Day 5 Line Up
Bags packed, but not ready to go! 😜 It’s our last morning in Japan, and to have a relaxed ending for our trip, only the hotel and airport was part of our itinerary today.
the chocolate filled bread was my favorite 
heating ’em up!
Around 7 am – we went to the small lobby area of the hotel to enjoy the breakfast bread buffet for the last time.
komorebi 
sakura mini manhole
After making sure every thing was packed, we strolled around for a few minutes and went to buy onigiri to take back home. For the past few days, we always walked towards the train station from the hotel. Today we walked a bit further towards the opposite direction. I can’t believe that it was just last night when we discovered how we were just about 2 blocks and an overpass away from the upscale part of Ginza, where hotel rates were more than thrice of what we paid for our hotel.
Hotel
Looking back at our overall hotel experience…
Location – Very accessible via subway, just 2 to 3 minutes from exit A3 of Tsukijishijo station. Lots of convenience stores around. Just a few more minutes walk to the upscale side of Ginza or to Tsukiji (the restaurants are still there but the market was already transferred to Toyosu as of this writing).
Apologies for the blurry room photos! 
Apologies for the blurry room photos!
The Room – The smallness of hotel rooms in Japan is true. Our double room was a small room with two single beds, only a little space left for luggage. The foot of the bed was less than a meter away from the wall where the TV was hinged. You have to arrange the luggage properly to open the door. Still it’s good to have your own bathroom inside your own room – a shower with hot or cold water options, and dispensers for soap, shampoo and the like. I would also note that the room is always clean.
The Price – It wasn’t cheap, but it was not that expensive compared to the other hotels in that area, especially towards the upscale part of Ginza where a lot of big name hotels are. There were a lot of cheaper options like dorm rooms, or capsule hotels, or home stays or Airbnb… but for our first trip to Japan, we chose to stay somewhere that can be considered mid range. Approximately Php5,000 to 7,000 per night (about 94 to 130 USD). We booked via booking.com and this hotel had an option to pay at the site, so we did that. Zero charge for reservation, but full amount will be charged to your card if you back out within less than 7 days from check in date.
Amenities – I’m not talking about pools or function areas. The hotel building is small, there are no pools, restaurants, etc. But they provide these so called “amenity kits” during our visit last 2018. Contents slightly vary for men and women. For women, there are sachets for toner and makeup remover. For men, there is a disposable razor. The mouthwash flavor is different, mint for men and lychee for women. Everyday, a new amenity is supplied packaged in a color coded eco bag – red violet and brown.
But based on their Instagram post this year, they already have an “Amenity buffet” in the common area 😊
In addition, there is also a free ‘mobile phone’ in the room. I wasn’t able to make much use of this because there was a problem with charging. But it is very handy and convenient. You can make local calls for free, and it can connect to your pocket wifi as a backup phone to google directions or places to go to.
Not to mention, they also have a bread buffet breakfast which has tasty pastries and is enough to fuel you up in the morning.
Officially checked out at around 10:15am. Bye to our headquarters for 5 days! And so we went to the station to have our last subway ride.
Airport
How to get there:
**From E-Hotel Ginza
- Toei Oedo Line: Tsukijishijo (E18) to Daimon (E20)
- …walk to monorail station
- Tokyo Monorail Airport Rapid: Hamamatsucho (MO01) to Haneda Airport International Terminal (MO08)
In less than an hour, we were at the airport already. After the initial security check we strolled around the ground floor and waited for the check in counters to open. There were few souvenir shops but I decided to buy later.
After flight check in, we roamed around the second floor and other areas. There was this mini wooden bridge and seats nearby so we decided to eat our konbini-bought onigiri there.
Clear skies 
The sun brought out the hint of redness on my hair
Watch airplanes take off at the viewing deck at Haneda Airport. We take some mandatory plane take-off videos and selfies…’coz plane watching at the heat of noontime is a perfectly acceptable idea 🤣
Once we got enough photos/videos, it was time to stroll around the stores in the second floor.
So Cute! A store dedicated to this baby seal stuffed toy, caught my attention. Sirotan / しとたん / Shiro-chan (as read on the cards in the background) was just too cute to ignore! There was this small battery operated fluff ball holding a bell which rung every time the seal bounced / vibrated in place.
I was so close to buying one for myself. The one dressed as a pilot would be a nice airport souvenir.
Dominantly pink, next was the Sanrio store in Japan. They sold a variety of items from accessories, to mugs, tumblers, bags, all had a cute charm. I just had to buy something from this store. Choosing between a purse and two magnets, I decide to buy the Hello Kitty Magnets to add to my small but slowly growing collection – one was shaped like a paper lantern while the other was an embossed Hello Kitty with Kaminarimon in the background.
Gachapon! Insert coin and twist the knob to get a suprise item. There are some gachapon machines back home but of course the authentic ones are here in Japan. I looked for one that I would like but I was no longer that familiar with the toys they had (generation gap??). Then I saw one that had Rikkakukuma in costume, so I chose to have one cute gachapon as a souvenir. Each machine had a theme or a specific line items in it but yo cannot choose which specific design you’ll get. The way these things work is that you insert 3 100 yen coins, then twist the knob to dispense a gachapon. I got a Rikakuma dressed as a cat.
After passing through immigration and the final security check, we looked at the duty free shops and searched we we could buy the remaining souvenirs.
Pasabuy, a play on words: “pasabay” = to go with +”buy”, means to buy something for another person who’ll pay us back / to buy together with the other items we’ll buy and the person who requested it will just pay us back when we give the item.
Looking for Hibiki or Yamazaki whiskey, as requested by Dad’s friend, proved to be difficult. We went to all the duty free stores in that terminal but to no avail. Yamazaki, Hibiki, no stock.
Royce chocolate was easy to find as it is a popular souvenir to buy. My officemate asked me to buy 3 boxes of the Royce Nama chocolate – Au Lait variant. I already saw Royce sold at a store before immigration but decided to buy later since Nama chocolate melts easily. Even with the insulated bag, it will only last a few hours. A refrigerator was still at least 8 hours away. True enough, there was a duty free shop for the snack/sweets. Of course Royce Nama chocolate was available there. I also bought 3 boxes of Nama Chocolate for myself – Au Lait, Bitter, and Champagne Pierre Mignon. More variants and different products of Royce chocolates were available at the store before immigration.
Passed by a few more stores on our way to the departure gate.
The Flight back
2:11pm – Lining up at our departure gate
2:26pm – Boarding
As I have mentioned in my Day 1 entry, what I like about a Philippine Airlines international flight is the rice meal that keeps me full through out the day. **Full review here** There’s also 15 mins free wifi. For a quick social media update or to communicate to relatives waiting back home.
Watched a relatively light adventure movie – Ready Player One
This time, I was seated at a window seat…
Perks of an afternoon flight – the view!
How could I take a nap if this is what I see outside! Just look at the colors. I always liked admired sunsets but this sunset in the sky is a different experience altogether.
Tomorrow is back to reality and back to work.
In a few years though, I’m sure I’ll be back in Japan .
The Gastronomer's Diary 