23 December 2016

Morning stroll
Greetings from Tokyo! After regained our energy last night, I was grateful that we did not catch a cold or other sickness from the fatigue yesterday. With full energy (and empty stomach) we departed around 1 PM after check out. Strolled around the area to find a place to eat. Again, the Google Maps failed us to our destination which was the other way round. So we needed to turn back again to our departure area and headed to correct direction. Mr. F was the one who lead the direction, since he understands japanese and stayed here for 2 years before. Sometimes he felt nervous and guilty to me because he was not so familiar with Tokyo (he stayed at Kawasaki before).
The warm sun really helped us from the chilly breeze that day. It was not necessary to wear gloves, but I wore them because I had some blisters on my palm from carrying the luggage whole day. 😦
Things that I loved in Japan, there were no traffic jam since they obey the rules and stay on their lane. In Indonesia, you will always find traffic jam everywhere and almost every time. That’s because most of the drivers are impatient and they cut other people’s lane when there is a faster way. It makes people need to brake their car and slows down the cars at the back.
We went to Tokyo Station took a train to Omotesando area, since we have no idea where to have brunch. We decided to grab it at Commune 246 again. To access the train, you can buy the normal ticket or just buy Suica card from the ticket vending machine. I had Suica with me, so I didn’t need to count how much and how many stations to go.
Here in Japan, don’t be surprised when you see most of Japanese sleeping everywhere. Even when they are on bench or in the train. They have such a good skill where they can suddenly awake and walked out when reached their destinations.

Commune 246 indoor seating
Finally we reached Commune 246! Since last night I ate some vegetarian food from Cori Vegan Food Stand, I looked for other food choice to eat. Well, again I had a hard time to choose. Then I walked around to capture some photos since most of the food stand were closed last night. I’ll share about Commune 246 in the next post!
We had around 3 hours before departing to Tokyo Station for Kyoto night bus. Then we looked at our luggages then we decided to just stay at Commune, warm our bodies, recover from the fatigue and discussed about our itinerary tomorrow (since we skipped a day in Osaka). We didn’t want to be late again for the bus! >_<

2.36, Early sunset sky (Commune 246 entrance)

Luggage locker
Before exploring Tokyo station, we searched for available coin locker to keep our luggage. You can store your luggage for maximum 3 days ( ¥600 / day, price might be different with other lockers). As we moved around freely, we looked for our bus stop tonight. (We learnt from our first day..haha) The bus stops located at the front entrance that departs to many destinations.
That was the ceiling of the Tokyo Station, played the animation of train, cities and many more. The white ceiling used as the screen for the projector. In the daytime, it will be just normal plain white ceiling.

Lighting projects to the floor
After confirmed our bus stop location, we were hungry at that time. So we went to Ground Floor shopping area (there were many restaurants and shops, mostly closed due to Christmas holiday soon). We decided to fill our tummy at a chinese restaurant with a dinner set meal (miso soup, ramen and fried rice)
It tasted like chinese food in Jakarta and it only cost less than ¥1000 for the set meal. So affordable! You can save more for drinks because the restaurants here provide mineral water for free (they will served you right away when you arrived and can be refilled so many times).

Another sleeping man

Cute lockers (different animal for different sections)

Standing McD eating style

an Art of Fuji Mountain

Killed our time while waiting for the bus

our night bus!
We took our luggages and departed at 10.45 PM from Tokyo station bound for Kyoto Station. It took 6 hours to reach there with 2 stops at rest areas for toilet and snack time. The bus was comfy because we had our seats at second floor and there were 3 individual seats in a row! (I got the window seat again..teehee :p ).
Have you ever go to other city with night bus before? Share with me 🙂
Willer Night Bus
-G-