Tokyo 東京, Japan Trip (Day 2)

5th March 2017, Sunday

Shibuya

Today, we woke up @ 8 am and met up at the hotel lobby. My friends were bringing me to Shibuya to try Ichiran Ramen for breakfast. So we took the JR Line down to Shibuya, most of the shops were not opened yet. When we reached Ichiran ramen resturant, we were greeted with a self-ordering machine where we ordered 3 bowls of ramen from it. After which, we went in to find our seats. The interior was partitioned to cater for individual seating, however, the wooden partition can be folded away. And the staff will serve the ramen through the front window, you can also see the opposite row of table. When the ramen was served, the staff drew down the curtain so that the diners can enjoy the ramen with no disturbance.

The ramen was niceeee!!....the soup was with so much flavor and it combined very well with fresh green onion. You can also choose to add more noodles, green or white spring onion and with chilli. We had a very nice breakfast, after that, we went separate ways as i needed to travel to another place to buy origami books for my brother while my friends went shopping on their own. However, we had arranged to meet up again in Sunshine City to go to Pokemon Centre during lunchtime. I reached Hakusan station at about 10 plus and saw a small shop selling coffee beans, but not able to make out the flavors of the coffee beans as the signs were writing in Japanese....kekee...
Managed to buy the books and proceeded to meet my friends for lunch. However, they needed more time to shop. So i headed first to Ikebukuro and went there to see see look look while waiting for them to arrive.

Fruits

Mini Cakes

More mini cakes....

There were many beautiful cakes and chocolates in one of the major shopping mall when i arrived at Ikebukuro station. It appeared they were selling to prepare for their white day, which was on 14th March. All the cakes and chocolates look so tasty from their displays, there were many people shopping too. It took me some time to figure out how to exit from the correct exit, plus, it was crowded too. Finally, i managed to exit out from the station and got up to the street level. I then made my way slowly to Sunshine City, bought my new jacket with Mickey Mouse design for $54 sgd at the biggest uniqlo store there. It was 6-storey high and with alot of varieties to choose from. Along the Sunshine City walking street, there were many shops such as cinema, gaming arcade, uniqlo, food restaurants and bowling centre. There were many youngsters shopping there too.

Largest Uniqlo Building

Shopped around the different shops there and was so hungry. By the time i met up with them, it was almost 2 pm. Then we walked around the shopping area nearest to the station and ended up in Coco Curry House. It was not so crowded, probably it was over lunch time. Don't find the curry rice nice to eat. After eating, we made our way to Pokemon Centre, which was located in Sunshine City. The store was quite big, but it was SUPER crowded. There were some statues of the different pokemons and many stuffs that you can buy (Warning: The toys are super cute and you will want to buy them all... :P ). There were gashapon machines located at the entrance of the shop too. I managed to buy two can badges as it was too crowded to be able to see the stuffs slowly too.

Charizard

Mew

After that, we headed down to Harajuku area. But when we arrived there, it was crowded too. We weren't sure which direction to walk, so we just choose Meji Shrine to visit as it looked like it was walkable distance away. However, after we started to walk in the direction, we saw a super busy street (Takeshita Street) on the opposite side. So we headed towards the busy street to explore and it was really crowded. The shops were mostly for younger generation and there were multiple of crepes shops around too. We saw some people buying a giant size candy floss with multiple colours, it was interesting. We wanted to buy one too, however, the queue was so long until a queue number was required and had to come back after like 1 or 2 hours later. So we walked further down the streets to explore other shops. We went in to Calbee snacks house, it was two-storey high and bought 2 different flavors (Spicy and Chocolate) to try. One was too sweet and the other was too salty...hahaha....

Entrance

Calbee Spicy & Chocolate Chips

Brown's room

Croquant Chou Zakuzaku

After which, we continued to walk to the end of the streets where the big brand buildings (like Nike, Line, Forever 21) were located.We went over to check the Line building opposite the street. There was a giant Brown statue where you can take photo with. There were snacks with Corny, Brown, the yellow duck printed and there was a small showroom for Brown's bedroom. After that, we made our way back to Akihabara for dinner. We tried a nutty cream biscuits along the way, it was coated with chocolate and nuts and long-shaped. It had milky cream as the fitting.

Sushi Set

Fried Ebi

We went to eat in Ginzo Restaurant for sushi when we arrived at Akihabara and ordered a sushi set for sharing. The dinner was not bad and we made our way back to the hotel as it was getting late. We also bought a baked sweet potato at the 7-11 shop near our hotel. It was hot and soft, nice to eat in cold weather. It was then sleeping time....

Tomorrow will be another adventure in kyoto.... "Soba Soba, here i come!"

Hotel Stayed:
APA Hotel Kodenmacho-Ekimae

Last Day in Tokyo, Japan Trip (Day 15)

10th January 2015, Tuesday

Origami Display

Ahhh....tonight have to fly back to Singapore, last day to enjoy the cold weather and good food in Japan. Since we didn't plan any activities today, so we woke up and did out check out first. Then we headed out to Hakusan station to help my brother to buy his origami book. We walked to the metro line from Shin-Nohombashi station and we passed by a shopping mall like Istean under the station. Many people were actually outside the doors for it to open. We waited for a while and the doors opened, we went in to take a look. We were at the food level, so there were a lot of food, all looking so nice to eat. We spent there like almost half an hour before we dragged ourselves out of the place..hahhaa...Then we went to take the metro to Hakusan station and tried to find the origami shop named Origami House. It was located on the 2nd level of the shops opposite the street. So we went up to get the book and there were some origami displays by the experts but photography is not allowed.

After i got the book, we went down to Tokyo station to get the brum cakes as there was still time. We didn't managed to find the shop which we bought when we were going to Nikko. But we saw the same cakes inside Istean, so we went and bought the cakes we wanted. After buying the cakes, we rushed back to the same food market in the shopping mall in the station. And then we went back to the hotel to pack our stuffs into the luggage. By the time we left the hotel, we had already missed the airport express train. As the airport express train platform and the platform we alighted were the same, so we were thinking whether we can just board the airport train without getting a new seats reservation. We were walking along the platform to see the cars color but all were green cars. We actually waited until the next express train came but we don't dare to board it still. So my friend went to check with the train staff and she came back saying we need to do seat reservations. So i went up to the JR office alone to get the new seats reservations for the next coming train which was at around 3 plus. For the Narita Express Train, there were a total of 12 cars and the train will arrive in 2 sections. First cars 7 to 12 will arrive and then cars 1 to 6 will arrive and they join together in the platform. Both of the car front (where they were joined) will opened up too.

Naita Express Train

Train Seats

Our Last Sashimi Meal

Oysters Rice..Sinful!!

We boarded when the train came, it was really spacious to sit and so comfortable too. So we took our lunch out to eat while the train traveled to the airport. It was around 1 hour and 30 mins plus ride and the train stopped on terminal 2 first, so passengers need to know which terminal to alight not to alight on the wrong terminal. After we reached the terminal, there was security check before we entered the airport. We went to shop around in the airport as it was still early for check-in. I bought a fleece jacket for my brother and a neck cushion from Muji for my dad. Then i also bought some green tea powder for my little sister. My friend bought a postcard to send to her sister in Germany. Then we went to check-in our luggage and continued walking around in the airport. We also still bought a couple of snacks and a few boxes of Royce chocolate. There was even a small Japanese restaurant on the way to the gates, where we went in to have our last bite on the nice sushi and sashimi. Then we went into our gate and boarded the plane to fly back to Singapore. And this ended our Japan trip.....will go back visit Japan some day again... ^_^

Taipei 台北, Taiwan Trip (Day 12)

28th November 2014, Friday

Our Breakfast

Today, we will be going to Taipei (arrghh...so fast)...so we woke up and got ready to the train station. We had bought the tickets for 10:00 am train, as most of the trains were full. This was a slower train, which need about 3 hour plus to reach Taipei. I went to the 7-11 shop in the train station, to buy breakfast to eat on the train. Got hotdog breads, and a milk tea for my friend and calbee snacks. Then we went to the platform to wait for the train as there were many people today. The train looked super old, the doors were still those spring type and the walkways were small, very hard to push our luggage through. Finally we got to settle down on the seats and had our hotdog breads. The milk tea i bought from 7-11 was nice too, not too milky and it was a little sweet. Then we just slept on the train until it was about time to reach Taipei. Bought a lunch bento on the train too, it was quite nice too. We reached Taipei at around 1.44 pm, then we took a cab to Ximending (cos there were so many signs to TRA trains, HSR trains and Bannian Line which was the blue line of the metro). As the cab driver wasn't sure where was the hotel really located, we got off and i tried to find the hotel based on my long long time memory (when i first visited Taipei in 2009). We did manage to find the hotel in the streets, so we went up to our room to rest first. The room was smaller this time, it was bigger the first time i stayed in the hotel.

Our Lottery Tickets

After resting, we made our way to Wu Fen Pu commercial area. Saw some new shops around Ximending and the famous Hot Star Chicken Cutlet was just beside our hotel. Saw 1973 Fried Chicken stall too (just outside Ximen Station exit 6) and many people were queuing for it too. We went to the metro station and bought a 3 days pass to use for the next 3 days. So we bought the single tickets to Huoshanpi station.Upon reaching there, we walked the wrong direction to Wu Fen Pu. We passed by a lottery shop and went in to buy 2 tickets for the 8.30 pm draw today (NT$50 for 1 ticket, 3 matching numbers min to win NT$400). But the further we walked, i told my friend i don't remember it was so far away from the station. So we walked back to the station and there, we saw signs direction to Wu Fen Pu....heheee...Then we just walked around the commercial area, bought sausages and corns and also bought a very cute cat tee-shirt. We walked until 6 plus, by then we were both tired. My friend thought i wanted to walk there some more, so she didn't ask me whether wanted to go back. Until i told her let's go back...then she was like soo glad that finally going back...hohoho....

The Red House

My friend was making noise saying she wanted to eat steamboat in Taipei, so we went back to Ximending area and we came out from the opposite exit, which leads to the Red House. So i brought my friend to check out the red house. The first time i visited i wasn't able to enter the house and looked inside. This time the red house was still opened, so i was able to look the inside of the house. After that, we went looking around to find steamboat. A lot of Japanese restaurants around the area too, we came across a mala steamboat restaurant, where there were a lot of people queuing outside. I asked the staff what is the available time, she told me after 9.30 pm without reservation. I was thinking it was sooo late, by then we both were be damn hungry...but the soup base really smelled very nice and the people were really eating very happily. So i went back to the staff and asked them can i make table reservation. As tomorrow and the day after were weekends, so they were fully booked. But she gave a slot which was on next Monday, 5.30 pm, so i said ok. And then, we went back down the streets to have our dinner. Just beside Uniqlo, there was a building with some restaurants on the 4th floor. So we went up and take a look. We decided to go for a Japanese steamboat instead but we also need to wait until 8 pm before we can eat.So i left my name there and we went out to walk walk first. We went Uniqlo to check out their sales, the fleece jacket which was having heat tech was on sales. The collarless ultra light down jackets were also on sales (NT$690 or NT$790)....There were ultra light down jackets with parka designs too but it cost around SGD$129 (which i don't see it in sg stores when i came back)......

Our Dinner

Nice Looking Pork!!

After spending our time in Uniqlo, we went back to our dinning place to have our dinner. There were 4 soup bases to choose from and 2 of them needed to top NT$50 for it. The soup was tasteless at first, but the more we cooked, the soup got more tasty. The food was quite nice but it was a bit limited in the choices. The pork was still the best...thin thin and very nice to eat. After eating, we walked back to our hotel to rest. We checked online for the lottery winning numbers when we reached our hotel room. No luck, got 2 numbers only....haiz....

Hotel Stayed: Rainbow Hotel

Places Visited:
Wu Fen Pu Commercial Area
Ximending
The Red House