Day 1 (15th July 2011) - Pre-departure to japan

This must be the longest day I have before the trip, to stay at work till about 3am before I leave for Changi to meet ben. =.= my website live date was already 3hours overdue when I left, and I was so afraid I won't be able to leave like my first year, where I had to stay cos one of my projects had a lot of screw ups. I'm glad I had my senior to cover me but I still felt bad for leaving (；´Д`A

Had a hot green tea with compliments from my cute little son before departure, and was happy that ben's mom said i looked like lee junki lol xD and got ready for the 6 hours of sleepless flight. Departed at 6am.



Delta flight was actually pretty good - had omelette for breakfast and some croissant like burger for morning snack. Nice!



Seat wasn't all that comfortable, I was barely able to sleep... Managed to watch the wimpy kid movie though. Lame but funny all the same.

Reached japan around 2pm in the noon and took a 2hour train ride to my hostel. just out of the station asakusa, you could see the new Sky Tree, which is due to open next year May.



And here is the hostel, called Khaosan Tokyo, at $37/night/person for a twin room. small, but affordable and the facilities weren't too bad!



Freaking hot weather, what a torture. Shoko came to pick him up at around 6pm so I was free all the way till She arrives at 8-9pm. Took a short walk around asakusa station and ate an ice cream then went back to the hostel to relax.

When my friend arrived, we went out for Mac pork and milk shake for dinner! and She had lots of devices i went crazy over. love this dual screen.

6th september
managed to get about 2 hours of sleep before i realised i was late!! it's hoeman's last day in tokyo so i quickly changed and went over asakusa to meet him about 1030am. (where he thought i was going to kuramae and waited at the wrong place instead.) eventually we managed to meet around 11am, where stella and jiayi was already on the way anyway.
but we did get to walk kaminarimon and i encouraged hoeman to get an omikuji, which is some luck charm. hoeman really had very horrible luck. it's the middle bad luck charm. i almost died laughing reading the contents

and for bad luck charms, you have to tie them to this rack so your bad luck goes away

then we met up with the taiwanese and headed to a kaiten sushi for brunch. hoeman ate all that he wanted - sea urchin, fat tuna

i had some horse sashimi (it says horse, but maybe it's really fish?)

then we went to where hoeman stayed at - j-hoppers hostel and slacked there for a while, before we sent him to the station.


around 1pm, it was goodbye tokyo and welcome america for hoeman.
i spent the rest of my day walking around asakusabashi (for zephyr and some craft beads), then at akihabara with stella and jiayi (since it was all within walkable distance) before i headed home around 6-7pm since i was getting a headache from lack of sleep.

26th july
it's another hanabi, at sumidagawa (near asakusa)!
finally i get　to have a decent hanabi. went to uniqlo with daryl to get his yukata and returned about 3pm. tried to figure out how to wear my yukata with all the youtube videos and manuals, but nothing helped at all! in the end kiki came to help me with my obi and we were able to finally set out atound 5pm. it turned out that phoebe had gotten the same yukata as me! well go figure, it's from uniqlo so even though i prayed hard it wouldn't happen, there's still a chance it might.

we were hungry when we got there so we got some bentous off matsuya (the departmental store, not the gyu-don yes). there was like tons of people heading towards asakusa already.





tako yaki tasted weird.

after lunch/dinner, we walked along the bridge for a good shot of the fireworks.


hanabi is so tiring because you have to walk a lot to find a good spot to watch the fireworks. and there's so many policemen around telling you to NOT stop to look, but keep on walking, ensuring that the place is always passable.

my best shot



on the way, we bought some ice cream. mine and daryl's was the green tea soy bean flavoured one. nice!!

we also visited kaminarimon, where the hongkongers tried their luck at omikuji and me and daryl tried the monjayaki on a stick.

our back

and our feet

could see the fireworks from here too.


some paper ball game where you could take these little balls home if you manage to pick it up with a thin piece of tissue (provided it doesn't get soaked when it touched the waters and become feeble)

huge chunk of ice

pagoda near kaminarimon

and the night food street

some kind of pancake from china

here's where we tried the stick monjayaki where you have to put the mayonnaise and sauce on yourself




another pagoda

and the shopping streets! strange doggie hairstyle

doing phoebe's favourite sword stance

went past a water dispenser machine that has a lucky draw slot (for extra free drinks) whenever you buy something from it

walked along some unknown streets with pretty shop covers and a nostalgic feeling of sitting on the streets and feasting. the foods didn't look that expensive too.





and before we left we found a photo board

when we tried to get home, we couldn't squeeze into the station! and it was hardly breathable and sooo stuffy so we ended up taking a 45mins bus ride to sugamo.


and went to the arcade nearby

to take purikura there!



finally reached home around 1am, where we bought macdonald's.


and i had aurelie and milla come to my rescue to unlock the door. love them!