Well Spent Golden Week

The past few days were long holidays in Japan – the Golden Week (GW). It’s the week that everywhere you go, there will always be filled with people.

This year, we didn’t plan to go back Y-chan’s hometown so we just decided to relax and go for short day trips around Kanto region. 🙂

To celebrate the long holidays, we had yakiniku buffet dinner at Gyukaku. Our last yakiniku was in January after our snowboard session. :O

On another day, we went to Yanesen area as Y-chan haven’t been there before. The places we went to are similar to the ones I went last year with my friend A. (If you’re interested, you can read it here 🙂 ) As it was GW, we went early to queue for the shaved ice (at 10am) but instead of queuing up, we were given a ticket by the staff that ask us to come back at 2.30pm for it.

The crowd at Yanaka Ginza Shopping street during GW.

We were strolling along Yanesen area and I thought the sky & building were a nice match. Took a photo of it but to realise that the property was actually a cemetery. :O 

Back to the shaved ice. Y-chan ordered Strawberry Milk shaved ice (900 yen) that has a whole ichigo on it. 😀 I took a spoonful of it and stopped because it’s still toooooo milky for me. *sighs*

This was mine. A citrusy-pomelo called Amanatsu shaved ice. Just the fruits puree and shaved ice. Love it! 😀 ♥Following that, we went to walk around Yanaka Ginza shopping street and bought some food back for dinner because it was just too wallet-friendly. 🙂

And on another day, we went to visit the zoo within Saitama perfecture. 😀 My first time to visit the zoo in Japan and I totally enjoyed it. Got to see alpacas and baby white tigers for the first time in my life. ♥♥♥ 

This sums up our GW for 2015 and we’re now looking forward to our summer holidays.

BTW.

Can you believe that this pack of Hakata Amaou strawberries cost only 400 yen? (That’s around SGD 5) 😀 😀

What a steal right! 😉 There’s actually a way in getting cheap, fresh and yummy fruits in Japan.

Avoid buying fruits from departmental stores.

The fruits lined up in these places are usually the best-looking (i.e. no dents, 100% scar-free) ones out of the crop. So prices are extremely steep compared to those selling at supermarkets.

It then comes to the next point,

Chained Supermarkets VS Stand-alone (local) Supermarkets.

Fruits’ prices are controlled in chained supermarkets whereas local supermarkets sourced for their own suppliers and get it straight from them (i.e. minus the agent cost and etc..) so their prices are cheap although it varies from time to time. For the same Amaou strawberries I got at a local supermarket in Yanaka Ginza, it will have a price-tag of at least 600 yen at the chained supermarket I frequents.

Usually these stand-alone supermarkets can be found in those old shopping street. Some examples would be Yanaka Ginza shopping street, Higashi Jujo shopping street (東十条商店街) and Sugamo shopping street (巣鴨地蔵通り商店街).

Or you can visit the more well-known Ameyoko Street in Ueno at around 6 – 7pm. The stall owners will reduce the price as they want to clear their stocks before they closing their stalls at 8pm. 🙂

I hope this tip is helpful to you if you’re planning to try the fruits in Japan. 😀