WE ARRIVED IN TOKYO, JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I.
Will never forget.
That feeling when the place actually touched down on the grounds of Haneda Airport.
At that moment, so many feelings started to swell in me.
I. AM. IN. JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't stop grinning in excitement, as I looked out of the plane window. (I wasn't sitting at the window seat though, our dad chose the aisle seats for us)
I even felt like crying a bit. Finally. Finally I'm in Japan. Finally.
I tried to take in every sight of Japan I could the moment we're out of the plane. This was truly amazing. Breathing the air of Japan, walking on one if its airports, seeing the signboards, everything.
When we're waiting to collect our baggage, I still remember an airport officer pulling along a trained dog to sniff the various baggage for drugs and other substances. Then when it found one, it started to bark and howled. It's so cute! Even my sis said she has not seen it in person before.
We went to the toilet first after that, and I FINALLY GET TO SEE AND USE JAPAN'S HIGH TECHNOLOGY TOILETS IN PERSON.
UWOHOHOHOHOHO
(Although Ayano said that when she was in Tianjin China, they had toilets like this too)
BUT DOESN'T MATTER.JAPANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Though actually.
I didn't want my butt to be splashed with water so I just flushed normally c:
HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHA
MOVING ON.
THE FIRST PICTURE I TOOK IN HANEDA AIRPORT BESIDES THE TOILET.
DO YOU SEE THIS.
DO YOU SEE THE SEAL STUFF.
THEY HAVE THE SEAL SHOP RIGHT IN HANEDA AIRPORTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
DO YOU SEE THE SEALS
DO YOU SEE THE SEAL TOWEL
BLESS JAPAN AND THEIR LOVE FOR SEALS.
Managed to pry myself away from that awesome display window as we went to this bookstore for my sis to buy a book as part of her tradition to buy a book whenever she travels.
The book she bought there is some Japanese folk tales. Seems interesting enough.
Some more photos
(this is still in the airport XD looks like a street hahaha)
The shop where my sis is standing at, we bought some stickers. I bought two stickers (one small seal sticker and one larger cat sticker) to paste on my laptop. Will show pictures here later.
My sis wants to eat ochazuke (where you put rice in tea and eat it. Something like porridge but different), so we went to this shop to eat for lunch.
Mine is unagi if I'm not wrong. Some kind of fish meat with rice below. Very authentic Japanese style cuisine. Very delicious.
Ahh, the thing I notice in Japan is the people there are really, really polite. And has such awesome service. When you arrive, both the waitress and the CHEFS greet you "irashaimase!"
When you leave, both waitress and CHEFS bow and thank you, more than once when they see you leave. Omg Japan.
After lunch...TO THE SEAL SHOP.
SEALSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SHO CUTE.
SHO SHO CUTE.
I WAS TEMPTED. TO RAID THE WHOLE SHOP.
BUT THEN I WOULD HAVE BEEN BANKRUPT RIGHT ON THE FIRST DAY ALREADY.
DO YOU SEE ALL THE SEALS INSIDE.
AND LOOK AT THAT TINY SEAL AT THE LEFT WITH THE BELL INFRONT. I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS VINE USER WHO PLAYS AND RECORDS WITH THAT EXACT SAME SEAL, AND I GOT TO PLAY WITH THAT SEAL NOW. I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT BUT I KNOW I'LL UNDERSTAND AND I'M EXTREMELY ELATED.
Will also show you all the seal stuff I bought here. Later.
God it was hell in that shop trying to decide what to buy. I could not buy anymore plushies because my mum will kill me (literally) for having too much soft toy. So I have to resort to other things like bowl, mug, towel, and even shirt.
Anyway, after buying like $80++ worth of seal stuff (later my sister said she'll expense it off me as her graduation gift to me), we squished them into my 2/3 empty luggage, and went up to the observatory deck.
I wasn't wearing my cardigan or outer coat, so I had nothing protecting me against the cold except my long johns. However, as it was warm in the airport, the 10 deg air became more refreshing to me than cold.
Some vending machines on the deck.
Back down the airport, there's some displays.
Ahhh will never forget the excitement I felt as I took in the sights of Japan's train station for the first time.
Inside the train. How a typical scene looks like.
Random scenery out of the train, on the way to Ueno.
Arrived at Ueno, and dragged our luggage out of the station to this huge connecting bridge. Sis is trying to find out how to go to our hotel, and I'm here taking care of our belongings.
So got bored and spammed selfies and pictures XD
Flowers.
A view of Ueno street.
A random alley. Think our hotel could possibly be along this area.
Okay this is what happened.
So we found our initial hotel, but when we attempted to check in, the receptionist told us that apparently, my sister has accidentally booked the wrong dates. The date happened to start the day before, and since we obviously did not show up, they have cancelled our booking. Meaning, we were left stranded on the streets for the moment. Heck, they might have even deducted from my sister's bank account as compensation or something even though she opted to pay in cash.
Left with no choice, we hurriedly roamed the streets for any other nearby hotels with vacancies to take us in for the night. We eventually managed to find one down the street with only one room vacant and can only keep us in for the night. After we checked in, we dumped our luggage in our room and proceeded to walk around the streets, searching for any other hotels which could take us in for the rest of our trip. Luckily, we found a hotel right around the corner, looking slightly better than the temporary hotel, who has a vacant room and could let us stay for a few more nights.
I'm glad that we found that hotel too, because it's near one of their convenience stores called Lawson, and the escalator leading to the huge bridgeway connecting to the station is right around the corner too. That was the first time it ever happened to me overseas, and it was officially my first time being overseas without my parents too XD Really helps that we did not panic and instead try to think of a way to solve our situation. My sister said that if we really couldn't find a hotel, we could camp at an internet and manga cafe every night, which is definitely much cheaper than staying at a hotel, although showering could be a bit of a problem.
When everything is finally settled, we were at a lost what to do for the night. Initially, we had planned to go to Akihabara on the first day. But since all of that happened, we were only left with night time.
Just then, I remembered seeing some leaflets at the hotel receptionist desk, showing there's some sakura light ups at night, right at Ueno park. Conveniently close to our hotel. We decided to head over to Ueno park to see some Sakura, then go for karaoke to end the first day.
One of the shopping malls in Ueno!
Street. I don't know why my camera gets all glowy at night.
There's the sakura!! This is the first sakura I've ever seen in Japan, and in my life.
Some lanterns with sakura. As you can see, everything is out on me at night XD Hat, scarf, even gloves. All to protect against the wind in a 10 deg chilly night c:
I guess this is what they meant by light up? The lanterns all lighting up the pathway as the sakura trees lined the pavement.
Just as we were all about to make a u-turn and head back, we spotted this nearby random food festival (kind of equivalent to our Singapore's pasar malam?) down the stairs. Of course my sis being a foodie, we made our way there.
It's pretty cool. Here is the oden stall which my sis and I shared an oden with.
Inside there is yellow beancurd skin, daikon (radish), egg, fish cake, some tang hoon noodle, and got one more I can't remember. But they're all delicious, and the soup is amazing. Too bad they didn't give a lot of the soup. Perfect dinner/supper for a chilly night.
Sitting beside the lake with the buildings lighting up the water and night sky as we eat the Oden. The air is so refreshingggg
Sis went to buy a couple more food.
Here is a stall selling roasted potatos...
...coated with melted butter and mayonnaise. Their mayonnaise. Contains. Fish. Eggs............
But really tastes awesome. There's takoyaki, which tastes equally good too. Couldn't finish everything though hahaha.
And we're dining under the sakura trees. So cool~
There's a random game stall hidden at the corner amongst all the food stalls. It's the typical shooting game you see in those summer festivals in anime/drama. Since this is like a once in a lifetime opportunity that you actually get to do it in Japan itself, then why not? So both of us went to give it a shot.
Since neither of us have done it before, we were both clueless how to load the rifle X'D The guy showed us how to do it. First you have to pull back the lever underneath, then load the cork bullet firmly in the rifle's mouth, then you aim and shoot. Just touching/hitting the object isn't enough; you actually have to knock it down in order for it to be yours.
So I can't remember who started first, but both of us didn't get anything the first round (we rotated each turn).
Then the second round, I held and aimed my rifle at a very small grape-flavoured gum packet. I had a quick reflection of my first shot, and felt that I missed because I had my rifle aimed too high above my target. So I lowered my rifle, and trusting that its mouth is pointed directly at the target, I pressed the trigger and shot. To my ultimate surprise, the bullet hit the tiny packet perfectly and it fell! I remembered seeing the stall owner's face showing a surprised expression too XD Either he was surprised someone managed to hit such a small object, or maybe someone has finally won something that day.
The third round none of us won anything again, but I think my sister was pretty close. Her bullets were just slightly missing the target, and once her bullet actually hit the target but it only budged slightly and didn't fall.
Stalls are closing as we left the festival.
We decided to scrap our yakiniku (BBQ-ed meat) dinner for another night, and instead head over to one of the karaoke places in Ueno city to waste a few more hours away before we call it a day.
Omgomgomgomgomg can't believe they have the actual PVs!! Bless Japan.
Both PVs are by Kenshi Yonezu. This guy composed the songs and drew all his PVs. He basically did everything himself.
Okay that's the end of the first night. True that something big happened (the hotel situation) which interrupted our initial plans, but it still did not stop us from enjoying our first night at Tokyo!
No comments:
Post a Comment