Day 1: 5 Dec - Ikebukuro/ Akihabara

It took some effort to retrieve the password since i can't remember the email, userid.. nothing. After some searching i finally managed to login again. Haven't been inspired to write anything for a long time. Figured travelblogging is a naturally interesting choice, hence i shall write something about Tokyo to start.

Day 1: 5 Dec 09
Reached Narita at 7 plus. Was 'greeted' by lots of fans at the arrival hall. First thought, woah lots of people waiting for relatives.. many flights on Sat morning? Then it dawned on me that they are not your regular waiting for family crowd. They are fans! of Rain to be exact. You can see the tell-tale sign: all female, holding homemade placards..

The crowd ...

Homemade fan.

I snapped some pics of the fans and went in search of the counter that sells Suica+Nex pass. For 3500Yen, you get to take the Narita Express to Shinjuku and a Suica pass with stored value of 1500Yen. This is a hefty discount considering the return ticket to Narita airport costs 2940Yen.

We missed the train by like a minute? The last guy in front of us, a Japanese, started running for the platform. As in really run. Since we weren't familiar with the station layout and Jap trains are amazingly punctual, we opted for the next train which departs in about an hour's time. I took the time to put on wash up, put on make up and grab stuff from the convenience store.

On board the Narita Express, snazzy looking train.
We alighted at Shinjuku and tranferred to the metro line to Higashi-Shinjuku which will be our home base for the next 3 nights. I will definately recommend the Sunroute Higashi-Shinjuku hotel for the budget traveller if you don't mind taking an extra 1 0r 2 stops from Shinjuku, depending on where you take it from. Its connected by 2 metro lines so its really easy to get around by subway. The hotel is right out of the train station too. Or should i say its built on top of it? We realised we've been using the slightly further exit only on our final day!

Although the economy double room is typically tiny, its very well designed. Trust the japanese to utilise every inch of space. And they don't skint on bathroom space - there's even a decent bathtub. Pity i'm not a bathtub kind of girl, so i only used it to shower. Realise i didn't take any pics of the room though.

View from the outside:


Since it was too early to check in, we left our bags at the reception and went to our first stop - Ikebukuro.

We walked around a bit and randomly picked a place to have lunch.

Our first encounter with the famous coupon machine. Ordered a set meal each and a kirin beer.

Contrary to what the travel guides say about Ikebukuro being an up and coming place where the Lord Krauser movie was filmed. Can't remember the movie name.. It was quite a sleepy town. There was hardly any people there on a Sat morning. We didn't find many quaint/cosy cafes either. So we proceeded to the next stop: Akihabara/Electric town.


Florist inside the train station. Pretty little bouquets. Bouquets are sorted by occassion or location (which part of the house), so no worries about getting the wrong type of flowers.



Akihabara:


This place is definately the Otaku's heaven. It has entire buildings dedicated to figurines, ranging from the kawaii girl with huge boobs type to the DIY battlekits. Loads of comic paraphernalia, all sorts of cards and whole buildings of arcade games. I saw some huge simulation machines which look like some sort of plane cockpit.

It started to rain quite heavily. Everytime we had to move from one building to the next, it was freezing. My foldable umbrella was quite useless in this kind of wind and rain. The japanese used the non-foldable type, mostly transparent ones.

Girls in cosplay outfits standing in the rain. They were giving our pamphlets. They must be freezing. You have to admire their spirit.



Eventually we sought refuge in Excelsior coffee.

Since there was a dearth of proper eating places in Akihabara, maybe Otakus don't need to eat... We took the subway to another station in search of dinner. I can't remember where we were but there were many eateries so once again we randomly picked one.

The bowl of noodles cost 1050Yen. About 16Sgd. The serving was huge. The yellow noodles almost filled the entire bowl. There were 2 fat slices of yummy kong bak which is every bit like this picture. I was completely stuffed.

The shop was manned by a team of young men. Each of them handling 1 task. The kong bak guy, counter guy and noodle guy. The noodle guy would shout' whoosh' whenever he drained the noodles. At first i thought there was some kind of kitchen accident..

That about sums up day 1, i stopped by a department store to buy a 'thermal stocking'. I'm not sure what's its real name. It works like a long john for the upper body, but the material is like nylon stockings. Since its so thin, i figure you can wear 2 layers if you're really cold and not look fat at all. I tested it the next day and it really helped. I was dead tired by the end of day 1 cos i didn't sleep much on the plane and didn't get much sleep over the last few days either.