Tokyo Day 2

Tokyo Day 2

Here's what our futons look like the next morning. I slept like a log through the night.

We did not order breakfast with the hotel and checked out to Gotemba Premium outlet.  Breakfast was hotdog buns that we bought the previous day from 7-11.

I had wanted to skip this place and head straight to Shinjuku to maximise our time but Dear said we should visit it since we are already in Hakone. And I'm glad we did! I found the Burberry bag I wanted in the outlet shop here, which I couldn't find later on in the Burberry store in the city. And it only cost me abt ¥210,000!

It started raining after a while and little did we know that it was a precursor to what was happening in Tokyo city. But in the meantime, it was freaking cold when the rain and wind attacked us at such a high altitude !

Our lunch was settled at the food court since we did not want to spend too much on food on the restaurants there which really looked like they are made for tourists. Bad choice. 

While we ordered from the stalls that had the longest queue in the food court (isn't that always a sign that the food must at least be decent?), lunch was still underwhelming.

The ramen tasted like those that you can get in Ajisen here, but minus the oiliness and saltiness. 

This looked promisng but was really a let-down. The beef had a 'beefy' smell, but I'm quite intolerant of that, so I'm a little biased. What is an objective critique is that the beef was tough. And there is nothing to shout about for the prawn. 

Here's where the hilarious encounters of us received another collection. As we had brought along our luggage, we kept it in the lockers provided by the outlet. The problem was that the biggest locker was too small for us: our luggage fits in but the locker's latch couldn't close properly. So we shove and squeeze the luggage to force the locker to close.

Surely the locker will be able to tolerate just a couple more centimeters of overload, we thought. 

But like how the Japanese is so precise in everything, the locker did not allow us to squeeze in a slightly bigger luggage. 

When we wanted to retrieve our luggage and insert the locker key in, it refused to turn. No amount of turning or pushing the locker door helped. So we had to get help from the reception who sent a technical guy to the locker room to help. 

After much shoving and turning of his master key, the locker still refused to open. In the end, he had to pry open the metal plate of the locker key hole to pry open the latch and finally, the door opened. Dear and I looked at each other and wondered if we have to pay for damages or get reprimanded by the staff. 

What happened next made our eyes open wide in surprise even more. Upon opening the door and seeing our luggage stuff in the locker, the guy just smiled and said: "Ah, very big". We took out the luggage sheepishly and made a move. He bowed to us and thanked us as we walked off. *0*

Only in Japan will they treat customers like kings to this extent! We scurried off before anyone changes their mind and decide to make us pay for anything. 

We took a long bus journey to Shinjuku and when we entered the city, we saw people with umbrellas in a light rain but something was wrong. The umbrellas were flipped upside down by the wind and pedestrians were struggling with their umbrellas. 

Only when we disembarked at Shinjuku station then we felt the effects of the storm that was going on. After checking into the Sunroute Shinjuku Hotel, I used my Ipad to check the news. The wifi adaptor we bought before our trip came into use and is seriously a good investment for future travels. 

It turns out that there was a windstorm going on and it was expected to escalate as night falls, and only estimated to cease after 9pm. It was the firs time we had encountered a situation like this during our trip. 

The television news crew were out at Shinjuku station taking footage of the crowd going home.

I wanted to stay in the warm cosy safe environment of our hotel since we are already in there but Dear wanted to experience the storm and suggested for us to walk to the nearby Takashimaya for dinner.  The wind was so strong that it was quite difficult to walk; it really does blows you away if you are not careful! We were also wet from the splashing rain despite using an umbrella.

After reaching Takashimaya, we went straight for a good meal at Katsukura to sooth ourselves.

The sets come with a tofu appetisers with orange shavings on it. It was warm and the tofu sauce tasted more like thick soya milk. Coupled with the zest of the orange shavings, it was a very comforting dish. 

Our tonkatsu. What I like about how the Japanese does it is that there is little oil but the pork cutlets still retained their moisture. 

It was past 9pm by the time we finished our dinner and shopping. The streets were calm when we walked out of Takashimaya. Amazing that the weather forecast is so accurate!

We bought our supper from the basement food hall of Takashimaya. Everything is so nicely packaged there. 

Sushi with round rice balls!