Backdate: Japan Tokyo Dec 2018 Day 1
11/12/18 Tues: Potato had talked about bringing me to Japan
since a few years ago, together with the Farmily (we weren’t a “Farmily” yet though,
back then~ haha) because he loved the food and country a lot. I don’t have a favourite
country to travel to in the world, and yes I went with an open mind to the Land
of the Rising Sun!
Walked Harajuku for a bit, and we went into Daiso. *I
bought myself a can of waterproof spray for 108￥, which I still have yet to
try now haha~.* Stopped by at a famous crepe shop called
Marion Crepes and wow, they have a huge variety to choose from! *Definitely
great to have a hot crepe in Winter!* It’s funny how while we were having
crepes, I suddenly realised one of the glove wasn’t on my hand, so I
frantically flipped my tote bag for it, while saying: “I don’t know where’s my ‘other
half’?”, to which Potato jokfully replied: “Your ‘other half’ is here!” and
then the rest burst into laughter LOL.
Evening rush hour on the trains in Tokyo was no joke. The station,
especially trains were packed with commuters whom ended work. We also had to
queue to get reserved seats for our Shinkansen to Kyoto on Wednesday at one of
the train stations.
Met Ian and Yuri outside Shinjuku station for our dinner
plans at the Shinjuku Zaou Fishing Restaurant at 7.30pm. Andre and MM met us
directly at the restaurant too. Basically, we fish what we eat there (4500￥ per
person)!
Customers would bring their catch to the staff and tell them how we
want it prepared, i.e. sashimi, fried, steamed etc. There were many locals
around too. I didn’t really want to fish, but still caught some of the seafood together
with the rest haha.
We were each served some sushi beforehand while they were
preparing our main dishes. And the sushi and sashimi were “oh-so-good”~ cheers
people! *I thought even the beer tasted not bad~ but maybe it’s the company
and the fact that it’s my first day in Japan la… getting all excited despite
the lack of rest
haha.*
I changed S$2200 for the two weeks’ trip, the rate was
about SGD 1 to JPY 82.3. Don’t laugh, but yes I booked ScootBiz (30kg baggage)
to Tokyo Narita airport, and then the economy seats back (with 20kg baggage and
in-flight meal). Seemed like it made no sense right? But as we were returning on
26th December, a day after Christmas, the price for ScootBiz was
horribly high. Just the round-trip flight (with a 1-hour stopover in Taipei) already
costed us S$1040 each!
So off we went on a red-eye flight, TR898 to Tokyo (2 meals
on board neh~)! I didn’t get much sleep as usual, neither did Potato slept well
even though the seats on ScootBiz were more spacious, partly due to the fact
that there was a stop-over at Taipei for an hour, and everyone had to get down
and re-board the plane again.
It was 10.35am in Japan when we landed. Bought SIM cards for
15-days of usage at the airport (4500￥ each), and then went to collect
our JR Passes (7 days, S$315), which I’d already bought from Klook back home. Thanks to Potato who could understand and spoke some
Japanese, we managed to get the Narita Limited Express train tickets (2990￥) at 12.23pm, which would bring us to
Shinagawa, and then to Ian’s place at Omori. *Tokyo’s subway and metro system
looks confusing to a first-time tourist like me!*
After an hour or so, we
reached Shinagawa, and transferred onto the local train to Omori. The two PotaTOHs
tried to find our way to Ian’s place via Google maps etc, which Potato said was
nearby, but we got lost haha! *It was rather cold, and dear went around and
asked for help from staffs at a Uniqlo store nearby, while I looked after our
luggages.* I think Google maps wasn’t very useful in Japan, and they have
their own apps to track locations which were much more accurate, and phew we
finally found Ian’s place~ which was much nearer than where we went earlier! We
put our stuff down and headed out to the train station again to buy the Suica
cards, as we had to meet Ning, Francine and PY at Harajuku for lunch.
We had ramen at a
random shop, and the menu was in Japanese, the staff spoke Japanese… so I was
in a state of blank. Lol. *Thanks to Potato, Francine and PY who helped as
they understood some Japanese.*
haha.*
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