Day Eleven - Tokyo (with a little bit of Kyoto)

Ohayou from Tokyo! It's a nice weather here in Tokyo, not so cold (good for my mom), so I wouldn't want to waste too much time blogging. So let's get on with what happened yesterday!



Had to wake up early in the morning to redeem for our mistake of not visiting Ginkakuji early the day before.



Ohayou Kyoto~ *yawn*



We reached the Ginkakuji quite early, so we decided to walk around for awhile.



Most of the souvenir shops are still closed. We only see kids in their uniforms going to their schools.



We arrived at around 7:50 am, but the temple only opens at 8:30 am. So wanna have breakfast first.



Of course, the location of the breakfast is as important as breakfast itself.



Cleaning up before visitors arrive.



And then we're in! This is the entranceway in Ginkakuji.



Wow, looks like as if we're on the moon or something.



And there it is, Ginkakuji (Silver Pavillion)! It's not really made of silver, because it is just compared to Kinkakuji (Gold Pavillion), which is really made of gold. Too bad we had no time to go there.



Let's take out the lake and put in some greens.



The garden around the Ginkakuji is very beautiful, that's why it's rated higher in a lot of travel websites compared to Kinkakuji.



Look at all the yen coins thrown here. Now the river can pack up and go on her own vacation.



There are moss building up at the foot of the hills here. Collected here are "Very Important Moss (like VIP)". Urm, okay.



Don't you just love Japanese gardens? This is definitely worth waking up early!



We took some steps to go up a small little hill...



...where we can have a sorta top view of the Ginkakuji.



More straight upward trees! Maybe the sun in Japan is always straight up?



Ginkakuji is one o-l-d temple. It's a world heritage, so it had to be preserved, despite it being modest looking.



The ugliest bridge in Japan. :D



Whoa, more people are coming, and we have to hurry to Tokyo too. Better get going.



I know this joke is getting old, but BIRDIE what the hell are you doing here?!

We packed our bags hurrily. Luckily, Nagano-san was there to send us off.



Since we're of the same age, it was easy to chat with him. He was also fun-loving, friendly and yes, he can speak good English. Every night, we just chat and chat and chat until he had to sleep at 12 midnight. Thanks for guiding us and making our stay an enjoyable one!



Off we go to Tokyo! Sayonara, Nagano-san. Iroiro arigatougozaimasu!

We took the seats on the Fuji mountain side, but unfortunately there was a huge blanket of mist covering most of the mountains. Oh well, better luck next time.



Before the checkpoint of Mount Fuji, I slept like hell, to catch up with the lack of sleep last night.



The conductor of the train. There was this old man who mistakenly sat in a reserved car seat. So the conductor was very nice to check whether the seat is taken (through the PDA, of course!). It wasn't taken, so the conductor reserved for the old man, and the old man paid him on the spot. Ah, convenience.



And we're here, in Tokyo!



Yup, this is Tokyo all right, full of people waiting for the next train. The train comes every 4 minutes, and there's still this much crowd!



From this picture, you can already feel Tokyo.



Heh heh for you guys. Thank me, people! It took quite a while to take this picture without her noticing!



To get to our hotel, we have to go to Ueno. Things have changed since I came here 2 years ago, isn't that right, Dzaid? Now they have a bridge where you can cross to Ueno Park and also the subways.



Last time we had to cross streets and what not to get to the subway. Now we walk above the streets instead!



Dzaid should remember this tunnel. This is the long tunnel that connects the JR station (above the ground trains) and the Hibiya Line subway.



And the pose of the day! Very different this time... no trees, no bridges, no rivers.



Yum yum, Tokyo spaghetti.



Now the government is really pressing their people to learn English. There were LCDs in the train that taught the people the difference between LATE and LATELY. Here's an advertisement for a language center that tells people that BAT and BUT are both pronounced BATTO, so which one should they use? Hey, how come they missed BUTT?



A school boy telling his girlfriend that he misses her so much (haha, just kidding).

And we arrived in our hotel, Hotel New Koyo. I came here 2 years ago, and I was satisfied with the place, so here I am again! It was awarded "The Cheapest Hotel to stay in Tokyo" by Lonely Planet, and it's really worth it! Go to http://www.newkoyo.jp if you ever come to Tokyo.



And this is the room. As you can see, it's not very wide but it's sufficient. It IS cheap, after all.



On the left is the room that Dzaid and I stayed 2 years ago.

My mom said that she's already very tired. But I'm all pumped up! So I went to Tokyo last night by myself.



Ah, Tokyo is so peaceful at night...



...unless you come to Akihabara! The electric city of Tokyo! Here, you can buy electronic stuff, play in the arcades and buy all the games, anime and figures to your heart's content (or should I say your wallet's content).



Before I came to Akihabara, I had to take the subway. This is my favourite shot of the day, coz there was also a train beside us, which is packed full of people. Oh what a coincidence, didn't see that lady there ;)



It was night time, but a lot of people were still sprawling into Akihabara.



I've never seen this game shop before when I last came to Akihabara, so I went in to take a look.



Some guys trying out the latest game. Here, they must PAY the full sum for original games, so they must try it out first to see whether it's worth it. Maybe I should tell them about Sungei Wang.



Oooh, Nintendo DS. Lee Ling, I hope you're taking care of my DS properly!



I went to the anime floor, and there were a bunch of posters on the floor. Yay, the second season of one of the funniest anime I've ever seen is now airing in Japan! Eh wait a minute, I can't see my favourite character!



Ah, that's better.



Outside some electronic stores, you can see an announcer with a microphone, shouting out the latest promotions like some vegetable seller in the pasar malam.



The last time I came here, I always went to Sega World to play arcade games. Sadly, it seems that the games there are not the latest ones (unless it's a Sega game, duh). Then I stumbled upon this place. Seems that this place is big! And the games from all sorts of companies and genres are brand new!



The new Bishi Bashi! Now you can play it online! When you play, you will seemlessly fight with others playing the same arcade game in another location! How cool is that!



This is the new Gundam card simulator. You buy Gundam cards bearing the Gundam mechs and lay them out on the game field. The machine will then read the card and transfer those locations to the game accordingly. Once you win, you get another Gundam card. Gundam fans, rejoice!



Whoa, Mario Kart arcade!



New gun game from Namco, Cobra the Arcade. It's very similar to Time Crisis (with the pedal to hide and all), but you drag the gun and target as many as possible before shooting, just like Zone of the Enders or Afterburner.



And this game is quite cool! The Idolmaster. You purchase a card where you can store the girl idols that you manage....



...then you have to train them using many mini-games to bring them to fandom! You can see your own idol singing on the stage, acting cute and all. One of the mini-games involve you focusing your camera on your idols so that you can get the perfect angled shot. Then your shot will be rated, in which it will affect your idol's image. Woo~ I so wanna try this (too bad I can't use the card in Malaysia)



Haha hoshi-chan, I have the feeling you'll like this poster.



Wow, Chibi Maruko chan has gone live action!

When I arrived in the hotel, I switched on the TV to catch up on the craziest variety shows available in Japan.



One of them is called Love Katsu, where the show attempts to matchmake five school guys and five school girls. The above shows their 3-minute date session. Later, a guy can ask one of the girls out and walk around the school, then finally give a confession letter. Too bad I'll know the results only next week.



This is another stupid stupid show. Four chefs have to cook some meal, then girls will wear some heat sensor bandanna thingy to detect how hot their body is after eating their meal. If the heat level goes to the maximum, then the girl has to kiss the chef. HOWEVER, there's also one gay guy among the girls, so if his level goes max first, then he has to kiss the chef!



This chef wasn't so lucky.



And here we have a talk show, where the chimp is the host! He will move his body and mouth, while a hidden person provides the voice. The whole show is like this, interviewing people and all, just like Jay Leno and David Letterman!



I'm updating my blog now in the hotel. There was this french guy sitting besides me pen drawing a statue of buddha. Really beautiful.

Alright that's all for yesterday! Today I try to avoid all the electronic stuff for my mom's sake and go to more scenic places.

Ja ne!