Totally Tokyo! Pt. 1

This is my third night in Tokyo. There had not been any updates the last 3 nights because ... well, I've been busy. Haha ...

We (Pauline and I) left for Tokyo on the A380 Friday night at 23:40. Thanks to my habitual preference for the tail of the plane (though no cute flight attendant this time ~.~), we reserved seats at the last section of the plane, which happened to be on the upper deck! Haha ... remember, if you get to ride the A380, Rows 71 to 83 are on the upper deck! Oh well, just that the thought of sitting "upstairs" is exhilarating. The rest of the experience was just so-so. In fact, the superhyped A380 is also only so-so.

Perhaps it's because of all the hype that my (and everyone else's, I'm sure) expectations got inflated so much that when it falls just a little bit short (like I don't like the colour scheme of blue and beige ... quite yikes), it is so disappointing it hurts.

Now, not that there aren't any "wow" factors. I like the bigger screen and the ledge by the window that you can use for small barang-barang like iPods or passports. Better still, it can be opened up to drop you pillow and blanket, and anything else, when you don't need them. But from what I observe, this privilege is strictly for window seat passengers so they really should be charged more ... haha ... why hasn't SQ thought of that?

What's a minus is that the seats don't recline much, so it makes sleeping harder. Throw in a screaming baby and stewardesses who wake you up for the next meal only 2 hours after the last one (on a 6.5-hour flight), and you get Pauline and me when we touched down in Tokyo on Saturday morning.

We took the airport express to the Shibuya area where we had booked a stay at a ryokan. It's called Fukudaya, about 15 mins from the main Shibuya shopping area. It's in a nice quiet neighbourhood it amazed me that such tranquility could exist within such a short distance from crowded Shibuya.

We went out for lunch at Shibuya (after getting our Ghibli Museum tix - first things first!), hoping to shop a bit but fatigue soon caught up. We did manage HMV but decided to go back to the hotel for a nap. It wasn't till dinner time that we set out again. The shops here close surprisingly early about 9 pm. It's interesting to see the landscape completely change from a sea of shoppers to diners-cum-clubbers. Our meals on the first day had been good - a rice set for lunch and egg ramen (delicious egg!!) for dinner. Yummy.

Day 2. We tried to set out early, but we could only manage 8 am, for Hakone-Mt.Fuji. For some strange reason, there's a mental short circuit this morning. See, the cashier at the convenience store near the hotel is Chinese so we could chat a little and he was saying something the convenience store he was working at(called AM/PM) and when I asked questions, I kept referring to Lawson's. I was even surprised how come he seemed confused. Haha ... it wasn't till I left the store that I realised my mistake. Then, at the Odakyu Info Centre where we're gonna get tix for Hakone, I told the girl we were headed for Haneda. That threw her into a frenzy and Pauline into shock. What were we going to the airport for?! Haha ... Pauline saved the day and corrected my mistake so we were finally on our way to Hakone on a 2-day free pass which covered train, bus, ropeway, cable car and boat rides.

The train ride to Hakone took 1.5 hours, after which we transferred to a local train headed for the Hakone-Yumoto station, after which we had to transfer to a local bus headed for Motohakone, which is the central spot for Mt. Fuji viewing across and on Lake Ashi. Tried as we might, on all the available transportation by the Hakone free pass, the mountain refused to show its face from behind the thick veil of fog which we thought had a chance of lifting when the sun shone for a while. Nevertheless, we did have a delightful seafood lunch at a small and cosy eatery run by an elderly couple on the bank of Lake Ashi.