Tokyo Sep 2014

Took an extremely short holiday in Tokyo, from 18 to 21 Sep.  There are a few reasons why I took this holiday
(I) Because my Kris flyer miles are expiring.  I have chalked up >100k miles over the past few years flying to US and Germany, Scotland and China.  Although I have been taking holiday trips, such as Seoul and Taiwan, but it was always cheaper to take budget airline and SQ with friends.  Finally, Sep is my last chance to redeem, so I asked my friends and then my sister if anyone wants to travel for free, but got to pay for airport tax.  The airport tax came up to $760 for 2 persons for SQ to Tokyo.

(II) Because I wanted to "fix" my last day.  I have more than 3 weeks of annual leave that I wanted to clear instead of cash out.  With a trip planned, I can then negotiate with my boss to release me for the full length of annual leave.  In the end, I agreed to "extend" a week, but the week is only 3 working days, because my trip span over Thurs and Fri.    It makes him (my boss) happy, so the "trick" works.

I asked a few close friends before I turn the offer to WS and Yin.  It was Yin who eventually took up the offer.

Yin is not my usual traveling partner.  In fact, it was more than 20 years ago that we took a family trip together. 

I remembered that when Yin came back from Australia from her studies (maybe in our early 20s), she told me that she find our "姐妹缘分很浅", that we do not spend much time together.  I had never thought about it that way previously.  I told her that I don't feel so, that although we do not spend much time together, I feel that we were close at heart.  Now, almost another 20 years on, especially after this trip, I had to admit that we do lead rather parallel life styles.  So, this is a trip that I will always cherish.

On day 1, we were mostly spending time together.  From the check in, to breakfast, to chatting and watching movies on the plane, to making queries at the lost luggage counter, than to purchase and travel on the train to our hotel, grocery shopping at Shinagawa station, and finally check in, we spent a whole day just doing stuff together. 

I) Selfie at Changi

On the plane

On the train, without my luggage

On day 2, we took a day trip to Mt Fuji.  It is the very typical day trip, that covers Mt Fuji, Lake Ashi, Mt Komagatake, Hakone National Park, with return by bullet train to Tokyo.  I have done the same exact trip in 2004 with Joc, but as there is no better day trip than this one for Tokyo in this season, so I did this since Yin had never been to Tokyo.

When I went in 2004, it was a very misty day, so I didn't get to see the summit from the 5th station (the 5th station is where all tourist goes up to, any higher than that will have to access by foot).  This time round it was the same situation.  When we left the 5th station, while the bus was going down, the guide quickly pointed out to us that the mist had temporarily cleared and the summit was visible.  We got off the bus to take pictures.  In summer, Mt Fuji is actually dark reddish and brownish in colour.

At the 5th Station

"That's Mt Fuji summit!"

Notice that the mountain is reddish/brownish

After lunch, it was a short cruise on Lake Ashi

Next, we took the ropeway (cable car) to Mt Komagatake.  Again on clear days, we are suppose to be able to see Mt Fuji.  On our way down, we were told that a small speck of green in the sky was Mt Fuji.  The 2nd pic below is the enhanced version (using Instagram).

The day tour ends with taking the bullet train back to Tokyo.   It doesn't feel any different from other train when we are in it.  The difference is actually that it is traveling very fast, and it doesn't stop often, so it only took less than half hour for the return journey, compared to the 2+ hours by bus.

Again, I bought a postcard and mail it to Lynn:

That night, after dinner, while walking back to hotel, we realised that there was a much nearer way to our hotel, and thus this hotel is very accessible from Shinagawa station.  I will highly recommend this hotel to anyone who wants to visit Tokyo.  It has clean room, reasonably good service, good location, and not expensive too.

We stayed on the 32th floor, and this is the view from our room:

On day 3, we slept in, as we are only doing shopping that day.  We had early lunch at 11am.  I took picture of our lunch that day, because it was good.  The chawanmushi has vegetable in it, and the taste was special, which I like a lot.  The sashimi and the teriyaki eel are very fresh and tasty.

That afternoon, the initial plan was to only walk around Shibuya and Roppongi.  We got mostly beauty stuff, as there is great variety.

That evening, we ended up at Shinjuku too.   We went up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building Observatory which is on the 45th floor.

We were there almost too late, but we were extremely lucky to catch about a handful of shots of the sun setting.  Here are 4 very nice pictures from my humble smartphone :):

Beauty products that I bought for myself and others

A selfie of my clip earring

On Day 4, we took the limousine bus to the airport.  Breakfast consist of 2 drinks, a coffee and a fresh milk which I got from 7-11 the night before.  They both were yummy...

Home sweet home; a last selfie for the 2 of us..

Hopefully, we will travel again real soon.