But briefly: Jap trip was memorable, enjoyable and I was depressed the day we had to leave Tokyo. Japan is definitely one of my favourite places in the world, and I hope I'm saying this free of my JE bias. It really is one of the cleanest places, firstly. The public toilets are unbeatably superb. They're almost always spotlessly clean, no matter the location of the toilets or the number of people to have utilised it. Not to mention the amazingly clean streets too. What's with Singapore constantly trumping its clean streets? Japan has very clean streets too what. It's no big deal, if you want to compare cleanliness with Japan.
And the people!!! Nyah. I love them. The typical salesperson is one of the nicest anywhere in the world. Politeness and respect always take priority, and the never-ceasing greetings of 'Irrashaimase!' in shops always make me smile. And generally, people go the extra mile for service. It is so heartening. I don't know if I'm exaggerating, but there's this underlying spirit of 'Ganbatte!' and putting one's best foot forward at all times.
Human traffic is the scariest thing in Japan. Osaka Station was a freaking nightmare to walk through. The crowd comes from all directions and heads in all directions as well. I always felt like screaming when I walked past the ticket gantries and people in dark coats rushed out in intimidating purposeful strides, while poor tourists like us weathered our way through. Not to mention the confusing train lines. No English some more. Made us go wonky at times. But we survived. And figured things out. I wasn't that difficult, really.
Mount Fuji was gorgeous x 1000000000. We stopped at only the first station, but we got to walk into the edge of snow-covered forest, so it was awesome anyway.
Here are a few photos:
And then of course, coming across JE posters and merchandise was fun. :P And did I say Maki was everywhere? Haha. She's awesome. Her adverts were big and plastered on buildings - in Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Ginza etc. Then we found a life-size cardboard Maki and took a photo with her! :P
We went to HMV later and found an entire shelf of Johnny's! And we got NEWS' Color, which was cheaper by about S$18. We also got a Potato mag, just because.
And then in Asakusa St, we found a mini-idol shop! @.@ Complete with posters, keychains and uchiwas. We were so tempted to buy a Yamapi uchiwa but then decided against it at the time, thinking we'd find more in Harajuku, but we didn't get them in Harajuku either! REGRET, I tell you. Anyway, how I spotted the shop was cause the exterior of the tiny shop was hung with like a mini-Yamada-shrine. :D I exclaimed, "Oh my god! It's Yamada!" See that whole hanging wall of photos, next to my sister? They're all Yamada, or Yamada with HeySayJUMP photos. It is scary when you think that this kid is only 15.
Okay, I'll end here for now. And a peek at our Japanese lunch at Mt Fuji:
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