Studera utomlands

During mid-April, my family visited me in Japan. It was a really special visit, since it was not just my parents and brother from Norway, but also my grandfather from Malaysia and my cousins and their family from Australia as well. It has been several years since everyone has been in the same place, so we were all very excited to be reunited.

All of them stayed for nearly 2 weeks, and we spent the first few days in Tokyo.

Day 1: Shinjuku

My little cousin and brother’s main wish were to see the cherry blossoms in Japan. As we live in Shinjuku, we decided to go to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden to see them. The garden was beautiful and well kept. Despite the season ending, there were still a lot of flowering sakura trees around.

Day 2: Odaiba

The next day, we went to Odaiba. It is a much more modern area compared to central Tokyo, spacious and well organised. We went to the mall there, and one of the reasons was for this Doraemon store. Doraemon was a series me, my brother and dad grew up with, so we dropped by for a visit.

There were a lot more stores in the mall where we wandered around and had dinner. However, Odaiba is very well-known for this huge rainbow Gundam in front of the mall.

Day 3: Harajuku

On the 3rd day, we went to Harajuku to try the viral carbonara udon. It was another thing on my cousin’s bucket list, so we arrive in the morning to grab a ticket for the restaurant. While waiting, we went and got matcha tiramisu in a nearby café. 😀

When it was our time, we got to the restaurant to line up. We were in line for around 20 minutes, where we huddled together in the rain. The udon itself was alright, but I don’t think I would wait another 1.5h for it though XP.

Day 4: Asakusa

On day 4, the agenda was Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree. I haven’t been to Asakusa since I arrived in Tokyo, and the Senso-ji temple was as crowded as I expected.

Afterwards, we walked to Skytree. We didn’t go up the tower this time (I’ve already been up there before), and mostly just did some shopping in the mall below.

Day 5: Tokyo Tower

On our last day, we went to Tokyo Tower. The sky started out quite nicely when we walked there, but it suddenly got cloudy when we arrived for pictures 🥲. Nonetheless, we were there at sunset and got to see the tower light up as we were leaving.

After these few days in Tokyo, my family and my cousin’s family split up. We went to Hiroshima and Hakone, while they went to Kawaguchiko and Osaka. Despite that, we all had a lot of fun in the few days we shared and could only look forward to the next time we see each other again~

(Part 2 about the Hiroshima trip in the next post XD)

Introductory Image: Tokyo Tower (Picture by: Yi Cheng Chng)