Tokyo 東京, Japan Trip (Day 1)

4th March 2017, Saturday

Finally planned to go for a short trip to Japan again and this time, i am traveling with two of my friends. Today is the day to fly off, away from work and study!!!

Woke up @ 5 am and got ready to go to the airport. My friends had arrived first at the airport and checked in their luggage when i was on the way (Purposely don't want to wait for me to check in together... :P). There were a lot of self-checking in kiosks and self-printing of luggage tags & boarding pass at the SQ counters. I went ahead to check in my luggage and we went in. While i looking for breakfast, the 2 of them were buying their makeup stuffs. We had our breakfast there after shopping. I had a doughnut and hot chocolate drink. After that, we walked towards to the gate and waited to board the plane. I got a different seat with my friends, so we were seating separately on the plane. And it's time to fly!!

Arrived @ Tokyo

Watched some movies during the flight and we landed in Tokyo at 3.15 pm (Jap time). It took a while for luggage collection, we tried to figure out the way to our hotel. We had to change 2 times on the train route to go to the hotel. We had to carry our luggage up the stairs when we cannot figure out where was the lift. My friends were having a bit of trouble to carry their luggage up as one of it was weighing 22 kg. By the time we reached the street level, we were panting....hohohoho.....By the time we finally arrived at the hotel, it was already almost 6 pm. Our rooms were on different levels too as i was taking the single room while my friends were taking double room. After check-in, we all went up to our own rooms.

My Room

The interior was quite the same as the one i stayed during my last trip in Tokyo. Didn't expect the single room to have a double bed too, when i went to check out the double room, my friends were also sharing the double bed and the size of the room was the same as the single room...and i got the whole bed to myself in my room....hahahaaa).

After settling down, we went to Akihabara for dinner. It was a stop away from our hotel and the sky had already turned dark, We went up to a building named Chomp Chomp to find some nice shabu shabu. But when we went up to the indicated level, there were two different restaurants, each on left and right side. We chose one restaurant (which was on the left side), named Akane No Niwa, and went in to try. The tables were placed inside separate small individual rooms and there was a strong cigarette smell too. We ordered a plate of gyoza as our starters and ordered a seafood hotpot. Thought we can order 2 different hotpots to try but was told by the staff it was required to order 2 of the same soup base.

Yummy!!

Seafood Hot Pot

The gyoza were yummy and there was a nice sweet sauce that came with it.The skin wasn't thick too.
It was so nice that we ordered 2 more plates of it. When the hotpot came, it was big and had quite a lot of seafood, including crabs. However, we don't find the hotpot was as yummy as the gyoza. It was quite disappointing though. After we finished our dinner, we had a bit problem to communicate to the staff to get us our bill. Cos we were trying to tell her "Bill", she kept thinking it as "Beer"......hahaha..
Finally, she got what we meant and got us our bill, which we paid at the counter.

Drinks from Gundam Cafe

After dinner, we walked around the anime streets and went to find the Gundam Cafe too. But we walked in the wrong direction and ended up walking in circle. Anyway, we managed to find it and queued to have some snacks. There were more characters designs for the drinks and we all ordered different drinks. I also ordered some fries as i was getting hungry again...hahaha....By the time we finished, it was almost to 10 pm and we took the train back to the hotel to rest.

It was soooo cold....

Hotel Stayed:
APA Hotel Kodenmacho-Ekimae

Manila, Philippines Trip (Day 11)

3rd August 2014, Sunday

Chefs in the hotel restaurant

But the abdomen pains kept coming on and off but at least i stopped running to the toilet. And my friend was very worried until she wants to send me to hospital as the hotel doctor only comes in @ 9 am but if i go hospital we won't be able to fly back. But whole morning, she just stayed by me while i rested... :)....Later i asked her to go down have breakfast first when i got up to shower. After my shower, my friend came back very excited..telling me that the breakfast so very nice and was dragging me down to have a look. She tabao 1 apple and 1 banana back for me though...hahaaa....

So we went down and she showed all the food in the different station but i was still not ok to eat all the food. So i took the chicken congee to eat instead, and she was trying to ask for banana which the waiter told us they run out of banana...hahahaa...After eating breakfast, we went back to the room and rest for awhile while waiting for time. Then it was time to leave for the airport (ahhh...) and my abdomen pain also stopped acting so often...We went down to check out and got the hotel staff to help us flag a cab...Waited for some time for a cab to come in...then we reached the airport...

There was no ac in the airport and my friend still need to pay some airport taxes before we can check-in our luggage. When we were going out of the customs, we also need to pay $550 peso per pax to the customs (don't know what it is for...). Really, there is nothing to do in the airport, no shopping too. So we just went in to the waiting area and waited for the plane to come...I ended up sleeping throughout the whole flight...even the meal i got no appetite to eat (just ate a little)...My friend said me like on drugs...kept sleeping...hahahaa...And so we landed back in Singapore...Sianz...Then we went and buy wines and went back separately and my trip ended...

I had a lot of fun in this trip and the experience i had was also different too (all the hiking, caving...etc). And my friend's family, they are all very nice and funny too (her older brother has a serious look but still can tell funny jokes and her youngest brother is also very crappy...hahaa..) and will remember them. Philippines is beautiful in its own ways and there are a lot of places and food to see and try (I can never dare to eat the balut...broke the deal with  my friend...hahahaa). Sometimes really have to appreciate Singapore for some of the things we are being provided....hehehee....And i only remembered 3 words from my friend - "Oo" (Yes) and "Dito" (here) and "Magandang Umaga" (Beautiful Morning) which she always greet me everyday... :)....