ITS MY LIFE. I'LL DO WHAT I WANT: Tokyo!!

Finally we are in Tokyo! After so long it seems, I know. Heheh. Our hotel was at Asakusa btw. The subway close to our hotel is called Tawaramachi (if I'm not mistaken). Its really close to Tokyo Sky Tree. But err we didn't go. We didn't have time (lazy), but its true. There are so many other things to do and eat. Our itinerary is full already.

P/S: blue font was written on the day itself that night when I went back to the hotel.

This morning we woke up early about 7 am and finally went out at about 845 to Tsukiji market for some fresh sashimi.

We have heard a lot about Tsukiji market from many tourists all over the world raving about it on Trip Advisor, Japan Guide etc. Supposedly one of the biggest fish market with live auctions. Can see humongous tuna fish and whatever. But we didn't go for that.

We just wanted to eat some really fresh sushi while we're there. :)

We heard the queues at sushi dai went for about 3 hours..well they were not wrong, crazy no point wasting time. We chose a sushi shop at the outer market with no queue at all. Locals inside so what the heck. With no queues, we feel less pressured to eat faster, but with more locals, we feel more embarrassed (a little but didn't stop me) from taking lots of photos. Heheh.

Just to show you what the prices are like. Not cheap! Y3,500 = RM104. That is for one person.

These souvenirs are cheaper here than at Sensoji Temple area (Asakusa) though. I wanted to buy those slippers (?) for Kev, but I thought I should check out the prices at other places instead. It was cheapest here actually. Also tourist area and should be jacked up prices but oh well.

I didn't buy for him in the end.. I knew he would like it though. Next trip. :) I even went home and told him this. Hahah.

We bought one of this egg thingy to try out. Mehh. If I remember correctly, it has some prawn taste though it looks like egg only. They all look the same so we simply pointed at one to try. Heh.

We did still choose a less popular stall to have some sushi breakfast. It still costs about Y2,000 - Y3,000. One set each. Don't remember how much already.

This was not everything. I wanted to wait till the chef plated everything nicely so I could take photo but he kept gesturing for us to start eating. Oh okay.

Actually he kept on adding stuff (not much) while we ate. That's why he was gesturing at us to start eating first so he would have more space to place the food.

The food was good but not outstanding. Fresh sushi from the market. Thick slabs of fish, yum. The miso soup was good too. They don't provide any spoon though; just slurp it up. Btw the locals seem to eat sashimi with their bare hands. I didn't though..used a chopstick and spilled some rice. Red faced and hurriedly scooped it up and into my mouth anyway. Wouldn't want to be bad manners. Heheh.

But I think the sushi we had at other shops while at other places were much cheaper and more worth it. This was just..for the experience.

Photos a bit repetitive cos the chef was adding stuff to our plate and we are eating so slowly. Taking photos of everything and savouring each bite. Heh.

Damn looking at this is making my mouth water!

That guy behind me lihai. Early morning drinking beer with sushi. Actually I was quite surprised. It seems a lot of men are drinking beer at any time of the day! On the train, breakfast (!), during lunch, during dinner, etc. Just surprised. Not like Kuching. We only drink at pubs and wedding dinners (cos its free). Hahahhaha.

Don't have a proper photo of the soup but it was really good! There were a lot of clams inside. Delicious!

We are not very ambitious though. We draw the line at fish testicle sushi. Haha never heard of it? Its available! Google it. I googled already. Click. Is it eww or is it eww?

I mean I saw Cheesie's post on squid eyes (that I still can try), but fish testicles? They look like brains. And yes, I'm drawing the line at brains too.

This is what it looks like. Photo from Foxe's Foods.

Some temple we saw on the way to the station.

After that we went to Shinjuku. I wanted to check out Shinjuku gyoen for late blooming cherry blossoms (sakura's). Lucky for us, we managed to take quite a few photos! Happy me. I liked that feeling..walking about in the park. Everyone was happy and had a camera in their hands. Lots of uncle and aunties (more like grandma/grandpa) held DSLRs, with many lens. Wtf. We felt so..erm..old-not up to technology standard whatever.. But yeah. You know what I mean.

It was not so cold today. Very windy but still ok. I stopped at Forever 21 for some shopping on the way back to the JR station. Oh yeah. Got something to tell. On the way to find Shinjuku gyoen at Takashimaya, we asked this girl: where is Shinjuku park? I know it is Gyoen but I didn't know how to pronounce it. So she asked Shinjuku park hotel? I said no..park. She asked gyoen? We both went: yaaaa.

She immediately took out 2 maps and picked up the phone to call someone. She called someone to translate to English for us and held out the phone for me for the person to explain to me how to go to the park. Meanwhile she pointed out the places to Cs while I was on the phone. They go to such lengths to help us. This is just one example of one case. They are so helpful, and so polite all the time. It makes us feel strangely embarrassed. We are not used to this in Malaysia. That's why. I remember thinking why is she so nice to us??

We have much to learn.

Later we took the Yamanote line back to Ueno. Shopped at Ameyokocho. Supposed street for souvenirs. Especially kashi no kashi. They kid us not. We bought almost everything for our families, colleagues, friends, and ourselves. Happy with our shopping loot today.

We stopped at some place for snacks.

Came back to hotel to return all our stuff and rest for a while. Went out again at 7pm to Sensoji temple. It's really close to where we stayed. About less than 10 mins walk. It was really windy by then and I was afraid it would rain plus all the shops were closed. So I dragged him back closer to our hotel.

Went back to Freshness burger. Love it. We can honestly say that it is the best burger we have eaten ever. No doubt. Bun was soft, meat was grilled to perfection. Love it. They serve beer too.

Later, we went to family mart as usual for drinks and back to hotel to rest for the night.

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I have photos for everything and place I mentioned above but I'm lazy to upload photos now. Line is sheet and I'm sleepy. Next time ok.

Err yeah bad photo but I was pointing at our hotel. The other hotel we booked in Tokyo. Cos we gungho have to try different hotels. Budget first then splurge more. Heheh. Sad to say the Shinjuku one looks more or less like the Asakusa one. Haha we paid for the location. :)