Japan: Toyko and Takayama

We arrive!

We landed into Narita on schedule, bright and early at around 6AM. As expected of everything in Japan, everything went smoothly, and we were soon out of the airport.

We exchanged our 7-day rail tickets, and hopped onto the Narita Express bound for Shinjuku and changed to Ebisu.

Once at Ebisu, we met up with Yen and we followed her home ...

I had eaten lightly on the flight here because I knew there were better things to eat when we landed ... so we wandered off to Shinjuku for lunch ...

 

After doing a bit of window shopping we met Yen for dinner ...

 

And then for a bit of a wander ...

 

And then for a bit of snacking ...

Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum, Tempura!

We headed to Ebisu ... and there was some kinda earthquake exhibit on ...

 

We then headed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum ... only to realise we'd been there before! The current exhibits were only just ok tho ...

We did a bit of window shopping afterwards ... and then dinnertime!

Yen brought us to a fancy tempura restaurant ...

 

Later that night we wandered along some alleyways with really small bars in it ...

Lazy Sunday, Okonomiyaki night

We woke up late on Sunday, after a rough night of Guitar Hero ...

 

We went for a wander towards Harajuki, looked at a shrine, hung out in a cafe, before it was time for dinner at a okonomiyaki restaurant called Sakuratei. We had some delicious okonomiyaki and monja (and smelled of it for days afterwards!)

Setting out to Takayama

We set of collecing snacks for our shinkansen ride to Takayama ... and once safely on board the feasting began ...

 

After checking into Minshuku Kuwatinaya we were hungry and decided to look for something to eat ...

Takayama was quite desserted during the off peak seasons, so we found a lonely yakitori restaurant, and ordered some chicken skin and chicken yakitori, as well as a spicy yosenabe ...

Exploring Takayama

Woke up early to look for the markets ... but had to detour into a cafe when we saw a really cool European-looking one ...

Muffin ordered a sandwich set, while I had a cake set ...

 

After that we went to look for the morning markets ... but they looked a little empty ...

 

Wandering onwards, we found the Festival Float Museum ...

 

We were getting hungry again, so decided to wander towards the Old Town ...

 

Lunch was soba! I had a duck soba while Muffin had a vegetarian / winter vegetables (sansai) soba ...

 

We managed to squeeze in a sake factory tour ... and got some free sake cups (with some sake in it)!

 

We decided to walk up the hill / mountain at Shiroyama park to work up an appetite for dinner ...

 

By dinnertime we were starving ... and wanted a eat a cow! One with lots of marbling ...

So we found a Hida beef restaurant and ordered a deluxe shabu-shabu set ... The beef had the most marbling we had ever seen ...

Hida Folk Village, Old Town (Takayama)

We woke up early and checked out of our minshuku, and then dumped our stuff in the lockers at Tayakama JR. Then we trekked through snow to Hida no Sato (Hida Folk Village).

The Folk Village was entirely abandoned ... and for a moment we were the only tourists there ...

The souvenir photo lady saw us, gave us some Sarubobo to hold and took a photo ...

 

As it was FREEZING we were happy to have found a nice fire at the end to warm ourselves up with ... along with some vending machines dispensing hot drinks. We bought some cans of hot coffee and Muffin discovered a delicious corn drink ...

 

Some stuff we saw while walking back to Takayama:

You've heard of lead crystal ... but have you heard of uranium glass?

 

 

We keep finding different statues near bridges ... here's a funny-looking one ...

 

We were hungry so decided to go to the Old Town for some snacks ...

 

Muffin was collecting photos of vending machines for some reason ...

Soon it was time to head back to Tokyo -- we bought some sushi and more snacks to bring along for the train ride home

Shopping ... at Muji!

Had lunch with Yen Yen at Ebisu station (at a fish restaurant) ...

 

After that we had some cakes, before we headed of to a huuuge Muji store

Toyko Dome

Muffin was looking in the Toyko guidebook for stuff to do ... and he read about a roller coaster ride called Thunder Dolphin ...

So we headed off to Tokyo Dome LaQua ... and the architecture looks surreal ...

The ride looked REALLY SCARY and I really didn't want to get on it ... I told Muffin I'd follow him everywhere, except I'll have to draw the line here ... but was dragged along against my will ..

Somehow, I survived the unpleasant experience (4.39Gs!) thinking I was going to die ... and ending up up with a bad case of whiplash (I couldn't look left for a few days afterwards) and disappointed that I couldn't summon an out of body experience when needed ...

 

Muffin wanted to go on another ride afterwards ... so we picked a large ferris wheel called the Big-O ...

 

We headed off to a bakery / cafe for lunch ... and noticed that the cafe was frequented only by women! (except for one Salaryman) Then it was time to do some shopping ... bought some tights, big silk-y tops, etc.

After the shopping therapy, I still needed to do more to calm my nerves, so we decided to try the baths at LaQua. I went into several hot springs, a sauna, a foot spa, NEKKID along with many Japanese women. The mass showers were an interesting experience ...

Met up with Jurn afterwards in the Relaxation Zone (large room with lots of reclining chairs with TVs) and ordered some iced coffee and watched the Thunder Dolphin whiz by with lots of screaming Japanese in it ...

We managed to spend an entire day at Toyko Dome ... it was dark when we set back home!