Urban Tokyo

Recent trip to the fast paced, expensive, clean city Tokyo was a great experience of culture, food, and entertainment. It was one of the top destination I will want to visit. Influenced by their arts, technologies, creativity, manga and stuffs, I'm a Japanese culture fan! Being part of theirs was no like appreciating from afar. We took Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Nagoya City. It was almost a four hour flight.

We planned our own trip with the huge help from Google. Booked our hotels and studied our mode of transportation and places to visit in a week. Well, it's not my favorite thing to do, because I sux at planning and I'm always super blur. Eventually, we got ourselves almost fully geared up with essential information and practiced common words to speak in Japanese (through my experiences watching Japanese cartoon and drama). When we reached Nagoya Airport, we took a car ride of almost 4 hours to Lida City, Nagona. Here, it's a country village, peaceful and quiet. Main activity here is agriculture, they plant apple trees. Again, Spring is beautiful there, with blooms of my favourite flower, Hydrengas.

Their so called national flower is Irises. It's very favored by their Queen. They plant this near government offices, palace, and important sidewalks. Blooms beautifully during late June

After 2 days in Nagoya, we're off to Tokyo. Our journey sets off at 8.30 am by bus to the bullet train terminal which they called the "Shinkansen". It was a real fast train 300km/hr. We managed to captured Mt. Fuji when we're inside the shinkansen thanks to the clear skies. It was a real rare opportunity

 

We arrived to Tokyo station at about noon. It was so busy with people everywhere. We made used of our map printouts. Luckily we have it, not all maps are in English. They happened to have other companies operating trains reaching you to desired exact location. The JR Rail network and the Subway metro. It was quite expensive, even if its 1 station apart, for 160 yen, and Yes, the map looks complicated.

Our first 4 nights, we accommodated at Chi-Sun Hotel in Ueno Park. It was a three-star hotel with everything at it's best. Strategically located near to the train station, not far from the heart of Tokyo, it's considered a good choice with a good price. Our first shopping stop was to Akihabara. My first assumption on this stop was for electronic stuffs but I was wrong.

It's a 1 stop place with everything, electronic gadgets, home appliances, makeup cosmetics, toys, hobby kits, toiletries, home deco and stuffs for the kids. We had a great lunch in a sushi restaurant beside this building. Sushi Zanmai is one of the chained sushi restaurant here offering the freshest sashimi with price above average. May I point out that the Sea Urchin was deliciously tasty!

Then we're off to Ginza street, the most expensive area in the world. Ginza is reputablely the most expensive place to shop in Japan. Famous department stores like Mitsukoshi, Matsuya, Matsuzakaya, Wako, Seibu, Hankyu, and the familar Isetan.  The Chuo Odori is the main street in Ginza turns into a pedestrian only street on weekends.

We walked Ginza street a few times. We too enjoyed other places in Shinjuku, Harajuku Streets, where we see youngsters parading in gothic costumes and makeup. We crossed a few times in the busiest crossing in the world, the Shibuya crossing

We've seen the pretty people in kimonos. Street walkers in the most outrageous fashion outfits. Bizarre dining experience. Viewed Tokio tower from Roponggi Hills. Met new friends. Overall, it was a great trip to a city.