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dmjewelleThe airplane served breakfast at 1.30 AM, and I had pink soba, wasabi, tomato pasta, and a small container of Haagen Dazs ice cream. Cathay Pacific's penchant for feeding people is terrifying - each flight has a 3-course meal of a main dish, a side dish, and dessert. It's ok until you're having connecting flights, then you're just eating a lot.
I'm sure to some marathon eating is hardly a bad thing...unless you picked the "no taste" option when you booked your tickets. I still can't figure out why would someone need to have *no flavouring* in their food whatsoever.
This time I was determined to NOT let all my money disappear into the abyss that is Japan's public transport system, so a Suica was in order. There's a good deal if you land in Narita airport: For 5500 yen, you get not only a Suica preloaded with 1500 yen, but also round-trip tickets from and back to Narita airport using the Narita Express (NEX). I can't remember the individual price for all these things, but rest assured everything is so heavily discounted the only reason you'd NOT want it is if your plane is NOT docked at Narita Airport.
Don't use your camera flash! Think of the poor train!
Passenger injury announcements were pretty common the first few days I was there. No, I don't know if it's the same as "Body Accident", but I think it comes close?
Reached Kimi Ryokan at 9.30, and this time instead of waiting till 3, they found a spare room already cleaned, so we got to check in early! Yay! We then took a nice long nap until 2 PM. It's fine, we're going to acquaint ourselves with Japan's late winter/early spring for the next 14 or so days anyway, a few hours of heated futons aren't going to kill us.
The first order of business was tobuy Uniqlo's Heat-Tec underwear for the days ahead eat curry udon! Whoo!!
Like Giordano, Uniqlo is everywhere - in the 200m radius of Ikebukuro station, there were at least 2 Uniqlos. At least they still had the heat-tec stuff, AND it was discounted! An undershirt and 2 pairs of socks for 1800 yen? Sold!
When I went to try out the undershirt, the staff gave me a piece of gauze to put over my head. This caused much confusion because why would I put gauze over my head ohhh you don't want my hair flakes contaminating the undershirt! That's...pretty ingenious actually, but since I've never tried on clothes at Malaysian Uniqlos, I don't know if they do the same thing here. Anybody want to confirm this?
Then it was time to go to the roof of the department store andTRY OUT THE HEAT-TEC STUFF just admire the March scenery.
This is a 'casual gym'. Clearly the Japanese just aren't that big into the gym craze. With the amount of walking the public transport system makes them do, do they need to?
Now you're supposed to stand here...like RIGHT HERE...and you can see the Tokyo Sky Tree!
Look, there it is! Yay! Shame it's not opening till May.
I wanted to find Otome Road, so off we went to East Ikebukuro! Meet Hiro the street performer - he moves a bit when you give him money!
OMG OWLS! X3
Learned that Otome Road isn't CALLED Otome Road (yes we stupidly went to the information counter and asked for Otome Road and THAT was confusing); it's actually the stretch of road that covers Animate, K-Books, Mandarake, and Cospa that really does seem to have ONLY women walking along it.
A van violently turned the corner and nearly knocked me down! O_O!!
DAI IS THAT- oh wait it's not. Phew!
Although these pics look like it's pretty late at night, it's actually 5-6 PM; we'd go into a store, hang around, think "oh it's probably 7 we should get ready for dinner" and then realise we've only been in the store for 10 minutes or so. Wintertime!
Speaking of dinner, we were meeting Layla and Lisa (henceforth known as RMAF girl because yes she really does work in the Royal Malaysian Air Force) at Tamachi. There was this izakaya (pub food) place that Nadia went to that had really good chicken yakitori, so that was where we were headed.
First thing I saw coming out of Tamachi station; Sherlock fans take note.
I think this Porco Rosso cafe is a chain of shops - there's another one in Kyoto (I think).
For appetizers, they gave us crackers with cheese wasabi. We also had seaweed salad, potato salad, and a bunch of chicken yakitori parts. Dessert was this odd creme brulee we shared. Overall the food was good, and Layla apparently went back twice/thrice with new groups of people each time.
L-R: Nadia, RMAF Girl, Layla.
Tamachi is salaryman HEAVEN - everywhere there are good-looking men of various ages all wearing COATS. COATS! My greatest weakness! *swoon* I was so busy admiring coats that I didn't take a picture. Sure they're all wearing black coats, but COATS! *_*
And finally, my doujin haul from Mandarake - YES that is a MONTY PYTHON DOUJINSHI you're seeing RIGHT THERE. There's no Sherlock doujin (only the Guy Ritchie movie ones) but mangafied Graham Chapman/John Cleese instead? Japan, your supply/demand formula is screwed up. Or maybe they just really need to see Eric Idle in a skirt I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE.
That's it for day 1! Next up: Meeting Deru, walking in the cold, tea shops of absolute doom, and the most badass(??) marine engineer ever.
I'm sure to some marathon eating is hardly a bad thing...unless you picked the "no taste" option when you booked your tickets. I still can't figure out why would someone need to have *no flavouring* in their food whatsoever.
This time I was determined to NOT let all my money disappear into the abyss that is Japan's public transport system, so a Suica was in order. There's a good deal if you land in Narita airport: For 5500 yen, you get not only a Suica preloaded with 1500 yen, but also round-trip tickets from and back to Narita airport using the Narita Express (NEX). I can't remember the individual price for all these things, but rest assured everything is so heavily discounted the only reason you'd NOT want it is if your plane is NOT docked at Narita Airport.
Don't use your camera flash! Think of the poor train!
Passenger injury announcements were pretty common the first few days I was there. No, I don't know if it's the same as "Body Accident", but I think it comes close?
Reached Kimi Ryokan at 9.30, and this time instead of waiting till 3, they found a spare room already cleaned, so we got to check in early! Yay! We then took a nice long nap until 2 PM. It's fine, we're going to acquaint ourselves with Japan's late winter/early spring for the next 14 or so days anyway, a few hours of heated futons aren't going to kill us.
The first order of business was to
Like Giordano, Uniqlo is everywhere - in the 200m radius of Ikebukuro station, there were at least 2 Uniqlos. At least they still had the heat-tec stuff, AND it was discounted! An undershirt and 2 pairs of socks for 1800 yen? Sold!
When I went to try out the undershirt, the staff gave me a piece of gauze to put over my head. This caused much confusion because why would I put gauze over my head ohhh you don't want my hair flakes contaminating the undershirt! That's...pretty ingenious actually, but since I've never tried on clothes at Malaysian Uniqlos, I don't know if they do the same thing here. Anybody want to confirm this?
Then it was time to go to the roof of the department store and
This is a 'casual gym'. Clearly the Japanese just aren't that big into the gym craze. With the amount of walking the public transport system makes them do, do they need to?
Now you're supposed to stand here...like RIGHT HERE...and you can see the Tokyo Sky Tree!
Look, there it is! Yay! Shame it's not opening till May.
I wanted to find Otome Road, so off we went to East Ikebukuro! Meet Hiro the street performer - he moves a bit when you give him money!
OMG OWLS! X3
Learned that Otome Road isn't CALLED Otome Road (yes we stupidly went to the information counter and asked for Otome Road and THAT was confusing); it's actually the stretch of road that covers Animate, K-Books, Mandarake, and Cospa that really does seem to have ONLY women walking along it.
A van violently turned the corner and nearly knocked me down! O_O!!
DAI IS THAT- oh wait it's not. Phew!
Although these pics look like it's pretty late at night, it's actually 5-6 PM; we'd go into a store, hang around, think "oh it's probably 7 we should get ready for dinner" and then realise we've only been in the store for 10 minutes or so. Wintertime!
Speaking of dinner, we were meeting Layla and Lisa (henceforth known as RMAF girl because yes she really does work in the Royal Malaysian Air Force) at Tamachi. There was this izakaya (pub food) place that Nadia went to that had really good chicken yakitori, so that was where we were headed.
First thing I saw coming out of Tamachi station; Sherlock fans take note.
I think this Porco Rosso cafe is a chain of shops - there's another one in Kyoto (I think).
For appetizers, they gave us crackers with cheese wasabi. We also had seaweed salad, potato salad, and a bunch of chicken yakitori parts. Dessert was this odd creme brulee we shared. Overall the food was good, and Layla apparently went back twice/thrice with new groups of people each time.
L-R: Nadia, RMAF Girl, Layla.
Tamachi is salaryman HEAVEN - everywhere there are good-looking men of various ages all wearing COATS. COATS! My greatest weakness! *swoon* I was so busy admiring coats that I didn't take a picture. Sure they're all wearing black coats, but COATS! *_*
And finally, my doujin haul from Mandarake - YES that is a MONTY PYTHON DOUJINSHI you're seeing RIGHT THERE. There's no Sherlock doujin (only the Guy Ritchie movie ones) but mangafied Graham Chapman/John Cleese instead? Japan, your supply/demand formula is screwed up. Or maybe they just really need to see Eric Idle in a skirt I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE.
That's it for day 1! Next up: Meeting Deru, walking in the cold, tea shops of absolute doom, and the most badass(??) marine engineer ever.
