Japan: Shimokitazawa and Shibuya

Less than 24 hours in Tokyo with Iput.

Yesterday’s trip to Tokyo was the best one out of all of my japan trips. Mostly because this time my old friend, who’s working in Tokyo right now, brought me around. It’s really different when you explore a place with someone who lives there, someone who knows the language. Everything went smoothly, especially when it comes to ordering food, buying stuff and not getting lost.

As I only have half a day to spend in Tokyo, my friend decided to come over to the hotel that I stayed in despite the fact that I checked in pretty late (almost midnight). Just so we didn’t have to go to the trouble of setting up meeting somewhere in town. We then went for supper at a yakotori restaurant at a nearby mall. The food was really good, and I even finished a bottle of Sapporo beer.

The following day, I asked her to bring me to Shimokitazawa. A hip neighborhood filled with cafés and vintage clothing/accessories stores that’s situated just a few train stops away from Shibuya. First thing to do once we got there was to find a cafe for a brunch and we decided on this cozy little one called J.S. Pancake Cafe.

There are very limited seats available in this cafe, but there’s a take-out counter on the other side of the building.

My order of J.S. Pancake with maple syrup. Very very delicious pancake, love that its texture was different than ordinary pancake. Very fluffy and buttery.

My friend’s order of pancake with salmon and avocado. I didn’t know how it taste like cause I just can’t take avocado, all I know it looked really green. Though my friend said it was pretty good.

Overall, it was a very satisfying brunch. Oh, and my friend accidentally left her hand phone there which we only realized about an hour later. When we went back, the staff actually kept her phone and put it in a ziplock back. That’s what I call excellent service.

Afterwards we explored the neighborhood by entering many of the shops but not getting anything. Haha. The stuff sold there were on the pricey side and there wasn’t one that I really fell in love with. I ended up buying a beanie for a shop called Big Man and my friend got herself a cute bracelet.

Then we headed over to Shibuya, and just roamed around the streets aimlessly. After grabbing some make-up at Loft& and Matsumoto Kiyoshi, we had some coffees and snacks at a coffee shop by Yoyogi Park.

Beautiful white roses for Mother’s day.

The must-take photo with Hachiko in Shibuya.

Random stuff I picked in Matsumoto Kiyoshi.

And at Loft&

 

 

Time seems to fly by when we’re having a good time, and before I knew it we had to part ways. I had to fly back home that very same night and my friend had to go back to her dorm. It was really great catching up with her again after almost a year since our last meet-up. Hopefully I get to meet her again soon.

Travel: Day Two and Three in Seoul.

Day 2: Stopover from San Fransisco on the way back to Singapore. Dongdaemun and Jimjjilbang.

This second time around we reached hotel slightly earlier than the first day, and we were dead tired (i’m not even exaggerating, the flight was a nightmare). So we decided to take our time in getting ready before going to our first destination, Dongdaemun. This place was on the top list of where-to-go-in-Seoul for Vanessa and I so we were really excited. We took the subway there, since the night was still young. At first we wanted to get a Korean BBQ dinner before exploring the place but somehow we couldn’t find one that we like. So after walking around aimlessly, I just couldn’t take it anymore (I was in desperate need to sit down and eat), we ended up buying the street snacks.

 

Vanessa and I did some awesome shopping that night, totally worth all the walking. Almost all of the clothes we bought were less than 30,000 won per piece. Charmaine and Danny didn’t really buy anything though, they were just sort of going along with us. At first we felt bad but after a while, we were like, “Heck it! This is a rare chance!”.

We left Dongdaemun at around 2 am because Danny had gone pale and lost his enthusiasm. The cab that took us back to our hotel was seriously funky! The taxi owner completely revamped the interior so that it looked like a mobile club, complete with a disco ball. Although he didn’t speak much English, he must have thought every foreigners would like to hear K-Pop on their rides. And so he played us songs from SNSD to Big Bang. Haha. It was the best cab ever. Too bad I didn’t took a single picture of it.

Back at the hotel, Charmaine and Danny went back straight to their rooms while Vanessa and I decided to go visit a Jimjjilbang across the street of our hotel. Not really easy to find, but we did anyway after asking here and there, mostly convenience store and MacDonald’s staff.

The next day in Seoul was like a mad rush of everything as we tried to go to as many places and shop as many things. We somehow managed to fit in Itaewon, Myeongdong, and Hongdae. Here are some pictures of where we had been.

Itaewon

Myeongdong

Hongdae

First stop: Se7en’s Chicken Restaurant

Afterwards, we shopped around Hongdae but most of the smaller retails shops had already closed making way for the clubs and pubs. What’s left were the bigger cosmetic shops. But we had bought enough make up and skincare back in Myeongdong so we didn’t buy much. Vanessa desperately wanted to go to StyleNanda, a shop I had ever heard about, and since we bought can’t speak Korean (I can read Hangul but not understanding a word of it) so it was very very difficult to find the place. And apparently not many people in that area knew the exact location of the shop was. We kept getting directed to the wrong place. It was really frustrating. We almost gave up till we coincidentally met with this girl at the traffic light. She didn’t speak much English so it was kinda hard for her to describe the direction we should take (but she definitely knew where the place was), and guess what she did. She walked us all the way to the shop. And it was far, I tell you! It was almost 20 minutes of walking under the drizzle. We were both so so touched!!! The sad thing was we didn’t even get her name. Sigh.

Anyway we shopped at StyleNanda for while and then decided to call it a day. We did have a chicken and beer at a restaurant by our hotel before really calling it a day.

On our last morning in Seoul, we woke up earlier so we could go visit the Hello Kitty Cafe in Hongdae (yup, we went back to Hongdae haha) as it was already closed the night before. When we got there the cafe was not even opened yet so we just hung around, took pictures and waiting for it to be opened. We’re not alone though, there are other tourists there as well doing exactly the same thing we did.

Since our time was limited, we quickly gobbled down our cake and drinks, and made a dash back to the hotel to have Korean lunch with Danny at the mall right below our hotel. It was a sumptuous lunch.

All in all, it was a great trip to Korea. We managed to accomplish so much in so little time. Can’t wait to come back to this country again.