Duration: 15 Days 15 Nights (May 31~Jun 14, 2014)
Day 3-7: Foodsss in Kawasaki
We didn’t have any chance to go exploring and only
managed to look around the Kawasaki Station area from Monday till Wednesday.
However, one might say it was also a kind of exploring – FOOD exploring in the
area! *facepalm*
We did realised that grocery was cheaper if it was bought
from Sanwa department store inside Lazona Mall - an Orangila cost 160 Yen in
Convenient store cost only 80 Yen in Sanwa. There were also Azalea underground mall or the street opposite the Kawasaki station which housed tons of shops & restaurants.
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| Pachinko at Kawasaki |
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| Shopping Street Opposite Kawasaki Station |
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| FOODsss from Sanwa |
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| Food from Daiso in Lazona Mall |
Let’s break this down by different meal of the day:-
Breakfast: Bought from convenient store such as Onigiri
& Bun. We did not take the breakfast option in hotel – would be bored to
death if we ate the same hotel breakfast for 14 days consecutively. Besides, it
allowed us to claim breakfast per diem. Hehee…
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| Salmon Onigiri for Monday |
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| Cheese & Ham Bun for Tuesday - LIKE!!! |
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| Egg & Ham English Muffin for Wednesday - LOVE THIS!!! |
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| Double Cheese Bun for Thursday - Cheese was Yummy but Bun was kind of hard |
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| Chocolate coated Cream Pie for Friday |
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| I actually felt disgusted halfway through this.. =P |
Lunch: Anything around the office area – the Azalea
Underground Mall or Lazona Mall (either Bento or eat in restaurant). Btw, the
restaurants at Azalea underground mall offered cheap and delicious bento! Mind
you, it was not easy to choose what to eat! =P
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| Cheese Baked Omelet Rice with Curry Sauce at Lazona Foodcourt on Monday |
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| Egg Onigiri & Egg Sandwich on Tuesday - On a Rush to Shin-Yokohama!!! |
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| They actually sell salted flavor egg york hardboiled egg in Convi Store - LOVE THIS!!! |
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| Tempura Bento with the Added Egg on Wednesday! YUM!!! |
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| Katsudon Bento on Thursday |
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| Look at How Thick this is!!! |
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| Soba/Udon Restaurant at Azalea Gourmet Walk |
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| I love Soba on Friday!!! |
Dinner: Depend on where we were at – if Kawasaki then of
course it was around the area again. We finally tried the Dumpling restaurant place
nearby the Kawasaki station which was always full of people. The food was
really cheap and nice too.
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| Colleague's Miso Ramen on Monday |
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| My Soy Sauce Ramen on Monday - not bad |
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| Boss' Vegetable Ramen on Monday |
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| Tiramisu Dessert on Monday! |
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| Sammy is always waiting in Hotel.. |
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| The Dumpling Restaurant beside Kawasaki Station on Tuesday |
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| Colleague's Omelet Rice with Tomato Sauce & Dumpling |
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| My Fried Rice with Dumpling - this only cost <400 Yen! Yummy too! No wonder the long queue! |
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| Sammy is bored |
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| Loretta Burger on Wednesday |
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| It tasted just okay... |
Day 6: A Rainy Night at Minato Mirai
We’d decided to go to Minato Mirai after work today since
we were bored of Kawasaki view everyday. The train was so cramped with people
until I couldn’t move at all. There was an emergency break and all of us almost
fell down before the train stopped for 10minutes midway. Not too sure what
happened but hopefully it was not a suicide case. Normally the screen in the train
will show “Passenger injury” in English but I once heard that in Japanese it
will show “人身事故” which meant someone jumped off the rail to commit
suicide. >.<||
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| Yokohama Tourist Map |
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| Waiting for the Train |
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| Arriving at Red Brick Warehouse |
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| It does look Crimson huh? |
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| The 2 Buildings... & my Umbrella! LOL |
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| View from Red Brick Warehouse Park |
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| Another Angle of the Warehouse |
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| Goodbye! Blue & Red! |
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| Walking towards the Mainland |
We then continued on to the mainland and took some
pictures of historical building along the way which included the Queen’s Tower,
King’s Tower but our favourite would be the Jack’s Tower (Port Opening Memorial
Hall). One thing I loved about Yokohama - road signs were everywhere so you
would know how to get to your destination.
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| Cute little Elephant! |
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| This is either King's or Queen's Tower.. =P |
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| Nice Tile on the Floor |
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| Jack's Tower! |
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| Lots of Road Signs for Tourists! |
We continued our journey to Yokohama Chinatown – there
were several blocks of souvenir shops & restaurant so we walked along for
some picture opportunity.
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| Chinatown!!! |
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| Souvenir Shops! |
We then stopped in front of a dumpling shop and the saw
some Japanese eating in front there kept saying “Oiishi!!!”. We’d decided to
give it a try – basically it was ball of dumplings which was fried at the
bottom but steam on the top – I think it’s called “生煎包” in
Chinese. Beware of HOT SOUP shooting out when you bite it! There was hot soup
hiding inside this gem as well! We ordered the 6pcs (2pcs original, 2pcs
vegetable & 2pcs seafood) and they were delicious!!! It was so satisfying
eating something hot like this under the rainy weather. *nod in contentment*
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| The Dumpling Shop |
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| The Colorful Dumplings! |
The shops were starting to close as time was approving
9pm so we headed back but not before
getting into one of the ‘tan tan noodle’ (担担面) restaurant around the
corner. We ordered their classic tan tan noodle and were asked about what level
of spiciness we wanted. *shocked* There were 5 levels – primary school, high
school, university, professor and I guess expert? I chose the ‘professor’
level and it was indeed spicy! YUMMY!!! There was fried minced meat on top fried
with some bean paste (I guess) which was so nice! The noodle’s texture was
totally different from normal Ramen or Chinese noodle as well. I saw there was
a sign in the restaurant saying something about healthy noodle – I had no idea
how healthy it is with bunch of oily minced meat and soup but it was definitely
delicious! Hahaha…
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| Walking around the Street |
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| Nice view huh? |
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| The End of the Street |
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| Pedestrians with Umbrella... |
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| Inside the "Tan Tan Noodle" Restaurant |
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| The Restaurant Name |
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| How Spicy do you want it? |
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| The Restaurant Interior |
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| This is Primary School |
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| University |
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| Professor! SLURP! |
We caught the train from Bashamichi Station without
incident and finally reached Kawasaki at 10pm++. Thankfully the rain did not dampen
our mood as it was not too heavy and actually added to the ambience. =)
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| Found the Train Station! |
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| Beautiful "3D" Art in the Station |
Day 7: A Disaster in Ikebukuro
It was Friday night and we had no idea where to go so it
was a last minute decision to get to Ikebukuro since my colleague’s cousin told
us about this ‘KitKat’ shop in Seibu selling all kind of different Kitkat
flavours. When we finally reached Ikebukuro, it was already 7.30pm++ and we
were struggling to find the KitKat shop. It didn’t help that the rain was
POURING down until part of the station entry was flooded!
We finally found the so-called “KitKat” Shop and it was
basically a small corner!!! It was such a disappointment as it only sold like 2
flavours there. Gosh!!! Now we should shoot my colleague’s cousin I suppose!
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| The KitKat Shop |
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| Very Disappointing! |
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| Ikebukuro |
I was looking for this Sunshine City Building as it had
this Sunshine 60 Observation Deck and Namja Town inside. I was especially
interested in Namja Town as it was mentioned that here were “two food corners
specialized in gyoza and desserts, in a nice Showa Period town setting with
recreated old alleys”. One thing I had to say was Ikebukuro was not as ‘tourist-friendly’
as Yokohama as there were hardly any tourist road signs of maps! It was late
before we finally found the Sunshien City Building and the Namja Town was
closed by then. =(
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| Namja Town - Closed! |
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| Meow! |
I was thinking about going up to the observation deck but
the Japanese reception told me since it was raining, I wouldn’t be able to see
anything other than cloud so I gave up this idea as well. What a bummer!
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| Elevator to the Observation Deck |
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| Underwater World? |
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| But it's Cloudy.. =( |
We had dinner at this dumpling restaurant which I suspected
was the same chain as the one beside Kawasaki Station. We all loved the omelet
wrapped rice with Mar Por Beancurd - the omelet was so fluffy!
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| The Dumpling Shop at Sunshine City |
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| Colleague's Fried Noodle |
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| Lots of Sauces! |
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| Colleague's Plain Noodle? |
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| Fluffy Omelet with Mar Po Beancurd! This was great! |
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| The Dumpling |
We then made a brief stop at Shinjuku to look for the
Shinjuku Express Bus Terminal as we needed to get to this terminal early in
Sunday morning. We were hopelessly lost as there was no clear sign of the
terminal. After a few asking around – we finally found it under the hard
pouring rain and strong wind. What a night!!! One funny thing was we encountered 'Ghosts' on the train back to Kawasaki - 2 girls were sleeping and their hair was covering all their face! Exactly like the Ghost in "The Ring". Guess the director might'd got the idea from train ride like this. =P
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