Tokyo-Tohoku Tour Day 1 30th July 2008 WednesdayDepart Soen to Sapporo, and depart Sapporo on Hamanasu to Aomori @ 10pm.
Didn't sleep well coz the overhead annoucement kept saying that there was something wrong with the last 3 cabins (which I was in), and we will need to move to the other cars when we reach Hakodate at 2am plus.. So, didn't sleep well.. plus it was freezing cold on the train.. My fox Jacket kept my upper body warm.. but my legs were freezing.
In the end, nothing happened to the train either when we reached Hakodate.
It became warmed as Hamanasu cruised out of the Seikan Tunnel at 3.30am into Aomori and into daylight. Aomori bay was absolutely beautiful under the sunlight, reminding me that the last times I took the train, it was winter and sun rose at 7.30am.
Day 2 31st July 2008 ThursdayIf my train schedule had gone without a hitch, I would have reached Tokyo by 9.50pm, making it a nice 23 hours ride from Sapporo to Tokyo. Unfortunately, there was a Tohoku earthquake the previous week and as a result, trains between Morioka and Ichinoseki were either stopped or delayed. I made the 3 min rush from the Morioka JR line to Ginka line only to discover my train was cancelled due to the earthquake. The next train was 1 hour later. Deciding between riding Shinkansen to Ichinoseki and waiting for the next train, I chose to arrive Tokyo 1.5hours later to save money. Little would I have known, that, the next train delayed reaching Ichinoseki and I generally missed my next train.. Forget about coming up with new schedule and arriving Tokyo like 1am in the morning, I paid 3400yen for a Shinkansen and rode it @_@ into Sendai. Come on.. a 110min ride on a Local Train cut to 31min on Shinkansen. I'm addicted to it.. but gotta use my money wisely.
The remaining train ride was good, I had for a while, a guy who really looked like ex-Johhnys 小原裕貴 sitting beside me.. XD
Finally reached Ueno.. where I realized to my horror that I forgot to bring my Tokyo subway and JR map.. and was totally confused.. The 駅員 was damn rude.. but fortunately finally made it to the sleezy area and met up with Han and headed out to our hostel. XD
Is good to meet han but she was visibly upset about leaving her dorm.
Day 3 1st August 2008 FridayHan needed to close her bank account, so we headed out to Chiba, where she use to live and closed her bank account and cut/color our hair at Earth Saloon near her house, coz we can both get 50% discount. I cut my hair (generally changed hair parting), and touched up the top of my hair to a slightly brighter color.
Then, headed off to Manhattan Express for lunch. Gave Master a 六花亭 cookie to thank him for taking care of han all this while and for helping me with my Takarazuka Paper. I believe the Master and the others there are really going to miss Han a lot.
Final stop Shinjuku where we are to take our bus over to Nagano later that evening. We met with Han's Japanese friend and went for a very rushed 1 hour Karaoke which was enjoyable XD lol.. want sing Jay Chou's song but realized both of us not very familiar with it either arh..
Shinjuku bus to Nagano~
Arrived Nagano at 10.40pm, earlier than expected, and checked into Comfort Hotel, our hotel for the next 2 days.. XD Smuggled Han in without any problems. XD We are the pros. lol
Day 4 2nd August 2008 SaturdayHighlight of the day is KinKi Kids Concert at 6pm, but got to do tour around before that!
Nagano is famous for its Zenkoji 善光寺. The weather was fucking hot but we still made it there, not before getting lost once but happily found a Animato and ran into it for the air-con and shopping. XD miya bought a BL Manga there about her favourite 水商売. Han is helping to bring it home to mayu.
Zenkoji was like Asakusa. The "Kaidan-meguri" is a tour of the pitch-dark corridor underneath the altars allow visitors to touch 'the key to 楽園'. I actually didn't know that Han was scared of darkness, and honestly, it was really pitch dark inside, to the extent that u cant see a single thing. Yes, we keep bumping into the people before us. The first time I didn't touch it coz I was holding on to the wall on the other side, so we went in again (by then, Han was already much calmer with the darkness). It's a wonderful test of trust and self-belief.
Climax of the day, is of course KK concert!
Headed off to Big Hat, the concert hall and happily bought our concert goods >_< I bought up to 10,000yen worth of concert goods XD
Then, because it was too hot and still a while before the concert, we headed off to a shopping complex next to the hall for the air-con and rest. Haha.. discovered a Arcade there and with damn good luck, miya actually caught 4 hello kitty dolls with 3 tries! It was really fun, coz Han asked for a pink kitty that was sitting on a blue kitty (but deep down she actually prefered the blue kitty). Meanwhile, I myself was thinking if it was possibly to get both at the same time and manuveured the catched to touch both. The blue kitty came toppling into the hole. o.o
Inserting another coin, we got the pink kitty, but while playing around, we actually shifted 2 kitties behind it so that they were sitting very close to the hole. Throwing in another coin, I manage to tip both into the hole XD so we have a total of 4 kitties XDD
KinKi Kids concert XD
LOVE KOICHI!!!
Okay, I admit I was a bit slow after the concert.. Han has a big story of me blanking out for 20min after the concert that she was worried that i was disappointed by the concert of what.. haha.. not really disappointed or what.. just needed some time to digest the concert and the fact that I finally met Koichi.. Sorry I scared u, han.
We watched Tsuyoshi's 『３３分探偵』.. went @_@ at Tsuyo's char and was busying packing our stuff, reading manga late into the night and wondering to sleep or not, considering that our bus out of Nagano back to Tokyo was 6.30am in the morning. Finally dropped off to sleep at around 2.30am, slept till 4.30am, kick ourselves awake and headed back to Tokyo~
Nagano was absolutely beautiful though. On the bus, I could see that Nagano was surrounded by Mountains.. and that was simply gorgeous.
Day 5 3rd August 2008 Sunday
We took the morning bus back to Tokyo and then headed off to Yokohama. The Yokohama hostel recommended by Jet was nice, and the external shower system was very interesting.. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of it. >_<
Jet was supposed to meet us but didn't turn up in the end coz he climbed Mount Fuji with his visiting Singaporean friends that morning and was too exhausted to meet us.. *kickfly Jet*
But Han and I were too tired to really go around touring coz of our lack of sleep and highness from the night before.. and just head a late lunch at the 中華街 (Japan's biggest), and went to Minami Mirato, the bay and shopping mall near a theme park which we didn't enter anyway.. Just walked around, saw the nightview.. then we went back to the Hostel, showered, laundered, and crashed and burnt for the night.
Day 6 4th August 2008 MondayKamakura! Land of the temples and history! We went on the Daibutsu Hiking trip.. in heels =.=||| which had my feet aching like hell the next few days.. and saw the 大仏 of course.. and a few other famous temples XD
had Kamakura's famous Sweet Potato Ice cream and コロッケunder Han's recommendation and they were really good!
Finally headed back to Yokohama and to Tsurumi where we finally met Jet so he can bring us to his Toshiba Dorm to shower.
Jet's place is.. neat. It's like 3 times the size of my dorm room here.. and he's really neat..o.o not just for a guy.. he's actually neater than HJ, the neatest person we all know so far in Sapporo. Okay, I'm going attribute it to the fact that he doesn't own much stuff, or is very good at packing everything out of sight. His place is also fully air-coned!
We're taking night bus to Sendai, and our plan was to have Jet treat us to dinner before we leave to make up for his unable to meet us the night before. But the aircon got us abit late.. so in the end, he treated us to take-away Lotteria and we ate on the bus.. でも、お疲れ様～haha.. he carried my backpack and dragged Han's luggage all the way from Tsurumi Station to his dorm, and then from his Dorm to our bus stop in Yokohama.
Day 7 5th August 2008 TuesdayArrive Sendai early in the morning at 6am.
Dumped stuff in Toyoko Inn and headed off to Matsushima, which is famous for Japan's 3 famous sceneries. (They are, btw, 松島、天橋立and宮島), so having seen Matsushima this time, I've covered 2 ^O^. Han covered all 3~
Matsushima was definitely overrated, coz it wasnt' really that pretty but still definitely worth seeing~
We didn't spend long in Matsushima coz Han was catching a Lead concert that afternoon, so we returned to Sendai (40min away), had lunch together and she headed off to her concert while I went to meet up with Nyo2 and HJ who were also touring Tohoku.
Dropped by Taito Station before HJ and Nyo2 came.. and actually caught Softbank's お父さん and a chibi capybara~
Walked around the covered shopping streets of Sendai with them, and we popped into another Taito Station where I caught a couple of mini capybaras XDD
And coz my heels were killing me since the Kamakura hike, I bought a pair of black Adidas slippers at a damn cheap price of 1500yen!!
We headed back to the hotel to check in and rest abit around 6pm and split from there, Nyo2 and HJ went to meet up with Sheryl, Au, Yu and Sarah who were also touring Tohoku for dinner, while I went back to meet up with Han and have dinner together. XD Brought her to buy a pair of Adidas slippers too, and I bought a white and pink Converse Sports shoes for my upcoming Wakkanai and Nemuro tour...
Han's final night. We searched around for the Sendai Animato and discovered to our horror that it was closed.. Headed back to Taito and Han happily caught her first toy from UFO catcher~ Another UFO catcher friend born!~ XD
Day 8 6th August 2008 WednesdayChecked out of hotel and we were having breakfast at a nearby Mac when I realized I left my phone back in the hotel >_<
Fortunately, the error was discovered early and I had time to go retrieve it safely but unfortunately missed sending Han off. She took a bus back to Tokyo while I headed off to my trains for Aomori.
Train ride to Aomori went without a hitch and I arrived Aomori into an atmosphere of Matsuri.
青 森ねぶた祭りだ～ Floats festival. Plenty of huge floats parading around with a huge team of people dancing and another team playing the taiko and flutes. Young men carry the floats around and spin them around towards the audience along the roadside so we can take the photos. Unforunately, my camera was down or else I would have taken a video of it >_<
Finally met up with Nyo2 and HJ again when they arrive in Aomori after the festival ended and took the Hamanasu back to Sapporo together.
Day 9 7th August 2008 ThursdayArrived Sapporo 6m safely. I slept very very well on the train ^O^
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Photos to be up once Han send me her photos. XD Coz I didn't take much photos but let Han take most of the photos XD
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