Japan Trip with shiqing and dezhi (19th June – 26th June)
it’s quite a weird timing to go japan hur. at this period, we miss virtually all the wc matches, and we just missed the cherry blossoms, and not to mention it is one of the hottest periods of the year over there. plus, none of us speak japanese, and only one of us did some preparation so we were really expecting to get lost pretty often.
overall the trip was fun. we managed to get use to the complicated toyko metro (the tokyo’s MRT station) in one day and travelled around tokyo without much* problems.
For accommodations, we stayed in a ryokan, which is actually a kind of traditional japanese inn, what with the traditional floor beds and hot spas etc. actually our ryokan doesn’t have a hot spa, but it has a jacuzzi room which we attempted to enjoy, and turned out to be a rather horrendous experience. but in general it’s a very good ryokan. the beds were comfortable even though the intermittent insomnia bouts hit me during our stay there. there were a huge collection of DVDs for us to watch at night – and as such we watched 3 movies throughout the course of 7 days. the breakfast was decent, and one of the assistants is actually a singaporean, which made the ryokan even more homely.
places visited included the famous shopping districts such as Shinjuku / Shibuya, temples like those in Asakusa, Mt. Fuji, Disneyland, Meiji Shrine etc. Some places are a tad disappointing, and we label them as “That’s it” places – places that we give an incredulous “you mean that’s it?” remark upon arriving. the following are important places that we visited.
1) Asakusa – Temples and temples and long streets of souvenir shops. i guess for temple lovers or fans of building designs this would be a very entertaining place to go. for us we just took several pics, and tried out the fortune telling station over there. i paid S$1.50 for a fortune slip, and this is what i got:
“bad fortune: although you work hard, your family business will not yet be properous. obstacles and damages are coming over continuously. whole situation will be really dangerous, just like black clouds cover moonlight, many accidents will happen. your wishes will not be realized. a sick person will not recover. the person you are waiting for will not come. marriage, making a trip, employment are all bad. everything will be bad.”
-_-
2) Tokyo Dome. Boasts Doom City, supposedly one of the most fun amusement parks in japan. but this is an epitome of a “That’s it” place. apart from a fun rollercoaster (the free fall ride is closed for maintenance), we didn’t do anything else
3) Meguro’s Parasite Museum. Recommended by Time Magazine as one of the wackiest museum in the world. has a disturbingly huge collection of preserved parasites, such as tape worms, or infected fishes and rat and even a turtle head with leech-infested eyelids, many of which were prepared between the 1930s to the 1970s. initially marvelled by what we saw, we realized that there wasn’t much to look at beyond the sheer gross factor of the specimens, since much of the explanations were in japanese. truly a “That’s it” place. but fun while it lasted!
4) Ropponggi. one of the bustling nightlife sections in japan. we went pubbing at Gas Panic, supposedly a very famous pub over there, and OMFG the drinks there were how cheap! i had 2 bacardi 151, 1 long island tea and 1 dita (?) each for just S$6. but then again, if i had that much in double-o, i would be puking like mad but over there nothing happened. so maybe that explains the low price. hmmm….
5) Shinjuku – shopping district in tokyo. saturated with pachinko* parlours, restaurants and a few arcades, this place is worth a visit. the arcade had a few “unique” games, such as a spoof of House of the Dead hilariously named as “Typing of the Dead” with a tagline “if you don’t type, you die!!” we also went to japan takashimaya but it was nothing spectacular.
6) Shibuya – 10 times more exciting than shinjuku, shibuya has several shops for young people, and one should really visit it in the night. the crowd is BREATHTAKING! it’s the first time in my life where i see streets totally crowded with hundreds or thousands of youngsters, each dressed in really cool attire. no shit. this is a must visit for every tourist.
7) Tokyo Tower – we wisely decided not to pay S$70 to go to the observation deck, but went to have fun with the wacky exhibitions within the tower, such as the House of Wax – which houses wax figures of important people ranging from Gandhi to Sharon Stone. there is a torture chamber depicting various characters being subjected to japanese-type torture, which is quite scary actually. we also went to the Trick Art Gallery and took a myriad of really interesting pictures.
Tokyo Disneyland – one of the most tourist-money-sucking places i’ve ever seen. not that it’s really fun in the first place, this comes close to being classified as a “That’s it” place.
the entrance fee is more than S$80, for “unlimited” rides, but when we entered we were greeted with dozens of colourful sugary souvenir shops, and it seems almost customary to go in and at least buy a few stuff since “it’s disneyland, and everything there is exclusive!” i didn’t buy much though, apart from a winnie the pooh for zhongyang as promised. even the rides were not very impressive – probably because we were too old for most of them.
we sat on the “dangerous ride down the amazon river” and saw a bunch of fake elephants, hippopotamus, crocodiles, native americans, caves. along with an irritatingly long japanese commentary by the tour guide which we of course couldn’t understand a word. And guess what, before we sat on this ride I was telling shiqing �sekali later we go down everything is in Japanese!� and it was meant to be a joke!
the “haunted mansion” wasn’t too scary as well, since the ghost story was narrated in japanese, -_-, although i must say the holograms we saw along the train ride were spooky.
did i mention that everything there is man – made? the disney musical is made up of plastic disney characters and musicians, the “secret” mountains and caves are all just made of plastic as well. the treehouse is made of fake trees. the desert is made of fake cactus. only a few bridges are actually made of real wood. i understand that it’s hard to maintain if everything is “real”, but if they had bothered to make it look at least a bit more realistic, i wouldn’t be mentioning this laughable fact about disneyland.
other attractions include the street show, where performers had a masquerade and dance item on the street, and kept singing a song with lyrics that goes “you are always welcome here to share our memories, our joy and our laughter..” with stitch (from lilo and stitch) mascot moving about and several other dancers skating about. but the song was so repetitive and the music sounded annoyingly like that national day “reach out for the stars” song i kept hearing when i was doing the duty last year and subsequently developed a strong phobia of.
there is also a motion stimulator, a 3D show etc. which can actually be found in science center over here, hence it�s nothing too amazing.
In conclusion, the only thing worth showing off is the fact that the place is the legendary “disneyland”.
9) Tsukiji Fish Market – after having a wild goose chase at a “real” market, by the time we reached the fish market everything was closed, tourists were already leaving the scene. but that didn’t stop us from entering the place and snapped pictures of really big fish heads, octopus, eels and other marine critters. quite an interesting place, despite having visited it when all the action had ended.
10) Imperial Palace – gotta blast the tokyo guidebook we were reading. they mentioned this place is opened “365 days”?!?! when we reached the imperial garden we realised it was closed on fridays (and it was a Fucking friday!) we decided to take a gamble and spent 2 hours walking down the outskirts of imperial garden all the way to the imperial palace and as expected it was closed as well. 2 hours wasted.
11) Ginza – place for the rich. nothing interesting for us at all, unless you’re thinking of buying Hermes and Burberry attire to bring home.
12) Odaiba – you know, what’s worse than visiting a “That’s it” place is visiting a place where after touring for one hour you realise that it’s a “That’s it” place. this is like the punggol in singapore. everything is made with a futuristic theme, and as this is essentially a newly constructed town, everything about it is underdeveloped since they are probably also new. nothing spectacular.
13) Harajuku – the place for japanese cosplay. actually not really cosplay, but you can find dozens of japanese teenagers dressed in outlandish attire hanging around the bridge behind the station. they’re generally friendly and allow you to take pictures of them, and even with them. this is a very fun place… really an eye-opener for me. oh yea, and met a fellow SMM friend over there!
14) Meiji Shrine – for those interested in shrines, this is quite a good place to go. again, it sells expensive souvenirs like good luck charms etc. but the scenery is quite good; one can take a few nice pictures in there. however, do not expect to learn more about the history of the shrine as, as usual, it’s all in japanese.
15) Mt. Fuji – really cold place. we initially wanted to go on wednesday but after a painfully long sign language conversation with the japanese ticket seller we realised that there is no bus to take us there except for weekends. so we visited it on a Saturday instead. the two hour ride was definitely worth it though. we didn’t have the chance to climb the mountain (only reached the 5th stop from the base) so we concocted our own “fake” climbing epic:
Climb and conquer! (the fifth stop.)
that’s about it. think we took over 1 gig worth of photos combined; just like guojie says, i have become himbo once i have my N70. LOL
busy night at shibuya.
turtle head amongst other gross-out specimens – Megumi parasite museum
that weird game i mentioned, stationed right beside “house of the dead”
beautiful “ancient” castle in disneyland….
…undergoing some upgrades.
nice little torture chamber at House of Wax – Tokyo Tower.
Trick Art Gallery – one of the few places where one can lose his head, do a matrix bulletime and even encounter his own kyoma demon* (ref: aria of sorrow) we spent about two hours in there!!
alternative definition of “role playing game”???
japanese sure know how to spell..
japanese sure know how to smoke..
baby spice meets sharon osbourne – just one of the many lolita-gothics chilling at harajuku
