Christmas Trip! During the Christmas holiday, the Woo family took a week-long trip to Tokyo. I thought it was quite fun with lots of good stuff to eat, cool things to buy, cool places to visit and really helpful and considerate people. My dad who usually writes these reports asked me to write this one. To introduce myself, I am Andrew s son, Marcus Woo. I am a very weird kid, just ask my dad. We were very excited to go on this trip. It would be very nice to take a break from life. But to get to our destination, we first had to take this dreadful thing called a ten-hour airplane flight. I really hate going on airplane flights, mostly because of boredom and the terrible smell that is the second reason why you puke (the first being motion sickness). I watched a bit of the SpongeBob Squarepants movie and kind of tried to sleep. I ended up getting motion sickness which, for some reason, came back after the plane ride. Then we arrived at Narita Airport and took a bus to an area in Tokyo called Ginza. My mom told me that it is kind of like downtown. There were lots of bright lights on the side of building kind of like you see in the movies. We stayed at the Hotel Monterey Ginza which was a three-star hotel. On the first day we went to a brunch buffet at the hotel with my mom s sister s family who had traveled from Singapore to come to Tokyo. After, we went to the Pokémon Center which had lots of cool stuffies, treats, figures, accessories and of course, cards! I bought a bunch of stuff because I really like Pokémon. After, we went to a building in this area called Akihabara that sold tons of computers, tablets, phones etc.
Me with Lucario and Mewtwo (or Mew) On the second day we went to a very crowded fish market. My mom told me that they have very fresh fish. I guess that Japanese people go crazy for fresh fish. We had lunch at a restaurant called Sushizanmai. Other than Sushizanmai, I saw almost no other restaurant specializing in or even serving sushi. Then when I thought about it, it seemed to me that sushi is a whole lot more popular here in North America. Then we went to an ancient shrine that was pretty beautiful. There we took a nice, relaxing walk before going to a place that specializes in kitchen equipment, bowls, utencils that we looked at. For dinner my dad and I had Shabu Shabu with dad s university friend and his wife. Shabu Shabu is kind of like
Japanese hot pot, it was very delicious. Guy making egg popsicles at the fish market On the third day out of seven, we went back to the brunch buffet and I enjoyed really good noodles. Later, we went to a bunch of shops that were on the on the side of a path that lead to a temple. We bought a few things there like a calendar for 2016. My mom was buying a lot of things to celebrate 2016 because it was the year of the monkey in the Chinese zodiac. My mom was born on the year of the monkey which explains that. I was born in 2004 which is also a monkey year so my mom and I are both these weird lice-eating creatures. Then we went to a tempura restaurant nearby. The tempura I ordered was a bunch of deep fried prawns that were clumped together, something I have never seen before. We then moved to a different hotel called the Royal Park Hotel The Shiodome which sounds a bit long to me. This was a four-point-five-star hotel that cost like, five times more than the other one. For dinner we went to a grill that had really good oolong tea and
food that everybody enjoyed. The entrance of the many little shops We started out the fourth day at a Japanese restaurant that gave you sets of food. Then, we took the subway to Tokyo Disneyland. Sure, we had fun but the wait was terrible. For an unpopular ride you would have to wait 1 hour and for a popular one you would have to wait 2 hours. I think the unpopular ones were so busy because no one wanted to wait for the popular ones. Some of the rides we went to included: Pooh s Hunny Hunt, Buzz Lightyear s Astro Blasters, It s a Small World and Star Tours (longest wait ever- gave me cramps). After dinner at place called Pan Galactic Pizza Port- the name is ironic because 2/3 of their menu items are not pizza, we went to the rollercoaster Space Mountain. Whoo, I felt nauseous after the ride. It started out fine, I remember, but then went around and up and down like 20 times at 200km per hour. You are probably wondering about the fireworks. The adults thought it was too late so we all went back to the hotel. My cousin was very disappointed.
Disneyland! This morning started out at the Harmony buffet, which is a North American style buffet, it sounds kind of weird if you re from here. We then walked around the Imperial Palace. Then we went to a building to shop and hang around. We ate some very delicious curry there, probably the best curry I ve ever tasted. My mom went absolutely crazy at the subway station. She probably spent $200 there buying Japanese sweets. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Gonpachi that had pretty good pizza and soba. My cousins and I were watching this guy make the soba noodles. He was very nice and gave us a soba ball, which was kind of fun to squish. Today was New Year s Eve, so my mom s sister s family came over to our room to celebrate with us. It wasn t really a celebration though, I played on EA Real Racing on my Ipad with my cousin and the adults talked about stuff. When the fireworks were blasted into the sky we just said Happy New Year and went back to doing whatever we were doing.
My weird cousins eating curry Part of the Imperial Palace Yippee, 2016! Today was the sixth day and the second last day before we left. We ate at the Japanese place again, which we ended up going to for dinner. Then we went to a baseball store that sells lots of cool stuff like autograpghs, balls, shirts, stuffies etc. We visited TENQ next. It was space museum that my dad had wanted to go to. There was a cool thing where there was a screen on the floor that moved around the Solar System which made it look like we were moving. It made me really dizzy though. After we went for some rare but horrible sushi close to TENQ. My mom went to shop for clothes and food at the La Qua building. We then came back and had dinner at the Japanese place again before hanging out with my mom s sister s family in our room.
Monkeying Around Moms and Aliens?! Today was the last day before we left and went back to our horrible, miserable lives. We went to Harmony again and had good pasta. We then went to the Tokyo National Museum to look at really old artifacts. I found some really nice origami paper of different flags around the world before saying bye to my mom s sister s family, who were going to the airport. We then went to Starbucks to buy me some tea because I wasn t feeling well (tea helps nausea FYI). But before we entered I saw DOGE!!!!!!!!!!! (At least I thought it was Doge sorry, no picture of Doge). After I had the best ramen I ve ever had in my life. It was so good. We went back to the hotel and boarded the Friendly Airport Limousine to go to the Narita Airport. At around 7:00-8:00 we boarded the plane and left for home. Thanks for reading about our adventure to Japan, I hope you enjoyed it.