Places Ung Wanted to Bring Me To - Overseas

1. Japan - Accomplished in Jan 2011
2. NZ/ Australia/ Tasmania
3. Korea - 2014
4. Taiwan/ Taipei - Accomplished in Aug 2011
5. Bali - Accomplished in Mar 2011
6. Shenzhen/ Macau/ Guangzhou Δ - delayed perpetually due to pollution
7. Shanghai/ Suzhou/ Hangzhou - Mac 2012
8. USA/ Niagara Fall/ Grand Canyon

Lately i have been thinking many places i could revisit together with our baby. I think i will start with nearby places like langkawi and brunei. Followed by places like perth which is family friendly and i could drive around. 

Japan Trip Epic (Part #3)

2 Feb 2011 (Wed)
Itinerary today is pretty simple. We took Tokaido line to Yokohama. Meeting my Japanese boss, TK, at Shin Yokohoma and he'll bring us around. The way local people travel locally. While waiting at Shin Yokohama station, we had our breakfast, Onigiri, rice ball. Onigiri is so popular that can be found in at 7-11 and many other convenient store.

TK drove us for an hour plus to a volcanic place called Owakudani (大涌谷, lit. "Great Boiling Valley"). The famous thing to do, besides taking pictures, is to eat black egg (Kuro-Tamago). The black colour on the shell is produced by Hydrogen Sulfide. According to legend, eating 1 kuro-tamago will extend our life by 7 years. However 1 person can only eat up to 2.5 eggs to extend maximum of 17.5 years of life. Eating the whole third egg is believed to be detrimental.

Later we had traditional japanese lunch at a fishing village, Manazuru. The next destination was Tenzan Onsen (Heavenly Mountain hot spring). The surrounding was cold so soaking in hot water was very relaxing.

That night we went back to Yokohama meeting another colleague, Sharad, for dinner. We were served with traditional indian dinner and we were so full for the whole day.

3 Feb 2011 (Thu)
Last day of our stay in Japan. Extended our check out time till 3pm for free. Ung said we are value customers who stayed for 4 nights so they are willing to extend. There is nothing much we can do for half a day except for spending our remaining ¥. The easiest way to spend money is to buy sovenir.

We took train all the way to Disneyland (take Keiyō Line to Maihama Station) without entering to the park. We just bought some mickey mouse merchandise then lepak outside and took the Disneyland monorail.

At 12pm, we rush back to Shinagawa for lunch. The lunch on weekdays is quite affordable. Set meal for ~¥1,000. Good food is available almost everywhere. Even a bowl of ¥290 soba taste good and edible. Unlike Singapore. It's so hard to find cheap & good food in Singapore.

After exploring the other side of Shinagawa station, we really need to leave this place. We spent our last penny in Narita Airport. As I always say, Uni Qlo is everywhere. I was right about that. There is a branch at the Airport. If not for Uni Qlo, we would be able to finish all our ¥. I started to wear the new clothes back in Singapore. Cool...

7 hours flight brought us back to hot & humid Singapore. We had Megamind and RED on our way back.

We kinda miss the humidity here. The dry weather in Japan was driving us crazy because we need to drink water & apply moisturiser cream very often. Maybe the next time returning to Japan will be in autumn between Aug - Oct. Someday... I'll be back!

Japan Trip Epic (Part #2)

31 Jan 2011 (Mon)
The best way to see Tokyo is by train so we got ourselves Tokunai Pass ¥730. It is a day-pass on JR trains within designated zone. So we woke up early to maximise the value of Tokunai Pass.

By the time we reach the first destination, Yurakucho, it was only 9am. Everything is still closed. Tourist Information Center opens at 10am, JTB opens at 11am. We can only sit around and study our map. After sitting around meaninglessly for 10-20 minutes, we decided to move on to our next destination, Ueno. There are parks and zoo, which turned out to be closed for some reasons. It was again a lot of walking. Very tiring.
We give up and moved on to Akihabara. This place is supposedly the most famous electronic street. 1 whole building of electronic goods. We lepak here till afternoon. Walked too much so decided to take time-off back in hotel. Our hotel provides Green Cleaning Service option. We will be given a ¥500 voucher per day by taking up this option. Am I advertising for the hotel? By the way the hotel is nice and costs ¥13000 per night

Next destination was Shibuya. Shibuya is a shopping area where youngsters hang out. Many fashion outlet, drugs store around where cheap skincare product or cosmestic can be found here. The cross junction is crazy. Not only that pedestrian can cross to oppsite side of the road, diagonally crossing is also allowed. So we see many heads moving in all direction.

From Shibuya, we walked.... to Harujuku Sta.

Taking train in Japan is an enjoyable journey because the train is so quiet. No rowdy students, nobody rushed for seats, no dim sum dolly repeated jingles. Only announcement.


1 Feb 2011 (Tue)
Tokunai pass yesterday and Toei+Metro pass next. This is another 1-Day pass that allows unlimited use of Toei subway & metro. Today we started from Takanawadai Sta. to Tsukiji Market in the east. The market is very busy but well organised. Although it is a wet market, the floor is generally clean.

After strolling around the wet market, we head to the nearby restaurant for authentic sushi sashimi. If ou spent some time, you'll find cheap and good food in Tsukiji Market. The first one or the most crowded one is usually not the best in terms of value-for-money. I bought strawberries & strawberry daifuku. They are sweet.

We went to Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace, Tokyo Dome & Shinjuku.

Ung have long planned to go Tokyo Dome eventhough there is no baseball game on that day. He only wanted to eat Bubba Gump. We thought the pronounciation is "Boo-Ba" Gump. My US colleague corrected me. He said it is pronounced as "Bub-ble" Gump... So embarrassing. Anyway, the food was good. Lunch is usually more value-for-money. Maybe they just want to attract lunch crowd.

Japan Trip Epic

30 Jan 2011 (Sun)
Not use to waking up at 4am on Sunday morning. To avoid missing our flight, we set 4 alarm clocks. We made it! After 2 alarms successfully set off.
Left home at 4.30am when it started to rain like cats & dogs. Reached aiport way too early. Nothing to do so ate BK for breakfast. When the plane took off at 8am it was still raining very heavily. Later found out that several places in Singapore was flooded.
Having BK breakfast was a perfect decision because food in United Airline is horrible. They served carrot cake or scrambled egg... Take your pick. After awhile they offered chicken sanwich and some orange juice. That's it. So disappointed. Fortunately the in-flight entertainment was not too bad to kill 6 hours. Watched Unstoppable and The Town then zzzz....

Touched down at 330pm local time (GMT +9). Cleared imigration, grabbed our bags and immediately rushed to JR counter and spend our first ¥ buying NEX (Narita Express) train tickets. This ¥5,500 promotional package allows return trip from Narita Airport to city center. It also comes with a Suica card worth ¥2,000, something like ezlink card.

The good thing about Suica card it can used on public transport and shopping.

It took 1 hour to reach Shinagawa, where we put up. It was very cold. 3-5°C. We dragged ourselves up the slope and almost dropped dead in front of the hotel. Without any procrastination, we checked in, dropped our luggage, put on full gear and venture out for dinner. We had absolutely no idea what or where to eat. Simply walked into a Nihon Ryori and ordered some tempura with rice. It was delicious.

After meal, we wandered around the train station, check out some convenient shops, stock up some ration and back to hotel. Nissin UFO yakisoba bowl is interesting design. You can drain the hot water by peeling off the foil at 1 corner. Looking forward to my 1st trip to Japan.