Japan - Day 2 (Shinjuku & Akihabara)

We woke up in the morning, thought that we're going to take explore Shinjuku more and maybe start getting some souvenirs and finish off our day with a trip to Akihabara at night.

That was exactly what we did. Went to those tiny shops along the small lanes hoping to get something nice and affordable. To our surprise, it was not that affordable. A key chain costs around 600yen! We started counting the number of people, especially in our office that we have to get, it would costs us a bomb and we thought oh well... tough luck! :D

Us at the front of our hotel in Shinjuku

We were more ready on our second day. After our previous night experience at the sushi bar, we thought rather than being gung-ho with our memory trying to remember anything in Japanese, we brought our Lonely Planet (LP) book along and go with those that it recommends.

At lunchtime, we purposely chose a typical non-english menu restaurant to have our meal and have some fun with LP's recommendation. Went in there, was feeling confident, sat down at a corner table next to the cashier and took out our LP. A couple of wierd stare from the locals but thats ok. Didn't bother us.

Front of the restaurant

Signalled the waiter, she came over. I asked for "chasu-men", i.e. ramen with roast pork. She replied a whole lot in japs while shaking her head. We sort of took a guess that they didnt have chasu-men. Excellent!

I started flipping LP again for another meal. She was giving me a smile and so were the other locals. Shortly, she started speaking again. The only word I could understand was "chikin", i.e. chicken. I believed she was asking me if I wanted to try some chicken meals. I went along with it. Mei Lee asked for "gyuuniku", i.e beef. She said something and we went "hai! hai! hai!".

We absolutely had no idea what we were about to get. When our meal arrived, we were relieved. :D Mine was fried chicken and Lily's was stewed beef meal. It was not some wierd meals with some chicken and beef intestines in it. It was quite good really... very tasty and authentic, even the rice was nice, soft and flavorsome.

Stephen's fried chicken meal

Lily's stewed beef meal

While we were walking around Shinjuku, we saw Lawson (Japan's version of 7-Eleven) across the road, went in there to get some water since we were thirsty. We then came across something that we only seen in animes, triangle shaped rice sushi.

Triangle shaped rice sushi

I am starting to believe they have a passion for food. Everything we have tried so far has been good... tasty and appealing. Even when the food in Lawson was appealing... the pastries and the take-away box below look delicious!

Pastries and ready-to-eat take-away lunch

Come dinner time, we were walking around and saw this long queue outside a "steamboat" restaurant. You know the food will be good when the locals queuing up for the food. We joined in the queue and after approx 15 mins of waiting, we got ourselves a seat. A seat next to the "kitchen". It was indeed very good... very simple and yet full of flavour.

the "kitchen" - 1

the "kitchen" - 2

Our dinner - 1

Our dinner - 2

the "kitchen" - 3

After our dinner, went to Akihabara to check out the electric town. It was a very vibrant town with each shops filled with people, local and overseas tourists buying all sort of items from electrical items to anime figurines. We were expecting the prices here to be cheap but we were surprised how cheap it was. Gundam models were selling for 400yen, and it was not on sale! 400yen! Back in KL, it was selling for RM26 and Australia was selling for AUD25. I just had to get a few.

Sceneries of Akihabara at night

We came across a row of toy vending machines and it has some really cute toys. It was selling for only 100yen! 100yen! So cheap! We just had to try, at least once. :D

Row of toy vending machine

Lily putting 100yen into the vending machine

Turning the dial

Lily's 100yen toy

We finally left Akihabara past 9pm. Everyone was starting to leave and we thought we should call it a night as well since we have been walking non stop since morning. Our legs and feet were so soar after our dinner but we still had to keep on going. There were so many things to see, so many places to visit, we were enjoying ourselves so much that we just ignored our sore legs and feet and marched on.

Shinkuju city at night

Japan - Day 1 (Shinjuku & Shimokitazawa)

After months of anticipation to our first overseas holiday together, after spending weeks of deciding what to do and where to go, after spending days to work out our budget, after spending hours to search and confirm our accommodation bookings, the day has arrived to our long awaited holiday.

We reached Sentral nice and early, checked in, got our preferred seats, which is good and said our goodbyes to our parents before boarding our night flight. We were so busy when we were back in KL that actually felt more tired than working. Hey, that will not stop us from enjoying our trip to Tokyo!

The flight was 90% full, according to the air stewards but it was a very pleasant flight, the food was much better than flying out to Melbourne, the shows were appealing to us, the controller was working perfectly, even the Japanese dude sitting in front of me were particularly polite. Every time he wanted to lower his seat and put it back to upright position, he would asked first before doing so. I was impressed!

On our way to Tokyo

2,681 miles to Tokyo - approximately another 5 hours

Coincidentally when I finished my second movie, the pilot turn on the lights - indication that very soon we were about to reach our destination and breakfast will be served shortly as well. Woke Mei Lee up for breakfast and the whole time we had our shades down. When we pulled it up, we didn't realize it was already bright. Our front neighbour had their shades pulled down as well. Out of a sudden, Mei Lee got a little bit excited and started whisking out the camera and started taking photos. Well... who would not be when Mt. Fuji is right next to you. :D

Mt. Fuji from our aisle seat

Reached the airport as scheduled. Narita International Airport (NIA) is a little bit old but the set up is quite similar to KLIA, i.e. the departure gates and the main terminal is connected by monorail. Got to the main terminal, collected our luggage, passed custom with no complication (they were quite friendly I must add), got our 7 day JR rail pass and took Narita Express (N'EX) train from Narita Airport to Shinjuku. Shinjuku was where we were staying for the next 4 days.

Us taking the N'EX

Sceneries of Japan

Our travel path - from NIA to Shinjuku

When we reached Shinjuku Station, we were surprised how big the station is and it was packed with people. It's one of the main station in Tokyo, which obviously we didn't know beforehand. It was quite a challenge going through the crowd while pulling 2 huge luggage. The station has 3 levels and we were at the lowest level trying to get to the top level.

When we finally got out, we started looking at our Lonely Planet (LP) and wondered a while which direction we should be heading to our hotel - Hotel Sunlite Shinjuku. It's very near to Isetan and OIOI shopping centre. We thought that should not be too tough. Just look out for Isetan and OIOI, walk towards that direction and we should be fine. We were so wrong! Not only there were a few Isetans within 1km radius, the names/logo of the building are at street level. Unlike Malaysia/Australia where the name and logo of the building is put right at the top.

We thought that rather than trying to be gung-ho, it would be so much easier asking the locals where our hotel was and we did just that. We asked him in English but he only understood part of it. He didn't know where it was, probably he only know the hotel in Japanese. He started making some phone calls tried to locate the hotel for us but didn't get much out of it. He then brought us to a police kiosk knowing that they would not better than anyone else. When we were walking there, he helped pull one of our luggage. Again, we were very surprised by his generosity.

Spoke to the policeman, he gave us a clear direction and when we saw our hotel name from far, we were so relieved. Checked in to our hotel, nice and sweet, our room was on the top floor, so we got a pretty good view with minimal blockage. We didnt take any photos from our room but we took some of our room. The room was so small (as expected) that both of us cant' walk pass each other without giving way to another.

Our bedroom, lounge, kitchen, study room, etc...

At least we got a LCD!

Our tiny bathroom

By the time we checked in, refreshed ourselves, rah rah rah... it was already lunch time. Both of us were hungry and wanted to try something that you can only get in Japan. So we walked around the Shinjuku city and since we don't know any kanji, we depended on photos or similar. We found a local fast food place and gave it a try. We had to match the price of the sample against the ticket machine. Thank goodness there was no 2 meal with the same price.

Front of the shop

Ticket machine

Mei Lee's pork ramen

Stephen's curry pork rice

It was a good lunch. Not expensive, 1,300 yen for both of us. We were satisfied. Explore the city a bit more, hoping to find another good place for dinner. It must have been the heavy lunch, we were feeling abit sleepy shortly after that. So we decided not to spend more time exploring and tired ourselves already.

Restaurants at one of the small lanes

Mei Lee checking out the menu

Mei Lee doing more menu research

Got ourselves a couple hours of rest, when we were ready, it was past 7 at night. We read it somewhere that Shimokitazawa being one of the trendy and western side of Tokyo. Its just a couple of train stops away and since it was already dark, we thought of gave it a try. Went to the train station, got our train schedule printed out from Route Information machine (very user friendly) and we were ready to leave.

Part of Shinjuku city at night

Hello Kitty shops were everywhere

Mei Lee spotted a "castle" on top of a building. Interesting!

Stephen at one of the smaller lanes

Mei Lee at one of the smaller lanes

Mei Lee with our route information.

In the train station, there were more than 20 ticket machines and all serving different train lines.

Reached Shimokitazawa 10 minutes later. Walked around, scouting anything interesting to eat. We spotted a tiny shop selling octopus balls. Since this being one of the local food, we tried it. We enjoyed it. It was very tasty and the sweet sauce was not very sweet, to my liking. The cook speaks little English and when they found out we were from Malaysia, he was so happy, started laughing. His wife at the side smiling from ear to ear as well... We somewhat felt they were proud to have overseas visitors trying their food.

Front of the shop

Cook at work

Octopus balls waiting to be bought

A happy chap with freshly made octopus balls

Octopus balls - up close - it taste much better than it looks

After our starter, I wanted to have some sushi. So happened that there was a sushi place not far from the octopus balls shop. Went in there, my first impression was "is it still open?" There was only 1 customer and the chef (husband) and cashier (wife). We sat down at the sushi bar. Looked at the menu, all written in kanji. Told Mei Lee that we had to point and choose our dinner from the sushi bar. We were served warm green tea, plates for soy sauce, ginger, the usual stuffs.

We decided what we wanted to eat shortly after but I was not too sure the red sashimi, was it tuna or whale meat. I don't mind eating both but want just wanted to know what I was eating.

Stephen: This tuna? (pointing at the red sashimi)
Cook: Maguro!
Stephen: ...... tuna?
Cook: Maguro!
Stephen: .... hai hai maguro! (still had no idea if its tuna or whale)

From then on, we just pointed and eat. No questions asked. The only English he knows is "Australia" and "good". We only Japanese we remembered were "thank you" and "sorry". The sushi were very fresh. It was made right in front of us when we ordered and we had such a good time trying to understand each other that we ended up laughing more than talking. :D

After we paid the bill, his wife walked us out, gave us a good bow and kept on saying thank you. We were obliged to bow back. We ended up bowing a few times to each other.

A very good start to our holiday!

Front of the sushi bar