Big in Japan 2005 - Day 5
Packed and ready to leave our traditional stay. Have a chance to take the picturesque view outside this homely hotel. Recharged from last night onsen, we are ready to take on the world today. As we were leaving, the entire hotel crew turned up to send us off. Turns out that the entire family runs the show in the daily operations of the hotel. From the cook, the attendant, the counter attendant, the manager, etc. Along our journey, we need to enroute along Mount Fuji, and as the weather was clear, our kind guide/driver decides to bring us to another hill point to try and catch a glipse of Fuji.Unfortunately, the elusive Fuji still managed to mask herself from our camera. However, a bonus here is that we get a good tranquil shot of Lake Ashi.


In the city of Yokohama, we visited the biggest chinatown of Japan. Compared to the Kobe chinatown, this one has more restaurants. We stopped over at a Kuan-di temple located here for visitation. Little orientation was given to this temple and I guess the attributed reason was that our stomachs are rumbling already. A famous delicacy sold here is a big pau, the size of a man's palm! Price is about 500 yen. Well time to head for lunch!



We arrived at our lunch venue Odaiba in the shopping mall called Pallete Town overlooking the famous Rainbow bridge. Do not be mistaken that I have uploaded the wrong photo of New York. We are indeed in Tokyo. In the background is the rainbow bridge. It is a suspension bridge that is of similiar structure of Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

Next to the mall is the Toyota showroom. Various models of Toyota cars are displayed here. Take note that purchases made from here will take months to be delivered to Singapore, so unless you can wait, forget about the idea of purchasing from this place.



Our next destination is the famous Asakusa Temple. This temple has a legend to it. It hosts a 2" Godness of Mercy and the divinations obtained from this temple is well known to be very accurate. Legend has it that in 1200 A.D., a pair of brothers has found a 2" gold statue. Back in those time, Buddhism is still not as widespread and thus the brothers have no idea what it was. Out of fancy, the elder brother took it back and placed it in their home. His health begin to deterioriate as the days passed. The younger brother worried for his brother's health went around the nearby villages for help. He finally chanced upon a monk and brought him to their house. Immediately he recognized the statue and told the brothers that it is highly inappropriate to place a Godness in such a shabby area. Hearing this, the brothers went around the village asking for donations to build a temple to house the statue. The villagers donated generously and soon the brothers gain enough to build the temple we see in the picture. After the statue is housed in its proper place, the brother's health begin to improve. Not only that, the villagers life got better as harvests become bountiful and netful of fishes are caught every day. To commemorate the brothers, a Shinto temple is also built just beside this temple for visitors to visit/pray as well.

Like all famous temples, rows of shops lined up in front of it(nakamise street). One must-try food from this locality is a freshly baked red-bean paste pastry cake, known as 'Ren-Xing-Shao'. It is simply delicious. You will not miss this as the shop usually has a long queue. The cheapest bargain that sells this is 400 yen for 20 pieces! Take note that as this delicacy is stuffed with bean paste, it is good only for 3 days.


As the sun is setting, we were on way to Ueno Flea market. We were told that the locals usually visit this area to stuff up their fridge with festivity food. You can see shops selling raw sea food, nuts, green tea, etc.

Our next stop is to the top of Metropoliton Tower (45th storey), which is a Government office open to tourists to catch a bird's eye view of the entire Tokyo. Please pardon the badly taken shot.

After the sky view, we were brought to the famous Shinjuku to have our dinner. The setup of the restaurant is rather cramp and we have problem trying to communicate to the waitress our order. The best we can do is to use body language and point at pictures. It was a very nice dinner at a relatively cheap price! I love the pumpkin coroqutte. After dinner, we were given some time to shop around the area to have a feel of shinjuku night life. I can tell you, it is the busiest street I have ever been. It is a Wednesday night and the crowd is fabulous and alive. Japanese moved in an orderly fashion. On the steet, they know which side they must be on and join in the traffic to move in the side they want. The picture was taken as a less crowded alley so do not be misled by it.

At one corner of the street was a Pachinko shop. It was packed with men with boxes of metal balls and attempting to pump them up through a lever of a pin ball style machine and with luck, gain more balls in return. We were told by our guide later that the balls are later exchanged for gifts in the shop itself and these gifts can be later sold back to another shop further down a street for cash. This is the japanese in-genious way of "legal gambling". Actually we spotted many of such shops during our earlier days but it was only until now that we finally let alose our curiousity to our guide. She further briefed us that the idea was started by a korean technician in the early 70s (if I have not heard wrongly) and royalties were since paid to this person for every such machine built. Talk about making $$$ from innovation.