Tokyo Trip Day 1: Harajuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo Tower

June 28, 2015

Tokyo Trip Day 1: Harajuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo Tower

My company had a mid-year shutdown, so I decided to visit Tokyo for 6D5N together with my mom. It was the rainy season (梅雨季节) in the beginning of July, so we went prepared with umbrellas.

I bought return tickets from KLIA2 <-> Narita Airport for RM2032.15 for two people. We took the midnight flight and reached Narita Airport Terminal 2 at around 8.30am. We had our breakfast set in the station which cost about 360yen each.

After breakfast, we took the Narita Express (N'EX) to Shinjuku Station. They are having a promotion where round-trip tickets cost 4000yen. But I had already bought my Keisei Skyliner tickets for the last day travel to airport, so I could only buy the one-way N'EX ticket which cost 3180yen per pax.

Narita Express (N'EX) info:

http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/pass/nex_round.html

Our first stay was at Sunroute Hotel Higashi Shinjuku. One mistake I made was not taking a taxi from Shinjuku Station to Higashi Shinjuku Station. It would have saved us much time and effort, especially when we had to lug around those heavy suitcases... The hotel itself is a very nice business-type, clean and located at a very convenient location. It is on the Toei-Oedo line, same line as Akabanebashi Station (to see Tokyo Tower) and Roppongi. Of course, as the name implies, it is very near to Shinjuku Station too.

After dumping our luggage in the room, it was already 1pm. We had to meet my friend Kelly at 3pm at Shinjuku, so we only had time to go to either Harajuku or Shibuya. Since it was a Sunday, I decided to go see the Harajuku girls.

We ate strawberry chocolate ice-cream crepe and takoyaki at Harajuku. While walking aimlessly following the crowd, we chanced upon the busiest road in Harajuku -- Takeshita Dori! However, we missed out visiting Meiji Shrine and Shibuya's busiest pedestrian crossing. Well, as I always say to myself, there's always next time...

We met Kelly at Shinjuku! True to what she described to me, Shinjuku is only a place with many tall buildings... haha... so we walked around the underground shopping department stores instead. I was so happy to find my kid's wooden plate (500 yen) and bowl (300 yen) and stuff at Natural Kitchen near Odakyu Department Store. It is like a zakka store with many cheap and beautiful items. We also bought a lot of food from Odakyu Department Store to pack back to the hotel for our dinner. After dinner, we were so tired and took a rest in our hotel.

After an hour or so, we decided not to waste the night and went to explore a bit on the streets outside our hotel. It was kinda boring, so luckily we decided to take the 15 min train ride to Akabanebashi Station to see the Tokyo Tower!!! It is soooooooo beautiful, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.