Day 4: (Tokyo) Imperial Palace, Ginza, Odaiba

finally! time to explore Tokyo proper!

first stop of the day: the Imperial Palace. i'd previously signed up for their guided tour (there's an english audio guide provided). the guided tour will bring us to places that the public cannot access, which is great! :D

here we are at the tokyo station, and this is the Marunouchi exit where the original tokyo station is undergoing preservation works.



check out the contrast between the old and the new:



guess who's NOT a morning person, hahaha!



it was a blessedly short walk to the palace from the station. pretty scenic... we saw swans!





at the end of the street, we could see the tokyo tower.



haha it's excursion time:





while waiting around for our tour to start, we took a few photos and midway through, the wind picked up!

Not a posed pic! Heheheehe

woah. here's the Kikyo-mon gate:









after waiting quite awhile, the tour started. there were about 100? of us? mainly Japanese aged folk.

here're scenes from our walk:





fujimi-yagura:





imperial household agency (in other words - they keep scandals under wraps.)



where the imperial family meets with the people of japan annually:









the bridge:











yamashita-dori:





check out that lovely shade of red (sorry we're pretty amazed coz sg don't have, heh heh.)









at one point we made a short stop, then the old ladies behind chuuling suddenly tapped her on the shoulder and chattering in japanese quickly while pointing at her shoe. i think chuuling understood a bit of it and kept going 'er, daijobu! daijobu!'

i only understood when they whipped a plaster out - they saw her blister at the back of her heel and wanted to soften her discomfort. MY GOODNESS THE OLD FOLK HERE ARE SWEET TO THE MAX!!! here's a picture of the debacle.



they kept insisting too, even when i tried to show them we had plasters for chuuling. chuu accepted the plaster and WOW THESE OLD LADIES MADE MY DAY MAN! i want to stay in japan. T_T

at the end of the tour it was free and easy, but we wanted to continue on to the east gardens so we were guided to the entrance and sent on our way.







i was parched so we made a beeline to a sheltered stop right at the entrance of the east gardens. i bought an ice cream and just as we paid for it, the lady behind the counter gasped, pointed at my ring and made very large eyes and gestured that it was very big. i perked up (what? it's nice when people notice things! heehee.) and smiled and gestured that the proposal was yesterday! then i pointed at alvin (my fiance - hehe how mushy *shiver*) and the lady congratulated me. haha.

I REALLY LOVE THE JAPANESE~!!!

hehe a little girl:





HEY HEY LADIES IN KIMONO!! kirei-neh!









hey that's me! :D

Ah, mysterious beauty, gallivanting at yonder bridge...

-_-



tiny waterfall at the back:



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO











Ote-mon gate i think:





ninjas!









there was a huge piece of the east garden we hadn't explored yet, but we had to get a-going to ginza, so off we went...

and promptly got lost in the undergound tunnels of tokyo. we walked half a kilometer to the right gate when if we walked above ground it would've just been a 5 minute walk. -_-"'

Rather, if we just didn't bother with going underground. Anymore walking and we'd have entered some parallel universe.

by the time we reached Ginza it was 230pm AND I WAS ABOUT TO DIE FROM HUNGER. what are the chances that we found a good place for lunch, right above the subway and had a very reasonable lunch set? and by set i mean kaiseki style.

chekkit:



view from our restaurant:



we had a very pretty english speaking waitress wearing a kimono (HUZZAH!) serving us. man we were really worried - what if we read something wrongly and it comes up to a very expensive lunch??

but no, thank goodness. the lunch menu was a set price with tax included. and it's charcoal grilled:



appetizers:



starter:



chuu's Alvin's:



Chuu's alvin's:



the spread:



me and hanbin's were the same - pig tongue and loin:





i'd ordered it because they wrote pig's tongue/loin. SLASH MEANS 'OR', right?? apparently in this restaurant it means 'and'. ahahaha! the tongue was super good though. yummeh.



wearing the bib because i found it and i was quite fascinated by it.



HAPPY NOMNOMS:



we couldn't figure out what this flavour was... until much later. it's YUZU!!



after our very satisfying lunch, we popped over to the sony building which was just next to us.

There's actually a nice wide pathway in the center for you to pose in, but it helps make it look as if you're surrounded by flowers... and INSECTS ARRGGGHHHH *panic*

there were insects???!? *itchy*

the boys latch on to the playstation linked map of Ginza.

turns out it's not that interactive. Nice try I guess.

must be you dunno how to use la...



after going through earphones, cameras and other sony items (not very interesting - this building can skip) we left for the streets of ginza. the aim: burberry's blue label.



very quickly we got waylaid by food. manneken waffles!!





apple and honey (sweet and nice):



macha (very soft - great stuff):



since the clouds were coming in, we decided to skip going to yasukuni shrine (closes at 5pm anyway):



oops, more food! chottomatte-neh:







now alvin has tomorrow's breakfast. abit ex though, it's 800Y for one piece of baumkuchen (er, specialised chocolate cake).

this next place was amazing, you take lifts directly to your preferred shop, which means each shop has its own lift. the lift is also themed with the shop's products and fixes into the shop like a jigsaw. i was just standing there and gaping away.





we found burberry's RIGHT at the end of the lane (we've walked long and far) and managed to find peiling and alvin's hairdresser's bag, but alvin's aunty's bag was not due to be in until next week so we just got both bags and planned to get his aunty's bag in osaka.

from here, we split up: the guys were going to shinjuku to get our overnight bus ride tickets, while the girls brought all the shopping back to nakano, before meeting up with the guys again.

by the time we met up with the guys, they'd bought the bus tickets but because of a cock up with 123 bus we took JR bus instead. then we headed back towards the Ginza direction and from there changed over to another subway line to Odaiba.

i don't know why but the temperature dropped quite a bit, such that when we came out from underground to switch subway lines, i positively dashed to the next subway station to hide from the wind. ouch.





this subway line is different - it's cleaner, the trains are newer, and it's overground.











i started screaming and yelling once we got to Odaiba. omg it was freezing! and i was in a skirt, with bare legs and all, dammit! ow ow ow.



i raced after alvin, which was a lose-lose case - the faster u run, the colder you are, but the longer u take to hide, the longer you are in the cold. T_T

what the... A STATUE OF LIBERTY??!?!



the statue of liberty (japan) and the tokyo tower and rainbow bridge:



a closeup:



the sun was just setting (while my teeth were chattering)







argh so darn cold.



skirts a-flying:









once done with the pictures we ran into the comfort of Aqua City and headed straight for an Agnes b outlet, checked the prices, then headed for dinner.

which is henceforth also known as the dinner where we lost it.

see, i got this recommendation from the lonely planet that this place here sold reasonably priced food - about 200y per dish or something like that. we were also promised a great view of the rainbow bridge. great then, let's check it out!

upon reaching the izakaya, we saw a sign that had pictures of 4 sets of everything and a big pot of shabu shabu... for only 4000 yen! which comes up to 1000 yen each! OMG THIS IS CHEAP.

we gestured to the waiter that we would like to share that meal, please. he told us that actually, we would need reservations for the meal but he'd check with the kitchen and get back to us. get back to us he did, then asked, 'hyon jin?' (4 persons?) alvin went 'hai!'.

Actually I asked something like "Yon jin desu ka?", while pointing at the poster, wondering if the meal was for 4 people. Also include tons of hand movements.

alright then. but all the tables with the great view were taken up so we had to sit on normal tables. oh well. THE FOOD WAS GREAT!!



we ate all our tamago before realizing EH NO PHOTO YET! so i left my half chewed one for a shot.



tamago is LOADS different in japan. for one you can feel the finely layered texture on your tongue. secondly it's not insanely sweet. i love it.

a fried crab ball i think. it was really good.


I was sad when they cleared the crumbs... good thing I didn't make a fuss tho, needed the space.

fried chicken!! tender and crispy. good stuff!! XD

when we got our yakitori which was INSANELY GOOD:





at this point, just as i was wondering, 'my, my... the deal's pretty good for so many courses... and everything has been absolutely delicious so far, for 1000Y per pax. hmm...'

alvin suddenly realized, 'EH GUYS WHAT IF IT'S 4000Y PER PAX.'

i lost it.

'OH SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT. OH SHIT. there's so many courses, everything is so good, and it's not even at shabu shabu yet. OH MY GOODNESS. this meal is $60.'

chuu ling also lost it. by laughing for very, very long. i thought she'd lost her mind. oh dear.

then the shabu came and she laughed even harder. me? i was as stunned as these guys were:







oh mai. that's a crap load of meat.



chuu hasn't stopped laughing yet, ad to make things worse, she kept trying to drink soup, but shook so much by the time the spoon reached her mouth there was nothing left.

cycle of events: laugh, pick up soup, drip drip drip, shake with laughter, put spoon to mouth, 'THERE'S ALWAYS NOTHING LEFT!', laughs at self, laughs at trail of soup on table, repeat.

sigh.

by the time we were done with the shabu, we were so full it was painful. we asked for the bill, only to be informed by the waitress, 'nonono... soba?'

'THERE'S STILL SOBA??!?!'

chuuling started to laugh again.

eh but the soba was really good man.



we ate up every bit of it, and true enough when the bill came it was 4000Y per pax! but what really tortured us was that out of 4000Y, 1500Y was for drinks... a drinks buffet we had no idea about!!! well, the waiter did say drinks buffet but we thought he wanted us to add on, so we declined and had green tea/water! ARGHHHHH.

here's the poster of interest:



as we walked past the stores in Odaiba i really regretted not being able to shop here because everything looked cheaper than most of what i'd seen so far in the trip! never mind, next time i guess.

and apparently they've started building a gigantic gundam (only the legs are up while we were there; it's complete by now) somewhere next to the statue of liberty. missed it though! :(

chuu wanted to go to the ferris wheel to take pictures so we all went with her. WHICH I PROMPTLY REGRETTED ONCE WE STEPPED OUTSIDE.

i went berserk, clutching my skirt down with my hands and my hair flying all over the place and dashing across the traffic crossing coz the wind was just absolutely KILLING ME. omg it was painful!!!

all for this:







well at least she managed to get photos and a video. the whole time i was crouching behind a parapet... but the wind found me anyways. @#$%^!!

after a very very agonizing 15 minutes (even alvin's ears went numb) we could go and with the same crazy manner i dashed back across the road back to the subway station. thank goodness it's slightly warmer there. phew.

then we headed for nakano and our tiny bath tub. here's a final shot of alvin's 800Y baumkuchen.