(continue from Part 2 of Japan trip entry. Here's Part 1 @ Kobe)

It was really a snowy night. Heavy snow fall everywhere... 

Our first rest stop was after 2 hours drive nearby a 24hr mart. We could get food or have toilet breaks. So apparently the nearest toilet was inside the mart so we knocked, we queued... but the door was locked so we were all waiting for whoever the fellow's inside who was taking such a damn long time. A few other patrons gave up waiting... while there was a group of youngsters who seemed drunk also waiting for the use of the ONLY toilet there.

Well, it won't another 2 or 3 hours before we are able to get to our next rest stop so if we were feeling urgent then best is not to bear until our bladder burst. But whoever was inside that toilet was taking far too long and Shan couldn't stand it and approached the guy at the counter asking him if he could get whoever's in the toilet to hurry up?

We followed the counter guy to the toilet and saw him knocking on the door to see if anyone respond. DUH! We did that and there was no respond, wondering if perhaps anyone fainted inside or what. He went back and the keys to open the toilet and we were expecting there was someone inside and it turned out... the toilet was locked up by the staffs! zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Finally, we get to relieve ourselves before getting back on the coach... Although I was tired, but I was unable to get to sleep so I spent my time looking at the scenery outside while exchanging sms with Dearie updating him things which happened here. I could have do some reading or writing but lights were off for passengers to sleep so I can't do anything else but those... We passed by little towns, snow capped 2 to 3-storey houses, companies... snow capped cars parked in the lawn, snow capped lamp posts, snow capped trees, grasses... very beautiful sight...

Another 2-3 hours later, we came by another rest stop. The view was absolutely brilliant. Everywhere was white. I actually took quite a lot of pics but none of them turn out good, all shaky & blurry to illustrate the breathtaking WHITE-VIEW. Hehe... The view was so beautiful that I completely forgotten the coldness.

A blurry pic without flash.. You can't see me but that's not the point. Look at the trees, branches and the telephone booths behind me! All white! It's whiter than Winter Sonata man!!!

And I had to touch those fluffy snow!!!
Look at how deep those snow were? My feet were complete submerged inside. I really rolled the snow into a ball and my fingers were freezing... But the feeling was absolutely great!

就这样。。。一路往东京前进。。。

Day 4, 31 Dec, New Year's Eve, Tokyo

We arrived at Shinjuku station at 630am. I was surprised that so many ppl were already up at this hour. But I guess they are probably travellers too?

Shan's friend, C was kind enough to take us in her apartment to rest for a while as we were only allowed to check into our capsule hotel in the evening.

C's place was a studio apartment and it's... well, twice the size of my room? My room is about 5m X 5m so put together it's 5m X 10m. It's elongated and consiste of everything, toilet, wash hand basin. There's absolutely no place for cooking. Just have a rice cooker and boiler on the floor and it's considered a little 'cooking place'.

We unpacked, bathed and tried to sleep on her 'bigger than single size' bed. But uh... 3 person squeezing on her bed... to be honest, I was really very paiseh to be occupying her bed although she didn't mind. But yet upon lying on the bed, I could only sleep without any space to turn, move limbs abit, it was extremely restricted cos I sleep on my stomach facing down.

是的，我睡觉是趴着睡的.
结果因为位子太挤了，而我又是个 light sleeper,
所以试着在地板睡，可是地板很冷，
而又面向门，冬天的冷风从门的风口吹进来，
我用好多件衣服当被盖。嗨。。。。。

 对啊，这就是‘旅游’。

 跟‘出国’可不一样哦！

So, we got up, wash up, prepared a bit and went out to visit the famous Shibuya & Harajuku. Guess lots of scenes are pretty familiar as seen on TV...be it Hollywood movies like Tokyo Drift, Jumper or any ou xiang ju..

Shibuya Station.

From far you can already see Ayumi Hamasaki's billboard...

What's in front of me is Japan's version of Singapore's Orchard Rd but with lots more fashionable ppl, unlike the wannabes here... lol

We were looking around what to have for our first meal for the day. I was starving but yet I didn't see anything I like. There were lots of fast food, western food along Shibuya, or otherwise rather expensive restaurants out of our budget. So we settled for this place and after having something like Qin Zi Fan, I kinda like that kinda combo and ordered this!



So we explored around Shibuya lo... And we came by this mall and took a pic of our own reflection! Hahaha... hiao!

We continued our journey, as they were walking ahead of me. I was amazed & awed by the architecture.

This is a lone standing cinema theatre and nothing else. I didn't managed to go and see how many theatres do they have but it's really very cute... I really like the roof though.

This street here looks very ang moh-ish. Check out the phone booth.

It was actually a very sunny day but the tall buildings shades the ppl off from the sorching sun. But even though it was sunny, the cold weather was still there. The buildings over at Shibuya are really very beautiful. As if it doesn't have the best looking ppl, it has the best looking buildings, public transports & pathways.

The exterior of every shops are just too attractive.

How could I miss the Disney Store?

All the decors and interior looks very 梦幻. It's no wonder Disney becomes a big franchise. Here I am, posing with a Mickey & Minnie mascot.

Don't you just wish to get hold of all Disney merchandise?

Without nothing much at Shibuya to see, we moved on to Harajuku which is actually within walking distance?

I looked a bit stoned in this pic considering I didn't get much sleep on the coach, neither did I get much at C's place. But I was really overwhelmed with the sight of how Japanese dressed over there.

Can you tell me what are all these ling ling long long stuffs?
Weird weird outfits that Japanese ppl wear cos weird weird ppl sell them... wahahaha....

So you thought I was looking dumb standing in the middle of a busy Harajuku street on New Year's Eve?
Check out the ang moh couple to wear my eyes's direction were at the top left corner of the pic.

Can't see? Ok ah, I magnify ah...
There are standing outside a cosplay shop. And haha... check out the website printed below them.

Don't the look like ppl off from some sci-fi movie? Especially the guy's hair?
Actually he has waist length hair from behind which he tied it up. Just that he shaved off the sides of his head.

While C was shopping inside a boutique, Shan was off somewhere looking at cheap winter clothes. I didn't know who to follow so I just sat outside out the boutique C was in and did some ppl-watching and Shan came back and took a candid shot of me...

We continued the journey down the busy & bustling street and came by some quiet shops which looked pretty cool and I kinda regretted not taking pics cos of the cool exterior & interior. But this statue really did catch our attention.
I supposed I'm trying to show the teeth while Shan was mimicking the ears of the bunny we were trying to imitate!

Was walking pass the streets and saw this cool building.

It's rounded one as you can see. Such structures are very 'customed-made'. Materials probably cost a lot manufacturing it. That's why you don't see such structures often in Singapore. If such building really do appear in Singapore... it's probably another 制造很多话题的 'landmark'.

Anyway, we were on our way to sit down & rest & chill and we saw this really really sweet & cute petite girl who look as if she just popped out of the manga. We had to take pics with here!

We rested at a cafe which was closing, quickly drink & ate something and time to go back to C's apartment to get our luggage to check into the capsule hotel at 6pm. But before we left, we took some parting shots, together with C's totoro...


When we came by the stop nearest to where our capsule hotel was, there was this big panda which I thought looked realllllllllly huge. I mean... what's a huge panda on display at some train station? LOL~ But yeah, the ratio of the size as compared...

It was a pretty short walk from the station to the capsule hotel. Over there, the ppl behind are counters are old ah pek who seem retirees. We mentioned about registering via the internet but they didn't recieve the booking so we'd have to registering 'walk in'. So we sort of lied that we were students on student pass and that saved us quite a lot of money...

So we checked in and... tada...
Quite poor quality but you get the gist...I have to crawl into the 'room'. The ladder you see are for ppl who sleep above me to climb on. It's like "double deck rooms" kinda thing.

A capsule hotel is basically a 'partitioned room' with a mattress, pillow, bed for ppl to sleep. It's not even a room. You can't talk cos it's "partitioned horizontal rooms" with no sound proof. We just placed our stuffs and prepared to go to 2 other places for the night...

Went back to the station and realised I haven't took a pic with the Japan Metro

Anyway, we headed towards where the Otakus hang out - Akihabara! It is basically a series of Sim Lim Squares. And... this was what welcomed us when we stepped out of Akihabara...

Yes a big big pair of black-rimmed OTAKU glasses!! Wahaha... 电车男，宅男都是带这种眼睛的！哈哈哈。。。

One of the buildings there..

And more buildings.... with anime, game billboard posters on the centres/complexes.
And I didn't know Shan's candid shot made my nose look pretty sharp! Wahaha...

And many many otakus behind me checking out the latest games, anime, gadgets.

We didn't get to go inside the complexes as most were almost closing cos it was New Year's eve. But we did get inside the arcade and OMG!! Everyone look the same, I couldn't tell them apart. There are very few girls inside...it's a male dominated place. A bit scary la.. But still fun to watch! LOL~

Reminds me of my friend, YL who fits just right in this place! Hehe~

One random pic I'd taken of a shop that was still open and bustling with otakus! Really all anime-siao one!

Nonetheless, we had to move on to our next destination. But before that, I gotta take pics with the very confusing ticket system... check out the 'confirm horlan' destinations above my head.

Next destination.... TOKYO TOWER!
At this distance we were still quite far away from it...

The crowd on a New Year's Eve was really ..... 吓死人！人多到~~~~~~~~~.

At this distance we were actually one street away from it... Had tried many different modes to capture this night scene tower but all turned out pretty ugly. Only this one cab make it.

We went up Tokyo Tower, but we could only be at the 125m platform instead of the 225m one. But better than nothing. Once again, very hard to capture night sceneries even with night mode. Cos there was also a clear glass in front...

A view from where we were up there...

It was very hard to get ppl to take pics of us with the actual Tokyo Tower, so we used Shan's hp to 自拍.

It was around 1030pm when we left Tokyo Tower. Feeling a little hungry, well actually I was the hungry one, we stopped by one of those 街边拉面摊 and have a hot soup ramen in the cold weather.

It cost like SGD5 but it taste really really really good!! We sat in the outdoors cos the indoor seats were taken. Some ppl has to eat while standing so we were still kinda lucky...

Itatakimas (how you spell ah?)


After eating, we went back to our capsule hotel, prepare to bath and have a goodnight sleep and plan for a great New Year at Disneyland.

However, just as we were about to go for, yeah, duh, public bath, the slide of my capsule room got stuck and that was when the clock striked 12! Yeah Happy New Year while trying to fix my slide door... *rolls eyes*

Yeah, Disneyland Disneyland Disneyland!!!!!