Day 15 of 15, Tokyo Part 2

Today is the last day in Japan…. NOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu~~~

Me writing this last day makes me miss Japan lah…sigh…

Anyways… let’s start the day with a buffet breakfast, courtesy of the hotel. Yay!

Mat’s got a bedhead

The breakfast has both western and Japanese style. Of course we ate both. The Japanese one is very filling though. Because there’s rice.

At first, we thought of waking up at 4am in the morning to go to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market.

Why 4am in the morning? Because that’s when the excitement comes in. You’ll get to see the Tuna auction. But upon visiting the website, they have limited the number of people who can experience the auction.

So in the end, we decided not to go so early, maybe just see the normal wholesale fish market. (Actually the real reason is that we don’t want to wake up so early ).

If you go there early in the morning, you’ll be expected to see this:

Picture taken from Japan-Guide.com

So, we decided to go right after breakfast, that was around 8am in the morning.

When we arrived at the market, we expected to see this:

Picture taken from Japan-Guide.com

And this:

Picture taken from Japan-Guide.com

But NOOOOooooooooo~~……

When we turned the corner to the market entrance…. we saw this:

Eh…. eh…..

Where are all the people and the fishes?

@_@

And then we saw this:

Phiang phiang phiang……. (sound effect for dramatic effect)

Heeeeehhhhhhhh??????????~~~~~~~~~(this is a Japanese expression)

What!!!!!!!!! CLOSED?????!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank God I didn’t wake up at 4am just to see this. We even went to the website and double checked that it opens. But it didn’t say anything about being closed today… grrr…..

What to do? Wasted…. so we just walked around the town a bit.

Saw a very cute “poster” most probably drawn by the fishermen there.

It’s basically them complaining about the tourist who visit this market. They think the tourists are a nuisance (which I agree to some extent).

Because of all these nuisance tourists, that’s why they limit the number of people to watch the auction, and limit the tourist only to a certain section of the market.

One of the most important rule: DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING!

Because most tourists are such nosy people, they keep touching the prized Tunas, and this will contaminate it, and the auction price drops. Visit the website for more rules, and please… obey them!

We walked around the town for a bit, and really, nearly everything was closed. This tamago shop is open. While Mathias was lining up for the tamago, I was busy taking photos, and when I was done, I turned around, and eh? how come Mathias beside me with no tamago? What happened to queuing up for it? He said he suddenly doesn’t feel like it… aiseh….

In case you’re wondering, the whole block is made of eggs, just that they have different “flavours”.

So since the market is closed, let’s move on to our next destination then.

Mat seems like quite an expert at taking the subway now, after 2 weeks in Japan.

Our next stop is Omotesando. If you’re loaded with lots of money, this is the place!

A 3 or 4 story Louis Vuitton

Both sides of the street is lined with big fashion names like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry… you name it.

This next picture has nothing to do with fashion (but then again, maybe it has). I was busy taking pictures of the streets, when suddenly Mat whispered to me, “honey, there’s a man carrying a Little Mermaid bag”. I was like, ” huh? Where where”… and saw this:

More images of Omotesando:

Burberry

This whole building is Ralph Lauren

And we saw a shop that we dare to go in! (and think we can afford spending money in)

Kiddy Land! WOO HOO!

This shop sells anything and everything cute. There’s hello kitty, snoopy, elmo, barbie, some studio ghibli merchandise as well. There are also boy’s toys as well, don’t worry.

And in the end, what did we buy?

NOTHING. (ai ya… we’re too big for these kind of thing already lah. Even if I buy, I also don’t know where to keep them. The black dust from studio ghibli is enough. And I’m not a fan of all these characters anyway).

3 full floors of Nike

Don’t think we should spend more time in Omotesando than we already have. Next destination, is also a perfect place for the eyes.

Harajuku.

If you come to Harajuku on a Sunday, you’ll see a lot of people dress up as cosplay (Costume play), normally as a manga or anime character. But because we came on a Monday, we only managed to see 2 or 3. But this is still a great place for people watching.

Harajuku Station

Cute tshirts. Look at the tshirts on the first column.

The 2nd: KFC and

3rd shirt: Sesame street. Notice where’s big bird.

If she’s dressing up as cosplay, I won’t be able to recognize which character:

 

Here, I received a call from my uncle (another uncle, not the one who lent us the iPhone), who lives and works in Japan. He just finished work and wanted to meet up for lunch. So we just sat down and watched people as we waited.

A very squirmy dog

And finally he arrived. He said he’s not familiar with Harajuku. So I told him, the last “city” that I want to see is Shibuya. And that’s the last city on our list to visit.

And he said he’s very familiar with Shibuya! AWESOME!

So we walked to Shibuya from Harajuku, and looked for lunch.

Somewhere in Shibuya

Randomly chose a restaurant. And this is what we ate:

And we talked and talked and talked until I forgot to take pictures of 2 more dishes that we ordered. Gomen Nasai.

Didn’t realize the time passed so quickly when there’s good company. Almost time for us to go to the airport. So I rushed my uncle and said, quick, I want to see the busiest crossroad in all of Japan.

I was told to take this picture because, this corner was used in a movie, is it Tokyo Drift? where the car drifted or something:

Some street in Shibuya

This building (next photo), all girls stuff (according to my uncle). He said, if you see a guy in there, he’s either ah kua, or he’s a pervert.

People…. Welcome to the most busiest crossroad in all of Japan!

You always see this busy zebra crossing especially in movies, or even commercials.

Just look at the amount of people!

This is the famous BIG SCREEN TV showing commercials, or any big announcements, etc…

This dog, is called Hachi. There’s a movie produced inspired by a true story. It’s a story about this dog, Hachi, who is very loyal to his master. Everyday, Hachi will wait in front of this train station to wait for the master to return from work, without fail.

So one day, the master, never returned from work (I shall not review why), but Hachi, continued to wait in front of the station, everyday, same time, without fail, in hope that his master will return.

If you do not wish to cry, don’t watch the movie.

And finally… a picture of me and my uncle! He said, he has never imagined taking a photo in the middle of Shibuya. Well… uncle, imagine no more!

And he HATES it when I call him uncle. He said he’s not that old to be called uncle. He’s actually only a few years older than me. Looks young to be my uncle right? Oh… and he’s single… anyone interested?… then you’ll be my AUNTY!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

We still had to go back to our hotel to get our luggage, and then off we go to the airport.

Using a 747 to go back. Wish it was the A380

Sigh~…. I miss Japan already.

It has indeed been a very adventurous holiday, at least for the both of us. It’s been challenging and fun to be travelling in a country where you don’t speak their language, no tour guide to tell us where to go, finding our own way through the maze of train networks, and getting lost a few times.

Of all the countries that I would go back again for a holiday, Japan is one of them. Maybe we’ll visit northern Japan next time.

Japan… we’ll be back!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my “Diaries of Japan” as I have enjoyed writing them ^_^

Domo arigato gozaimashita!

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