Japan 2018 - Day 11: Ueno, Tokyo Skytree, Odaiba & Ikebukuro

Fun fact: i started on this post exactly 1 year after Day 11 of our trip. So proud of myself 一个 trip 可以 blog 一年. My brain cells are hurting from trying to recall what happened so boy am i glad this is going to be over soon.

The plan was to cover some areas that we haven't been to during our first Tokyo trip but time was as tight as my asshole so we had to pali pali. We begin with Ueno, an area with parks, temples, a zoo, shopping malls, pretty much everything.


It was the perfect day. Sunny yet cooling unlike the oven we are living in that is Singapore. We were ready to see spring in all its glory and the beautiful cherry blossoms..

aaand bam.. it's still winter and the trees were still dead :(

Most of the trees were still in hibernation mode but we were given a sneak preview by the odd trees that hit puberty early.

Unfortunately i was born with a handicap to never appreciate flowers but i will try my best to provide detailed, enthusiastic captions of the next few pictures.


Flowers.

Flowers, but white.

Close up of flowers.


Flowers x 10000


Ok i suddenly love flowers now. Such delicate, pretty little things that makes you want to use your middle and ring fingers to erm.. sayang them..


She was a model doing a photoshoot or something with some btss looking photographer (besides me). Thanks for the seductive look into my camera and see you in JAV in a few years!

The kind of awkward hello when you see your 不熟 colleague at the toilet.

Came across a path of tori gates much like Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Shrine. Pfft we've been there and done that at the OG yo.

We soon found out to our dismay that Ueno was another enormous, neverending park like those Taiwanese soap operas. Plz we haven't even had breakfast yet.


There's a fucking zoo in the park. In the fucking middle of the city. Pretty mindblowing for Singaporeans because we have to travel all the way to fucking Mandai to smell animal faeces.


Some food stalls were set up here and there but after Jh's huge 鱼饼 disguised as crab meat from Kyoto, we learnt not to trust any of their pasar malams.

Long road to another temple ending in a well deserved blowjob.

We definitely over exceeded our temples quota for this trip. See until my eyes are vomiting tears.


Besides housing an extensive park, Ueno is also home to so many good restaurants that my itinerary almost ran out of room.


We eventually settled on Izuei Honten, having never had a proper unagi dish in Japan before. (That unagi don with a minefield of bones from the "ONEGAISHIMAS guy" doesn't count hor)

You know the place is atas when warm towels are served with your meal. Is it eating lunch or flying SQ?


Creamy, meaty, buttery, beautiful charred flavour, BONELESS. All the characteristics of a good unagi don. Why haven't we had this sooner???


Oh, it's 40 fucking dollars for 2 tiny slabs of fish over rice.. Now i see why..


After only half filling our bellies, i went to fulfill my uncle duties by finding a toy for my niece. Everytime go overseas pretend to miss me but first thing come back is ask me where is her present. Hate niece! Niece lie!

Possibly the biggest attraction of Ueno, the bustling Ameya-Yokocho market.


Yep it's another grindfest to rubba rubba kkj with the crowd. Honestly nothing too interesting to see here, mostly food & souvenirs.

The worst thing to happen to a group of indecisive guys, a two forked street. Which way do i go? What if i miss out on the love of my life by choosing the other road? Decisions decisions.

Not even hungry but my 1k followers on eatify_sg demands for food pics and i shall deliver.

Yep, this is a kushikatsu, Japan's answer to Old Chang Kee where they skewer anything and everything and take it to the deep fryer.

Ahhh the familiar communal dipping sauce. Although double dipping is a strict no-no, you can't help but feel that some old uncle's saliva is probably swimming inside.

Ordered one of the sets and was served a human ear on a skewer as a starter. Ok it's actually a chunk of stewed intestine, little too sweet for my liking.


If you doubt my ability to recall every single skewer from a year ago, then you are most definitely right because i can't remember shit and they all look the same to me.


But i did remember that they tasted pretty good, although not as good as the shady looking kushikatsu joints we had in Osaka.

After rejoining the rest and pretending my food break never happened, we took the mrt to Tokyo Skytree where we could finally look down on people like a certain someone.


We can't seem to stay away from tall places on overseas trips. Kl's fear of heights has probably been eradicated by now.

The interior was quite lacking tbh, almost as empty as my heart without her.


And here's the view of Tokyo from the top. Perhaps a little underwhelming since we have already seen a million dollar night view earlier in Hakodate on this trip.


Strength of that glass is commendable for being able to hold onto the weight of my heavy balls of steel.


View from the bottom was better imo. Such an absolute unit towering over me i can't help but unknowingly close my eyes and stick out my tongue so it can explode all over my face.

Trying my best to upskirt the chiobu i saw up on the tower earlier. Nice little ice skating rink below but sadly we didn't have enough time to xia suay ourselves. 


WE VISITED A POKEMON CENTER BEFORE IT WAS COOL AT CHANGI JEWEL LOSERS


Stopped dead in our tracks by the smell of freshly baked pastries like the hungry bloodhounds we are.


Oh fuck this arouses me so much.. Everything in Japan is just a touch above the rest in attractiveness. Scenery, women, even their confectionery.


Apple pie donut i think. Did it work or was it weird? I have no idea i forgot. Seems real flaky though.


You can't go wrong with chocolate and donuts so i'm going to say this was an absolute win. Yes, this is what i have resorted to. Guessing whether the food was good because it's been way too long.

I was staring at this photo for the longest time wondering why it was in my folder until i zoomed on the MSE. Thanks for confusing me Ck. Next station: Odaiba titititi. Please mind the platform gap.

I hope you enjoy this 2 mins video of Ck walking down a jetty. For the 1% of you who are reading this blog post for useful content instead of dirty jokes, Odaiba is a shopping and entertainment district on a man-made island.

The view here is breathtaking to say the least. The Rainbow Bridge illuminating the river at night makes you wanna gaze at its beauty like Lich's new 3rd skill which disables you for 2.5 seconds at max level.

And hiding in between, we caught the Tokyo Tower sneaking about like a peeping tom from NUS.

Cool building with the ever changing light patterns. Night time is definitely the best time to experience Odaiba.


Perhaps the most random thing was a Statue of Liberty popping up out of nowhere. Nani the fuck is this?

Love the peaceful vibes around here. Just the sound of wind blowin, waves crashing and not a single worry on our minds other than HAVING TO RETURN TO THIS NOISY ASS CITY CALLED SINGAPORE IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS.

Having had enough of the wind blowing what little hair I had left into a mess, we ducked into one of the 10 shopping malls on this island. Thank god they were mostly luxury brands so we couldn't afford anything anyway.


I know i shouldn't reveal this because the feeling of betrayal is painful, but i still want you guys to know that the kushikatsu was not the only meal i snuck off alone for hehe.


Besides the satisfyingly bouncy and Q udon noodles, the egg yolk coating every strand of it was glorious btw.

A gigantic Gundam figure outside one of the other malls caught our attention just when the light show was about to begin. Perfect timing guys totally planned.

At this point we were just waiting for it to shoot cannons and lasers all around us.

Oh wait wrong robot show...

Too bad we have never watched the Gundam series but it was still a very cool display. Ok better hurry and split before Amy catches and rebrands us as cb zai nans again.


Venus Fort, a European Renaissance themed shopping mall which we also missed out on as we were rushing off to our final destination.

Ikebukuro! One of the major transportation hubs of Tokyo and most importantly home to a plethora of fine restaurants.

The community symbol of Ikebukuro, an owl. Legend has it that an elderly woman from this area was struggling to pay off her debts and medicine when an owl visited her in her dreams and granted 3 wishes. She wished for 1) money for the poor, 2) companionship for the lonely and 3) love for the heartbroken. In the end, nothing probably happened because i made all of this up and have no idea why this place is represented by a fucking owl.

Since it was our last night in Japan, we decided to split up and have whatever we craved for as our last supper.


Move over Tendon Kohaku, this branch sells tempura bowls overloaded with ingredients for just 10 SGD.


Only downer was this strange ah tiong bu who kept beoing me and making me uncomfortable.


Our bowls packed with layer after layer of deep fried goodies until they were literally overflowing. 真的他妈的想移民, almost tore up my pink IC right then and there.

Fresh, crunchy prawns in crispy light batter. None of that weird refrigerated smell lingering on their seafood. 可以酱过分吗??


The seaweed tempura blew my mind. It made so much sense and it was so obvious all along but nobody thought to do it except these ingenious Japs. Banzai!!!

A sign that nothing is going right in your life. Still, everything was delish and my date with Jl was considered a success.

Reagan went all out for his dinner and chose a wagyu restaurant. Look at that gorgeous marbling on that beef..


Mmm i'm sure it must have tasted good. Jl and i actually walked pass the restaurant and saw him indulging in his beef with a pint of beer, smoking and masturbating where he sat. He found heaven in Ikebukuro.

The rest chose Ichiran because they just had to revisit our first love, which we also did after our respective meals.


Take note to not dump this into the soup because it makes everything taste like sweet ba teng.


Which is exactly what i did and regretted. Now i have to wait until the next Japan trip for my Ichiran redemption. Noooooooo.


It was pretty late after dinner and things were slowing down along the streets of Ikebukuro. The shopping malls were closed and there wasn't anything to do so we went back home to watch Prison Break.

I know we ate a lot of shit but dessert was still calling. And you know the old saying: “我们一起学猫叫, 一起喵喵喵喵喵". Yep.. there is no old saying, i just really wanted crepes..

I got to customise my crepe with my favourite toppings. 很开心. And i know there should be a house tour somewhere but Jh still hasn't uploaded it to our Google Drive after 1 fucking year. We'll just have to postpone it to the next post. Everybody say thank..you...Jun..Hong...

- End of Day 11 -

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