It came with just two breaded prawns. (that’s, like, the standard number in any ebi fry dish I think, judging from what I would be having later that evening.)

Besides the standard curry, they also had an interesting assortment of curries on the menu, classified according to colour — white curry (mildest), red curry (regular) and black curry (hot, hot, hot!). The black curry was really black too!

This is the white curry. It seemed rather plain to me. Our last meal in Kyoto wasn’t a very satisfying one! But then it was time to catch our train.

We barely made it! I slept like a baby throughout the journey, not having had much sleep from the night before. Just under 3 hours later, we arrived in Tokyo again, now a familiar city to us.

The accommodation we booked for the night was at a hostel, a la backpackers’ style. It was located in a very quiet area near minami-senju subway station, a few stations away from Ueno.

But when we finally made it to the minami-senju subway station, there was a whole lot of construction going on. The pathetic little map we printed from the internet just wasn’t accurate anymore.

The Japanese man whom we asked didn’t know the way to our hostel either. But he tried his utmost to help us, walking back and forth, checking out maps and trying to find the right direction. Can we find such kind souls in Singapore?

Anyhow, we finally found the right way to go. The weather in Tokyo had cooled to a comfortable 28 degrees Celsius too. Otherwise, trying to find our hostel with all our bags and luggages in the 40 degrees summer heat that we had endured for the past 9 days would have been torturous.

Aizuya inn, our hostel for the last night in Tokyo. It’s my first time staying in a hostel and I absolutely love the friendly and open atmosphere! There was a common area where all guests could mingle.

Plus, we could make coffee and green tea to our hearts’ content. They had a couple of computers where guests could use broadband internet for free.

As this was just a four-storey building, it had no elevator. We groaned at the prospect of having to carry our heavy luggages up the narrow staircase to our room on the third floor (and down again less than 24 hours later).

Luckily, the staff on duty (whom xanthe thought was cute) offered to bring up both our luggages! I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to climb up all three storeys with a big-ass luggage in each hand. We were so impressed!

All rooms here were of the traditional Japanese style, which means there was no bed. We would sleep on futons (japanese mattresses) instead.

The next thing I checked out was the shower room. All shower facilities were shared and I was worried they might be dirty.

But they were dry and spanking clean! Phew! There was a whole row of two-tiered shower rooms like this; each room opened up to a dry area (on the left) where you would undress etc, while the inner door opened up to the actual shower area (on the right).

What I didn’t see coming was that we had to pay to use the shower, otherwise no water would run! It was fully automated; slot in a ¥100 coin and the timer would start counting down from 5 minutes. That’s how long the water would run (excluding any breaks in between). It’s a good thing I shower fast!

Then it was time to hit town. It was getting close to night time!

We opted to go to nearby Ueno, said to be a busy shopping district.

At Ueno station, we saw our first Hard Rock Café in Japan — about time!

For some reason, Hard Rock Cafés give me that warm and inviting vibe (with the exception of Hard Rock Café Singapore). Each time I travel to a new city, I would try to drop by the local Hard Rock Café, get a drink and buy some memorabilia. This time round I bought 5 t-shirts!

Ameyoko is a shopping area right outside Ueno station. Unlike shibuya though, it was a lot quieter. Almost all the apparel shops catered to men.

This quaint Japanese restaurant attracted our attention. It’s where we had dinner.

I swear it looked really nice and inviting. My pictures simply do not do it justice!

Cute little containers.

Ramen.

As I already had don, ramen and udon in Japan, I went for soba this time.

It came with exactly two ebi fry. Two again! Why? But this time round the prawns were humongous and way bigger than the ones I had for brunch back at Kyoto station.

Even in Singapore, I never had soba before. That was my first soba ever! The waitress helpfully informed me that after I was done with the soba, I would pour the soup from the shiny little kettle into my remaining black soba tsuyu (dipping sauce) and drink the mixture. Yummy! I love soba now!

With bellies full, we did some exploring around ameyoko, ready to blow all our remaining Japanese yen on some last-ditch shopping!

We spotted a capsule hotel for the first time! I had totally forgotten about the infamous capsule hotel until then. I’ve always wondered how people can bring themselves to watch television, rest and sleep in that claustrophobic and confined little space. We didn’t go in to take a better look though.

A nicer-looking building that seemed to sparkle like a gem. Very pretty!

To my surprise, we chanced upon a claire’s accessories store. I first saw this chain during my Dallas trip last November. I still remember how excited I was, like a little girl seeing pretty jewellery for the first time.

Not sure if I had already mentioned this, but video arcades such as this jumbo outlet are all the rage in Japan.

You would see guys hogging the machines whether they are in their teens or in business suits.

Doraemon in three different colours! And with ears too! I do know we have such claw vending machines in Singapore…

But certainly not with toys as cute as these!

Care bears! They were obviously fake ones though.

Mobile roadside hawker stalls like this were a common sight, no doubt catering to the busy working crowd who have only the time to stop by for a quick bite. I didn’t get to eat at a stall like this. The closest would have been the takoyaki stall in Kyoto the day before.

It was also around this spot where I ran into the creep i mentioned previously. You know, the one who tried hitting on me the moment my friend went into a shop, and claimed he’s from England when he’s obviously Japanese and couldn’t speak much English!

A wonda drinks vending machine outside Ueno station. That huge bright red drink can was very striking!

Another example of the wide plethora of automated machines in Japan, a shoe shiner this time! Wow! Now I’ve seen everything!

By the time the stores closed, we managed to get a lot more shopping done. Back at the hostel, I came up with the brilliant idea of going the entire night without sleep (again), and sleeping on the 7-hour flight back to Singapore. Then, I would be as fresh as a daisy when I get off the plane, all ready for work on Monday!

So, I spent the entire night in the common area with my laptop skyping with friends back at home, and chatting with a few of the hostel guests. There’s nicholas, this dude from new jersey who teaches English in Osaka and was holidaying in Tokyo. There were two other guys from kuwait too, who told me that daytime temperatures there are 56 degrees Celsius!!! I was flabbergasted! Suddenly the hot Japan summer weather didn’t seem so bad anymore.

After this brief experience of staying in a hostel, I made a mental note to stay in one again the next time I travel solo; it’s just so much fun! The only bad thing about going solo is the occasional loneliness. But with other guests to mingle with at a hostel, it wouldn’t get lonely anymore.

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We arrived at Tokyo Station, the main intercity rail terminal in Tokyo. (I would be here again the following morning to take the bullet train to Kyoto.) the station is a landmark building in itself, with the renaissance style redbrick architecture lending it a classic look. It was originally built in 1914 but the current building was reconstructed in 1947.

In the pictures above, does anyone else think that the building behind look as though it’s not really there? I did a double take when I saw that! The building was so faint it looked almost translucent!

Tokyo central post office, a building that looks really aged.

Marunouchi building. Built in 1923, it sits atop the most expensive real estate in Japan, with a land value of ¥21 million per square meter! That’s more than a quarter of a million Singapore dollars PER SQUARE METER!

Beams department store on the ground floor.

Tokyo international forum with its futuristic glass atrium. This is a venue for exhibitions and concerts, the equivalent of Singapore expo or Esplanade theatre. Back in day 3, we had drinks at a couple of pubs at the building next to it.

We spotted a Hello Kitty bus too!

The expensive shopping district Ginza (visited in day 3) and Marunouchi are within the same vicinity. It is in Ginza where our second stop, the Sony building is situated. Being geeks, we were excited to check out the showrooms in there — all 11 floors of them! There are also a few shops, restaurants and cafés scattered throughout the building.

For a building that is showcasing the latest technology, its exterior sure doesn’t look impressive!

Over here, visitors can get a hands-on of the latest Sony gadgets.

A variety of brightly-coloured objects are placed next to all the video camcorders and cameras.

People may test the cameras by shooting these objects.

We spent some time playing with all the gadgets here. I think my next compact digital camera might just be a Sony one! My current camera has been with me for more than 2 years and it’s time for an upgrade.

Viron, a café chain. Beni remarked that its name is just a letter away from mine.

Back on the subway, we made our way to our third and final destination for the day — Odaiba. I noticed that certain subway stations had “women only” overhead signs. The information poster below shows why.

Interestingly, trains on the keio line had women-only cars at certain times of the day. How nice!

A fitting place to spend a last night in Tokyo would be in Odaiba, a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay. It was originally constructed in 1853 as a series of fortresses for protection against attacks from the sea. Today, it is a popular multi-entertainment district.

The train service that serves Odaiba is the Yurikamome line. Fares on this route may be more expensive, but riding on it provides passengers with great waterfront views of Tokyo Bay. Trains on this line are unmanned and fully computerised.

To my surprise, at one point the train actually makes a roundabout to run on the Rainbow Bridge itself! Here’s a shoddy video of the Rainbow Bridge taken from within the train.

Youtube link

After alighting from the train, we made our way to decks Tokyo beach shopping mall.

Decks is a large shopping and entertainment complex with a tropical beach theme. And for good reason too. A wooden deck occupies the entire length of the sea-facing side of the building as well as the adjacent aquacity shopping mall. People can walk along the deck and enjoy a great view of the sea.

It was over here where we got to take in the beautiful view of the Rainbow Bridge!

This 570 metre long suspension bridge connects Odaiba to the Tokyo waterfront. During the day, the bridge is a gorgeous white colour. At night, it illuminates in three different colours — red, white and green.

The magnificent Tokyo tower (visited in day 4) is visible too.

A street artist drawing portraits for sale.

And now here’s something we didn’t quite expect…

A statue of liberty replica! We had absolutely no idea it was there so it came as a total surprise! Now I feel as though I have visited New York city!

Along the deck are several restaurants and cafés where people can dine while enjoying the sea view.

We stopped by longboard café for yummy, yummy, hot and spicy nachos.

I think that’s the first time I managed to have chilli of any kind in Tokyo!

This whole place had a californian beach theme.

Cute indoor gas station.

Have you ever seen such pretty toothpicks?

More sightseeing after our little break! Odaiba is a great place for that.

Here’s the highly futuristic, yet somewhat bizarre-looking fuji TV headquarters that sits just behind decks and aquacity.

We could also see the giant ferris wheel at palette town in the distance. It stands at a massive 115 metres and is one of the world’s largest ferris wheels. As it turns, it lights up in a series of colourful patterns as seen in the following video.

Youtube link

We were contemplating whether to take a ride on the ferris wheel. We didn’t because it was getting really late! It was just as well; I found out much later that the rides had already stopped for the day.

One last drink before we call it a night. This time I had healthy, healthy orange juice instead of the usual beer. I got it only because the drink can looked so cheerful and appealing!

Next stop: Kyoto!

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Sanrio Puroland is located in Tama, in the Western part of Tokyo prefecture. It lies outside of Tokyo’s 23 special wards where Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza and all the places I had visited over the past few days are. Setting out from Shinjuku by train, I had to commute more than an hour before finally arriving at the Keio Tama Center Station.

The moment I came out from the station, I found myself in the town of cuteness!

Even though Sanrio Puroland was still a distance away, the surrounding area was already decked out in cuteness!

Take this little pink building for instance. It is called Patio and houses cafés and such. It has blue roofs and red and white striped window shades.

Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird balancing on an overhead crossbar!

This office building had an interesting sculpture of a very colourful multi-headed creature.

Finally I arrived in Sanrio Puroland! *screams* I felt way more excited about it than I did for Tokyo Disneyland!

A cute lamppost with swirls and all in baby pink and blue! That’s the prettiest lamppost I’ve ever seen! So pretty it looked almost unreal!

Colourful wall murals of various Sanrio characters welcome visitors to Sanrio Puroland. I love how the arch glass ceiling casts different shadows on the wall.

Let’s take a closer look at the beautiful murals. Not too sure who the little penguin dude is but he’s cute! I think he’s been around for many years.

The only characters I can recognise are My Melody and the Little Twin Stars.

Pseudo stained glass window in shades of pink and blue. Pink and blue seem to be the primary colours when it comes to cuteness!

A garden with cheery-looking sunflowers.

Once again (like Tokyo Disneyland), there was a huge crowd despite it being a weekday afternoon. People, mostly kids, didn’t appear to have to go to school or to work!

The theme park spans four levels, with the basement holding the main area where all the theme rides and performances are held. Sure, there are a few rides here and there, but I find this place to be more of an exhibition hall for kawaii-ness than anything else.

Cosy little cottages in different shapes and patterns!

Everything here looks cute!

An upper deck with a musical theme!

All shops within the area are beautifully themed. You can buy candy at the Candy Factory.

Heck, even the toilet looks awesome.

I had never seen a prettier toilet. That must have been the first time I’ve ever taken photographs of a toilet!

The highlight of the entire theme park is this:

Hello Kitty’s house! It’s life-sized too! And bright pink! At all times you can see people forming long lines to get into the house!

Even with dozens of other kawaii characters by Sanrio, it’s evident that Hello Kitty is still the queen of the lot.

Beautiful windows with white heart-shaped railings.

Pink brick walls!

Wanna take a ride? I wonder if that car is functional. Many women would kill to drive it!

Once you enter Hello Kitty’s house, you are greeted by the sight of a beautiful fountain shaped like a crown at the top. The strings of water that rain down appear to have little beads of light moving within them in harmony. There is some optical effect/illusion involved. It shares the same concept as the new fountain at level one of Suntec City Mall.

I love the Kitty-shaped fireplace! For the bookshelves, I had fun going through all the titles that Hello Kitty was reading. They were English and I spotted a few of Shakespeare’s. Some books would surprise you by randomly tilting themselves out of the shelves!

All of Kitty’s furniture are shaped like her head!

We enter Kitty’s bedroom…

Victorian-style curtains and bed.

Why does Kitty’s photo frame on her bedside table have a photo of an ice cream dessert rather than her friends?

Her dressing table.

Fish tank with a red plastic fish! The tank is shaped like Kitty’s head too! Kawaii!

Kitty’s bright pink bathtub with a bright pink bow just like hers.

Intricate rose designs.

I spotted this Hello Kitty popcorn machine too! Initially I thought the popcorn kernels would be shaped like Hello Kitty’s head, but they weren’t. That would have been too much!

This is Cinnamoroll and friends. I think they’re all pastries at a café or something.

Pasteries featuring Cinnamoroll.

Hello Kitty again!

Ahhh! Kawaii!

Hello Kitty sushi and pudding!

I simply couldn’t resist! I must have a Hello Kitty meal too! I went to a canteen-style restaurant where all the food had already been prepared; you simply grab a tray and follow the queue to pick out any food you fancy. Works great for someone that doesn’t speak Japanese!

My Sanrio-themed lunch! The cutest meal I’ve ever eaten in my life!

Kawaii! Food in the shape of Hello Kitty’s head! I didn’t even know what these were until I ate them because the food was all labeled in Japanese. I took them anyway because they looked so cute! As it turned out, they were meat buns!

Cinnamoroll chocolate mousse! I love chocolate mousse!

Better still, the chocolate mousse was served in a Chiffon mug (Chiffon is a friend of Cinnamoroll’s). I got to bring one home as a souvenir! Yummy!

At the caricature corner, staff were on hand to draw cute caricatures for ¥1800 each.

I was really tempted to get a caricature of myself drawn but I was running out of time to get to my next destination!

Of course, what’s a theme park without gift shops selling expensive merchandise? I would LOVE to get my hands on that shiny pink Kitty camera!

Instead, I got myself something more affordable — a comfy cushion in the shape of Hello Kitty’s head (again)! It’s really soft and cuddly! I’ve been hugging her to bed every night since.

I also did a Hello Kitty art-and-craft stick-on on the spot. They give you the black outline on a metal plate and you fill in the spaces on your own with colours squeezed out from tubes (like toothpaste). We have this in Singapore too, but I have never seen one with the same cute Hello Kitty picture.

It’s now on my pink mini fridge! Notice that it looks different from the regular Hello Kitty; this particular one appears to have fluffy hair!

Update: Daphne left a comment correcting me. The picture is not of Hello Kitty but Charmmy Kitty, Hello Kitty’s pet! Ahhh… That explains the different look! Thanks!

Admission into the land of cuteness sure didn’t come cheap. At ¥4400, that’s equivalent to almost 60 Singapore dollars! In comparison, admission into the much larger Tokyo Disneyland is ¥5800, just ¥1400 more.

Still, to be surrounded by all that kawaii-ness, it was worthwhile. I enjoyed myself thoroughly!

After exiting the indoor theme park, I found myself bathing in the hot Japan summer heat once again. One thing about the Japanese is that they are a very creative people that know how to have fun!

To cope with the summer heat, they have pools like this where children can play. Cafés and restaurants roll out special dessert items for the hot weather too.

One shaved ice dessert with vanilla ice cream and strawberry syrup, please. I chilled by the glass window of the café and people-watched before heading off to the next destination!

I figured since I was doing some solo travelling, I could afford to be more adventurous. I had already ventured all the way out of Tokyo city and thought I should drop by a couple of suburbs before heading back.

Hino is a neighbouring city of Tama and home to a prominent Buddhist temple, Takahata Fudo-son.

With some help from a nice Japanese dude that spoke decent English (the one and only I had come across throughout the 11 days), I learned that I had to ride the monorail from Tama to reach Takahatafudo (that’s a mouthful ain’t it).

(from this point onward, my camera ran out of juice and all the following photos were taken on my LG Shine.)

I arrived in Takahatafudo in the late evening and made my way to the temple on foot. At this point, without a map (since I was outside of Tokyo city) or any knowledge of the Japanese language, it was as good as walking blindly.

Luckily, the temple was only a short distance away from the Takahatafudo station.

When I saw a pagoda that striking, I knew I had come to the right place!

People wrote their wishes on these wooden plates.

This statue is a memorial for Hijikata Toshizo, a Japanese military leader who lived in the 1800s and opposed the Meiji restoration.

I climbed a long staircase all the way up to the base of the pagoda. It was also here where I saw a drunk man drinking more beer and a young couple making out.

It was getting dark and I was still a long way away from home (in this case, home was my hotel back in Shinjuku). I decided to have dinner in this town before heading back.

This alley in Takahatafudo is lined with bars and eateries.

Tiny bars such as these were pretty common. It was so cramped and small that there was only standing room available to customers!

Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant. I had a ladies’ set meal that was supposed to include strawberries. But what I got was just kiwi.

Yummy breaded prawn and chicken.

My miso soup had shells in it that resembled tiny clams. They aren’t clams, are they? Anyone knows what they are?

Then, it was another long trip back to Shinjuku where I had drinks with Beni at hub, a popular chain of English pubs in Japan. Life is good!

This also marks the end of my two-day solo travel in Japan. Over the two days, I realised that Japanese are not as shy as we make them out to be. I lost count of the number of Japanese men who tried to chat me up on the streets; there were at least 5 a day. For such a polite people, they sure are outspoken!

The sleaziest of the lot:

• In Shibuya: An elderly man walked right past and whispered “kawaiiiiiiiiii” in a low and creepy voice. It spooked me for about half the day.
• In Shinjuku: A fella named “takashi” (who’s half Turkish, half Japanese) openly asked if I would sleep with him. The nerve!
• In Ueno: A nerdy-looking Japanese dude opened with “can I eat?” I asked, huh? After much difficulty finding the right words, he asked again “can I eat with you?” (I was so glad he didn’t say something else!) Then he proceeded to tell me (with much difficulty) that he came from England and could speak English. Ha!

Okay, according to Beni, there was the possibility that they were really trying to recruit me into their porn business. Whatever!

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I noted its resemblance with the Giant Swing I saw in bangkok. Anyone else see the resemblance?

The main building where visitors make their prayers and offerings. There is also a chamber in this building where the most sacred objects of the shrine are kept.

A stage used for outdoor performances, dances and stuff.

Another torii gate at the same temple. This time it is grey in colour and made out of stone. I like it better when it is bright orangeish red though.

As I came out of the shrine, I noticed this huge crab on the front of a building! Advertisement for a seafood restaurant perhaps? Whatever it was advertising, it sure grabbed my attention!

This rainbow-coloured building caught my attention too. What a nice splash of colours!

Another brightly-coloured building in shades of purple and pink!

In the late afternoon, I paid a visit to Harajuku.

The wooden dark brown and white Harajuku station looked rather unique to me, very much unlike other subway stations.

Outside the station this guy was writing and selling calligraphy.

Photo by lao-ocean

Harajuku is an area in Shibuya that’s a popular haunt for cosplayers. If you go there on a weekend, you would see Japanese teenagers dressed up in various anime and goth characters. But well, I was there on a weekday so I missed all the action. That wasn’t what I was there for anyway.

The evening before, I was also in Harajuku when I chanced upon a tiny shop selling Care Bear merchandise. But it was late and the shop was already closed! Authentic vintage Care Bear merchandise is just so rare and expensive in Singapore. So this time round I was there again to browse all the stuff to my heart’s content.

I was contemplating whether to get a jumbo-sized Care Bear plush toy. (it was a rare vintage edition that could never be found in Singapore.) but carrying it with all my heavy luggage back to Singapore would be a total bitch. So in the end I got just these tiny little Care Bears instead:

Care bear keychains! Say hello to bedtime bear (in blue) and love-a-lot bear (in pink)!

As I came out from Harajuku station, I spotted this colourful mermaid signage made out of balloons! With something that striking, I knew I would never lose my way. If I needed to get out of Harajuku, all I had to do was keep a lookout for it. It opened the way to takeshita dori.

Takeshita dori is a popular street at Harajuku with many trendy shops catering to teenage fashion. You would find shops selling hip-hop fashion and cosplay costumes such as these:

I managed to get some shopping done along this street (though not from the store above).

Graffiti spotted in an alley along takeshita dori.

More graffiti!

King kong signage that stood out from the top of a building. I wonder if it had any significance. A godzilla signage might have been more apt.

On my way out of Harajuku, I stopped by Snoopy Town. This was a huge store situated directly opposite Harajuku station.

The entire store was dedicated to Snoopy merchandise!

This wasn’t the only Snoopy Town store in Tokyo. I spotted a few other branches too.

Snoopy-themed food miniatures! They are so cute and so detailed too!

I love miniatures!

Snoopy plush keychains in the shape of the statue of liberty!

Remember those pooh-themed snacks we saw in disneyland in day 2? There are Snoopy-themed snacks too!

After Harajuku, I went to Shibuya again in an effort to buy back all the things I lost in the cab ride the previous night. Eventually I ran out of yen (it’s only day 5!) and the banks and currency exchangers had all closed for the day! So I had to call it a day and head back to the hotel for a good night’s rest.

But not before having a simmering hot, slurp-icious bowl of udon for dinner.

As usual, rather than making loud, appreciative slurping sounds, I only succeeded in making soft sucking noises. But it was good for me.

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At noon, we were in an area someplace near Shibuya when an unusual rocket-shaped glass building caught our attention. We spotted the little Italy flag from afar through the glass and realised it was an Italian restaurant! What luck!

The design of the restaurant was really quaint. They had English words on the menu too. Phew! Finding places to dine in Japan can get quite daunting for someone that doesn’t know Japanese. Before entering a place, I had to make sure there were English words on the menu or pictures of the food somewhere.

An israeli friend of mine faced the same problem when he went to China. He would simply walk right into the kitchen of the restaurant, point to some ingredients and get the chef to cook it. Haha!

My favourite choice of pasta — seafood marinara! There was a whole lot of seafood but I wasn’t a fan of the overall salty taste.

After lunch, we spotted this cute coconut tree structure near the Italian restaurant. I found it to be really apt during the hot Japan summer!

Not satisfied with the almost fruitless shopping trip from the previous day, we went back to the Shibuya shopping district again.

(I love this shot above. The sky was a gorgeous shade. I didn’t even have to photoshop the image!)

They have some rather interesting naming conventions for buildings. The one above is parco part-2. There’s parco part-1 and parco part-3 nearby. Similarly for the trendy Shibuya 109 building I blogged about in yesterday’s post, there’s also 109-2 in the same vicinity.

Spotted at Shibuya: this giant g-shock was an actual functioning clock!

Pretty soon, we had to duck into a cute dessert café for some cool relief! Summer in Japan is really no joke. During my trip, there was news that some 15 Japanese died due to the heat. It was really bad.

The temperature skyrocketed to 40 degrees Celsius at times, but most afternoons it lingered between 36 and 38. It made Singapore seem really cool in comparison. I could buy 6 or 7 bottled drinks from vending machines throughout the day and find myself not having to pee once. Yes, it was THAT hot!

You know what goes great with the hot weather?

Ice cream! This strawberry ice cream wrapped in rice cake sheet was too pretty to resist! Notice how it was pink and served on a baby blue coloured plate? The colours complement each other perfectly, another sign that the Japanese really pay a whole lot of attention to the way things are presented.

Too pretty! It was yummy too! The rice cake sheet was a really nice touch to this sweet dessert. When it comes to desserts, Hong Kong is probably the only other place that can rival with Japan.

The menu also had calorie information printed on it. For the health-conscious Japanese, this was pretty common.

You know what else goes great with the hot weather? Cold beer!

According to Beni, T.G.I. Friday’s have some awesome and really smooth draft beers. (The dude is a beer addict fanatic who can down 15 pints at one go. So he really knows what he’s talking about!) I recalled seeing a T.G.I. Friday’s in Shibuya the previous day so we spent the next hour walking up and down bustling Shibuya to hunt it down! All this for the sake of beer! Would you believe that?

None of the Japanese we asked had a clue where T.G.I. Friday’s was. Finally, this black dude gave us the right directions.

Whoa, seeing that big and bright “Friday’s” signboard sure was a sight for sore eyes!

Our hard-earned prize! Beni was right; the beer was really smooth, so smooth that I drank it as though it was lemon tea! I had never finished a beer so quickly before.

Chicken goes well with beer too. I must, must, must have chicken everyday or else it would feel like something is missing! This particular grilled chicken at Friday’s was awesome. The black sauce, it was barbeque I think, was so thick, my throat became a little sore. But I ate it all anyway because it was that good!

Boy, how I wish we had T.G.I. Friday’s in Singapore!

Photo by Beni

Photo by Beni

Both photos of Shibuya above were taken by Beni. Dude must have been feeling blue. He told me that the language barrier makes it difficult to forge any connection with people other than the most superficial. For a modern city with such a high influx of foreigners, the people here know much less English than what I had prepared myself for.

Spotted this cool LED animation on an advertisement board. I think it’s for a club or something.

After Shibuya, we made our way to the magnificent Tokyo tower!

Photo by Beni

So there we were, standing at one of the most beautiful and significant landmarks of Japan. And neither of us had a decent camera! I had my LG Shine and a compact digital camera that can hardly capture night shots. Beni had only his Sony ericsson mobile phone.

And whaddya know? The best (of the worst) shot was captured on Beni’s mobile phone!

Photo by Beni

Tokyo tower is the tallest man-made structure in Japan with a design based on the eiffel tower. I had always wanted to see the eiffel tower, but since that ain’t happening anytime soon, this was a really nice consolation. I was surprised to find out that at 333 meters, Tokyo tower is actually 13 metres taller than the eiffel tower!

The steel tower is painted in bright orange and white. At night, it lights up in colours that may vary according to the occasion. During summer, it is lit in white. For the matrix reloaded movie premiere for example, the tower was lit in neon green!

There were a couple of observatories at the tower where we could go up to enjoy the view (for a fee, of course). At night, we got a nice panoramic view of Tokyo from the main observatory. The famed Rainbow Bridge and giant ferris wheel could be seen in the distance! (we would be heading there within the next couple of nights. Stay tuned!)

The experience was a memorable one and it reminded me of the time I went up to the 84th level of the Baiyoke Sky Hotel in Bangkok. That was the first time I ever travelled solo. Enjoying a panoramic view of a city should always be part of the itinerary when travelling to some place new.

We remained at Tokyo tower until it closed. Then, we had dinner-cum-supper at a sushi restaurant. My first sushi in Japan!

Salad and chawanmushi (steamed egg custard).

Many restaurants open ’til late in Japan. By the time we left, it was already past midnight! We missed the train and had to take a cab instead. It ended up being a really expensive cab ride, and not just due to the cab fare alone.

During the day’s shopping trip in Shibuya, I had bought 4 guys’ shirts (for friends) and 2 cute bras (for myself). It ended up being another fruitless shopping trip anyway because I left it all behind in the cab! It was worth a few hundred (singapore) bucks!

Surprisingly, I found myself feeling sore not due to the large amount spent on the stuff I lost. It was more of the fact that all my efforts in finding gifts for my friends had totally gone down the drain!

Having formed a really good impression of the Japanese, I harbored high hopes that the cab driver might return my stuff at my hotel (that’s where he dropped me off). Well, he didn’t. The hotel receptionists helped made calls to the various cab companies but nothing came up. Beni joked that if it weren’t for the bras, the driver would probably have returned all my stuff!

Anyway right now I’m already long over the incident, so let’s move on!

Speaking of cabs, do you know that the cab fare in Tokyo starts from ¥660? That’s around 8 to 9 Singapore dollars! For all the cab rides I took, the cab fare always ranged from 30 to 40 bucks. I ended up using the subway most of the time.

Stay tuned for day 5!

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Youtube link

Look out for the guy in the bikini!

Youtube link

The atmosphere was really cheery and lively! Everyone was psyched and gay!

Youtube link

Lesbians! They were right at the end of the parade and were a sweet relief after the long procession of gays.

Here’s a pink billboard at Shibuya!

Traffic crossings like these are the norm in Tokyo. There are diagonal crossings so that people can cross in all eight directions.

In Singapore, we have just one such diagonal crossing if I’m not wrong.

In the evening, I met up with my friend Beni who’s always country-hopping due to work assignments. For the past 8 months, he’s been living it up in Tokyo! Dude loves it there.

He brought me to this neat Japanese restaurant called “gonpachi” for dinner.

We had yakitori (grilled chicken skewers) and tempura with sake and shochu! I never fancied the taste of sake and found myself liking shochu better. (this is a prelude to our drinking session which would commence later that night.)

Throughout the entire meal, our waiter was extremely polite and helpful, much like everyone else at the restaurants I’ve visited in Tokyo. I wonder how they maintain such high service standards. The best part is that we don’t incur any service charge or taxes at restaurants; the amount we pay is the exact amount that’s printed on the menu.

This is Ginza at night, an expensive district that’s the equivalent of fifth avenue in New York city. Various designer brand houses can be found here.

The chanel building had an eye-catching black and white animation on the front of its building. It’s really nice.

Gucci? Pucci?

There’s Louis Vuitton, of course.

And the ultra beautiful christian dior building, complete with a star on top! It looked gorgeous!

There’s the apple building. The lit apple logo juxtaposed against the silver building surface reminds me of the macbook pro laptop computer. Why don’t we have any apple building in Singapore? I’ve already seen at least two of it in Tokyo.

The Ginza 4-chome intersection. This distinctive building with a clock perched at its tallest point is a landmark in Ginza.

After dinner, we proceeded to the nearby Marunouchi area for drinks.

P.c.m. Is a pub located right beside the Tokyo international forum, a building that hosts exhibitions, concerts and such. Kinda like our very own Esplanade theatre.

The design of the pub was pretty chic. But they had just one kind of beer that was contained in plain green bottles; it wasn’t good. So we hopped over to the Belgian beer café at the basement for some real beer!

Ahhh! Good ol’ Belgian beer! Belgian chocolate goes great with Belgian beer! It’s my first time having chocolate with beer!

They had all kinds of Belgian beer in addition to the more familiar Hoegaarden and Stella Artois. Leffe, westmalle, chimay, etc. I had never seen any of these before! Does anyone know of any place in Singapore where we can have these?

Every beer that we ordered came with its own corresponding coaster! We greedily asked the staff for a full set!

Ta-da! More souvenirs from Japan!

As though we hadn’t already taken enough freebies, when we left the pub, the staff handed us some complimentary Japanese snacks too. Wow!

The pink and green ones were like kueh (asian cakes and pastries) and had some sort of fruit at the core. They were yummy!

Oh yeah, I puked some later that night after downing a tequila shot with all that beer. I forgot the important lesson I learned before — never drink different kinds of alcoholic stuff one after another (beer with wine, wine with tequila, tequila with champagne…). And never drink on an empty stomach!

The streets of Tokyo are just as safe as Singapore’s, if not safer. Even in the wee hours of the morning, we could walk the streets feeling secure. There weren’t any sleazy or shady characters lingering about. Instead, we spotted sparse groups of people sitting around, just chatting. And homeless people too.

For some reason, having seen Tokyo at both its busiest and quietest made me feel right at home.

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Here’s a video of the parade with colourful moving floats and characters such as Snow White and Beauty and the Beast.

After walking through the World Bazaar, we came upon the highlight of Disneyland. This castle forms the centrepiece of the entire Disneyland park. It’s really big and tall! You can see the castle from most places in the park.

Ahhh! I was expecting more castles though, like Snow White’s castle, Sleeping Beauty’s castle, Beauty and the Beast’s castle. But as it turned out, this was the only castle we saw in Disneyland.

Beyond the World Bazaar, the park is divided into 6 areas — Adventureland, Westernland, Critter Country, Fantasyland, Toontown and Tomorrowland. We had a chance to explore the entire park and take rides in each of the 6 areas!

Alice in Wonderland!

Castle Carousel! I had a really hard time climbing and stumbling onto a horse. Of all horses (there were 90 of them) I picked the one that was mounted the highest! It was like 1.5 metres high!

Sprinkled around the park were numerous gift carts selling hair bands, hair clips and hair gear all in the style of various Disney characters. For example, there were Shrek ears, Mickey Mouse ears, and Stitch (as in Lilo and Stitch) hair bands.

Got me these Minnie Mouse ears! (and now I have no use for them anymore. Any takers?)

The big Thunder Mountain was a wild ride on a runaway mine train through the mountains! Because the place was so crowded, every single ride we went to, the queue time was at least 40 minutes!

The queue for this mountain ride was so long, we had to get a Fastpass. With our Fastpass, we could come back at the designated time printed on our ticket and take the ride without having to queue (for too long).

There is a certain length of time during which everyone is only allowed to hold one Fastpass. The machines dispensing these Fastpasses are smart enough to tell if you’re trying to get hold of a second Fastpass before the allowed time. We had no choice but to queue for the Haunted Mansion.

The haunted ride took us through a long tunnel (it was an underground ride I think). It wasn’t that scary since this was after all a kids-friendly place; we ended up scaring ourselves more! What impressed me about the ride was when we saw translucent spirits floating about. They were probably done using holograms and the effect was pretty darn real!

A steam train runs round the Adventureland and Westernland. People would wave back at you when you wave at them.

This is Peter Pan and Wendy. Wendy’s gorgeous! She’s the most gorgeous girl I’ve seen in Japan, the land of beautiful people. The irony is that she’s not even Japanese!

In the end, we spent most of our time queuing for rides than taking the rides themselves. It was a hot summer afternoon and we sweat like dogs!

So, we hopped onto the Mark Twain Riverboat for a leisurely ride through the rivers of America.

This was a rather long boat ride.

Spotted several native Americans and their teepees along the way!

Then, we saw this boat. Can you tell what’s so ridiculous about this photo?

People were rowing the boat vigorously! What’s most ridiculous isn’t the fact that they were all rowing completely out of sync with one another. What’s most ridiculous is that it was 40 degrees Celsius and people would still queue to canoe in the hot afternoon sun. The dude sitting at the back had his shirt soaking in sweat! My gawd!

Trees pruned to various shapes! Oblongs, cylinders, etc.

Over at the Fantasyland, we went into Winnie the Pooh’s cottage and peeked at his cosy little bed.

They had a large selection of Pooh and friends merchandise. Cookies and pastries in the shapes of cartoon characters are the norm in Japan. I’ve seen all sorts of character-shaped cookies including Hello Kitty, Doraemon, and now Winnie the Pooh!

It’s A Small World! This is one large building that’s extremely eye-catching and very colourful!

Over here, people are boarding the boat rides.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. As it turned out, “It’s A Small World” is meant in its most literal sense. The long boat ride took us through a world of little people singing — what else — “It’s A Small World”! There were colourful props and backdrops. It was very pleasing and delightful!

Check out the videos of our musical ride!

Youtube link

Youtube link

Other than taking rides and visiting cute Disney merchandise shops, there are also a number of parade routes plying the park at certain times of the day. People would sit at the designated picnic areas, roll out their mats and start picnicking while watching the floats go by.

A word to advice to Disneyland visitors: go there the moment it opens in the morning and stay there until it closes at night! The place is so huge and the lines are so long, one whole day is barely enough to see everything! By the end of the day, we had taken the following rides:

- Haunted Mansion
- Big Thunder Mountain
- Mark Twain Riverboat
- Castle Carousel
- Snow White’s Adventures
- It’s A Small World
- MicroAdventure
- Splash Mountain
- Space Mountain

The Space Mountain ride was the most dizzying and thrilling ride of all! Just don’t expect any 360 degree rotation though. Disneyland is still primarily a kids’ paradise.

My souvenir from Disneyland — a gold necklace with key and lock charms in the shape of Nickey Mouse.

Yay! I finally went to Disneyland!

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Of course, I wasn’t about to do this alone! I dragged a friend down with me to help pass my last hours in Singapore. Very coincidentally, I also ran into an old friend of mine at the airport at 3am! What are the odds of that right?

With our laptops, coffee from the Pacific Coffee Company and a half-dozen box of Munchy Donuts (which, by the way, were not very good. I lost the pretty pink one to the ground too), we went through the entire night without sleep! I knew I could always sleep during the 7-hour flight!

The hours flew by and soon it was time for our flight. We bid farewell to Singapore (on her independence day, no less!) and got on our flight.

You know those flight safety videos that play on board the plane right before it takes off? They tend to be boring don’t they? Well, not if you’re flying on a Japanese airline! The Japanese are so good at coming up with cute stuff!

The last time I flew on JAL, the cute flight safety videos that played on the monitors left me with a deep impression. This time round ANA didn’t disappoint either! The animations looked so cute and lively, passengers couldn’t help but watch the whole thing!

Some cirrus clouds we spotted along the way.

We were served sparkling wine in an interesting black bottle. I thought it would put me to sleep. Instead, I spent most of the time on the flight watching Shrek 3 and Pingu!

Pingu is a Japanese cartoon with cute clay penguins. I couldn’t understand a word but watched it anyway. I love penguins! Penguins are cool!

Lunch was creamy seafood penne marinara. And more wine!

Then, we spotted the faint sight of a mountaintop peeking through the clouds. That’s Mount Fuji! It could only mean one thing — we were approaching Tokyo!

There were some very low-lying clouds. Notice how they were so low-lying, they even cast shadows on the sea!

Then, it was fields after fields of lush greenery in different shades. Japan looked beautiful! I’m not quite sure which part of Japan that was. Does anyone know? It certainly looked too green to be the urban Tokyo. Was it Narita?

Finally, the plane touched down at the Tokyo Narita Airport!

During my brief stopover at the same airport on my way to and back from Dallas last November, I remember Japan as a land of vending machines.

There were even cigarette vending machines, which we later realised could be found in ubiquity throughout Tokyo.

We bought our first vending machine items in Japan — ice cream!

Besides vending machines, Tokyo is also a place with hi-tech toilets such as this particular one at the airport. I didn’t know what half the gizmos did in there, but I know there were butt washers built within the toilet bowl, and music that played at the press of a button. Toilet courtesy, anyone?

After purchasing and collecting our various transportation passes from the airport, we were ready to take on Japan!

From the airport, there are trains that run directly to the most popular districts in Tokyo, such as the city area and Shinjuku, where our hotel was located.

This is me on board the train, looking shagged after going an entire night plus a 7-hour flight without sleep! Again, I was on my laptop browsing through my photos. I meant to blog during the trip, like I did previously in my solo trips to Thailand and Hong Kong. But there just wasn’t time!

We had a beautiful view of a Japan sunset from the train. Along the way, the scenery was mainly of greenery and lone houses.

Here’s Xanthe and I looking shagged.

And here’s Shinjuku train station, the busiest train station in the world! It has about a dozen different routes plying through it and serves a couple million of people daily.

Click to enlarge

Remember this subway map? We utilised it to the max for most of the following 11 days.

Bustling Shinjuku at night. We picked a hotel that’s located in this area because it’s extremely accessible to all places, although this place is said to be pretty sleazy at night too.

Check out those tall buildings with their unique tops! That plenitude of colourful neon signboards can hardly be seen in Singapore! I think we have some law against that or something.

By nightfall, we were already exhausted and hungry from lugging all our luggage around. We were walking towards our hotel when we spotted this Japanese fast-food eatery along the road.

Within the glass cabinet display were several plastic replicas of the food. The seller in the eatery didn’t understand a word of English, while we didn’t understand a single word of Japanese. We didn’t know how to go about ordering our food! Eventually, we realised there was a vending machine right outside the eatery that we had to use.

Of course, the vending machine was entirely in Japanese! Every button corresponded to a certain dish but we were totally clueless as to what the Japanese characters read!

(At this point, my friend Beni who’s working and living in Japan called me up. I whined that we couldn’t order our food from the Japanese seller. He laughed and said “Just tell him ‘Chicken! Chicken!’ before putting down the phone.)

In the end, we took the following complicated series of steps to get our food:

1. Capture a photo of the plastic food replica in the display window on my trusty LG Shine.
2. Go back into the eatery and show the photo to the seller.
3. Seller tells me, or rather, writes me the number “16″ on the table counter with his fingers. (that’s when I learned that the dish I wanted was katsu don! Hey, I knew that in Japanese!)
4. Go to the vending machine, slot in coins and press the #16 button. Ka-ching!
5. Retrieve “food coupon”!
6. Give coupon to seller.
7. Seller serves food within 30 seconds.
8. Eat!

My katsu don! That’s chicken with rice. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the fact that I was practically starving, but it tasted exceptionally good to me! The don and miso soup were awesome and quite different from the way they taste in Singapore.

Ramen, pronounced “la-men”. You’re supposed to slurp it really loudly to signify how much you’re enjoying the food. After trying for 11 days, my friend informed me that I still wasn’t doing it right. Instead of slurping, I was sucking.

The spoon that came with the ramen had a useful groove, allowing it to rest nicely on the rim of the bowl.

Scene from within the cramped eatery. Why on earth does this guy have black hands?

On our way to the hotel, we passed by a long row of vending machines again. Just then, I was wondering how to greet someone in Japanese. At that exact point in time, a group of Japanese guys walked past and said “Moshi moshi” to us! Ah, moshi moshi!

We stopped by the 24-hour convenience store to stock up on snacks and drinks. Practically all the drinks, juices, tea and coffee were sugarless! Argh! The horror!

Hundreds of magazine titles were carried by convenience stores all over, mostly with scantily clad women on the covers. All those magazines could be browsed freely! You could frequently see men standing there, reading them from cover to cover.

This one is for the guys — hentai and magazines with almost fully naked Japanese girls!

Finally, we made it to the Sunlite Shinjuku Hotel. There was free in-room broadband internet access (yay!) and Japanese robes that we could wear, rather than the usual bathrobes.

We called it a night with all the chocolate, ice cream, drinks and beer we got from the convenience store earlier. A long day awaits tomorrow!

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