas and new year in singapore, so when lini asked if i would like to join her, lik and her Auntie Rose for a 2 week trip to japan, i thought, why not? in the end, i got more than what i bargained for.... this christmas and new year was to be far from bland.....
was very smooth journey to tokyo. l&l and lini's sister, cindy came to the Asakusa station to meet us. Auntie Rose's face turned pale when she saw the infinite no. of steps we had to take from the station to street level. And she turned paler minutes later when she saw how small our hostel room was.
we stayed 2 nights at Khaosan Tokyo Smile - clean, basic and close to the subway. free internet in the common room, which was great except that you sometimes have to put up with less-than-pleasant odours from other guests feet, as shoes were not allowed in that room. free flow of drinking water was actually just tap water filled into a dispenser unit that looked deceptively like those distilled-water-dispensers. lini caught the staff in action of filling up the container after a guest told him there was no more drinking water. ha-ha. the guest could have gotten the water himself from the tap next to the dispenser.
first night dinner was DIY okonomiyaki. the menu was entirely in japanese. but not to worry, they had a pictorial explanation of how to cook. also, we were lucky to have cindy with us. she speaks good japanese.
the okonomiyaki chef in action
after dinner, we headed to ginza for a walk. passed by these fantastic window displays.
the 'lips' were made of hundreds of red buttons.
the following day, beautiful blue skies...
this was the way from our hostel to the subway station...
past the famous golden 'turd' of asahi building...
then cross the Azuma-hashi (red bridge).
we headed to cindy's place at mita-cho, minato-ku. it is near the keio university. one of the tourist things to do when along the street where keio uni is: take photo with tokyo tower in background.
this is a business district so most of the eating places were not opened on a sunday morning. we were lucky to find one vending-machine soba-udon shop. this is how to order: first, look at the plastic food display outside the shop, take a good hard look at the name of the meal you want to order (all in japanese characters), then go into the shop, spend a lot of time trying to locate the name of the meal from the vending machine (all in japanese characters and no accompanying picture), put money in, press the button with the correct name, collect the receipt, present that to the counter and take a seat, hoping that you didnt press the wrong button and ordered something creepy.
this is cindy's cosy room.
rubbish collection point near to her place. you must comply fully with the rules or else the rubbish man will refuse to collect your trash and leave it there forever until you repent and rectify your mistake. the rules: monday is for non-flammables, tues for recyclable plastics, wed and sat for flammables. note that recyclable plastics is PET bottles minus the caps, as cindy had found out after her bag of bottles plus caps went uncollected for days.
after the home visit, we headed off to harajuku to ogle at the girls.
walk past this make-believe world, past a huge, old torii gate and you will come to the Meiji-jingu shrine, an oasis of green in the heart of the city.
after that, back to the make-believe world....
of bare legs in fishnet stockings on a cold winter night...
neon seal on concrete walkway...
and crystal blue trees
end of the day, went to check out our hostel's Bar Twenty Three with lini. warning: do not ever go there unless you dig bad karaoke singing... we left after 1 drink.
Next: Part II Tokyo Outskirts
back in japan again, after 2005's trip of hits and misses (read previous japan report entrances & exits).
didnt want to spend a bland christmas and new year in singapore, so when lini asked if i would like to join her, lik and her Auntie Rose for a 2 week trip to japan, i thought, why not? in the end, i got more than what i bargained for.... this christmas and new year was to be far from bland.....
was very smooth journey to tokyo. l&l and lini's sister, cindy came to the Asakusa station to meet us. Auntie Rose's face turned pale when she saw the infinite no. of steps we had to take from the station to street level. And she turned paler minutes later when she saw how small our hostel room was.
we stayed 2 nights at Khaosan Tokyo Smile - clean, basic and close to the subway. free internet in the common room, which was great except that you sometimes have to put up with less-than-pleasant odours from other guests feet, as shoes were not allowed in that room. free flow of drinking water was actually just tap water filled into a dispenser unit that looked deceptively like those distilled-water-dispensers. lini caught the staff in action of filling up the container after a guest told him there was no more drinking water. ha-ha. the guest could have gotten the water himself from the tap next to the dispenser.
first night dinner was DIY okonomiyaki. the menu was entirely in japanese. but not to worry, they had a pictorial explanation of how to cook. also, we were lucky to have cindy with us. she speaks good japanese.
the okonomiyaki chef in action
after dinner, we headed to ginza for a walk. passed by these fantastic window displays.
the 'lips' were made of hundreds of red buttons.
the following day, beautiful blue skies...
this was the way from our hostel to the subway station...
past the famous golden 'turd' of asahi building...
then cross the Azuma-hashi (red bridge).
we headed to cindy's place at mita-cho, minato-ku. it is near the keio university. one of the tourist things to do when along the street where keio uni is: take photo with tokyo tower in background.this is a business district so most of the eating places were not opened on a sunday morning. we were lucky to find one vending-machine soba-udon shop. this is how to order: first, look at the plastic food display outside the shop, take a good hard look at the name of the meal you want to order (all in japanese characters), then go into the shop, spend a lot of time trying to locate the name of the meal from the vending machine (all in japanese characters and no accompanying picture), put money in, press the button with the correct name, collect the receipt, present that to the counter and take a seat, hoping that you didnt press the wrong button and ordered something creepy.
this is cindy's cosy room.
rubbish collection point near to her place. you must comply fully with the rules or else the rubbish man will refuse to collect your trash and leave it there forever until you repent and rectify your mistake. the rules: monday is for non-flammables, tues for recyclable plastics, wed and sat for flammables. note that recyclable plastics is PET bottles minus the caps, as cindy had found out after her bag of bottles plus caps went uncollected for days.
after the home visit, we headed off to harajuku to ogle at the girls.
walk past this make-believe world, past a huge, old torii gate and you will come to the Meiji-jingu shrine, an oasis of green in the heart of the city.
after that, back to the make-believe world....
of bare legs in fishnet stockings on a cold winter night...
neon seal on concrete walkway...
and crystal blue trees
end of the day, went to check out our hostel's Bar Twenty Three with lini. warning: do not ever go there unless you dig bad karaoke singing... we left after 1 drink.
Next: Part II Tokyo Outskirts
posted by nan at 1:33 AM
1 Comments:
Another pointer to order from the pictureless, non-english vending soba store would be to remember the price first. That will narrow down the choice to a great deal :) Of course we later decide to copy the 'title' from the plastic display outside on Roseo's notebook, and bring it in for ordering later
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