Back from Japan and missing every bit of it!
Last 2 weeks, Faizal and I had a mini honeymoon in Tokyo, Japan. This kickstarted #the8yearpassport vertical of our lives where we document our travels together.
For Japan, we were actually tagging on part of Faizal’s ‘work’ trip with a local band (who he is managing), who was invited to be part of The Brotherhood Tour, alas #thehoneyhoodtour for us 🙂
The initial plan was to transit in Japan for 4 days for the tour before heading off to LA. But after much planning and deliberation, we decided to just stay in Japan and explore Tokyo as much as we can and also to minimize the flying altogether. So we decided to stay for 10 days in Tokyo.
Landed in Japan with these boys!
First skyliner train ride!
The train system in Tokyo is crazy and its an adventure every time. But you’ll get used to it and there’s nothing more exciting than getting lost in another country!
Weather was 4-11 degrees! It was our first time in a cold country and I didn’t take it very well for the first few days. Hello bleeding nose!
Another thing I was excited about was the vending machines and 24h convenience stores (7-11, Family Mart). They have a variety of things in there be it clothes, cosmetics, REAL food, sushi, coffee THE WORKS!
Hot corn soup in a can guys, I mean…
Hot cocoa in a carton…please stop.
Family Mart mochis!
Karages, Kakiages, Fish, Chicken, it was legitly good!
For the first 2 days, we were with the band mostly watching shows, them playing their show, so we didn’t manage to do much but sight-see around the areas we were at.
Professional merch girl haha!
Sushi with our Jap friends
Hello American Apparel!
Hachiko! You guys need to watch the movie and you’ll understand my love for this dog. You will cry buckets.
So after the boys moved on to Osaka and Nagoya, that’s when the ‘real’ honeymoon starts. We started off with the one and only Shibuya. Things in Japan is highly reasonable price wise. The brands that we know like nike, vans, other clothing brands are significantly cheaper than in Singapore. When we were going to Japan, people kept telling us that it’s expensive there and we should bring more in case. We can safely tell you that we spent so much only on our shopping. Food and transport, totally reasonable!
Lush soaps were 600yen each (around $6) versus the $16 I usually pay in Singapore!
Starbucks was around 400yen ($4?!?!)
We went to Odaiba, Yoyogi and Harajuku the next few days, where we spent most of our money haha!
Odaiba is where the huge gundam buddy is at, Hello Kitty store and other knick knacks like toy collectibles. Basically a mall with really cool shops.
Hey there big buddy!
Another thing you’ll be addicted to in Japan is this grab machines. After so many tries (10), he managed to win this for me! Look at his face, happiness.
I am quite the obsessed!
Can we talk about the cute pancakes that were so delicious!
Toys for this boy!
Yoyogi Park is where the Meiji-shrine is. You can google about it but it is basically a shrine dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken. It is now a tourist spot for sight-seeing and for prayers.
Do as a tourist does, we bought a wooden plaque and wrote our hopes and dreams for the year!
Behind me; sake stored in straw barrels.
While at the Yoyogi area, Faizal was saying that he read somewhere that there is a famous bridge where rockabillies gather to dance, mingle and look good basically. And we found the bridge! All of them looked like they came out of Grease.
Doggehs!
Next up was Harajuku! Shopping haven! They even had Monki (UK). We ate the infamous calbee out of the fryer, some crepes and of course Udon. We even took a neoprint!
Check out our eyes and nose jobs guys haha!
YASSSSS!
Poetico fries calbee and maple & cream cheese chips, amazing!
Hipster cafe for this couple. Faizal really wanted to go to Cafe Kitsuné and the coffee was really good. They even gave out chocolates to us since it was Valentine’s Day 🙂
We also went to Disneyland! Both of us are not super huge fans of Disney but trust me when I say, dreams really do come true over there. You will relieve your childhood like no other and all pangs of nostalgia will hit at every spot. I am not gonna lie, I kinda teared during the fireworks finale. It was so surreal.
Popcorn in an obnoxiously cute bow bucket!
Frozen-themed churros (vanilla sugar)
Hey cutie!
The castle at night.
The magical moment every one has to experience, I’m over-dramatic but you really should!
Another place to also relieve your childhood memories; Pokemon Center! We went to the one at Ikebukuro.
We also managed to find the famous Shiba-chan! The shop was closed when we came but we saw him. The story behind this is that this dog will open the window to the cigarette shop when he sees a customer. There is a video on Youtube about him!
Akihabara, Manga City.
There are alot of places to visit in Japan, one of it being Tokyo Tower, like a Japanese version of the Eiffel tower.
View from the tower
Butterflies in my stomach whilst looking down!
Japan, we’re in love!
While we were in Tokyo, we actually rented an apartment on Airbnb. Japan’s hotels are really expensive and we knew we will be spending most of our time outside. It was like a studio apartment for $70 a day and we saved a lot of money by doing so. This is our host Kumo!
There are alot more pictures but you can go over to instagram for that, #thehoneyhoodtour. It was never in my list of countries to visit, but I’ve fallen in love with Tokyo and we’ll definitely be back!
XX,
T8YP
