Thursday 7 March 2013

069. moe moe chu & nikko, japan

I left for Tokyo on Tuesday (26th February) and arrived at Narita International airport at about 10am, Japan time. First thing I did in Japan was bought onigiri at a conbini at the airport. How much I miss it >< It took about over an hour to reach the hotel by bus, on the way there, we passed by Imperial Palace which was nice but I was so sleepy nothing was going through my brain.

Luckily, we could check in straight away, so we washed up and planned to go to Moomin Cafe at Suidobashi, Tokyo Dome, LaQua but it was closed for renovation. ): We decided to go to Akihabara since it was nearby.

Litte sis said she would've set this rollercoaster if it was open. STILL MENTAL. It goes through the shopping mall and it looks like death written all over again. She's psychotic.

- closed for renovation -

So at Akihabara, we bought some desserts before going shopping because we were starving. After that, we did the usual, go to Animate, walk along the two long streets and go to Kotobukiya. I was a little disappointed because they didn't even any nice Fairy Tail merch, most of it looked retarded, especially my favorite character, Gray-sama. D: In the end, I bought some art materials since it's cheaper over in Japan.

We walked for a good 1 hour and didn't know what to have for dinner so there was this girl giving out flyers for a Maid Cafe, so we settled to go to a Maid Cafe since we haven't been to one. The Maid Cafe was pricey but the girl that served us was so cute ^^ And the service was good, the girls would constantly check on us because we couldn't speak Japanese. It was kinda creepy though, tons of otakus and when the girls bend down to take stuff, the guys would actually look T_T I was so creeped out.

We weren't allowed to take photos except for the food. I ordered Curry Rice and little sis, Omu Rice. When you have to order, instead of saying "Sumimasan", you had to shout "Nya Nya!" (cat sound), so embarrassing but little sis ordered the food in the end. When they served the food, before eating, you're expected to do like a heart sign with your hands and say "mo-e mo-e chu!" Omg, I died. 

Melon Soda!

Kuma-tan Curry rice!

While eating, there was a performance where there was some music and the girls would dance to two overly kawaii songs. Again, I died. But luckily, I knew one of the songs because it was the first closing song for Fairy Tail (thank god), here's an example of how kawaii the song was :



But now the innocent image of Lucy in my mind is damaged by creepy guys staring the girls while dancing. X_X Thanks. We didn't want to stay too long because we were getting creeped out, so we left back to Hamamatsucho after dinner.

We went to the Pokemon Centre before going back to the hotel, little sis was so happy because the merch this time was so cute! We bought Iphone casings and cups, also spent quite a while over there. Since everything was so cute. 

They had all the different types of Eevee! Little sis was so happy because Eevee's her favorite Pokemon. I'm not a big fan of Pokemon but the stuff was too cute to resist. ><




Amazingly, I fell asleep at almost 9 because I didn't even sleep on the plane. I totally crashed once I reached back to the room. I pity little sis because she still had to study for exams. 

27th February 2012 (Wednesday) :

We got up super early since we were going on a tour at 9am to Nikko. Had Japanese breakfast at the hotel, I've missed it so much. If I could have Japanese breakfast everyday for the rest of my life, I would be a very happy person. 

We made our way to Hamamatsucho bus terminal after breakfast and boarded the van to Nikko. It took about 2 hours to get to Tochigi Prefecture, but we had a small stop along the way where I bought Strawberry flavoured kit kats. 

They had small food stalls at the stop but didn't get anything since I was so full from breakfast.


We reached Toshogu Shrine after another hour from the stop. I've always wanted to go to Nikko but never had the time to, so I'm really happy I got to this time round and with little sis!

I took this in the van.

It was really really cold up in Nikko because we were near the Lakes and Mountains. On top of that, to get into certain shrines, you'd have to take off your shoes. You can only imagine how badly my feet were freezing. It was still interesting though, lots of shrines and temples. I like Shrine of the Roaring Dragon best, you'd have to clap your hands or let the monk(?) hit something to hear the dragon roaring. It was interesting and they also had deities for the 12 zodiac signs. No pictures were allowed to be taken in there though. ):

There was a lot of snow left over from the days before too, so it was nice to see it. I never get to see snow because it doesn't snow in Melbourne or Singapore. 














I really love the details of the temples. It was hard to get a good picture of everything, it was crowded and my fingers were trembling from the cold. Still, I was happy. After visiting some 4 - 5 shrines, we set off for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Lunch! I will always love Traditional Japanese meals. :D

Outside the restaurant.

After lunch, we got on the van again and it took another hour to get the Nikko National Park, it was on a mountain, so the roads were rocky and unwinding. The view up was beautiful, so much snow and you could see many lakes, neighbouring mountains and little houses on the way up. 

When we reached the park, it was even colder as we were on higher grounds. The waterfall was amazing, I love that I came during winter because I love seeing the formations of the icicles around it. We couldn't get down to the park or get closer to the waterfall because everything was covered in snow and it was too dangerous, so we stood there for a few minutes admiring Kegon No Taki's beauty.

There were so shops nearbyt too but sold nothing but souvenirs. I only bought Gyoza flavoured chips in the end. 





There was a cute ice cream shop there too but I didn't get ice-cream obviously. Too cold! Too cold!

After 45 minutes or so, we got back down to lower grounds to visit the last stop of the tour which was the Imperial Villa. It was where the kings and queens used to stay in. It was quite boring and no pictures were allowed in the area too. Trust me, you're not missing out much, it's just rooms with tatami, furniture and futon. The outside was more interesting to me because of the garden. 

There was a pond and it was frozen, also everything was covered in snow which made it seem like I was in my dreams. I love winter so much.












It took about 2 over hours to get back to the city because there was a traffic jam. The van dropped us off at Shinjuku and little sis and I took the train to Shibuya for some desserts since we were still so full from lunch.

The first thing I saw at the crossing in Shibuya was the lynch. advertisement truck! It drove by so quickly but I shouted so loudly "LYNCH." pointing to it that everyone stared at me, haha. The truck was also playing their new single, BALLAD so loudly, it was hard to miss it. So we had desserts at Silkream! <3 Thanks to Raine again for bringing us there the last time. 

The desserts there are sooooooooo gooooood. Arghhhhh. I had the chocolate fondant while little sis took the gigantic parfait straight on.



I was so happy that they changed their decors to Moomin too! They have Moomin comic books now and the tables had Moomin figurines. <3 Definitely my favorite place in Tokyo.

Snork Maiden and Snufkin <3

After our scrumptious desserts, we crossed the road to Tower Records. Ahhhh I've missed it so much and they totally renovated the place. There's a Tower Records cafe now at level 2 and they shifted all the magazines and books to level 2 (it used to be on the 6th floor). Of course, I went to the Japanese indie/rock section. 

They were displaying cinema staff, Miyavi and lynch. 's newly released singles/albums. <3 Was so happy! 



babies <3

I was happy lynch. and Plastic Tree were next to each other, haha.

We went around Tower Records for a little while and after that we went to the Disney store to get our tickets to DisneySea for the next day. They also added a section in the store for Toy Story. It was so cute.


At the first floor, through the rabbit hole.





Thank god I'm not a big collector of Disney things if not, I would have gone broke way too early in the trip, over here. I thought it was so funny that they were advertising Phineas and Ferb's Secret Agent (the platypus), it's so spastic and ugly but it grows on your after a while. They had so much stuff for Secret Agent, it wasn't even funny.


Yes, he grew on me. After the trip, I found him really endearing but no, I didn't buy anything of it. 

After Shibuya, it was already about 10 at night, so we headed back to the hotel and called it a day. I had so much fun of the first 2 days and even more fun at the later parts of the trip. 

Mo-e Mo-e Chu~ :3

x

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