Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market

December 24, 2014

Woke up early (but overslept a bit) to lug the rest of my luggage to Nishi Shinjuku and go to Tsukiji Fish Market. During certain times of the year, you can watch them do the auctions at like 4:00AM but they weren't public in December, I think.

We got there a later than expected (around 9?), but that's okay. It was right off of the station, I think we took the Marunouchi Line toward Ikebukuro from Nishishinjuku Station to Ginza Station. It was a ~3 minute walk to the entrance of the Fish Market.

Entrance to the Fish Market

The first thing we saw was like an an obaa-san selling onigiri in this stall, so I bought myself a salted salmon onigiri.

I actually have no idea which restaurants are the good ones. But my friend went and asked someone for a map and they starred the good places, so I'm sure that's a good indicator. I read online that the ones with waits are obviously the good ones too.

They range from ¥100-400 a piece but they have sets too. We went to Sushizanmai. I honestly can't say if it's good or not because I'm really a really bad judge at that. What I found interesting was that when ordering, you indicate whether you want wasabi or not for each piece and it's already there between the fish and rice. We decided to just order a la carte just so we can try other restaurants too LOL.

Tsukiji is actually quiet crowded and it's a pretty big tourist area too because a lot of shop owners/workers actually starting hollering in Chinese to get your attention, like how do you know?!

I think it goes without saying that they sell seafood here...but they also have household goods too. There are lots of restaurants and maybe shops with ice cream and such. 

I would probably come back again just to try the sushi again, but I wouldn't stress about it being the only place I would get it from because it's a bit out of the way to get here.

Going to split up the post so they're not too long, so until next time!

Tokyo: Exploring Shinjuku

December 23, 2014

I didn't do much today. I went out on my own to explore a little. I also dragged my luggage to the next place that I was staying in Nishi Shinjuku. It was such a struggle because I walked part of the way from Shinjuku station so I didn't have to switch to the other line, but there was this one set of stairs that I had to get up of and I couldn't lift my luggage up because it was too heavy x_x;; This man finally walked by mid-way and helped me carry it up. So nicee.

Nishi Shinjuku is a quiet residential area within walking distance to Shinjuku, so it's really convenient. I would definitely stay here again :O All the arcades, yo.

Then I had to find the place too, which was the second struggle, but it wasn't so bad in the end. After dropping it off, I went to look at Shinjuku for a bit and went to check out Don Quijote but then realized that I get a tax break with my passport but I didn't have it :( So decided to just leave it.

Then just walked around a bit and checked out the arcades. Someone got change from the machine and forgot to take their ¥90,000 change!! I couldn't catch up to them because they disappeared off, so I just gave it to an employee, hoping they came back for it! Karma's a bitch so I didn't want to just take it. I put in a 500 yen coin for 6 tries and won a Mokona from Tsubasa on my first try D:< So I had to waste the rest of the 5 tries because I couldn't get anything T_T;;;

Afterwards, I headed back to the apartment in Nishi Shinjuku to meet up with Cory and her sister because they just got back from Kyoto. 

I wanted to go to Kyoto but it would've been too expensive to ;_; Because we wanted to spend Christmas in Tokyo and I didn't think it was worth it to do a roundtrip to Kyoto. It would've also been cheaper to fly to Seoul from Kyoto, so knowing that also made it seem less worth it (since I had to come back to Tokyo). 

So we just chatted for a bit before all heading to Shinjuku. I had to go take the train from there to head home and they were just grabbing dinner/exploring.

My dinner for the night was soba. It's pretty cool because you place this order on this vending machine and you grab the ticket. Then you just go inside and hand it to them. They tried asking me if I wanted it hot or cold and I couldn't understand :'( But I still don't really like soba, just not a big fan of the taste.

Just from the first two days alone, I ended up spending ¥3,000 on the metro -_-;;;! So I definitely recommend walking if they're short distances or just walk to rest of the way instead of transferring to a different train system. For comparison, I went to a lot more places for the last two days and only spent ¥20,000 on the metro (and I actually still have some inside my card and used some of that for the arcade). But holy shit, ¥5,000 in 5 days is a lot for public transportation.

Pretty lights by Shinjuku Station

Came home to pastries and this one was particularly cute :D

Next post has a lot more activities~ So until next time!

Tokyo: Sunshine City, Ikebukuro

December 22, 2014

We didn't leave until pretty late into the afternoon. We decided to go to Ikeburuko and from what my friend described it.. it's like a female otaku paradise. 

But there's actually a lot there too and it's a very busy district. I wish I was able to look around here more. 

We went into Sunshine City and I was expecting like a crazy otaku place but it was actually a normal mall :O I saw a lot of high school students in uniform :O So I guess it's a popular place to hang out. 

They opened a Pokemon Center very recently and we went to get a shiny Pokemon. I didn't have my DS with me though so I couldn't get it ;_; They also have this Pikachu Charizard, that's soooo cute but they sold out of the plushes D:

CUTE

I also went to Animate and picked up some stuffs, they have like 7 floors. I think if I was more into anime merchandise, then that'd be bad x_x;

We also visited this cafe to pick up a Sailormoon coaster and the Evangelion Store in P' Parco (it's actually very small though, more like a pop up store). 

We didn't stay for too long, we headed home after a while. We picked up some sushi and korokke from the supermarket for dinner. 

Next post has a lot more activities because I explored more with Cory and her sister after they got back from Kyoto. And luckily her luggage was sent there by the guy who took it >_>

Possibly Studying Abroad This Fall..?

A few days ago, I was trying to plan my class schedule for the fall and then I realized..one class that I needed isn't offered in the fall! What! I feel like I keep overlooking these details ;_; I actually did go through this stuff in the past fall to make sure if that the class was offered in the fall as well, but I guess I misread or something -_-

So what does that mean...

It means I can't study abroad in Tokyo :'( Because my school only offers it as a year-long program or for the spring only. That an the Kyoto program requires four semesters of Japanese. I have zero.

And doesn't that mean I won't be able to study abroad again like I wanted to? D:

Luckily, every semester, some of the study abroad programs have their deadlines extended. Probably because they want more applicants. 

And they still have it for London surprisingly! It was my second choice anyways :D Because I've never been to Europe and want to be able to travel throughout parts of Europe. I didn't apply to it last year, but I did debate between Shanghai and London.

And second choice...

Sydney!! 

Can't find any photos of the Opera House >:( So Darling Harbour is the best I can do.

Not too hyped about Sydney though just because I was there for like 10 days a few months ago and didn't feel like I fell in love with the city. But people who study abroad here seem to... so maybe it just depends.

Plus being abroad in the fall means I can be around for my last semester. Shit, I'm getting old.

Tokyo: Harajuku, Shibuya, Roppongi Hills (Christmas Illumination)

December 20, 2014

The morning I departed was so stressful because I didn't really finish packing ><;;; I had so much shit to pack and even when I was done, everything was overweight and didn't fit in, and as I was boarding the bus to go to the airport,  Cory ran back to grab her duffle bag for me to stuff my extra things.

The ride to the airport wasn't very sentimental actually. Perhaps it was because I don't think I bonded with everyone else too much and I was still going to be stuck with Cory for a while. I also don't think I ended up LOVING Shanghai either. It was a 2.5 hour flight from Shanghai to Tokyo. My bag was like 5kg overweight, but luckily, I convinced the guy to just let it go. His coworker smacked him in the head for that lool.

We flew into Narita and it was a bit stressful because someone took Cory's luggage by accident. So dumb too because their luggage actually has a tag...like how do you miss that ><;; So we waited and waited to see if it would show up and had to report it and stuffs.

I took the Keisei bus to Shin-Yurigaoka (¥3,100) because I was staying with a friend in Kawasaki. There was so much traffic on the way and my friend ended up waiting for over an hour in the cold and I had no way of contacting her either ><;;; Luckily she waited, I didn't even know she was coming to pick me up :x We had nabe at home for dinner~

December 21, 2014

The next day, we went to Takeshitadori at Harajuku.
Someone from my Shanghai program was also in Japan for a few days, so we decided to meet up at the JR Station, but we couldn't find her and ended up waiting for half an hour..she didn't show up. In the end, it turns out she was running late and we did find her, but it's so inconvenient not having phones ><;

Caramel cheesecake crepe from Sweet Box (¥530) 

I think Harajuku is kind of "known" for its crepes :o It tasted okay.. I feel like they look so much yummier in photos.

When we got here, the place wasn't too crowded, but as the day goes on, the street becomes packed. We looked around at the stores and I bought some tights from tutuanna (3 for ¥1,000). I remember seeing them in Shanghai before and they were soooo much more expensive there D:< I wish I stocked up more here though. 

Oh yeah, in the 7-Elevens, there's this international ATM that doesn't charge a fee to withdraw money, but my own bank did. So it spent $15 on one ATM fee -_-! I recommend exchanging at the airport instead... bring cash and don't be like me. I exchanged some, but not a lot because I was too lazy to dig up for more cash, in my bag cuz it was from my 红包 so I was a bit hesitant, too. I didn't have much cash aside from that, I think like $10 USD.. had to borrow money from Cory. Also Japan is semi-credit card friendly. I was able to shop around a lot with my card (usually stores), but for stuff like metro and arcade, you need cash.

We went to Kiddy Land and they had a section upstairs for Sanrio and Rilakkuma stuff :D I bought some stuffs here but tried my best not to buy too much because no space :(

Eventually, we walked back to the station and took the train to Shibuya (it's only a 15-20 minute walk though). The Shibuya Crossing wasn't as overwhelming as I had thought because I didn't even know that that was the Crossing when I crossed the street loool. The Hachiko Statue is also in Shibuya.

We stopped by at Coco Ichibanya for food and to be honest, part of it was really awkward because one of my friends was being moody and rude... I ordered the chicken stew curry, I think.

 We walked through Shibuya 109, I think it has 8 floors or so? At some point they all started to look the same, but the clothes are soo pretty but expensive too D: A lot of girls in Tokyo seem to be dressed in that style.

 I wanted to check out arcades because I've always wanted to go play with UFO catchers in Japan. I didn't win anything though D: It was different from what I was used to because there's only two claws. 

Since it was still relatively early, I think around 7:00PM, we decided to hop onto the bus to Roppongi Hills to see the Christmas Illuminations since they look AMAZING online and we were here the perfect time.

Passed by this German Market at Roppongi Hills.

Maman

Could see Tokyo Tower from here :o

We spent a while walking around looking for it... and finally found the Roppongi Hills Artelligent Christmas Illumination. Apparently there's actually multiple, and the one I wanted was the Midtown Christmas. We didn't bother looking for that one because my friend's feet were making her really miserable the whole day and she still went around with us :X So we headed home and planned the next day.

Until next time!

Huangshan: Mountains on Mountains

December 6, 2014

One of our unique trips was to Yellow Mountains (黄山 - Huangshan).

The overnight train was surprisingly crowded but I guess that makes sense since it made a lot of stops along the way and it wasn't too bad overall. It was ¥164 for soft seats. When we got to the terminal after 11 hours, we took the shuttle vans (¥20) to Tangkou. The shuttles looked sketchy, but they're legit. Outside of the terminal, there's so many people bombarding you trying to get you to buy hiking attachments, mittens, etc. I saw a lot of people with the hiking shoe bottoms though, probably a non-slip thing. So this was about an hour and a half ride to Tangkou. 

From here, we had to take another bus to the bottom of the mountain. After much confusion of which ticket to buy, we bought our tickets and it was a little weird because we had to pay like ¥3 extra for insurance or something? Didn't need that.....so just got a refund.

 We got some food and stocked up on snacks and water for the next day and a half. Figured that it'll be way cheaper than finding food on the mountains.

 Noodles for breakfast/lunch

Went back to the bus terminal and couldn't find our bus tickets..wtf. Searched through all our bags and couldn't find.. I went back to the restaurant to take a look because that's where I last saw it. Turns out I accidentally left it there -.-;; the girl threw it away so she had to dig it out from the trash (eww). She was like, "is this important?" YES IT'S IMPORTANT. Not her fault at all though. At least she was nice enough to pick it out and clean it off for me. I was surprised she didn't know what it was and didn't sell it to other tourists.

 So we made it to the the bottom of the mountains. It was so embarrassing cuz when we got off, we weren't sure which direction to go. I saw a lot of people get on a bus so I followed them on, thinking we had to transfer buses. But then we realized this was a bus going back down to town and people laughed at us D: a lot of them. We decided to take the cable cars up instead of hiking 2-3(?) hours >< it costs ¥65 (one way) for a ~10 minute ride.

View from the cable car

 We hiked around looking for our hotel and it was so miserable seeing some of the other hotels and finding out that was only the halfway point. Spam of photos while trying to find our hotel, not sure where was which part.





 There was this mini bridge (not really a bridge since it wasn't really connecting much) with couple locks.

The hike was basically like ascending stairs to hiking up the mountain and it was so awful, getting tired every 5 minutes. Maybe it's the elevation, but I think I'm just unfit.


 Finally we found our hotel after like 2~3 hours of hiking. We got a double room at 白云 (Baiyun) for ¥342 (~$55), which I thought wasn't that bad at all, since all the reviews online said it was really expensive and overpriced. The only downside is that it's pretty far to get to, but it's close to the sunset locations (but far from the sunrise locations). The walls are also very thin, so if other guests are loud, you can hear it. Our bathroom had a very distinct smell (not of shit).

We got here and rested for a bit, and headed off toward Fairy-walking Bridge since the map showed that to be the closest location for a good view of the sunset. We found a good spot with a lot of a decent amount of other people, but continued on to try to get closer view. It was also really, really windy and cold. The wind was blowing hard so it was uncomfortable trekking on and waiting for the sun to set in the next 10 minutes.







Sunset!

 We never actually made it to the Fairy-walking Bridge, I wanted to get to it, but it was way too cold and I couldn't :( Cory fell asleep and slept through the night....and I stayed awake, doing I dunno what, before finally going to sleep as well. It was too dark and cold to keep hiking and we were tired. 

December 7, 2014
We couldn't get up in time to see the sunrise, so we ended up just sleeping in. We checked out, then departed to try to find other nice places.


Monkey Watching the Sea (猴子观海)


 Trying to be artsy, but the man in red ruined it >:(

After a while, we were pretty much done hiking, so we took the cable car down, bus down the base of the mountain, and shuttle van back to Tunxi. We had quite a bit of time before our night flight... So it turns out that it IS the norm for cab drivers to NOT go by meter when going to the airport >< One site told me to always go by it in Huangshan, so we ended up not getting onto like 3-4 cabs cuz we thought they were all trying to rip us off. We ended up paying the guy ¥25 (they usually ask for ¥30). And I guess it makes sense for them to not go by the meter especially at this time of the day because the airport is TINY and they won't be able to pick up any customers back into town. There's literally like 10 flights (inbound and outbound) in one day.. We just hung out in the airport for hours doing homework because we had nothing else to do.

 My conclusion of this trip... I don't think hiking is for me. I get soooo tired after a few minutes. I also think that we came at a bad time because the weather was "too nice" for the scenery to have that cloudy, ethereal effect that you can find for the photos online. It's supposed to have that effect after it rains or something. But when we came, it was clear and sunny (though super cold and windy). I'm not sure if I'll come back here though, I wouldn't say no though. It's still a beautiful place, but just...hiking...no.

 So this is also the conclusion of all my trips in China :) Until next time!