Sunday, March 18, 2012

Tokyo Day 1

This is the trip that both me and Calvin has been looking forward for the past 1 year. We booked for the air tickets one year ahead. Initially, we wanted to stay longer but the cost of accommodation is very high. Hence, we decided for a 6 days 5 nights trip this time and will be going to Osaka and Hokkaido next time, but definitely not so soon. Haha.

We purchased 2 return tickets from Air Asia. The only bad thing about the flight is that time of departure is 2pm and we will be reaching Tokyo at 10.30pm!! There goes our day one, which is spent in the airplane. But the flight back to KL is at 11.45pm, so we still get to spend the whole day in Tokyo.

 

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Calvin with our luggage and my travel bear. Calvin said that this bear gets the most benefit as it has been to many countries with me. But the bad thing is the bear only gets to sleep in the hotel while we go out to explore. Haha. That’s the pros and cons of being my travel bear Smile But hey, at least he got to sleep in different hotels at different country okay Smile

 

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View from the window. I am not used to seeing the long wings from Air Asia flight cause we mostly take the smaller planes for the nearer country. There were times when I felt insecure as the wings look like they were going to break into half and we will free fall!! Anyway, enough of nonsense and continue with the flight, shall we? We purchased our sets together with our air tickets. For the flight to Tokyo, we purchased in flight meal and entertainment.

 

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As usual, we purchased one local meal and one international meal. Nothing special about the nasi lemak but definitely better than the grilled fish with teriyaki sauce. Super stale and kind of hard. I thought fish meat are supposed to be soft, no??

 

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Travel bear enjoyed the flight as well. He got to stare out the window and admire the stars above. Seriously, there were really a lot of stars that night. As if the God of Stars has scattered the stars all over the sky. Very beautiful. Calvin don’t enjoy the in flight entertainment as there is not a single movie that he like. Moral of the lesson: Check out the content of in flight entertainment on board before purchasing them. The difference is just RM5. Definitely worth it if the entertainment you get is just some really lame movies. Even the music section is horrible. Oh well, at least we managed to take a short nap and before we know it, we arrived in Tokyo International Airport. Once we stepped out from the airplane, we could fell the freezing cold wind blowing directly at us.

We did not take any photographs in the airport as we were rushing to get clearance from immigration custom and waited for like 20 minutes for our luggage. We were so worried that we might missed the last train. Lucky for us, we managed to catch the last train on time.

 

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View in the train. Clean and spacious. Not much people considering that we are taking the train from airport. The price of our ticket from the airport to the train station near our hotel is 550yen per person. Considered normal, according to the fare chart. The bad thing about the train is that there is totally no English electronic sign for the upcoming station. Even the announcement was in Japanese. Both me and Calvin paid extra attention to the name of each train station. We got off at Hamamatsucho to change the train. When the train left, we realised that we should not get off from the station as we were in the train that could take us directly to Ningyocho station, the train station nearest to our hotel. The thing is, the train could be travelling on the same track which will be diverging to other track at certain point to head towards totally different direction. We panicked as we thought that might be the last train to our hotel. We asked one of the train operator there. Reply was in sign language and simple “okay”; which means we should just stand where we were at that time and board the next train.

 

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While waiting for the train, we noticed that the platform opposite us is full of people. It was 12am at that time and they look like they have just finished work. Not a few, but a lot of them waiting for the next train to arrive. It was freezing cold and yet the lady with pink bag is just wearing a skirt with knee length socks!! Amazing. We noticed that 90% of the people wear black coat, as if it’s the country uniform for outdoor during winter. Haha. Other than that, most of them are either reading or playing with their phones.

After all the hoo hah, we reached Ningyocho station!! We have no idea which direction is our hotel. We walked and walked and walked, and I decided to ask one of the staff in the restaurant where is our restaurant. After a few attempts trying to understand what is he saying in Japanese, I thanked him and walked out of the restaurant again. Lucky for us, we met a really nice Japanese guy who offered to bring us to the hotel as he knows where it is. He could speak very simple English. It turns out that we were walking in the opposite direction. The hotel is around 5 minutes walk from the train station. After thanking the nice guy for walking us to the hotel, we checked in. The staff spoke quite good English and was very polite to us. Our room is 712 on the 7th floor.

 

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We expected a small room hotel but it is actually bigger than the hotel we stayed in Hong Kong 2 years ago. At least the toilet bowl and shower is separated, unlike the one in Hong Kong where we showered directly next to the toilet bowl. The toilet seat is automatically heated for the winter. There is heater in the room as well but we didn’t turn it on. Even though outside is cold, but we sleep in normal pyjamas like in KL. There were times when we felt quite hot in the room as well. The kampung us even called up the receptionist to ask him how to switch on the air cond of the room. We were told that there’s no air cond, only heater. In his heart he must be thinking that we are crazy to asking for air cond at less than 5 degrees celcius. Haha.

After exploring the room, we headed out for supper as we have not taken out dinner yet. Directly next to our hotel is Yoshinoya. I heard so much about the place that sells gyudon, slice beef on top of rice. Since it was late and we were very tired, not to mention hungry, we just went in without looking at the menu.

 

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The menu was simple. Pictures of food and prices. One cannot go wrong by just pointing at the photograph and saying “one” at the same time. We have no idea what is the name of our dish though. Haha.

 

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While waiting for our food, we can’t help me notice how clean and neat the restaurant is. There are 3 island that could seat around 9 person per island in the restaurant. On top of each section of the island, there is a container that store the chopsticks, pickled ginger, chilli flakes, soya sauce and serviette. Hot green tea was served as soon as our butt reach the stool.

 

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Our food. Mine was the one on top which consist of thinly sliced beef cooked with onions on top of white rice. Calvin ordered sliced beef cooked with some yummy sauce, something similar to teriyaki. His gyudon is definitely better than mine. In fact, after that meal, Calvin told me that we should be back for 2nd meal before going back to KL. He absolutely love the gyudon there. Each of the gyudon is 380 yen. Total bill for the night is 760 yen. Considered cheap for 2 person meal in Tokyo. In this case, cheap and yummy. Haha.

After supper, we headed back to hotel to rest as we will be heading to Disneysea the next day!!

~BuHBaI~

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