hello! well, firstly i apologise for the long hiatus. i've been busy with camps and work!!
recently i went to japan for a holiday trip, and it was such an amazing experience!! i'll be blogging about my 9-day journey, and will be split up into 3 separate blog posts (according to respective cities)! cause cramming everything into one would be very exhausting, both for me and the reader. haha
before this trip, i was really super excited. because japan has been my favourite country to visit, together with australia, out of the many countries ive been to. and its been more than a year since ive travelled overseas cause last year i was busy moving house. yup!! so i was super hyped about this. and anyone who knows me well knows i love japanese food, and just the culture, the vibe, everything! hahaha
okay so heres my japan trip split up into 3 major parts: tokyo > osaka > tokyo (again)
in this blog post i'll talk about my tokyo journey in the shinjuku area!
**all pictures are taken by me and should anyone use it to credit me please** !!
DAY 1
even though we were so damn tired from our airplane flight, especially for me, we still didn't want to waste the weekend day, where it is more vibrant. our first stop was a big departmental store called ODAKYU.
it was just like a food market selling different types of japanese snacks, bakeries.
don't mind my face cause i had a bad airplane flight
we ate in the lower basement levels (which i don't know which one) as the place to me was really huge and you can easily half your day there. it was one level with say 7-8 japanese eateries as shown below! one thing i like about the japanese is that they always greet you and are very polite.
our first meal in japan! these were REALLY good. yeah i had to emphasise on the really. these are spicy noodles. doesnt look spicy? thats because the spicy sauce and good stuff were all below the noodles! this was apparently dry ramen, where you had to put some additional sauces in by yourself. (the traditional ramen is a soup based noodle)
oh and yes i gave the pork to my brother. im a pescetarian for those who don't know.
and we head off! to the streets of shinjuku.
one thing i could observe about japan is that it was a very colourful city, lots of graffiti (very colourful and beautiful to me) on walls and stickers pasted on lamp posts, etc.
very quick to snap this shot before the crowd came in again!
interesting road junctions where people could just cut across diagonally.
the city is super vibrant compared to singapore!
my dad asked me to take a picture of the trees against the sunlight, cause he thought it was really pretty!
okay so my dad made me take a picture with the entrance decorations of the hotel....hahah dad.
oh and the hotel i stayed in for my first part of tokyo was called HYATT REGENCY TOKYO.
mom!!!!!!
i really love the lobby and its chandeliers. presentation is an easy A1. HAHA. the lift had glass walls where you could look and see the hotel from an easy view. the hotel is really huge. and the best thing is that they provide free shuttle services to and fro to the nearest metro station, which is shinjuku station.
as we went back to the hotel for awhile, we went back to shinjuku area again for our dinner. this was an alley with small eateries, which i thought was pretty cute. flow of human traffic was heavy and shops were mostly filled. you should come here for mainly grilled food!
shinjuku at night! still as busy at night. really like how the city is just lit by all these colours and this goes on for the whole stretch of road!
here was my dinner, at a shop near the metro station. it was a bowl of fresh crabmeat, salmon roe, scallops, and other condiments! i loved it!!!!haha
apparently the red teapot thing contains some kind of soy sauce....which i learnt the hard way cause my dad poured it for me in a cup cause he thought it was a drink.....yeah you can imagine. haha on the side note i really liked eating with the wooden spoon. usually in japan they just eat with chopsticks alone.
even though it was pretty late. we decided to go to harajuku! we took a train there. it was 2 stops from shinjuku station i believe. i was really excited cause i heard a lot about it and also from @tokyofashion on twitter and instagram.
this is right outside the metro station. a slight downhill that goes into the main shops, etc. couldn't really capture the time board (which is the white light) without darkening the shops below. but it was really beautiful! it showed the live time with a pink and purple background, if you can imagine.
beautiful graffiti and cute colourful shops!!!!!!!! it was so interesting and fun haha
im always so intrigued by graffiti cause its so uncommon in singapore. almost every shop had graffiti on them, which i could see as most shops were closing.
there wasn't much to see as it was quite late, and the shops in japan usually close slightly earlier, my family eventually took a metro back again and back to our hotel! i definitely had a good night's rest to make up a horrible sleep on flight.
DAY 2
the next morning we woke up and left the hotel rather late...so our first meal was lunch instead of breakfast. (i don't really like to call that meal "brunch", haha) this eating place is also near the metro station and i can recall the food here on the pricier side. this place specialised in soba noodles. i got the 100% buckwheat noodles with tempura.
the soba noodles in japan were noticeably chewier to me, and a better texture as compared to singapore's soba. i really enjoyed my meal!
they put the tempura and soba sauce to dip in, in identical cups next to each other so i was super confused as to which was which hahaha!
our destination for that day was yoyogi park, as it supposedly had some street performances (..or something along that line) during the weekend.
as a first guess we took the train to yoyogi station, cause you would guess yoyogi park would be at yoyogi station right? haha but in the end we were wrong, and the correct station to alight was harajuku station as it was closer to the park. kind of felt like a wasted trip, because the subway fares in tokyo aren't exactly that cheap compared to singapore. for example, to take to one stop away, it is easily around S$2.
we had to walk up a hill to the actual entrance of the park. there were a lot of people there and i even saw some tour groups. great choice, dad! haha
we followed the crowd and walked quite a far bit in. but still no sign of any street performance or dancers, etc. we might have made a mistake but still, i really loved walking in the park! if i lived nearby, i would definitely take daily strolls here by myself to just think.
the park was really beautiful with the nature and all. we even got the chance to witness a japanese wedding ceremony and photo taking that day. can we just take a moment to appreciate japanese kimonos cause i really adore them so much......
we walked pretty far in and saw these temple structured kind of buildings, must be a tourist attraction cause their was souvenir shops. japanese people also go there to worship i believe.
spring water! they had wooden scoops, to scoop up the water and wash your hands i think. cause that's what we saw a japanese couple do. even though it was freezing i still poured the ice cold water over my hands...HAHA
we eventually left the park cause we didn't see any performance (which the main reason we went there). as the park was near harajuku station as well, we decided to spend the day in the harajuku area.
we had to walk downhill again. here is a pic of the crowd! it was really crowded and the people never stopped coming down.
my family went into this shop where they had the latest japanese technology of robots. haha here is my mom with the robot. this robot only speaks japanese, but there is a smaller robot which speaks english. it can even play scissors paper stone hahaha. pretty cool actually. im impressed by technology these days.
we walked into harajuku street. and firstly can i point out, that i am extremely proud of this picture i took. HAHA
out of the whole japan trip, i still love walking along this street the most. the vibe, the people, everything! they had really cool shops with interesting japanese fashion pieces. i even bought 2 pairs of shoes. and a felt badge, which costs me S$6. not that cheap...but it was cute.HAHA i am so impulsive when it comes to cute things
after harajuku street, we reached the omotesando area. which my dad initially set as a place to go as well! again, it was really crowded. this street had more proper buildings as compared to harajuku street.
but can we take a moment to appreciate the lights on the trees. it was really super beautiful!!!! and the effort to put up such lights on every tree, on every branch. i have no patience for that at all hahahahha
we then had dinner in a shop along one of the alleys in omotesando. apparently my family went to that shop to eat before in our previous japan trip, as said by my dad. which i don't really recall....but i was pretty young to appreciate the area much
the shop was quite a good place to eat cause when you order ramen, they give you an extra thing, which you have 4 choices. extra ramen, extra egg, dessert or something else. meh i forgot.
i shamelessly ordered ramen with extra noodles.............yes ramen is worth getting fat for.
(pork again given to my mom)
they also had green dumplings! i forgot what was the flavour that made it green though, cause i don't eat dumplings since it has pork filling.
after that we just walked thru the harajuku place opposite the subway station again since we had some time left. and sorry but i really love the graffiti thats everywhere i see.
we tried a crepe. i didn't finish it though, despite sharing with mom. i still prefer savoury over sweet..
theres a number of crepe shops there.
on the side note, we saw this guy that was dressed up as jesus (with the crown of thorns, and a torn up robe, walking barefoot) just walking around. i was quite amazed. but wouldn't he be cold though?
we went back to our hotel. but my dad and i are usually not early sleepers, we can walk around our neighbourhood at 1am, and not feel tired. so while my mom and brother rested, it was still like day to my dad and i and we decided to explore further. and it was our last night in shinjuku.
we walked to this underground passageway which eventually led to shinjuku station.
outside of this station, i saw some homeless people, living in cardboard boxes around them, and with rags as blankets. i never really saw homeless people like that before....so i really felt sorry to see that.
we walked all the way to some street of shinjuku we don't even know how we got there, haha. but somehow with my dad, we could always find a way back.
even though it was around 12am at night, there were still quite a few eateries open. lights switched on in the night which somehow made the street feel the same vibrance as in the day.
after walking and feeling productive about looking around the area, we headed back and got a good rest.
DAY 3
again my family head out of the hotel in time for the lunch period.
this was the sushi master, and he was just cutting slabs of fish, in a really cool way? haha if that makes sense
my mom and i sat together while my dad and bro sat at a separate table, cause japanese eating places aren't very big. i ordered this bowl of crab meat and chopped tuna. which i surprising really enjoyed a lot. i was quite hesitant about the tuna at first, but in the end it was something im glad i tried.
my mom ordered this set of different types of fish. types god knows what. she gave me her egg sushi and small tuna ones. what i really love about japan egg sushi, also known as tamago, the egg slice is really big HAHA. my mom and i shared everything with each other so we got to try each other's.
after that i ate matcha ice cream....HAHA during a cold day. but 100% no regrets. people close to me know i don't really eat much ice cream cause im picky with unhealthy foods....haha. but this ice cream was really a good exception. it was like S$4? for a cone. but worth it.
yep so after this meal we made our way to osaka! which will be in my next blogpost. if anybody actually read up to here......wow. HAHA i applaud u. thank u for reading, really!!!! i hope i am able to post the next blogpost soon. thanks agn!!!
-beth
