Woke up and had our breakfast and we went back to sleep. Again. It became a routine throughout the whole Japan trip wtf. Oh the time we wasted spent on catching up on sleep.
After our refreshing nap we went down to one of the ramen shop we saw the previous night that we wanted to try and it was sooooo crowded but thank goodness there was still 2 counter seats.
Miso Ramen
It indeed is Miso Ramen wtf there was only soup, ramen and the vegetables that you can see in above photo, not even a slice of meat. My mum ordered Tonkatsu Ramen and it only had one slice of meat and we were so darn pissed.
But it was quite cheap, around 500 yen for my ramen so..
Gyoza that was not bad in my opinion but sucked in my mum's opinion.
Our itinerary for the day was to visit the Asakusa area - Kaminarimon Temple, Tokyo Skytree and Ginza if we have time.. which meant we never went there HAHAHA.
By then I have already master taking the JR east but not the subway lines, so it was easy getting to the station we need to go to change to the subway line and you thought it was another getting lost episode but NOPE, I GOT TO MY DESTINATION SMOOTHLY YO.
When we came out of the station, we were kind of clueless which way would get us to the temple and the map outside the station made it seem like the temple was soooo far away. Some fancy carriage operators approached us and told us they could give us a tour around the Asakusa area and then drop us off at the temple which was soooo tempting but when we asked about the price (2000yen per person) we were like nope. Furthermore the person would be giving the tour in English (which I don't even understand clearly) which is a disadvantage to my mum.
If you have that money then I would suggest you taking the tour.. but if you're on budget, nope.
This was one of the few times that my mum became useful because she followed the signpost (because kanji characters are similar to chinese characters) and brought us to the entrance of the Kaminarimon Temple and the Nakamise street. Apparently it was just a very very short walk to the right of the station which was made miserable due to the drizzle which became a heavy rain.
Kaminarimon.
It was raining heavily so we had no choice but to buy an umbrella from a nearby family mart which we shared and the Nakamise Street was supposed to be a great place to shop for souvenirs and food but due to the rain, the cold and the umbrella, we didn't enjoy it as much even though we did buy some things from there.
IT WAS FREAKING FREEZING COLD. The rain made the already cold weather even worse and our hands were so numb that I took 5 minutes to post a photo on instagram. The step where we had to cleanse our hand made it even worse because the water is again, freezing cold. I felt like my skin was gonna crack (my mum's did) and it was so horrible.
(Please bring a glove if you're going to visit Japan in the fall.)
We were so grateful that we managed to enter and pray and it was a close shave because when we're done, the guards were closing the temple. At least we didn't make a wasted trip again in this weather.
Just in case you're wondering, we prayed in Chinese and apparently it will not work because a twin from my work told me that among the twins and their friend, only her friend who was the one that prayed in Japanese got what she wished for.. so yeah.
From the temple we could see the Tokyo Skytree!
Getting to the temple was easy, but getting to the skytree was a little confusing because we had to take this Tobu Skytree line which was not in the station we came out from earlier and I had no idea where it was until I went down the station to ask and he said we had to cross the road to get to another station where we could take the Tobu Skytree line.
I even had to ask the train master when we reached to ask if the train which was about to leave was going to reach the Tokyo Skytree and he had to let us in wtf.
Reached Tokyo Skytree safely and when we tapped out we saw the Tokyo Banana shop which was one of the main aim of going to the Skytree and we went in to buy some bananas heh. Just joking, it's something like this:
(photo taken from google)
We only bought this and some other food for ourselves became the expiry date was super near and we were sure we won't have enough time to pass this to other people.
Left the shop for the Skytree and we had take several escalator to the level with some shops and it was so long and tall that I suddenly developed a phobia of heights. But it went down after we got pass the 3rd escalator because it was just so pretty looking down!
We went into this shop selling all the cute toys and goods of each TV station but we didn't have the mood to do any shopping because we were so tired from the rainy weather and carrying so many stuff. However we saw this Purikura for Tokyo Skytree so we decided to take one as a memory!
My mum having the same pose for all the photos wtf.
We didn't go up to the observatory level because it was a little too expensive as compared to the Tokyo Tower (which we went to the next day) and also because we couldn't find the ticketing counter wtf. Best reason ever.
We headed out of the shop to this area where you can look up and see the Tokyo Skytree and since we were not going to go up, we decide to snap a few photos.
From our view it was really foggy up there so it was best not to go up just in case the view would be affected. Or more like we were trying to convince ourselves not to go up.
Explored around the shopping area of the Skytree and there was so many shops selling souvenirs and snacks you can bring home for others. It was on the pricier side but we did buy some snacks and things that had no relation to the Skytree nor Japan.
When we were ready to leave it was already pass the closing time of the Skytree so we had a little trouble getting out of the tower but thanks to some friendly Japanese staff we managed to get out and even find the station. Getting back to Ikebukuro was very easy this time because I've now experienced taking both the subway and JR east.
We went back to our hotel to drop our stuff and rest a bit before heading out to the area with lots of food to have ramen again for dinner, but this time another shop because apparently a set has rice, ramen and gyoza which was enough for the two of us.
AND OMG IT WAS THE BEST RAMEN I'VE EVER TRIED. We even came back for it the second time because I couldn't resist it. The soup base was so freaking nice that I finished everything in my bowl which was rare for me as I don't usually drink my soup.
Went back to the hotel and attempted to catch up with my social media before ending the day.
And here's day 3 vlog!
Cheers to a great dinner.
