Our flight was 12.50am. Dorisa the anxious made us meet at 9pm and thankfully she did, because Siewsia was late to meet us and in the end, we reached the airport check in with just half an hour to spare.
So we rushed to our gate only to find out that the plane was late!
I gave a preachy preach the last time Scoot had a delay, insisting to my boyfriend that the affected customers overreacted. You're paying $300 for a flight that should easily be $600, so I don't see your right to complain here.
Which led me back to my sim days, where my favorite past time was discussing grad trip even though we JUST started school heh heh. I suggested Tigerair and Mintao said he will not stand for delay, adding on that he chooses SQ often because, "They will fly on time even if there's a typhoon."
Might have od'ed on exposure for the photos.
But how else can I parade my newly purple hair right!
We boarded and it was a trio seat so thankfully, we all got matched together! Siewsia dozed off almost immediately while me and Dorisa can't sleep for shit. So I told her I had movies and invited her to watch Pulp Fiction. Guess who got sleepy 10 minutes into the opening dialogue!
The two girls soon knocked out and I REALLY REALLY wanted to wake them up to play more daidi but instead I was forced to be classy and to read The Great Gatsby in the dark.
I think I'm jealous of everyone who ever lived in the Golden Era. I am jealous of the classy, vivacious outfits, I am jealous of the flirtatiously intelligent women, I am jealous of the all-rounded, old money men.
Moving on.
Touched down in my favorite Chinese country!
Taiwan has been magical to me for as long as I can remember. Not only because it is the first country I visited without my family, but because it feels like a country that doesn't want to grow up.
I remember in my last visit, I got to see old farms and homely night markets, where you can still play old school retro fishing games or tiger machines and win cutesy prizes like soft toys or toy guns. Everyone is happy and young at heart.
But then I grew hardcore and I can't throw myself into 日月潭 nor jump over 阿里山 because nobody there thought of it (HOLY SHIT MAYBE I SHOULD) and I can only take nice photos along train tracks or set off more 天燈 so maybe Taiwan for when I'm an old soul.
Check out who doesn't give a shit about her image!
Didn't have time to walk around the airport because our flight was already late and our Scoot captain was in a hurry to Tokyo. I think Scoot has the most impatient captains ever. I've only ever been early or on time for flights, even if they were delayed outside of their control. Respect!
Watched Requiem For A Dream for the Taipei to Tokyo leg of the journey while the two girls continued to sleep. This show makes me physically ill every time I watch it. I knew clearer than day that if I watch it, I'll be upset. Which is precisely why I pressed play!
It is a haunting, beautiful show about how every addiction will bring you damnation, and how every vice will lead you to an inescapable crevice. And in between is a lot of raw, outstanding performances by the gifted and born-to-play-sad-man Jared Leto and beauty of punishing proportions Jennifer Conelley.
I love films. I love discussing films. I love dissecting films. I lost track of how many times I googled every scene, hungry for more.
In fact, whenever Gabriel and I finish watching a fucking good movie, he'll hold my hand and lead me out because as soon as the movie ends, I'll be on my phone intently googling for more while he smokes and waits for fun movie tidbits.
The minute we touched down, I went into turbo mode.
I regularly take the lead when I travel with my friends. They would do planning and I would do double checking and then, I would charge through the plans like a bull on fire. I have no chill and I WILL NOT CHILL.
So it wasn't surprising that I practically ran for clearance in search of Blue Sky, where the cheapest sim card in Narita Airport was. We found it in the end at the basement, and holy shit I almost went mad at the place.
MY FIRST EVER TOKYO BANANA EXPERIENCE!
I've never tried it because it is expensive to import it in so I always just glumly look at photos of friends uploading it but today, I WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF AN EXCESSIVE DISPLAY WOOT WOOT.
In the end, I only bought one box (4 for 480 yen)because there was once another crazy Japanese snack fad in Singapore, 白い恋人, and I thought it was pretty bland. So I do not trust Singaporeans and their askew taste.
Me and Siewsia agreed to share a 2500 yen sim card, which turned out to be a terrible mistake.
We kept switching sims cards to have a fair turn. And it always end up with one person with battery but no internet, or one person without battery (because we had to operate hotspot) but with internet. So DO NOT SHARE!
Tried their 120 yen ice cream vending machine and it was not good. ABORT!
Here we see Dorisa stressing over her sim card while I take more vain photos.
We tried to find the cheapest way to get to Tokyo from Narita Airport. I am very pampered by my Singapore living - I always forget how fucking huge other countries are. And as much, my travel time estimation is always off.
For Narita Airport, the fastest and cheapest way to get to central Tokyo is via this Skyliner bus, which drops you right outside Tokyo Station. The tickets are about 1000 yen if I'm not mistaken. SGD10 is about 900 yen so it's pretty worth it.
Dorisa gives no shit about photos, Dorisa just wants to board bus HAHA.
Me and Siewsia were the absolute camera whores of this trip. We would take photos every fucking where else Dorisa just opted out of it or helped us with taking. Most of my Instagram photos are courtesy of her magical hands.
On the bus to Tokyo!
I cannot, for the life of me, guess which languages the average Japanese speak. Like Singapore, the most common dual language capability is English-Chinese. For Taiwan, it is Chinese-Hokkien. For Germany, it is French-German.
A lot of the average Japanese could not understand English, despite being one of the most productive capitals in the world, where English is the universal language. I ran into more language barriers than I thought I would.
Check out who doesn't give a shit about her image!
Didn't have time to walk around the airport because our flight was already late and our Scoot captain was in a hurry to Tokyo. I think Scoot has the most impatient captains ever. I've only ever been early or on time for flights, even if they were delayed outside of their control. Respect!
Watched Requiem For A Dream for the Taipei to Tokyo leg of the journey while the two girls continued to sleep. This show makes me physically ill every time I watch it. I knew clearer than day that if I watch it, I'll be upset. Which is precisely why I pressed play!
It is a haunting, beautiful show about how every addiction will bring you damnation, and how every vice will lead you to an inescapable crevice. And in between is a lot of raw, outstanding performances by the gifted and born-to-play-sad-man Jared Leto and beauty of punishing proportions Jennifer Conelley.
I love films. I love discussing films. I love dissecting films. I lost track of how many times I googled every scene, hungry for more.
In fact, whenever Gabriel and I finish watching a fucking good movie, he'll hold my hand and lead me out because as soon as the movie ends, I'll be on my phone intently googling for more while he smokes and waits for fun movie tidbits.
The minute we touched down, I went into turbo mode.
I regularly take the lead when I travel with my friends. They would do planning and I would do double checking and then, I would charge through the plans like a bull on fire. I have no chill and I WILL NOT CHILL.
So it wasn't surprising that I practically ran for clearance in search of Blue Sky, where the cheapest sim card in Narita Airport was. We found it in the end at the basement, and holy shit I almost went mad at the place.
MY FIRST EVER TOKYO BANANA EXPERIENCE!
I've never tried it because it is expensive to import it in so I always just glumly look at photos of friends uploading it but today, I WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF AN EXCESSIVE DISPLAY WOOT WOOT.
In the end, I only bought one box (4 for 480 yen)because there was once another crazy Japanese snack fad in Singapore, 白い恋人, and I thought it was pretty bland. So I do not trust Singaporeans and their askew taste.
Me and Siewsia agreed to share a 2500 yen sim card, which turned out to be a terrible mistake.
We kept switching sims cards to have a fair turn. And it always end up with one person with battery but no internet, or one person without battery (because we had to operate hotspot) but with internet. So DO NOT SHARE!
Tried their 120 yen ice cream vending machine and it was not good. ABORT!
Here we see Dorisa stressing over her sim card while I take more vain photos.
We tried to find the cheapest way to get to Tokyo from Narita Airport. I am very pampered by my Singapore living - I always forget how fucking huge other countries are. And as much, my travel time estimation is always off.
For Narita Airport, the fastest and cheapest way to get to central Tokyo is via this Skyliner bus, which drops you right outside Tokyo Station. The tickets are about 1000 yen if I'm not mistaken. SGD10 is about 900 yen so it's pretty worth it.
Dorisa gives no shit about photos, Dorisa just wants to board bus HAHA.
Me and Siewsia were the absolute camera whores of this trip. We would take photos every fucking where else Dorisa just opted out of it or helped us with taking. Most of my Instagram photos are courtesy of her magical hands.
On the bus to Tokyo!
I cannot, for the life of me, guess which languages the average Japanese speak. Like Singapore, the most common dual language capability is English-Chinese. For Taiwan, it is Chinese-Hokkien. For Germany, it is French-German.
A lot of the average Japanese could not understand English, despite being one of the most productive capitals in the world, where English is the universal language. I ran into more language barriers than I thought I would.
My vanity knows no bounds.
It was also the last of our happiest moment because shortly after we alighted the express bus from Narita to Tokyo, we headed straight into a whirlpool of shit. We got hopelessly, disastrously, and desperately lost.
There is a metro pass for tourists, that can ONLY be purchased at Narita.
It is an unlimited pass for 500 yen a day that allows you to go crazy on their metro. And this card was suggested by Dorisa (thank god) and at that point, me and Siewsia had the audacity to think it was expensive. But Dorisa pressured us to get it AND THANKFULLY WE DID.
Because holy fuck the clutterfuck that is the Tokyo Metro cannot be underestimated.
Does the map look intimidating? Because it fucking is. Tokyo Central isn't even called Tokyo on the mtro, it's called Otemachi. Our Airbnb home was in Hikawadai, so we had to manoeuvre through three lines to get there.
Sounds easy? No. The bold, thick color lines will bring you through their regular stations yes, but there are thin lines sprouting from selected individual stations. These could lead to their famous JR railway, or their localized metro, or their any fucking where they please.
The point is, unlike Singapore where we have one platform per line, Tokyo has multiple trains sharing one platform. We didn't know, and hence didn't read the marquee, only the signs, and got lost for a solid two hours.
But eventually, we found our way and exhausted, entered our Airbnb home.
I loved it upon sight.
The place was white and glowing. There are two bedrooms, one modern and one traditional. The traditional one had a bed with accompanying tatami floors and shoji screens. There was a laundry room, a toilet and a bathtub, all in separate cubicles. The kitchen merged with the living room, leading to a spacious living room, which had a single couch. The place had endless sliding doors and built-in cupboards everywhere.
I, naturally, called unpacking dibs at the spot nearest to a charging outlet. Dorisa and Siewsia each picked their little corner and we hurriedly unpacked. We decided on dinner at a nearby restaurant before heading out again.
Thought we were going to the onsen (hot spring) initially and hence covered up like a nun. In the end, we didn't have enough time because traveling itself was a couple of hours and in the end, settled for Golden Gai.
Tokyo at dusk.
The restaurant had the prettiest toilet ever.
All of (modern) Japan is equipped with automatic toilets. I made a mental note to try every single function on my apartment's toilet but entirely forgot about it. Dorisa tried every single one though. I will check with her!
Case in point: look at the marquee.
One platform, two trains in two directions. It wasn't hard to figure out, but for a first timer it can be overwhelming. In fact in hindsight, it was brilliant that we got lost on day one. In the coming days, we would end up having our own day outs and we didn't get lost on the metro anymore, only on their roads LOL.
The incident of being lost burned deep and Dorisa spent much of the metro ride very quickly figuring out how the marquee worked, how the express line worked, and how the buses worked. And I happily soaked up all her knowledge!
S-S-Shibuya!
Shibuya doesn't sleep. It was 10 closing 11 when we went but everywhere was brighter than day and the restaurants still looked like they were going strong. I got very hungry but Dorisa convinced me beer is king.
We found Golden Gai!
A stone's throw from Shibya Station, Golden Gai is Tokyo's most well-known night street. The pubs here are small and cosy, most of them seat a full house at just five patrons. None of them can fit over 10. So come in small groups.
Most of them seemed pretty full with just a couple or two friends in them, so me and Dorisa had a tough time settling on one to go to. In the end, a pushy Caucasian directed us up a 700 yen beer bar he was at and we obliged.
Here my experience soured a little.
I had a good time listening to David Bowie on the tv, but even tipsy I could hear the American who bought us up talking to his friend, who was animatedly going on about how he thought the girl in the garland is not bad looking, while the former American insisted I was too short.
We were getting up to leave when the Americans stopped us and introduced us drunkenly to their friends, saying we are in good hands if we leave with them to a new neighborhood, where Tokyo's gay nightlife is.
Dorisa was really game for it and bugged me to follow, but I was skeptical. I asked what time they would call it a night if we joined and they brazenly said, "Oh we are gonna go to the gay place then karaoke the night away! Come on join us!"
I was starting to lose my patience and it showed. I offered to join them for the gay place to take a look-see, because Dorisa was genuinely curious, but that we would leave after. But the fucking dude decided to go cold and say, "Well shouldn't you stay all the way, or not stay at all?"
Well then fuck you and fuck your mother. I turned without bothering to reply and Dorisa smiled an apologetic goodbye. And I spent the trip home bitching about how rude the son of bitches were.
But still a pretty good start to day one!
In summary:
Airport shitty ice cream: 120 yen
Airport Tokyo Banana (box of 4): 480 yen
Sim card: 1250 yen
But from NRT-TKO: 200 yen
Unlimited tourist travel pass (5 days): 2500 yen
Curry rice dinner: 280 yen
Heinken: 700 yen
Total: 5530 yen // SGD$62
