Takirev’10: Day 4 (Tokyo Tower – Revolution)

2010.01.12

We tried our best to wake up early, but failed… The weather was too good for sleeping. Btw, the weather forecast in Japan is really accurate ne~ to the very hour! They said it’ll rain from 9am, and it did. So, after breakfast in our hotel rooms, we borrowed two umbrellas and left for the train station. I planned to take the Tokyo-Metro subway to Kamiyacho station, so we stopped by the huge route board, staring and pointing at the board, deciding which station to change at…

Then, a subway lady cleaner suddenly approached Dad and asked “qu na li?”… And at first we didn’t really catch what she was saying, then she repeated again~ and then we realised she was speaking mandarin!! She thought we didn’t understand, so she said in English “Where do you want to go?”, and I said “Kamiyacho. We wanna go to Tokyo Tower.”

She was really helpful, and told us that it’ll be easier to take the JR line to Hamamatsucho station, rather than to change trains via the subway. She even taught Mom how to say “Hama-matsu-cho” coz Mom kept “hamamama-ing” lol~~

And as I didn’t have a computer to check (but I knew that my prior research had Kamiyacho as the best option, yet…), we ended up following her suggestion — which turned out to be quite a bad idea lol (although she meant well ^^), coz it was twice the distance from Hamamatsucho, compared to from Kamiyacho station. It wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t raining…

From Hamamatsucho, we walked in the super cold rain. Initially, I shared the larger umbrella with my two brothers, but after a while I gave up. It was too small for 3 of us haha. I decided to walk on my own, hood over head :)

We had lunch at a Mos Burger along the way. I ordered something which we couldn’t find in Singapore – some fried fish (Tuna) burger, which tasted really unique and nice. The meat within the crispy batter had a nice texture!

Dad said he wanted anything chicken, and the only chicken thing they had on the menu was the Teriyaki Chicken burger, which we always have in SG lol. I had Green Tea Latte too, which wasn’t as good as Starbucks, but not too bad — better than their coffee lol.

The fries were yummy. But I think SG’s are nicer :D

Although we were all ketchup-kei, my family noticed that they didn’t have chilli sauce in the fast food restaurants in Japan. In Singapore, chilli sauce is kind of the default.

After lunch, we braved the rain and cold again, and as we walked on further, we could see a bit of Tokyo Tower :)

My boots were wet from the rain, and they changed color a little (turned darker haha). My jacket was wet but as it was kinda water resistance, I still felt pretty warm, also thanks to the hood and the heat packs in my pockets… UNTIL we took out our cameras to start taking photos! Lol~ My palms and fingers froze again, till they were numb LOL. At one point, I almost dropped the camera coz I couldn’t feel it~

We walked past the Zojoji temple. Initially, I planned to go there after Tokyo Tower, but due to the rain, and the fact that we all woke up so late, I scratched that off the itinerary hehe! Tokyo Tower seemed so near, yet so far… it got larger as we walked towards it.

And finally we reached the base of it, like… finally! We needed warmth and couldn’t wait to get inside lol~

We paid for 5 tickets to the Main Observatory, and took the lift up, to 150m above ground~ about 50 storeys high. It was so colourful in the lift as the light changes… There was commentary in Japanese and English.

Mom is VERY afraid of heights, so when the lift opened, she didn’t dare to walk near the windows. Anyway, as it was raining outside, the view was blurred.

We made our wishes at the shrine within the observatory. At first we didn’t really know what to do, but on the first day, Nyanco told me we had to throw some money, then clap our hands twice. We observed some obaasans doing the same and one by one, we also made our wish.

It doesn’t really matter though, coz our main aim was to see the look-down window lol… We found one, but it was a small one, and we were thinking “oh~ it’s only so small, not scary at all~~”. But Mom didn’t dare to go near even if it was a small one LOL~

I said, I remember seeing on the internet that the window was quite big, enough for a child to sit on it… As we were all wondering if I got the wrong info, my brother saw Mom’s scarf almost dropping onto the floor, so he pointed at the scarf and said “Mommy, your…” but before he could finish, Mom SCREAMED!!! and jumped to one side! LOL!!! She thought she was standing on the Look Down Window haha… Her scream was SO LOUD that everyone turned and looked~ hahaha!

We found some stamp thingie, and without knowing what it’s for, we stamped the words “東京” in red onto our tickets (and for me, my notebook too :)

There are 2 floors to the Main Observatory, and from the entrance, we were brought up to the 2nd floor. So after visiting the omiyage shop and seeing load of miniature tokyo towers, we went down the stairs to the 1st floor. And we found the stamp for “タワー” in blue, and stamped it next to the first stamps.

And then, tadaaa~~~ we found the huge look down window!!! It was SCARY!!!!!

We only dared to look down at first. It might not look that scary from pictures, so I didn’t expect to be afraid, but when I first saw it, I was like “woaaahh~~~” haha~ and we could see 50 storeys down, to the base of the tower and the tiny cars… And the transparent floor doesn’t look thick at all. It looked so thin… like it could give way anytime LOL. I took video most of the time, and this was a screencap of my bro’s shoes and the window (they call it window, but it’s actually a transparent floor~).

But slowly as we gathered our courage, we started walking across it… This was my first step, as captured on video :)

We did all sorts of things, squat, stand, kneel, and Youngest Bro even jumped (lightly, of coz), which made Mom freak out LOL~ There were many kids there too, and some were just as afraid as Mom, while others (the younger ones especially) didn’t seem to realise that they were that high up above the ground… too young, perhaps.

And so appropriately, we found this AED kit just where the Look Down Window was. My bro said it’s one of the best placed emergency kits haha…

Of coz, Mom was standing as far back as possible LOL. We had to coax her to just put one foot on the side of the window haha~ And I had to hold her by the shoulder and pull her over to the front. She had one hand on the railing, and one of her feet just gently touched the window for a split second, and she ran away screaming lol~~~ Youngest Bro had it on video hahaha!

Thanks to the Look Down Window, it was quite an adventure, and it was definitely fun! I’m quite sure my family enjoyed this one. There was no use going to the Special Observatory (which cost an additional 600yen) since it was still raining and we had already seen what we wanted. We spent some time at the omiyage shop, and bought some magnets and keychains for our relatives, then we had to leave as we had a show to attend :)

I asked the lady at the information counter how to get to Kamiyacho. She handed me a map and although it was still raining, we were there in no time. We headed for Yurakucho!!

We found a sushi shop at the JR Yurakucho station, and decided to go in for some Japanese food. There was a bottle of green powder thing on the table, and Mom thought it was wasabi! She added it to the soya sauce, just like she usually does in Singapore. What she didn’t know was: that was green tea powder! LOLOL!!! I asked the lady how to make the green tea and she taught us: add 3 “whacks” of powder into the cup, and add water with the dispenser.

There was a “price list” on the wall, showing how much each colored plate cost. I didn’t bring out my camera so all these pictures were taken with my keitai camera~ :)

This was my favourite~ really tasty!!! :)

I also liked this one a lot, and it was the cheapest :)

Also tried the amaebi~

After about 6 plates, I was full. Gochisousama deshita!

We proceeded to the theatre, and my brothers decided to shop around the area while Mom, Dad & I watched Takki :) We’d meet back at the hotel after the show. As the weather forecast said it’ll stop raining by 9pm, we didn’t take any umbrellas with us. We entered the theatre at about 5.15pm.

[ Theatre, goods, & show reports will be in separate posts ]

Fast forward to 3 hrs later~ after the show, we returned to the hotel via subway (Dad helped me to carry the shopping bag with about 2/3 of the goods I had to buy~), and guess what, my bros just reached the hotel only about 30mins before us! They were shopping around Yurakucho and Ginza until 8.30pm lol. And the weather forecast was spot on! No rain when we stepped out of the theatre.

Then we decided to go for supper, coz Youngest Bro was hungry lol. But my other bro’s leg was hurting so he stayed in the hotel. We walked around, and found a Macdonalds. The new Texas Burger looked yummy so we ordered that, plus Ebi Burger for Mom, and I just randomly pointed at some chicken thing LOL. It turned out to be Spicy Chicken burger. Shux! Usually if I ate McSpicy in SG, I’d have a bad stomach the next day, but this time my bad stomach came only the day after (probably coz I ate this at night haha)… But it tasted good :)

Everyone tried and agreed that the Texas Burger was the best :)

On the way back to the hotel, we took a few random pics haha…

That pretty much was the end of Day 4. When I got back to the hotel, I admired the Takirev goods before going to bed. It was yet another wonderful day in Tokyo, thanks to Takki :)