Narita - Haneda - Memanbetsu - Abashiri Taking the night flight is not a joke. With a total sleeping time of 1 hour plus breakfast served at 4.30am in the morning (Singapore time), I was already beat on my first day there. Service, as usual, on a JAL flight was great. It wasn't a packed flight as well. We started with umeshu on rocks as our first drink overseas. Kampai!

Breakfast comprised of something which I totally forgot now. Guess we were still not in a photo taking mood yet. I remember got some cold udon noodles with dip, yoghurt and some fruit cubes. I vaguely remember the main course being porridge with salted eggs, which surprisingly tasted rather nice.

Arrived at Narita airport at 7am and already a bit under the wind liao due to the lack of sleep. Went down to the basement for a train to Narita city and was pleasantly surprised that we could change our Hokkaido rail voucher for a pass at the ticket counter instead of the travel bureau which only opens at 11am. Alas, they were not able to process Hokkaido passes. I should have known better. In all the brochures, Narita was not listed as an exchange location but I thought I found a loophole in their website which says it can be exchanged there. Oh well. Lesson of the day: Hokkaido passes can only be exchanged in Hokkaido. The JR Hokkaido pass is a 3 or 5 day pass (different prices) which allows you unlimited train (not subway) travel in Hokkaido. We bought it together as a package with the return international air tickets and return domestic air tickets from Tokyo to Hokkaido.


A bit demoralized after this incident (more on it later), we then took a short train ride to Narita city. Other than the train stopping midway for some unknown reason, the trip was short and routine. It was very cloudy and when we reached it started drizzling. The wind was very cold... Lotsa students at the train station and I think for some reason the skirts of the students in Narita is super short. I mean it is a general trend in Jap la, but Narita kids are ALL in short skirts as compared to say Tokyo where you might see longer skirts as well. And Narita is supposed to be a rural town!

Ok, moving on, I spotted Mister Donut right opposite the train station and got very excited haha. One of my goals this trip is to eat there. Ok fine actually I have lotsa goals for this trip. Can't believe I didn't know about Mister Donut on my previous trip to Narita. For the uninitiated, it is a chain of donut cafes which can be readily found throughout Japan. Its practically everywhere! More on this later on as well.

No time to waste as we made our way inside and ordered donuts plus coffee. Hmm... no Pon De Ring, their signature donut. I ordered a French style donut plus a box of mini donut balls. The coffee there, as with alot of Jap cafes, is bottomless. Meaning free flow. Service was good and waitresses cute. KS ordered something similar and a biscuity stick which is rather nice. In fact, this is a recurrent theme la. Everything in Jap is nice. So I don't bother repeating myself throughout all my entries. Haha... Anyway after we nearly finished our stash, we saw the Pon De Ring in the trays! I had to try it! We ordered one to share. Yum... it was as good as I remembered it. Kinda chewy and sweet. Thumbs up! Oh and with every Y300 purchase there was a promotion where we got a scratch-and-win card and KS won a shopping bag. Interestingly, we never won it again on the following visits.




After a 2nd satisfying breakfast we were ready to make our way down Omotesando St to Narita-san, the most famous place in Narita. Nothing really new for me here as I was here before and Narita is basically a small town. Saw the usual Yokan and eel shops which this place is famous for. Remember all the while we were pulling along our trolley bags plus our backpacks. So far so good, luckily I packed light.



Apparently on the day we were there there was supposed to be a Matsuri (summer festival)! Unfortunately due to the rain which got heavier as we progressed on, it was canceled (we think). Quite a lot of tourists at Narita-san perhaps due to this being a festival day. It's not a fun task to hand-carry the trolley bags up the steps leading up to the temple. I think KS's bag is 3kg more than mine. His is a jumbo one la.

After a while there, we decided to go eat lunch liao since nothing else to do. This is a recurrent theme as well, gorging ourselves at every opportunity, as least me lah. We went to Edoko Sushi, which based on what I read, is a famous sushi place in Japan. It's near the red bridge which is near the JR station. Ordered the lunch set which is around Y2000 and now I finally know why this place is famous.The quality wasn't drop dead spectacular but it was really value for money. To put things in perspective, Y2000 for a sushi meal in Jap is considered cheap and the fish slices there was huge. I think each fish slice is around 4x the length of the rice. And the sushi includes crab and crab miso soup as well. So it's a good place if you are not too fussy about the quality of the fish. I think good for angmohs lah coz they kenot appreciate this kinda thing. As long as they can eat exotic things they happy liao haha.


After lunch and a brief stop at a kombini (convenient store), the rain forced us to leave the town back to the airport for our express train to Tokyo. Usually people will take the bus (which is called limousine bus haha) to leave the airport to various destinations as the bus takes a more direct route and is faster. Lugging luggages up and down the train stations is not joke either. But I chose to take the train because we had lotsa time to spare and it is slightly cheaper. We left Narita airport around 1pm for Haneda airport in Tokyo. Our flight was actually at 6.40pm and we arrived around 3 something with 2 train changes along the way.

Haneda airport is a totally different world from Narita airport altogether. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised as Haneda is just 15mins away from Tokyo center as compared to 1.5 hours for Narita. There were just so many shops selling omiyage (souvenirs) and snacks and cakes and chocolates, etc., etc., as compared to the paltry single row of shops at Narita. I went to the Dean & Deluca there too! Wah excited lol! Bought a chilled black pepper ham sandwich. YUM! Later on we also bought a sundae. Mine with nuts and his with fruits. AND later on I bought a multi-vitamin jelly drink which comes in a soft pack and you squeeze it into your mouth to eat. Same packaging as the Ribena pack we have in Singapore but its all in jelly form. Read on the net that such jelly drinks was cool in Japan before. Anyway I needed all the vitamins coz I felt like I had a fever but then my forehead wasn't hot. Hmmm... Oh just an additional observation. Kare (curry) is a form of fast food in Jap, together with ramen and gyudon (beef bowls). Saw lotsa kare houses in the airport.


Fast-forwarding along, we were on the shuttle bus from the main airport building to the plane itself which was really far away. I was kinda expecting the plane to be a mini one as Memanbetsu is kinda ulu. But it turned out decently big enough and interestingly I think we were the only two gaijins on this not-very-packed flight. The flight itself took around 1 hour 45mins, and we arrived there in darkness. We boarded the bus at this very small airport to Abashiri and kinda worrying that there were only 3 ppl in the bus, incl. the driver. Impt to note that the bus always leaves maybe 30mins after any plane lands at this airport, so don't dally too much or you will miss this only bus. The bus ride took 30mins in pitch darkness through vast farmlands to reach the Abashiri JR station. Actually got a dumb incident. The bus got a machine to change Y1000 notes into coins. As I was getting out I changed a note into coins and slowly counted the Y880 needed for the fare. Then the driver (probably frustrated at my dumbness) just picked out Y120 from me and dropped the rest into the coin box. -_-"

True to its status as a prison town, it was really deserted at 8pm. Following the map, we made our way to Pension Lamp, the cheapest place we would stay on this trip and the cheapest in this town as well. The owner was this small and chubby uncle who spoke a little bit of English (believe me, in this part of Jap, a little bit is a lot!). This place is really value for money. For Y2800 each, we got a rather large and clean Jap style room with tatamis and futons. For Y280 more you get breakfast which comprised of a large chunk of bread plus a box of choco milk. But we chose to eschew it as I wanted my Mr Donut for breakfast. He told us that there was also a girl from Singapore staying there that night as well. Unfortunately we didn't bump into her. :P The map shows that it is very near to the JR station but actually still need to walk alot. Scales in Jap is different from scales in SG.

Dinner time! Actually there was a family restaurant (a Jap term) near our place but we decided to walk further on and see whether there are other choices. Unfortunately after a long walk we only saw a KFC, which was closing already. So we walked back to this place called Victoria. It was only later on that I realized that this Victoria refers to Victoria Station and is a part of Big Boy restaurant chain! True to the Jap style of family restaurants there were all sorts of people inside from students, OLs, and of course families. The Japanese family restaurants, ubiquitous in suburbia, has its similarity with American diners I think. It's always in a standalone one storey building with lots for cars around it. And there would be the compulsory tall signpost which you can see miles away.

To cut to the chase, the meal here was fantastic! I was totally blown away by the steak. Seriously I have never eaten a better steak ever at this kind of prices. It was really tender! Admittedly I chose the expensive filet mignon cut but still it was very reasonable pricing for really good meat. To think I have to come all the way to this rural town to get the best steak. -_-" And steak which comes with soy sauce and fresh wasabi, in my case.


KS ordered a cut steak set with some deep fried seafood and we had rice to go with the meat. My set also comes with soup which you can get from the bar (they had salad bar also). I chose corn soup but it wasn't very good. Of course we had beer to wash it all down. After our respective sets, I still felt hungry and suggested to order a hambaga set. Interesting it was in a roll rather than the normal patty. The menu itself was huge. 4 types of gravy to with the steak. Pages for steak, hambaga steak, chicken, seafood, pasta, etc. The steak came with different sizes and pairings like bread, rice, salad, etc.



After a freezing walk back to our pension, during which KS bought a can of hot cocoa from a vending machine, we retired for the night.

  F-ed by me at 9:07 AM

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