In Day 5, we went to Tsukiji Fish Market > Shin-Ōkubo (Korean Town) > Tokyo Tower > Shinjuku. Quite a happening day for us, as the whole day is quite rushed for us. We didn’t really have enough time to explore Shinjuku, as we wanted to see the night scenery from Tokyo Tower.

So without further ado, all of the pictures and details of Day 5 after the break!

Arrived at the Tsukiji Fish Market!

Many people at this fish market, it's a tourist attraction as well.

Crabs!

Lots of Sushi Knifes

I had the BEST Unagi here! They cut it into small pieces and put it on a stick, and barbecue it. When you eat on it it's so tender and fresh!

And just beside the unagi store, Pork Cubes on a stick, and he will dip it into some kind of sauce and IT'S FANTASTIC. My gawd i love it!!!

Huge squids :O

Huge fish

More seafood

Not only it sells fish, it sells pork meat as well

Many many peopleeeeeee

And we ate Sushi for breakfast! First time eating sushi for breakfast, feels so goood

The prices of the Sushi in different plates

Many different kind of Sushi that I haven't tried before in Singapore, and the fish are so fresh and tasty! Too bad it's kinda ex but it's worth it!

This is the Sushi Restaurant that we dine in, apparently it's quite a famous restaurant as well

More people at the outskirts of the market

People queuing up for some food

I always wanted to try this, eating while standing up at the roadside, hot ramen together with the cold weather. Fantastic!

After the amazing exprience that I had in the fish market, it's time for some shopping at Shin-Okubu! The famous Korean Town in Japan, where you can find tons and tons of KPOP related items and Korean related stuffs here! If you're a major KPOP fan and happen to me in Tokyo, you MUST visit this place

Everybody queuing up for this restaurant, wonder why?

Is it because the food is nice? Really?

Apparently it's because famous Korean idols like SNSD visited this restaurant as well, this explains the crowd.

Many more Korean Idols visit this restaurant too

Another KPOP store

And another

Seohyun from SNSD spotted!

Pancakes with Egg. Very very nice! And not to mention this guy made the flour and everything in this small vehicle of his. Wonder how he did it.

After all of the exploring and buying stuffs in Shin-Okubu, it's getting dark soon and we will be on the way to Tokyo Tower. Right after we step out of the train station we are greeted with this fantastic view of Tokyo Tower

It's breathtaking, really

The elevator for the Main Observatory Level, which is at 150 metres. There's a level called Special Observatory Level, which is at 250 metres. We paid 800yen to go up to the main level, and another 600yen to go up to the special level. Talk about ripping money, Tokyo Tower does it best. But it's the kind of money that i would gladly pay for though. We waited 40 mins for our turn to enter the Special level

Tokyo is so damn beautiful, especially at night <3

Rainbow Bridge

Managed to take a solo shot of myself!

After taking lots of pictures we went and have our dinner at the basement level of Tokyo Tower, and went straight to Shinjuku

Many street musicans performing at the streets of Shinjuku

Entered the red light district of Shinjuku

Lots of Hostess clubs

lol.

Many store empolyes here approached me to visit their clubs, of course i said no

Back to Shinjuku Station, world busiest train station. Even over here i can see guys in suits approaching girls for some reasons....

And that’s it for Day 5 in Japan! Quite many pictures eh? The whole day is a tiring one but we managed to see lots of things instead! Look forward to Day 6 yeah??!!!

Was quite a short day, since it’s pretty tiring for the past 3 days so we took the chance to take it slow for Day 4

In any case, pictures after the break!

The Hot Spring theme park entrance

The train station that i alighted was called "Telecom Center" Station, that explains the many huge and tall buildings around

I don't see this flavor in Singapore

Nothing beats drinking a hot can of Milk Coca when in the cold!

Me in a Yutaka. There are 10 kinds of Yukata to choose from, but only 3 designs to choose from for guys

Totally reminds me of the game "Yakuza"

Very pretty place, totally love the atmosphere

There's even mini games for you to try out, like the ones you see in animes

Even saw Senjou Basara related stuffs here

And after the hot spring, we went to the famous electric town! Straight away went to Yodobashi Camera

Megastore indeed

There's a transformers event at Yodobashi Camera, because of the launch of Transformers 3 Blu-ray and DVD

What a beautiful car, wish to have one!

Akihabara is BEAUTIFUL at night!

Even the smoking longue is cool!

A Japanese girl portaying the ghost Sudoku, her friend even asked her is she alright, because she didn't speak or anything LOL.

A really huge PC Store. And Battlefield 3!!!

One of the most awesome place in Japan for men

If you are wondering did i went in, yes i went in. And my mind was blown at the amount of content it has! Really crazy, 7 floors of JAV. There's like at least ten of thousands of DVDs and Blu-rays in it!

A maid convincing a guy to visit a maid cafe

Really huge Club Sega arcade

Okay this is REALLY REALLY COOL.

That’s it for Day 4! Like i said it’s a relaxing day so there are not many pictures. Really a waste stay in Akihabara for only 4 hours though….will definitely spend like a day worth with my next visit! And look forward to my Day 5 post!

I would say i was kinda disappointed in Disneyland because of the attractions are too “kiddy” for me, and we went there early in the morning waiting for the theme park to open, so we queued up but it was drizzling and the weather is really really cold.

As for Fuji-Q I had a blast there, never had so much fun before! If you love roller coasters you would definitely want to visit this theme park! You can see Mt.Fuji at full view while riding the roller coasters. How cool is that??!! And not to mention there’s a  Evangelion themed showroom with a 1:1 scale robot (head), Sengoku Basara themed ride and a Gundam themed ride as well. Well not exactly rides but mini-games.

So enough with the words and let me show you the pictures! Pictures after the break

The Disney castle in Disneyland

Many people in Disneyland despite coming here at it's opening times. Lots of young (and hot) mothers too!

One of the attraction includes the late Michael Jackson

My lunch in Disneyland. This bloody piece of pizza slice costs 800 yen (with a set with tea and a few cookies)

There's a Star Wars attraction as well! Quite interesting

In a Ramen Restaurant in Shibuya, very cramped and small but cozy place

Always wanted to do this but can't in Singapore

Tasty Ramen!!!

Look at this gigantic Ramen bowl, my friend (Jasper) upsized it. Goshhhhh

And that’s the end of Day 2. That’s very little pictures right? As i said i am quite disappointed in Disneyland so i didn’t really take any photos there. Now move on to Day 3 as there’s a ton of pictures instead!

Took the bus from Shinjuku to Fuji-Q Island. The ticket includes the bus ride to Fuji-Q and back to Shinjuku with the theme park's ticket as well. Total it costs 6,500 yen. Pretty reasonable if you ask me!

Was super excited when i saw Mt.Fuji in the bus!

And here it is, the absolutely beautiful Mt.Fuji

Stunning

Japanese and their Engrish

You will have to take a picture from a machine where you insert your tickets (obtained from the ticket counter) and in return you will get this pass. Do not lose this pass as it allows you to ride most of the rides in Fuji-Q for free

Most advanced coffee/tea/milk vending machine i had ever seen. It has a touch screen too.

The first roller coaster that i took, the high speed roller coaster. It boosts at the start to obtain 172km/h. I seriously love the SPEED. So god damn awesome!

The specs of the super faster roller coaster.

This roller coaster is the one featured recently in June where it has a 120 degrees of down slope. The newest attraction in this theme park. Long queues for it despite going there early!

As you look at this picture, the roller coaster does a series of loops and turns BEFORE reaching this part, where it goes up 90 degrees, stop at the top, and goes down 120 degrees. AWESOME fun

90 degrees up

Stops at the top for roughly 10 seconds

And down! Definitely not for the faint hearted!

The 3rd kind of roller coaster that we took. And it just keeps getting better. This roller coaster has a maximum speed of 126km/h, and it has the world's most rolls in a roller coaster, 14 times in a ride. And sometimes it spins till you're facing the back of the opposite direction of the roller coaster. And it's scary when you don't know which part it's gonna turn next. Love this ride so much!

And the last roller coaster that we took, which will be the BEST roller coaster that i had taken in my entire life. It achieves a maximum speed of 130km/h, has the longest ride time (2mins+) and it's old. Yeah it's scary when the roller coaster is like 10 over years old. It makes some noises when you won't want to hear when you're at the top, like 79m high above the ground. King of Coasters indeed.

Didn't managed to take this ride as it doesn't look that hot compared to the rest! But looks cool enough though!

Evagelion World attraction

Just like Shinji's Dad in the anime and movie

More Engrish

I was like WOAH when i first saw this

NERV pass reader machine. This is cool

Just like in the anime

Now is is what i call AWESOME

Even the "blood" is present

Ah, finally the haunted hospital. The scariest PLACE I HAVE EVER BEEN LOL. This attraction would need 500 yen even though you have the free pass.

One of the staff

And this body greeted me when i first step into this attraction

This place first introduce you a video, with a story telling us that this hospital was used as a experiemental place, and the doctors and nurses died one by one. And the whole place is HUGE, it has 3 stories and you would keep walking up and down, like a maze. Each group was given a torchlight and around at the half of the whole attraction you would need to surrender your torchlight and navigate the place without the torchlight. And you go by groups. The staffs would make hissing and zombie-kind of voices and attempt to run towards you. Scary shit. I hear many Japanese girls screaming in this attraction! Perfect place to bring your girlfriend here, but be warned as you will definitely be scared too haha!

Breathtaking view of Mt.Fuji

This is my favorite picture out of all of my Japan trip pictures. I had this picture as my facebook's timeline banner profile picture page too

A Gundam attraction. It has a mini-game to play, it's interesting!

And at the end, before going out you will be greeted with this Gundam shop where it sells like almost every Gundam figure that you can find

A yokai (stands for a kind of Japanese folklore demon)

And it has a ice skating rig too. Love the Christmas lights, beautiful~~

This sign is funny, although i don't understand Japanese (yet, taking Japanese classes from the start of next month) the kanji are in Chinese characters too, making the meaning similiar. The board stands for those that have played the Fuji-Q attraction rides will encounter a number of effects, which one including "mental illness" rofl

Fuji-Q entrance at night

Last picture of the day, this was taken outside of Shibuya's train station. This girl sings REALLY REALLY WELL. When i was walking down the stairs i thought i heard a singer singing over the radio, but it turns out to be her. Man her voice is really good!!! Japanese are so talented

Well this is it, and as usual peeps, look forward to Day 4!

To see all of the pictures and info about my trip, read it after the break!

On the first day i went from Narita Airport > Shibuya > Harujuku > Shibuya

The hotel that i am staying is Shibuya Tobu Hotel, a very affordable hotel with cheap rates (booked from Hotels.com) and furthermore it only takes 5 – 10 mins to walk from Shibuya train station. It’s near, and has many shops surrounding it too. Hotel wise is good too, good customer service, it has free wifi at the lobby and the room is at the average normal hotel room size (twin size bed room). Unlike the hotel which i stayed at 2 years ago, Akihabara Dormy Inn where it has only a bed and SUPER small room X.X

The weather is quite cold, on a average of 5 degrees during daytime and 3 degrees during night time. A very comfortable temperature as well.

Higher res of my photos in my flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28537954@N04/

Singapore Airlines has one of the best food on the plane!

The NEX train, it reaches to Tokyo from Narita Airport at 1 hr or so. Quite fast.

Outside the Shibuya train station, Hachiko exit

The Hachiko Dog statue

!!!!

Was really surprised to see SNSD CM on this large screen! It has 4 screens in total and when SNSD's CM plays all 4 screens will be running the same CM. Amazing.

Very unique building

Huge tower records building. Bought most of my CDs there

Reached my hotel, using wifi at the hotel's lobby like a boss!

First breakfast in Japan, Macs!!!!

Beautiful~~~

Another unique building

How i wish i can see this in Singapore, sigh :'((

The entrance to Meji Temple. By the time we reached there it has already closed. And never managed to visit it again

Arrived at Harujuku, this is the Harujuku Station. We walked from our hotel to Harujuku, spent like 20 - 30 mins walking i think

One of the Harujuku's street, tons of stuffs here! Mostly fashion and food.

And talking about food...look at this. I literary O.O when i see this

I didn't try though, too much for me to handle!

Surprised to see a KPOP store here

More random stuffs

Japanese school girls!!! <3

Explored Harujuku till it turns dark (5pm and it starts to turn dark in Japan)

My first dinner in Japan! Yoshinoya! Just look at the menu, TOTALLY different from Singapore's menu! And it's really delicious X.X

On the way back and we managed to see quite a number of food stalls.

HUGE PAOS

Huge hotdogs too! But it's cold though

Walked back to Shibuya

PS Vita ad! There's tons of PS Vita ad in Japan though, including in the trains and train stations

Managed to find a spot to capture Shibuya's famous scramble crossing. The busiest intersection in the world.

And here it goes, INSANE number really.

After School ad plastered over the building of Shibuya 109. A famous building for selling all of Woman's clothing. Every girl will die of happiness to shop in there lmao.

I find this quite funny rofl

Busy here too, if you realise many Japanese wear mask. It's either they are sick, or because of the pollen allergy they have, which will cause hay fever. More info at wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan

Who left this costume here?

Another brightly lid street in Shibuya

Saw a lot of funky and unique fashion in Japan, especially in Shibuya and Harujuku areas. In Japan, no matter how you dress up people won't stare at you, they respect fashion a lot, and thus many many girls are really fashionable. Boys not so much but i see quite a few too.

KARA making it big in Japan too

Alright, that is the end of Day 1. Look forward to Day 2 & 3 peeps!!!

And not to mention my Uncharted 3 and Modern Warfare 3 review too! Kinda lazy to write these 2 reviews but i will definitely do it!

So yeah, one of the most anticipated game of the year has released, Battlefield 3. Btw add me on Battlefield 3 if you guys wanna play with me!

Here’s my Battlelog page: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/EspadaKiller/

It exceeded all of my expectations from a video game, it’s just fantastic. Battlefield 3 has a new standard for gaming. Full review (image heavy) after the break

First of all, i would want to state that i am reviewing the PC version, which my PC supports ultra (max) settings for the graphics and the screenshots are all taken by fraps.

For the PC version, you would need the PC application called Origin which belongs to EA. You will require Origin to play Battlefield 3, Origin is just like the game application called Steam. I guess EA just wanna earn some of the money and market share that Steam pretty much enjoyed for all of these years. Origin is still in beta, and like EA’s track record the application is buggy, have no voice chat and didn’t support achievements like Steam. But we would just have to suck it up if we want to play BF3 on the PC

Anyway, Battlefield 3′s menu uses a web application called “Battlelog”. It has all of your Battlefield 3 records in it and you can add your friends. Here is how it looks like:

As you can see from the picture above, whenever your friends (or you) unlocks rewards from the multiplayer it gets updated on the feed and you can comment on it, or “Hoorah!” (which is the equivalent of Like in facebook). And whenever you want to launch your Single Player Campaign or search for a multiplayer game you will need to go through battlelog to do that. And Co-op missions as well (different missions from the SP).

You can check at your soldier stats, which is really detailed. It looks like this:

You can check all of your stats through this page, every single rewards that you had earned, how many kills you have gotten through using a vehicle or even see which dogtags that you have unlocked (all kills from other players when having a knife kill) and many more.

The online multiplayer is amazing, as you can see from the screenshot above i have already spent 22 hours in it and i still can’t get enough out of this game. There are many different kind of game modes for you to play online, and not to mention the “Back to Karkand” expansion pack that’s coming in Dec which has 4 additional maps from BF2 and has new weapons and vehicles.

Each weapon has a “level” system, where you gain experience points for killing people using that weapon, and you can unlock scopes, flashlight and many more. This applies to vehicles as well. For example you can unlock 2x zoom for a tank or missiles for a jet. These are available in the single player mode but in multiplayer it’s different. You will have to earn it.

There are a total of 8 multiplayer maps in Battlefield 3, and all of the maps are huge. Especially the Caspian Border map (above and below screenshot) which you will roughly take 5 mins to run from one end to the another end of the map. Or maybe more.

Also, for example if you win a conquest match (1 of the online game modes) you will get a 500 exp point ribbon to add on for leveling up your rank. There’s a ton of ribbons to be collected, and once you hit a number of ribbons collected you will unlock a medal which in return will give you a hefty sum of exp for leveling. To level up the rank in Battlefield 3 it’s not as easy as Call Of Duty. I took 22 hours to level to Rank 20 but i took 4 hours to level to Rank 37 in MW3. Just a example how different these 2 games are even though they’re kinda competing now.

As for the single player, it’s downright epic but the storyline is kinda weak. You will already know the outcome even though you’re just half-way through in the game. But the missions are still epic, and most firefights are intense.

The single player includes Jets and Tanks missions which are quite fun to play with. But as for the jet mission you will only play as a role of the F-22 gunner, so you won’t be able to fly the jet, only in the MP you can fly (and learn) it.

Most of the intense firefights (or difficult ones) are from the night missions. You can’t see clearly where are the enemies are and they somehow has super accuracy that will tend to hit you 100% whenever when you’re not in cover. And your A.I buddies are not helping much either. But overall is okay, which forces me to use some other tactics like using grenade to flush them out or flank them.

Urban areas in Battlefield 3 are stunning. The graphics really shine in urban areas especially in day time. The lightings are amazing and the places are photo realistic. Battlefield 3 has the best graphics that i had ever seen in a video game. DICE uses a new graphics engine called Frostbite 2.0 which produces amazing graphics and massive destruction. At a side note i heard the new Mirror’s Edge game will be using this engine as well.

The above image reminds me of Mirror Edge, which DICE developed that game as well. Overall i spent roughly 6 hours in completing the single player campaign, which is fairly short. Load times for every mission roughly took me around 10 – 15 seconds and the fps are in the 40 plus area if you guys are wondering. I played this game in 1920 x 1080 resolution. Which other words in Full HD 1080p.

The sound for this game is okay, when firing the weapons the sound are quite realistic, it’s the closest to the real thing i suppose.

At the bottom line, online multiplayer is what made the Battlefield franchise famous. The huge maps, vast variety of vehicles to choose from, squad system (4 soldiers in a squad, where you can spawn on them when you had died) and the sheer huge amount of players made Battlefield fun and epic. Just imagine jets, helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles blasting around with various explosions and bullets flying around you. Battlefield is indeed “Battlefield”.

The score i would give for this game would be a full 10 marks, high quality, a new standard for gaming and endless fun in the online multiplayer makes this game a must buy for every fps players.

My thoughts about this MV after the break

And like what i had said in my previous post, they are all dead right gorgeous. And Taeyeon totally rocked with her pink and golden hair highlights. Tiffany is so so so so pretty in this MV!

Oh and not to mention that their dance choreography are totally epic and fierce. I guess it’s their most tiresome dance choreography yet. Btw the song is also out in iTunes already, so grab it if you guys wanna buy it off iTunes.

iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-boys-single/id473110477

And you can preview all of their songs over at Mnet as well.

Mnet link: http://www.mnet.com/album/231907

Now, it’s only 2 more days to their live comeback stage, which is on the 21st October. SNSD will show the KPOP scene that they are not meant to be reckon with! Fighting! (Ok i sound REALLLYYYYY fanboyish in that sentence. Forgive me as i am too happy now!)

3 more pictures after the break

Aren’t they all so hot? And i noticed that Tiffany has golden highlights at the end of her long hair, just like Taeyeon, except that her hair is short. TaeNy is so damn true after all!

I’m now just waiting for their MV to be released, it’s going to be so epic.

Gears of War  is easily my favorite video game franchise for this generation (Uncharted comes second). I enjoyed all of the 3 Gears of War games and really love the gore and gameplay, it’s one of a kind even though some games tries to copy the cover system but Gears of War still has the best cover system and it improves game after game.

It’s 18 months after the events in Gears of War 2, and a new enemy called the “Lambent” appears. Those are yellow explosive Locust that are infected with that slimy yellow implosion and are not friends with either the COG or the Locust. They are pretty annoying but they play a huge part of the story in Gears of War 3.

The gameplay is pretty much the same as the last 2 Gears of War game, the cover are improved, snappier and you can now jump over your cover and kick your enemy that’s at the opposite site of your cover. There’s a couple of new weapons, and they’re badass. There’s a rifle called “One Shot” and yeah, like the name you just need a shot to kill any Locust but you will need to charge it though. Most of the new weapons are “heavy and huge” weapons. There are some new Locusts as well but nothing special to take note of. It’s the same ugly Locust that you will see in the whole game anyway.

You can play 4 player online co-op in the story mode or 2 player splitscreen co-op. You will never be alone in this game, you will be always be with at least 3 people or so. Returning characters including Marcus Fenix (duh), Dom, my favorite Cole Train, Braid and Dizzy. Anya has became a COG solider and there’s a few new characters as well. And the last of the 3 Carmine brothers made his first appearance in this game

As for the graphics, very very nice lighting and there’s many different environments as well. Not the same old gritty grey look everywhere like in Gears of War 1. Gears of War 3 has one of the best graphics on a console. Pretty amazing to have this kind of graphics on aging 5 year old technologies in the 360. Epic refined and modified the Unreal Engine 3 to it’s limits i guess.

Oh wow look there's a beach in the world of Gears of War

Yeah the world is pretty much destroyed

There’s a underwater mission too, i feel that it’s not needed but hey, a bit of change it’s ok

The sound of this game are great, as expected from all of the Gears of War games.

And now let’s talk about the online multiplayer, I’m currently level 15 in this game and i like the multiplayer so so much. It’s much much better than the previous disappointing Gears of War 2′s online multiplayer. Matchmaking are fast, and there’s a level system where you can earn your level by playing with others online, and even by playing the story mode will earn you exp points to level up. The levels are for you to unlock character skins for use in the online multiplayer. And weapons have skins as well, but you have to buy them.

Epic introduced a new medal and ribbon system for Gears of War 3 this time. It reminds me of Killzone 2 and 3′s ribbon and medal system, it’s almost the same thing. Really rewarding and it makes you go on to keep playing the mutliplayer and not get bored.

A example of the Ribbons earned after playing a online match

I just can’t stop playing the multiplayer, heck i even bought a Xbox 360 Gold 12+2 months subscription card just to play Gears of War 3 online. I just loooooooooove it when using the shotgun and blasting my online opponent to bits, really satisfying!

The only downside for this game would be the story, i still think that Gears of War 1 has the best story overall. It does a great job in explaining the world in Gears of War. As for Gears of War 3, the story is somehow still quite confusing, some stuffs are still not explained properly and considering it’s the last game of this trilogy i expect a clear straight answer. Won’t spoil it but when you guys complete the game you would know what i mean.

It took me 11 hours and 32 mins to complete this game on Normal. So the average time to complete this game is around 12 to 15 hours. Quite a lengthy game if you ask me, especially in this generation of games where most games can be completed in around 6 to 8 hours (Not to mention Heavenly Sword, took me 4 hours only @.@)

I guess as for the story it’s the end, but i am sure that both Microsoft and Epic would want to milk this franchise hard, so expect to see another Gears game in the next few years or for the new Xbox

Will give a 9.5 score for this game, totally love it, if the story is good i would give a perfect 10 score. But at least the gameplay is the best among all of the Gears games though!

Just bought this sleek PS3 wireless stereo headset (and God Of War: Origins) and i can say that I’m happy with my purchase!

Very nice headset, quality is quite good and quite comfortable as well. Full review after the break

It’s easy to setup as well, just plug in the USB dongle and press the on button on the headset and you’re ready to go. There’s on screen information on the screen if you’re using this headset on your PS3, just like connecting a bluetooth headset. You can switch off the surround sound if you want, and all of the volume, sound/mic mixer volume can be adjusted on the headset, really really easy.

Sleek~

There’s a cool blue LED light on the microphone when it’s on, but my only complain is that the microphone looks kinda cheap. You can retract back the microphone if you’re not using it as well though.

Other than that, this headset is worth it for those that don’t have a decent sound system. As for me, i can feel the 7.1 surround sound but sound preference is different for everyone so i can’t really say that everyone will feel it. Bass is not that strong, but pretty decent. Don’t have that “Boom” effect but it’s decent enough.

Charging is via USB cable (not included btw) to the headset. As for the distance, i think around 4 – 5 meters.

Playing 2 hours with GOW: Origins and I’m surprised that i don’t feel any pain around my ears. Usually around 2 hours or so i can already feel the pain if I’m using a headset. But it’s different with this headset, super comfortable. I even tried wearing the 3D glasses on top of my specs and i still feel comfortable

It’s cheap, it’s sleek, it’s wireless and the sound quality is really good, with a $120 (SGD) price tag it’s definitely worth it!