Tokyo 2012: Day 1 & 2

Off to Tokyo! Why waste a super long weekend right? So I flew off straight after an early reunion dinner.

My, was my first day exhausting. I didn't really sleep much on the plane or at all (no, not because I wanted to catch as many movies as I wanted, but I couldn't get to sleep) and didn't sleep till like 2am the following night. That's almost 40 hours without proper rest! Haha, I could practically take a seat and doze off at any time at some point. Anyway, what exactly did I do to warrant such fatigue?

Once we touched down, we took the Narita Express to Shinjuku. The limousine bus to our hotel doesn't run till afternoon, so we had to take that. Those planning to take the Narita Express should consider buying the "N'ex + Suica" package where you can buy the N'ex ticket and Suica card (like our Ezlink) for ¥3,500 (one-way) or ¥5,000 (two-way). The Suica card would come with a stored value ¥1,500 and is very useful for getting around the city via The JR line. You can find out more from the Narita Express website where I found out this good deal.

Anyway, when we reached the hotel, we couldn't check in yet, so we left our luggage there and went for an early lunch at our "usual" tempura shop.

We also took a short turn at Tokyu Hands at Takashimaya which was very near our hotel. I couldn't resist buying a number of Tintin file folders and some other cute stationery. After that, we went to check in and quickly rushed off to try to get tickets to watch a K-pop concert. This was quite off-the-fly in a way even though V had intended to catch it but we didn't get tickets. We tried our luck at the venue where we asked around for people selling tickets. No, not really black market stuff and we found someone who was willing to let go of pair at cost. So there! We secured our tickets for my first K-pop concert, the "YG Family Concert in Japan".

The YG Family is the entertainment company that manages groups Big Bang and 2NE1 and also other artistes like Gummy, Seven and PSY. Well, I'm not a fan of K-pop, but I was game to experience the glitz and ra-ra which I knew it would pack. And indeed! It was a very enjoyable concert as I fell under the spell for 4 hours with the flashy lights and catchy beats. You fall into a mindless high, dancing along with the songs. We practically stood for the whole 4 hours. Well, I must admit that the singing wasn't great as there were parts that you knew they were out of tune, especially the group segments, but it was still fun. And my, were most of the boys pretty. I felt that Tablo's songs were quite nice and Gummy was one of the better female singers (she reminded us of Tanya Chua). There was even a special appearance of Tetsuya Komuro playing the piano, a famous composer from Japan, as Gummy sang a cover of "Departures", a song he composed for Globe.
After the concert, I realised that it was actually quite an expensive concert at 12,800 yen. Wow! That like S$200 plus!

I was really tired after all that standing and lack of sleep, plus hunger was setting in as our last meal was the tempura about 9 hours ago. We were simply too tired and the shops were closing anyway, so we settled at getting cup noodles and oden at the Family Mart just opposite our hotel.

 

That was about 10pm or so I think and by the time we ate, bathed and dilly dallied a bit, we were totally concussed. V had to wake up early to go for her 1-week Jap class but I dazedly slept till 12pm. Ha! I had intended to wake at 9am but that obviously didn't happen.

Anyway, we decided to take it easy the next day and just walked around Shinjuku a little bit after lunch. It was raining anyway so the mood for shopping wasn't that great plus we started out late. I must get up earlier the next day! But I did buy more stationery and bought a heat tech camisole and scarf at Uniqlo, plus some items friends asked me to help them get. Dinner was again oden from Family Mart as we wanted to go back early. Guess what! I believe it started snowing not long after we got back. We would have missed it if I hadn't saw on the TV news that it was snowing, by which we gathered at the window to see it.

My first snow in Tokyo I believe (saw some forgettable ones in Fukouka and lots in Hokkaido before though). Hope tomorrow will still be snowing so that we can touch it.

Ok, so that's it for the 1st two days in Tokyo. Good night.