Monday, October 21, 2013
Japan October 2013 - Day 1 (Tokyo)
Yes. I believe many will comment on the fact that I have travelled to Japan twice this year. I'm not the only one (my friend who went to Tokyo with me in July went again in late September to October) and well,sometimes things happen and we just end up going with the flow.
Anyways, this time round the trip is more rushed as we are intending to cover Tokyo, Takayama + Shirakawa-go, Nagoya and Kyoto in 10 days. Really quite different from the previous trip that I had where it was more lax. In fact, due to the entire trip being only 10 days in length and the distance covered is substantial (which means transport fees are not that low) it became feasible to buy a JR pass. It is not saving us alot of money, but it will save a few thousand JPY and of course make it convenient to travel. The trip between Tokyo to Takayama will cost around 14000 JPY as it is, and we will be travelling out of Takayama to Nagoya and Kyoto subsequently. I bought a 7 day Ordinary JR Pass which costs 28300 JPY (purchased at JTB for SGD 371 on 20th Oct) so it should save us another 5000 or so JPY at least (Narita to Ikebukuro ~3000 JPY, Ikebukuro to Yokohama ~ 600 JPY).
The airfare this time wasn't that exciting. It cost nearly SGD 800 for a return flight via SIA. And, I dunno why but I seem to be sitting in front of long legged people almost all the time. The time I flew back from Auckland, I sat in front of a guy who legs were hurt when I tried to recline my seat back. This time, this guy was rather large and so whenever he moves, my chair would be affected. We flew the new 777ER but the new cabin products released with this plane (less than one month old!) seemed to amplify movement instead of dampening it. Seriously. The guy in front of me was rather fidgety and the chair was yawing to the left. I wonder if it'd break off someday. And for a long time, I was caught in an awkward position cos the guy in front of me reclined his chair, and the guy behind me decided to rest with his head on my seat back... so I was essentially stuck with my face 12 inches to the new huge giant TV screen -.-.
Yes, when I finally attain my goal of flying first class (and my interim goal of flying business) this should *hopefully* be non existent.)
Never really got much snooze in (as expected). We reached Tokyo early, around 0730 JPT. Made our way out of customs, exchanged our JR Pass vouchers for the actual pass, reserved a seat on the Narita Express to Ikebukuro, and we were on our way to our hotel :D
The hotel itself is about 10 mins walk away from Ikebukuro station. I have used Toyoko Inn during my previous trip to Hokkaido and so this time I am using it mainly, rather than K's House. The advantage of Toyoko Inn is that you get a single room at a rather decent price (around SGD 80) which includes a very well equipped and comfortable room as well as daily breakfast.
I did not get the membership the last time, so this time round I got myself and my friends each a membership so that we can enjoy accomodation discounts for the rest of our trips (staying at 2 more Toyoko Inns).
We were too early for check in, so we left our luggage at the hotel and went for lunch. We ended up in Tobu at Ikebukuro Station where we had Kazokutei on the 12th floor. I had a Tendoji Soba for 860 JPY. It was rather nice, especially the hot tea that came with it! And of course the mini JP revision that inevitably crops up. Fortunately I still remembered enough Japanese to smoke my way through the order process.
After lunch, we walked around Ikebukuro a bit and went back to the hotel to check in. During check in, I received my very important package - portable WiFi!!
Yesh! Now it will be so much easier trying to move around in Japan! Got to the room and set up the laptop to update FFXIV (could not get it to finish updating back home) and the friggin' download speed was 4 times faster then my home network. This is nonsense! Sigh. Oh well.
We took an hour's break and were supposed to meet at 1700hrs, but two of us happily snoozed like piggies lol. Woke up and went to buy food at the konbini instead of having a proper dinner and continuing to jaunt around. Anyway the itinerary did state that today was supposed to be a light day lol.
Tomorrow, we will go to Yokohama!
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Anyways, this time round the trip is more rushed as we are intending to cover Tokyo, Takayama + Shirakawa-go, Nagoya and Kyoto in 10 days. Really quite different from the previous trip that I had where it was more lax. In fact, due to the entire trip being only 10 days in length and the distance covered is substantial (which means transport fees are not that low) it became feasible to buy a JR pass. It is not saving us alot of money, but it will save a few thousand JPY and of course make it convenient to travel. The trip between Tokyo to Takayama will cost around 14000 JPY as it is, and we will be travelling out of Takayama to Nagoya and Kyoto subsequently. I bought a 7 day Ordinary JR Pass which costs 28300 JPY (purchased at JTB for SGD 371 on 20th Oct) so it should save us another 5000 or so JPY at least (Narita to Ikebukuro ~3000 JPY, Ikebukuro to Yokohama ~ 600 JPY).
The airfare this time wasn't that exciting. It cost nearly SGD 800 for a return flight via SIA. And, I dunno why but I seem to be sitting in front of long legged people almost all the time. The time I flew back from Auckland, I sat in front of a guy who legs were hurt when I tried to recline my seat back. This time, this guy was rather large and so whenever he moves, my chair would be affected. We flew the new 777ER but the new cabin products released with this plane (less than one month old!) seemed to amplify movement instead of dampening it. Seriously. The guy in front of me was rather fidgety and the chair was yawing to the left. I wonder if it'd break off someday. And for a long time, I was caught in an awkward position cos the guy in front of me reclined his chair, and the guy behind me decided to rest with his head on my seat back... so I was essentially stuck with my face 12 inches to the new huge giant TV screen -.-.
Yes, when I finally attain my goal of flying first class (and my interim goal of flying business) this should *hopefully* be non existent.)
Never really got much snooze in (as expected). We reached Tokyo early, around 0730 JPT. Made our way out of customs, exchanged our JR Pass vouchers for the actual pass, reserved a seat on the Narita Express to Ikebukuro, and we were on our way to our hotel :D
The hotel itself is about 10 mins walk away from Ikebukuro station. I have used Toyoko Inn during my previous trip to Hokkaido and so this time I am using it mainly, rather than K's House. The advantage of Toyoko Inn is that you get a single room at a rather decent price (around SGD 80) which includes a very well equipped and comfortable room as well as daily breakfast.
I did not get the membership the last time, so this time round I got myself and my friends each a membership so that we can enjoy accomodation discounts for the rest of our trips (staying at 2 more Toyoko Inns).
We were too early for check in, so we left our luggage at the hotel and went for lunch. We ended up in Tobu at Ikebukuro Station where we had Kazokutei on the 12th floor. I had a Tendoji Soba for 860 JPY. It was rather nice, especially the hot tea that came with it! And of course the mini JP revision that inevitably crops up. Fortunately I still remembered enough Japanese to smoke my way through the order process.
After lunch, we walked around Ikebukuro a bit and went back to the hotel to check in. During check in, I received my very important package - portable WiFi!!
We took an hour's break and were supposed to meet at 1700hrs, but two of us happily snoozed like piggies lol. Woke up and went to buy food at the konbini instead of having a proper dinner and continuing to jaunt around. Anyway the itinerary did state that today was supposed to be a light day lol.
Tomorrow, we will go to Yokohama!
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