Alvinology goes to Japan – Day 7 of 14

On the seventh day, we spent most part of the day traveling in the car. When we woke up, our wonderful host, Masako served us with traditional Japanese nian gao (年糕) soups and home-made yogurt with cut fruits.

After filling our tummies, we lingered around and lazed for a while more before we bid farewell to Masako and her two sons, Toshiki and Motoki. Although we only got to interact with them for less than 48 hours, Rachel and I were very touched by the Asai’s friendliness and hostility. Being able to converse with them in English was also an interesting experience for us as the two of us had been mostly silent throughout our trip due to the language barrier.

The Asai’s house
The backyard
The garden
Cloud Ears spotted outside the gate – these are often used in Chinese medicine
It’s time for breakfast!
Healthy breakfast
Nian Gao (rice cake) soup
Breakfast egg
Home-made yogurt
The Asai’s hamster knows how to open the lid of a bottle and get his own food
Happily feasting in the bottle
“Good hamster!”
Clovers in the Asai’s garden
Group photo with Masako, Toshiki and Motoki (without me)
Still without me…
Finally got my camera timer working
Time for farewell

We took off from the Asai’s comfortable home during late morning and headed for Ueno (上野), Tokyo.

We were finally moving closer to the big city. On our way there, we visited a shrine which housed a giant Buddha statue and a giant Guan Ying (观音) statue. The shrine was located high up a steep mountain top – climbing up almost killed me! The toilet was located besides the shrine. Hence visitors will have to pay the entrance fees and complete the steep slopes in order to relieve themselves – pure evil. This was what happened to the four of us who needed to clear our bladders after a long drive.

Driving through an underwater tunnel – that’s why the GPS shows us in the sea
Still cheery before we started climbing to reach the shrine
A child is called a “小人” in Japanese
Area map
Little buddha statues we came across on our way up
More statues
Bright flowers
Red flowers
Finally reached the top
The giant Buddha statue
A closer look
This would have been a very beautiful picture if the sakura were in full blossom
A smaller Buddha statue nearby
Donations made to the shrine
Sakura tree
A sakura flower
Rachel beside a sakura tree
Lots of little Buddha statues – probably for making wishes
Sounding the gong for blessings
Up the observatory platform
Beware of hawks
You can see the highways
From another angle
Sea view
Ships moving in and out of the harbour
Behind these cliffs hide the giant Guan Ying
The giant Guan Ying
With our car for two days
Front view of the car
Btw, you can request for a non-smoker car like the one we rented
on the road – Mark said this is a famous tower in Tokyo
Skyscrapers
The sun is going to set soon

We reached Ueno at late noon. After returning the car to the Toyota rental store, we walked to nearby Cube Hotel, the hotel where we will be staying for the next two nights. Rachel and I like this hotel very much. Like the Super Hotel chain, Cube Hotel is a business hotel packed with hi-tech gadgets, making full use of the limited room space.

The Toyota car rental centre where we returned our car
The staff immediately disinfected and cleaned up the car once we returned it
Outside Cube Hotel
Card keys are used to open the hotel room doors
Interior of Cube Hotel

Once we checked in, we simply dumped our luggage into our rooms and headed immediately for Ueno Station (上野駅) to travel out for a very late lunch cum dinner (the last meal we had was the breakfast at the Asai’s residence). Mark wanted to check out the local Mandarake (まんだらけ) to buy more Transformers toys to add to his huge collection. Mandarake is one of Tokyo’s largest vendor of used anime and manga-related products. They have outlets across Japan and we will be visiting quite a few more Mandarakes in the later part of our tour; due to Mark’s persistence in trying to buy up all the Transformers toys in the world.

As we were starving… once we got off the train, we settled for dinner at the nearest, reasonably-priced restaurant. Big mistake as the food was tasteless although the prices were cheap.

After dinner, it was shopping time. While the guys headed to the manga and anime shops, the ladies went shopping for clothings. I was quite shocked by the high prices Dragonball cards fetch in Japan. Mark and I had both accumulated a large collection during our growing up years. After we learn about their value, Mark resolved to bring his collection to sell on his next trip to Japan. Unlucky me can only feel pissed at my own misfortune as my dad had threw my collection away a few years ago without telling me…

Ueno Station
Inside Ueno Station
Buying our train tickets
Braille at the train station railings
Passing train
The fast food restaurant where we had our dinner
The prices were really cheap, but the food was quite tasteless
Lunch coupons purchased from vending machines – that’s how most restaurants operate in Japan
The guy who prepared our dinner
Time for dinner
Rachel’s curry rice
My ramen and small bowl of curry rice
Mark’s udon
Mandarake – the go-to-place in Japan for second-hand manga and anime stuff
More toys
Characters from a manga series called “Worst”
Dragonball figurines
More Dragonball figurines
In fact, there are racks and shelves full of these figurines
One Piece figurines
Autographed baseballs
Vintage hand-held games – if only I kept a few of these, they are worth a tidy sum
I still remember this Popeye game!
Ultraman toys
Hentai manga
Japanese teens checking out plastic figurines
Dragonball cards – look at how much they are worth!
The powerful Dragon in Dragonball
Soft toy of the other less powerful dragon in Dragonball
Kinnikuman figurines – these used to come free when you buy ice-cream

The shopping made us hungry again quickly.  Hence we headed to a sushi restaurant for a second round of food. Rachel and I tried Chutoro sushi – the second most prime cut of a tuna fish, for the first time. It really melts in your mouth like how food guides like to describe it. Oishi!

We then headed back to the train station to return to our hotel to rest for the night. Still hungry, we bought burgers at McDonald’s to munch on our way back. That ended our day. 🙂

Inside a sushi restaurant
The plates indicate the sushi prices – same system used in Singapore
Eel sushi
Some shellfish sushi
Squid sushi
Chutoro sushi – the second best cut from a Tuna fish
Buying supper from McDonald’s
My first burger in Japan
Pachinko advertisement – Pachinko centres are everywhere in Japan
Rachel getting cranky after seeing too much anime and manga stuff
These two Japanese girls really love their magazines
I like this poster spotted at the train station
Ueno’s Hard Rock Cafe
An interesting Wonda Coffee vending machine
Nice little chocolate we found at the convenience store besides our hotel

Links to my previous blog entries on my Japan  trip:

Day 1 – Kansai Airport, Hokkaido

Day 2 – Skiing, Otaru

Day 3 – Asahikawa, Asahiyama Zoo

Day 4 – Sledding, Shiroi Koibito, Crab Buffet

Day 5 – The 60th Sapporo Snow Festival

Day 6 – Staying with the Asai, Shōnan

Day 7 – Ueno, Tokyo

Day 8 – Shibuya and Akihabara, Tokyo

Day 9 – Ikeda, Osaka

Day 10 – Kobe

Day 11 – Kyoto

Day 12 – Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan and Dotonbori

Day 13 – Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge and Mt. Rokko

Day 14 – Return to Singapore

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alvinology

Alvin is a marketer by day and blogger by night. He is a 100% geek who spends too much time surfing the web.

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