Started the day by visiting a local food vendor. This place is frequented by the local neighbourhood Oyaji (old guys) who come daily for their noodle fix. I have to admit that I never experienced this kind of ordering method beforehand. Basically you put your order on a vending machine by placing coins into it.

Once you’ve made your selection, the machine will print a ticket which you will then give to the waitress before you sit down and wait for your meal. I thought it was a rather nifty thing and the food is not bad either. I ended up ordering Chicken Katsu Curry (650 Yen) because the time was close to lunch and I haven’t had any breakfast.

Once that was over, I decided to walk around the neighborhood. Asakusa is quite an interesting place. It’s a mixture of the old and new culture of Japan. So while you can see places such as Starbucks and KFC, if you want you can always go to one of the food vendors to buy a bento/takoyaki.

Anyway, Asakusa is definitely a good place if you’re looking after some traditional Japanese foods as well as presents to bring back home. And I am not even talking about Nakamise shopping arcade just yet. I’m talking about the surrounding shops around the neighborhood. It was definitely hard for me to not succumb to the buying mentality.

In the end, I had no choice but to force myself to remember that I’m still going to be here for another 2.5 months and at the end of that month, I’ll be going back to Tokyo anyway. Somehow I managed to made it through without buying anything much. The only thing that I bought was this really nice traditional cake called Kibidango.

This is some kind of glutinous rice cake mixed together with peanuts and coated with brown sugar. You can get this at the Nakamise shopping arcade and I’ll talk about this and Sensoji-temple next after I get some sleep and sort the pictures that I took while I went there. I think I went a little bit overboard when I took the pictures.

「花見」 – Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing)

Well, the first day was kind of rough. I arrived at Narita Airport around 7.15am and immediately decided to exchange the JR Exchange Order with the actual JR Rail Pass. For those of you who didn’t know, JR Rail Pass allows you to travel using any kind of JR train system, including Shinkansen (as long as it’s not the special Nozomi train).

This pass has definitely saved me a lot of money since it’s practically impossible to go on your own in Japan without using the train most of the time. Of course, later on I found out that I still need to buy the Passnet ticket to use the subways since that area is not covered by JR.

Anyway, if you intend to go to Japan on your own (as in without tour guide or anyone to guide you), then I’d recommend that you convert some of your money into Japanese Yen. I can’t emphasize this enough for first-time visitors to Japan. Don’t believe anyone who said that you can find an ATM to withdraw money easily from your bank account.

The only ATM that most overseas visitors can use is Post office’s ATMs which are quite difficult to find. If you’ve been here before, you might be able to find the location of the ATM that accepts foreign card easily. But for a first timer, it’s a nightmare to find. This is especially bad on the weekend because the Post Office, which will normally allow you to withdraw money from your foreign account, is closed.

Because I couldn’t find an ATM that accepts my bank card, I ended up running from one area to another while carrying 3 luggage. Yes, it was very painful. Somehow, however, I managed to find the energy to walk over to a local park near the hostel where I am staying. The park, which is called Sumida Park just happens to have a Hanami celebration.

Everyone and their mother can be seen having picnic underneath the Sakura trees. I have to say that I had never seen anything like a Cherry Blossom. To say that it’s beautiful is an understatement. I still can’t believe that I get to see something like this.

I always thought that CLAMP exaggerates those sakura petals in their manga/anime so I was really surprised when I found myself being enveloped by these petals. When these petals fall, they do fall by bucketloads. The sensation of being covered by petals as you walk has to be seen yourself to be believed.

The petals are not the only thing to enjoy around this place. There are various stalls around the area selling the usual festival kind of foods such as Takoyaki, Okonomiyaki, Chocolate-covered Banana, and Matcha (Green Tea) Ice cream.

After wondering around the park taking photographs for 2+ hours, I decided to go back to the hostel because my body still hasn’t recovered from the jetlag and the ‘fun’ adventure where I got to find that elusive ATM. The room in the hostel is quite comfy. There is a cable TV in the place but the only anime I managed to see are the kiddy kind such as Zoids, Pretty Cure so I didn’t pay that much interest in them.

「今月」 – Kongetsu

A highly unoriginal name for a blog. The word literally means ‘This Month’. The Kanji is composed of two character, 「今」- Ima, which means Now and 「月」 – Getsu/Gatsu/Tsuki which literally means Month or Moon.