Arrival at Shinjuku station and we saw this enclosed smoking area on the platform…


Handling more than two million passengers each day,
Shinjuku Station is Japan's busiest railway station,
served by six railway companies and about a dozen railway and subway lines.


Haagen-Dazs vending machine! Right in the lobby of our hotel in Shinjuku…


Glad that Vance carried all the bulky luggage throughout the trip… Thanks Hairy Porter!
Vance: ...


We stayed in Star Hotel, which is a 5 mins walk from West Exit of JR Shinjuku.
Here’s a twin sharing room…
Vance: We found this hotel on Google Earth during our intensive research on Tokyo! :)


The wardrobe, which could hardly fit me inside…


The attached bathroom…
The great thing about most Japan hotels and ryokan is that they provide
refillable toiletries including shower foam, shampoo and hair conditioner…
Even if they don’t, shops selling affordable toiletries are widely available…


The only thing that we didn’t like about Star Hotel…
This is the ONLY small kettle for boiling of water?
We have to boil water using this electrical server for at least 5 times to fill our water bottles…
Vance: And Fiona handles the "boiling water" job really well! :)


Coin Washers available in this Hotel too...
Vance: Guess who does the washing again? *Bang wall*

Unlike Hotel Villa Fontaine Shinsaibashi (Osaka), washing powder comes with every wash,
hence no detergent is required.
Charges for washer : JPY200 per wash
Dryer : JPY100 for 30mins of drying…


The brown building in the centre is Star Hotel.
We must say that the location is really strategic…


Saw this donation appeal (For dogs I think)…
That’s a pretty innovative idea…
Perhaps Actions For Dogs or SPCA should do this during fund raising…


Complicated train network… And there’s no English version…
We were slightly stuck for a while before we figured out where is Yamanote Line…


Buying the tickets was a challenge too…


We took the Yamanote Line from Shinjuku to Harajuku.
Yamanote Line is Tokyo’s most important train line that connects
Tokyo's major city centers. A trip around the whole circle takes
approximately one hour. This is the Japanese version of our Circle Line…


Crowed train on a Sunday... They all have a common destination… Harajuku!


LCD panel displaying next stop’s information…


There’s news display too… Personally I think that this is a great idea…
Unlike Singapore where SMRT tries to dump us with endless advertisements on such panels…

iPhone 3G was out for pre-orders at Softbank, which is not a bank
but rather a Telecom company like SingTel or Starhub…
The pre-orders attracted a long queue outside this building…


The busy streets of Omotesando… Simply amazed by the number of shoppers!


Decided to try out Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers located along Omotesando…


Verdict : Not bad, especially the cheese fries with baked beans…


Ventured into the small streets of Omotesando and found this small piece of land for sale…


Look at the number of foreign branded cars… there must be some rich people living here…


Saw this makeup advertisement filming on the streets of Harajuku…


Bicycle or motorbike? Hhhmmm…


While our mobile ice-cream hawkers along Orchard Road come in bikes,
mobile Japanese ice-cream sellers in Harajuku come in lorries!


Ang Mo doing cosplay!



In order to experience the teenage culture at its most extreme,
visit Harajuku on a Sunday, when many young people gather around
Harajuku Station and engage in Cosplay ("Costume Play"),
dressed up in crazy costumes to resemble anime characters etc.


Mobile advertisements (with staff screaming on top of their voices)
are common along streets of Harajuku…