Some photo updates...

Room which Stuart and I are bunking in now... (tatami setting on the left and western bed on the right)


Porter bags which are selling like Outdoor bags...



A visit to Tsukiji in the early morning... (tuna fishes lining up like torpedos)



Very trusty sushi restuarant at Tsukiji



Wasabi plants



A festival at Asakusa







Nice butt during the festival


Oh yes, and we went to a baseball game...(Tokyo Yakult Swallows VS Chiba Lotte Marines) Game went on to extra time...







Cheerleaders guiding on the 'umbrella' dance during halftime...



Uncle trying to get his own slice of Maguro at Fuji


Our trusty 'Passo' at Fuji


Always some time to smell the roses...




Ah...this is a nice drink we would recommend

Yokohama 7 June 2008

And so, we finally visited Yokohama.. Today was a rest day after Marco left.. and we slept in late and was able to reach Yokohama only around 5pm.. Takin' the Hibiya line to Naka-Meguro, we had to swap to the Japan Rail line there and took about an hour to reach the 2nd largest city in Japan!

Very populated in deed as the moment we stepped out of the train, there was a sea of people heading in all directions. Quite reminded me of Shanghai Railway station where the crowd was just overwhelming...

Our first shots of Yokohama..
The Mazda RX8 is for Hao. Can consider doing that to yours.. tasteful and very eye-ball grabbing!

The cityscape struck me as greyish and industrial like. Until we reached Chinatown when things got more colourful!



Oh yes.. en route to Chinatown, we visited basement of Sogo in search of a money changer.. pretty low on funds now as we have been spending quite some at UniQlo on clothes the day before. We got distracted (as usual...) by the supermarket there and made a round there to do some food sampling! Great timing as our mouths were gettin' itchy already after our plain-jane soba lunch at Naka-Meguro station. There goes some hunger-inducing photos below! Enjoy. we did.



And finally in Chinatown at 715pm. Was supposed to meet Tom, my dad's buddy from Chicago, who's been in Japan for the past 10 years, at The WindJammers pub. Amazingly, we walked past the place without noticing it.. Thus we had to link up at a main police station nearby.

Chinatown's a Kirei (pretty) sight! Vibrant hues of colored neons signboards vying for our attention from the moment of entry through the gates. Rows and rows upon of restaurants, cafes, titbits stores selling food in a written language we finally could comprehend..



We had more of a craving for Japanese food than Chinese cuisine, thus Tom brought us to a nice little joint at Sakuragicho aka Nego. An old town with less crowd and buildings with more character.. The food there was amazing.. Especially the grilled beef and pork, consumed with a dash of wasabi. My! It was succulent. Photos ain't there for all the dishes we had as i conveniently forgot to capture them. The interior were of wooden fittings and natural wood themes and thus felt cozy, warm and very authentic. And throughout dinner, Ben and i bombarded Tom with plentiful questions on cultures and correct language usage.

This was by far the most expensive meal we had in Japan. And very graciously, Tom bought us dinner before showing us around some of the scenic night spots.



That's it! i'm hungry from writing about the great food we had today. And Ben's probably napping now and gettin' up at 3:30am for the Euro 2008 Portugal vs. Some Team.

Stuart - In the lounge area of Hoteiya using wifi with some soft jazz and classical music in the background.

First night at Hoteiya - 6th June

Our first nite at Hoteiya, near to Tokyo Backpackers which we moved out from. Tokyo Backpackers was a nice place.. New and modern. Good clean shower areas and 6 men dormitory.. price was reasonable at 2.1k yen/nite (S$27.40) but the catch was.. we have to leave the hostel from 11am-4pm daily as that was a compulsory lock out period for cleaning of the place. That's livable with for awhile.. but becomes a chore after that.

Hoteiya, just a few streets away, on the other hand is sited in an older, nondescript building. First impressions few days ago when we dropped by, wasn't very good as the interior design was dated. However, this is one great example of how first impressions can be misleading. Hoteiya is superb! Costing us now 1800yen/nite (S$23.50) in a private double room, with free 24hrs wifi in a no frills cozy lounge with great jazz and classical tunes playing in the background, an onsen and massage chair free of charge (btw. 4pm-10pm), a very friendly and approachable owner, Kiyama-san who's always willing to dish out tips on where to visit and answer all questions we have, no curfews and lock-out periods, a lift to the 3rd floor where we stay, a kitchen and yard to dry our clothes, free hot water, toasted tea (i guess it's rice tea) and green tea running from the vending machine, a tv in our room with live sports and some adult stuffs!.. we are very contented now! Apart from the further distance to Shinjuku and downtown areas, this place offers awesome value for budget travellers, or those who prefer to splurge on shopping! Highly recommmended on the Stuart's Backpacker Lodging List! Hoteiya's website is www.spocom.net.

Tonight we decided to fulfil our dinner at the supermarket! There's usually the daily discounts for Sushi/Dons/Sashimi nearing the end of the day.. However, we were a step too near closing time and much of the goodies had been snapped up, leaving only the more expensive stuff. Thus, Ben and i went for a Braised Pork, Omelette noodles which we heated up and was completely satisfying and cheap! we wanted to go a step further by gettin' some raw stuff and cooking but weren't sure whether woks and pans were avail in the kitchen. Maybe next time. We calculated that by cooking, we could have very good food for probably S$5-6/pax. We could each get a meal of rice with a choice of 3 huge scallops or 4 prawns and 6-7 pieces of spiced beef chunks! Or we could easily swap some vegies in for less costs. Some seafoods are really cheap here!

 

Btw, that's our room! Really tiny (Mel, you'd love to see this!) so it's not for the claustrophobic.. i sleep on the mattress which is layed down at nite and Ben takes the bed..

Stuart - satisfied with the home-made pork omelette noodles.

Romance of the Three Geishas - The Showdown

How will Weipeng recover from this defeat? Will he seek revenge on the geishas?

To be continued...

Coming to you this Spring 2008.

(Proudly brought to you by B&S productions - "Your Satisfaction, Our Commitment")

Finale of Mount Fuji..

 
Finally on our way down Mt Fuji, we gathered enough strength and braved the bitter freeze and chill to take more shots before heading down the mountain... to head for our much dreamt about destination, Onsen!

 

The fantabulousss Onsen at Mt Fuji! For 1000yen, it's for us to use for the entire day! Very traditional and flavourful. Complete with tatami mats and cushions, wooden flooring, zen style gardens and architecture.. too bad we only had an hour and a half before our car rental expires and we have to head back to the Kawaguchiko Station for our bus bound for Shinjuku, Tokyo... It was good though and the best onsen we had thus far..

Benny and Stuart (In his new Uniqlo top)
Relaxing in our new premises - Hoteiya at Minami-Senju.

Mount Fuji Part 3

The climb of Mt Fuji was rather spontaneous.. At 1045pm, we decided to climb it after gettin' inspired by our Aussie frens who did it the day before.. We arrived at 1230am at Stage 4, the maximum we could drive up to. Frankly, we were ill prepared in all ways. We didn't bring along thick clothing from Tokyo as we had read then that the weather was bad and not suitable for scaling Fuji until the season opens in July.. Our attire was minimal and made more for a night out in town than scaling snow-covered mountains.. We didn't bring much food either. Only 1 chocolate bar and 3 mini chocolate cakes.. Bad choice as the sub zero temperatures made us hungry easily and frequently.

As we had only thin clothing with us and 2 umbrellas as our walking sticks. All we could do was to improvise.. Fortunately we at least had our hats!

Marco used his face towel to cover his face from the howling winds and used his beach bermudas to keep his neck covered. Benny used his soft cotton bag to cover his head and neck and used socks as his gloves.. while i had plastic bags on as gloves, my face towel (held together by cable ties) keepin' my face and ears warm. Throughout the climb, it was moist and windy as we were in the midst of clouds all the time. Around 2300m up, we finally saw snow! It was our first time seeing snow and we were hyped up! but... slowly.. as we went along.. snow became our biggest obstacle..

Many routes were covered.. And we had to trek in snow.. worst of all.. our shoes were not made for this. Marco's and mine were jogging shoes while benny's were nike sneakers made for going to town. Thus, slipping and fallin' was not uncommon. The worst part of the climb was when we had to scale very steep slopes, probably up to 60 degrees steep. We were practically on our fours, hands holding the ice, most of the time as supporting structures like handles, chains and footpaths were covered in ice.. We couldn't reach them even if we dug into the ice. While trying to descent, Marco and i skied and fell quite a distance on the steep slopes during our 1st try.. We didn't know how to descent on snow! VERY VERY fortunately, we both managed to stop ourselves from accumulating more speed. Marco sustained some abrasions to his forearm while i was hit in the ribs when my umbrella broke when i tried to use it to control my descent. It got stuck in the ice, the handle broke off, hit my ribs and i skifell downwards for awhile. That gave me a shock. Wat if we had to keep fallin' all the way to make our descent?! That would be crazy.. Slowly, we experimented and found out that the best way to descent was on our butts and using our heels to dig in every step of the way. That technique worked.

Sometimes during the climb, i was thinkin' whether anything disatrous could occur as it could likely happen with such circumstances. There wasn't any other climbers too at that time so if anything were to happen, we were pretty much on our own. I'm sure these thoughts came to mind too for Ben and Marco. The 1 thing i learnt is that before doing dangerous trips, the minimum is to inform someone where we were going and our likely return date.


Well, we managed to see Mount Fuji's summit in all it's glory! Scenary was really breathtaking and we were wayyy above the clouds. So it was another Sea of Clouds view that we'd seen in Ermei-Shan. The air was crisp and cold.. And we could only rest for half to a minute at most as we lost body heat fast.

Midway between Stage 8 to 9, we had to make a difficult decision to turn back as the terrain was gettin' too dangerous. Snow was starting to melt as it was daybreak and deep inside, Ben and i were concerned about our possible avalanches.. unsure whether that could happen as we have zero snow trekking experience but we've seen that in Discovery Channel and the image sort of stuck in our minds.

Glad, we made it back down safely without sustaining much injuries. Both umbrellas, however did not.

Stuart

Mount Fuji 2

Us having some fun with the pyrotechnics that we bought from Ogino, a super market chain. This was at Lake Motosu right after catching a glimpse of Mt Fuji after 2 days of rain and cloudy weather hid it from us.





Prior to that we went trekking at Aokigahara Jukai (Sea of Forest), beside a bat cave, when it was slightly drizzling..
The hike brought us to a beautiful oasis that seemed empty.. no one's there but us..

Mount Fuji 2nd to 4th June...

That was Mt Fuji when we were arrivin' by coach... Very fortunate to have caught this view as the next 3 days were cloudy and drizzlin'... you'd be amazed how such a huge mountain can easily be hidden completely by clouds..







At Kawaguchiko Stn where most travellers drop off at Fuji.. We took turns driving and slept in the car during the night.. Cramped but a great way to save money and go off the beaten track..
Fuji is extremely easy to drive in and i encourage you to rent a car if you're visiting.. Get an MPV to sleep more comfortably at night.. then bathe in the day at an Onsen. You'll probably still save money compared to gettin' lodging and tranport separately.. Plus, you get to discover more interesting locations!

Us in Ogino... Loading up on pyrotechnics! Lookin' as fearsome as we could in the pic. Costed around 1300yen iirc. That's bout S$18.








Finally, the excitement boils over as we await dusk to let out the bombermen in us. Some of those lite up and burst into the skies with small fireworks around.. but our camera wasn't fast enough to capture them..

Tokyo City Tour

Been to many places in Tokyo, ah, new Japan, a big city filled with concrete buildings, much much shopping to do if you got lots of Japanese Yen to burn. Am actually quite sick of the city till I got to Harajuku today. A place where people indulging in cosplay gather. There is also a Meiji-shrine where Japanese weddings are held. This shrine is massive and comes with a garden.

Tomorrow, we are going back to nature, getting near to Mount Fuji. We will try to trek up Mount Fuji if the conditions permit. Well, it's a good break from the hustle and bustle of the huge city.

Marco