[JAPAN] City of the Future – Tokyo
February 19th, 2010
Tokyo, was the part of the trip which my friend and I planned. So, it was our turn to be tour guides! Our first ride on the bullet train, which wasn’t so ‘fast’ as we had expected. I later found out that bullet trains, included in the JR pass (Hikari), are the slowest bullet trains. 
sad, no wonder… but we did see the faster ones zoom by… just a pity that we weren’t in them!
‘Please do it at home’.
The bentos we got to last the 2ish hour trip Osaka -> Kyoto, they looked too good to eat!
We stayed near Ueno in Tokyo, which was where one of the best ramen was found- Ichiran! I knew people who love it to bits, and I was certainly looking forward to it. We entered the cosy little shop to find vending machines – ah yes its a big thing in Japan – vending machines. I was expecting a few choices of Ramen, but they only had one for Y750 and you can add on extras such as egg etc.
So we sat down, and found a multiple choice like question sheet on the table with a free packet of Ramen (woohoo).
We were able to customize the ramen to our taste – which is awesome! Hardness of the noodle, to the heavyness of the soup base.
I got it with Red pepper, and egg as a dish. It was truly D-I-V-I-N-E. I could probably do with another bowl, if I didn’t choose to leave my tummy for later street snacks. And I’m sad that, this whole trip I only got to go there once ;( Which leaves me craving for it so much now…
After our pig-out session on Ramen, we took the subway to Asakusa, which is more of a touristy town – main street lined with shops that date back 100 or so years?
It is also the place where you find this iconic big red lantern at the gates of Sensoji Temple. We spent a good few hours there enjoying sampling street food and souvenir shopping.
Later that night, we set off to Roppongi – Roppongi Hills tower, its observation deck to get a good look of Tokyo city. It’s s beautiful. Just love how the Tokyo Tower (Eiffel tower rip off) stands out amongst all the city lights.
It was difficult to find a decent place to eat that wouldn’t blow our budget (since Roppongi hills itself is like one of those high class suburbs). So we went back to Minowa (where we stayed), and settled for Mc D’s since it was getting late. First bite of Teriyaki Chicken burger, and to be honest – I don’t like it, haha. Teriyaki and burgers just don’t work for my taste buds.
After a long day, finally got to go back to the ryokan (japanese inn). We stayed at Andon Ryokan, modern japanese inn can you tell? It had interesting interior. This was just the corridor, didn’t take a photo of the room itself (which was really cosy and just enough for 3 people sleeping on 3 mats).
Oyasumi!
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