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 Tokyo & Myoko Kogen Photo Travelog (1 week), inb4 /k/ is not your blog

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TSdeodorant
post Feb 20 2019, 12:50 PM

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Day 1: Tokyo Sumo Grand Tournament continued ...

So anyway the last matches end at around ~6pm, so it's just about right to head back to the hotel, check in, and take a shower before heading back out to dinner. For our first dinner we visited the very-well-reviewed (by gaijins) Shima Steak:

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Some "OK" bread & butter.

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To start: Onion Soup (very thick, lots of onions, very savoury) and off-menu crab croquette (lots of crab meat, but not the chunky kind, very little filler).

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Main courses are - obviously - steak! We had one order each of the Fillet (tenderloin) and Sirloin. The tenderloin was slightly more tender, but also noticeably less juicy / fatty. Our recommendation is to go with the sirloin (if you can only choose one), because wagyu is normally so tender anyway.

Speaking of wagyu, normally we don't really dig A5 wagyu steaks so much because the fat/oil can be overwhelming after a while, but the beef served here (sourced by Oshima-san from his hometown in Kyoto) hits just the right balance between meat and fat. Sublime.

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Dessert & petit fours are 'complimentary.' Strangely enough each table or dining group seemed to get a different variation of fruit, cake, and/or ice cream for their dessert.

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Total damage: ¥34,000 (including 2 non-alcoholic drinks), so the dinner wasn't cheap, but it was worth it. Definitely recommended if you're in Tokyo and in the mood for some solid wagyu cooked steak-style (i.e. grilled over charcoal) instead of the more common teppanyaki style.

Service standards were ... sort of OK? Oshima-san and a couple of members of his staff do try to make small talk and be friendly, but the language barrier was clearly an issue (only Oshima-san's English was decent, the rest of his staff not so much).

This post concludes Day 1!

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 20 2019, 12:55 PM
TSdeodorant
post Feb 20 2019, 06:23 PM

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Day 2: Checking out the 'new' Toyosu Fish Market & the 'new' Gundam Unicorn at Odaiba

So on Day 2, we decided to check out Toyosu fish market. We're huge fans of the old Tsukiji inner market (in a previous trip we booked AirBnB next to the market and went every other morning to shop for fish & scallops & etc for food).

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Turns out that the new market is probably amazing as a fish market but is terribly sterile as a tourist attraction. I'd go so far as to say it's not even worth visiting anymore.

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The new area is huge and the fish, vegetables, etc are split into different individual buildings, linked (for tourists) by elevated walkway.

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The problem is that even inside the buildings, tourists aren't allowed to mingle and get up close & personal with the seafood and stuff anymore, you're only allowed to look down from behind glass panels.

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In our opinion, not being able to be in the midst of the shops, looking on in amazement at all the fresh seafood, makes this experience extremely crappy, so if you've previously already visited the inner market at tsukiji, I'd seriously think twice before spending your limited vacation time here in toyosu.

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Disclaimer: We did turn up quite late - around 10am - so there wasn't much action to be seen anymore (as most of the wholesale shopping is done in the early morning). Perhaps visiting during a more busy time may be more interesting.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 20 2019, 06:26 PM
TSdeodorant
post Feb 20 2019, 09:37 PM

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Day 2: Checking out the 'new' Toyosu Fish Market & the 'new' Gundam Unicorn at Odaiba continued ...

So anyway having been very disappointed with the market, we headed to the roof garden to check things out ...

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It's actually quite a nice place, cooling, and quite scenic with views all round. And even a glimpse of Fujisan on a clear day!

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For lunchtime we went to the small area where all the restaurants are, and marveled at the (literally) hundreds of people queue'ing for sushi, chirashi don, and other raw seafood-related dishes. Queue'ing for hours is just crazytalk, so we ate at a curry place instead.

Yes ... we went all the way to Toyosu fish and seafood market, and ate chashu curry rice!

... it was absolutely delicious. Probably the best Japanese-style curry we've ever eaten.

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We then headed to the uogashi yokocho area (if you've ever been to Tsukiji, it's a relocation of those rows of shops that were in the inner market), and were pleasantly surprised to see our favorite tableware shop in the world had made the transition safely.

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Literally every single piece of tableware in our house was stocked from 上田さん's shop over the last few times / years we've visited.

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Finally, just before leaving the market area we stopped by a "farmer's market" that had been set up in the car park next to the station. Just to do some window shopping.

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TSdeodorant
post Feb 21 2019, 10:11 PM

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Day 2: Checking out the 'new' Toyosu Fish Market & the 'new' Gundam Unicorn at Odaiba continued ...

Before we left Toyosu market we stopped by a wagashi (japanese sweets) shop to buy a few gorgeous morsels to eat back at the hotel later on.

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The rest of the afternoon / evening was nothing much really worth updating I guess. We went to Odaiba and did a lot of shopping and window shopping. And we ate some takoyaki at the takoyaki museum.

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Eventually we also went to check out the Unicorn!

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Then at night we went to walk around at a depachika (department store basement) and bought some menchi katsu and gyudon for dinner.

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Oh, and around Tokyo station area some of the christmas lights were still up ...

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Bonus photo: "Yes, I would totally like a humbarger too!"

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Day 2 end. I am a juvenile who is easily amused by japanglish.
TSdeodorant
post Feb 23 2019, 02:29 PM

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Day 3: Day trip to Yokohama

So since we've never visited Yokohama before, we did a day trip there, going from Kanda direct to Sakuragicho station via local train (i.e. it was a long trip, like 45mins or so).

At Sakuragicho we stopped in the NewDays konbini to pick up some breakfast and junk food snacks ...

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... and a hunk of ソセージステーキ (sausage steak). Was delicious in a processed food sort of way lol.

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First stop was the Yokohama Cup Noodles Museum, so we started the walk over to the Minato Mirai area ...

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Cup Noodles Museum! ¥500/adult entry fee to this 'shrine' to the father of instant noodles, Momofuku Ando.

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Oh we didn't know that Ippudo Instant Noodles have been in the market for so long already ... thought it was just a recent thing.

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Mock-up of the workshop in which Momofuku Ando supposedly invented the instant noodle ...

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The Cup Noodles Museum has two main interactive activities. In the "Chicken Ramen Factory," you make your own instant noodle (i.e. you knead the flour, extrude it into noodles, and flash fry it). This activity requires reservations and we didn't do it.

What we did do is the more common "My CUPNOODLES Factory" activity which involves designing your own cup noodle.

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2min video of the entire process:


TSdeodorant
post Feb 24 2019, 09:15 AM

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Day 3: Day trip to Yokohama continued ...

After we finished exploring the 'museum' it was already like 1pm, so we headed to Chinatown to explore a bit and get some lunch!

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Note to self: Next time don't go chinatown on a Sunday lol. Crowds were amazing.

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Most of Chinatown is just restaurants, really. There are also snack / souvenir shops (amusingly selling mooncake), and some kitchen supplies shops. But mostly food.

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We ended up just randomly walking into this shop cos (i) seems to be award winning, and (ii) had a decently long queue.

End up the shumai, manju, etc just "so so" only, nothing special at all.

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TSdeodorant
post Feb 25 2019, 01:54 PM

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Day 3: Day trip to Yokohama continued ...

After Chinatown, we decided to take a bus to Cafe Recherche, which was the small cake / coffeeshop featured on Episode 7 of Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman.

It is a really small shop, with just 2 tables and counter seating for a few more people.

(Apologies for the blurry shot, apparently I forgot to take photos so this video screengrab is all I can give).

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Sadly, the Savarin dessert featured on Kantaro was sold out (sadface), so we had two slices of the other cakes she had available. The cheesecake was "OK," but the other cake was freaking delicious. Too bad we also forgot to note down the name of the cake (oops) ...

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After that we headed to the Osanbashi Pier area to catch some night views of the Red Brick Warehouse and Minato Mirai area before heading back to Tokyo.

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Some pretty nice artwork at the nihon odori station.

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Back at Kanda station, we tried our luck with this standing-only Tempura Soba place. It was pretty crappy. Actually no, it was very crappy: One of the few times in Japan where we were truly disappointed with the food.

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Bonus picture: World's most expensive car park lot?

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Day 4 end!

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 25 2019, 01:55 PM
TSdeodorant
post Feb 26 2019, 07:59 PM

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Day 4: Tsuta Soba/Ramen and Rikugien Garden

Day 4! In the afternoon we're spending a few hours travelling to Myoko Kogen, but that still leaves us the morning to have our first Michelin-starred dining experience this trip!

But first, a shoutout to the yamanote line, which is our most-often-used train or metro in every single one of our Tokyo trips.

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Anyway we take the Yamanote line to Sugamo, then walk the ~5minutes to 1-michelin-starred Tsuta Soba. We arrived at 7.45am and got our two 11am queue tickets in exchange for ¥1,000 each. Oh, and apparently Tsuta is 7 years old now.

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Tsuta is for brunch/lunch though, and we still need breakfast, so we went into a random Tully's coffee for some "ok" latte's and a breakfast hot dog ...

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... and then spent the rest of the morning at the nearby Rikugien Garden. It was quite pleasant (if a little cold) strolling through the garden and admiring the trees, although clearly it would've been prettier in Autumn or Spring.

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TSdeodorant
post Feb 28 2019, 10:13 PM

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Day 4: Tsuta Soba/Ramen and Rikugien Garden continued ...

We went back to Tsuta at 11am sharp, but there were already quite a number of others already in the queue. So we had to wait around 35minutes for the first 'wave' of diners to go in, take their photos, eat, and leave before our turn came up.

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Noodles!! Nothing much to say that you probably haven't already read 100x elsewhere. The broth was really really good, chashu soft and delicious, soba noodles perfect bite. We didn't really like the wontons though, way too much wonton skin (in our opinion).

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After that we headed back to Tokyo station to deposit one of our bags (so that we wouldn't need to lug everything to Myoko Kogen). Normally for short trips you'd just use the lockers, but we read that lockers are 3 days max (we would be gone for 5). So google led us to the Yaesu side of the station and to the entrance to the "Rail Go" luggage storage service.

Sadly it appears that the rail-go service will be closing down soon.

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Tokyo to Myoko Kogen (total travel time around 3.5hr):
1. Shinkansen Tokyo to Nagano
2. Local train Nagano to Myoko Kogen
3. Taxi Myoko Kogen to accommodation at Akakura Onsen.

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We checked in to Kotobukiro, a family-run, half-board ryokan/hotel with onsen!

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Before having dinner we headed over to Myoko Snowsports to arrange our ski lessons and collect our ski rentals (it's pretty awesome that Myoko Snowsports allows you to pick up your rental gear the previous afternoon / evening so that you don't have to rush on your first morning).

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TSdeodorant
post Mar 2 2019, 10:53 PM

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Day 4: Tsuta Soba/Ramen and Rikugien Garden continued ...

After settling our equipment rental and ski lift tickets we head back to the hotel to check out their onsen, which is a little small but functional.

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... then we had our dinner (served in-room because strangely enough the inn doesn't have a dining room) before an early bedtime.

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Day 4 End!

Day 5-8: Myoko Kogen (Akakura Onsen) Ski'ing

Nothing much to update for these 5 days. All we really did was eat, ski, onsen and sleep! Day 5 breakfast: lots and lots of food!

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p.s. it snows a LOT here in myoko kogen / akakura onsen.

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Blofeld
post Mar 2 2019, 11:14 PM

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nice.

any normal hotels in myoko kogen?

i don't like those family-run ryokan.
quadcube
post Mar 2 2019, 11:15 PM

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QUOTE(deodorant @ Mar 2 2019, 10:53 PM)
p.s. it snows a LOT here in myoko kogen / akakura onsen.

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holy, that's a lot of snow laugh.gif last year my area around Hakusan my shoulder, this year almost no snow, even if want to ski, have to go to other prefecture to ski like Hakuba sad.gif

This post has been edited by quadcube: Mar 2 2019, 11:15 PM
TSdeodorant
post Mar 3 2019, 08:31 AM

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QUOTE(Blofeld @ Mar 2 2019, 11:14 PM)
nice.
any normal hotels in myoko kogen?
i don't like those family-run ryokan.

Yes there are. The most obvious / best one would be this one, superb location on the ski slopes but also superb price https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Hotel_Review...etsu_Chubu.html

Otherwise there are quite a lot of more reasonably priced non family run hotels in akakura onsen town area too.
Current Events guy
post Mar 3 2019, 08:43 AM

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QUOTE(deodorant @ Mar 3 2019, 08:31 AM)
Yes there are. The most obvious / best one would be this one, superb location on the ski slopes but also superb price https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Hotel_Review...etsu_Chubu.html

Otherwise there are quite a lot of more reasonably priced non family run hotels in akakura onsen town area too.
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That price is very superb!

The new fish market reminds me a lot of KLIA2 with long hallways and fish where the planes would be biggrin.gif
tahfeikei
post Mar 3 2019, 09:10 AM

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deodorant

what kind of shoes did wife and you wore in the snowy places?
Blofeld
post Mar 3 2019, 11:16 AM

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QUOTE(deodorant @ Mar 3 2019, 08:31 AM)
Yes there are. The most obvious / best one would be this one, superb location on the ski slopes but also superb price https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Hotel_Review...etsu_Chubu.html

Otherwise there are quite a lot of more reasonably priced non family run hotels in akakura onsen town area too.
*
Based on your experience, which is a better place to experience snow? Japan or Switzerland?

TSdeodorant
post Mar 3 2019, 11:49 AM

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QUOTE(tahfeikei @ Mar 3 2019, 09:10 AM)
what kind of shoes did wife and you wore in the snowy places?
We went to buy waterproof hiking shoes at Decathlon SG. Mine is this one (it was on discount so I paid like 30 or 40sgd, can't remember how much exactly): https://www.decathlon.sg/p/8383618-73175-fo...272-uk_55_eu_39

I know that decathlon opened in Malaysia liao, but not too sure how well stocked they are. https://www.decathlon.my/

A note also that it depends what you plan to do in the snowy places. For walking in cities and towns that have regular snow removal, these kinds of cheap waterproof hiking shoes more than good enough, don't even need to worry about low cut / high cut. But if you plan to go hiking for a long time in more than a few inches of snow, then need to plan properly cos otherwise snow can quite easily get into the top and then melt and freeze your feet.

QUOTE(Blofeld @ Mar 3 2019, 11:16 AM)
Based on your experience, which is a better place to experience snow? Japan or Switzerland?

Well, I think it depends on what you mean by "experience snow."

Switzerland, even in the middle of summer you can go up to Jungfraujoch and walk around the snowy glaciers, do some sledding, etc.

On the other hand if you want to be able to experience being in snow when it is snowing, then the Hokkaido and Nagano/Niigata and Aomori prefectures of Japan get a ridiculous amount of it. In Myoko Kogen this year it's only beginning of march and already more than 15m of snow has fallen. In the 5 days that I was there, the daily snowfall statistics were: 0cm, 56cm, 3cm, 0cm, 59cm.

If you want to ski, then European ski resorts are generally much, much larger than Japanese ones. Europe also tends to have a larger proportion of "purpose built" ski areas whereas Japan tends to have larger proportion of traditional japanese villages that just happened to be at the foot of a mountain suitable for ski'ing.
Snoopycute98
post Mar 3 2019, 11:51 AM

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How much damage total?
TSdeodorant
post Mar 3 2019, 05:38 PM

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QUOTE(Snoopycute98 @ Mar 3 2019, 11:51 AM)
How much damage total?

For 2 ppl total rm22,058

Flights rm2,471
Hotels rm4,147 (8 nights)
Transport rm1,830 (JR pass, taxi, train, etc)
Food, Snacks rm5,621
Souvenirs/Shopping rm1,411
Ski Rental & Ski School rm5,525
Other Attractions / Activities rm1,053

This post has been edited by deodorant: Mar 3 2019, 05:38 PM
SUSRO Player
post Mar 3 2019, 05:45 PM

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how much damage?

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