Japan travel guide : Getting around Tokyo

Here is a simple guide on one of (various) discount tickets that you can use while visiting Tokyo. 

I have heard people complaining about transport fees in Japan. Train fares start from about 120 yen or 150 yen depending on the railway company that you use and if you are visiting various places in one day, you might actually be spending a considerable amount on transport. There are various one-day or various discount passes offered by the different companies and in this post I will 

The JR Yamanote line might be the most commonly used line for tourists to get around Tokyo and hence, I suggest that if you are visiting various places (perhaps more than 4 places in a day or places that are further away from each other or from your hotel), you can get one of the pass.

The following pass JR Tokunai (Tokyo district - 23 wards) pass, provide you with unlimited rides for a day within the areas located in the map below. The simplified map doesn’t show all the stations on the JR lines, but it is valid for all stations within that area.

The pass cost 750yen a day and is valid for popular tourist spots - Harajuku and Shibuya as well.

Of course, it might take a considerable amount of travelling to make your money worth and hence you might want to find out the total transportation fares to the places you are going to visit before purchasing the pass. I personally like the pass as it saved me the trouble of purchasing individual tickets at the stations each time and allow me to alight at every station just for the sake of getting something. I actually used this pass and went to different stations just to eat, practically stopped at 3-4 stations just to get food and went off.  I stopped at a station just to get cream puffs heh. 

More info here (JR web)

Check train timings/ routes and fares here 
















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Kuromon ichiba - kuromon sanpei

Tokyo has Tsukiji market and Osaka has Kuromon Ichiba (Kuromon Market) for your seafood fix. Kuromon ichiba is the place for affordable, fresh and cheap seafood in Osaka.

Located at Nipponbashi (one station away from Namba and Nagahoribashi (where I stayed at last year). Kuromon Ichiba is easily accessible and the market is so near the train station (totally love it, btw I went back again another day cos we can't get enough of the seafood there). Kuromon market link 

Kuromon sanpei is perhaps the most popular shop at kuromon ichiba. It specializes in seafood and they are sold in very affordable prices (at least compared to restaurants and Tokyo tsukiji market). A set of ootoro - fatty tuna belly (4 pieces is probably only about 1600 yen; it's about 700-800 yen per piece in tsukiji fish market and other sushi restaurants, so yup totally worth it. Kuromon Sanpei link 

What's worth mentioning is probably the gigantic boiled chilled crab which is like less than 3000 yen and yet so satisfying. My mum loves this a lot and she couldn't stop eating it. We even got like 2 of it the 2nd time we went.

The miso soup with lobsters is about 1600 yen but it is worth every yen cos it has like clams and lobsters in it.


You can also get oysters, sea urchins and so on and even kaisen don from the shop. Although the prices are cheaper than those of a restaurants, I still spent like 10k yen there or more cos we ate like a lot. Hence be mindful and don't over eat while you are there alright?

Of course, there's more to kuromon ichiba than just kuromon sanpei, I had oysters at some stall, soymilk as well (another post in future).

Kuromon market link 
Kuromon Sanpei link 

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Japan travel guide : Okonomiyaki in osaka

Well, I know okonomiyaki comes from Osaka and well, during my trip I ate a lot of food, so much that I nearly don’t have stomach to chow down an okonomiyaki.

Okay, during this trip I only went to one okonomiyaki shop as my mum isn’t a fan of it and on other times, we were to full to eat them anyway.

download the map here

So let’s go:

The restaurant that I went to isn’t the mizuno that’s famous and popular among tourist, it was Ajinoya which has a long queue during dinner or lunch hour, so we went for an early dinner, about 5-ish?

Well, most of the patrons are locals which means I can safely assume that this shop serves authentic yummy okonomiyaki?

You can get to ajinoya through exit 14 of namba station. you will pass by a convenience store (family mart) and then kinryu ramen (you can spot the dragon). Turn in when you see the dragon (kinryu ramen) and ajinoya is along that stretch. very near.

Okay, first we ordered doteyaki which is beef sinew cooked in miso (?) I don’t really know the translation for it, but this is really good and even my mum who doesn’t really eat beef says it is good and even finished it. This came with bits and pieces of konnyaku and I really wished I ordered seconds for this.

Then we ordered tonpeiyaki (bottom right in the picture below) which is probably not very popular in other parts of Japan and across the world but apparently is a staple dish in osaka and they hail it as the appetizer to eat before okonomiyaki? I didn’t see restaurants serving it in tokyo though. Cultural difference? To put it simply, tonpeiyaki is just meat rolled in egg which I thought was normal.

For our okos, we ordered a special and a Mochi cheese. Both were really good. You can add bonito flakes and seaweed according to your liking. ^^

Saw people ordering the yakisoba though. Thought that might be good too.

the shopfront

download the map here

the shop website here

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Japan travel guide : Kobe beef

Cos what’s a trip to Kobe without having their famed Kobe beef right?

This trip was kinda satisfying for me in terms of food I guess, despite some hiccups and arguments with my mum.

Anyway, we went to eat Kobe beef cos I really wanted to try it and it would have cost an arm and leg to eat it in Singapore if it’s even available here in the first place.

I went to google and while there’s the cheaper option Kobe steak land with set from 2900 yen or something? The cuts don’t look that good in terms of marbling and all but others were either too expensive (10,000 yen or more for lunch?) and so we decided to head over to Steak Aoyama which is featured in the Kobe tourism website and provide lunch set at about 5900 yen (excluding tax).

This meal might be one of the most expensive meals of the trip but we totally don’t regret it at all.

Firstly, the restaurant is actually kind of far from sannomiya station, probably about 15-20 mins walk if you don’t get lost. I would suggest getting a pocket (portable) wifi and saving the places you wna go in google maps and use it to navigate around Japan especially if you don’t know the language or is going to Japan for the first time. This is really useful and it really helped me especially since this is my first time going to the kansai areas. I will talk about the pocket wifi in a separate post.

The restaurant is kind of small, similar to many stand-alone restaurants in Japan (normally chain restaurants will be bigger) so it will be good to make reservations in advance if you are going in a big group.

The meal started with an appetizer and a soup and then you get to choose between the sirloin and the fillet. We ordered one sirloin and one fillet and the chef helped us to split them equally so we get half sirloin and half fillet each. I personally feel the sirloin is better as it has more fats and hence will melt in your mouth more but the fillet is good enough as it is soft and tender but I guess I just prefer unhealthy stuffs? We got about 8 small cubes of beef each together with vegetables and mushrooms. They gave us pink salt for dipping and it’s really good (& it’s healthier than normal salt as well right?). You can choose either rice or toast to go along with your meal. We chose rice but the toast look so good too. The chef will cook the toast with butter on the teppenyaki grill if you ordered toast. The butter melting on the toast and all is just… I really wished I ordered and ala carte toast just cos it looks good lol but I don’t think I could finished it and I didn’t know if they sell it ala carte too.

Ah well, after a satisfying meal which my mum said took damn long cos the chef cook the food slowly and with dedication infront of you, we were moved to another table to have our after meal coffee or tea which you can choose. I think Kobe is famous for coffee or something but I had tea though cos I’m not a coffee person lol. The meal was really good and I love the meat.

Now that’s the thing about meat in Japan, I don’t know if it’s only a Singapore thing but sometimes when eating beef and lamb, especially lamb in Singapore, there’s this smell of the meat that they can’t handle well enough which then turns people off. My mum doesn’t like to eat beef, at least in Singapore but after eating beef in Japan she kept asking me if we are going to go back to eat the Kobe beef again cos it’s just that good.

If you are not in a hurry, I will recommend you to go for a Kobe beef lunch (tips: lunch sets in Japan are definitely cheaper than dinner set even if they are the same thing. Don’t ask me why.) and enjoy the experience. I don’t know about steak land but I read online reviews and it has positive reviews as well and so if you are on a budget you might want to check that out but there’s always a long queue for steak land though and I guess the queue will be quite fast though cos it is bigger?

Anyway here’s the link for
Steak aoyama
Kobe steak land

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Japan travel guide: Pablo

There are two famous/ popular cheesecake/ cheesetart shops in Osaka and one of them is Pablo.

Pablo cheesecake primarily come in two kinds - rare and medium and only offered in one size (about 15cm in diameter?) and is 800 yen each. The medium is slightly more cooked while the rare one is less cooked and meaning when the cake is freshly baked, the insides of the tart will flow out when you cut into it.

They also sell pudding and seasonal cheese tarts with fruits etc on it, together with cheese snacks and so on. They also have the limited quantity premium cheesetart which sold out very quickly. The premium cheesetart and seasonal cheesetarts/ all other with toppings or fillings will obviously cost more but they are really worth it.

I got one rare cheesetart to share with my mum. At first glance, it seems very big and filling and my mum was harping on how we will never finish it as she doesn’t really like cheesecake/ cheese stuffs. However, we finished it really easily and my mum who doesn’t even like cheese that much find it nice too as the cheesetart is really light and the texture is something I have never eaten before. I was regretting that I only got one but ah well.

They have various outlets at dotonbori (namba area) alone so getting it is easy although there might be queues but I went just before closing hours and so I didn’t have to queue for long.

More info here

P.S. Pablo has opened in Tokyo (Shibuya & Shinjuku)


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Japan travel guide: Eggs n Things

So this time round, I finally went to eggs n things for pancakes!

There are various branches in osaka, tokyo, Yokohama and so on but I went to the one in Tokyo which is near Harajuku. More info here

It was raining when I went there so we couldn’t dine alfresco but there’s wasn’t a long queue probably cos we went early too and so we were directed to the 2nd level which was already packed when we went in.

You can check out their menu here 

When we went they were still having the Halloween special menu but I didn’t order that as I wanted to try the original pancakes with strawberry. We ordered one steak with egg and one pancakes with strawberry and whipped cream.

We were given options to pair our steak and eggs with toast or pancakes (think we have to add a couple hundred yen) or potatoes. I opted for the toast. Surprisingly, despite being a pancake restaurant, the steak still tasted quite decent and the eggs and cooked well to your liking (you can choose if you want sunny sides up, runny yolks and so on, which I thought is pretty good and considerate of them). I enjoyed the meat and eggs.

The pancakes, well the pancakes are awesome. The whipped cream is fluffy and light although they give you loads of it, like seriously a mountain of it, I managed to finish all of the whipped cream (yes I know it is fattening but it just tastes so good). This is totally worth the calories and money.

They have various sauces on the table incase you get sick of your pancakes. Think there’s the maple, guava

and coconut or something (i can’t exactly remember all the syrups) but I think it is fine without the syrups as there’s ample whipped cream to pair the pancakes with and thurs the pancakes don’t seem dry. However, when you are halfway through the pancakes (I think there’s like 4-5 pieces if I am not wrong), you might get sick of the same rate and that’s when the syrups come in handy.

A satisfying breakfast and it’s about 20 sgd each. Don’t regret it at all seriously and if I happen to visit Japan again, I will definitely go there again early to avoid the queues.


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Cheap Kobe beef: 2000 yen Kobe Beef

2000 yen Kobe beef

There's lots of food in kuromon ichiba located at Nipponbashi which is like one station away from Namba and Nagahoribashi. It is a good place for breakfast (lots of affordable sushi/ sashimi/ crabs compared to restaurants and even Tokyo Tsukiji fish market).

Kuromon ichiba sells a wide variety of stuffs, it's practically like a shopping street with shops selling household items, cutlery, snacks, cooked food, seafood and so on and the prices there are cheaper than some other places in Osaka, so it's worth checking this place out if you are visiting Osaka.

I have written a post previously on my Kobe beef experience in Kobe and while that meal (a set) set me back at more than 6000 yen per person, Kobe beef at kuromon ichiba is cheaper by a lot (rice and soup not included). 

Maruzen at kuromon ichiba sells Kobe beef for 2000 yen (SGD23/ less than 20 USD) and while the beef portion was obviously a smaller and thinner version than that of a restaurant that specializes in Kobe beef, it is enough. The marbling on the beef looks good and there's like about 7-8 pieces of beef for one serving which is very worth the money that you are paying for imo.



We ordered one portion each and my mum loved it too. 


Kuromon ichiba map here
Map of the shop here