wait till you go Shinjuku

end of august is the best because it is hot and japanese school has just started

you sure? guess they have changed it then

haha i don't really like shinjuku. nothing much there except red light districts

the only time i splurged lots of money was for the breakfast at sushi daiwa

disney sea one day not enough for me only managed to try most of the fast pass rides but left out the rest

yeap. they are afraid that you might be yakuzas

no questions asked

unker stimix my contribution for this thread:

Japan Summary 2013

*update in slow progress*

During the last 2 weeks of August 2013 I was at Japan to attend the Asia Pacific Pharmaceutical Symposium which was held mainly in Tokyo. This time I travelled along with a few friends on the days outside of and during the symposium. Throughout the 11 days I ventured from Tokyo and down west to the Kansai region of Kyoto and Osaka. As usual my itinerary was really crazy and every minute was counted. In the end we managed to cover most of the top tourist attractions.

In a nut shell I enjoyed Kyoto and Osaka more than I did in Tokyo. More to Kyoto I think. The whole city feels surreal with an exact divide of the modern and traditional Japan. On one side there are the modern buildings and the other side being the traditional Japanese houses as well as all the temples.The weather for that period was scorching hot for most of the days. If it were to rain during the day, then it would be very cooling for the rest of the day. At the end of my trip, the winds were getting a bit crazy as well. Overall I really enjoyed Japan as a whole and will look forward to go back to visit again during the cherry blossom season.


Tokyo (東京）
1.Arrival at Narita Airport & PASMO card
2.iKhaosan Tokyo Ninja Hostel, Asakusabash
3.Akihabara Night Visit
4. Sushi Daiwa, Tsukiji Fish Market
5.Ueno Park
6.Ameyoko, Ueno
Akihabara Revisited
Bits and Pieces of Chiba
Club Camelot, Shibuya
Shibuya Walkabout
Takeshita Street, Harajuku
Passing Shinjuku
Sensoji Temple, Asakusa
Disney Sea Part 1
Disney Sea Part 2
Disney Sea Part 3
Disney Sea Part 4
Tokyo Sky Tree
Bullet Train Boarding @ Shinagawa Station


Kyoto
Khaosan Kyoto
Nishinki Market
Kiyomizudera at Night
Takasegawa Teppan Doujou (Delicious Teppanyaki)
Tits Cafe
Kiyomizu Temple Revisited
Fushimi Inari Shrine

Osaka
Shinsaibashi
Spa World
Tennoji Temple
Osaka Castle
Floating Garden, Umeda Sky Building
Pokemon Centre, Daimaru Umeda Building
Hokoso Guesthouse

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 03:40 PM

just starting to update.

haha my pleasure

Arrival at Narita Airport & PASMO card

After 1 year of planning and hours spending to prepare the itinerary, this day has finally come! For my flight to Tokyo I opted to take Malaysian Airlines because they had this really crazy offer at RM729 for one way. The alternative in Air Asia was about RM600. It was a no brainer to decide really. It's really been years since I last took a full service airline. But thanks to serious competition among the airlines I can afford to do so.

Food served on the flight was decent. You would never go hungry on a full service airline that's for sure.




One of the best Vailla Ice Cream ever

After 7 hours on the flight I finally arrived at the land of the rising sun. Thankfully there weren't much crowd at that hour and I managed to clear the immigration at Narita Airport pretty quickly. It was really nice that they had finally removed the visa-requirement to enter Japan. No issues at all and no questions asked. I had wanted to take the Narita Sky Access straight to Asakusa (where my hostel was located nearby) but after some confusion we settled for a normal limited express ticket. Upon further exploration of the airport you could actually easily buy the train tickets at a level lower of the Departure Hall.








All signboards are mostly in Traditional Mandarin words. If you can read Mandarin you can travel around Japan pretty well.



Prior to coming to Japan, I also booked a Wi-Fi dongle (shareable with 5 people) from Global Advanced Communications for 11 days at only ¥8,200. They posted the dongle directly to my hostel without hassle. All I had to do was to drop the dongle into an envelope they provided into a random mailbox. Overall the connectivity was really good and I was able to get connected at most parts of Japan. Best of all there were no limit on data. Highly recommended!

About 40 minutes later we finally arrived at Asakusabashi subway station. The first thing that we did was to secure a PASMO card and reload it with ¥10,000;. This card is the equivalent of Touch n Go back in Malaysia and it can be used for most of the train stations around in Japan. Other than PASMO, there are other similiar derivatives of the IC card under different names. All can be used as the companies have since united their ticketing system.





And then we were off to start our journey in Japan

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:19 PM

Khaosan Tokyo Ninja Hostel, Asakusabashi

For my first night and my last night in Tokyo I opted to stay at Khaosan Tokyo Ninja hostel due to its affordable price and good location. It's located nearby the Asakusabashi subway line as well as the JR line. (I paid ¥2250 and ¥2000 respectively if I remember correctly.)

On a sidenote: some train stations do not have elevators, so be prepared to drag your luggages up the very, very steep staircases.








Generally this hostel is pretty decent with all the facilities available. The only drawback was it's lack of an elevator (had to drag my 25kg luggage all the way to the 4th floor :/) and space to put your luggage. The air conditioner's location was also rather secluded so some bunk beds may not get proper ventilation and it can be really stuffy at times. Ah well, what you pay is what you get.









Generally I was not really satisfied with my stay at this hostel. Would probably opt for other choices or the other Khaosan branches if I were to return to Tokyo in the future.

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:20 PM

Akihabara Night Visit

It was already about 11pm once we settled down in our hostel. Our first destination of the night was to visit Akihabara which was about 1.5 kilometres away by foot. The weather forecast was spot on as the skies opened up to a torrential downpour once we were about to start our journey. The tiny umbrellas were certainly not enough to keep us dry. Nevertheless my group still marched on to Akihabara despite the heavy rain.



By the time we reached our destination, we were already pretty much drenched and very hungry. Our first stop of the night was some ramen shop nearby the Akihabara JR station. This has got to be the best ramen I've ever tasted in my life. A plus point for this shop is that the worker knows how to speak Mandarin so we could at least communicate with him on what's the best choices of ramen.










non halal


After the hearty meal we then continued to explore parts of Akihabara. Sadly most of the shops that we planned to visit that night were closed.





So the only place that we managed to visit was Don Quijote. Basically it's a mini supermarket in a building. Every floor there are different things that you can buy at a relatively cheap price (for the Japanese). This shop is not unique to Akihabara though as it has many branches all around Tokyo.









I bought 2 boxes of Gatsby hair wax (¥896) and 2 packets of Green Tea Kit Kat (¥596). These items were on sale hence they were very, very cheap. At about 1am we then depart back to our hostel to end the night, for awhile.

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:20 PM

you need to fill in an arrival/departure form. standard procedure for every country regardless whether u need visa or not

Sushi Daiwa, Tsukiji Fish Market

After having just one hour plus of sleep, our group rose at about 4.30a.m and headed to one of the world's famous sushi spot, the Tsukiji Fish Market.

It was rather tricky to find the sushi restaurants as there were no proper signages to lead us. After encircling the area for about 15 minutes and asking directions from the locals we finally found our way in. It's actually the road facing directly opposite the National Cancer Centre Hospital.





Initially the plan was to try the world's famous sushi restaurant,Sushi Dai. However the waiting time was about 3 hours for a queue that's just about 5 metres long (at 6 a.m, on a non-peak travel season in Japan). It's really not worth the wait in my opinion. So we opted for Sushi Daiwa, located just next door to Sushi Dai, which is also one of the world's famous sushi place.




3 hour queue for sushi

For Sushi Daiwa, the queue was remarkably shorter and we only had to wait for about 10 minutes to get our seats. They have two shops which could accomodate about 15-20 people, on a rough estimation. The place is as small as it can get. The sushi however, made up for everything.




Tuna maki, Salmon Roe Maki Tuna belly sushi, Ebi sushi, Squid sushi, Kampachi sushi, Tuna sushi, Tamago & Sea Urchin

Not knowing any Japanese, so I let the chef to decide what to make for me. Good thing that the chef serving me can speak a little bit of English. The sushi was handmade to perfection and the seafood was really, really fresh. Only downside is there was no salmon on offer. The normal meal cost me ¥3500 if I was not mistaken. Not satisfied with the current meal, I topped up 3 more sushis (Red Snapper, Scallop and another fish I couldn't recall it's name.) So my total bill was ¥4700. Yeap, most expensive meal and breakfast I've ever had in my entire life. One of the best as well. Though I find that the Salmon Roe Maki was a bit salty.There was free flow green tea and miso soup as well. Really delicious. Still, I couldn't justify waiting for 3 hours just to eat sushi regardless of how delicious it tastes. I'd rather spend the extra time on more sight seeing but that's just me.


Red snapper, scallop, ??? About RM25 per piece

After this meal I've never looked at sushi the same way again. Which explains why I don't crave for the cheap sushi chains back in Malaysia anymore as the quality is just not there. Might as well just save the money for better sushi. =X Would definitely return here to watch the tuna auction as well as exploring the other parts of the market as well.

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:21 PM

really? i asked that guy he said today no salmon there is salmon sushi on the menu though if i remember correctly. ohh i see. that explains why the queue was so crazy long.

yeahh i saw your post. 4 hours is very, very crazy. i didn't think twice when they told me the queue was going to be 3 hours.

i agree with your colleague lar. the only good thing about these 2 is that their fish are really, really literally fresh. apart from that it's not exactly that special.

Ueno Park

Since time was still on our side having saved a lot of time from queuing for the sushi, we then proceeded to Ueno Park. In a way it's a refreshing sight to escape from the concrete jungle of Tokyo for awhile.



Ueno Park is probably one of the only area in central Tokyo with so much greenery around. Due to our tight schedule, we only visited a part of the park, which was their lotus lake. The whole park itself is really really huge and it would take more than half a day to cover all the attractions, at a slow pace of course.





The lake is pretty damn beautiful. It's one of the biggest lotus lake I've ever seen and there are least more than 100 lotuses out there in full blossom. I believe the park would be even more magnificent during Spring or Autumn but we only had to be contented with a dull grey overcast of a sky.




DSC05427 by zstan, on Flickr


Apart from enjoying the scenery, people also come here to do their morning exercises as well as other leisure activities. Hopefully one day I will be back here to cycle around the lake. That would be really nice









This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:25 PM

Ameyoko, Ueno

Our next stop of the day was the famous Ameyoko Market which was located just a stone's throw away from the Ueno Park. Unfortunately when we got there, almost all the shops are still closed at 9 in the morning. This was a gross miscalculation and mis-planning on my part. :/ I really have to get rid of the mindset that shops opens early and closes late. A scene which you could only find back in Malaysia whereby most shops (well at least the ones I frequent) are already up and running by 9 in the morning, at least and doesn't close at 9 pm.




Seems like slot machines are the craze in Tokyo



Basically we just walked about the empty streets until 10am when the shops were finally opened. This is a typical market which sells a lot of stuff at decent prices (not so decent after conversion to ringgit though). I've tried finding a souvenir shop which was recommended by a forum to no avail.



The best thing that I got from this market was peaches! They were the most delicious peaches I've ever tasted in my life but I think you could only get it during the summer season. You would know that you've gotten a decent peach if the skin can be easily peeled off by your band hands and finger nails. The fruit just oozes out its juice each time you sink your teeth in it and the fragrance of the peach just fills your nose every time you bring the fruit close to your mouth. And most importantly it's cheap! From the stall that I bought it was only ¥1000 for 8 fruits! Not all peaces are decent though, I've bought another bag nearby Asakusa and it was pretty poor. All depends on your luck I guess.





DSC05475 by zstan, on Flickr
Interesting JAV advert to end the post

Once again due to my our really tight schedule, we couldn't stay longer here to explore more of the shops which was a real pity. This place will definitely warrant me to return in the future.

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:30 PM

Akihabara Revisited

At about 11 a.m my group then moved to Akihabara again. Personally I am not a big fan of Anime (maybe except Bleach) so this place was rather boring for me. Nevertheless the place was much livelier when it was during our midnight visit.





Everywhere in Akihabara you can really see the craze about anime and how the Japanese take these so seriously with all their fans hovering about at the figurine shops on a weekday morning. Not forgetting to mention, the local darling AKB48 also receives a tonne of love from their fans.







I thought I was crazy about Girl's Generation (소녀시대) and other KPOP idols but these people bring it to a whole new level. The picture above shows the gathering of AKB48 fan boys and girls at the UDX-Akiba square for some event and they are actually exchanging photos of the girl's to be collected.

We then headed to the Tokyo Anime Centre which turns out to be nothing really. Good things there were lots of chairs there for us to rest our tired legs. We have not stopped walking ever since we left Narita Airport.



Last stop of the day was at Radio Kaikan which sells a lot of different types of figurines, life sized dolls, cards, etc.






For lunch we wanted to try out the maid cafe but we got freaked out from the menu prices. It cost almost RM70 just for a simple meal and drink. Totally not worth it unless you are really into this maid thingy. My friend almost had a mental breakdown at the maid's antiques lol. In the end we headed back to Asakusabashi and picked a random shop which turns out to be a Kara-ye (restaurants selling curry rice dishes).




Pork curry + orange juice set! ¥950

Bits and Pieces of Chiba (APA Hotel Tokyo Bay Makuhari, Chiba City, Toho University, Okubo Station Area)

After a brief 1 day hardcore touring tour about Japan, we then left to board the train to Chiba prefecture to attend APPS 2013. The event lasted about 5 days so most of the time we were situated in this area. We stayed at APA Hotel Tokyo Bay Makuhari. This city is quite an opposite of Tokyo with large spaces and roads and definitely not as cramped. Many people seem to stay at this place judging the number of passengers alighting from this stop.

APA Hotel





Upon writing this post only I realise how little photos I have had taken of the hotel and the surroundings. Probably was too busy about the symposium. Anyway the rooms are pretty small, and the design is still pretty old-school. The air-conditioner and the lights are still activated by switches and not by your room key card. Good thing if you plan to waste a lot of electricity keeping the room cool the whole though. I've also experienced my first onsen (public bath) here at this hotel. Male and female are divided but we all have to be naked to enter. Very enlightening and I really enjoyed it very much, but some bath tubs' temperature is a bit too hot for my liking.




Unrelated: I love how much jam the Japanese put inside a bun


More landed properties. Although houses are still relatively smaller.



Toho University




Huge lecture halls


Tokyo University of Science


Okubo Station Area (not sure what to call this)




CHAMPAGNE GRAPES! Definitely a must buy in Japan! It's really really cheap. Only 300 yen for this bunch.

Best of tokyo? that's the part of tokyo i find the most mundane. unless you are really into red light district stuff. everything closes by 10pm and the shopping there isn't exactly cheap as well

lol. next year december next year only you ask lar. who knows things might have changed next year