2 days Takayama & 2 Days in Tokyo

Again the weather has been magnificent in Takayama. Arriving at our hotel our jaws dropped to find it was a 5 start hotel hehe.. Talk about service and talk about classy LOL... The front doors were gold in colour and had jap chicks greeting you and offering to carry your luggage.. haha.. Even the elevator doors were shining in bright gold..
Our room was amazing with double sink and a full baths! Hard to come by in Japan..

The spa wing was amazing and crazy!! there are 2 floors of spas in the hotel which both over look the mountains and the city of Takayama. They had both indoor and outdoor baths.
The city itself is small and was easily covered in less than half a day.. They have amazing wood carvings here that costs were bigger then our entire wallets for our trip here. The olden style houses are preserved here and looked amazing.
It was peaceful and country style living here which gave us a good break from the city rush and tiring walks and rides of Osaka and Kyoto.

Its our 3rd in Tokyo now and about to head out to do some shopping as the weather is cloudy and raining and windy..

Our 1st night in Tokyo:
We were AMAZED by the amount of PPL in just 1 station (Shinjuku) we arrived here just before peak hour and it was like shoulder to shoulder and cheek to cheek. Cant imagine what its like in peak hour!!! Dont worry im definately gonna go have a look hehe i wanna see if ppl are pushed and shoved into the trains like sardines as i saw in the Youtube clips LOL...

We walked around the west side of Shinjuku for food and managed to find an amazing restuarant that had a good variety of selections. Most important it had detailed pictures and yet againan English menu to top it off
We were so stuffed we walked it off in the Electric town on the west side and was amazed again by the LIGHTS on display in the streets of Shinjuku. Not only that but the amount of PPL around on a Thursday night!!!

Our 2nd day in Tokyo:
We waited after peak hour before catching any trains hehe.. as we didnt want to loose our patience as yet hehe.. Although i still wanna get a glimpse of peak hour and Monday is the day i will go find out. Even on off peak it was PACKED!!!!
The train systems here are sooo amazing. They are right on the DOT............. they arrive on time and leave on time....
So far there hasnt been a train that we caught that has been late.
Talk about the complexity of the train systems!!! haha luckily for colour coded and digital displays that changes from jap to english and also the annoucement chick talks Jap then in English hehe..
here is just Tokyo rail map:

http://www.tokyometro.jp/rosen/rosenzu/pdf/rosen_eng.pdf

Thats ONLY Tokyo metro.....

We went to 2 of the largest department stores in Ikebukuro which are opposite each other and its again MASSIVE. Apparently its one of the biggest again.. Its all BRAND NAME!!!!!!! Lay picked up a few handbags that looks cheap and nasty but they were priced at over $1k AUD!!!!!!!!!!!! we havent even heard of the brand!!!!
They had specialty floors as well that were were afraid to walk in LOL... so we ended up heading down stairs to the food basement floors....

ITS CRAZY!!!! talk about a food market in a shopping center!!! it was HUGE!!! it covered two basement floors and prob take about 1hour just to quickly walk around but if you were like Lay.. She stopped at alot of food stores that had SAMPLES!!!! tasting samples... She ate enough that she got almost FULL LOL....

We also made a half day trip to Hakone where we went to the mountain onsen. It was a little time consuming to get to as we caught a bullet train then a local train and then a bus hehe..
But looking from the outside it looked pretty crap.. But INSIDE we were once again AMAZED!!!
The baths on the men side had about 8 different baths and where the female had about 10 baths.
The outdoor baths were the best as the were nestled in the mountains and the water from the top would fall into the below bath and so on.. it was so tropical and so peaceful.. Bamboo trees made everything look so heavenly.

Lay didnt want to leave!!! they had saunas , massage chairs, bean bags, smoking lounges for you to rest after the baths. They even had place to sleep and rooms where you can just lay down and talk. They had about 16 small restuarants within the complex.. It was great!!!! althou we didnt eat here we had to get back to our area before it hit Peak hour hehehe..

Oh yeah we had some pork buns and they are HUGE.. it was atleast the size of a grepfruit .. I had the SHARK FIN BUN!!!! hahaha WTF... LOL

Anyways we are off to do some shopping in the rain.

Ohayō gozaimasu from Tokyo (Shinjuku)

Take care

Love
Lay/Tiger