TTT Day 2 ~ Tsukiji, Ginza and Odaiba

Posted by Tiffany on September 17, 2009 in Travel

Day two of my Tokyo Trip! We visted Tsukiji, Ginza and Odaiba. Tsukiji is known for it’s famous fish market which is also the biggest food market in the world! They have these fish auctions that take place there but you have to be there before 5:30am to see the action. That turned out to be a little bit too early for us, but we managed to get there around 6am and there was lots of things to see still.

This is the type of traffic you see at the fish market, people transporting goods all around the market with their trollies. It may not look like it, but it’s pretty dangerous crossing here! It’s like crossing a highway, we almost got ran over by a trolly many times.. they don’t care to stop for you..

I honestly did not know tuna grew this big until I went here.. I’ve only seen tuna come in cans or on top of my sushi before this! It was a very educational experience for me hahah

TTT Day 1 ~ Ghibli Museum and Roppongi Hills

Posted by Tiffany on September 11, 2009 in Travel

TTT = Tiffany’s Tokyo Trip! Hello all!! I’m finally posting some ‘real’ photos from my trip to Tokyo a couple weeks ago. I’m very sorry that I didn’t really get anywhere with that last post, but thank you for being patient with me. =) So here is my first official full day in Tokyo, since we got there during the evening the day before and that doesn’t really count! Anyway our plan for the day was going to the Ghibli Museum and also seeing the Roppongi district.

It was our first experience with taking the train around and it was relatively simple to figure out! Everyone I talked to about the transit system made it seem so tricky! It also helps that there was three of us because there was always one of us that knew where they were going. The Ghibli Museum is located in the Mitaka district and it was only a short 20 minute train ride to get there. From the Mitaka station it was about a 15 minute walk to get to the museum. We had to walk through a nice park/forest area to get to there and along the way there were signs telling you how much further it was!

Studio Ghibli is responsible for bringing you many wonderful animated films such as ‘My Neighbor Totoro’, ‘Princess Mononoke’, ‘Spirited Away’ and most recently ‘Ponyo’. I have yet to see Ponyo, but I highly recommend the other ones if you haven’t seen them yet!

Walking to the museum..

Tiffany Goes to Tokyo!

Posted by Tiffany on September 5, 2009 in Travel

Japan has been at the top of my list of travel destinations for a long time and I had finally planned a trip to go with two of my close friends! We went for about eight days (not long enough! ;D) and we stayed in Tokyo. Such an amazing city, it was so much more than any of us imagined. No books, travel guides, websites, photos or word of mouth can really do it justice. It’s a place you really need to see and experience for yourself. We were all pretty much blown away when we got there.

We had figured out our itinerary for each day beforehand and planned out all the places we would be going. We wanted to see as many things as we could but I think we really underestimated the amount of walking, transit and energy required to do all of it! We were all pretty pooped at the end of the day but so happy to be there at the same time. My feet were definitely killing me every night, I was dying. I really should have invested in some better walking shoes before going there haha.

Tokyo here I come!! Some things I made sure to pack for the trip, Japan Lonely Planet Travel Guide & Point-and-speak Japan (thanks Rosa for lending me those books ^^), a leather camera case for my LX3. The black and white piggy thing is my money pouch – it has 2 separate zippers which is useful for separating currencies. I carried Canadian and US Dollars, and Japanese Yen! A map of Tokyo which was free from a travel agency but we didn’t really use it because It wasn’t detailed enough. Also a print out of the JR East train route map which was very useful since we took JR lines 90% of the time, and lastly my handy dandy notebook with bunch travel notes, useful info about restaurants and stores scribbled in.

The Point and Speak book was the best, I brought it along everywhere! It was so helpful because there’s images along with the English word/phrase, the Japanese characters, and also how to pronounce it in Japanese. There’s a very helpful section with all sorts of meats/fish, food and snacks which helps a lot. I love the illustrations too, they’re so cute!