Hello /k/!!

🐔👜 with another travel photo/videolog. Just before CNY went to Japan for a 5-day ski trip, and since already flying over, might as well also spend a few more days in Tokyo.

Rough Itinerary:
Day 1: Tokyo Sumo Grand Tournament
Day 2: Checking out the 'new' Toyosu Fish Market & the 'new' Gundam Unicorn at Odaiba
Day 3: Day trip to Yokohama
Day 4: Tsuta Soba/Ramen and Rikugien Garden
Day 5: Myoko Kogen (Akakura Onsen) Ski'ing
Day 6: Myoko Kogen (Akakura Onsen) Ski'ing
Day 7: Myoko Kogen (Akakura Onsen) Ski'ing
Day 8: Myoko Kogen (Akakura Onsen) Ski'ing
Day 9: Asakusa, Ameyoko, Cup Ice Museum, Ueno Park.

I did a ski video covering days 4-8 (but all other days photos only cos super lazy to edit video).



To be continued on next post!!

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 26 2019, 07:53 PM

Day 0: Overnight Flight to Tokyo.

Wife and I took Singapore Airlines Regional Business Class from Singapore to Narita. It was the SQ638 red-eye/overnight flight.

More complete write-up of the flight is on blog, but in a nutshell this new regional biz class seat is narrower than SQ's normal super wide seats (but still more than wide enough for my 86kg fatass body), but it has (in my opinion) a way better sleeping position. Food and service was - as expected from SQ - pretty good. The flight itself is only 6hrs though, so minus ~2hrs for take-off and food and you only get 4hrs of sleep before committing to a full day of vacation immediately after landing ...



Changi is the best airport in the world! This time we had to pack REALLY heavy (40kg in our 2 check-in suitcases even before shopping) cos of all our ski gear and winter jackets.



Check in, immigration clearance naturally super quick, then we headed straight for the SilverKris lounge, which was really packed (we had to like walk around the whole place before finally finding a small unoccupied table in the corner). So not so good for relaxing, but very good for eating cos the food was pretty nice (compared to all those "free" Priority Pass lounges).



After eating a little we rested, then eventually headed to the gate for boarding. The new business class feels very nice and classy!



What I really like about this seat (compared to SQ's international business class seats) is the huge amount of space in the footwell. It's also straight ahead of your seating position so that you never need to like, bend your lower body sideways when lounging or sleeping.



One drawback if you're travelling with kids or with your loved ones: The privacy shell means that normally even if you're seated "together" you can't really see what your partner is doing. You have to really bend forward to peek in.

Different people different likes I guess. For this trip my wife and I took lessons, and the ski school recommended 4x 1/2 days, so that's sort of why we spent so much time ski'ing.


We rented ski gear from the ski school. The ski's they allowed us to store at the foot of the base ski lift, so we only had to carry our ski boots to-and-from the hotel (change at the base of the ski lift).
Our hotel was around 10mins walk from the slopes, so we just walked.
In Japan, there are (generally) 2 kinds of ski places. The purpose-built resorts have a HUGE hotel right at the base of the mountain, so at the end of the day you ski down to the hotel doorstep and just go inside. The 2nd kind is a village that so happened to be at the base of the ski mountain. These ones there is normally very little ski-in/ski-out accommodation, so you normally need to do quite a bit of walking, but on the flip side it feels more "authentic" Japan, I guess ...


Haha I guess eventually I'll update the thread with Toyosu market but yes. As a market it's probably a much better place, but as a tourist attraction it really really sucks ass now. I'd go so far as to say it's not worth visiting anymore.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 17 2019, 03:53 PM

I exchange credit card miles/points, cannot afford to pay cash lol.
Some more only one way, coming back from Tokyo I flew AirAsiaX

Day 1: Tokyo Sumo Grand Tournament

OK so we landed quite uneventfully in Narita. Immigration and baggage pick up was really fast, and we were out and at the JR Pass exchange area by 6.50am.

However, the main JR shop with all the many counters was only scheduled to open at 8.15am! So we had no choice but to join this super long queue opposite with only one counter open doing JR pass exchanges. Ended up we only collected our JR East Passes at around 8.00am i.e. more than an hour in line.



I don't know if it's new or not, but you can now apparently get your name printed on your Suica cards ...



Cos we skipped breakfast on the flight we were a bit hungry, so we bought a juice and onigiri from train station platform shop just to tide us over for the morning (eaten on the NEX train, which we chose to take because of JR Pass).



No photo, but we dropped our luggage at APA Hotel Kanda-Ekimae. This is one of our default go-to hotels in Tokyo because (i) it's cheap, and (ii) it's 5mins walk from both JR Yamanote and JR Chuo lines, and the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line. Very well connected!

Rooms are tiny as hell though

After dropping our luggage we headed back out for brunch, stopping by Tokyo Station before walking to the Marunouchi Brick Square (10mins walk).



This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 18 2019, 11:31 PM

Day 1: Tokyo Sumo Grand Tournament continued ...

So for our Day 1 first brunch meal in Tokyo, we decided to revisit one of our favorite sushi places in the city: Mantenzushi Marunouchi!



It's not the best sushi in the city, of course, but it's one of the best values. Their omakase set costs ¥6,480 (vs the ¥30k+++ you'd need to fork out at top places), and you get:

Plum / asari soup
Akami / tuna
Octopus sashimi
Seaweed
Houbou
Saba
Sawara sashimi
Kinmedai
Enoki mushroom
Wasabi leaf & tofu
Abalone sashimi
Ankimo & tarakko
Oyster or aburi toro
Mini Ikura don
Baby herring (zirashi?)
Radish pickles
Aomori murasaki uni
Hokkaido bafun uni
Radish yuzu pickles
Shiroi ebi
Negitoro hand roll
Anago
Clam soup
Egg cake
Kanpyo
Strawberry



For gaijins, you have two options. Either make reservations online at https://yoyaku.toreta.in/mantensushi/#/ or turn up ~30mins or so before their 11am opening time and queue for a space.

Reservations guarantee you a seat, but you can only order their ¥6,480 full omakase. If you queue, you might need to wait longer, but you have the option of the much cheaper (and less food coma-inducing) ¥3,240 lunch set.

If you are Japanese or if you know enough to bluff your way through, the restaurant also serves ala-carte sushi and chirashi-don's (but they don't offer these options to gaijins ...)

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 18 2019, 11:42 PM

In Tokyo I stayed at APA hotel kanda ekimae, around rm300/night (but rooms very very small lah).


Shinkansen to Nagano, then local train to Myoko Kogen, then taxi to Akakura Onsen (around ¥2500)


In Tsukiji after 9am or 10am you can walk into the inner market and interact with the shopkeepers, look at the seafood up close and marvel at the octopus, tuna, etc. Last time I went I used to airbnb stay nearby tsukiji and go to inner market to buy scallops and stuff.

In Toyosu, you can't to into the inner market any more. You can only view them from a separated elevated walkway. I have no doubt that the new market is a superior market, but as a tourist experience it is so sterile and boring now.

Day 1: Tokyo Sumo Grand Tournament continued ...

After lunch, we queue'd at the nearby Echire bakery to take away some snacks and breakfast! Echire is a brand of French butter which is supposedly super famous, so ...



... we bought some Financiers and Madelines to try! Verdict: Super Delicious.



Anyway the main itinerary for today is to attend Day 13 of the Tokyo January Sumo Grand Tournament, so we hop on to the Tokyo Metro ...



... and find ourselves up in Arena B seats in Ryōgoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall).



We flirted with the idea of getting better (but of course more expensive) seats down below, but as it was our first sumo experience we decided that Arena B was "good enough." It turned out to be a decent decision cos Arena seats are actual seats, whereas on the 1st floor you sit on the floor. But of course you're really quite far from the action.

Anyway we turned up around 2pm which was just in time to watch some angmoh Juryo (2nd division) wrestler choke out an asian one (not sure if mongolian or japanese).



Didn't take too many photos, but check out a 1.5minute highlight of a couple of the fights we watched!



0:00: Juryo-division (2nd division) fights
0:46: Makuuchi-division (top division) entrance ceremony
0:57: Final match of the day: Yokozuna Hakuho vs Sekiwake Takakeisho*

* Yokozuna - Ozeki - Sekiwake are the 3 top ranks in Sumo

Our sumo tickets in Arena B cost us MYR 271 each including the service fee from buysumotickets.com. If you don't want to pay the fee, you can easily buy them yourself on Ticket Oosumo (pia) -- just need to keep track of the day and time that your intended tournament opens up ticket sales to the public.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 20 2019, 12:58 PM

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:



Some "OK" bread & butter.



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).



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.



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.



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

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).



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.



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



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.



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.



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

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 ...



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!



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.



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.



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.



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.

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.



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.



Eventually we also went to check out the Unicorn!



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



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



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



Day 2 end. I am a juvenile who is easily amused by japanglish.

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 ...



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



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



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



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.



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



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.



2min video of the entire process:

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!



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



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



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.

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).



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) ...



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.



Some pretty nice artwork at the nihon odori station.



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.



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



Day 4 end!

This post has been edited by deodorant: Feb 25 2019, 01:55 PM

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.



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.



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 ...



... 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.

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.



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).



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.



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.



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



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).

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.



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



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!



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

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.

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.


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.