Haneda Airport A very small airport, feel like the budget type. :P
Haneda Airport
Other than those few fridge magnets from every city, we didn't shop at all during our whole trip, so we bought our favourite Royce chocolate from the airport duty free. In Japan, they have more varieties than in Singapore and of course cheaper.
Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky
And a small pack of green tea Kit Kat. Only available in Japan.
They have an airport lounge too, but not much things to eat here. It was very bare minimum. :(
The airport lounge
The Asiana flight that we took was pretty new, the TV was a touch screen. Cool!
Touch screen TV
Just tap the screen to navigate. Much much easier to use.
And a pretty good headphone. Wow!! Usually this kind of headphone only available for business class passengers.
They served a pretty good meal too.
Sweet and sour fish with rice. Yummy!!
Back in Seoul after a 2 hours flight. Well, that's all from our Japan trip... :)
Mt Fuji was our last excursion in Japan before we returned to Seoul the next day. Took the Keio bus from Shinjuku to Lake Kawaguchi in the early morning which is about 2 hours from Tokyo.
Shinjuku
Lake Kawaguchi
Once we reached the bus terminal, we transferred to the local bus that took us to Lake Kawaguchi.
Sightseeing with retro bus
The bus pass is a postcard. Nice.. :)
Lake Kawaguchi
Fishing on the lake
Then we took the bus further up to Ohishi Park and we saw Mt Fuji. Well, only the foot of Mt Fuji that could be seen, the peak was already covered by clouds. Very disappointing. :((
Mt Fuji covered by the clouds.
Luckily we took quite a decent picture of Mt Fuji when we were on shinkansen from Osaka to Yokohama.
Mt Fuji from shinkansen
We hopped on to the bus again and stopped at Nagasaki Park.
Drown in autumn leaves
Ducks swimming on the lake, slope of Mt Fuji on the background.
Since there was nothing else to do here, we decided to go back to Tokyo early. Luckily we could still change our return bus time.
Dinner at Shinjuku station
Braised pork porridge
Shrimp dumpling porridge
The porridge were pretty good but it wasn't very fulfilling. And then we spotted another sushi standing bar. :D
¥100 for each
Salmon
Ikura (salmon roe)
Anago (conger eel)
Bincho maguro
Chutoro (tuna belly)
The tuna belly was much cheaper in Japan than in Singapore. This chutoro cost the same price as the normal maguro, so it was a no brainer to order this instead.
Amaebi (sweet shrimp)
Yaki samon (grilled salmon)
Those sushi were as excellent as the one we had in Shibuya. We had 20+ between us and now we could leave Japan happily. :D
Tsukiji Market
The best time to explore Tsukiji Market is in the early morning, 5am to be exact when they start the tuna auction. But we are not an early riser, so this is definitely out. The next best thing to do is to try out the fresh sashimi from the small eating places around the market.
Tsukiji Market entrance
Tsukiji Market
We reached there around 11pm, most fishmongers had already cleaned up their stalls and closed for the day.
The seafood products were stored in styrofoam boxes.
Huge fish head
The official transportation inside the fish market.
Long queues were already formed outside these eating places, and it was not even noon yet.
Queued for about 20 minutes.
It was difficult to decide.
That's what we were going to order, salmon and tuna belly (toro) don.
I took this photo quickly because they don't allow photography inside.
Inside the eating place.
Oh so disappointed that I wasn't be able to capture our huge slices of raw fish. We had 7 huge slices of tuna belly and salmon (equivalent to 14 slices of Singapore size!). They were absolutely heavenly and this time they did melt in our mouth. We usually don't like tuna, but for tuna belly it is a different story altogether.
After the fish market, we went back to our hotel to take a nap. :P
Odaiba
Odaiba station
Ferris wheel
Venus Fort
A shopping mall in Odaiba. It was quite similar to Las Vegas Caesar Palace but smaller in size.
The sky would change color according to time.
Rainbow Bridge
Rainbow Bridge and giant Christmas Tree
Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower
Rainbow Bridge and Statue of Liberty. Don't worry, this is still Tokyo. :)
Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower and Statue of Liberty.
So which combination is your favourite?
Statue of Liberty
Shibuya
We went back to Shibuya because I liked Shibuya so much.
Harajuku girl in Shibuya station
Shibuya alley
While we tried to find what to eat for dinner, we saw this sushi standing bar. Hmm... sounded interesting. Actually we were thinking of having a Burger King next door, luckily no!
¥75 (SGD 1.15) for each sushi. Pretty cheap for Japanese standard.
The sushi chefs at work.
It's a full house.
As the name suggested, we had to stand while eating.
First round
Yaki samon mayo (slighly burned salmon with mayo)
Samon (salmon)
Ebi mayo (slighly burned shrimp with mayo)
The big chunk of avocado really felt very fresh.
I just couldn't express how happy I was while having these sushi. They were really so good beyond words. Looking at these pictures again while writing this blog, definitely makes me hungry. :D
Round two
Anago (slightly burned conger). This is much better than unagi.
Yaki geso mayo (slightly burned squid legs)
Third round we ordered those that we had earlier plus a few new ones.
Slightly burned salmon
Amaebi (sweet shrimp)
After many below standard Japanese foods, at last we were able to taste the excellent sushi and standing for an hour was really nothing compared to what we had.
And the good thing is it only cost us about SGD 45 for 32 pieces of sushi. If we had it in a restaurant, it would definitely burn a big hole in our pocket.
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