After checking out and leaving our luggage at the front desk, we set off for Harajuku.
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| Saw this the moment we stepped off the train, a store selling football kits. Who would have thought I'd see Pep in Harajuku? Lawlz. |
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| Takeshita dori. There was a Wolfgang Puck Express here. If we hadn't already set our minds on where to eat, I'd definitely choose to dine here. Maybe next time... |
Off to look for Eggs N Things, a Hawaiian pancake house. According to the map it's somewhere behind Gap. I almost got lost as the landmark Gap store was no longer there! I think they recently closed the store at the beginning of the year. I remember this was the first store I entered the first time I was in Harajuku back in 2005. Back then, we didn't have Gap in Singapore (iirc). Luckily I knew from memory Gap was at the corner of the junction so we were able to locate the restaurant. After a short 5 minute wait, we were in the restaurant!
It looked like it was going to rain at any moment so we were glad we were given a seat indoors. However the menu was all in Japanese and there were no pictures. We called the waiter over and asked him if he spoke English and was going to ask him to recommend something but he helpfully provided us with an English menu, yay!
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| Inside the restaurant. I thought it was very nicely lit. |
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| My mum's order: mushroom and spinach omelette with a side of pancakes. |
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| My order: Fluffy pancakes with whipped cream and bananas! I was salivating at the sight of the mountain of cream. |
The cream was very light and not overly sweet. It was HEAVEN!!! At the side of the table, they had 3 different syrup toppings - maple, strawberry and coconut. The strawberry syrup was not the typical ones that you find on cheap ice cream sundaes. It tasted more like the actual fruit. But my favourite was the coconut one. I'd sell my kidney just to have it again lol.
After a heavy brunch we were off to shop again! Time to work off those calories. The line outside the shop had gotten considerably longer by the time we left.
I prefer shopping in Harajuku than in Shibuya or Shinjuku. It's so much more affordable! Wish I had come here sooner. The best store IMO was Kinji Used Clothing, just outside La Foret Harajuku. They had racks and racks of dresses, shirts, pants and skirts and they were mostly going for ¥735!
Around 2pm, we had to leave as it really looked like it was going to rain and we had to switch hotels. And it was a good thing we did cos it poured almost immediately after we dragged our luggage over to the train station.
Sadly, the rain also ruined our plans to get the After 6 Pass for Disneyland. We had to settle for hanging around the hotel and Ikspiari.
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| The shuttle bus from JR Maihama Station to Sheraton Grande Tokyo Hotel. I love the Christmas wreath in front. On board the bus they played Disney themed Christmas songs as well. |
We got a pretty sweet deal for the hotel, well, in my opinion at least. ¥27,000 for one night plus 2 passes for Disneyland. The pass for Disneyland alone costs ¥5,800 each.
Once we got off the shuttle bus, a porter quickly helped us with our luggage. During check in, the guy at the front desk informed us that he had give us a big room. Things were beginning to look up. The porter brought us to our room and helped put our luggage in the room. And it was really big! It was the corner room and it had 4 beds. I think it's supposed to be a family room and the 2 smaller beds were meant for kids. This is the biggest hotel room I've ever stayed in. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures.
Once the porter had put the luggage down, my mum tried to tip the porter. In Japan, the smallest banknote they have is the ¥1,000 note so we had no choice but to tip ¥1,000 cos it seemed weird to give a ¥500 coin tip. But the guy immediately said no while backing away hurriedly. He seemed shocked that we tried to tip. My mum was like 'really?' lol. I guess tipping is not common practice in Japan. Even in restaurants, from what I've seen, everyone keeps all of the change, down to the last ¥1 coin.
After resting our legs for a while in the hotel, we took the shuttle bus again down to Ikspiari. The good thing about the bus is it comes pretty frequently, once every 15 minutes and there are shuttle buses to Bayside Station from which you can take the monorail to Disneysea. The bad thing however is there is no place to put your luggage! If you have a slightly bigger luggage, you have to drag it all the way to the back of the bus so as not to block the way of the other passengers. The aisle is very narrow so it's not easy to bring it to the back. There's not even sufficient room for a stroller.
At Ikspiari, we had dinner at Kua 'Aina Burger.
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| Crispy chicken fingers. |
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| Burger with onion rings and fries. The beef was a bit dry but it was still really good! Really loved the onion rings and fries. |
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| Tuna with avocado sandwich for my mum. |
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| Christmas tree outside the Disney store. |
It was freezing because of the rain and there wasn't much to shop for so we returned to the hotel again.
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| Another Christmas tree, this time in the hotel! This one was 2 stories tall. |
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| A small version of the tree. I love my boots! Bought them at Harajuku earlier. |
A hotel staff was walking past when he saw me trying to take a photo of my mum and the tree and immediately offered to take a photo of the 2 of us together. The hotel staff were all really helpful and polite. I saw another staff doing the same for some other guests as well. Any time we passed one of the staff, they'd always smile and greet us.
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| View from my bed. It felt like it was Christmas already :D |
The beds in the hotel were super comfy. They were the signature Sheraton Sweet Sleeper beds. In fact, the hotel has received so many requests from guests asking to purchase the beds that they've started selling them. There was even an order form for the bed and its sheets in the room. I managed to sleep like a baby all the way from 11pm to 7am the next day.
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| View from the balcony. |
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