Browsing Junkgirl™ blog archives for January, 2009.

Tokyo, Winter 2008 – Day 1

The previous day

(26 December 2008)

View from our room at Nishi-Shinjuku Hotel. The garbage truck…
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The room – a semi-double
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The hotel
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Checked-out and left our luggage with the reception to be picked up later in the day as the check-in time for the apartment is not till 3pm. Then breakfast at Mos Burger on the main street, near the hotel.
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At Mos Burger, your orders that can’t be served to you when you place the order are brought out to you, unlike most fast food chains. A number for your order is given to you, as shown by the ’27′ on the left in the photo below.

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Ours…

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After the meal, we went to hunt for the apartment so that we know the exact location when we have our luggage with us. After some searching and enquiring at a koban, we found Palacestudio Apartments. Ours was #905 (Apt 5 on the 9th floor).
getting a hotto kouhi in a can from a vending machine at the main entrance to the apartment building
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an interesting product
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We then headed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Goverment Building which was just a little further up on the opposite side of the road.
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The view from the Observatory at Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, also known as To-cho
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bird’s eye view of Meiji Jingu and Yoyogi Park
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We were quite fortunate to be able to see Mt Fuji in the distance
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Shinjuku and beyond
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around the observatory
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Next, we headed to Subaru Shinjuku. It was a smalll showroom and housed only 2 cars.
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getting a drink after Subaru Shinjuku
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at Mosaic Street next to the West exit of Shinjuku Station
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we bought our first item here, a mechanical pencil that looked like a wooden pencil
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The second ranKing ranQueen store
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Walked around the Takashimaya area before heading back to the hotel
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We went back to the hotel to get our luggage at around 3.30pm and wheeled our luggages all the way to the apartment. It was a fair walk as we are still not familiar with the area and took the long way.
Next to the To-cho. The apartment building is further up on the right, with the higway at the front
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Arrived and found our key inside the codelocked mailbox as per the agent’s instructions. Unlocked and found the key housed inside a keybox, which took a while to figure out how to open as there were no instructions. A little ironic that we managed to unlock and get the key but had problems opening the keybox.

a mochi from the convenience store before bed
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The following day

Tokyo, Winter 2008 – Arrival Day

(25 December 2008)

After 2-hours flight to Gold Coast and another 9 1/2 hours to Tokyo on Jetstar, we finally landed at Narita Airport. Left the house at about 4am and arrived at close to 8pm Tokyo time. Walking towards customs and baggage collection.
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The arrival area was pretty ordinary, just like any other ordinary airports. Nothing out-of-this-world.

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the train-shuttle to take us to the Main Terminal.
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The officer who stamped my passport greeted me with a “Selamat petang” after seeing my Malaysian passport. After clearing customs and collecting our baggage, we queued to get the NEX (Narita Express) tickets.
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Got our tickets and headed to the platform
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another look back at the Terminal
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waiting at the platform
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Our train is the 20:39, which arrived on the dot, as 99.9% of the trains in Japan do.
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On board the NEX
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behind my seat
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plenty of leg room
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The ride to Shinjuku took approximately 1 1/2 hours, stopping at Tokyo station prior to Shinjuku. Getting off at Shinjuku…
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Heading towards the West exit of Shinjuku station. Shinjuku station is huge. It is one of, if not the most, busiest train stations in the world. There are many different exits and one can easily get lost if they don’t put in effort to think about the directions. Just like the train system in Tokyo. It may seem overwhelming at first, but once you put in the effort to understand the system, it will turn out to be one of the most efficient train systems in the world. You hear that Melbourne?
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In addition to these exits, there are South Exit, South East Exit, Southern Terrace Exit, New South Exit and probably more.

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After checking-in at Nishi Shinjuku Hotel, we headed straight to the soba shop nearby, which we ate at 2 years ago. Soba de kudasai
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Kee had this
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and i had this
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Tasty but the soba wasn’t hot enough. Returning the bowl and tray after the meal is the unspoken policy
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and so begins our 3-week Tokyo journey…

The following day





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