A Week In Japan Part 5 - Tokyo and Hakone

The day after our Disneyland trip was still rainy but not as cold. Tokyo is a busy humongous city swarming with people. If you want to see it, go to one of the main train stations around 5:30 pm. You will see an ocean of black suits trying to get wherever they were going after work.

Early morning train ride

We started our day with a visit to Tsukiji Fish Market. It is the largest fresh fish auction area in Tokyo. If you want to see the auction, you have to get there very early in the morning before sunrise. Here, you can find the freshest sushi ever! There are several famous sushi places there, but you do have to get there early or you will have to wait for hours before you get a seat. We didn't want to wait so we headed over to another one that looked a bit nicer with English menu, but of course the prices are also higher. And yes, the fish taste different when they are super fresh!

Sushi Set

From the Tsukiji Market we took a train to Akihabara area to visit Gundam Cafe. Cute, but we wished it was more than what it was.

Akihabara

Gundam Cafe

Outside Gundam Cafe

From there we moved on to Shinjuku area, famous for their shopping centres. Our first destination was Isetan. Miss Kiki was so tired by then she fell asleep on the train, the hubby had to carry her all the way there in the rain. No fun. The department store was super crowded, and I was quite surprised to see only very high end brands there, unlike other Isetans I find in KL or Singapore.

Down to the train track

Waiting for the train

Train Station

Pedestrians in Shinjuku

That night, we ate at a tempura restaurant, supposedly the oldest one in Tokyo. It was okay, they have set menus that were not cheap, and a la carte prawn tempura was over $7 per piece! It was live prawn though, and they brought the poor thing to us still moving before they fried it. This restaurant is located behind the BIC Camera / Uniqlo store.

Tempura

The next morning, my friend Michiko came to meet us. It was so great to see her again after more than 10 years! I met her during my first year in University in Canada and we got back in touch through facebook. We had planned to go to Hakone that day, which is a city nearby that is famous for their Onsen (hot spring).

With a friend who can speak the language, travelling in Japan was sooooo much easier! We took a taxi to the Shinjuku station and then we bought tickets to Hakone on a Romance Car. This train is an express train but not as fast as the shinkansen. I'm not sure why they are called Romance Car, but my guess is that people who go to Hakone go for romance? :D Not sure.... They have different types of Romance Cars, older and newer, and when you buy the tickets they show you which train it would be so you can also make decisions based on which type you want to take. We were lucky that we got to try the oldest one and the newest one!

Our Romance Car

I booked a hotel in Hakone called Ichinoyu Honkan, and it was a pleasant surprise to find my name on a board right outside! This hotel has their own public bath (hot spring) and some of their rooms have private baths (hot spring). This is a ryokan (traditional Japanese style hotel) with tatami and futons. I recall my friend saying that when you walk on a tatami you're not supposed to step on the connectors. But it could be that my memory is failing me.... Anyway, so we checked in at our hotel and left our luggages there. Off we go on a Hakone tour. First, we go look for lunch....

A few blocks from our hotel there was a restaurant, but there was a sign there that said kids were not allowed. Well, too bad. So we took a bus to the train station and we had more options there. Again, we looked at the food model at the front window and this time we only had to ask Michiko to order for us. We were spoiled! And guess what I spotted nearby..... a NERV store!

When purchasing our Odakyu tickets we purchased the Hakone Free Pass version which covers the round trip romance car as well as several mode of transportations in Hakone. The first one we took in Hakone was a train. This train goes up the mountain on a zig zag pattern. When we reached a certain point, we had to get off and take the cable car higher up. The cable car here is like a train, similar to the tram in HK. It goes up and down pretty steep. Then when we got higher we took the ropeway, which is what we generally call a cable car. I know, it was quite confusing. From here we can look at the sceneries below, lots of green with some fall colours, then we passed what looked like a sulphur mine, and then we were suuuuuper lucky to see Mt. Fuji from there! Apparently it is very rare that you can see Mt. Fuji from that spot in the afternoon.

The ropeway took us to Lake Ashi, where we could take a cruise boat around. On board, we bought a set of Fuji-san shaped cookies, in 4 colours. Each colour represented one of the four seasons in Japan. I also got my hands on a box of Fuji-san shaped Kit Kat box, with strawberry cheesecake flavoured Kit Kats. From the last pier, we took a bus ride back to the train station and went back to the hotel after stopping for dinner. Time for hot spring bath!!

In the morning, we went to have breakfast at a set time in Yukata. The breakfast was traditional Japanese: grilled fish, soft boiled egg with soya sauce and rice, and a few more things. Different, but yummy! We then set off to go back to Tokyo to catch our flight that evening. Since we still had a little bit of time, we walked around in the shopping district again, but I can't remember which. Got pictures though! We had sushi dinner again in Tokyo that night and it was nowhere near the sushi at the Fish Market!