Tokyo Arrival

Now that I have a bit of time on hand for blogging, guess I am gonna start with my very back-dated log on Japan. I remember it was a very early wee morning flight out and it didn't help that security was sooooo tight and officers were screening us before we boarded our Northwest flight. Add in the spike in H1N1 flu cases over the weekend in Japan and it's increased monitoring, questioning and security presence. The Japanese customs officer wanted me to open my bagpack only to see that it was mostly empty (yep...my huge-ass 100 L bagpack I bought somewhere in London). Then he gestured "shopping?" Ahh yes it's all for a whole load of stash for this trip. But we did eventually survive to reach Tokyo in the early afternoon....

...with face masks on! Eventually kinda abandoned it as this was the only time we wore masks throughout the trip.

And yes, it was seemingly obvious that the Japanese are really conscious of cleanliness. About half of the people wore masks. Toilets were equipped with sanitisers. When you enter certain public premises, there would be attendants on hand to provide hand sanitiser spraying services. And speaking of toilets, I have heard of those remote-controlled toilet bowls with loads of interesting functions. My first encounter led to this at our hostel...

See the buttons? You get back-side washing, air purification, stop and start features

The only thing which I missed was the flush button. While I stupidly searched for the button, it seemed that I have forgotten that in all basic sense, the flush system could just be the typical lever that everyone would find at the side. I was completely noobified at that instant.

Set out to explore the neighbourhood around our hostel, which I must add was an amazingly comfortable one situated in Kuramae. A quiet neighbourhood with adequate convenience stores in the vicinity and a short 10 min walk up to Asakusa. You could imagine our delight when we stumbled upon a Bandai outlet with cute and familiar characters lined up along the street.

The attraction at Asakusa, undoubtedly the Kaminarimon (雷門) with the giant lantern.

As it was late and we were more keen on finding food, settled for tempura at one of the many places recommended by our hostel. As we were starting to fret about the Japanese menu, the nice lady whipped out an English one for us. Saved!

Time to tackle the subway system. The ticketing machine with the ever confusing list of subway stations about. Fortunately I thought it was kinda easy to navigate our way around as directions were clear and we could always recognise the station stops in the Chinese format. (like Asakusa is 浅草 and Kuramae is 蔵前) Hence "蔵前 蔵前" became my chant to get back to the hostel. Anw, a short trip would probably cost around 160 to 210 yen. Trouble only came up when interchanging subway lines but we quickly found out that there's a transfer ticket machine to handle the top-up fee. Anw if in doubt, there's always the station officer to approach if noobified. You won't get lost! Period.

Reached the Tokyo Tower. Honestly it wasn't all too impressive from the outside. But hey...every city needs an icon, yeah? Anw the real gem was going to the top and viewing Tokyo's night skyline. It did help that at least the top was a really good atmospheric place for a date though it seemed that schooling students were out on a field trip that night.

And lastly we stopped over to check out Roppongi. Roppongi Hills is really an atas shopping place and Roppongi itself is famous for the night scene with the ang mohs. Definitely a gaijin-friendly place. And famous it is as we saw lots of black people touting their clubs on the street, which led HL to remark that it reminded her of New York. Wows...anyway we were standing in front of this strip club when the black dude tried to proposition me in. The girls hurried across the street as somethig caught their attention more. It was a pet shop apparently graced by Paris Hilton and several other celebrities and their puppies cost like 159,000 yen and above.

More updates coming up soon!