Day 10: Tokyo Odaiba, Day 11: Tsukiji Market, Goodbye Japan

Day 10
Early morning, we sent Gladys off  to catch her 1035am flight.
Noi's cousin was sick, so she left us to take care of her for the day.
So for day 10, we will only have 4 pax in our tour group. The visit will mainly be in Odaiba.

Odaiba お台場
After quick breakfast in our house, we took a slow walk to the bus stop in front of Atre building (just few minutes walk from our house), where we will take the Rainbow bus to get to Odaiba.
Odaiba is a popular shopping and entertainment district on a man made island in Tokyo Bay. As it is very near to Shinagawa, we decided to take bus there instead of train.

 

We alight at Fuji TV building and let's check it out.

Side view of Fuji TV building

Blue doggy is the mascot of Fuji TV



Next is shopping time at DiverCity. DiverCity is famous for the giant Gundam that's right in front of the building. We will have lunch and teabreak in this building because their interesting restaurant and café. Lunch will be at Kushiya, and then teabreak at Hello Kitty café. :P

The famous Gundam..front

 

and back

Deep fry your own food buffet @ Kushiya..Its fun!!!!

Hello Kitty is @ Café de Miki



Akihabara (Only Keng and Andy)
Only Keng and Andy visited Akihabara because Phyllis and me got stuck shopping in Odaiba.
They had dinner at IchiNiSan Gyukatsu, which is recommended by many bloggers.

Queuing is necessary even though they arrive early. The restaurant is in the basement, very little seats spotted.

Our dinner - snacks from Godiva and Calbee cafe.

Day 11: Tsukiji Market
Before saying goodbye to Japan, we make a final trip to Tsukiji fish market. The market will move to a new location in Nov 2016. Hence, it will be final visit for all of us.

We are in the business zone.. Look at the morning office crowd at Shinagawa

We arrived at Tsukiji..follow the crowd to walk to the market

We arrived first at the Outer market

Lunch @ 彦兵 .. They allow sharing..that's why we were here

It was time to get back to Shinagawa to pack up and check out. And its really time to say goodbye.



Goodbye Shinagawa

日本 Sayonara. Mata ne

Look at the loots.. and these are only mine.. hee hee



Day 9: Back to Tokyo: Shinagawa; Ueno; Wisteria

It's time to say goodbye to Kyoto and make our way back to Tokyo. It was very early in the morning, we reserved the 833am Hikari train to Tokyo. We were supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji from the train headed to Tokyo, but it was a full train and we could not get the good seats to view it.
Anyway, we will be heading to Shinagawa in Tokyo, where we booked a house with airbnb.

Hirugohan @ Kyoto station

Looks good..let's pack some

Train's arriving

Snack time in train

Do u see the big chuck of clouds in the left photo? I guess Mount Fuji is supposed to be behind it. (Right photo: Mount Fuji taken in Mar'2012)

Tokyo

We arrived in Shinagawa and headed to the house which we booked from Airbnb. It is in sort of a weird corner where the house was located, in between the back lanes among the restaurants. While we were at the entrance, trying to get into the house, someone actually walked past and ask us, "Is that a shop?" Even though in a funny corner, we found the house actually very clean and quite comfy.

Anyway, after dropping our luggage, we had a quick lunch at the nearby Sukiya.

Arrival at Shinagawa station

Shinagawa station, East Konan

Follow the directions from Noi (left to right) to get to our Airbnb

The brown door is our house..imagine this house is found in the back lane in between shops

The food is good..and tastes similar to Yoshinoya

 

First stop in Tokyo is shopping street at Ueno, called Ameya-yokocho. It is a shopping street along the train tracks in between Ueno and Okachimachi, which sells a wide variety of goods from souvenirs, dried seafood to clothes, bags and track shoes.

We arrived at Ameyayokocho..it was super crowded

 

Kameido Tenshin 亀戸天神社 (Wisteria)

Next stop in Tokyo is Kinshicho station. We need to get to Kameido Tenshin shrine, where we can view beautiful Wisteria, which blooms in end-April of every year. Kinshicho is quite near the Asakusa region, so we can view the Skytree from here. The shrine is actually situated in between Kinshicho and Kameido stations. Walk about 15 mins from either stations to reach the shrine.

Walking by a park while making our way to Kameido Tenshin

  

 At night, we get back to Shinagawa, we managed to find bbq restaurant somewhere near our house.