Day 1: Arrival + Shinjuku
We arrived at Narita Airport, took the Keisei Skyliner to Nippori and transferred to Shin-Okubo station via the JR Yamanote Line. We took some time to settle down at our AirBNB apartment before heading out for our first dinner at AFURI. We also went up to the observation deck at the Metropolitan Government Building for a view of the city lights of Tokyo.
This is the waffle store that we love so so much! We had it for 3 nights and we tried earl grey, almond, choco chips, and cinnamon flavoured waffles.
AFURI
B2F LUMINE1, 1-1-5 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
MR. Waffle
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Shinjuku 3-38-2
LUMINE Shinjuku 2-1F
2 way Keisei Skyliner and 48 hours metro pass package: 5,100¥
Metropolitan Government Building: Free!
Day 2: DisneySea
Btw, am I the only one that has the tendency to type DisneySEA instead of DisneySea? Even in my itinerary I stated it as DisneySEA. I blame one of the most commonly used acronym - South East Asia (SEA) hahaha.
Before our trip, we read an amazing guide here so as to make use of the FASTPASS system to maximise the number of rides we are able to take. Unlike USS, DisneyLand/Sea does not have the option where people can top up money to be entitled for the express queue. However, they have another crowd control technique, and people can get their allocated timeslot for the ride via a FASTPASS ticket, enjoy other areas of the park, return back to the attraction when the time has come! I think this method is great since it is on a first come first serve basis and it does not incur any additional cost!
Basically, before you enter DisneySea, if you want to conquer all rides, you need to come up with a strategy on the rides as only a few of the attractions are labelled as a FASTPASS attraction.
We managed to get 4 FASTPASS tickets in sequence:
- Toy Story Mania - digital shooting to get as many points as possible
- Indiana Jones - indoor roller coaster, similar to Revenge of the Mummy in USS
- Raging Spirits - a 360 degree turn on the rollercoaster
- Nemo & Friends SeaRider - 4D boat ride
We got to the park 30 minutes after it opened and the timeslot allocated for us for Toy Story is already 1620-1720h. This is why it is important to know which are the most popular rides and to get your hands on the tickets before they run out. AND ALSO NOT TO ARRIVE LATE. We did not manage to get the FASTPASS ticket for Tower of Terror as it had run out at about 1pm and we had to wait for almost 100 minutes 😣
Also, for the month of October, all are welcome to dress up as a Disney character in conjunction with Halloween! We caught 3 Cruella de Vils in a row!
DisneySea ticket from Klook: SGD 84.85
Express bus to/fro DisneySea: 1,000¥ per trip
Day 3: Asakusa + Tokyo Skytree
Day 3 saw us stopping by a random bakery in Shinjuku station for breakfast. Oh man the pastries here are delicious and we are so glad we stopped by this bakery. If you haven't realised most of the dishes are served cold (eg sushi and even sandwiches - see next post) and it is so nice to have a 'hot' breakfast in the cold weather.
After the delightful breakfast we went to Asakusa for the Sensoji Temple. We did not pass the Kaminarimon gate before reaching the temple as we went via another route. As you can see there are more pictures of the other gate rather than the Kaminarimon's. Oops! But we managed to find the gate on the way back to the station.
This is the street in between the Kaminarimon Gate and the Sensoji Temple. It is very crowded but it sells lots of finger food and souvenirs!
We bought rice crackers and anpan (bread) to snack on. This is the shop that sells the melon anpan but we bought the plain one :)
Oh yes, for those visiting Asakusa, please take note that you should avoid eating and walking at the same time. I once read online on the Japanese culture and they don't like people walking and eating at the same time. I asked a colleague who goes to Japan yearly if it is true and she said yes especially in Asakusa. We saw a signage that we should not eat and walk simultaneously as well during our trip too.
We then ventured out of the main street of Asakusa (behind Sensoji temple) and went to Suzukien. It's an icecream shop that sells 7 intensity levels of matcha icecream. We tried the one in level 5 and it is quite bitter already.
We chanced upon an owl cafe and went for it. Initially we wanted to visit the one at Ikebukuro but we decided to just go for this since it is cheaper and we had time to spare. Owls are one of my favourite animals and they are so so pretty! Before entering the area, the shop owner taught us how to pet the owls but not all owls can be touched.
We took the subway to Oshiage station to go to the Tokyo Skytree. The weather was pretty bad at that point of time - it was raining and it was super cloudy. We were warned that the view would not be good if we were to head up to level 350/450 of the Skytree as it was too cloudy. Nevertheless, we headed up to level 350 of the Skytree since we were already there. The view was really bad :( There was no point in going to level 450 so we didn't.
A complimentary photo taken by the staff. An awkward picture because I almost knocked down the Skytree sculpture while I was sitting down.
We walked around the food hall at the basement of Tokyo Solamachi and snacked on dumplings, yakitori and all sorts of nonsense. Then we settled for dinner at the food court. I bought this bowl of ramen but it turned out to be dry ramen (the soup was in a separate bowl) and it was a disappointment.
Owl no Mori (Jungle cafe)
1 Chome-22-3 Asakusa, Taito, Tokyo 111-0032 (second floor)
Suzukien
Asakusa 3-4-3, Taito-ku, Tokyo
Sensoji Temple: Free!
Owl no Mori: 890¥, comes with a free drink
Tokyo Skytree (level 350): 2,060¥
I will be sharing the rest of my Tokyo trip in a separate post, so stay tuned for that!
