TR--Girls' Trip to Asia---Next Stop: Japan!--updated 10/16--Day 15 --TR Finished

[belle2211]

We got up in the morning and packed up. Then we went downstairs for breakfast in the ryokan.

A picture of a decoration in the hallway.

The girls took a picture in their robes out on their patio

I had the Japanese style breakfast which was eggs, steamed salmon, some type of vegetable, white rice, broth soup, tea, and wasabi seaweed crackers. We asked for orange juice too.

Then we took the bus to the Imperial Palace, which is where the Emperor lived when Kyoto was the capital of Japan.

We took a tour and again, I needed something more stimulating. I would have rather taken pictures and read signs on my own and be done in 30 minutes than go on a 1 hour tour. But I'm always like this on travel. By the end, I think Rebecca and Vuong were bored too.

Then we took the bus to the Rokuonji Temple, better known as the Golden Temple. This was soo pretty.

It was raining the whole time..good thing we had umbrellas.

There was this place where you could try to throw coins into this hole or bowl to make a wish, and after a couple of tries, I was the only one in our group to make it in a hole.

There was also a place to buy a fortune on a piece of paper. The directions said you could only keep certain ones. Mine was only "Quite Good" so I had to throw it away. It was fun! (I thought the a couple pieces of advice were funny like the travel one (Take it easy--yeah right since we were on the go for the whole trip!)...And the the marriage one...It was good advice...if I got proposed to again, I had better keep it a secret since I'm already married!)

Travel Club!

We ate lunch at Kinugasa Zen. I had "Tendon" which was rice with tempura shrimp, green bean, mushrooms, carrots, and eggplant. It was really good!

Up next, the food market

 

[Annabell]

Love your trip report. Thanks for posting !

 

[belle2211]

Love your trip report. Thanks for posting !

Thanks!

 

[belle2211]

We headed over to the food market. We found a place that had grilled oysters so Meredith got one and Vuong and I each got two. They were HUGE and were possibly the best oysters I've ever had.

Vuong and I also split this thing that had 2 scallops, a clam and something else (we weren't sure what it was)...so good! I really wish I could find a place like that here.

We shopped around some and we all bought a kimono! (well, Vuong bought hers yesterday). Mine is purple with different color purple flowers and a big ombre purple bow for the back. We also got these pretty hair clips. I wanted to find shoes too but I couldn't find them for cheap enough. We decided to wear them to dinner one night.

Then we caught a cab back to our ryokan to get our bags and headed to the train station. We got our tickets for the train ride home. We also saw a sign for a delay due to "Human Damage Accident". We learned that a lot of people committ suicide by jumping in front of trains so thats what the delays are sometimes. So sad!

We each grabbed some food to take on the train. I got a glazed donut from Mister Donut, a pork and brie cheese sandwich on sesame seed bread, some kind of chese chips and a coke. I also grabbed a cream puff from Papa Beards (or something like that.) It was sort of Snickerdoodle-ish on the outside. Apparently they have them in California. It was soo good!

The girls grabbed something from Cafe Du Monde. We went there together in New Orleans and thought it was funny to see over here.

We headed to our train.

On the train, Meredith and I had some cold sake. It wasn't as horrible as I remembered but it was still rough.

We walked to our hotel, the Dai-Ichi Hotel. The city was so busy and bright, even at 9pm. It reminded me of NYC. Our hotel was soo nice. And our key reminded me of a key from Tower of Terror.

Our room was HUGE by Japanese standards. I had seen so many pictures of rooms with just one bed in a tiny space. Ours had 2 beds, a dresser and a sitting area. It was just me and Cori in our room.

And the bathroom was HUGE too. And so cute!

We dropped our stuff off and headed to McDonalds for a late night snack. I got a medium fry and a chocolate sundae. The fries tasted normal but the sundae just had chocolate sauce, not hot fudge.

We stopped by a local restaurant with meat on a stick for Vuong. They had some of the weirdest meat I have ever seen. This may be too much information, but they had pork diaphragm, tongue, heart, liver, intestines, and rectum! Eww! Then we headed to the room for the night.

Up next, Day 12 and the fish market.

 

[PrincessInOz]

I was positive that I posted about how cute your friends looked in their kimonos and about the beautiful Golden Temple....but that post seems to have not made it on the Dis.

Loving the food porn...although I think I would have passed on all that 'offal' meat!
I know you've caught the train out of Kyoto....are you back in Tokyo now?

Thanks for sharing.

 

[pandv_2000]

Really enjoying your TR - it is getting me VERY excited for our upcoming trip

 

[belle2211]

I was positive that I posted about how cute your friends looked in their kimonos and about the beautiful Golden Temple....but that post seems to have not made it on the Dis.

Loving the food porn...although I think I would have passed on all that 'offal' meat!
I know you've caught the train out of Kyoto....are you back in Tokyo now?

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks! And yes, we got back to Tokyo to check into the hotel.

Really enjoying your TR - it is getting me VERY excited for our upcoming trip

Thanks! You're going to have so much fun!

 

[belle2211]

This morning we got up and headed to the fish market. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. I thought it would be like Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco where they cook all the shrimp and oysters and fish right there but it wasn't. It was mostly for people to take home or back to their restaurants to cook.

Oh and random. Early on, we had learned this one sign for "Exit" and was probably the only thing we could understand the whole time we were there.

First there was the wholesale place where chefs buy food. The ground was dirty and we came home with mud on the backs of our legs.

The place for the public was pretty crowded and there were a couple of places to buy food. I had a pork dumpling

and fried squid.

Then we stopped in Suzhizanmai.

I had cooked snow crab (really good),

sweet shrimp (mushy and not so good),

and amberjack (first time trying this. It was raw and good). The rice had wasabi in it, so I didn't like it. The best was Meredith's eel!

On the walk back from the fish market, we stopped at Mos Cafe. I got a mint chocolate cupcake. The cake part was okay but the frosting was really good.

We came back to the room to take a quick nap while Meredith and Rebecca figured out what we were doing next. Here are some shots of our hotel lobby.

Up next...later that night

 

[PrincessInOz]

Ooooh....you went to a WET market. That's a lot of seafood on display. And I love eel (unagi) sushi too. That would have been delish in Japan!

 

[belle2211]

Ooooh....you went to a WET market. That's a lot of seafood on display. And I love eel (unagi) sushi too. That would have been delish in Japan!

It was!

 

[belle2211]

We headed to this toy store to buy Sumo tickets for Sunday. They were about $60USD each. We also got this candy set (it makes these gelatin shapes like hamburgers or sushi and panda faces), a fizzy candy, and a corn snack that the cashier said was really popular. I got the cheese one and it tasted like a giant cheeto.

We took the subway to 100% Chocolate Cafe. This was on a reccommendation from a Disbride friend. It was soooooooo good!

I got a ShariShari Chocolat Milk Vanilla (which was like frozen hot chocolate) and a Chiffon Chocolat Cake with Plain Cacao frosting.

I also got 2 squares of chocolate for me- Mint and Cheese (sounds interesting)

and 4 ones from Japan for mom. But there are 56 different flavors from around the world!

We took the subway back to the hotel to drop off our chocolate goodies then headed to the Electroincs district. This was so weird. There would be whole souvenier type shops but with things like phone cords and camera cords. There were also a lot of girls in their late teens and early twenties dressed up like little girls from Anime trying to get men to go to their shows. We also went to the Anime shop. I knew that Kory really like a couple of anime shows and I wanted to get him a shirt but I couldn't remember which one. I tried calling him but it was like 3am back home and he didn't answer. So I finally found a list of anime shows online and scrolled through them and Naruto sounded really familiar so I got him a shirt from that show. (It turned out that I was right.)

Earlier in the week, Vuong had gone off on her own in the city because she's not a Disney fan and she became friends with some girls who worked at Hooters. She wanted us to meet them so we took the subway to the Hooters. I had wings, fries, and Budweiser in a bottle. Vuong had also befriended the manager so he sent over these melon shots. Cori tried it but she doesn't drink so I finished it for her.

We took a subway to Shubiya which is like the Times Square of Tokyo. The sidewalks were so crowded but I loved all the lights.

We went into this multi-level store called 7 Days Bargain and it was CRAZY!! The music was loud and the girls working there were yelling and banging to get you to come in. The clothes were cute but too young and expensive for us.

After shopping for a while we hopped on the JR train and went back to the hotel room.

Up next...a day of shopping and fun

 

[PrincessInOz]

Chocolate, Vampire Dining Bar, Hooters, Chicken Wings and Naturo. What more could this reader ask for?





Did you go into that Vampire Dining Bar? I'm curious to know what they served....Blood Orange Vodkas??


Love the chocolate shots.

 

[belle2211]

Chocolate, Vampire Dining Bar, Hooters, Chicken Wings and Naturo. What more could this reader ask for?





Did you go into that Vampire Dining Bar? I'm curious to know what they served....Blood Orange Vodkas??


Love the chocolate shots.

Everything was amazing! And no, I wanted to check the vampire bar out but I was out-voted. Boo!

And lets just say that I returned to the chocolate shop two more times!

 

[belle2211]

Today we got up and me, Meredith and Cori ran 6 miles while Rebecca did her C25K training. We ran around the Imperial Palace and some gardens. I was soo tired but we did it! We went back to the hotel and got dressed and headed back out to the Imperial Palace to walk around and take pictures. My feet hurt and I didn't want to do this but oh well. On the way there it started to rain. I realized I had lost my umbrella. I thought I had left it in the Lawson's store that we had stopped at on the way. I was so mad at myself. Thankfully, Meredith shared her umbrella. I felt so bad though. And I was definitely soaked. Luckily I had decided to wear my hair curly after the run anyways. We took some picture of the gardens, flowers and waterfall.

We were tired so we decided to take the subway back. But no. Dumb old me left my ID, credit card and subway card in my armband from running back in the hotel. Now I was totally pissed at myself and felt even worse about incoveniencing everyone. It was such a long walk back. Turns out that I didn't leave it in the store, I left it in Meredith, Rebecca, and Vuong's room.

We got our stuff and headed out for lunch. Meredith and Vuong went to a standing sushi place (where you stand to eat) and Rebecca, Cori and I went to McDonalds. I got a Big Mac, Fries and Coke.

Then we took the train over to the shopping district. Apparently there are religious groupies there too because right when we got off the train, we saw a guy with a big poster preaching.

Meredith stopped at The Gindago to get Takoyaki, which is like cut up pieces of squid mashed into a ball and fried. They were really good.

We shopped around some. The weirdest store we saw was called C*nd*mania. (I put the * so I don't get bleeped out). It had all sorts of weirdly shaped "protection" if you get what I mean. I have pictures but I don't think I'm allowed to post them.

The main street was called Harajuku Street.

I got some khaki shorts at H&M and at another store I got a t-shirt with the Disney princesses making funny faces. Then I got a chocolate dipped ice cream cone

And we shared banana donuts from Tamagotchi

We also saw a protest parade about No More Nukes.

Oh yeah, here's a picture I took later of the place with the really good cream puffs

Up next...our evening

 

[belle2211]

We decided that we loved the 100% Chocolate Cafe so much that we wanted to go back. Plus Vuong wasn't with us the day before ( I don't remember that she wasn't with us, but that's what I wrote in my journal). So we hopped on the train and headed over . I just got an Iced Chocolate Drink. It tasted like straight chocolate. Yum!

We took the train home. On the way, Cori and I stopped to look at the wedding floor in the hotel. We saw a Japanese wedding hall, a dress, and the planning room.

At Disney at home, you can have characters visit you like Mickey & Minnie. Well, at this hotel, you could have Mr. and Mrs. Hello Kitty!

Then we all watched a You Tube video of how to put kimonos on and then we all got dressed in ours! We put on our kimonos, bows, and hair clips, did our hair in buns and did our makeup. It was so cute and one of my favorite memories of the trip.

We walked over to have dinner at Tofuro in the rain. We got lots of looks but I liked that.

To drink I had a Coke and Meredith and I shared a Pop'n Fruit which tasted like a Watermelon Wine Cooler.

Then I had 3 oysters au gratin. They were oysters with cheese and potato on it. They were so good that I wish I had just ordered more of those for dinner.

But I also ordered seasonal vegetable tempure (not so good)

and Meredith and I split two rolls- a sweet shrimp one and a conger eel one. The eel was really good.

I also had a couple of pieces of sashimi from Meredith and Vuong's boat.

The restaurant was really cute. It looked like you were sitting on mats on the floor, but there was still room to put your feet down.

Then we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Up next, Sumo wrestling!

 

[PrincessInOz]

WOW! You all look stunning in your kimonos. Were they expensive to buy?

And what great food you've eaten.

 

[belle2211]

WOW! You all look stunning in your kimonos. Were they expensive to buy?

And what great food you've eaten.

Thank you! They weren't too bad...about equivelant to $50 US dollars for the set!

 

[belle2211]

Today we got up and stopped to grab breakfast at McDonalds. I had an egg Mcmuffin, hashbrown and orange juice.

We jumped on the train to Hakone. Meredith, Cori and Rebecca went to the hot springs there. I really wanted to go but you had to be completely nude and I'm not willing to do that. You can't even wear a bathing suit. I get that it's tradition but I was pretty mad that I wasn't allowed to go wearing one.

Vuong and I just walked around the city. We wanted to take the skybullet thing to see Mt. Fuji but it would take too long. We decided to walk to Odawara Castle. Along the way we almost stepped on a snake! It freaked us out

The castle was pretty but for some reason since it said "castle", I was thking it would look like a fairy tale castle. Silly me and my Disney-ness. Instead it looked like a normal Asian structure.

A picture outside the grounds

And there were cute monkeys!

Pictures of the castle

Looking out the top of the castle

We walked up then down the castle and headed back to the train station. Along the way I had to take a picture of this random sign, but hey! It was Disney-ness!

And I had to stop at Baskin Robbins for my new favorite flavor, Choco Mint Cookie Chum

We walked a little more then sat at the train station in the Starbucks for a little while. The other girls almost missed the train. We took it to Nagoya to watch a Sumo tournament. It was really neat. We didn't understand a lot of what was going on. We wished we understood the language so that we could get the background of what was happening. But the matches went pretty quick. And there were a few non-Asian sumo wrestlers.

There wasn't much food available so I had this chicken stick. It wasn't too good.

There was a really skinny Sumo wrestler!

At the train station we had dinner. I had a spaghetti salad thing. I don't normally like red sauce but by this part of the trip I was kinda sick of Asian food so this hit the spot.

On the train ride back, we lost power for a minute. The lights flashed and the train stopped. People who worked on the train were running up and down the aisles. I had this image in my head of the train behind us crashing into us. It was pretty freaky and we never did find out what happened.

We got home to change and then went to head back out. Schayenne and her mom were coming in to drop off gift bags for us. She is soooo sweet! We also met Schayenne's uncle. Then we headed out to play Pachinko. It's got these little silver marbles/balls and it's like a slot machine crossed with pinball. We didn't really get it. The guys who worked there tried to explain but none of us understood. But it was fun and we won some new food snacks like a Crunky wafer.

Then we headed to McDonald's to have a late night snack of a vanilla ice cream cone.

Then we headed to bed for our last night in Japan.

Up next, our last day in Japan and the sad and not-so-fun ending of the trip for me

 

[DreamSweetsLove]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz View Post
WOW! You all look stunning in your kimonos. Were they expensive to buy?

And what great food you've eaten.
Thank you! They weren't too bad...about equivelant to $50 US dollars for the set!

Yukata are really affordable because it's a light summer kimono but if you don't go just before or during summer it will be difficult or impossible to find. Prices can range from around 30$ US to hundreds of US dollars. The cheaper ones come in a set but you can also buy the pieces separate at a nice department store. Kimono itself is much more expensive but you can probably find on at a decent price, around a couple hundred US dollars, at a second hand store but it's much harder to wear and care for.

 

[PrincessInOz]

I think I can safely say that I can stare at those Sumo Wrestlers all day...especially the skinny one.