Day Fourteen - Tokyo

OMG, tomorrow I'm going back!! Damn it lah! I mean, sure I miss all my family and friends in Malaysia, but not Malaysia itself!

Man, I wish I had the money to bring all of you here, then get our visa approved to stay for a year... I'm sure many of you support this idea :D (eh I just realised that these sentences rhyme! hahaha) Then I better start blogging and get my ass into gear!



We were on our way to lunch, so we went to this Bandar-Utama-Centrepoint-like area. A lot of people ride bicycles here, coz you can tell by the dedicated white lane just for bicycles.



There are a whole lot of 'em parked in front of the complex. This is only one row of bicycles among six of them.



And we have reached the complex: the Lala Terrace of Minami Senju, which is 15 minutes away on foot from our hotel.



Mama wanted to belanja me makan because I've "been a good tour guide" (thank you, Mama!), so I chose this place. The 100 yen plate sushi shop (oh, plus 5 yen for tax)



Yup, it looks almost the same like the one in Kyoto...



...except that Kyoto does not have this touch screen menu. It's actually more than just a menu.



Once you're done with the plate of sushi, you put it down the slot like this...



...then it will increase the plate counter on the LCD by one. This is to ensure that you don't have a table full of pagoda plates while you eat. Then once you're done, you press this pink button, where the waiter will come to give the bill.



Oooooh yummy raw squid.



Seems like a normal salmon sushi...



...until you see the side! So darn thick! This was really satisfying!



This is another favourite of mine. The squids look so cute... but they are more delicious than they are cute :D



This is raw tuna with slightly raw egg. Never seen this before, but this is also tasty.



This is the recommended sushi, smoked tuna. I'm not really fond of tuna, but this one might convert me if I eat enough of it :D



And finally we have dessert. A humble cheesecake.



Every 5 plates, some sort of slot machine will start...



...if we win, we get one of these toys. There's even game balance in the slot machine. The more plates, the less symbols, so the more chance to get a prize. Too bad we were not so lucky. Maybe have to eat 100 plates, then only can get.



All in all, we ate 15 plates of sushi. Thanx again, Mama!



Oh man it's such a beautiful day. Better hurry to the next destination.

We took a train to Tokyo station to go to the Imperial Palace.



On the way there, I saw this advertisement. Now there's this software for the DS where you can translate some Japanese text (or choose some preset sentences) to another particular language, then you can show the phrase to the person who couldn't understand Japanese. Good for travelling.

You can also learn the language via this software as well. The languages available are Thai, Chinese, Korean, English and German. I hope that there will be a version for us english speakers as well.



ok sorry for that distraction. And here we are, at Tokyo station, which is the oldest station in Tokyo. As you can see, the station is still preserved in the original state (but inside there is completely modern la haha).



There were a few artists outside who were also admiring the old architecture.



There were many tall buildings around the station, a very rare scene for us Tokyo travellers (since we're normally around many shops that only have 10 floors max).



Came here with Dzaid two years ago, so I kinda know my way around. We had to choose between two paths to the Imperial Palace: a tar road or this bridge. Wasn't hard to decide :)



Crossing the bridge will get us here: a simple modern park. Wow, the sakura tree here is still blooming. It's already almost a month since the first day of the Tokyo bloom. Normally, the sakura bloom would only last 2 weeks. Our luck with the sakura is simply amazing.



I quite like the fountain at the background, which was spraying a mist of water rather than shooting jets of water like the one on the right.



If you see the park from the top, it looks like a fish. You should download Google Earth, then you'll know what I mean.



Flowers like these are beautiful, no matter whether they're surrounded by mountains or concrete tiles.



And this is the Imperial Palace AREA. This building is NOT the Imperial Palace. Can't take a picture of it, since I need special permission to get in. Whatever it is, this kind of old building surrounded by a gorgeous lake is good enough for me to take a nice photo.



Ah, the fusion of the old and the new.



The area of the Imperial Area is H-U-G-E and vast.



Told ya we can't go in.



You can see these trees growing throughout the area. These trees might not grow straight upwares, but the random arrangement and trunk shapes are beautiful. A garden fit for the emperor.



We had to walk down this path...



...to get to this beautiful bridge. This is the bridge to yet another entance to the Imperial Palace. How come we never visited this area before, Dzaid?



See, even this guy is amazed at its beauty.



Foreground item, background scenery, clear sky. The formulae to a good photo (good by my standards, of course).



We took another route back to the train station, so we had to go through this park. It's so nice to sit down here, read a book with the hot sun ray and the cool winds hitting your face. This is what the Chinese call "Damn song!" (the song here is not LAGU yea)



These people work hard to make sure that the grass is cut and the sands on the grass are fresh.



We stumbled upon MORE sakura trees in the park, so it's photo shoot time! Heeeeey, my mom looked cool here...



...I wanna look cool too! (Deja vu, anyone?)

Remember the time in Kyoto where I wanted to throw myself into a bed of flowers and sleep?



Well this is close enough (poor Sakura petals).



As we walked on, we saw this horse carriage on the way to the Imperial Palace. What a way to treat the VIP. I felt a sudden urge to hijack the carriage just like in some anime (i.e. Rurouni Kenshin / Samurai X), but I resisted it eventually.



(if )ians already know about this contraption. In fact, I showed them a demo of how to use it two years ago, and here I am again.

It is a big display utitlizing many LED lights to show graphics. Moreover, the display will respond to any movement close to the screen (just be close, don't need to touch it), so there were some cool mini-applications that demonstrate the interactivity of this piece.

I will show the full video in this blog when I get back to Malaysia.



Of course, the floor tiles must also be cool-looking as well.

We took a train from the Tokyo station to our next destination...



...Shibuya, the youth district! This is the famous Shibuya crossing, where around a hundred people will cross at any allowed time! A very busy street, I'm telling you!



This is the pose of the day. Blocked by a few people, but this is Shibuya after all.



Oh darn, I almost missed the dinosaur! This is the dinosaur that Scarlet Johanssen saw in "Lost in Translation". This is one heck of a big projection, which is also what Shibuya is famous for.



Shibuya is full of young people (and one senior malay lady :D)



OK! I WILL!



Since this is the youth district, english songs are played everywhere we go. This is one little sad part of Japan's youth culture, being heavily affected by the west.



Remember this place, Dzaid and Dina? When we first came here two years ago, we bought our onigiri here...



...then we sat here and ate our lunch. How nostalgic.



This is also the famous shopping complex of the district, the Shibuya 109. If I took the picture of the complex in the center, you can see it forking the road into two, similar to the famous Time Square scene in New York.



Dzaid and I came to Shibuya for one reason: to go to Mandarake, which sells almost any type of merchandise for anime, game and manga fans alike! Sorry, Mama, for dragging you to a place like this.

After that, we took a train to the next station...



I saw this poster on the way there. Spongebob the Movie. hahahahhahahah so funny. Keep remembering the stupid scenes from the movie (MY EYES!).



And this is Ikebukuro! Dzaid studied his Japanese here around 4 years ago when he was doing the homestay thingy.



My mom wanted to try some Sakura-related food, so there's only one place that I could think of: Sakura Cafe.



This cafe is dedicated to Sakura Taisen (Sakura Wars), a Sega lineup of games and anime (originally a Sega Saturn game). The girl on the right is Shinguji Sakura, a typical kimono-clad beautiful lady. Haha that's clumsy Erica on the left.



And here are some plush dolls sitting in the souvenir shop. After this shot, I was sounded by the waitress that I couldn't take pictures here. Whoops, really forgot about that.

Well let's leave it to your imagination, shall we? We ate three small cute scoops of Sakura-flavoured ice cream, with preserved Sakura petals on top. I liked it, while my mom said it was ok, coz she prefers creamy ice cream while I like fruity ice cream. To sum it up, my mom likes Haagen Daz while I like Baskin Robbins.



For our dinner, we ate at McDonalds in Ikebukuro.



The McValue set here comes with these selection of drinks. So lucky lah the Japanese. I don't like fizzy drinks, so I hate Malaysian McDonald's selection of just fizzy drinks with the set. Bleh :P



I got as clumsy as Erica and spilled the orange juice on the table. When I informed the waitress to just clean the table up, she got me another fresh drink of the same size! Ahh, Japanese customer service. Never fails me.

And for the last picture of the day...



hahaha so lame! Didn't know McDonalds here caught up with the Da Vinci Code fever too!

Today will be the last full day I'm in Japan. Our flight back to Malaysia will be quite early tomorrow, so I won't be able to update my blog early in the morning. You gotta wait for me late at night, where I will update two days' entries at once.

Tomorrow is a sad, sad day. I gotta utilize the day today as much as possible.

So off I go to buy a bunch of stuff... See ya!