[GPGT|GVGT] Tokyo | Zao Onsen | Winter | Feb 9-17

deodorant

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Day 6 End

We ended up the night at a standing-up only yakiniku place called Jiromaru!

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It really is standing-room only.

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The place serves up tons of different kinds of meat, but because my Japanese sucks (my Kanji especially sucks) and it was late and I was too lazy to try and translate, I just asked the waiter to 'omakase' i.e. you tell him how many pieces of meat you want and he will just anyhow choose for you.

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Tourist friendly!

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Verdict: Pretty nice! Of course A5 ohmi, sanda, kobe, matsuzaka etc would be better, but at this price point IMO it's unbeatable value.

Only downsides are that it is a gas grill instead of charcoal. Oh, and the gyutan (beef tongue) they sliced it strangely thicker than I'm used to so it was a bit tough.
 
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deodorant

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Day 7 Start

Kaoz so fast Day7 liao! Today we woke up sort of late. Visited the Starbucks at Kanda station before riding the train to check out their sakura collection (didn't buy anything though)

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Then we went here, which if you've been to Tokyo before you'll probably recognize this junction more than anything LOL (it's the junction "entrance" to tsukiji fish market - outer market)

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We walked around a bit and saw this oh-so-instagrammable giant inari sushi so we ordered to try. WORST MISTAKE EVER, it was expensive and not nice and a terrible, terrible tourist trap.

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It was so terrible that we immediately had to go and get a bowl of gyudon to wash away the crappy taste

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Anyway we bought some dried plum (1.5 kg of it to be exact) and some amaou strawberries. Amaou is a "brand" of Japanese strawberry that is supposed to stand for Amai (sweet), Marui (round), Ookii (big) and Umami (delicious)

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Went to the inner market ... not for the market nor for any of the sushi shops, but to visit うえださん's plates & bowls shop:

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We've been coming here and buying stuff from him since 2011 - almost our entire house de plates, bowls, dishes, etc are from this shop.

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deodorant

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Day 7 continued

Reverse time a bit to show a photo of the insanely expensive starbucks tumblers. And also to note that they were made just across the border ...

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うえださん gave us some cute doggy charms together with the plates and bowls we bought

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Also this random shop in akasaka. No, we did not go in and try.

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Anyway!! After Tsukiji Market, we continued our quest to follow Kantaro around town ... this time trying to pull off a sweets-princess-ish stalker mode, lol.

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Sadly our planning here was a bit screwed up by inaccurate translations in the TV show. In the show, Kantaro takes away the mamekan to eat at home because: "赤坂相模屋には、残念だがら、イートインのコーナーはない" which was subtitled as:

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... but actually the real meaning should be "Unfortunately, Akasaka Sagamiya does not have any eat-in corner (area)." So we turned up thinking that there is a seating area but actually don't have, is 100% take away and eat at home.
 

deodorant

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If want to eat sweets can consider this list
https://award.tabelog.com/hyakumeiten/sweets/tokyo
100 sweets shop in Tokyo
Hehe yeah, for the absolute best desserts shops, tabelog is probably the way to go. We just wanted to stalk Kantaro's dessert shops though cos wife and I are huge fans of the netflix show even if it is a bit stupid ...

Bro. Where is your Day 7 update?
Thanks bro ... after you asked I counted back the posts and actually I messed up the day counts. I'm already halfway through updating day7 :(
 

deodorant

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Day 7 End

... turns out that Day 7 we didn't actually do much other than eat all day LOL.

For lunch, we went to ESSE DUE (also following in Kantaro's footsteps). The food was "meh" (forgettable pizza and salad), but the creme caramel was 超おいしい.

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Then we went to another Kantaro spot, to have Bavarian Matcha Cream at Kinozen.

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Then we went to a BIC Camera outlet to buy a clothes dryer and also randomly look around. Didn't take much pictures though, except one of this G-Shock action camera that was HUGE. I thought action cams were supposed to be lightweight and inconspicuous lol.

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Finally, we headed back to hotel, to eat up our Mamekan from Akasaka Sagamiya (in the hotel) ...

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deodorant

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Day 8 (holiday end)

Day 8 ... not really much to update cos today whole day traveling home. I might dig through more videos/photos and post some additional ones if they are interesting. But otherwise this will be one of the last updates liao.

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Our flight was on gate 142, 540m+ away from the immigration ...

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... anyway we had breakfast first while waiting for the flight: Tsukemen at Rokurinsha at the food court. I thought that the soup was a tad bit not hot enough (especially cos tsukemen noodles are cold, so the soup gets even colder really quickly). Not sure if it's also the same case in the other Tokyo outlets.

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Our box arrived safe & sound lol (this is a clothes dryer / futon dryer bought from BIC camera).

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Unpacked the bowls and plates that we bought from tsukiji market:

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droozy

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Bro,
can i see a full picture of the clothes dryer ? Do you need to buy a transformer to use the dryer in SG ?
Thanks!
 

deodorant

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Bro,
can i see a full picture of the clothes dryer ? Do you need to buy a transformer to use the dryer in SG ?
Thanks!
I don't have an exact photo (it's still in the box lol) but it's something like this

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Basically all it does is blow out hot air lol. I bought one cos my place the drying ledge doesn't have any sunlight at all so on cooler / wetter season it takes forever for clothes to dry.

Anyway yeah, it needs transformer, which I already have cos last time bought electric stuff from US before.
 

deodorant

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Thanks bro for sharing. Any brand of transformer you will recommend ?😊
Haha don't know leh. I don't have any "critical" electric products so I just went SLT and randomly bought one from there.
 

darkmatt

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It's 1hr50min shinkansen from Tokyo to shiroishi-zao.
And then a 20-30min taxi after that.
(there's a periodic shuttle bus but it's apparently very infrequent and only departs when full so I didn't explore that option).

Getting from fox village to zao onsen was the surprisingly annoying one. Despite being just around 15km away from each other and being on the same mountain, Fox Village is actually in Miyagi prefecture and served by the Tohoku Shinkansen (whereas Zao Onsen is served by Yamagata shinkansen). So you need to backtrack to Fukushima to switch train, and on this part of the island each train only runs around once per hour.

30 mins taxi.. that's gonna cost quite abit...
 

deodorant

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30 mins taxi.. that's gonna cost quite abit...
Unfortunately, yes - around ¥4200 each way. But the alternative (assuming you don't have a car) is to take the shuttle bus, which only runs two days a week (and even then only twice a day).

http://zao-fox-village.com/en

"Castle Kun Bus connects Shiroishi Station (the old line) and the Kawarago Dam every Tuesday and Friday.
The first bus departs at Shiroishi Station at 7:58 and arrives at the Kawarago Dam at 8:55.
The second bus departs at Shiroishi Station at 13:35 and arrives at the Kawarago Dam at 14:32.
Ask the bus driver to stop in front of Zao Kitsune Mura (fox town).
For your way back, please get on the bus that arrives at the Kawarago Dam at 14:32."

The timing doesn't suit us at all so we bit the bullet and just taxi'ed.
 

James Tang

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haha not too bad lah 4200Yen.

The highest we have taken: 30,000 Yen (Kyoto Station to Kansai Airport) *8P. That time conversion rate was 1.6
 

deodorant

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haha not too bad lah 4200Yen.

The highest we have taken: 30,000 Yen (Kyoto Station to Kansai Airport) *8P. That time conversion rate was 1.6
Kyoto to Kansai is really far too, though. (95km). Whereas kitsune mura to station is only 15km.

315y per km vs 280y per km, not too much different actually.
 

darkmatt

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Unfortunately, yes - around ¥4200 each way. But the alternative (assuming you don't have a car) is to take the shuttle bus, which only runs two days a week (and even then only twice a day).

http://zao-fox-village.com/en

"Castle Kun Bus connects Shiroishi Station (the old line) and the Kawarago Dam every Tuesday and Friday.
The first bus departs at Shiroishi Station at 7:58 and arrives at the Kawarago Dam at 8:55.
The second bus departs at Shiroishi Station at 13:35 and arrives at the Kawarago Dam at 14:32.
Ask the bus driver to stop in front of Zao Kitsune Mura (fox town).
For your way back, please get on the bus that arrives at the Kawarago Dam at 14:32."

The timing doesn't suit us at all so we bit the bullet and just taxi'ed.

I guess morning bus is ok. take the taxi out otot..
 

deodorant

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Random additional Photos part 1/?

Amaou strawberries. Super delicious. But also super pricey.

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Ruby Chocolate Kit Kat. Not to be mixed up with "Kit Kat Rubies" which are different entirely. Ruby chocolate is supposedly a new 4th type of chocolate after milk, dark and white. Check out wikipedia page for more info.

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Garuda Airlines HND-JKT flight. Plenty of legroom even for my 6'0" frame.

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Service is pretty nice, as befitting a 5-star airline. Some more got ice cream. But if you ask me whether I'd purposely fly Garuda over SIA/ANA etc if the price was similar -- of course not! But if a few hundred bucks cheaper then I would seriously consider.

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