Hey Hive / Steemit!
So if you haven't caught up with my recent Travel posts, I just finished my Travel Paris series last week! We went to Paris for about 3 weeks; 2 of which were for summer school at a college called HEC Paris! It was really fun experiencing Paris together with Sean, and getting to know some cool people!
29 July 2016. Friday.
So just a mere 2 days after we touched down in Singapore from our Paris trip, it was time for us to fly off yet again! This time, we were going off to Tokyo for a short international exchange program with Keio University! The program itself was a week long, but we went there a few days before to explore and revisit some of our favourite places.
And yes, in the short timespan of 2 days, Sean bleached his hair.
Our flight was scheduled for about 2pm Singapore time, so we decided to have lunch at the airport before then. And we went to eat at Curry Times! It was our first time eating there, and we found out that they actually give out old-school snacks like Fancy Gems!
After walking around for a bit, it was time for us to board the plane!
Aaaaand after about 7 hours we arrived in Tokyo!
By the time we arrived in Tokyo it was around 10pm local time. We had booked an Airbnb to stay at for a couple days before the start of the program, and that's exactly where we headed. I don't remember where the Airbnb was exactly, but it was in a pretty convenient location in the city. Of course, the airport was pretty far away from there so by the time we arrived at our Airbnb it was midnight.
It was a simple house, but it was cozy and comfortable.
We were pretty hungry by the time we got there, and since there wasn't really anything else nearby our house, we ate McDonalds!
We decided to try some of the special items on the menu (that is unavailable in Singapore), so we ordered the Ebi Filet-O and the Bacon Lettuce burger, and some nuggets. It was so yummy! Especially after not eating for so long.
Sorry about my hair, it was pretty bad that trip unfortunately. 😣
30 July 2016. Saturday.
We were pretty beat from the previous day since we arrived pretty late, so we slept in and chilled for a bit. By the time we left and went to get "lunch" it was 4pm! Woops. Lesson #1 learned: always go for overnight flights (and bring melatonin pills if you can't sleep on planes).
I was craving some curry rice so we went to Coco Ichibanya to eat!
It was a pretty simple meal, but it was really filling! I could barely finish my plate because I was so stuffed.
After that delicious meal, we just took a stroll around Shibuya. Of course, it was right in the heart of summertime and it was blisteringly hot. Another reason why we decided to sleep in and not go out at noon. It was so darn hot, I think the temperature was at least 30 °C but it felt like 40 at times.
Lesson #2 learned: never go to Japan in the peak of summertime (i.e. July-August).
And if you know me, you'll know I can't stand heat. And neither can Sean. So most of our time was definitely spent indoors dodging the sweltering heat.
Since we didn't really have plans for today, and we didn't have much time anyway, we went to various department stores like Tokyo Hands and Donkihote to get snacks for our place.
And we ended the day with a late dinner (at 10pm!) at a random ramen place.
31 July 2016. Sunday.
I wasn't feeling very well that day, unfortunately. I think I was just really tired and jet-lagged from the almost back to back flights.
Lesson #3 learned: leave at least a week in between trips to rest!
We went to have a snack at 5pm before going about our day. I normally don't stress out about doing stuff while on vacation, since it's supposed to be chill and relaxing, but man, it felt like such a wasted day. Sean reassured me that it was alright though, since I was tired. There was no point forcing myself to wake up earlier if I wasn't up for it anyway.
There was a diner-like restaurant near our place called Jonathan's that we decided to try.
I was kinda hungry, but the food didn't look tooo appetizing, so we just got some small meals.
And man, the portions were really quite small. I wasn't really full from that meal at all. But it was enough to tide me over for a while.
There was this really cool staircase that lead into the train station nearest to our Airbnb.
For the life of me I can't remember which station it is exactly, but it had this really cute monkey mascot!
We decided to go to Ikebukuro to hang out and play some arcades, since we were sure there was stuff to do and eat there late at night. And when we arrived we found something unexpected: an outdoor concert!
I'm not sure what the concert was about, or who the performers were since it was all in Japanese, but it was cool watching something live!
We didn't stay for very long though, since there was a whole mass of people there and it was really warm and humid. So after taking a couple of photos, we quickly left and headed to Sunshine City to enjoy the air conditioning. 😅
And of course, the first place we went to was the Pokemon Centre!
I'm not a huge fanatic of Pokemon but I did play the games back in the day (only up to Platinum), so I know some stuff. My cousins are huge fans though, so this trip was mostly to see if they wanted me to get anything for them.
It always feels so surreal to be in an actual Pokemon Centre though.
After hanging around for a bit, we decided to get a snack from KFC! We realised we never actually tried the KFC in Japan before, and what better time to do so right?
Turns out the KFC in Japan is pretty expensive, for some reason. It was way more expensive than KFC in Singapore that's for sure. So we just bought a simple 2 piece chicken meal to try. The chicken was alright, but it wasn't that crispy, so that was pretty much the first and last time we ate KFC in Japan. 😔
After that, we headed to the arcades!
And had more snacks!
Before finally ending the day with gyudon for dinner (at 11:30pm 😅)!
We couldn't get back too late since we had a long day tomorrow - we were heading to Disneyland! ...in the heart of summer. Oh boy. Yea we might not have thought that through, but oh well.
Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #60 (Paris): Locked in the City of Love