Friday, December 29, 2006
Umm … I suppose this is a long awaited post, since I should have a lot to say from my trip to Tokyo and HK. So here goes, try not to be disappointed in what I did in Tokyo.
So it was an early flight to Tokyo, but who cares if I had to wake up at 5 to catch the flight? I have 8 hours of business class man, of course must enjoy the additional leg room and the comfy seat. The flight was so darn good, the service was excellent and the food is great too, not to mention that I already had a small breakfast at the UA lounge in the airport. (no more macs for breakfast)
We arrived at Tokyo at about 3 plus, taking a train out to Chiba took about an hour. We reached the hotel around 4pm and rendezvous with my aunt and uncle there. We went out for dinner some where at the underground of the train station of Chiba. Wanted to have buffet shabu-shabu actually, but the queue is freakin’ long?!?! Japs just love to eat beef, so it’s not surprising that the queues are that long. So we ended up in a small, cozy restaurant next to it.
On the second day, we went to the science museum of Chiba. The place is quite small actually, smaller than Singapore science centre and most of its exhibits are on practical sciences that are used in the industry. E.g. electricity and iron production. In the afternoon, we went out to Rippongi Hills, something like the Paragon of Singapore, but MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger. Got 4 towers and Grand Hyatt right next to it, so you guys can imagine all the Zara, Channel, Omega, Bose etc. etc. etc. It’s so big that it has 3 Starbucks at different locations! WTH?! BUT! I bought nothing there, so I’m not that rich after all. That night, we went down to Shinjuku to have dinner at this really small restaurant at the streets of 歌舞伎町 and had char-grilled tiger prawns and yakitori at comparatively bargain prices. Actually, when I went to Tokyo about 5 years ago, we went to the same restaurant and this time, we purposely looked for this particular restaurant and guess what, the man outside doing the grilling is still there!
The second day, we went out to Narita area for sightseeing and that was the day that I spent the most in Japan. That day, while my parents walked up to some hills to see red leaves (quite dumb, but they wanted to), I went to this small internet café and spent 500 yen for one hour of internet. We went back to Chiba for dinner and went to this fast food restaurant called 松屋 which sells vey delicious beef bowl, much better than Yoshinoya’s. The beef was slightly fatty, springy, tender and the together with the onions and gravy, the combination is just unbeatable. But that was just the first part of the meal. Then we walked to another restaurant that sells just BBQ food and yakitori. The best dish was the black pepper chicken and the fried pork belly. YUMMY!! (for those vegetarians that are reading this post, its not too late to convert back to normal omnivorous diet).
On the last day, we went to this shopping mall called Lala-Port at Osasuna. This shopping mall is another freakin’ big one, but had shops for a wider spectrum of consumers, unlike Rippongi hills. But the best is that this place has Tokyo Hands. So what is Tokyo Hands? Basically, it is something like high class Daiso, sells quality stuff. And I managed pick up some stuff and 2 souvenirs there. My father picked up a pocket magnifying glass to read newspaper! This shop really rocks… sell all kinds of funny, creative and useful stuff.
On another note, there are some comments that I like to make after this trip to Japan. I can tell you, chio and cute girls are EVERYWHERE on the streets, in the trains and even at the immigration counter, while the shuai guys are not defined by their looks, but mainly by the hair style they got, what a funny culture eh? Looking at how teens dress in Japan, it makes me think that Singapore teens are actually materialistic. Most of teens here in Singapore only knows how to go for the brands, (e.g. roxy, billabong, ripcurl etc.), but teens in Japan knows how to dress themselves up even without branded stuff, and I think they look better than Singapore teens even with brand-less clothes.
I really admire Japanese girls for one thing; they wear short skits even in winter!!! For the sake of looking pretty and trendy, they had to wear so little “cloth” and expose their legs to the chilly wind, I see some of them even have goosebumps , but still wear short skirts… wah.. im IMPRESSED! Talking about short skirts, I think if Sharon Phua were to be a discipline mistress in Japan, I think she will die of exhaustion in chasing after female students who wear short skirts.
so this is more or less what i got from Japan, i hope you guys enjoy reading this. I will try to upload the pics asap.
Read, You Must...8:25 AM