Tokyo Trip Day 3 (Odaiba)

Whenever we make our way to the Shinjuku JR station, we'll see this fast food place that sell pasta, therefore we decided to try having our brunch there before making our way to Odaiba. This fast food outlet is First Kitchen and it has a very prominent storefront, a giant clock sitting at the junction of the South exit of Shinjuku.

For a busy place like Shinjuku, the server lacking in command of English made it quite difficult for us to order our food but the young lad was definitely very polite and trying his best. I ordered a pasta with olive oil as base but it turned out to be too salty, P's choice of carbonara with egg seemed to taste better. It's awfully quiet in the fast restaurant even though its crowded, everyone was looking at their phones or doing their stuff quietly, nobody is talking even though its a fast food place. We felt obliged to keep our voices down, the Japanese culture is all about civic-mindedness and they dont cause disturbance or inconvenience to others. After the meal, everyone cleared their trays and we also did the same.

I've read several reviews that there's a lot of see in Odaiba and we need one whole day for that. It's a place like Sentosa in SG, but it's more filled with shopping malls than attractions. We took the longer way when we went, changing from JR train to the Yurikamome (I don't know what the name means, but it sounded really cute) at Shimbashi. It's a longer way but we enjoyed the scenic view of the harbor and across the rainbow bridge.

The Yurikamome was just like a monorail or LRT and it made a big round across the sea to Odaiba. We stopped at the Daiba station which is just next to the park and there was a mini statue of liberty there. The weather is nice with a cool breeze blowing on our faces, so we stopped for some selfies and photographs. This is also one of the few places when we met tourists from all over the world (other than our hotel), but there was only a small number of them as it was a weekday. When we were taking pictures of the mini statue of liberty, the rainbow bridge was the backdrop so it was really awesome.

Even though the park is just next to Aqua City, P was more excited to see the giant Gundam figure outside Diver City, so we walked to Diver City first to take more photographs. On our way, we passed the Fuji TV building, it was said that the view is really nice from the observation deck but I also read that it's closed on Mondays, therefore we did not attempt to go up at all. There were also some locals and tourists gathered around this giant Gumdam figure taking photographs. Although I do not really know what Gumdam is all about, I was still in awe when I saw the sheer size of this giant figurine. After taking photographs, we made our way into Diver City to look around. Some tourists really love shopping there, as the mall had some big brands like Burberry blue labels, Daiso etc. We were not really interested in shopping so we merely walked around. I was craving for crepe after our previous day out at Harajuku, so we stopped for some crepes at Baskin Robbins. I think crepe eating is really quite addictive!


Once again, I was too excited at tasting the crepe, therefore did not manage to take a picture of it.

At Baskin Robbins, I saw this self-service machine at the side but I did not know what it was meant for since the instructions were all in Japanese. Some locals came along and one of them pressed the blue button. Guess what? A piece of warm wet tissue dropped out, cool! The Japanese really have an eye for details and they even provide warm wet tissues at such places for people to refresh themselves. Of course I was delighted to solve the mystery and tried using the machine on my own.

I liked the futuristic design of this Fuji TV building, especially the sphere in the middle. 

After the crepe, we walked back to Aqua City to explore. There was not much to see at this mall, except the nice restaurants lining the side nearer to the park, I guess with a such nice view of the sea and the park, it will be a popular spot for dinner in the evening. This place reminded me a little of Asiatique in Bangkok. We happened to go to the basement of Aqua City and saw this mega pet shop with dogs and cats, they even had a cafe meant for pets. P was immediately attracted to this cat area where people paid to play with cats. Even though I'm not a cat lover, the fluffy cats also bought me over, so we spent half an hour at this cat haven.

Cats, cats and more cats! 

After the nice experience playing with cats there, I made a mental note to visit the cats cafe in SG someday. 

When we walked out from Aqua City, the sun was setting and we stopped outside to take some pictures of the nice sunset. 

After we were done with Aqua City, we walked to the Decks next door, where things got more interesting. They had a Madame Tussauds Museum and Trick Eye museum there, but we did not explore those. We went to this street which was decorated with stuff of the Japanese in the older days (Edo period?) and the Takoyaki museum with rows of stalls selling Takoyaki. This stretch was said to be quite crowded on weekends but we went on a Monday, thus it was quite deserted.

It was the first and only time I bought food tickets at the vending machine! They are selling it in mostly 8s, 12s or even more, but we just wanted to try it as snacks so found one stall which sell it in 6s. 

Personally, I felt that the takoyaki tasted normal, like those we buy from the stalls here in SG. 

We were walking around the Decks, still feeling quite full from the Takoyaki, and our stomachs were not ready for dinner yet. We walked past the Joypolis theme park a few times and P suggested that we should go into Joypolis to try some of the rides. Moreover, it was almost 8pm and we can get the late night entry tickets that only cost 2100Y for tourists. We are both not very into theme parks so I was reluctant at first as I only wanted to try one ride and see if we like it. However, I was coaxed into it as there was not much left to do at Odaiba except to explore Palette Town and the day had been quite uneventful so far.

The first thing we tried was the Sadoko tour. Other than feeling spooked, I was amused as the whole setup was in Japanese, therefore we did not even understand the storyline. We were given cameras to take 'ghostly evidence', and everyone just ran and crowd around in groups getting spooked. It was quite fun actually, I guessed we will be really freaked out if we could understand the story. 

I read from reviews that all these rides have hours of queue on weekends but we just walked straight in as its Monday evening, just a few minutes of wait for all the rides. After the Sadako tour, we went to 'Wild Jungle' ride which was a simulation ride that throw us around on the car. 

This is quite similar to 'Wild Jungle' but instead of a jungle setting, we were thrown around a river on a simulator. 

These are actually quite fun, rooms that can accommodate two people and we went on a shooting spree. The chair could turn 180 degree so that we can 'shoot down' people who are behind us. We would have go for more rounds but the previous two rides already made us queasy. 

We could have went on many rounds as there was no queues for the 2 hours we were in Joypolis, but P really regretted the decision to go there as he was really feeling unwell after the two consecutive simulator rides. We did not go on any rides after that and only walked around the place, we saw this cute aquarium thing which can capture our pictures and turn us into funny dugongs.

To get some fresh air, we walked all the way to Diver City and sat down near the giant gundam which was all lighted up at night. I thought that there will be some light shows but after awhile, I searched online and found out that the last show was at 8pm. We decided to head back Shinjuku area for dinner as we were still feeling too queasy to eat anything. 

We found the Tokyo Teleport Station near Diver City and took the direct Rinkai line back to Shinjuku, its a much faster way compared to the Yurikamome route we took earlier. We walked around a little around the area near our hotel and found this place, P loves steak so much that we were having steaks every single day when we were in Tokyo. 

This steakhouse turned out so good (in his opinion) that we visited three more times after this. Well, I must admit that its cheap and good, but I was protesting as we should not be ONLY having steaks in Tokyo! Anyway, the steak is medium rare by default which is how I liked it to be and this steak+burger steak upsize combo was only 1580Y with unlimited rice and soup. They did not mind that we ordered only one set and allowed us to eat as much rice as we liked, the good service was what bought us over. 

Tokyo Trip Day 2 (Harajuku, Meiji Shrine, Shibuya)

Before I start writing more, I must say that my style of traveling is very relaxed with very loose itinerary. It is normal for me to wake up and set off after noon, therefore I've never really traveled with a tour group except for school trips and except for those two trips to Tibet and Vietnam, which was also a customised private tour. I do not want to stress myself or get exhausted just because I want to see a lot of stuff, I prefer to do it at my own pace and savour every moment. When I'm tired, I'll simply give myself rest days or some hours of lazing at the hotel. I dont even mind that our stay for this trip does not include breakfast as it's a stressful thing for us to meet the breakfast timing, the typical hours when we go out till we're back in the hotel is from noon till midnight. I believe other travelers have their own habits, and they are back in their room earlier to get their rest, while we compensate for our late start by having late nights. Shinjuku is the perfect place for this, as its hardly like midnight when we come back each day, many eateries and some shops are still opened.

Anyway, I'm lucky as I have companions who are very similar in terms of our preferences and how much we like to walk or see. This is officially my first day in Tokyo and its also the only full day on a weekend, so my plan was to visit Harajuku to check out the teens and their special way of dressing, the nearby Meiji Shrine and then Shibuya.

I was pretty impressed with myself when I figured out how to use the machine at the train station to get ourselves Suica card, this is like our EZ link card (or the Hong Kong Octopus card) which has a stored value and we do not need to get tickets for every single trip as long as there's credit in the card. Anyway, the guy at the information counter told me that I have to get it from the machine and they do not issue or top up the cards at the counter. I'm pretty sure they will be happy to assist if I need to, but I was really glad when my attempts at the machines were successful when I could not understand the words. Luckily, there are enough Chinese characters on the display screen for me to make an educated guess, I think it will be even more difficult for travelers who cannot read Chinese characters.

 We were looking at this screen at the machine, and I used the bottom blue button for buying the card since the Chinese characters literally meant "buy", or rather "buy in". Later on, when I had to top up the card, I chose the bottom green button as the words read "in money". I was really amused with amazed with myself when I succeeded. Totally educated guess! Transport on the train is considered the cheapest way to get around but I realised that I need to top up about 1000Y everyday when we go to places like Odaiba, Disneyland etc.

(*Updated: A few days after this, we were using the Fare adjustment machine when we noticed a button on the top right corner of the screen and we realised that we missed it all this while. It says 'English' and pressing it actually allowed us to turned the instructions into English! I felt rather silly after that, haha)



The Harajuku (原宿) station was really crowded on a Sunday afternoon, we followed the crowd to cross the street towards a row of shops selling American brands like Nike, Garrett's Popcorn etc. When I turned back, I noticed the unique design of the station from the outside, it looked like a traditional Japanese building even though the area is filled with fashionable people. After we brought our jackets out the previous night, we had the Tokyo summer weather figured out and decided we do not need our jackets for most of these places. It was a hot and sunny afternoon at Harajuku, somewhat like weather in SG but much less humid. We looked for a place to have our brunch, and the pictures of teppanyaki stuff and steaks caught our attention again (its not me, but my companion who loves steaks). There was a long queue at this eatery (Grimm), which once again, has a narrow staircase leading down to the basement where the restaurant was.

This place did not have a English menu and the set meals and stuff was all in Japanese, therefore it was once again difficult to add on anything to the set meals, its also a lot of guesswork when we wanted to choose the sauce for the steak. The waitress finally pointed to the garlic sauce (which I thought was mushroom sauce) and told us its a popular choice. The food there was mediocre, but I guess there were not many restaurants around the area, which explained for the long queue. During the meal, I checked up on takeshita dori on my phone and I realised that we followed the crowd towards the wrong direction earlier, we turned back towards the train station. Shortly after we passed the train station, there it was opposite the station, the very crowded takeshita dori.

The start of the street is a downward slope, many tourists like us took this chance to snap a few photos of the very crowded street on Sunday. I was hoping to see some cosplay teens, as many mentioned that they will be at the Harajuku area on weekends, but like many others had blogged, we did not really see them.  I only saw a group of guys painted green and 'cosplaying' as characters from Plants vs Zombie. I burst out laughing when I saw them, as there were about 20 of them and they were completely green from head to toe. They were shouting and giving out flyers to promote some stuff.  

More about the dressing of the Japanese, I've noticed that many of the girls have tinted permed hair, mostly in shades of brown and they are styled really nicely. Like Taiwanese girls, they emphasize a lot of eye makeup (mascara, falsies), and even the older office ladies have those on. It seems like most of the ladies here are out and about with at least basic makeup. Dressing wise, the younger gals are fashionable but it was nothing extraordinary. 

There are about 4-5 shops selling crepes and on this hot Sunday afternoon, and these were the most crowded shops along this stretch. The taste of crepe and ice cream for the someone with a sweet tooth like me was irresistible, and I stopped at the most shady one to queue in line for one. There was a big range of flavours that we can choose from, the display outside the shop showing the selection of 'fake' crepes was really attractive. I've noted that many eateries have those on their display windows and I would say it really looked edible. Most of the crepe shops also have kawaii outlook and design, attracting people who likes their desserts nice and cute. Don't these look yummy?

The crepe was soft and thin, and we were glad that we bought just one to share between the two of us or it would really be sweetness overloading and too filling after our lunch. Just one crepe filled with banana, chocolate ice-cream and whipped cream was enough to satisfy our craving. There were also other selections with brownies, and even savoury stuff like pasta or chicken in the crepes.


We turned back after reaching the end of takeshita dori and navigated our way back to the train station. At the other side, the crowd was surging to Meiji Shrine. Many tourists were making their way there so it was easy to just follow the crowd. Most people stopped at the signature Japanese arch entrance to take some pics. After a hot afternoon at the crowded takeshita dori, the greenery and the cool breeze along this path was a warm welcome, the scene was such a contrast to the crowd we saw earlier. We saw some ladies in kimonos (or maybe just yukata, I cant tell the difference) but I didnt get their pictures as it will be quite rude to just take their photographs without asking.

These are actually sake offered to the shrine during important occasions.

Before entering the shrine, it is a form of respect to cleanse both hands and the mouth at this cooling pool of water. There were instructions written in English teaching us how to do that. 

Many tourists stopped to pen down their wishes and hang them at the shrine. I did not pay the sum to do that, just merely stopped down to read what was written.

The walk from the entrance of the shrine to the actual shrine itself was actually quite a distance, as there's a big park just next to the shrine area. We were quite adventurous and walked out of the shrine from another exit. We thought that we can locate the train station easily by just walking towards the direction we came from but we ended walking a really, really long way. The crowd we saw earlier was no longer with us when we exited the shrine and it was more than a kilometre walk, I think I blame it on my google map apps which didnt give us the shortest route. We were quite tired after all that walking, luckily Shibuya was just two stops away. 

Most people are really excited about Shibuya and did a lot of shopping. But for me, the famous Shibuya crossing and the statue of Hachiko were the main attraction. We were feeling so excited when we first crossed the street with a big surging crowd. I quickly located the Starbucks facing the crossing, its recommended by many others as a good location to people-watch and get a good view of the crossing, I made that my first checkpoint to rest my tired feet after taking enough photographs. This crossing is famous as its a intersection of quite a few roads, the traffic will stop in all directions and pedestrians can cross the streets to different areas all at once. The crowd is really magnificent, even though the intervals between the red lights were not long, there is easily a crowd waiting to cross after just a few minutes. This place reminded me of Fast and Furious 3 (Tokyo Drift) and I really wondered how they capture the junction in the film since its so crowded.

We were looking out for the Hachiko exit when getting out of the train station as some people have reportedly missed it. I've always imagined it to be inside the station itself but it was actually outside, in a small area where people are sitting down on benches, resting their feet. We crossed back to the train station area to look for the statue as we really wanted to take photographs of it, we're also enjoying the fun of crossing the road at the same time.











After doing a google search of the statue and comparing it with the surroundings, we finally saw it! In the spirits of the World Cup being held at this moment, it was actually wearing a blue scarf with the Japan flag, and I guessed it signified well-wishes for the Japanese team. When we were walking around, we also saw many Japanese wearing the Japan World Cup blue Adidas jerseys. The patriotic Japanese are really supportive of their team, but news came to us that they've lost the first match that day. 

After taking these pics, we were satisfied and proceeded to Starbucks to grab a cuppa. We were having tired legs from exploring Harajuku previously and I was really glad that the second floor of the cafe had a really big area. Even though we did not get seats facing the crossing, we managed to find seats at one side of the cafe. Feeling refreshed, we went to explore the few floors of 109 men's and Shibuya 109, but nothing appealed to us. It's a good thing I dont feel like shopping here and so far no shopping done yet, there's lot of things to see but none that I will really buy. We walked a bit more around Shibuya but we were simply exhausted and did not bother to go into most of those buildings to explore. We decided to go back to our hotel for a rest before dinner.

Back at Shinjuku train station, we noticed these guys busking. In fact, we noticed a few groups performing there everytime we walked past the area. I'm pretty sure they dont have to apply a license like what they do in SG, so its really a good way for people there to display their artsy sides. Some of the shows are interactive, like stand-up comedy, and majority of them are trying to sell their performance and get people to buy their CDs ( I saw a few selling theirs for 1000Y).

Katsukura

Shinjuku Takashimaya Times Square Building 14th Floor
Tokyo, Japan
Tel: +81 3 5361 1878
Daily: 11am – 11pm
Nearest Station: Shinjuku

After taking our rest, we ventured out again in search for dinner. The Takashimaya Times Square building is just ten minutes walk away from our hotel but we had not explored there yet. Instead of turning left after getting out of the hotel, we turned right into the quieter area of the Southern Terrace Exit from the train station. Its hard to miss the huge building, but most of the shops there like the big Kinokuniya, Tokyu Hands were already closed when we went there, it was almost 10pm when we finally made our way out! Fortunately, the restaurant I was looking for was still opened. I read quite a few reviews that they have very nice tonkatsu, thus decided to try it since its so near our hotel. 

There was no queue as it was already quite late and we went in immediately. Just like everywhere else in Tokyo, the service was really good even though they speak very limited English. They served us the Japanese pickles first, and taught us how to grind the sesame to make our own sauce. I love this DIY part of the meal and I find the range of sauce quite fascinating. We chose the basic tenderloin and loin tonkatsu meal from the menu, it came with a huge heap of cabbage which I loved and finished with the raddish pickles. The Japanese barley rice, soup and cabbage was free flow. 

There are sauces to mix with the sesame (sweet/spicy), sauce for the cabbage and more Japanese pickles. I enjoyed the taste of the tonkatsu, the loin was slightly tougher but some prefer this to the more expensive tenderloin. 

We were craving for desserts after the meal, it was said that there's a good range of desserts at the basement of takashimaya, but it closed early at 8pm. We walked around Shinjuku area for more than an hour to look for our desserts but most of those cafes close earlier than those serving the rice and noodles meal. We gave up and bought some snacks and ice cream from the family mart nearby. 

Tokyo Trip Day 1

This is the trip I had been sooooo looking forward to, my first trip to Japan! It's strange as many of my friends have the impression that I've surely been to Japan before as I've traveled so often, but all these years I did not have the chance to. Now, I'm finally going to Tokyo! As this is the first time I'm going to Tokyo and we're going on a free and easy trip, I did as much research as I could from April onwards. We booked an early flight on Delta Airlines as this is the cheapest option among the carriers that do not need us to transit. I always travel on the cost saving budget airlines but this is a 7 hour trip we are talking about, it will definitely be a nightmare since all budget airlines flying out from SG require us to transit and the journey will take us 10 hour or more.

We had some bad experiences previously (overslept and missed our flight last year and we also almost missed our flight at Langkawi) so I made extra care to make sure I do not use a weekday alarm for a weekend trip. Interestingly, we did not sleep that night but we were still late. -_- We planned to leave our place at 4am so that we will be at the airport before 4.30am for check-in, but we ended up leaving at 4.40am instead. My heart sank when we arrived slightly after 5am and when I checked the board for departing flights, the gate was already opened! We rushed to the counter and they informed us that the counter was closed at 5am, the check-in actually started at 3am as this flight goes all the way to Seattle. But thankfully, the staff kindly helped us to rush through a check-in and we managed to board the flight! Thank god! It was a really stressful morning for us, and frustration had already set in earlier when we realised we're taking longer than expected to pack. On top of that, after booking and traveling on budget airlines for two years (usually seats would already be chosen and paid for when we check-in at airport), I also forgot to do a web check-in and thus we had to sit separately for a 7h flight. :( When we arrived at the gate, there was still a long queue as the scanning is more stringent for a flight going to the US, most of the passengers on this flight looked like Americans transiting at Tokyo.

I started to unwind and feel much better once we got on the plane. Even though the airfare was cheap, the flight was comfortable and they had an interesting safety video that caught my attention, american humour indeed.

The only thing I did not like on the plane was the breakfast provided, the egg was too salty, the tomato/vegetables were overcooked and it tasted awful. I'm not a fussy eater and usually I enjoy plane food when most people complain about it, so you get the idea how bad it was. The ham croissant they gave us as snacks hours later was not bad though, still warm and much better compared to the previous meal. I did enjoy the in-flight entertainment, though I had a problem following movies without subtitles, I managed to find Chinese subtitles movies selection and watched "Jane Eyre", which was quite a good movie.

When we reached Tokyo Narita Airport Terminal 1, the local time was 2pm but the airport was much more deserted than what I expected from the busy city. We were the only passengers arriving at the customs and as most of the rest on DL166 had their onward flight to Seattle, it was just the few of us. Once I stepped out of the customs, I immediately located the Airport Limousine buses parked just outside (quite unlike my previous Hong Kong trip when we took some time to get to the Airport Express A21). The bus just left when we reached the area, but we only waited 15min for the next bus. 

The ticket for the bus can be purchased at the ticket counter inside the airport (very near to the area the buses are parked). It cost 3100Y/$38.75 SGD, compared to the one in Hong Kong ($33 HKD/$5.5SGD), its seems very expensive in our standards since both journey is roughly an hour one way, but this is Tokyo we're talking about. I figured out that its already considered cheap since taking the train will be more inconvenient for us and taking a cab in Tokyo for such a long journey will cost us an arm and a leg. I'm extremely glad that the Airport Limousine bring us right to our hotel (Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku) and thus we do not need to do any walking at all. We noticed from this board that the Airport Limousine only stopped at two hotels in Shinjuku, and ours was one of them! In fact, when we alighted at the hotel, most of the people taking the bus were also tourists alighting there. 

Back to the Airport Limousine, there were attendants helping us to load and unload the luggages so we did not have to worry about them at all. The service was really good and we were a little amused when we noticed the attendants actually bowed at the buses when the drivers drove off. The Japanese are really polite and serious when it comes to serving others!


I'm really glad that my research brought us to the right hotel, I really loved it! The rooms are so clean, and the size considered better than expected as this is Tokyo. Here are some amenities that got me really impressed. 

These are magnets that we can paste on the door, quite innovative.

The slippers are comfortable and of good quality, I like the little note to indicate that the slippers were cleaned. 

This has to be my favourite! The Japanese were the ones who started this automatic toilet thing and you simply have to use it in Japan to like it. I've seen it in Singapore and other hotels but instead of having warm water like this one, the cold water spurting out always made me squeal (not with delight). The ones in Northpoint or other public toilets in Singapore are always not working. Anyway, when we sit down on the toilet bowl, there is a sensor to get the system to warm up the water and we will see a blinking green light. After that, we can start showering our butt or use the bidet. I believe during winter, the seat will be warm for our butts as well. Now, I really enjoy peeing, the feeling of warm water washing my butt is really good! I know I sound crazy. 

The hotel also provide body soap, shampoo and conditioner. Although I use my own shampoo and conditioner out of habit, the body soap is quite good. I love this good quality sponge that they provide (dry and flatten in the package), it does not tear or break apart after multiple usage. Good stuff! 

The Japanese are more environment conscious, so there are two thrash bins provided in the room, one for normal thrash and the other for recyclables.  

I did not know what this when I first saw this flat thing with a small plug attached. I only realised that its a ironing 'device' after reading about it from another blog. I've not seen anything like this before. :) 

Although this is not like the yukata they provide at ryokan, I still enjoy putting on these after showering every night.  After I showered at the hotel for the first time, I noticed something special about the mirror, the area just in front of the basin didnt get crowded up like what normally happened after a hot shower. After examining it for awhile, I realised that patch of mirror is heated up to prevent it from clouding up, thus hotel guests can apply their makeup/brush their teeth etc easily after shower. How brilliant!

After such a early flight with no proper sleep, we showered and napped in the hotel till late evening before we finally venture out for our first meal at Tokyo. I've heard about how complicated and extensive the railway system is over here, but I had no idea until I've ventured into the station right next to our hotel (the Keio line) thinking that it should linked up to the other exits like in SG but that was not the case. There's many lines serving Shinjuku and some of them share the same station/entrance/exits while others have their own gantry and exits. We only figured out how to navigate our way around when we started taking the train to other areas the next day. 

We decided to just walk along the pavement towards the tall and bright buildings around the huge Shinjuku JR station, it also gave us a good opportunity to get a sense of the area around us, gawk at the colourful buildings and take photographs. Initially I've wanted to look for a 'Alice In Wonderland' themed cafe that someone had blogged about, but we failed to find it with just descriptions about the place as the building was huge. Interestingly, we realised that many eateries are built at the basement of the building, with a small staircase leading down. It may look really ordinary with a few signboards from the walkway, but when we ventured down the narrow staircase, it was actually crowded and full of life in the eatery. We walked a few rounds, gave up on locating that restaurant and just started looking at the signboards to see if anything appeal to us. 

I'm not a fussy eater and I dont mind trying all sorts of Japanese food. Unfortunately, my companion is not really adventurous and prefer food that are familiar, basically comfort food. Its strange to eat at a drinking bar on our first night there, but the signboard with nice steak on it really got our attention. I reckon that was due to the fact that we did not get a proper meal all day and were already really hungry. After we went in, we realised it is really difficult to order food as the servers do not speak or understand much English, we had to point at the menu and try to decipher what they were trying to tell us. I finally figured out its a requirement to order drinks at the bar as the very nice and polite server came back a few times to gesture and ask about our drinks. I actually did not want to get any drinks as a cup of coke cost 500Y when a nice piece of steak was only 1000Y, but I did not want to offend our host. I had mussels cooked in white wine, it tasted normal and nothing extraordinary but the steak turned out really good and its not expensive (about S$12.50). In the end, our bill came up to almost 4000Y due to the drinks, but at least we survived our late first dinner, so paying a bit more was okay for me. Its also nice to note that there is no service charge and GST in Japan, even though they do provide really good service. I will not really recommend this place as its meant for drinkers and tourists who want some western food, but this is the Road House Beer Bar around Shijunku area. 

Hong Kong Trip Day 2

We woke up quite early today, and we were out by 10am. We went to the nearby Tsui Wah 翠华restaurant recommended by many on the Internet. The was a short queue and the eatery was filled with people, but we were got our seats immediately as there were only two of us. The fried buns with condensed milk is the hot favourite there, and the fish cakes and fishballs with noodles was really yummy too. I could taste the freshness of the fishballs, unlike the ones I always tried in SG. I will say this is one of the 'must-try' restaurants, especially if you like eating at traditional HK cafes, there are countless of their outlets in Hong Kong so there should be no problem finding one.

The plan for today is the visit Macau, so we made our way to the HK China ferry terminal near our guesthouse. Along the way, we saw the traditional ice cream mobile.

Although I wasn't hungry, the softee was said to be thick and creamy, so we stopped to try, it cost 9HKD each.

We reached the ferry terminal around 12.45pm and went to the counter to look for tickets to go to Macau. The ticket sold at the counter was for the ferry ride at 2pm, which was quite a long wait. We decided to buy ferry tickets from the peddlers at the side instead, since they were holding on to the 1.30pm tickets, and it cost us $350 HKD. When we buy the tickets, we did not take note of the ferry terminal we will arrived at, and only found out that Cotai jet will take us to Macau Taipa ferry terminal. It's different from the previous terminal I went to, but it was still okay since the major hotel shuttle buses will still be there to pick up passengers. 

We looked for the Grand Lisboa/Lisboa hotel shuttle bus from the ferry terminal, since it will bring us relatively close to the St Paul Church, the landmark of Macau. We did not have wifi at Macau to help us navigate the streets, but after alighting from the shuttle bus, we decided to follow the simplest rule to bring us to the most popular tourist site>> follow the direction where most people are heading. On a hot Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of tourists at Macau, most of them from the mainland. As we walked along, we spotted the famous Margaret Cafe e Nata with lots of people eating their egg tarts outside the small shop. 

The Portuguese egg tarts were really good.. Smooth, hot and creamy. Completely up to our expectations! The cold yuan yang (coffee+tea) was quite bitter, so we didn't finish it. 

The narrow streets leading to St Paul thereafter was super crowded on a Sunday afternoon, it actually made me dizzy. 

Most people were there to buy the 姖记手信 but we weren't interested in those foodstuff. Instead, we escaped to a small cafe to avoid the heat and crowd. I didn't see any Loccitane cafes before, and I'm really glad to find one in Macau as there wasn't many cafes on that crowded street (mostly small shops with no aircon). 

The foodstuff and drinks were quite not outstanding, but it was a bliss to escape from the heat and the crowd. The first floor of the cafe was the normal shopfront selling all the skincare products, and the 2nd and 3rd floor was a cafe. It was also the first Loccitane Cafe I had came across, probably we cant find one in Singapore. 

After we finished the drinks and got refreshed, we went to the nearer Metropole Hotel to wait for a shuttle bus back to the ferry terminal. I would say its really a good way to attract tourists to the major hotels and of course casinos to earn revenue for the small island. Macau has the highest amount of earnings from casinos, even more than Las Vegas! Although Metropole is a much small hotel and the shuttle bus service is shared with some other hotels, the staff were really nice and directed us to sit down near the reception to wait for the bus. They even helped us to flag the bus and bidded us goodbye politely although we were not guests of the hotel. I also observed that most of those people who alighted did not go into the hotel, I guess they were just heading down to the nearby Senado Square. 

Hong Kong Trip Day 1

I've traveled to so many places this year, and I've always wanted to start blogging about my journey, but eventually was too tired/lazy/busy to do so. Let me see how long I can keep up with this.

So, this is my 5th trip out of Singapore this year. It's a trip with my close buddy and we booked the tickets in February when there was a Jetstar promotion ($250 sgd). 

As the flight was in the afternoon, I didn't knock out on the flight like my previous trips, I looked out of the window and saw these beautiful clouds when the sun was going down.

It was almost 11pm when we reached, and it was midnight after we finally showered and go out to search for dinner. We found a Yuen Kee restaurant near our guesthouse and ordered their beef bisket noodles (around $30 hkd), it was quite good for a shop opened at that hour, and it was still filled with customers.

Although it wasnt one of the restaurants in our 'must-try' list for this trip, the first bite into the noodles was refreshing and the beef brisket, tripes etc was chewy. We felt quite satisfied with this very late night meal.