Tokyo Travelogue: Day 8 Fuji Shibazakura Festival
Our last full day in Tokyo saw us taking a 2 hour train ride out to Kawaguchiko to do the following:
Catch a glimpse of Mt Fuji
Try and pretend sakuras were still available in May lol
We originally wanted to go to Hakone instead but the volcanic eruption caused us to switch plans a few weeks before flying off to Japan so we settled instead for the Fuji Shibazakura Festival.
Took the straight train from Shinjuku Station to Kawaguchiko. Entire journey was around 2 hours and we bought our tickets on the day itself from Shinjuku station. If you have trouble telling the station staff the tickets you want to purchase, make sure to print out the 'Access' page here to the festival here and show it to them.
Caught a glimpse of Mt Fuji when we alighted at Kawaguchiko staion
There are signs directing you to the shuttle bus that brings you to the festival site. The bus journey is another 30 minutes and you can get the tickets at the bus station for the bus.
Unfortunately, it was nearing the end of the festival so the flowers were pretty much gone although there were patches of pink still scattered all around.
Dragon Lake
We beelined for the food tents immediately because it was nearing lunch time then. There isn't much available there to be honest, just ramen, yaki soba and some vending machines that dispense canned drinks. I highly recommend that you bring some food along to the place, it would make a very nice site for a picnic really if the weather permits.
Here's the shibazakura flower that we were there to see, nothing similar to sakuras really but hey, beggars cannot be choosers ya hahaa. Oh and the venue organizers do charge a fee when the flowers are in full bloom. Once it gets nearer to the end of the bloom, you can enter the site free of charge which was what happened to us because we were there on the second last day before the festival ended.
Picturesque view of Mt Fuji from the site
Doesn't this look like a place out of a postcard?
Placed the Minnie Mouse doll here to take pictures just because we were pretty bored there lol. Can you imagine travelling for 2.5 hours straight and only taking less than 20 mins to cover the entire site? We just had to kill more time there just to make the journey worth lololol.
Left after about an hour to head back to Kawaguchiko station. Hope that I'll get to see real hamani in the future though if I can bear the thought of the human crowds during hamani season in Japan.
Took a direct bus from Kawaguchiko station back to Shibuya! Took us 2 hours to get back there and then we headed off to shop some more.
Popped into an arcade because I saw these cute Big Bang bears!!! Omg why don't YG sell these online T_____T need.a.TOP.bear!!!
Spotted this huge ass Disney Tsum Tsum arcade game as well and promptly waited in line for our turn hahaha! It's majorly cute because you put in the coins for a Tsum Tsum 3D figurine, scan it to select the Tsum Tsum for the game and voila! Just continue with the game. It can also be played competitively between 2 players. I got the Toy Story Alien while the bff got Elsa and she beat my ass at the game because the Alien skill is crap pffffffffft. At the end of the game we swopped the figurines because I know she would have preferred the Alien over Elsa LOL
Ichiran ramen once again because this is not available in Singapore!
Anyhow, we were headed back to Singapore the next day via Hong Kong once again. Spent about half the day hanging around Tokyo Station before heading back to the hotel to grab our luggages.
Bought this from 7-11! Super duper nice! Anything made with Royce chocolates are awesome!
Character Street once again where I picked up a bunch of Rilakkuma things
Managed to get onto the free wifi using the app only on the last day because I had ran out of data on my sim card. The hotspots were pretty scarce among the places we visited so I would still recommend that you either get the portable wifi device or a prepaid data sim card.
Bye Tokyo! On our way to the Narita Express at Tokyo Station.
Souvenirs that I brought back from Tokyo: shiroi koibito biscuits were bought at Narita Airport, Tokyo Banana goodies were all bought at Daimaru Tokyo Station, Ichiran ramen from the stores itself and Ippudo noodles from 7-11! Oh and flavoured Kit Kats from a store inside Tokyo Station.
Massive make-up haul from Tokyo! Mostly bought at the drugstores and Don Quixote. Luxe brands came from the departmental store and airport's duty free store!
And that's it for the entire Tokyo trip we did in May 2015 holy shit. Ok I promise to be more hardworking for my upcoming trip to Korea and blog about it asap :D
Till then, bye!