non-halal

Shibuya Walkabout

Shibuya can be considered as one of my favorite districts in the Tokyo Metropolitan for the night life, well at least for the limited places that I covered here. It certainly is one of the liveliest place to be in Tokyo at night compared to the other cities. Having said that, most shops here closes around 9.30pm which is quite a pity. It's only in Malaysia (& Singapore) that you really can see shops only closing at 11pm and some 12am during the weekends.It's a bit frustrating at times when you want to do last minute shoppings. :/


Shibuya crossing


For my part I returned to this place twice. First was after the cultural night at Club Camelot during the APPS 2013 conference. I decided that it was too early to go back to my hotel and decided to stay on instead of following the bus back.So there wasn't anything planned for this trip we wandered around aimlessly around the Shibuya area to have a better look. For the 2nd night here it was just a brief walk around since I was rushing to get to Shinjuku as well.







Generally, the stuff in Shibuya are expensive. We walked into the famous Shibuya 109 building and walked out after exploring a few floors, knowing the price range is completely out of our budget range. Imagine a simple shirt costing almost RM400. @@ To be fair, shopping in Japan isn't cheap to begin with.




I wanted to find a shop that sells tempura since we haven't had any yet after being in Japan for a few days already. After circling the area for awhile we still could not find any tempura shop (for a decent price) and we settled for a restaurant specialising in agemono (Japanese fried food). I ordered the ebi-furai set which costed ¥720 for a huge proportion of prawns. Now this is relatively cheap even for Malaysian standards.







We also went to try out their budget conveyor belt sushi. Needless to say, the quality is miles away from the expensive sushi that we had in Tsukiji Fish Market. The fish, the rice, the flavouring, are all of sub-par quality. :/ It's apparent now that I can truly differentiate quality sushi and cheap ones. Bad for my wallet though.






One day I will be back to enjoy coffee at this place and slowly watch the crowd go by....

price wise it's almost the same. i think quality also almost the same. i won't be going back to sakae sushi now that's for sure >.< at least rakuzen or similiar level japanese restaurants otherwise i'd rather save the money =X

thanks for pointing that out. shall add that in. i got a cardigan from uniqlo at osaka cost about rm130 only. probably the same price here i guess

no space la friend

yes it's the equivalent

Takeshita Street, Harajuku (Part 1)

Harajuku, the heart of the Japan cosplay arena. Cosplay fans usually will parade around this station in the afternoon but we arrived a bit too late for that unfortunately. Getting here is a bit complicated for my part as there were numerous stations to switch. Once again, due to tight schedule we only visited Takeshita Street for the whole of Harajuku. Not sure why the shops here closes so early at 8pm though. :/





In a nut shell, Takeshita Street is a 500m long street filled with various shops and restaurants. Prices here are a bit tad cheaper compared to the likes of Shibuya. Many fancy girl's clothings and accessories can be found here as well. Would be a rather boring place for guy's to shop though.





Another reason to be here is for their Crepes which is famous in Harajuku. There were 2 shops located side by side each other with a fascinating assortment of crepe choices. By looking at the displays is enough to get your saliva flowing.




With so much on offer I went for one of the the most interesting crepe on offer: Strawberry + Cheesecake + Vanilla ice cream. Needless to say the combination was amazing and rather filling. The crepe is soft instead of the usual crispy crepes which makes it a bit tad different.





Moving on from the dessert we then proceeded to explore the rest of the streets, with the girls doing most of their shopping.

Takeshita Street, Harajuku (Part 2 - Idol Park & Sanuki Udon Hanamaru)

While the girls were pretty much caught up with their shopping, the guys had their fair share of fun by just looking at the eye candies roaming around the streets. Most of the women on the streets of Japan really put in an effort to make themselves look pretty and it's not exaggerating to say that decent looking girls are everywhere in Japan until you kinda get numbed towards seeing pretty girls.

Some random shots:






If you enjoy K-Pop stuff, then Harajuku is also one of the place to be in. The shop Idol Park sells a lot of K-Pop merchandises ranging from albums to keychains to name tags under one roof at a price similiar to shops in Korea (and definitely much cheaper than Malaysia). I got Girl's Day 'Female President' at about ¥2000 if I remember correctly.





I also visited one of the shops selling Lolita Fashion. The prices are insane and I am really impressed that this culture is going strong in Japan. A lolita dress can cost up to RM500 but I have to admit the details and designs are really nice (not for everyday fashion though).



We ended our visit at Takeshita to a visit to an Udon restaurant, our first as well since arriving. Sanuki Udon Hanamaru serves one of the most delicious udon that I've ever tried. The whole process of making looks remarkably simple but the flavour is amazing, especially the marinated pork that they use.

not really worth unless you are a huge anime fan. the bullet train ticket is the same price as a flight ticket back to malaysia

the whole Akihabara thing is damn boring for me though. go only if you are really a true anime fan

Electronic stuff..maybe.. if you know where to find them. the stores in Akihabara (as well as other shopping 'malls' in Tokyo) are all in high rise buildings. it's a hassle to explore each individual building to find out what you really want.

2nd hand cameras and lenses are expensive there compared to Malaysia but you do get to find exotic lenses if that's what you are interested about.

sushi i dunno la

Passing Shinjuku (Kabukicho - 歌舞伎町)

Shinjuku was our last stop of the night after rushing through Harajuku and Shibuya. Unfortunately most shopping malls were on their way to closing when we finally arrived at one of the busiest train station in Tokyo. Hence the only option left was Kabukicho, Japan's famous entertainment & red light district.







It is evident that this place is the total opposite of the rest of Tokyo. Gone are the friendly and super duper polite people of the city. Feels more human in a way, I guess. Sights of Yakuzas walking around are kinda scary though haha.







Generally this is the place to go if you are looking for host/hostess clubs, bars, JAV and other related stuff. It's best if you know some Japanese although there are places specially catered for foreigners. Not my type of place though. Or maybe I have just not spent enough time exploring Shinjuku.

here mostly travel on their own one

they are everywhere

Sensoji Temple & Nakamise, Asakusa (淺草)

Another great place to visit in Tokyo would be the famous Sensoji Temple right in Asakusa. Apart from its historical value, this is also the best place to shop for souvenirs as well as food. The place is also very accessible as it's only a 5 minute walk away from the subway. I returned to this place TWICE (yes that's how much I like it here), however the duration for each time was relatively short and there are many more places that I did not cover. Asakusa is a relatively huge place with much left to be desired (especially that Asahi tower....)



Due to limited time, I did most of the touristy stuff by taking random pictures of the ancient temple but did little in terms of exploring the whole building. Instead I spent most of my time trying to scout for things to buy as well as good food!






In terms of pricing, you can expect most of the shops sharing the same price for the same items that are on sale. Kinda regret didn't buying more stuffs from here though. It's one of the cheapest place to buy stuff. And the one with the most variety as well. I got a load of post cards and some key chains from here at affordable prices. But expect prices ranging from ¥300 onwards.



Apart from souvenirs, the food here is also pretty nice! The ones that I tried are illustrated in the pictures below, but there are some which I did not grab a picture such the green tea shaved ice and other desserts.




Red bean paste/custard + dough


Asakusa Rusk. One of the best! I really liked the Original and Tomato flavour. Spent ¥2890 at this shop =3


This shop is nearby the Kaminarimon (outer gate of the Sensoji temple) which sells really delicious fried minced pork ¥150. A must try!






Sumida river

yes

Tokyo Sky Tree

Constructed only about one year ago, the new icon for Tokyo city has now been replaced by none other than the Tokyo Sky Tree which is located in the Asakusa region. It can be reached by foot from Sensoji Temple but I opted to take the train instead. There are 2 lines with 2 different stations at 2 opposite ends of the area (Oshiage & Sky Tree station) serving this place so it is quite accessible using public transport.



The Sky tree area can be divided into 2 places, the Tokyo Solamachi and the Tokyo Sky Tree itself. The layout is exactly the same like the Petronas Twin Towers where by Solamachi (or Suria KLCC) is the designated shopping mall with a huge variety of tenants and the entrance to go up the towers lies on another end. The shops were still closed (a lot of shops opens late and closes early in Tokyo, very annoying) when I got there at about 10 in the morning. The only restaurants available for food was McDonald's.



It is apparent that the management of the Tokyo Sky Tree had anticipated a huge amount of crowd. They have done a fantastic job of laying out amazingly long queue lines and have multiple elevators for guests to go up the observatory deck. The price to go up it's not cheap though at ¥2000 for the lower deck. You have to pay a bit more to go on a higher deck which deems to have more things to see and play around.





Fortunately the queue wasn't long and I need not wait for long before my turn to enter to lift. Having said that, there were quite a number of visitors at that time and the attraction had just opened on a weekday morning!




Unfortunately, as I stepped into the observatory deck I was only met with disappointment. The whole area of the deck was really quite small compared to the past towers that I've been too, namely Taipei 101, Namsan Tower in Seoul as well as our own KL Tower. Apart from the grand view outside (which was marred by heavy clouds on the day I went), there isn't simply much to do there. At other towers there was a lot of display panels for visitors to read about the history of the tower and it's construction, a decent cafe, souvenir shops and others. Here the souvenir shop was located at the base of the tower and they don't even provide chairs for their mini cafe. The food prices are equally expensive as well. =/







Perhaps they are better offers at the higher deck but when I am paying close to RM70 I was expecting more (Taipei 101 ~RM40, Seoul Namsan Tower ~RM30). I do apologise to any Japanese readers but I wouldn't recommend anybody visiting this place if they are dropping by Tokyo. There are just better alternatives out there in Tokyo and the money can be better spent elsewhere.

I will write about Osaka Floating garden later. i think that is so much more worth it

you won't go lost if you have done your research properly

nope.. if you have really done a really detailed research (up to the point of using Google Street View to get your directions), you won't really have to ask for directions.

Tokyo Banana & MOS Burger

One of Japan's most famous souvenir would be their Tokyo Banana series. These banana-filled custard cakes could be found in most major shopping attractions around in Japan especially in the airports. The shop I went to was at their Tokyo Sky Tree branch which was located nearby the Sky Tree station.


DSC07217 by zstan, on Flickr


Limited edition giraffe printed Tokyo Banana by zstan, on Flickr


DSC07218 by zstan, on Flickr

Personally, these tastes like any other banana related cakes (but 3 times more expensive) you can find back in Malaysia and is certainly nothing to shout about. The only reason that I can think of why this dessert is so popular in Japan is that because they don't produce bananas all year long. Most of their bananas are imported from China or Phillipines hence banana related desserts are considered a delicacy to them (same like how we craze over strawberries). No harm buying one box to try though, but certainly not worth it to buy a few boxes and add on to your luggage.

Another shop that is worth recommending is their MOS burger! This shop was originated from Japan and it's nice to finally try the shop at its place of origin. Having tried the shops at Taiwan and Singapore, it's a bit unfortunate that the shop that I went too has less choices for their unique rice burgers. Here they only sell Ebi Rice Burgers. No pork whatsoever :/



DSC07221 by zstan, on Flickr


DSC07222 by zstan, on Flickr


DSC07224 by zstan, on Flickr


DSC07225 by zstan, on Flickr

the one i went in taiwan is red also


DSC08006 by zstan, on Flickr