Japan

2-13 March 2011

I thought it was a bit of a bummer that we were going to Japan just one month ahead of sakura season but walking in the snow with huge snowflakes fluttering in the wind in the Unesco World Heritage Shirakawa Mountain Village more than made up for it. Plus the clumps of snow collecting on the branches of trees kinda look somewhat like sakura.

Okay, nice try.

(We are very grateful to be able to have made this trip and returned home safely, especially when we'd originally planned to go in April but brought forward our trip to March since Ivan couldn't make it in April. Our prayers continue to be with Japan for courage and strength to recover what was lost, and serenity to accept what is no longer.)

Tokyo
Wednesday 2nd March

I was first to arrive since i was on the red-eye flight via SQ departing at 11:55pm the night before from Singapore. That put me in Tokyo Narita at 7.30am, 6 hours ahead of Cheryl on Delta and 8 hours ahead of Lai Yeow & Ivan on United. Armed with my print-outs of maps including very useful photos of landmarks, i managed to buy my Narita Express + Suica combo ticket (5500yen return) , catch the 8.13am train to Shinjuku, and walk the stepless route via the South Exit of Shinjuku Station to our hotel. All according to plan. Perfect start to my holiday. (Well, we kinda know how it ended huh. No amount of planning would've helped that one.)

After some 90 min ride on the Narita Express and a short 10 minute walk i arrived at Sunroute Plaza Hotel. Check-in was only at 2pm so i piled on more layers (it was cold!) and walked around Shinjuku. Met up with an ex-schoolmate whose hubby was working in Tokyo and she saved me from lunching alone on my first day in a foreign land.



Shinjuku Station was huge and the first thing that struck me was that everybody wears black in Japan! Or dark grey. Or medium grey. Or light grey. Some browns and navy but hardly any other colour, except for maybe the odd purple scarf. Several people donned paper mouth masks and unlike the cutesy patterned cloth ones you find in Ho Chi Minh City, everyone wore only the standard white surgical ones. I wondered if it was because the stores sold only these or it was a Japanese aesthetic preference for Muji-ism. Or zen if you prefer.



First stop Roppongi Hills and we hunted down Ippudo for our very first meal in Japan. None of us have tried the Ippudo ramen at Mandarin Gallery back in Singapore but surely no matter how good that was, the made-in-Japan one would win hands down. And indeed it was sinfully good. There were 6 types of noodle hardness to choose from and 5 levels of spiciness, if you odered the chilli flavoured soup base which Cheryl did. Such dedication to detail.







The egg was amazingly oishi. Later on we bought the styrofoam cup noodle version of Ippudo from 7-eleven but while it had a slice of pork and the soup base did have some resemblance, there was no egg. And eating ramen without the egg is absolutely criminal.



View of Tokyo Tower from Roppongi Hills.



It was a very cold night and too dark to properly check out the surrounds of Roppongi Hills. We didn't quite fish out our cameras for the famous spider sculpture when we came to it cos it was already dark. And too cold.





Checked out the Mori Art Museum shop instead. I suspect we were in need of some respite from the cold.



Coffee and delicious iced chocolate (they didn't have hot) at a cafe across our hotel concluded our first night in Tokyo.

Tokyo
Thursday 3rd March

First stop Tsukiji Fish Market for can't-get-any-fresher-than-this sashimi. For breakfast. Uh-huh.



Um. Think we woke up late and the auctions were over. Fishmongers were packing up and driving out. Then we realised we weren't yet in the market proper.





As i was staring down at gigantic see-hums and other larger than life shellfish, i stepped into a pothole of icky water. But still, all i cared about was how fat the clams were. Those fat juicy little things. Must be delicious.











Seeing all the seafood really whetted our appetites and it's now time to feast! Fresh sashimi for breakfast yay! Good grief queues everywhere. Those must be the good ones. To queue or not to queue.



Eventually we settled on a medium length queue one.



Take order while you wait. Speeds things up. This is no conveyor belt sushi.



Peering over the shoulders of the people ahead of us in queue.



Yay our turn finally!



The starving kids.



Ooh la la. My chirashi. With lip-smacking uni (urchin) and negitoro (fatty tuna belly) accompanying the salmon. My lips were so gorgeously oily after that.



Cheryl's. The scallops look like they'll just melt in your mouth. Maybe she'll offer me one. For the record, she did. :)


As if the chefs weren't busy enough...

Next up, we walked to Ginza since it was relatively nearby. Ginza is a bit like Orchard Road i guess.



Most of the buildings in Japan have this narrow gap between them. We figured it's to allow for independant movement between buidlings during earthquake tremors.



Interesting concept, giving each label a shopfront (sort of) at street level.



What's more interesting is that each of these glass modules were showcase cum elevators that take you up to the shop itself, except that you can start browsing in the lifts! Actually i don't know if it's all that necessary.



The entire "shop" ascends and descends via hydraulic pistons. We rode it up and down for fun, although it was a bit stressful to be greeted by the salesperson when we arrived at the shop proper. I mean, it's the likes of Dior and Omega mind you.


Randomly carved diagonal slits in the stone wall created some interest in how water was channeled down to the pebble wash below.



Popped into a Shiseido cafe along the way and bought expensive cheesecake bites for tea. Japanese packaging looking ever-so effortly-pretty.





At a corner coffee joint in Ginza enjoying our cheesecake with cappuccino.


Sakura-mochi samples on the sidewalk.

We took the Ginza line to Omotesando, another upmarket shopping street in Tokyo, where we checked out various storefronts and interiors, more than anything else.





The good thing with seasons is that i imagine the streets to have a totally different feel during each season. I squint and try to imagine abundance of sakura on these branches. Then i realised these may not even have been sakura trees gua-gua.


Tods - the interior had similar faceted walls and angles but of course no pictures inside, thank you.


LV


Bvlgari


Spent some time at the Museum of Modern Art shop.




And posed for pictures with the wallpaper outside.


This was one of the perpendicular streets off the main Omotesando shopping belt. There were several quirky stand-alone shops with interesting design. One was on a tree accessed via staircase and the facades were in mirror finish all round so you kinda just see a roof floating over nothing amidst leaves and branches. Pretty neat i thought. I have a photo somewhere.


Someone's residence. Looks like it's for small people doesn't it?

Omotesando kinda forms one third of a triangle on plan, with Shibuya and Harajuku streets forming the other two. I say this because it seems from Omotesando you can either walk down towards Harajuku or take the other fork in the Shibuya direction. We did the Harajuku one and found ourselves in Takeshita Street, where we felt young again as we mingled with the extremely lively and youthful crowd.


Eating Japanese pasta while we not-so-secretly oogled Japanese schoolgirls across the alley and wondered how come their thighs weren't afraid of the cold.



Then we couldn't resist and Cheryl went up behind them to queue up and buy takopachi (what, you think she went to ask them why their skirt so short is it?)





Steaming hot takopachi. Instead of the usual 3 in a box, this one came in one huge ball. i think i prefer the 3 in a box type. Sadly whenever we next came across takopachi we were always too full from a meal to try some.







At the other end of Takeshita Street, across which was the Harajuku subway station.





Having digital fun with interactive what do you call these things on the building walls by the sidewalk. It was pretty fun. And funny.


This one came the closest to the cosplay dress-ups we were hoping to catch a glimpse or two of. Seems like they only come out on weekends.


Topping up our suica card at the ticket machines. Good thing we got the suica card, which is kinda like our ezylink stored value mrt card, so we didn't have to bother with the ticket machines in Tokyo too much.

After a bit of to-and-fro-ing to get our Japan Rail Pass validated for use for the next 7 days (cos certain stations the ticket offices were closed earlier than others so we had to head back to Shinjuku Station to get our passes validated before heading back to Ikekuburo Station where we were going to meet Meriel. She was taking us to this highly recommended wagyu beef place which needed at least 3 weeks reservation!)


Apetiser dish of raw wagyu and quail egg. The taste and texture were excellent.


Meriel ordered an assortment of cuts of wagyu and after i took the first bite of my grilled to medium-rare perfection slab of wagyu, i couldn't concentrate on the rest of the dinner conversation.


Wagyuly the best ever. I need references for where to head to for good wagyu in Singapore. Aburiya didn't cut it for me. Ao-chan was good i remember and pretty authentic too. It was two years ago when i last went, maybe it's time to make a reservation again. Thanks Meriel, and Su Lin for strongly recommending this place. It was nearly midnight when we got back, too full to sleep.

Hakone
Friday 4th March

Today was gonna be quite packed as we were going to Hakone with all our luggage and from there head directly to Kyoto on our pre-reserved Kodama Shinkansen, a 3 hour train ride to Kyoto. It is pretty straightforward to get to Hakone from Shijuku via Odawara. The first half of the journey to Odawara was covered by our JR pass and from Odawara to Hakone Yumoto Station, we took the Hakone Tozan Rail, which was covered by the Hakone Free Pass that we bought at Odawara. Even though it's called the Hakone Free Pass, don't be mistaken. It cost 3,900yen which lets you ride on all the different modes of transport necessary to cover Hakone in the classic round trip.



View of Mount Fuji from behind the windows of our shinkansen ride from Shinjuku to Odawara (35 min). If you weren't sleeping.



On board our Tozan Rail from Hakone Yumoto to Gora (35 min, train departs every 10-20 min), where we hopped off to visit the Hakone Open Air Museum.





Short walk from Gora down to the Open Air Museum where we were delighted to find snow lining the paths.



Lai Yeow ate some despite Ivan's warning not to.





This tunnel leads you from the open to the uh, open air museum.



We never found him/her?



David Blaine was here.



Random art installations, from history to wildlife to domesticated fried goodness.


More snow!




Wooden bridge and glass lift.





Took a walk inside the Picasso art collection, amongst which was a series of paintings he did of "Jacqueline as a Bride". There were altogether at least 12 pieces, each with strokes added on to the previous, and if you looked hard enough, some strokes actually disappeared while others were added on. Intriguing.



How would you fancy having naked female forms bask in sunlight in your garden?



Cheryl joins me in analysing the distribution of tummy fats on these female sculptures.



The snow had melted on the side of the lawn where the sun was shining on.


The hills are alive...


This guy wasn't.



We rode the Hakone Tozan Cable Car from Gora to Sounzan, and from Sounzan to Toggendai, making a stop at Owakudani via the Hakone Tozan Ropeway.



Eating the famous black egg at Owakudani, a crater formed by the eruption of Mount Hakone 3000 years ago. Till today you can see sulphuric fumes rising from the ground. And if you don't like viewing sulphur, you can view Mount Fuji from here too.





A sign says eating one black egg prolongs your life by 5 years. Who are they kidding.



From Toggendai, we took a cruise across Lake Ashi to Hakone-Machi where we could catch a bus back to Hakone Yumoto and Odawara for our 3hr train to Kyoto.

Let's just say it was a mad rush and we had to do a bit of running at each pitstop to just barely make it. Oh and at the last stop, Lai Yeow told the bus driver to "chottomatte" (wait) cos got "kodomo" (kids) still coming. I believe she meant "tomodachi" (friends) but said "kodomo" in her excitement. No wonder the driver frowned when we boarded. Overgrown kodomo. Pffft.

next up: click here for Kyoto