Tokyo Trip: Day 10 & 11

Tokyo trip

Sun 18.November - Thurs.29.November.2018

DAY 10 Wednesday, 28. November

We had to checkout from the hotel by 11.00 am, so right after breakfast we started packing our suitcases. The weight of my bag had doubled, and I couldn't even make everything fit in my own bag, so mom had to carry some of my stuff in hers. The checkout was easy enough, we just had to drop our room keys in a mail box looking thing in the lobby.

Since we wouldn't be allowed to check-in at the airport hotel before 13.00, we decided to just spend the time at Tokyo Station. We found some coin lockers and stored our bags there for the time being. I went back to the Moomin shop and still considered to buy a mug, but then decided not to. Ironic, since a Moomin mug was one of the things that was on my "to buy"-list before we got here. I thought about it, and decided that since I got the freebie plate from the Moomin café, that would be enough. Besides, my bag was full, there was no room for it. I reluctantly left the shop.

I found a Cinnabon stand on one of the floors we hadn't been to before. We don't have a Cinnabon in Finland so I've always wanted to try it out. I picked Caramel PecanBon, probably needless to say, but it was delicious!

It sure was a good thing that we were in no hurry to get to the airport. We got lost again at the station, or rather, we lost our bags. We couldn't remember in which direction the coin lockers were, where we stored our bags. We must have looked for them for an hour or something. We did find them eventually, when we  realized that we had to go through the ticket gate, as if we would be going somewhere. We had left our bags in the first coin lockers we saw after we got off the train. We got our bags from the lockers and went out the same way we came, but  I guess our Pasmo cards or the gates "knew" that we hadn't actually left the station so we couldn't get through the gates. We had to ask the guy in the cubicle next to the ticket gates to let us through, once we explained that we only picked up our bags from the locker.

Now, with our bags, we went outside to find the stop for the Narita Access bus and bought the tickets directly from the driver. Once we arrived at the airport, we had to find the bus stop for the airport hotel. Of course, we had just missed the hotel bus, and had to wait twenty minutes for the bus to come back. Around us were stops for other hotels and they all seemed to move so much faster. For a long while we were the only ones waiting for our bus, but eventually a few more people did turn up. It's amazing that despite the hotel only being 1 km from the airport it still takes 10-15 minutes to get there because of traffic.

This hotel was huge compared to the one we stayed in Kanda. They had an east and west wing! And down in the lobby, their own convenience store! Our room was huge, or at least felt like it after the tiny hole we had cooped up in for the past week. In the Kanda hotel, there was no choice but to store your luggage under the bed if you wanted any room to move around. Here, you could leave your bag right there on the floor next to the bed, and there was still plenty of room! This room was bigger than an average hotel room in any hotel I've been to in Finland.

We rested for a while and then went down to the convenience store, to get something to eat in the evening and something for tomorrows breakfast. The store had a surprisingly good selection. Besides the food, they also had a small selection of souvenir stuff. I found a few bags of candy that I thought looked good, and bought them so that I could share them with folks back home.

Later, in the evening, I was sitting at the bed watching TV, when I suddenly get the feeling I usually only get on big cruise ships when it's moving up and down on the waves, the "unstable" feeling. First I thought I'm just imagining it, but when it persisted, I turned over to my mom and asked if she could feel it too, and yeah she did. We looked at our water bottles and could see the water move from side to side. I guess we experienced an earthquake! A small and harmless one, but it was a pretty strange feeling. Mom said it happened again, later in the night, but I was sound asleep by then so I didn't notice anything.

DAY 11  & the Flight Home, Thursday, 29. November

Our flight would be leaving today at 11.00 AM. We woke up at 05.30 AM, ate something and then took the free airport bus after checking out from the hotel. At the airport the first thing I did was dropping off our rented Wifi devices in their return envelope at the post office. Finnair's check in didn't open until 08.00 AM so we were stuck dragging our bags for a while. I still had plenty of yens to spend so we took our last drinks from a vending machine. We also had to try some ice creams from a vending machine! I went with cookies & cream while  my mom tried a matcha tea flavoured ice cream. I got to take a small bite out of that one and to my surprise it wasn't that bad.

Downstairs, they had many rows of Gachapon machines, so that's where I spent the rest of my leftover coins. Overall, I'd say here at the airport was the best selection of Gachapons I've seen for the whole trip. There even was a few with Star Wars!

Eventually, we got our bags dropped off and the check-in done. But before we went through passport control I briefly went into the small Pokemon Center they also held here at the airport. I still longed after a few of those adorable plushies, but didn't buy anything from there. After passport control there was this one shop that was kind of split in two. One one side they had all food articles, candies and Mochis and such. On the other side, they had electronics, stationaries and toys. We fell in the same trap like seemingly everybody else at the candy store. They had samples! You could taste the things before actually buying them! It worked wonders, because the line was so long! It's like everybody suddenly needed to do some last minute shopping at this last resort souvenir shop. Even if it took forever, I bought some apple flavoured KitKat bars and some strawberry Mochi balls.  I went over to the electronics side of the shop and looked at their toy section. And there it was, that one Darth Maul figure I had seen plenty of times in various figure shops I've been to during this trip. But it was much cheaper than the others I had seen, and it was the only one left. Heck yeah, I bought it, and with that, it became the most expensive figure I bought from this trip. I had to give it to my mom so she could carry it in her hand luggage, because mine was full.

Alas, I still had some leftover Yen, which I exchanged back to euros pretty much at the last minute. When we found our departure gate, it didn't take more than a few minutes before they started letting people in. We've never been this late to boarding! Because we were almost running late, we had walked at a brisk pace to our gate and when we were finally seated, I was dying of thirst! Thank goodness, that the flight attendants offered a free bottle of spring water to everyone upon entry. That thing was a lifesaver!

The flight back home went far better than the one we arrived with. Mostly because I wasn't feeling sick in my stomach and because I wasn't as tired. It was also fun to actually see the something out of the window. Because the plane left Finland so late in the evening it was already dark outside and you couldn't see anything. Now, the plane took off during daytime so there were plenty of views to enjoy. The landscapes were simply breathtaking once the plane flew over some mountains.

I didn't sleep at all during this flight, so I just kept watching movies after movies. I watched the first Deadpool on our way over, so it was only fitting that I watched Deadpool 2 on our way back. Next, I watched a Norwegian disaster movie "The Wave" (Bølgen), I quite liked it! Lastly, I watched a Swedish drama called "Under the Sun", which was a fine film too.

Japan vs. Finland

Looking out the window once we were in Finland's air space, you could tell it was definitely a lot colder than it was when we left for Japan. It was not full blown winter yet, only light snow on the ground and the temperature a little below freezing. Our problem was, that we were not properly equipped for this cold weather. Fortunately, my dad had come to pick us up, so we didn't have to stay out in the cold waiting for a bus or anything.

leftovers

Finally back home at last, the only hurdle left was adjusting back to Finnish time, which really came down to just trying to stay awake until evening to get back into the rhythm.

Oh yes, then there was also the unpacking of my bags, but more on that later! So next time.... all the things I bought from Tokyo!

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F*ck me. Why did it take me a whole year before I got all this written down?

Tokyo Trip: Day 8 & 9

Tokyo trip

Sun 18.November - Thurs.29.November.2018

DAY 8 Monday, 26. November

Disneyland day! We had our alarms going off 06.30 AM and right after breakfast we headed for Tokyo Station from where there was a bit of a walk to find the right platform to get to to Maihama Station. We just followed the "Disney looking crowd", so we didn't get lost. On the train ride to Maihama, looking out the window I could see in the distance an amusement park that looked abandoned. You can't compete with Disney, I guess? This was also the only time I got a glimpse of Tokyo Skytree in the distance. From Maihama station we got on the monorail which took us closer to the Disneyland entrance. The first view of the place right after we exited the monorail was a building site, not very flattering, but it can't be helped. Since we had bought our tickets earlier, we could pretty much just walk in without waiting. We got by the ticket booths just fine, but before we reached the actual entrance, we were stopped by a staff member who handed us something. I didn't look at it that closely at the time, but later, it was just a paper with an address to a survey they wished you'd fill in (online). I did fill the survey, a few days later after we got back home.

We started going counter-clockwise through the park. There was only one ride I absolutely wanted to go to and that was the Star Tours ride in Tomorrowland. For whatever reason the ride didn't seem to be popular, there was hardly any line and the waiting time was only 5-10 minutes. I loved it! It was my favorite ride in the whole park out of the ones we went to. Outside the ride was a small Star Wars shop, I looked through it and only one pin I wanted to buy, but decided to wait until later. Next to the shop was a life size R2-D2 and BB-8 replicas displayed behind glass.

We skipped Toontown pretty much, we did kind of just walk through it. I think most of the rides were aimed at younger kids. We quickly moved on to Fantasyland, where we found more rides with reasonable waiting times. We did pick out quite "lame" rides most of the time, because the lines were shorter. I would have liked to go to either Splash or Big Thunder Mountain, but the lines were always too damn long. When it peaked, I think the Big Thunder had over two hours waiting time. I think we got more out of the day by picking places with shorter lines, rather than to wait for hours to get in one ride. Still, it's a shame, because I really like roller coasters. Of course, there are those "Fastpass" things, but we didn't use one of those at all during the day.

So, in Fantasyland we went to the It's a Small World, Castle Carousel, Alice's Tea Party  and the Haunted Mansion (the Nightmare Before Christmas themed). The teacups were the most fun, because at least they were going fast compared to the others. Haunted Mansion and It's a Small World were both pretty lame speed wise, but I liked them both visually. I liked all the colors and geometrical shapes that pretty much decorated everything inside Small World, and the Haunted Mansion nailed it with the TNBC look and feel.

chocolate churros, yummy!

We didn't stay long in Critter Country, we watched for a while people coming down the Splash mountain, but moved on to Westernland pretty soon. We went on the Mark Twain Riverboat, again, it was very slow, but the view of the park was great from the top level of the boat. When we got  back on shore, we stopped by the Cowboy Cook-house and got some smoked turkey legs for lunch. It was extremely messy to eat, but good all the same.  Food and snacks were the thing we spent the most money on in the park. The different popcorn flavours were a big thing, everywhere you looked, you could see someone carrying one of many various popcorn cases. I think there was 8 different flavours available. During the day we did try out both the caramel and barbecue flavoured popcorns. Can't complain, they were both pretty tasty!

We saw two parades during the day and both times we just happened to be there, we didn't even remember there was going to be parades. I liked the first parade we saw more than the second one, it didn't make as big of an impact and felt less grandiose. I really liked the parade music and songs, it was really upbeat. No wonder they even sold CDs  of the parade music in one of the stores.

After the first parade, we moved on to Adventureland and went on the Western River Railroad, nothing too exciting, but again, you got a good look around at the park. From there we moved to the center of the map, where the castle is. I dunno, was it called Cinderella's castle? We just admired it from the outside. Next to the castle was a Snow White's wishing well, it was a small, quiet place. A short lasted peaceful respite, so to speak.

We saw bits of the second parade, not the whole thing. While most of the people were watching the parade, we took the opportunity to order some food and get a table from one of the dining places that happened to be close to the parade route. After that, we mostly just walked around aimlessly for a while (and tried the second flavour of popcorn too), and it was starting to get dark. We were walking passed the Pirates of Caribbean ride and saw that there was only 5 minutes waiting time. Unfortunately, I think there was something wrong with the ride. I don't think the boats are supposed to be back to back so close to each other and the animatronics were out of sync. There was no announcement if there  was something wrong, so I'm only guessing. If it was functioning properly, then it was the most disappointing ride of the day! While we were not having fun on the Pirates boat ride, we missed the fireworks show, we only saw the sparkles from the last boom. There was going to be more fireworks few hours later, but we weren't really planning to wait around just to see them.

The last place we hadn't been to yet was the World Bazaar area. It was mostly shops and some restaurants. I didn't find anything at the shops to buy, but their window displays were really nice. Actually, the whole park looked very beautiful with all the lights on, the bazaar area particularly, had a very impressive Christmas vibe.

For our last ride, we went to the Star Tours again, there was no line to speak of. This time it was a slightly different scenario in the "story" of the ride. Maybe I should have only gone on this ride over and over again for the whole day just to see all the variations. That would have been fun! After that, we still went and ordered some calzones from the Pan Galactic Pizza Port right across from the Star Tours. I wish I had ordered a drink, because the calzone was so damn hot that I burned my tongue.  Probably spent the next fifteen minutes just waiting for it to cool off, so that it would be safe to take a bite. The last thing I did before we left the park was going to that small Star Wars shop to buy  the SW pin I was looking at earlier. I'm still amazed that it was the only thing I bought from the whole park (food doesn't count!)

Back at Maihama station, we were walking past a café, and then I had to lay my eyes on the poster advertising them selling croissants filled with soft ice cream. It looked soo good! I had to get one! (I can't believe how much I ate the whole day...)

When we got back to Kanda Station, and were heading for our hotel, we suddenly heard the guys walking behind us speak Finnish! Didn't expect to  hear that. Small world, huh?


DAY 9 Tuesday, 27. November

We went back to Nakano Broadway, where I roamed through the rest of of floor 3 and 2 that I didn't check out previously when we were here. I bought a lot of small figures from 4 different shops, most of the figures were DBZ, but a few non-Dragon ball slipped in too.

Here, in Nakano Broadway, you could easily notice the difference between cashiers. Pretty much everywhere else we'd been the clerks working the cash register had always been over friendly. But here, in some stores, you could definitely see that they couldn't care less. Not that they were unfriendly, they were professional, but it was such a stark contrast.

I happened to find a room filled with Gachapon machines. I can say that, this was the one of the few places where they had some Gachas I haven't seen anywhere else. There were these freaking adorable hedgehog figures, and I wanted a particular one, but I kept having bad luck (again). I kept spinning the damn thing until I finally got the one I wanted the most,  by then I ran out of coins and didn't bother to change one of my bills for more.

Aside from having a different figure selection, this place also had a few machines labeled R-18. I'm just assuming because I didn't check, what you get from those capsules where photos/prints of girls "with their naughty parts showing". I think I also saw a machine that gave out panties.... This was the only place I saw Gachapons like these, so it was a bit odd to suddenly see stuff like that out of nowhere mixed in with regular Gachapons. While I was there, a group of friends, both guys and girls came in and one of the guys gave one of those machines a spin while his friends eagerly chatted beside him. None of my business, but that was a  little unexpected. Anyway....

When we were finished at the mall, rather than getting back to the hotel right away, we did explore the area a little around the mall. Pretty much next to the mall entrance was a pet shop with puppies and kittens in the window display. It wasn't anything like the pet shops in Finland. This was more like a puppies with accessories shop and a few kittens sprinkled here and there. Having all those cute puppies on display like that seems like a prime way of getting people to buy one on impulse. It makes me sad to think about what may happen to some of the puppies. Even if I don't understand how this system works, I see a lot of potential ways things could go wrong for those poor animals. You can only hope they all go to good homes.

A little bit further from the mall, we walked past a pachinko parlour (those places are noisy as hell, you can't help but to notice them) and I happened to find on the ground a metal ball that I think is from one of those pachinko machines. Nothing really special about it, it's just a tiny steel ball, but still kinda fun to see one up close. I would never go to a pachinko parlour myself, the noise drives me crazy just from the outside. I can't understand how people sitting inside cope with it.

random photo from Nakano

Opposite side from the pachinko place was a supermarket, It was the biggest we've seen so far, three floors. The ground and basement level had all the foods while the third floor had clothes and other everyday stuff. The ground floor even had a bakery, fresh loaves of bread and they even made pizza! This was definitely the best food store we found besides the one in Okachimachi. Shame that we didn't find this place the first time we were here!  The store's name was Life or 4 Life, I can't remember exactly. Aside from the usual stuff we bought at the food department I also found on clearance some Pokeballs that come with candy and a small random  figure. I waited until we got back to the hotel before I opened them, I got Meowth and Eevee!

This was our last night in Kanda, tomorrow we would be transferring to an airport hotel.


to be continued....