Hi there, my name is Fräulein Asuka-chan, I have been assigned the duty of writing this trip report to Japan for Papa, why me you said? Well, I was picked from the handful of articulated figures from Papa’s collection to travel with him during this trip to Japan, there were stiff competitions from Figma Saber and Figma Feito, but I won at the end due to the fact that I have been Papa’s favorite for much longer than Saber and Feito.
Since this is the first time for Papa to travel to Japan, he was more or less relying on his friend Fumoffu to guide him, our first stop was actually LAX airport where we spent a little time outside and had breakfast at Scotty’s on The strand at Hermosa Beach.
And here is the picture he took outside of Scotty’s, their “Scotty’s special” omelet was quite delicious.
The seating arrangement we got was quite comfortable, so by the time Papa woke up from his sleep, we were only 4 hours away from Narita International Airport.
And here, Papa was rocking away with some Kamen Rider Black RX tune on the plane while enjoying his black coffee.
And the meal we had just prior to landing.
And there we were, arrived in Japan!
After we cleared the Japan Custom, we headed down to the JR station to take the Narita Express train to our hotel which is in Shinjuku.
Some scene along the way.
The express train ticket from Narita to Shinjuku costed 3310 yen.
And there we were, arrived at the Shinjuku station!
After we arrived at the hotel, we unloaded our luggages and headed back out to town for dinner.
We had our dinner at the curry shop which Papa forgot to take a photo of, a plate of Katsu Curry rice was 610 yen, and it was quite good for the price we paid.
After dinner, we walked around the area some more and found a few arcades, and here is Club Sega.
They have a lot of UFO grabber machine inside! And after we walked some more we bumped into the Evangelion Pachinko machine I heard so much about!
Hey, that’s me in the middle! Papa did play with the game for a while but since he really doesn’t know how to play it, we spent little time there and left soon after.
We also stopped by Yodobashi Camera west store, and Papa picked up Decade kun from there.
We walked around some more and found what looked like a magazine shop on the outside, but once we went inside, we found some ummm interesting merchandises…
Warning, the following images may not be suitable for all viewers!
But for your information, Papa didn’t buy anything in the shop! We went back to the hotel soon after to regain some stamina after the long trip.
We woke up fairly early in the morning the next day, all charged up and ready to go. Our first stop was actually a temple very close to the hotel we stayed in.
We stopped at the temple for a little bit for a few photos then we went through the Shinjuku Central Park
to arrive at our 2nd destination of the day… Denny’s
Papa didn’t understand why we were going to Denny’s but he was told their menu is different and it was!
Papa ordered the Seafood Udon and Rice set for 800 yen.
Took some photos of the scene outside while waiting for food.
The food was actually quite good!
After breakfast, we walked around the area some more.
Quite a unique building here.
Photo taken near the Shinjuku station. Papa was amazed to see all the bikes just parked there on the street without any kind of locking, but then again, it’s Japan.
There were maps like this in every other street corner in Shinjuku, so it’s relatively easy to navigate through.
Ummm, yummy!
Hey, there is a McDonald’s and ….
Wendy’s!
The breading on these tempura is quite different, probably mixed with potato strips.
After about 30 minutes of walking, we finally arrived at our 3rd destination of the day, the Wald 9 Cinema.
The Kamen Rider Movie and Shinkenger Movie poster
And the Evangelion 2.0: You can (not) advance movie poster
The actual cinema is located on the 9th floor so we had to take the elevator up.
And here we purchased the 3D effect ticket to see what it is like, only the Shinkenger movie has the 3D effect though
It was still early for the movie so we stopped by Bic Camera near the Shinjuku station to kill some time.
And here Papa picked up Figma Kagami. The price in Bic Camera is actually quite good, most of the items are cheaper than Yodobashi camera.
After we killed some time, we went back to the cinema for the Kamen Rider movie.
And the 3D effect glasses
After the movie, we went straight out to Odaiba to see the Gundam.
The station map outside of Shimbashi station, we have to walk to a different building to take the Yurikamome line to Daiba station, thanks to Punynari-san’s detail instruction, we found our way around quite easily enough!
On the train to Odaiba and some scenes on the way there.
After we arrived at the Daiba station, we spotted the Gundam immediately and took a photo from the station.
The entrance to Green Tokyo
The day we arrived was also the first day of their laser and music show!
And here we have some of the better photos of the Gundam during the day.
And some photos, we looked around the shops in the area, there was even a directory of every shops in the area, how convenient!
After that, we sat down with some food and a beer!
After some food, we went for the sunset shots with the Gundam again.
After the sunset shots, Papa went and queue up for the Official Gundam Photo to have his photo taken with the official booth.
They have professional equipment setup and everything, much better than the old Sony Cybershot DSC-F707 that Papa was carrying around >.>; And Papa was running out of space in his Cybershot anyway >.>; He really should have upgraded his camera before this trip but it was too much of a rush to get it done. Oh and you have may noticed some of the photo quality was lower than others because he was carrying two cameras around, one Cybershot and the other one was a higher capacity Fujifilm Finepix P20, needless to say, the P20 just can’t put out very good photos with its low zoom rating.
After the official photo, which costed 1500 yen by the way, we went to the official shop to queue up for the official merchandises.
The queue for the official shop was about 60 minutes, by the time we reached the shop, it was already close to night time.
They have the official T-shirt, postcard, official 30th anniversary guide book, everything!
After we got done shopping, the sky was already pitch dark, so it was time to do some night time shooting!
Papa was especially proud of this photo he took with the Cybershot F707 because he somehow did it without a tripod, he knew it wasn’t anywhere near professional quality, but it was the best he could do with the equipment available on hand.
The this next photo was taken by resting the Cybershot on a bench table and have the lens angled upward (a fairly unique feature of the Cybershot F707).
After the night time photo, it was getting late and Papa was tired from the whole day of activity, so they decided to go back to the hotel and rest for the night and planned to come back for the Laser and Music show on a different day.
I hope you have enjoyed my trip report so far, you better or I am not going to get another chance to travel with Papa again! Please look forward to the Day 2 of the trip report!
If you are interested to see the rest of the photos of Day 1, feel free to go to Papa’s flickr account.
Follow link to read Japan Trip Report Day 2
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very good write up Asuka-chan! papa will be proud of your effort ^^
if i ever go to Japan ill definitely need a guide(have no sense of direction), and im always surprised at how good the food in Japan looks
~ really wanna try katsu curry rice too.
how were the movies?! your shots of the Gundam are awesome!
I was really grateful to have Fumoffu around to guide me around, I would be so lost! I had no clue where I was going on the 1st day! But by the 2nd day I was quite familiar with the area near the hotel and I was able to get to the cinema by myself for the midnight showing of the Evangelion 2.0 movie. I’ll let Asuka-chan cover the 2nd day of the trip
The Kamen Rider Movie was pretty good, I was able to follow most of the plot. It seems the movie was in a somewhat parallel to the TV, and from the rumor I heard from my little brother, a new movie is slated to come out this December!
Looks like it was an amazing day there in Japan. Hope to do that myself someday soon. ^^
Two more days to go and you can see for yourself if it’s worth the effort for this trip or not!
seems fun there, wish I can see Evangelion 2.0 here D;
It’s got some nice Asuka fan service, the story has been modified somewhat. Rei fan would be rejoiced actually.
Nice write up Asuka ^_^
Are you sure you got there by plane? Looks more like some mecha cockpit.. oih wait.. 1st class?
And yeah for the Creative Zen, used that quit long too before my Apple-fication.
Running into a healthcare shop right away, coincidence?
Do you have any idea what’s the building @ pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfheinrichsworld/3858644804/ ? Looks really interesting.
Nice Gundam pics, would really like to see this thing, too bad it will be taken down.
Looking forward to the following days.
Greetings hikky, Asuka-chan is asleep right now, I will answer the questions for her
Yeah we got them by plane, it’s the new United First class.
I am not too much of an apple fan, I don’t like their approach to the business; not saying they don’t have good product, just their advertising strategy is not sitting right with me.
No clue what that building was, the vacation was short and I was constantly on the move so I had little time to check out each building.
Thanks, it was a major challenge to take these gundam pics because my camera is very old and had very little storage space, a total of 128 MB so I had to pick which shot to take very carefully. I am glad at least some of the shots turned out alright.
When Asuka wake up from her sleep, I will tell her to write the next trip report
Just saw some info about the “unique building” somewhere on the interwebs a few days ago.
“It’s called “Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower (モード学園コクーンタワー”. The building is home to three Special educations: Tokyo Mode Gakuen (Fashion vocational school), HAL Tokyo (Special Technology & Design College), and Shuto Ikō (Medical College). Completed in October 2008, the tower is the second-tallest educational building in the world and is the 17th-tallest building in Tokyo.”
Definitely an interesting building, wish I had more time then so I could take a look inside the building.
You may not have noticed bicycle were locked, but generally bicycle have
some kind of locking in japan.
But they may be tiny and unreliable than overseas(I don’t know overseas situation).
http://binoculars.at.infoseek.co.jp/d021101.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfheinrichsworld/3858644804/
This is Mode Academy Cocoon Tower.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E5%AD%A6%E5%9C%92%E3%82%B3%E3%82%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BF%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC
Greetings nekokan, thank you for taking the time to explain the questions I had in my mind
LOL, Asuka-chan. Can’t stop laughing at what she calls you.
Great photos, looks like you had a great time in Japan. The tourist maps really helped getting around Tokyo.
I’ve read the Odaiba Gundam has been dismantled…very sad.
LOL, I figure I would be creative and do just that, I hope it was entertaining at least
Yeah I had a great time in Japan, it was short but it was extremely effective for what I had set out to do, many of my otaku objectives were accomplished.
They can’t keep active electronics like the Odaiba Gundam out in the weather for too long, especially the winter, there will be too much maintenance. Hopefully that won’t be the last time we see it.
wholy crap was that a first class seat i saw?! how the heck did you manage that? all i can afford (sometimes) is business class ^^;;
i think i’ve eaten at that same denny’s! was a weird feeling to have a japanese style breakfast there ^^;
wish i had someone to guide me to a better movie theatre… the one i went to was pretty lame ^^; luckily seeing the movie was reward enuf
and finally… really neat night pics of the gundam! when i was there at nite it wasn’t open so i could barely even see it ^^;
^^; It’s a trade secret, I can’t tell you publicly how I managed that, I will send it to your gmail address ok?
Ahhaha, same Denny’s! We stayed at the New City Shinjuku Hotel so it is short walk to there. Indeed it was a weird feeling, but the quality of their food is decent.
Seeing the Kamen Rider and Evangelion movie was a big deal for me, thanks to you (about how I need to watch the movie as soon as possible if I am an Asuka fan!) I had to look up all the theaters info before my trip. So by using the official theater list and Google Map/street view I was able to determine which theater near my hotel still had the movie up, and to my surprise, most of the theaters on the list still had not determine a date to take the movie down when I checked so I was pretty confident about it. Only 2 theaters in Shinjuku has the movie and the one I went also has the KR movie so it was good. I did a lot of research ahead of time on all of my primary destinations (like the various Volks showrooms, directions to Odaiba Gundam, Theater locations and showtime) printed out all the colored maps and stored them in a 3 ring binder and carried it with me the whole time.
I had to take the Gundam pics without a tripod so it was a huge struggle, I am glad at least some of them turned out ok.
You must have had a wonderful time in Japan,I’m feeling a bit jealous. Are you sure Papa didn’t buy any health material,Asuka-chan? ^^;
Seems you visited quite a lot of places,loved the picture with the sunset in the background,it somehow inspired me.