Tokyo, Japan: Day One (Saturday)

Well, we woke extra early (like 3AM!) to catch that flight (Delta Airlines) at six! Was sooo groggy and all on the way to airport!! Anyway, turns out our flight was headed to Minneapolis via Tokyo-Narita Airport! Pretty cool it was a US-carrier plane, but that made security and all at its peak. We went through this Q & A, which kinda went like this: "Where did you buy your phone?" and "Any item in your baggage which isn't yours, or that is borrowed?" and "Did you let any other person near your luggage while you were away?" Wowza. But I guess it's all good for us. Better safe than sorry!

I finally 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' movie diary in the departure hall in a bookstore! Thank goodness there was still some spare time before we went into the plane! It was hell awesome, just like its other books! Of course, I haven't found the time to watch it in the theatres, but I'll def get the VCD!! Zachary Gordon as wimpy Greg Heffley is just not to be missed! Adorable!

Missing all the tweetin' and bloggin' while on the plane!! Watched 'Up in the Air' starring George Clooney and Anna Kendrick (Twilight movies!) Pretty all right, this flick. Just about a frequent flier and a young businesswoman. I didn't bother watching the rest of the movie.  Listened to the Glee soundtrack too, which was in the TV on the plane! 

We took the airport limousine bus to our hotel ( 4 ✩s! ) in Akasaka (wrongly wrote it as Asakusa in the declaration forms! :x Asakusa exists in Tokyo though!) We saw the ultra-cool and humongously  magnifique Tokyo Disney Resort (at least I think it was!), a giant ferris wheel close to it with many too-small cabins,  and cool cherry blossom trees along the way! Spring in Japan, especially in late March to early April is the best for cherry blossom viewing! And it was! There were some people having hanami parties under the trees too. They are sorta like picnics, where they bring out their bentos and toast Japanese Sake and sing karaoke, probably! There were heaps of people who went to some park to view cherry blossoms! 

We finally arrived at our destinated hotel, LAST! It stopped first at the more exxy hotels ( 5 ✩s! ) first like Grand Prince and Hotel New Otani (you can supposedly learn the art of Japanese tea ceremony here!) or whatever!

We stayed on the fourth floor, which is real LOOOOW, since we were one level above the hotel lobby! However, the hotel was just opposite this shopping mall called Bellevie, and is outrageously close to the subway (Tokyo Metro!). This is real uncommon in Tokyo, I should think.

We rested for a bit before heading out to Harajuku Street, which has high street fashion for teens and Japanese parading in cosplay on its streets. I loooove the place!! One of the main reasons I wished I lived in Japan! We managed to find the place when dusk broke, armed with my aunt's full file of subway maps and info.  However, had real difficulty getting our Tokyo metro tickets, as almost every machine had little Anglais instructions! We had to go through a lot of question-asking with the ticketing staff. When we found our way to Harajuku, it started RAINING! What luck.

There were many small side shops (some pretty big!) along Harajuku Street! I snagged an 'Alice in Wonderland' themed necklace, two pairs of tights,  a maroon-colored one a souvenir for Beck! I managed to see some people in cosplay! But it wasn't a lot since it ain't Sunday! Most of them come out in those more on that day of the week! 

Went up to a cool cosplay store, which looks really dungeon-like, with cool gothic lolita, kitchen and schoolgirl (think Sailor Moon?) costumes. After a while, I didn't think cosplay wasn't all that outrageous. It seemed really cool after all. My mother picked up this black coat off the rack (she was looking for one), but she saw that it had neko (cat) ears on the hood! She thought that was okay, until she saw it had a TAIL at the back! She joked that if she hadn't been aware of it and wore it to her office in Japan, she'd get laughed at without knowing why! 

We went back to our hotel later, and got lost along the way finding the entrance to the right subway line! Had to ask many locals as usual (my aunt took the helm at this). They didn't know too, but at least they still helped! Reached out hotel pretty late and tweeted with my aunt's laptop! Yayyers!

Anyway, I'll be off for now for a beauty sleep! Up early tomorrow morning for cherry blossom (sakura) viewing down at Ueno Park! Yayyers! Saw some people having hanami parties below sakura trees today, from the airport limousine bus!

Oyasumi! (Good night in Japanese!) xx

P.S: I won't be putting any quotes for these 10 days!! Too busy vaycay-ing it up!
P.S.S.: My micro-SD in my phone mysteriously erased all pictures I'd taken up to Day Six. Damn. It'd take a while before I can process the photos from my mom's and aunt's camera!
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