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2023 March - Tokyo, Japan (Day 1)
Ah... I still am undecided if I should just do the whole trip in one post or divide up the days... I'll see as I write this.
We had a super early day, we were on a red-eye flight, so landed Tokyo Haneda around 5am ish. I got the neck pillow and stuff to try to sleep but the guy next to me kept elbowing me *duh* so I didn't get much sleep. My friend and I we decided to each get an aisle seat across each other, in front rows, so we could alight sooner too, which was a good call, because the immigration wasn't really open and running until around 5.30am. So at least we were in the front of the queue.
It was my first time to the Haneda 羽田 airport so we walked around the departure terminal and it indeed was pretty neat. But everything was not opened yet, so yeah.
We then took the train (whichever variation of it) and made our way to Asakusa 浅草 to drop off our luggage and lighten the carry on bag. Since we were staying in Asakusa, so the first stop was Kaminarimon 雷門 and the shrine there.
My friend told me that the omikuji fortunes おみくじ in this shrine are usually of the bad luck variety. Well. She got a good fortune 大吉 while I got a bad one 凶 omg. She asked if I wanted to get another omikuji but I was using a "gambling mentality" (I am from a city of casinos, so of course) and decided, not to get another one there. Since this was a bad luck result, I had to tie it up to a bar thingy there.
We then stopped for a proper breakfast. At first, we wanted to go to one of those traditional uncle-era cafes, but the one famous one didn't open until noon (serving breakfast at noon?) and then I spied another cafe nearby that served these "Morning" モーニング breakfasts. Basically it's just a thick buttered toast with a coffee, and a side of salad I suppose. We didn't want just that as "slice of toast" for breakfast is like a super common thing where we come from, so we had these... pocket sandwich thingamajig.
Our next stop was to Ueno 上野, to the Ueno Toshogu Shrine 上野東照宮. I took my DSLR camera there and this just proved it's a pain. I have an old Canon DSLR that the zoom lens has called it quits, so I only have a prime lens (50mm). Things show... way tooooooo near........ It's a very good lens for portrait photos and if I want some serious shallow depth of field photos (focused on one subject and everything else blurred) but it's a sh*t lens for scenery shots, especially with my non-existent photography skills.
At this shrine, I pulled another omikuji after I bought an amulet for health (since the first omikuji I got said something about getting sick) and it was a better result of "future blessing" 末吉.
We then crossed the street to the Ameyoko アメ横 to kill some time until lunch, where my friend wanted to have a proper Monja モンジャ. Apparently the Monja I had once upon a time wasn't really a Monja. So it's like an okonomiyaki but it's way more liquid and you eat it direct from the pan.
The next stop is... Gotokuji Temple 豪徳寺... and what is it? I'll just stfu so you can *feel* the power of........ cats!
It was a fun stop here LOL
Then, we wanted to go get some specialy Shu-Cream in Totoro style. Sadly, they were sold out already (it was around 3pm). As they closed at 7pm, we asked if there's any chance they will re-stock for the afternoon, and.... Nope. Very weird business model, LOL. Anyway, somehow after some chit chatting, the staff suggested that we reserve for tomorrow, so we did just that.
eh, this shot was just because I wanted to shoot the flower, but as I had a lens cover thingamajig on my phone, it sort of enhanced the lighting and flares, so this was cool.
Final place for the day was at Meguro 中目黒 to see the cherry blossoms in night view.
My friend also had to meet up her friend there, first we had a pre-dinner drink/snack thing. Then we went to a proper restaurant of motsunabe もつ鍋. I was depleted of energy by then already (red eye flight, no rest, etc) I was practically falling asleep as they chatted. I don't think I took a photo of the motsu, but here's a shot of a horse meat sashimi I guess. They praised the goodness of it, for me, either I was so tired, or I'm just not a connoisseur for meat... so... it was.... just raw meat.
Argh... I forgot how sorting through photos and writing the codes for these can be tiring as well... LOL... so I guess I'll give myself a pause here. More later!
We had a super early day, we were on a red-eye flight, so landed Tokyo Haneda around 5am ish. I got the neck pillow and stuff to try to sleep but the guy next to me kept elbowing me *duh* so I didn't get much sleep. My friend and I we decided to each get an aisle seat across each other, in front rows, so we could alight sooner too, which was a good call, because the immigration wasn't really open and running until around 5.30am. So at least we were in the front of the queue.
It was my first time to the Haneda 羽田 airport so we walked around the departure terminal and it indeed was pretty neat. But everything was not opened yet, so yeah.
We then took the train (whichever variation of it) and made our way to Asakusa 浅草 to drop off our luggage and lighten the carry on bag. Since we were staying in Asakusa, so the first stop was Kaminarimon 雷門 and the shrine there.
My friend told me that the omikuji fortunes おみくじ in this shrine are usually of the bad luck variety. Well. She got a good fortune 大吉 while I got a bad one 凶 omg. She asked if I wanted to get another omikuji but I was using a "gambling mentality" (I am from a city of casinos, so of course) and decided, not to get another one there. Since this was a bad luck result, I had to tie it up to a bar thingy there.
We then stopped for a proper breakfast. At first, we wanted to go to one of those traditional uncle-era cafes, but the one famous one didn't open until noon (serving breakfast at noon?) and then I spied another cafe nearby that served these "Morning" モーニング breakfasts. Basically it's just a thick buttered toast with a coffee, and a side of salad I suppose. We didn't want just that as "slice of toast" for breakfast is like a super common thing where we come from, so we had these... pocket sandwich thingamajig.
Our next stop was to Ueno 上野, to the Ueno Toshogu Shrine 上野東照宮. I took my DSLR camera there and this just proved it's a pain. I have an old Canon DSLR that the zoom lens has called it quits, so I only have a prime lens (50mm). Things show... way tooooooo near........ It's a very good lens for portrait photos and if I want some serious shallow depth of field photos (focused on one subject and everything else blurred) but it's a sh*t lens for scenery shots, especially with my non-existent photography skills.
At this shrine, I pulled another omikuji after I bought an amulet for health (since the first omikuji I got said something about getting sick) and it was a better result of "future blessing" 末吉.
We then crossed the street to the Ameyoko アメ横 to kill some time until lunch, where my friend wanted to have a proper Monja モンジャ. Apparently the Monja I had once upon a time wasn't really a Monja. So it's like an okonomiyaki but it's way more liquid and you eat it direct from the pan.
The next stop is... Gotokuji Temple 豪徳寺... and what is it? I'll just stfu so you can *feel* the power of........ cats!
It was a fun stop here LOL
Then, we wanted to go get some specialy Shu-Cream in Totoro style. Sadly, they were sold out already (it was around 3pm). As they closed at 7pm, we asked if there's any chance they will re-stock for the afternoon, and.... Nope. Very weird business model, LOL. Anyway, somehow after some chit chatting, the staff suggested that we reserve for tomorrow, so we did just that.
eh, this shot was just because I wanted to shoot the flower, but as I had a lens cover thingamajig on my phone, it sort of enhanced the lighting and flares, so this was cool.
Final place for the day was at Meguro 中目黒 to see the cherry blossoms in night view.
My friend also had to meet up her friend there, first we had a pre-dinner drink/snack thing. Then we went to a proper restaurant of motsunabe もつ鍋. I was depleted of energy by then already (red eye flight, no rest, etc) I was practically falling asleep as they chatted. I don't think I took a photo of the motsu, but here's a shot of a horse meat sashimi I guess. They praised the goodness of it, for me, either I was so tired, or I'm just not a connoisseur for meat... so... it was.... just raw meat.
Argh... I forgot how sorting through photos and writing the codes for these can be tiring as well... LOL... so I guess I'll give myself a pause here. More later!