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Published: August 21st 2014
Limousine Bus Tickets!
Limousine Bus Tickets! Finally! Hahaha ... Looong overdue blog for my Japan 2012 trip. This was the very first Free & Easy holiday for my family of 3. Our usual family trips were spent at beach resorts and places where there is no need for any planning. Just book air tickets, pack the bags and GO! For Japan ... its the total opposite. Need to google, research, and plan and read and read more ...
This was a 12 day trip which i will blog in 3 separate posts. Namely ... Part 1 - Central Tokyo, Part 2 - Hakone and Part 3 - Disneyland & DisneySea.
Introduction: Spent 5 days in Central Tokyo from 1-6 April. We based ourselves in Shinagawa Prince Hotel and visited these places - Odaiba, Harajuku, Shibuya, Tokyo, Akihabara, Ueno, Yurackcho, Shinjuku and Shinagawa.
The emotions run high ... anticipation, exhilaration and estatic all rolled in one! We took the SQ overnight flight and landed ourselves in Narita. (Regret ... why Narita ... should have booked for a flight to Haneda! Narita is sooo far). The flight was pleasant because I am the kind that can sleep almost anywhere ... no problems sleeping on the
Shinagawa Prince Hotel
The limousine bus sends you right to the hotel door step! plane. The hubby and son soon fell asleep, shortly after plane take off .....whooo wheeeee ..... We arrived early ... around 8am ... OK! Now is the time to put my "Itinerary" to the test ... and see how good and effective my planning had been, the past 6-8 months. Hee hee. After we made our exit from the arrival hall, it was pretty easy to get to the "booth" to buy our limousine bus tickets which got us to the doorstep of our hotel ... yay ...
I found out that most of the Hotels in Japan has their Check-In timed at 2 or 3pm ... We reached the hotel at around 1030am and because it was far too early for check-in, we could only deposit our luggages and then we went off to explore the vicinity.
Our Tokyo "Adventure" officially starts now ... Yooohooo Odaiba. We made a visit to this area called Odaiba. Visited Palette Town. This is very similar to Singapore's "Vivo and Harbourfront" but of course the area spans across a much much bigger area. We shopped in the mall at Palette Town. The interior of the mall is so much
One of the Mall in Palette Town
A Mall - Interior is almost a replica to the Caeser's Palace in States. like US's Caeser's Palace! We thought we had to burn a hole in the pocket come lunch time but we were surprised to find a foodcourt in this mall. The foodcourt is ... again ... very similar to Singapore's foodcourt. One big area on the top floor - many different food stalls with a wide variety of food to choose from. The idea of shopping doesn't much appeal to both the hubby and son BUT ... i surprised the son with a "KiddyLand" within this mall ... haha. Connected to this mall, there is another building ... i think it is called "Mega Web". This Mega Web showcases old vintage cars ... and they also have "Luigi" or was it "Guido" from Disney's Cars Inc. They have a "Car Themed" cafe as well but no, we did not try. They also have a huge Honda Showroom showcasing the latest models ... My sonnie had a "wild" time here 😊 , opening doors, closing doors and climbing in and out of vans and cars of all sorts ... hahahaha my car enthusiast 😊 After spending about half a day here, we decided to walk the rest of Odaiba, in search of
the GUNDAM Robot! When i was research what to do, where to go and what to see ... I discovered that there is going to be a super huge Gundam Robot that would be transported from ... ummm i forgot where ... to Odaiba in Tokyo. The robot would be a few storeys high ... and it would be huge. I personally was quite awed by this GIANT but sadly to say ... my sonnie didnt exhibit much of a reaction. He just said "Waaahhh" and then asked "Where next, mum?" I will just stick to "Cars". LOL.
Ueno. This is the ever beautiful and lovely "Cherry Blossom" season. There is another place that we definitely and must not and cannot miss in Tokyo. UENO Park!!! 😊 We took the JR circle loop line and alighted at Ueno station. The Ueno park was just a few steps away from the station. Easy peasy! We were very fortunate that year ... 2012. We were in Japan at the right time to witness and enjoy cherry blossom. I have always thought that there is only 1 kind of cherry flower ... but no i was wrong! There are a few
different types ... and colours as well. Within the park, there are also other interesting things to see .... small shrines and temples, a small river where a few hawkers set up food stalls selling local products, a mini zoo which we did not have time to visit, a playground ... and the AWESOME National Science Museum. What i can say is .... do not miss this museum if you are going to visit Ueno park. The museum is soooooooo informative and the exhibits in there are all LIFE-SIZED ... When we were there at the museum, we witnessed a few different schools there with their toddler kids. Guess what?! I am so impressed with the Japanese kids ... they are so orderly, so civilized and sooooooo quiet! There were so many school children BUT the whole place ... can only hear my sonnie's voice. Had to keep "hushing" and reminding him to keep his excited voice down!
We did the Ueno park in the morning till about 2pm. Afterwhich, the plan was to proceed to Akihabara for the hub to see the electronic stuff, for the son to try out Japanese game arcades and for myself to buy
Odaiba - Diver City
In search of the Gundam Robot a figma doll. What we did not expect was ... when we reach Akihabara station at around 3pm, we witnessed lots of workers in suits and coats rushing towards the station. We were wondering and thinking to ourselves ... Japanese workers finish work at 3pm??? At that moment, we realised that the LED/LCD panels in the train station had jap words in RED. Seems to me like some kind of "alert" but we had no way of telling as we couldn't read Japanese. Just as we were about to leave the station to walk the akihabara area on foot, it started to pour ..... Rain cats and dogs!!! The wind was also very strong .... super strong that my sonnie could have been blown away if we had not held on to him tightly. We felt that something wasn't quite right. The hubs suggests that we take the train back to the hotel. He was afraid that they might stop the train services and we would be stuck .... and so YES ... we returned to our hotel. It was only later in the evening when i caught the evening news ... that i realised that we were in the
middle of a Typhoon that afternoon. That night ... my friends and family also messaged me to ask about our Safety!
Akihabara~Harajuku~Shibuya~Shinjuku. One of the places that was planned for this Tokyo trip was Yokohoma. Due to the Typhoon, we couldn't do Akihabara. Hence, we decided to forgo Yokohama and explore Akihabara instead. Besides those places that i have described above, we also went to Harajuku ... shopped along Takeshita Dori, tried the ever famous Crepe, visited Calbee shop, went to KiddyLand again ... and indulged myself in Agnes B. 😊 hehe Sponsored by my darling Hubs. We walked a lot that day ... Walked and shopped from Harajuku down the alleys, along the main road ... down to Shibuya. On hindsight, it amazes me how my 6 yr old sonnie was able to withstand all that walking for that day. He was super cooperative too.
The last place we explored for this 1st leg of the journey was Shinjuku. I did not cater a lot of time for Shinjuku. We were there solely because we had to take the "Romance train" to Hakone, the 2nd leg of the journey. My impression of Shinjuku station - WOW.
Ueno Park
Lovely pink cherry trees Huge and confusing and BZ BZ BZ. Everybody was walking at "dizzy" speed.
We were going to spend 2 nights in Hakone. Since we had a few hours to spare, we decided to keep our day bag in a locker so that we can go do some shopping. We had a SUPER hard time looking for a locker. There were Sooooooooooooooooooo many lockers ... and every cluster of lockers looked the same!!!! We were like in a maze!!! We had to be careful which cluster of lockers to put our day bag .... in case later we cannot find the place hahaha.
There is just so much to write ...
Before i end off, if you noticed, I did not write much about food. I dont know what to write for food. Everything is just so yummilicious and delicious. Tokyo ..... so many places to see, so many things to do ... so much to feel and experience ... and the mood and ambience .... is just so ...... WOW ..... is never enough.
Stay tuned ... for Part 2 - Hakone.
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dan
non-member comment
waaa
ur photos make me miss Tokyo a lot! believe it or not but I've not been to ueno park, seeing ur photos make me feel like going! Upload more photos!