Japan, April 10th, 2013
It was my intention to relate day-by-day what happened at my last trip to Japan, but it all was a fail intent. The LJ app for iPad didn't save what I had already written offline, so I practically gave up on the first day. Besides I was so tired at night and we only had wi-fi on the lobby.
I will try to write down what I remember while looking at the pictures, as well as posting links in bold font, for further information :)
It was 16.5-hours-long-flight plus connecting times at 2 different airports (we didn't get off the plane on the second airport, though). So we arrived really tired from the whole trip. A 24-hour long period.
Migration and customs was pretty quick for me, but for Ale, it took her a little bit more in customs. She had a small suitcase inside a big one, so the girl at customs kind of suspected something. Ale just said she intended to buy a lot of stuff. They even took a pair of heels she had brought to inspect them.
After we were done with customs, we headed to get our Skyliner tickets for Tokyo. We bought the Skyliner ticket + 2 day Tokyo Metro pass, and took the 8.15 or so train to Tokyo. We stayed at the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, so we had to transfer lines. I won't say it was an easy job to pull one big suitcase in one hand and the carry-on on the other all along the street from the station to the hotel. It says it takes about 11 minutes or so, but I don't know, I think it was more.
Since we arrived early in the morning, they still didn't have the beds ready, but we were allowed to take a shower and leave our stuff in the storage room. It was surprisingly packed so early in the morning! We took a quick shower and headed off for our journey in Tokyo. Our first stop was Akihabara, since Ale wanted to buy a camera.
There are some good duty free shops, and there's this curry restaurant I wanted to visit again. We had a hard time finding it, but we did :D I don't remember the name, but there's a sing outside that says Homemade Curry. We shared a dish, since for us one was enough for both of us. So after that we went looking for the camera. She bought a nice Sony camera, special edition, with Mt. Fuji and Sakura flowers on it. And one of the staff-san kindly offered himself to take a picture to both of us. :)
The next stop was Ueno Zoo. It was my second time, but I'm always up to seeing cute pandas <3 We spent half of the day there, ate some ice cream, rode the Zoo monoriel, watched the polar bear, flamingos, and a whole bunch of other animals. We returned to the hostel to to do the proper check-in and we took some time to rest. I had a visit from my japanese friend, who bought me a bunch of magazzines for me! I had asked him to, but never expected that I would be recieving them for free. There were 12 in total and it included TV Guide where the sakuraiba kiss was released for the first time XD.
We had planned to go to watch Platina Data that same day, but the shows were late at night. We found one around 9pm in a Toho cinema close to the hotel (still had to take the metro), but we had a second option: a show starting at 9:30pm, at Toho Cinemas at Roppongi Hills, right where they filmed the scene at Hanadan, where Soujiro and Yuuki find Yuuki's ex. We ran late to we headed to Roppongi Hills, and made it just in time. We didn't even buy popcorn or soda, we went straight to the movie hall.
Me and my friend are studying japanese, and even though we're still beginners, it didn't really matter if we understood or not: it was Nino on a big screen. We even got to see the Nazodi promotion! So the movie was really good, I at least, understood the main point of the story, but we had some things against us: the long trip before, the whole day on the streets, the comfortable seats and the late hour at night. We fell asleep a few times D: It was like those times you fight hard to keep your eyes open but anything works and you just have to give up. Sometimes Ale would wake me up by shaking my arm and sometimes I would wake her up. D: it was a total mess.. but a fun thing to tell afterwards!! XD The movie ended around 11.30pm and we were in a rush since the last train departed at 12 or so, so we had to run to the station, but when the movie ended, lights were still off and people wouldn't get up D: so we had to stay there. The good thing is that we got to hear Breathless in a nice sound.
So at last everything ended and we actually ran to the station. We caught up the train and felt relieved. We had to transfer at Ueno st., around 11 more stations to go, so it was nice that we got seats. We had to stay awake this time to get off at the right station! We were close to Ueno when 2 girls and a boy boarded the train, but one of the girls was sooo drunk that someone actually gave her the seat so she could sit. She was talking nonsense, her arms around the girl who was standing in front of her. We were amazed of how bad the looked that we didn't realise we just had passed the Ueno station!!! So we got off on the next st, and I thought "easy job, just ride the train on the opposite direction back to Ueno". Easier said than done... we had to cross the street and when we were about to go down the stairs into the station... it was already clossed!!! So we were somewhere we didn't know, at 12am, and it was really cold. We found a map and found our way back to the hostel, but we were kind of scared, frozen and tired.. Anyway we kept saying enthusiastically "This is our first adventure at Japan!"
So that was the first day.. Will be updating soon! Right now I'm watching 音楽の力The music day :) with Sho as a MC.. so yeah, see you later!
~Nat ^_^
I will try to write down what I remember while looking at the pictures, as well as posting links in bold font, for further information :)
It was 16.5-hours-long-flight plus connecting times at 2 different airports (we didn't get off the plane on the second airport, though). So we arrived really tired from the whole trip. A 24-hour long period.
Migration and customs was pretty quick for me, but for Ale, it took her a little bit more in customs. She had a small suitcase inside a big one, so the girl at customs kind of suspected something. Ale just said she intended to buy a lot of stuff. They even took a pair of heels she had brought to inspect them.
After we were done with customs, we headed to get our Skyliner tickets for Tokyo. We bought the Skyliner ticket + 2 day Tokyo Metro pass, and took the 8.15 or so train to Tokyo. We stayed at the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, so we had to transfer lines. I won't say it was an easy job to pull one big suitcase in one hand and the carry-on on the other all along the street from the station to the hotel. It says it takes about 11 minutes or so, but I don't know, I think it was more.
Since we arrived early in the morning, they still didn't have the beds ready, but we were allowed to take a shower and leave our stuff in the storage room. It was surprisingly packed so early in the morning! We took a quick shower and headed off for our journey in Tokyo. Our first stop was Akihabara, since Ale wanted to buy a camera.
There are some good duty free shops, and there's this curry restaurant I wanted to visit again. We had a hard time finding it, but we did :D I don't remember the name, but there's a sing outside that says Homemade Curry. We shared a dish, since for us one was enough for both of us. So after that we went looking for the camera. She bought a nice Sony camera, special edition, with Mt. Fuji and Sakura flowers on it. And one of the staff-san kindly offered himself to take a picture to both of us. :)
The next stop was Ueno Zoo. It was my second time, but I'm always up to seeing cute pandas <3 We spent half of the day there, ate some ice cream, rode the Zoo monoriel, watched the polar bear, flamingos, and a whole bunch of other animals. We returned to the hostel to to do the proper check-in and we took some time to rest. I had a visit from my japanese friend, who bought me a bunch of magazzines for me! I had asked him to, but never expected that I would be recieving them for free. There were 12 in total and it included TV Guide where the sakuraiba kiss was released for the first time XD.
We had planned to go to watch Platina Data that same day, but the shows were late at night. We found one around 9pm in a Toho cinema close to the hotel (still had to take the metro), but we had a second option: a show starting at 9:30pm, at Toho Cinemas at Roppongi Hills, right where they filmed the scene at Hanadan, where Soujiro and Yuuki find Yuuki's ex. We ran late to we headed to Roppongi Hills, and made it just in time. We didn't even buy popcorn or soda, we went straight to the movie hall.
Me and my friend are studying japanese, and even though we're still beginners, it didn't really matter if we understood or not: it was Nino on a big screen. We even got to see the Nazodi promotion! So the movie was really good, I at least, understood the main point of the story, but we had some things against us: the long trip before, the whole day on the streets, the comfortable seats and the late hour at night. We fell asleep a few times D: It was like those times you fight hard to keep your eyes open but anything works and you just have to give up. Sometimes Ale would wake me up by shaking my arm and sometimes I would wake her up. D: it was a total mess.. but a fun thing to tell afterwards!! XD The movie ended around 11.30pm and we were in a rush since the last train departed at 12 or so, so we had to run to the station, but when the movie ended, lights were still off and people wouldn't get up D: so we had to stay there. The good thing is that we got to hear Breathless in a nice sound.
So at last everything ended and we actually ran to the station. We caught up the train and felt relieved. We had to transfer at Ueno st., around 11 more stations to go, so it was nice that we got seats. We had to stay awake this time to get off at the right station! We were close to Ueno when 2 girls and a boy boarded the train, but one of the girls was sooo drunk that someone actually gave her the seat so she could sit. She was talking nonsense, her arms around the girl who was standing in front of her. We were amazed of how bad the looked that we didn't realise we just had passed the Ueno station!!! So we got off on the next st, and I thought "easy job, just ride the train on the opposite direction back to Ueno". Easier said than done... we had to cross the street and when we were about to go down the stairs into the station... it was already clossed!!! So we were somewhere we didn't know, at 12am, and it was really cold. We found a map and found our way back to the hostel, but we were kind of scared, frozen and tired.. Anyway we kept saying enthusiastically "This is our first adventure at Japan!"
So that was the first day.. Will be updating soon! Right now I'm watching 音楽の力The music day :) with Sho as a MC.. so yeah, see you later!
~Nat ^_^