Tokyo Day 2 (Onsen)

We took a free shuttle bus from Tokyo Teleport station to Ooedo Onsen Monogatari. Daddy and Mummy were looking forward to dipping in the hot springs after a long day.

 

 

 

Choosing our yukata at the counter. Kids only have one design for boy and one design for girls. Adults can choose among various designs.

 

Off to the changing room to change:

We met again after changing into our yukatas. Felt very Japanese then.

 

 

Immediately went outside to dip our feet into the open foot bath outside. 

 

Look at the "Ouch" facial expression when father and son attempted to walk in the pebbles covered hot spring for foot massage:

We later went to different gender hot springs for our relaxing dip. Mummy with Vincy and Daddy with Clarence. No more pictures from here onwards cos we need to strip naked.
Clarence was shy and felt very uncomfortable about being naked among the men. He kept telling us shame shame. Vincy was still too young to feel the embarrassment. As for daddy and mummy, this wasn't our first time being naked in an Onsen since we tried it 10 years ago when we went for our honeymoon in Japan. It was more embarrassing then.
It was super shiok dipping in different hot springs. They also offered various massages but we did not try any as we had kids with us.
After the dip and shower, we had our dinner there before taking the shuttle bus back.
On our way back, we decided to go to Palette Town (near the train station) and take the sky wheel.

 

It is a 150m high sky wheel: 

 

Bought the souvenir picture:

Back to our hotel:

Tokyo Day 2 (Tokyo Cruise)

After sight seeing at the Sensoji temple, we took a cruise from Asakusa to Odaiba Seaside Park for our Onsen visit. Reason for choosing this was because:

• try a different mode of transport instead of train all the time
• the cruise ship looks like a spaceship, thought my kids would be impressed
   

Inside the ship:

 

The cruise was about an hour and we pass by a lot of bridges on the way. There was introduction about the places along the the cruise but we did not understand cos it was all in Japanese.
Bought a toy "Himiko" for Clarence on the ship.

The "Himiko" is another ship that is supposed to ferry us across but it was not working that day hence we took the other ship named "Hotaluna".

The Hotaluna was in fact better than Himiko cos we got to go up the upper ship deck to see the scenery and enjoy the sea breeze.

A better view of the Hotaluna ship that we boarded.

 

At Odaiba seaside park:

We were a little lost when we reached Odaiba cos we were supposed to take a 7 mins walk to Tokyo Teleport Station but the station was not in sight. My dear looked at the map provided there and managed to bring us to our destination.

Tokyo Day 2 (Sensoji Temple)



Had a good night of rest, woke up close to 9am and set off after breakfast. Our original plan was to go to Disneyland but we realised we could not purchase the 2 day passport as we did not want to go DisneySea on Tuesday (2 day passport must be used on the following day and according to weather forecast, it may rain on Tuesday). We don't want to be caught in the rain on Tuesday at DisneySea

Hence the change in our itinerary for the day:

1) Visit the Senjori Temple

2) Take a cruise along Sumida River (Tokyo Cruise) to Odaiba

3) Visit an Onsen

 

The disney resort line that we need to take everyday:

 

 

This handkerchief was given to Vincy on the plane and she carried it wherever we went throughout the trip.

 

Taking turns to slot in money to buy train tickets:

Happy kids on the train:

Caught a glimpse of the new Tokyo Skytree at Asakusa. We gave the Skytree a miss as mummy read reviews which commented on super long queues to purchase tickets to go up.

Had our lunch at this little shop. The Japanese made order and payment via the vending machine inside the shop. The helper took our orders instead as we were foreigners. Yummy ramen and we loved the pork in the ramen. It was very tender, the best we have tried in all ramen so far.

Visited the Sensoji temple in Asakusa after lunch. It is the oldest and more popular temple in Tokyo.

We did what the locals do: they will try to "gather" the incense from the joss stick to their body or face.

Wash their hands with sacred water:

I presume all these meant some form of good.

Not forgetting to 求签 for 100yen.
Can tell who got 好签 and 下签 from the pictures below:

 

Saw a lot of pigeons at the temple. Took our untouched muffin from the airline to feed the pigeons.

 

Clarence loved to feed the pigeons.

Vincy was very frightened of the pigeons when they flew above her head. She was constantly hiding behind Daddy while gor gor was enjoying the feeding.

 

 

Day 1 in Tokyo

After many days of resting and procrastinating, I am finally going to update our wonderful trip to Tokyo. We took the 0155 Jal flight. Clarence was fighting very hard to keep awake while waiting to board the plane. He fell asleep very quickly once we were on the plane. Playing with ipad at the airport to kill time while waiting:

 

 

Touched down in Tokyo at 0930. Boarded the hotel limousine to our hotel. The bus ride took slightly more than an hour.

 

 

Finally reached the hotel but needed to wait for the room so we had an expensive lunch in the hotel. It was the most expensive (but not the yummiest) meal we had in Tokyo. We felt very silly after paying the bill and converting the amount back to Sing dollar.

The lobby that greeted us when we stepped out of the lift at Hilton Tokyo Bay:

 

 

Mummy chose Hilton Tokyo Bay hotel because it was near to Disneyland and Disneysea, spacious and also because we liked the Happy Magic Room theme.

 

 

 

 

Clarence playing with the magic mirror on the wall:

Vincy playing with the big key in our room:

We "nua" a while in the room before venturing out to Tokyo Tower.
Took pictures with the Christmas decorations in the hotel.

The weather was cooling outside:

The free resort cruiser which will take us to the train station:

 

At Maihama Station:

 

 

We checked with the hotel staff  for directions to Tokyo Tower but when we looked at the super complicating map, we were lost! The original station that we wanted to go to was not listed in the map. Faint! We later realised that it was because the train lines were operated by different companies hence some stations were not listed in the map.

Took a while for us to figure out how to buy tickets.

 

We took the train from Maihama to Tokyo station and walked a distance as we need to change train line. Halfway walking, I went to the toilet and when I was out, I was shocked to see both my kids sleeping on the floor in the station while daddy was busy snapping pictures of them. Both were too tired from the travelling. They fell asleep when they were sitting down waiting for me to come out. So cute!

 

We decided to head back to our hotel since the kids were so exhausted. We didn't want to risk the kids falling sick.