Fall, in love with Japan 2013 - part 6

This was the day Angel came down to Tokyo and we were planning to spend two days together before she headed back to Sendai.

Since Angel wasn't arriving until past noon, we used the morning to go to the coin laundry since we were running out of clean clothes to wear.

While we were waiting, we met a cat friend who was living with a few others in a backyard of a house on that street. I meow-ed at him and he came to me (cat whisperer moment hehe)! ❤❤❤ After spending a few moments with him, we decided to grab a bite from a nearby convenient store since we had to wait for our laundry anyway.

lovely Mr. Cat :3

got a Marie milk tea from the convenient store. ❤__❤

After laundry, we went back to our hotel, checked out, and moved to another hotel. The truth is, our new place was pretty sketch haha. WELL it was in the red-light district in Shinjuku afterall so I wasn't too surprised. After we dropped off our luggage, we went out to meet Angel at the Shinjuku station!!!! It took us a while to find each other. KK and I had a competition of who can spot Angel first, and of course, I won! hehe.

my girls ❤

purikura! a MUST in our girls' date whenever there's access to a photo booth.

Every time we meet up, we make a scene. Angel always greets with high tension and big hugs!! We decided to shop for a bit around Shinjuku, and we went to Mylord, where Angel bought an outfit that she wore out immediately. Mylord quickly became one of my favourite places to shop in Shinjuku from then on. After shopping, we went to Asakusa to see the famous gate with the huge lantern. Unfortunately, the lantern was taken down for repair so we couldn't see it. We had monjayaki for late lunch. It was my first time having monjayaki and I liked it! It was really fun and delicious. It ended up having this chewy and unique texture, I'm guessing not everyone will like it but we all did. There were many kinds to choose from with different ingredients. Ours had mentaiko and mochi and cabbage etc....it was heavenly!!!

Ready to cook some monja!

It might not look great now, but it's absolutely delish!

To eat: scrape out a little chunk of it with a tiny spetula. Push it down a little so that it cooks a little more on the hot plate, then put in your mouth (please don't burn yourself!). NOM!

also had yakisoba!

After our late lunch, we walked around the main shopping street area. KK and I got some manju (bun like snacks) since it was recommended in our travel book.

sesame and maccha buns

 Some snaps I took in Asakusa.

After Asakusa, we went to Harajuku. Angel wanted to shop at Forever21, so we did. However, KK and I didn't buy anything since we figured we wanted to use our luggage space (and budget) more wisely, for things harder to get outside of Japan.

We went to Takeshita Doori, and of course I had to get a crepe at my favourite crepe stand!

I got a ham, egg, lettuce one....I like savoury crepe more than dessert crepe.

Angel took us to a bar at Roppongi afterwards. We picked fruits from a fruit basket, and the bartender will turn them into drinks for us! Mine was a nashi (pear) based one. The drinks were really nice and the place has a very nice ambience too.

cheers! to a girl's night out!

looking down from the second floor of the bar. 

We went back to our hotel afterwards. However, Angel and I (because KK was too tired) went to Shin Okubo (Korean town in Tokyo) for some late night korean food, just like old times!

bonding time.....Angel and I always bond over Korean food.

KK just got out of the shower when we got back from Korean food. We quickly got ready for bed, made plans for tomorrow and called it a night.

sharing a bed and playing with our phones before we sleep.

The next morning, we got up relatively early to go to the Tsukiji fish market for some breakfast. It was raining, but lots of shops were packed with people lining up outside, so we just picked one that we could go into directly since we figured all of them are pretty similar anyway.

fresh seafood don is heavenly!

KK took care of the bill this time because I got the bill for us at the bar. ^___^

We then walked to Ginza, which wasn't far. We only walked around because things were over our budget in Ginza. We went for afternoon tea though, and had cake! (LOL yes we eat a lot, and we bond a lot over food.)

pretty cake!

another pretty cake!

me and pretty friend! :D

After tea time, it was time for Angel to catch her bus back to Sendai. We went to the station with her and said our byes there. Then we went for more shopping at Shibuya and Harajuku. It was raining a lot that day which was quite inconvenient!

At the Shibuya crossing....so many transparent umbrellas!

got a dessert crepe this time at Harajuku (which was totally not as good as the savoury one!)

ordered sandwiches at this cafe in Harajuku because we wanted to be indoors....

I just remembered that day to be a very wet day hahaha.

Fall, in love with Japan 2013 - part 5

Trying to go through these posts quickly because I want to start blogging on my Europe trip and Japan (yes, again) trips in 2014!

Day five, we spent most of the day in Kyoto and left for Tokyo in the evening.

First place we went was the Kiyomizu dera, which was a very short walk from our Ryokan. We checked out of our rooms early in the morning, but left our stuff there until its time to leave Kyoto.

how the entrance looks like in daylight.

wrote an ema for dad and my family.

relationship luck! gimme some!

縁❤

I don't remember exactly which one I chose to use...but they are all related to love & relationship anyways.

in hindsight, maybe I should write and hang one too T_T"

There was this pair of relationship stones there. Supposedly, if you can walk from one to the other with your eyes closed, you will have good fortune in relation to love (?) I think...don't quote me on it haha :P

one of the relationship stones.

such a beautiful view.

attempted at selfie with the shrine.

I think the Kiyomiza dera is my favourite shrine by far. The view was really nice, and it would probably be nice to see the trees change colours too.

After visiting the shrine, we went back to the little shopping streets (Ninenzaka & Sannenzaka) to look around.

we had ice cream! It was Maccha, red bean & chestnut flavored. NOM!

street snaps.

selfie!

We also found a giant Totoro and a giant Jiji!

Then we decided to go to Kodaiji Temple, as suggested by the host at our Ryokan.
There were statues that we could interact with and touch, so it was pretty fun!

Kodaiji Temple

A giant ball that you had to walk around three times while touching it to make your wish.

statues that you were allowed to touch.

Map of the Kodaiji area, and beneath it is the instructions on what to do with the different statues.

You were supposed to walk around the building while rolling these cylinder things.

another touchable statue!

We just freestyled and walked around that part of Kyoto. Below are some random snaps I took while we were on our walk. Unfortunately, I don't remember specifically what these places were since the trip was so long ago ><"

Of course, we went through the bamboo forest!

....and took a selfie hehe.

After our walk, we went back to Ninenzaka/Sannenzaka to grab lunch! We had duck udon. We decided to have lunch there when we walk past that morning. The fragrant was too nice and so we decided we had to go back there for lunch. It was a long line up too!

KK with her food.

me with mine - we got the same thing.

close up! looking at this brings back memory!!

we even had dessert❤

After lunch, it was about time we head back to our Ryokan to get our belongings. Then we took the taxi to get to the Kyoto station for our bullet train to Tokyo!

By the time we got to Tokyo (Shinjuku), it was night time. We checked into our hotel for the night. We were tired, but still needed to look for a coin laundry so we can wash our clothes next morning, and to grab dinner. We asked the concierge for directions to the nearest coin laundry, then we were off to find a place to eat! Unfortunately for us, we were both indecisive, and we had no idea what to eat for dinner. We walked around the area for A WHILE until we settled on.....海鮮丼 (seafood on rice)!

It was actually the same shop (different branch) that I stumbled upon back in the days when I traveled to Osaka by myself. I would go to the one near Doutonbori for a meal. KK said it could've been fresher, but I was pretty satisfied with mine haha.

My order.

After dinner, as we planned to get our clothes washed the next morning, we went to search for the coin laundry that our concierge told us about. After we found where it was, we returned to our hotel and called it a night.