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| Parking near Minami-Sunamachi Subway Station |
The original plan was to pick up the camper van then hit to Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish market for lunch then do a quick shopping at Ginza.
But things turns out that we spent too much time when picking up the van. Also we spent some time looking for a carpark for the van near the subway station.We did not want to drive all the way into Tokyo central as we thought traffic might be bad so I did some "homework" and found that Minami-Sunamachi seems to fit what we looking for ( about 16 min by subway to Ginza) BUT when we reach there, we found out the parking we wanted to park got a height limit and so we had to look for alternative and the roads there are not very friendly , had to make a few rounds to finally find a parking space ( which was not as cheap as the one we had intended to in the first place).
There are few reasons why we wanted to go Ginza first before hitting on to Hakone.
1) Buy big size work clothes from Uniqlo cos only Ginza there got a section for big sizes ( can order online and sent to your hotel also but cos due to some reasons they don't accept oversea credit card online when I tried to order.
2) Was hoping to go Tsukiji market cos the last time we only eat at Sushi Dai and spent 4 hrs + so did not have chance to explore the other part of the outer market and since there is always rumour about the market moving site.
3) Visit
東京交通會館 , inside this building there is a few shops called 物產館 which sells product from different region of Japan. we always visit 2 which are from Hokkaido and Fukuoka , shall not reveal what we buy as some items are quite limited so .....not telling. LOL
4) Visit the
銀座熊本館 nearby for my favourite
snack , its actually some nuts cracker which you can find in Singapore but they had a hint of spicy in it which I fall in love with it the first time I had it during my Kumamoto trip so I usually here if I got time in Tokyo. P/s : I bought 40 pcs this trip which actually took up quite a big of luggage space :p
After all the shopping and had a quick Ramen nearby , we head back to our van and start the trip to Hakone with plan to stop by supermarket to stock up for our trip. Some pic of the Camper van we had below.
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| Our "Home" for 2 weeks |
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| Learning to put snow tires |
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| Layout of Fridge/Stoves/Etc. |
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| Whole internal view |
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| Eating Layout |
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| Bed set up with additional mattress |
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| Overhead compartment |
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| Stove setup |
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By the time we reach back to the van was about evening ( bad choice ) cos not only the sky is already dark , the traffic to Hakone area was super jam , even though we decided to cut the drive time short by taking the toll road , still traffic was very bad. We decided to go Aeon Supermarket (
イオン大和鶴間店 ) along the way to stock up on groceries and take a quick dinner before trying to find an onsen before we end the long day ( we had red eyes flight the day before and did not had any rest after that + the jam makes the driver really tired )
They had this App on their iPad that allows you to search for Onsen/Sento nearby from the map which was really helpful. Not only showing location , but operating hours and cost also. And some of it got link to their official site which you can see the updated info and type of pools/bathtubs they have. We choose おふろの王様 海老名店 because it was about 15 min drive away from Aeon and also its along the way to Hakone plus also it opens till 1 am. By the time we left Aeon was about 10pm ? The onsen was great with a lot of different pools but it was very crowded at that hour which we did not expect , anyway after a good bath we moved on to 道の駅箱根峠 which we will spend the night over there. This is another 1 hr+ drive from the onsen. Btw, Michi no eki or 道の駅 are actually rest stop along the road for people to rest , there are usually toilets , vending machine and most will also have some shops selling the local products in that region and are of the rest stop are huge. This one we staying overnight is consider a small scale with only 1 shop , few vending machine and toilets ( some rest stop will come with shower or even onsen)
Still to our surprise , there was quite a few cars there spending overnight and also the weather was very cold not quite we had expected as we choose this travelling period thinking that weather should be about 10 deg + but ends up some nights we are opening at 0 deg + even light snow. The weather when we reach there at the rest stop is about 5 deg? ( cos it on higher ground ) or below with some wind make it worst. I only remember that its about 7 deg in the morning when we wake up. Luckily the van rental company gave us extra blankets and sleeping bag , it really helps a lot since we tried not to open the heater often.
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| You don't want to know what we bought |
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| Selfie in the morning |
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| Initial Plan |
