Woke up early in the morning as we need to check out of our hotel by 10am, then proceed to our next hotel to check in and leave our luggage there.
After everything is settled, we headed off towards Ueno station to take the train to Asakusa to visit one of Japan's oldest, largest and most popular buddhist temples: Sensoji temple! I think it is quite famous, with its large gate and red lantern.
In english, the sign is read as "oi oi", but in Japanese, it is read as marui marui, Maru being the "O", which can mean round if I'm not wrong. It sometimes look like some korean words to me.
Another view.
What we see each morning as we walk towards Ueno Station. The bridge is very large as you can see, connecting to different exits in the town.
Arrived at Asakusa! The streets are packed with humans.
Turning around the corner at the right a little further ahead the station's exit, you will see this huge gate and lantern! That is the entrance to Sensoji temple.
A sign detailing about the gate.
So on the right, you can see many people touching the bottom of the lantern just for photography's sake (no special meaning to it) and me being me, I wanted to touch it too since it's my first time there and it's once in a lifetime opportunity again. So I attempted to touch it...
And I'm too short =.= My sis laughed at me behind. My hand's so far awayyyy
There it is. The soft serve ice creams you'd see almost anywhere in Japan cuz Japan loves soft serve ice creams.
Sigh. Before I went, I've been hearing stories about how the matcha (green tea) soft serve is a must-try in Japan because it's so awesome. Although I can eat matcha, but I don't particularly have a strong liking to it, and I'd rather much prefer a sweeter flavour like vanilla than matcha anytime. But urgh. Since I'm in Japan (again), and it's a once in a life time opportunity...
...I got matcha soft serve =3= there, on the right. The left one is my sis's, which is cookie vanilla. I. WANTED. TO. GET. THAT. But my sis is like too bad, it's your first time here so you will try that matcha. Then I'm like =3=
I remember Ayano wanting to try a very unique flavour, somewhere at the bottom right when I showed her this picture. XD Cuz all the other flavours are normal flavours you can get anywhere, but that flavour might only be available in this shop.
We were standing and eating in this back alley, because according to my sister's Japanese friend, it is actually rude to walk and eat at the same time. Which I don't understand why it is rude. Back here, it's so common and natural to buy snacks and eat along the way. But over here in Japan, it is rude and that's why you'll see groups of locals standing around and eating, and several shops even provide tables and chairs to sit and eat. That is why the previous night, we were sitting and eating our Oden, potatoes and takoyaki too.
Ayano doesn't get why it's rude and me neither. But then again, we're in a different country so we'll have to respect their culture and beliefs.
Lots of shops you can get ideas for souvenirs from. Although I didn't buy anything from those shops as my main objective is to obtain those temple charms for myself and my friends.
There's the temple in sight.
Tada we reached!
They're burning incense in this temple, and the smoke is said to bring luck and other good stuff, so the people are breathing in the smoke, beckoning it over their heads. When I showed this to Ayano and explained it, she immediately said no no don't do it because it's really bad for our health, and I'm like yeah hahaha :D (but actually both me and my sis went over and did the same thing HAHAHA *I didn't breathe in the smoke when I was there though trust me*)
Although I didn't take a picture of it, but there's also a purification water place where you should scoop some "pure" water using a ladle, pour it on your hands to wash, then scoop a second time, pour it onto your hand and take a drink of the water to "cleanse" yourself, before you go up into the temple.
This is where you get to toss your 5-yen coins and pray your wishes!
1. Toss your coin into the box.
2. Bow twice.
3. Clap twice.
4. Make your prayer for a few seconds.
5. Bow deeply once again before leaving.
The truth was, the first time I did it, I didn't have any prayer in mind. I just wanted to try doing that tossing thing HAHAHA
These are the charms, costing an average of 1,000 yen each. Much more expensive than I thought.
I bought the red, yellow, gold super lucky charm (for me), and that school charm.
Oh yeah, we also did that omikuji thing where we shook a cylinder of sticks until a stick comes out. My sister got very good fortune, while...I got the lowest fortune. Still a fortune, but the lowest. Had it been more negative like a disaster, I could have tied my fortune paper onto one of those (idk what's it called) amongst with the other papers to repel the bad luck away.
Seeing sakura in the day..against that beautiful blue sky.
A tourist asked me to take a picture of her standing with the temple and sakura at the background, exactly like this. She asked me if I'm from Malaysia, which is pretty close O.o I guess I look like a typical Singaporean, or is it my Singlish accent? Meanwhile I couldn't guess where she was from.
Meanwhile my sister disappeared, so I took a selfie with the beautiful, sparkling stream of water behind.
How awesome it'd be to walk on that bridge.
Anyway they say that if you're in Asakusa, you MUST eat the melon pan there. The rumours are that you have not known/tried what true melon pan tastes like until you eat the ones sold at Asakusa.
So my sis brought me to this cafe for our melon pan breakfast.
Apparently it is famous for its melon pan, and as you can see on the right, there's a long queue outside the shop.
I think this is our first selfie together since arriving in Japan?
The melon pan is HUGE O.O And it smells awesome!! So many more fresh melon pan from the oven waiting on those trays at the back.
We bought it, with milk!
Ahhhh everytime I look at this picture, I'd want to eat it again. Although it is called melon pan, to be honest it isn't really melon flavoured. It is just normal, crispy fragrant fresh bread but its shape and pattern is shaped like a melon so they just dub it melon pan (although I think some shops in Japan have started adding real melon flavour to make it a true melon pan).
Their milk is good too, although I felt like that milk bottle is suitable for drinking after you finish bathing at an onsen XD which we never got to try. I think to try an onsen, it's better to stray away from the city areas of Tokyo and go to somewhere more peaceful like Osaka or Hokkaido.On the way out, we saw all these seafood. Huge O.O
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the result of dry cracked skin underneath your fingernail. Always remember to moisturise in a dry, cold weather.
As expected of Japan.
We were actually there because my sister wants to find something for GD. A super large, foldable travel bag which is good to store many things. But she couldn't find no matter how high or low she searched, and we found the response he gave her very annoying. Really glad she's not with him anymore.
Gave up and made our way to Tokyo Skytree, Sumida, which is just a couple stops away from Asakusa!
Is...this...for...us...? Like specifically us Singaporeans?
And I like how they use our national language, malay LOL
Anyway, we arrived at Tokyo Skytree! We first went to the tokyo banana shop there, and found this omikuji (fortune telling) rabbit, who will tell you your fortune according to your birth month. Just press your birth month button, and then either a heart or rabbit button and it'll automatically bring your fortune to you, free of charge.
Unlike the omikuji at the Sensoji temple though, this fortune telling paper doesn't have any english translation. So I can't understand the fortune telling there XD
On our way to the ticket counter, we came across this particular assassination classroom themed restaurant!! Omg *.* Of course we went in.
Their menu!!
Got koro pan! I had expected red bean filling or meat filling inside, but it turned out to be curry filling! It's very good.
Next to the restaurant, there's a shop selling ass class merch everywhere!
Going deeper inside, there's an even bigger space selling many anime merchandise. As expected of Japan.
There's the Haikyuu stuff.
Wheeee Kageyama going to pass the ball to Hinata on TV!
Finally, we made our way to the Tokyo Skytree. There was an incredibly long queue with so many humans there. I really had not expected this much people. My sister told me that over here, the Tokyo Skytree is easily one of the most popular tourist destination spots in Tokyo, Japan. It may even be number 1. We had to wait a really long time to even be able to go inside here to wait for the lift. I had thought that we could just spend half an hour here the most, but didn't expect to already waste 20 minutes waiting to go up... I totally regret coming here.
But it's okay. For the views, and for being able to be on the Tokyo skytree, it's worth it.
I had set some of these as my phone wallpaper, and LINE chats wallpaper hahaha
There's a sky tree cafe, although we didn't get anything from here.
An actual playground, the typical kind you'd see in anime! Just at the top right, there's some swings if I'm not wrong. I bet those seats are those kind of wooden planks too.
We came down shortly after.
Some interesting play area, meant for kids only.
Passed by this dessert buffet. Reminds me of that one time I had it with my poly friends at Bukit Merah, at The Bakery Chef. Apparently this dessert buffet had many reservations, as I saw many people sitting outside and waiting to be allowed entry inside.
Hungry and wanting to eat a proper meal for lunch, my sis and I wandered around the various restaurants, before finally settling down on this shop that sells attractive looking spaghetti.
Our appetiser and soup and drinks came first! This is my first time trying cold radish strips; they actually taste really good.
Main course came! This is mine. I ordered crab and prawn spaghetti, and there's really crab meat inside! Along with seaweed strips and green onion/leek pieces. It's really good, although could have a bit more flavouring.
This is my sister's. I forgot what is hers, but it's also not bad.
After a satisfying lunch, we passed by a shop specialising in salt! This may or may not be the place where we got those packets of melty biscuits (coconut, strawberry, chocolate) because they taste so good.
I don't think it's from this shop though, as this shop really specialises in salt. Probably the shop ahead or something.
This is pasta. Sakura flavoured pasta. How cool is that.
After Tokyo Skytree, we headed back to hotel first for two reasons: (1) I need to poop (2) Sis forgot to charge her powerbank last night at the hotel after her phone, and her phone is about to die of low batt so need to head back to hotel to charge her phone, if not she won't have technology to last her throughout the other half of the day hahaha.
On our way back, there's a pudding shop in the train station, and its puddings are currently on sale. So my sister bought two puddings on the second row, and one pudding on the top row. >.> Will tell a story about the puddings later on the next post. =3=
Heading back to hotel.
Resting in the hotel and used the TV for the first time. This is where we saw live news of a plane being hijacked in I forgot which country. I went to searched google and it turned out legit O_O I don't think it's by ISIS though? Think it was hijacked by an independent man.
After resting and recharging both our bodies and phones and whatever else needs to be charged, we headed off to Akihabara for dinner!
Welcome to Japan's evening rush hour. Look at this train crammed with humans. Didn't see anybody pushing people into trains though. My sis said that she has seen before, and that usually occurs in the early hours of the morning, when there's really a lot of people. The train officers will really push people and squeeze them into the train.
They have double deckered trains!! Ahh when will SMRT pull out double deckered trains!
Scarfs are essential at chilly nights because when the wind blows, I can assure you your nose, mouth, cheeks, neck will feel very very cold and dry. Even if you're wearing glasses like us, even your eyes will feel cold and dry.
Thanks Edwina for giving me this cat pattern scarf c:
I swear we have more weird pictures like this than normal ones.
Coming out of the escalator but still within Akihabara station, we came across this! Childhood toy ball machines you see kids in anime playing this!
And OMGOMGOMOGMG. DO YOU SEE THAT. DO YOU SEE ICHINOSE GUREN *forgets about the rest of the Owari no Seraph characters*
OF COURSE I MUST TRY.
I got Yuu only though. HAHAHA. There's no Shinya in there so I didn't bother playing another round. I'll again tell another story about this in the next post. On the right, there is Shougeki no Souma. I had planned on getting something for Yi Ning but unfortunately the machine is broken. Oops, not fated to get anything :D
There's me desperately trying to fill up my severely deprived childhood.
There's even a seal machine because God bless Japan and their love for seals.
I didn't get the bottom right seal to my disappointment, because that seal is a literal fluffball. I got the one at the topmost instead.
Well I'm not that fascinated by it because I'm not a fan of AKB48 and it's not like it's an Owari no Seraph themed cafe or something like that where the guys are butlers c: *imagination going wild* so my sis and I proceeded further into Akihabara streets to search for a maid cafe.
Ahahaha Ayano got very excited when she saw "SEGA". To me, Sega means there's a really large arcade up ahead, but to her it's the company which produces Chain Chronicle XD
It's not hard to spot a maid walking up and down the streets of Akihabara. Within a few minutes, we already came across two, but decided to walk on a little further ahead. We spotted another maid and approached her, then she thanked us in a cute way and led us to a stairway, and announced to the two other maids we saw prior on that they have ojousamas coming to their cafe. Oh, they're actually all from the same cafe xD
When we arrived at the cafe, all the maids greeted us, and we were seated at a table right next to their stage, where they will perform if someone requests for live performance. Before they start serving us, we first have to do an "opening ceremony" with the maid. They'll tell us what to do (like what to say with hand actions), then you do it with the maid and she will blow a fake candle to officially start your time in the maid cafe XD So cute
And yes they'll charge us with how long we stay in the maid cafe.
Some pictures of their menu. Their menu is soooo cuuuuteeee!!! ;-;
We ordered the meal set, which consist of the typical omelette rice where you can get the maid to draw whatever you want on the omelette.
I mean it's fine when we do it because we're young girls, but imagine older, male office workers doing that XDDD and yes there were older males in that cafe relaxing after a day of work HAHAHA.
Also we're not allowed to take pictures of the cafe (taking the menu is fine though. I guess they just want to prevent visitors from taking pictures of the maids themselves, for privacy issues. I think that if I'm not wrong, students are actually prohibited from working a part time job when they're in high school or something? I don't know, but maybe that only exists in some anime?)
But I really want to take a picture of the cafe, so I got my sister to do a selfie with me so I could sneak a picture of the cafe in disguise. There's no maids in sight at the background too, except for that maid at the right but she's not showing her face.
Another background, showing the large window overlooking the streets of Akihabara. There's maid costumes for the guests to try too! Although need to pay rental fee too.
Oh my god when was the last time I ever seen my sister acting cute.
She looked at our pictures later and was annoyed I always had bigger eyes than her in the pictures. I mean like what's wrong, small eyes are okay too.
The omelette rice took very, very long to come. Much longer than I had expected. Possible reasons: (1)Prolong our stay so they can make more money? (2)There's only 1-2 chefs inside the kitchen, and they have to do everything, including decorating the parfaits, which could take a lot of time and effort.
I think the maids saw that we're very bored waiting for our rice to come, so a couple of them approached us and offered to let us take picture with one of their maids using our personal phones.
So here's two pictures of all of us acting cute!
Finally it came!!
The maid asked if I would like her to draw anything, and nodding, I showed her pictures of Sirotan, not knowing how else to ask her. She noted "Ahh, kawaii!!" immediately. I was wondering how she would be able to take my request. Will she reject my request? Will she find a way to turn the entire omelette into a seal?
Without hesitation, the maid held the ketchup bottle and started drawing. I looked on in anticipation as she completed the seal's face, drew the two hearts at each cheek, and then completed her task by drawing those flower petals.....
My sister's came, and she asked the maid to draw some sakura petals, since you know, it's gonna be Spring there and the sakura trees have started to bloom.
Before the omelette rice came, my sister joked about how she want the maid to draw her boyfriend's injured bloody foot. He was involved in a motorcycle accident some weeks ago, and the skin of his foot was torn and ripped and you could see the bone inside. Obviously it was really bloody, but my sister liked it so much she took a picture of it, showed it off to everyone and set it as her phone wallpaper (rolls eyes) I'm like no jie, the maid is going to say "understood, oujo sama" and then hold the ketchup bottle over the omelette and start squirting it and splurt the sauce everywhere to make it bloody!!
We were done a couple of hours later. We could have been done much faster if only the omelette rice didn't take so long to come. Which makes me glad we never ordered their parfait because imagine how much longer we'd have spent in the cafe waiting for dessert to come. But nevertheless, it was a once in a lifetime experience. Living youth!
Went off to the arcades for us to digest our omelette rice off first before we go for our honey toast.
This is a new game I've never played before.
You choose a song you like, and beats will start flying off from the middle, and you have to tap the various buttons at the side at the correct timing to score points. Another variation of a rythm game.
There's our Taiko drums of course.
Where we went down to have our honey toast. Looks awesome.
First time I've ever entered an actual bar in my life, and it's in Tokyo! Hahaha. It reeks of alcohol and smoke. If my parents had every known that two girls like us ventured into such a bar, where many men gathered to chill the night off, think they'd have the shock of their lives.
Urgh, annoying camera being all glowy in the dark.
There's our honey toast, and my sis is pouring the caramel sauce over it.
We started digging in to the honey toast, which tastes good, and it is huge. But there was too much smoke in the bar, and I couldn't take it. I felt suffocated and light headed. I didn't have any appetite to eat the toast soon after, and just kept drinking my oolong tea. How does my sister survive in such a place like this?
Seeing I couldn't handle being in a place like this any further, we decided to leave the bar without even finishing half the toast.
Decided to head back to the hotel to rest for the night.
Japan and their love for vending machines. You'll find a vending machine practically anywhere.
The train station at night.
This is what happened on the second night we're in Tokyo.
1. When we're going down the escalator from Ueno Station, my sister got clumsy, tripped on her heels and fell down the escalator. Thankfully she wasn't badly injured (although she had a big bruise showing up on her shin that she have to deal with for the next few days), but more shockingly, her stockings came out totally unscathed! This is really scary. Escalators can hurt a lot when you fall (I fell down an escalator once when I was a kid and my knee was bleeding really badly, staining my dress) cuz of their surfaces, but no, HER STOCKINGS WAS COMPLETELY INTACT. NEVER RIPPED AT ALL.
This is my first time seeing such good quality stockings. My sister, right at that moment, made up her mind that she MUST get more of those stockings before we fly back to Singapore. Because those stockings literally protected her skin from being cut, so she just got out with a bruise. Amazing but scary at the same time.
2.Apparently my sister has troubles trying to poop. The last time she pooped was before we left for Japan. She could not poop as often as me, who has no problems pooping everyday. Bananas, grapes, she tried all solutions possible to get her to poop. Then, she heard that yakult could help in digestion and pooping. So before we headed back to the hotel, we searched for some vending machines at Ueno station that sells yakult, and she started to buy.
I waited, walked around, waited, but she was still not done. Wondering why is she taking so long (maybe the machine is spoilt and her money is stuck inside?), I walked towards her only to discover..
WHY JIE. WHY.
I KNOW MY SISTER HAS ALWAYS NEVER REALLY BEEN IN THE RIGHT MIND, BUT THIS.
SHE ATTEMPTED TO CONTINUE PRESSING THE BUTTON FOR MORE YAKULT AS I'M THERE, BUT:
IT FREAKING SOLD OUT. SHE THEN PROCEEDED TO EMPTY THE OTHER FLAVOURED YAKULT. WHICH SOLD OUT TOO.
YOU DID IT JIE. YOU DID IT. YOU RAIDED THE WHOLE VENDING MACHINE. YOU MADE IT ALL SOLD OUT. JUST HOW DESPERATE ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF TO POOP?!
LOOK AT THAT ANNOYING GRIN ON HER FACE AS SHE CALMLY COLLECTS ALL THE YAKULT TO STUFF IN HER BAG.
You know what.
That night, I believed that not only will my sister be able to poop with that amount of yakult.
She'd even get explosive diarrhoea.
Yes.
She'll get uncontrollable diarrhoea.
She told me she'll drink it all that night. All. 16. bottles. Which she carefully and proudly lined up on our hotel table later that night to take a picture and send it to her boyfriend.
(face palm)
Later on I will wake up to realize that she only managed to finish half of them.
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