In Tokyo, or anywhere in Japan, eating in a Japanese restaurant is also a must. We were really amazed at the exquisite preparation of our food (at a restaurant in Ginza), and it is a good feeling to be eating side by side with locals having their favorite food and sake.

Visit the Disneyland in Tokyo. From the Tokyo subway station take the JR line and get off at Mahaima station. This theme park is 1.5 larger than the one in Anaheim. I personally like the Disney Electrical Parade at 7:30 PM and the fireworks at 8:30PM.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

On our trip to Yokohama we just took the JR line from the Tokyo subway station. We got off at the Sakuragicho station in Yokohama, from where the Landmark Tower is just a five minute walk.

On our way to Hakone, we bought the Hakone Free Pass (which is not free at all), and we took the Odakyu Romance departing from Shinjuku (see trip details). It covers all the local transport mode in Hakone, aside from the round trip ticket Shinjuku-Hakone-Shinjuku. It also gives you flexible options on how you go your way within Hakone.

From and to the airport, take the Narita Express train. Although it is expensive, it is the fastest option. It's also high-tech and clean, like those Thalys trains in Europe.

Our room's bathroom was quite small (just like the ones in cruise ships), but it was complete with seat heater and bidet. The rooms were clean and quiet.

On different levels within the hotel were the food dispenser, drinks dispenser, and various other amenities.

The hotel is just above the Kayabacho subway station. It takes 5 minutes to reach the subway platform from the hotel.

Owakudani is a place where there are still sulfuric lava fissures being emitted from volcanic rocks. The place smelled of burning sulfur. From there we then took the 28-min ropeway (cable car) ride to Togendai located at the edge of Lake Ashi. Once we arrived at Lake Ashi we boarded one of the three pirate sightseeing ships for Hakone-matchi at the other side of the lake. This is where one can have the best view of Mt. Fuji but unfortunately it was cloudy that day and Mt. Fuji was nowhere to be seen. (Actually the best time to catch the majestic Mt. Fuji is during winter so I plan to visit it again some time during winter, God willing.) It took us 30 minutes to go across the lake. We left Hakone at around 15:30 and we headed directly to Tokyo Disneyland.

At around 19:30 we then watched the Disney Electrical Parade Dreamlights showcasing all the Disney characters from Cinderella to Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast to the Toy Story characters to Chip and Dale and many more in their respective floats made of lights. It was simply awesome. Unfortunately, I ran out of battery for my video cam and I had to switch every now and then between my two drained batteries just to catch a portion of the parade. Thank God I was able to film a short portion of it. After the parade was the Disney Fantasy in the Sky at around 20:30 which was actually fireworks near the castle. I was also able to take a portion of it. I also ran out of my SLR camera battery and I had to buy the batteries inside Disneyland. They were quite expensive but I had no choice but to buy them or else I would have missed taking all those scenery in night mode. We left Disneyland at around 21:45.

We had a hard time finding our hotel. The building signs were mostly in Japanese and we were just relying on the building number to find the hotel. Then, we asked two young Japanese ladies if they spoke English; they replied, "just a little." So we asked for our hotel and they eagerly explained to us, in English, our hotel's location, which was quite near to where we were standing. After checking in at the hotel, we took a 40-minute train ride from Tokyo to Yokohama.

We arrived in Yokohama after 7 PM. We then proceeded to the Landmark Tower which is the tallest building in Japan. We went to its observatory deck (the highest in Japan) on the 69th floor via the world's fastest elevator. It was not free; we paid 1000 yen for the entrance. We stayed there about 40 minutes, enjoying the nighttime view from four different viewing platforms. We even spotted the Yokohama stadium, where a game was being held; this stadium is where the World Cup 2002 finals will be held.

After we went down, we proceeded to Hard Rock Cafe Yokohama (just next to the Landmark Tower) and bought memorabilia requested by friends. We had dinner in McDonald's, left for Tokyo around 10PM, and arrived there 1 hour later.

DAY 2
We left the hotel at 7:30 AM for Shinjuku, for our trip to Hakone. We took an Odakyu Express train (they call it the Romance Car) and headed for Hakone-Yumoto. The entire trip to Hakone cost us around 5,500 yen. This included the trip from Shinjuku to Hakone and back, and all the trips within Hakone described below. The trip from Shinjuku (in Tokyo) to Hakone-Yumoto was about 2 hours, and then we took the 40-min scenic rail ride from Hakone-Yumoto to Gora. From Gora we took the 10-min cable ride to Sounzan. Here we saw some cherry blossoms and took pictures. From Sounzan we rode in a bus to Owakudani and had an authentic Japanese lunch in one of the restaurants there. Owakudani is a place where there is still sulfuric lava being emitted from fissures in the volcanic rocks. The place smelled of burning sulfur. From there we took the 28-min ropeway (cable car) ride to Togendai, which is located at the edge of Lake Ashi. Once we arrived at Lake Ashi we boarded one of the three pirate sightseeing ships, headed for Hakone-matchi at the other side of the lake. This is where you can have the best view of Mt. Fuji, but unfortunately it was cloudy that day and Mt. Fuji was nowhere to be seen. (Actually, the best time to catch the majestic Mt. Fuji is during winter, so I plan to visit it again some winter, God willing). It took us 30 minutes to get across the lake. We left Hakone at around 15:30 and we headed directly to Tokyo Disneyland.

We arrived in Disneyland at 16:30, just in time for the cheaper Starlight Passport (used only after 3 PM, which saved us 1000 yen from the original price of 5500 yen). When we arrived at the entrance, most of the Disney characters were busy strolling around and gladly posing for pictures with the audience. I had a photo with Donald Duck. We then watched the Disney Pop show and parade, and we rode in the futuristic Super Jet. We took a quick snack and then queued up to have a personal meeting with Mickey Mouse! We were able to see him only after 45 minutes, as the queue was very long. But it was indeed worth the wait as we were able to tour his house, meet him face to face, and have a shot taken with him.

At around 19:30 we then watched the Disney Electrical Parade Dreamlights, which showcased all the Disney characters; we saw Cinderella, Mickey Mouse, Beauty and the Beast, the Toy Story characters, Chip and Dale and many more in their respective floats made of lights. It was simply awesome. Unfortunately, I ran out of battery for my video camera and I had to switch every now and then between my two drained batteries just to catch a portion of the parade. Thank God I was able to tape a short portion of it. After the parade was the Disney Fantasy in the Sky at around 20:30 which was actually fireworks near the castle. I was also able to tape a portion of it that. I also ran out of my SLR camera battery, and I had to buy the batteries inside Disneyland. They were quite expensive, but I had no choice but to buy them or else I would have missed taking all those scenery shots in night mode. We left Disneyland at around 21:45, went directly back to our hotel, and slept.

DAY 3
We proceeded to Ueno Park to see more cherry blossoms, but they had ceased already. At first, we just thought that we were not in the right park, and we kept on arguing about the way to the park. Later on, though, I realized that the cherry blossoms had appeared two weeks early this year, and so had to come to an end earlier as well. We visited a shrine inside the park and then went to Akihabara which is the electronics center of Japan, and accounts for one-tenth of all the electronics and electrical sales in all of Japan. We did not find any interesting stores, so we just went to Roponggi to buy more Hard Rock Cafe memorabilia, and we saw a branch of Citibank there and so I withdrew some money.

We then went back to Ueno (a 30-min subway ride from Roponggi) and searched for the newly opened Hard Rock Cafe (called Uyeno-Eki branch) there; as usual, we bought some memorabilia. We then proceeded to Ginza, which is the premier shopping district of Tokyo. It is on the Fifth Ave, Champ E and Orchard of Tokyo. It was raining heavily so we had a hard time strolling in Ginza but there were still a lot of Tokyoites there! We just searched for an authentic but not so expensive Japanese restaurant in Ginza, and there we had our lunch. I had a set meal of sashimi of four kinds, grilled fish with rice, shawan moshi, miso soup, and dessert of jelly with bean. I liked the hot tea most especially. My set meal only costs 1200 yen (128 yen = 1 US$). We were the only non-Japanese people eating there and nobody spoke good English, but we were able to communicate using a little English and sign language.

We went back to our hotel at around 14:30 to pick up our luggage, and we booked our trip to the airport on the Narita Express train at 16:03. We arrived at the airport around 17:00. We checked in 45 minutes before the flight.