Day 1: tokyo

*back dated entry*

yup yup, not only the most anticipated honeymoon trip is here, my long awaited chiong luckybag trip has arrived!!!! i cant describe how excited i am!!! have been wanting to buy luckybags for years & finally get to do it!!! of cause honeymoon trip!!! lovely!!!!

so we took SQ for this trip cause they were having a promotion (which i posted previously)... we took 9.20am flight & only landed in tokyo about 5pm..... so the first thing we did after we came out of the custom, we bought our train passes....first we went to keisei bus ticket counter at narita terminal 1 to buy the train ticket since i wont be activating our JR pass till we leave tokyo....

keisei bus counter map, photo taken from here....

tokyo subway 3 day ticket

the bus counter is just in front of you when you come out to the arrival hall... i think they stop selling the metro pass at narita but only available at haneda airport.... but i think this pass is more worthwhile if you using it for 3 consecutive days.... more information can be found here....

next, we went to exchange for our JR pass.... i mentioned in my previous post that you have to buy your JR pass outside of japan & we gotten ours from JTB... so they will give you a receipt/voucher kind of thing whereby you have to exchange for the actual pass when you arrived in japan....

JR pass voucher.. photo taken from here...

JR service center

 so you need to go to JR EAST travel service center in narita airport to exchange for your JR pass... you can also do it at other major train stations like tokyo station..... the service center is at Basement, same level as the train platforms

actual JR pass, photo taken from here....

yup, this is how the JR pass will look like... you need to tell them the first date which you want to activate the pass.... once you exchanged for the pass, you can immediately purchase your shinkansen tickets... but due to high amount of tourists in airport outlet, they dont provide advanced train tickets purchases...

after that we went to get our train ticket from keisei station to go to ueno....we booked our hotel at ueno cause i felt that place is very convenient & we are quite familiar with it... another thing is that we will be going to nagano after tokyo & shinkansen depart from ueno so yup..... i think NEX may be more familiar to most people but it stops at central tokyo stations so not suitable for ueno.... there are several ways to go to ueno & the fastest is actually skyliner, operated by keisei electric railway....you can purchase their skyliner + subway tickets but i think it's not really worth cause i can take narita sky access line which takes about 15min more to reach ueno but at half price of skyliner....

keisei ticket counter

this keisei ticket counter is located just opposite of JR EAST travel service center.... it is different from the one located at arrival lobby.... so we bought our train ticket from the counter & wait for our train....

train ticket to ueno

train time table

there are different types of trains that go to different stations so do take note for the correct train... the route & timetable map can be found here.... so after about 1hr train ride, we finally reached ueno!!!! i would say ueno is a relatively big station; JR, keisei & metro lines all have trains stopping at ueno so you have 3 different exits at different places... do take note where your hotel is located so that you can come out from the correct exits...

this time we stayed at kinuya hokan... the hotel is just located behind ueno marui... it's in the midst of ueno shopping area so you will have bundle of food & shopping....

kinuya hokan

walking towards hotel via marui

if you are coming for the JR station, you will see marui (OIOI) in front of you... next to it is a walkway linking to ueno shopping street... you just walk through it & the hotel is just at the road after marui building... pretty convenient i would say....

room

toilet

bathroom

so for this hotel, they separate the toilet & bathtub... this is pretty common in japan & doesnt really matter to us.... but the room is really small.... i gotten the tatami style room so you have to sleep on futon... i guess it will be an interesting experience but honestly, it wasnt that comfortable..... got abit of backache when i woke up.....

after depositing our luggage, we went to get our dinner.... we went to fuji soba, one of those vending machine restaurants...... it's located just outside of JR ueno station.... so you order your food via the vending machine by pressing the correct button & pass the coupon to the staff & wait for your number to be called

food coupon

hubby dinner

my dinner

 i would say fuji soba standard kind of dropped... it tasted much better when i first tried it in year 2009... but at least it filled our stomach at a relatively cheap price.... after that we walked around ueno shopping street to get some snack....

taiyaki

close up on taiyaki

 so there is a tsukiji gindaco takoyaki at ueno & they have this special taiyaki... it looked very interesting so we bought 1 to try & it's actually made of phyllo pastry... so you get crunchy taiyaki!!! yummy

meiji yoghurt

i also gotten meiji yoghurt from family mart.... i had this super nice yoghurt on ANA during my previous japan trip & i am determined to try out all the different brands of yoghurt available to find the right one... but no luck for the first try... the yoghurt was nice but not the right one... so yup, that conclude my first night in tokyo.... we retired early to get ready for our next day in tokyo =)