Day 2: tokyo

*back dated entry*

after a good night rest, we woke up to a fresh day in tokyo... first stop is to buy our shinkansen tickets since the first week of jan is heavy traffic flow in japan... so we want to play safe & secure our seats... of cause we can take the non-reserved seats but that's definitely not a wise choice since we will be traveling with big luggage....

we went to the ueno JR station, there is this midori (green) window place whereby you can get train tickets... you just show your JR pass to the staff & you can start buying advanced tickets... i did my research on hyperdia so i told the staff the exact train that i want to take... i think it's easier for both party or else you can spend the whole day at the counter

JR midori window

our shinkansen tickets

after getting our tickets, we got our breakfast from andersen bakery which is just next to the ticket counter

andersen bakery

beef croquette

cinnamon roll thing

the bread are nice & they all look so delicious!!!! so after that we head to our next stop which is harajuku cause i want to get my KinKi Kids concert tickets!!!! so normally you have to join the johnny's fanclub in order to buy their concert tickets but i saw before this shop in harajuku which sells all sort of concert tickets, mainly johnny's though.... so want to try my luck there since KinKi Kids are having their concert tomorrow in tokyo dome.... but before that, we have to fill our stomach & we went to the famous kyushu ramen store...

my "everything in" ramen

yummy egg

road side stores in harajuku

again, the standard seem to have dropped since the first time i been to this place but still quite nice especially the egg... just delicious!!! along the way to meiji shrine area, you can see multiple food stores selling mainly okonomiyaki & small snacks... this is really interesting to me since i never seen it before for my previous trips....

takeshita street

KinKi Kids concert ticket!!!!

after filling our stomach, we walked to takeshita street.... it was really crowded!!! so i walked along the streets while scouting for potential shops to target for luckybag tomorrow =) & of cause i went to the ticket shop which i mentioned & gotten my KinKi Kids concert tickets!!! YEAH!!!! 10k yen per ticket which is about SGD$111.... decent price i would say.... mine is like the cheapest ticket, those front seats cost like 80k yen per ticket.... me being cheapo wont spent so much $, i am contented with just being inside the concert.... i actually took a picture of the shop but somehow it got corrupted & i cant open it =(

next, we went to tokyo station to check out imperial palace...

tokyo train station

outside imperial palace

you can see the moon at 4pm!!!

imperial palace

swan swimming in the pond

tokyo train station look pretty nice but sadly it is undergoing some renovation so cant get a better view.... so from the station you can walk to imperial palace... it took about 20min to reach somewhere near imperial palace....  we were actually abit disappointed since we imagined the palace to be something grand but i guess we walked from the wrong side so we didnt get to go inside imperial palace area but just took picture somewhere nearby.........since it is a popular attraction, there are quite a number of tour groups in the area so it's very difficult for you to get a nice picture of yourselves without being photobomb.....

after that we just roamed around randomly before heading back to ueno for dinner....

rice bowl at matsuya

different type of sauces

this time we tried matsuya... is like yoshinoya, they sell beef bowls..... personally i prefer sukiya or yoshinoya..... the good thing at matsuya is you can add in your own sauces but the beef doesnt taste that nice....

on our way back to hotel, we saw this sugarbutter place at ueno station... there was quite a number of people queuing at the store so kepo us went to take a look... they sell this waffle biscuit thing, somewhat like shiroikoibito.... we bought 1 pack to try & it doesnt taste that fantastic... it's like waffle sandwich with condensed milk.... & that ends off our 2nd day in tokyo =)