Tokyo 08 - Asakusa

We arrived at Sensoji temple in the late afternoon. Sensoji is one of the oldest temple in Tokyo (build in year 628), and it is only a minute walk away from the Metro Asakusa station.


Theres a stretch of shopping arcade between Thunder Gate and Sensoji temple, i guess one can say that the road to spiritual cleansing involves abit of shopping (kidding!). This would also be a good place for some snacks and souvenirs.


After braving the crowds and temptations (of food and stuff), we finally arrived at Sensoji.


Painting on the ceiling.
Some of the ladies would come dressed in Kimono (I think those are 'Yukata', the summer version of Kimono to be more accurate).

And i was fortunate that these 2 ladies were friendly enough (and English literate enough) to take a picture with me.


We dine in one of the restaurant in Asakusa, but ran into a problem, the plastic model shown outside of the restaurant wasn't in the menu (at least we couldn't find any picture in the menu that resembles it).

Dine-in tips 2: Some of the restaurants would have plastic food models presented outside their restaurants, but it may not be shown on the menu, so what did I do? Ran outside the restaurant, took a picture of the plastic model with my 6 megapixel, and showed it to the waitress.

And this is the actual image i showed to the waitress.

And the actual food served.

Tokyo 08 - Akihabara

Late morning on the 1st day, Aug 13rd, we arrived at Akihabara (aka electric town). I wasn't really kin on visiting computers/technologies related stuff during my holiday, but I thought it would be cool to have a feel of the contrast between Akihabara and our Singapore's Sim Lim Square.

It was crowed, since the time we arrived, blame it on the summer holiday?
This is probably a good "one stop shop" to get everything you ever wanted relating to electronic accessory, but i didn't find the price to be attractive though, I could probably find cheaper products in Singapore for some of the items I sampled (SD cards/eeePC).


And this is why Japanese's shop have long vertical billboard, because if they run the 1st level, they would also be running the rest of the levels in the building. The following picture shows the different 'categories' in the different levels of a single anime shop.

The same holds true for many adult novelty shops too :)


Akihabara is also recently known for their maid cafes.
At around 3pm, the 'maids' would start going on the street giving pamphlets to would be customers.


And so we decided to visit one of the cafe :)

I don't think i'll be writing about the experience here, speak to me to hear about it instead :)
And I got a picture with one of the kawaii maid :)

Tokyo 08 - Tsukiji Sushi breakfast!

1st day in Tokyo, Aug 13rd, we set out to the station at 930AM and got onto a train on metro line to Tsukiji for sushi breakfast.

We got a day pass for 1000yen (12SGD) which allows unlimited train ride on both Toei & Metro line for a day.

And the crowds (or the lack of it) at 930AM, I don't wanna find out how it'd be like during rush hour.
After a short 5-10min ride, we arrived at Tsukiji station.


The entrance to the Tsukiji outer market. This is where you can probably get the freshest sushi in the world! The Tsukiji central market is where the bidding take place from 5am onwards, it's within walking distance from Tsukiji station, but Tsukiji shijo is the station you want to stop for shorter walking distance.


Seafood galore!


As none of us speaks Japanese, the easiest way to dine-in is to look for eating place with picture illustration of their set meal, and Sushizanmai provided just that. Getting seats was as easy was just rising 3 fingers, which means table for 3. Ordering food involves pointing at the picture on the menu with one finger, and showing the quantity with another.


I gotten the sushi assortment for 3000yen (38SGD). This would probably be the best sushi i've ever eaten in my life! Don't bother with wasabi or any other additives, those would just take away the taste of ocean freshness.


And finally, if the bill isn't available yet, just make a cross "X" sign with both index fingers to ask for the check.