I just came back from a 5 days (Feb/23 - Feb/28) trip to Tokyo. It was really a fantastic journey!
Place I've been visited such as Ikebukuro (池袋), Shinjuku (新宿), Harajuku (原宿),
Shibuya (渉谷), Dai-Kan Yama (代宮山) and Karokuen (後樂園).
This is the third time I've been to Tokyo, previously I went to Japan by joining the travlling
services agency. So this is actually my first time been to Tokyo by my own, which is indeed not
really so difficult as one may imagined.
I am eager for the visit to Japan again, perhaps Hokoido (北海道) next time on Winter.
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I has been planning this trip since Jan 2005. A lot of things need to be prepared, such as:
- budget - Cash to exchange
- which Hotel
- where to go
- when to go
- new passport
- how many luggage
- ... what else?
Of course I can't work this out all by my own, in fact I've gather a lot of information from the
website, books and magazines. But most important of all, many hints and advices were given by my
friends -
Stephen,
Beverly
, who are really expert on Japan self-help travelling.
First Day Journey
My flight was Japan Airlines (JAL) and the boarding time was 09:55, so we (me & my girlfriend) need to get up early at about
05:45 and take the bus to airport, check-in 2 hours before the flight time.
This is our first flight on JAL, basically I am quite satisfied with the service, except for the plane
facilities, there isn't any entertainment (such as movie) at all. It's really hard to pass the 4 hours flight.
So the planed landed on Narita Airport (東京成田機場) at about 15:00 Japan Time.
Japan Time is actually 1 hour faster than Hong Kong, starting from here, any time specified will be in
Japan Time. By the time we've passed all the immigration counters, it was already 16:00, in order to save
our precious time so that we won't waste the evening, we therefore chosen to take the airport express train -
Skyliner (京城特急)
which cost us around $200 HKD each person.
This train is really fast, it just took us
50 minutes to Nippori (日暮里), where we need to
transfer JR train (山手線), then ride another 13 minutes
to Ikebukuro (池袋) where our hotel -
Sunshine Prince (池袋太陽城太子) resides.
The only disavantage of taking the Skyliner is that we needed to transfer JR at Nippori (日暮里) for
getting to Ikebukuro (池袋), where we must took all the belongings & luggages, go up and down stairs across
different platforms.
To my surprise, Tokyo was not so cold as expected, it is just as cold as Hong Kong when I left.
After getting out the crowdy JR station of Ikebukuro (池袋), we then walked towards the hotel, which is about
15 minutes away. So I finally reached the hotel and up to my room, at about 18:00.
Time is really running fast. After settle down all the luggages, we quickily head on our first site - Shinjuku (新宿),
where we took our first dinner in Japan - Sushi (迴轉壽司). Ichiban des!!
Unfortunately when we've done with the supper, it's nearly 20:00, the closing time of most shopping arcades. So we just wander
around the street desperately and decided to head back to Ikebukuro (池袋), we found that the MyCity besides the
Shinjuku (新宿) JR station will still opened till 22:30, it is an 5 storeys shopping arcades, thus we just spent
the rest of our time in it, then back to Hotel at about 23:15.
This is how my first day was gone. Click
HERE
for the second day journey.
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Skyliner Official Website
My digital self @ Shinjuku (新宿)
(Click to enlarge)
Hotel Main Entrance
(Click to enlarge)
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