let's get this over and done with before i forget everything, shall we?

i thought it should be a warning that i'm typing this while being very much hyped up about backstreet boys' coming performance in singapore LSKDJFKSDJF I WANT TO GO SEE MY PRETEEN OBSESSION GAH HOW NOSTALGIC AND AWESOME. you wouldn't believe the extent of collective fangirling my friends and i did during prisch, it was all kinds of fun sldkjfk

also, the number (and extent) of phantom readers have increased. i am amazed. am i seriously that intriguing, or are people just nosy? no, don't answer that. just continue to shock me by telling me that you were on my blog, and you didn't understand the japanese.

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平成２1年　６月20日　土曜日 (heisei nijyuuninen roku getsu nijyuu nichi doyoubi - 2009 20 june saturday) MIGHT BE IMAGE-HEAVY. oh well, a little too late. comment if you can't see the pictures.

i think i slept better during this trip than on any of my other trip - i usually suffer from insomnia for no good reason when i travel - though it was a little disconcerting to be so close to the ceiling, especially when the paint was coming off already due to the lack of maintenance. zhu and i had arranged to wake up at 9am the next day. i didn't even need an alarm; it was as bright as 10am when it was 6am and the girls were shuffling in and out but since i had no previous experience staying in a hostel and am socially inept i stayed in bed until virtually no one else was around except probably one girl still obviously sound asleep (other than zhu). dragged my luggage from under the bed and grabbed my toiletries, went to the toilet to wash up and take a quick shower. oh yeah, i had left my toothbrush with zhu the previous night, so i had to climb up to her bunk and groped around (LOL) for the toiletries. she remained asleep, no surprise there. remind me to talk about how amazingly clean the toilet is. or how the 2 of us were the only azns in the room.

i can't remember if i woke her up or she got up automatically, but either way i primped, and then sat and waited for her. meantime i spotted a free bed on the lower bunk at the corner, so i moved since it was convenient (and logical) to do so. i asked if zhu wanted to move there first, but she said she love sleeping in the upper bunk and she had a bigass luggage on top of the lockers right next to her anyways. i should have taken a picture of her luggage on the top of the lockers lolz.



taking a test-shot with my bigass camera while zhu primps. the lamp on the top of my bed is my best friend when we arrive back in the hostel after 9pm, when it's strictly light's-off. on the top of the lamp you can actually find the plug for all your electronic needs. i thought that was rather genius and useful. and yes, it is cosy. :D



one of the few reasons we prefer sakura hostel is the availability of an エレベータ (erebe-ta, ELEVATOR). omg, it is the best feature ever you can find in a hostel. especially when your room's located on the 5th storey. and that's the zhu returning the hairdryer to the reception with her trademark constipated face.

after much deliberation we decided to make our way to 上野公園 (ueno kouen, ueno park).

actually, the conversation was more like -
(previous night)
pea: so where shall we go tomorrow?
zhu: while we're still hyped up and energetic we should probably go to somewhere that needs a lot of energy and walking?
pea: oh, so let's go 大台場 (odaiba)? it looks like there are lots of activities there, then we can probably walk around 銀座 (ginza) and 新宿 (shinjuku) after that
meantime, computer screams: EH WE GO 大台場 (ODAIBA) WITH YOU ALL OKAY DON'T GO THERE FIRST WAIT FOR US WHINE WHINE WHINEEEEEE
pea: wah this person damn troublesome and annoying (types "NO WAY BYE!")
zhu: so how now?
pea: i'm hungry, let's go to the コンビーニー(konbini, convenience store)
zhu: okay!
(during the trip to the コンビーニー(konbini, convenience store))
zhu: so where shall we go tomorrow? does this have pork in it? (holds up random cup of instant noodles)
pea: i think so ley. wah lau very lazy ley let's start somewhere near lorr 上野公園 (ueno kouen, ueno park)?
zhu: i think there is nothing without pork or lard here. okay, maybe after that we can make our way to somewhere near like 秋葉原 (akihabara).
pea: kay (eats 明太子おにぎり (mentaiko onigiri) and drinks アイースチョーコ (ai-su cho-co, iced chocolate) from the vending machine)

... and so on the 2nd day we walked out of the hostel and made our way to 上野公園 (ueno kouen, ueno park).

our daily walk to the 駅 (eki, train station) looks like this:





the weekend 祭り (matsuri, festival) and their exorbitant offerings. plus, a cute japanese kid. show me an ugly japanese kid and i'll show you an uglier singaporean kid.



zhu's favourite 浅草寺 (sensoji).

with my fantastic sense of direction, we found ourselves in 浅草駅 (asakusa eki, asakusa station) pretty quickly (no lie) and located by consulting the almighty bilingual train map the train/s we had to take and proceeded to take the 電車 (densha, train).

can i just say this again - i love taking the japanese 電車 (densha, train), and i have utmost respect for the train conductors. in every 駅 (eki, train station) there is at least one train conductor present for every line, their responsibility is to make sure that every passenger has boarded the 電車 (densha, train), making it safe for the train driver to close the ドーア (do-a, doors) and during that time he would use his loudhailer to announce that the ドーア (do-a, doors) are closing. when a 電車 (densha, train) arrives he also has to announce the name of the 駅 (eki, train station), the line that the 電車 (densha, train) is travelling on, and where the 電車 (densha, train) is headed to - no it's not automatic. as soon as we reach the 駅 (eki, train station) both zhu and i proclaim our respect for the conductors.

we board the 電車 (densha, train), where i am fascinated by the ドーア (do-a, doors) that separate the cabins. i swore to open and close them at least once during this trip. which i didn't :(. we sat on the very comfortable seats - kinda like the ones in TIBS bus, but with much more padding. cue zhu's nonsense when they announce the next station ([次は、上野です、上野です] - tsugi wa, ueno desu, ueno desu. next stop, ueno station): "i thought they called my name! juliza~" ... because apparently 次は(tsugi wa) sounds like juliza.

the 電車 (densha, train) was awfully quiet with the exception of zhu's nonsense and my response to it. thinking back, i kinda miss the polite greetings every station, in which they thank you for choosing to take their train service.

and so we alighted at 上野駅 (ueno eki, ueno station). at this point in time we were really hungry, and so we attempted to follow the guide that zhu and i created after much research (which we started about 4 days before the trip...). and so we followed the direction to 上野公園, and we were greeted by shops and boutiques all around - which would bring us to our downfall later. but on the second day, we were still very sane, and we bravely walked past the shops and ignored the entire shopping centre that we walked out of when we exited the station, and crossed the junction. right in front of the junction there was a family restaurant which was standing only. the とろろざるそば (tororo zaru soba) and the cheap prices looked really inviting, but it was only our first day walking around and we wanted to make full use of the guide! so! we decided to ignore it and walked right into the streets which i believe led to アメ横. there were many restaurants around, but they were either full or expensive (or included pork -.-). so after walking one round feeling incredibly famished we decided to walk right back to the family restaurant.

in the family restaurant we stood outside and figured what we wanted to eat (zhu chooses from the fake food that they show outside and judges whether there's pork/lard in it by LOOKING AT FAKE FOOD no lie) and put our coins excitedly into the vending machine in which a small ticket comes out and we give them to the staff. when our food is done they call out our order and we respond appropriately. we had our food while standing at a counter, there was free flow of ice water, and my とろろざるそば (tororo zaru soba) was delish. so was zhu's カーレライス (kare raisu, curry rice) in which we assumed had no pork in it :D. after we're done with our food we realised we were the only female patrons in the restaurant... but as soon as we made that observation a girl walked in with her 彼氏　(kareshi, boyfriend).

we left the restaurant (they had a cool fake moving bowl of noodles outside with the chopsticks hovering up and down - it was what attracted us in the first place...) and crossed the road to get to 上野公園. the weather was rather warm, and so zhu whipped out her douche shades and looked like a douche in front of many japanese crossing the road.



上野です。 i am just a little obsessed with the roads and streets of tokyo. you'll see in the later posts, or in my photo albums.

we entered the 公園 by climbing up the steps (yay for wonderful comfortable sneakers!) and then we reached the map of the huuuuge 公園 - botanical gardens would be jealous. we decided not to bother about going anywhere aka we decided to get lost. there was 上野動物園 (ueno doubutsuen, ueno zoo) which was rather famous but i read somewhere on the net that it sucks. DAMMIT i shouldave known that arashi was there... and that the zoo episode from hyd was shot there (i think?! idk, idc really) i would have paid the hefty price of i forgot how much and went in to see the pathetic state it was in anyway！私大ファンですから！!!

we had a romantic date in the park where zhu spots humongous crows and cute little doggies being taken for a walk and many 恋人 (koibito, lovers)... i am envious that they stayed in japan where such a large space exists for them to have a date. and it wasn't the only park around either. what do we have? ... sentosa/botanical gardens. oh how novel and romantic.





we were 10 minutes in and we hardly reached the centre of the park, where many things were supposed to be happening. at some point in time a guy assembled his stuff around getting ready to perform what i assumed was magic (NINO NINO NINO). up to this moment there weren't many people around and we were wondering where the crowd that guidebooks claim to exist in the park on weekends was. after walking about 20 to 25 minutes (not exaggerating here) we reached the liveliest place in the park! there were 外人 (gaijin, rude way of calling foreigners) performers doing their thing at one corner while speaking in their very accented japanese. really adorable. we walked on and got lost even more.



i also stalked little baseball players. 可愛い～～～～

we walked until we reached the location where there were many museums. YES, in this park they have a zoo, a few museums, a baseball court... i believe we also passed by a temple.

zhu: so how you want to go into any of the museums? i anything <- common phrase
pea: i also anything you want to go then i go lorr
zhu: is it free?
pea: i dont know ley. actually i very lazy and im not that interested
zhu: yah me too. okay let's walk somemore

i gotta say that at this place we walked past many high school students aka guys and girls in their uniforms AKA DAMN CUTE OMGZZZZZZZZZZZZ i died a little inside /flail

we got a little bored of the park so we decided to venture out a little and consulted the almighty map. we were near some cemetery (well, according to the map) that some online guide claimed was "F-KING COOL" (their words i swear) because some shogunates were buried there. i thought it was rather cool too, visiting the grave of some ancient guys and so we set off. i bought a chocolate soft-serve which was sold out of a van where the guy just puts a pack of liquid inside some small appliance which looked like your hot water dispenser (sorry cant remember what it's called someone enlighten me) and it came out on my cone as soft-serve. cool!



we also passed by groups of people which looked like a church. at first i was wondering what they were doing - the person on the pseudo-pulpit looked and sounded like he was praying, and so i thought it was perhaps a church field trip? but the church was actually feeding the many homeless who call the park their home.



we ventured out a little. I LOVE SMALL LITTLE JAPANESE STREETS LIKE THIS.

actually, we ventured out a lot. in actual fact, the shogunate cemetary was located near another train station 日暮里 (nippori). we just walked straight down and during this time we explored the life of the typical japanese and i was really excited crossing and walking down the tiny streets of tokyo (omgz cant believe im in freaking touuukiiiiyooo! lksjdkfsdf) passing by the tiny backdoors of really lovely but cramped houses and shops and polite japanese walking about and nobody jaywalking even when there were no cars around and the street was tiny like your typical zebra crossing. zhu declared that she would like to exchange to japan (大成功！！！！ conversion successful). she also said that her mom would love it in japan because there were many people biking around. i commented that woodlands also had a lot of people biking around; she might want to consider moving to woodlands.

after much walking around and consulting the almighty map ("okay after this street we take a left turn then a right turn"... and we end up not following our own directions) we reached the cemetery. it was a big disappointment it was so boring. it was probably huge among the japanese though, there were many elderly tourists around.

no pictures, because zhu was afraid i would catch an extra xiongdi on film. i wanted to take a photo but she exclaimed "OMG YOU NOT SCARED AH LATER GOT EXTRA HEAD". oh ok.

there were many doggies being walked here too. very peaceful and nice cemetery though, i think we got bored before we found the shogunates, lol. we sat down at the resting area. we decided to go back to the park. so we walked back.

didn't go to the zoo. the 外人 performers changed corners to perform at. we sat down at the park. there were cute couples around. envious. got bored. walked out of the park.

we walked down アメ横, where zhu bought her very first pair of shoes which were admittedly the cheapest around! many パチンコ (pachinko) parlours and game centers. asked zhu whether she wanted to walk down the food streets where they were selling food... we started for a bit and then changed our mind. juliza would come to regret it later -.- i didn't find my レーンブーツ (rainboots)！ :(

my contacts were getting quite dry possibly due to the weather so i decided to go get an eyedrop or something and we went into a watson-like store. we looked around and couldn't find it even at the 'eye' area and so zhu asked the shopkeeper in her engrish ("eyedrop? eye?"), he answered in japanese which zhu didn't understand and i answered him kinda rudely lolzzzzzz i was really bothered by my contacts. and we found out it was actually in front of the counter. there were many varieties (like many other things in japan T_T) and i chose the one that was pink. :D

there was a - i think it's a デーパ地下 (depachika, the basement of a departmental store usually selling food) - and zhu got led by her sense of smell to buy chilli sotong lolzzzz. actually, i think she wanted しゅうまい (shuumai, siewmai) but the stuffing was pork so we got chilli sotong instead which was DELICIOUS. the uncle also v friendly :D

i realised im very rude. need to brush up on my polite japanese. we wanted chopsticks and i just asked "箸。。。" (hashi) and he got it for me anyway. SO RUDE OMGZ.

we got bored and decided to head to 秋葉原 (akihabara). oh before that, zhu bought some useless bouncing toy for her baby.





am also kinda obsessed with trains in japan.



the only picture i took in 秋葉原! because sadly, we were enclosed in a single huuuuge mall for the rest of the day and we incurred much damage from there. i should warn you. it's called ヨドバシカメラ yodobashi kamera, it's like sim lim square except it's much, much more dangerous. there were 7-8 levels in there of electronics. THEY HAVE EVERYTHING. zhu bought lots of nonsense. i didn't, i mean, i'm such a rational shopper. i didn't spend a fortune there.

when we finally and reluctantly left ヨドバシカメラ because they were closing it was dark and we were hungry. we wished nxy all the best trying to explore 3 areas in one day - we only did 2 and in 秋葉原 we were only in ヨドバシカメラ ROFL. we didn't get to the electric city where the creepy お宅 otakus and zhu's favourite メードカーフ maid cafes and many other geeky stuff were! big regret. stupid ヨドバシカメラ. we walked around to find places to eat by using our created tokyo guide but halfway we gave up and went into a 中華 chinese restaurant. while deciding what to eat and taking very long because zhu needed to know whether there were pork in it we kind of chased a few salariman away, lol. there were only counter seats so we sat there and had a very deep discussion about the cute guys across the counter and whether the restaurant staff were chinese national. deep.

by then we were completely zonked so we went back. stuffed our plunder into the lockers and went to the common room to hang out. went for our daily trip to the conbini. zhu had her mentaiko. we sat around while zhu went online using her phone. went to sleep.

IT WAS THE MOST PRODUCTIVE DAY OF OUR 10-DAY TRIP.

Labels: let's all learn (how to abuse) japanese, let's get lost: tokyo