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Japan 2023: Travel on a bullet
posted : Friday, May 12, 2023
Travel day! Up early again, went for another sauna session, packed up and headed down to Kyoto station. Grabbed an ekiben to fuel my trip, a couple of last minute souvenirs, and off we go on my first ever Shinkansen ride on my third trip to the country.
 Made this joke abt this guy who was conveniently on the centre of my photo but it wasn’t me Selected a 10am train so that I didn’t have to wake up too early, yet have enough time to spend in Tokyo for the rest of the day. Considering that I am only planning one ride, it doesn’t make sense to buy a JR pass, and it would make even less sense in future given the recently announced price hike. Still, for such a premiumly priced ticket, the Wi-Fi in the train is absolutely shitty. Felt like I spent half the time renewing my connection, but am glad that nobody sat beside me in the end so I could dump my luggage there.  Food cart on Shinkansen  But of course had to buy an Ekiben beforehand. Got a seafood one which is quite tasty Arrived in Tokyo! Still a bit early to check in (which was thankfully relatively early at 2pm), so hung around in Tokyo station and its Daimaru. And it has an absolutely fantastic supermarket section which had great food (I only managed to buy a couple of items though) and food souvenirs. Settled some of the food souvenirs here and at the station itself, then made a short trip to hotel to check in.  I want them allll  Obscenely expensive Japanese fruits  This is called Sakura-dori, but clearly most of the Sakura is gone  Arriving at the hotel! A bit of story about the hotel selection again. Idea is to stay near Tokyo station so that it’ll be easier to get to airport when I need to leave (which I do need to leave quite early in the morning). Ginza is also a neighborhood (or rather area) which I have not been to on my past two Tokyo trips, so keen to explore that even though it’s more upscale (think Orchard), but thanks to ShopBack cashback promos on 12.12 I was able to limit the damage (and that I saved a bit on a couple of nights of accom by braving a red eye flight + overnight bus) so decided to splurge a bit. It’s not a 5 star hotel exec room kind of splurge (although I hope to be able to do that one day hahah) but it’s enough, and the room is fantastic even at a lead in level (or maybe it’s one or two tiers above lead in).  Lobby looks amazing  Biggg room. Massive bathroom too  Great view to wake up to. I didn’t keep the curtains close so FML coz sunrise was at like 530am Decided to go hunting for a patisserie again. Made it to one, but wasn’t sufficiently impressed to sit down for it thinking I’ll make time for one some other day but as it turns out, this turned out to be my biggest regret coz I ended up not having a single slice of cake this entire trip (not so much on this shop particularly, just in general). Headed off for an early dinner instead.  Ginza area  This is how “repurposing of space under train tracks” is done, folks. Such a cool space.  Sumiyaki Unafuji. A bit pricey (as with any unagi place) but decent  Cream puff! Hung around a bit at this Okuroji area after dinner which is sort of like a repurposing space under viaducts project on steroids. If we had viaducts in city/orchard area this would have been a great idea, but our trains are already underground in city so yep (and I doubt anybody want to shop under West Coast Highway or something). Then headed to Ginza area for some shopping.  The famed 12 floors of Uniqlo (though admittedly the floor area is smaller)  Ginza at night  Muji Flagship! Had wanted to stay here too but sold out. And actually called it a day! Coz there’s a hotel room to chill in.  Hotel lobby looks amazing at night too! |
