Japan.

Can't help but feel a little nervous before the trip, not because of the plane ride but because we were going without a tour guide, since my mom and I been there before with a tour, she decided we could do without one. LOL. Japan leh, not everyone there knows English yet. But we did plan everything out beforehand, booked hotels and all, so it was still alright. In fact, it's even better to be without a tour group. Really.

The first piece of good news was probably that we were departing from Terminal 3. T3 leh omgz. Not just see see from the outside, but see see feel feel from the inside too. Hahaha. Sounds wrong. Nevermind.

T3 Transit area:

Expensive labels everywhere.


Well, probably what you'd expect it to look like, since you can actually see most of it from the outside.

On the plane:

SIA's in flight entertainment still rocking as ever, for a plane lah, of course. Watched the Bee Movie before getting some sleep, since it's a full day the next day already. (No wastage of days if you arrive at your destination in the morning, and leave at night.)



And after about 7 hours of flight and several mild turbulence on the plane along the way, we touched down at Japan's Narita Airport. The chill can be felt while walking through the aerobridge leading to the airport already. But that's the only place, so far. Until we exited the airport, that is.

Here's my cousin, with everyone looking at her cos she's wearing too little, apparently. As in the 'aren't you cold?' kind of expression.

The Japan Railways (JR) ticketing station. Apparently we thought getting the JR pass would be a good idea, since JR runs most of the railway lines across Japan right? Wrong. There was another giant rail company called Subway. And we ended up taking more Subway lines than JR lines.

The first JR train we boarded, to get to the place we need to get to to take the bullet train. (Yea I can't really remember the place's name. Heck. This is not a travel guide.)

Vending machines are available almost everywhere. Good for dispensing you that hot drink needed to keep yourself warm for a while.


Haha yay vending machine!

Along the train ride:




We made a pit stop at that someplace, to change to the bullet train, or Shinkansen, as they call it, to get to Osaka. A 3 hour ride. Wheeee.

My two cousins. Yea they're twins.


We travelled past a town that snowed the night before. Whoo thick blankets of snow.

They serve bento sets on the train too, with drinks and everything. And uh, their bento's not too good. Haha. Worse still, the Japan news reported a few days later that JR admitted they were serving expired bento sets on their bullet trains. We were all fine, thankfully. You can actually bring your own food into the train. Should have done that.

Their trains are very accurate. We reached Osaka through the Shinkansen in exactly 3 hours.

We were dragging our luggage all the way from the airport until we reached the hotel. That's crazy, considering how heavy it was. Haha what to do. The "returning back" luggage was even heavier, after we packed in all the stuff we bought together with our original luggage :/ Michelle bought the most, carried the heaviest, spent the most. Heh.

At where we were staying, Hotel Granvia Osaka, with a lady bellboy, who barely managed to carry our luggage, so we carried it for her. Haha.

They gave a bear wearing their hotel's uniform.

The view from the hotel. The hotel's really wayyyy too good for a 3-star hotel.

Went to Daimaru beside the hotel for a walk first. Uh yea it's a departmental store. My cousin was looking for the Burberry Blue Label. Expensive taste. But apparently it is cheaper than in Singapore, and the Blue Label is exclusive to Japan (?).

The Umeda District:


And then came nightfall. We went to source for food at this basement marketplace somewhere near the hotel, below a shopping centre and the place was brimming with food and life. Everyone was friendly and all. And this was what we managed to gather:


Osaka Castle:






And that was everyone who went for the trip. (Left to right: Me, my cousin, my cousin, my cousin-in-law, my mom)


Magnificent.

Jap children on a field trip, showing no sign of coldness in their skimpy wear.

Stopped for lunch, or bruch, rather, then off into the Castle.



View from the top. Around there were icons carved on the hand-grip, and they were protected with a polymer casing over them, probably because they were made from real gold. It's a castle, afterall. The fish-like structure out there should quite obviously, be made out of gold too.

Still magnificent.


There was this booth in the castle where you can wear traditional costumes for a price and so this little girl's parents paid for her and immediately drew everyone to see and take pictures, with Jap teenage girls saying 'Kawaii!' with every breath.

Out of the castle, met a pond which apparently was a good place for photographers, as seen by the numbers taking their DSLRs out and aiming for that perfect shot there.

There were many of such artists there, and talented they were.

Met a dog, too, which was rather of an accident since we were walking the wrong direction out of the place, as given by who we thought were locals but turned out to be Taiwanese. Haha.

Typical above-ground train station. Their train system amazes me greatly. Like for example why the train stations are built in such a run-down condition is because it is easier to build it back up in an event of an earthquake (which is common in Japan).

We headed to some street to walk around, maybe also find some street side food along the way.

And we did. This rice cake flavoured with sauce is nice. Soft, chewy, and hot. Perfect for a cold day.

It's true! Japan trains really do have carraiges specially for ladies only (but only during peak hours). Click to enlarge.



Headed to this street when it was nearing night time (I seriously forgotten all the names of the specific places we went to. The adults were the ones with the directions. I just followed. LOL)

Elmo umbrella, with Cookie Monster's somewhere beside.

Osaka's night life:
(Technically it was not really night yet. It was only around 5.30 pm, but the sky was dark already though.)




Went to visit this place, which was something like Marche, where you buy what you want from different small stalls and pay for everything when you leave. Didn't eat there though, just went to see. Free admission what. Hahaha. Actually we didn't know what it was until one of the promoters, who could speak Chinese, told us about it.




They had a gift shop, and it sold this giant pocky, which was actually a cake.

Settled down for dinner at some place.


BBQ squid, Jap style.





Notice what's special about the following:


Uh, notice how the toys are being placed so near to the mouth of the machine it makes it super easy to catch? Well it's obviously in no way helping you catch the toy easier, because it's not. They really know how to make money. Haha. But it's very typical in Japan. I saw it in Osaka, and in Tokyo too. Ok so maybe not typical in Japan, but typical in this two places, which should mean it's typical in Japan right. I dunno.

100 Yen Shop! They have a lot of things inside, and different places have different 100 Yen Shops and they sell different things, mostly great stuff. Coooool. We bought quite a lot of daily items there.

Giant pufferfish figure, showing that that shop was selling the ever poisonious pufferfish in their dishes. Nope we didn't go in.

Kyoto's Shrine (One of them):
Seriously, forgotten the name of it.



One noble wish.



Me and my cousin-in-law paid to enter the deeper part of the shrine, while the ladies went back down to the small shops littered along the path up to the shrine to shop.

Their 'Love Stone'. There's another one of it directly opposite it, maybe about 18 metres away (oh I got this figure from.. somewhere), and it is said that if you walk from one stone to the other with your eyes closed successfully (i.e. without tripping/falling/knocking onto something etc.), your love life will be a successful one.







Saw some ladies in their kimonos, so naturally, took a photo (or two) with them lah. Haha. Oh and Jap girls/ladies do not leave their house without at least some makeup. All of them. Unless they're feeling attitudezx that day, maybe?

1pm in Japan is 12pm in Singapore.



Headed back down to find the others, before setting off again.

While returning back to the train station from the shrine, we took a public bus, and it was... amazing. The buses actually tilt slightly to one side when picking up and dropping passangers, and they have annoucement systems on their buses too. Amazing! (Or suaku. Hm, I prefer the former. Haha.)



Kyoto International Manga Museum:
Sadly, it is closed on Wednesdays, and we went there on Wednesday. Nevertheless, pictures of the outside. (Must make the trip worthwhile, no?)





Some streetside market in Kyoto:
All the food. We bought some, and ate while we walked around it.







Takoyaki! Apparently, Osaka is famed for its takoyaki, and they are one of my favourite jap foods. Couldn't have been better. Heh. They sell loads of takoyaki-inspired souvenirs too, and yea I got a takoyaki toy model for myself. Ahaha.

Fishcake with cheese in it. Uh, taste better than it sounds.



My camera's internal system conked out after this, so all the pictures from here on are in my cousin's camera, which I've yet received, and without the pictures I don't really have much of an idea what we did on what day, so I'll continue this once I get them. Yea I told you I just followed blindly to wherever they wanted to go. I had no idea on what the plans were, I just followed.

(12 March 2008 - Ok photos received! So the photos from here on are all courtesy of my cousin-in-law's camera.)


Had dinner at this small shop and the prices were all resonable. In fact, fortunately all the shops we ate at are all considered cheap. Gooood :)

The next day, getting ready and all.

Universal City Walk/Universal Studios:
There is a train station specially for it. Oh, how much it's changed.


Met the Super Takoyaki (at least that's what I think it's called.) Yes, Osaka is really famed for it's takoyaki, no? They have a takoyaki museum there too.

Universal Studios Japan! And no we didn't go in too, cos we got no time, and the tickets are priced at around 5600 yen I think. That's around S$75. Insane not?! Anyway I've been inside before already. Ahaha.

Hard Rock Cafe Osaka.


Can't go into Universal Studios? Loiter around its outside lah. Hahaha.

Another takoyaki figure! This is probably Takoyaki Junior.



Settled for lunch after browsing through Hard Rock Cafe, people watching at Universal Studios, looking around its souvenir shop, and uh... taking photos with takoyakis.

Takoyaki Museum:
Hm, we just went to the souvenir shop. LOL.



Annnnnd, one more takoyaki. Ok done.

Headed over to another street market after that.


Giant red apple. Seriously, is Japan's soil and weather that good until such huge fruits start popping up? I guess it is.

Yea the crab's trying to crawl out.

Realistic pony. Was so real we thought there might be someone hidden in the cake shop behind the pony controlling it.

Nearing night time, we continued on to another of the street markets, this time not the kind of wet market but the Bugis Street kind of market. The shops in all these markets are small, but they have several storeys.

At the Hello Kitty store.

A pet shop, with all those kittens and puppies. Note that they only sell kitten and puppies, and not fully grown cats and dogs. And being young, they're all hyperactive, responding to your hands over the glass and all.

Had dinner at this small shop (Another small shop. In fact, they all are small shops. Cheaper what, like that.)

It was kind of like a buffet, where you take whatever you want and pay for it. Hm, ok so maybe it's not really like a buffet.

And that somewhat concludes our last day at Osaka, cos we're spending the rest of the week at Tokyo!

On the bullet train to Tokyo:
Yes, 3 hours. Again.
Uh, this was while we were waiting for the train. Hot soup on a cold day. Perfect.



My mom actually saw this group of Jap boys playing their PSPs, and she went over with her PSP and showed off that she got more games then them, and even showed them how to play the games. Hahaha.




And after 3 hours of sleep (for me, that is), we reached Tokyo.

On the train.

Made our way to the hotel, while lugging our massively heavy luggage bags. It was some task. It was hard finding an escalator, so we carried the bags up and down flights of stairs.

At the hotel. It's smaller than the one at Osaka, quite obviously, because Tokyo's land is limited. But the service and everything is still there lah.

Headed to a street market (again), beside a departmental store, where me and my cousin-in-law went to walk around first because the ladies were hogging the cheap Fancl products. And there were a lot of jackpot shops, with one so big it occupied about 3 storeys and almost the entire 1st street.


Settled for lunch at this small ramen shop, where you order through a vending machine-like machine, and then pass the coupon to the shop assistant. And it's cheap, too.





We continued to explore more of the street market (cheap stuff!), until night fell. (Which was around 6pm.)

Took the train to somewhere cos Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo was there. My cousin was looking for her watch which was left with only one piece at the Osaka branch. We had dinner there too, and the atmosphere was amazing. The crew were all high, everyone was all high. Whoo.

Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo! 'Welcome. Love All. Serve All.'

And while we were at the train station, how could we not spot this. The train map for Tokyo. It looks confusing, it is complicated, but we could read it quite easily because Singapore also adopts such a design plan for its MRT lines what.

While we were there, we saw (a picture of) Paula Abdul when she was young. She changed. A lot.




We ordered junk food, really. Nachos, this and chocolate sundaes.

Then, back to the hotel and sleeeeeep.

Tsukiji Fish Market:



All I can say is... that their seafood is really really fresh, and really really big. Hm I can't really remember. I'm still groggy from the lack of sleep. We woke up at 5am just to see this.

Went to the nearby restaurant for breakfast. The restaurants there all serve sushi/sashimi because they buy the fish from the fish market, and prepare it for their customers. So we had raw fish for breakfast.

Sushi cup.


Their fish is raw like.. super duper raw. It's fresh. Too fresh. I didn't eat the fish eggs but my cousins couldn't stand the taste and cooked the eggs in the miso soup first. Hahaha.

Crab miso soup.

Rainbow Bridge/Odaiba Kaihin Park:
It was located at this town called Odaiba, which looked really modern and quiet. It is most probably a new town.

We took a skytrain-like train called the Yurikamome to reach the bridge. The train had warmers under their seats to warm your legs. Coooool. And it's a whole new different line on its own.

Along the ride.


The park was quiet and huge, with so much space you just feel like running all over it and fall down on the sand. Ahaha. You don't? Nevermind. And the white bridge over there is the Rainbow Bridge. Hm, no colours eh. Maybe, just maybe, the colours are fed to the bridge by coloured lights below the bridge at night.

Told ya.

There were many dogs there too. People in Japan love dogs!

And some flowers we saw along the side of the park.

Hello!


More dogs, and a big crow.



Big tree.

Then we headed to a corner of the park, where there was this huge depression on the ground, which I think it used to be a war site. Then again, the signboard was in Japanese.

We're (as if) on top of the world!

More dogs.

I just realised their skies are cloudless.

Went over the the nearby shopping area. My cousins can seemingly sniff out shopping centres. Hahaha.

Awesome wall. The images are flashed out as moving dots, so when you eyes glance faster than the dots are moving you can make out the image. Very 'Singapore Science Centre'. Oh wait, it's called 'Science Centre Singapore' now.

Massive brainfreeze food. I forgot what they called this, but it's frozen balls of flavour. Sweet, but cold.

Took the Yurikamome back into the central train lines after that. Just FYI, there are 35 different train lines in Tokyo. How to not get (at least a little) lost :/

My frostbite. Hahaha. It doesn't look really serious here, cos it was starting to heal, but before that I can actually see my flesh when I clutch my knuckles cos the skin tore and gave way.

Harajuku:
Cosplay paradise!
Well, having said that, we didn't really see much of it, just maybe one or two occasionally walking pass dressed in a costume. Probably no events over that weekend.

Costume shop. Not cheap too. One piece was around 7000 yen.



The closest we got to any cosplay that day.

Had udon for lunch. Haha no we did not get sick of their udon, cos it comes with a lot of different tastes and ingredients. And. Cheap. Too.

Snoopy town.

Anime Museum:
To get there, we had to walk quite a bit, and the wind was seriously quite as strong as a gale. So, cold weather + strong wind = freeze. The wind was strong enough to cause the overhead traffic lights to sway and also almost blew me over. Now I believe my grandmother saying 'Aiyoh you so skinny wind come blow you'll fly away immediately' (in chinese, of course.)


Their timeline of Japanese Anime, and there are really a lot of them produced all the way from 1930, or is it 1940 till now. (Pokemon. Haha.)



Their step-by-step guide on how an anime is created. There was one part where they mentioned that an anime artist has to be a director, an actor and a storywriter at the same time, because you have to imagine how the scene will be like, imagine how the character will feel and know how the story will flow, which is true.

From the outside.

Night came, and my cousins still wanted to shop :/

We are tired. (Or rather, I'm the one who's tired.)

On our last day in Japan, my cousin and cousin-in-law went back to Harajuku cos my cousin-in-law came to Japan just to see the cosplayers, so we went separate ways first before meeting again. We managed to sleep in until 10am. Yay.

What they did:
Haha I also don't really know. I'll just post the pictures they took.



Oh, they went to eat.

And apparently they did not manage to see any cosplayers, cos there were no photos, and they sort of told us too. Hahaha.

What we did:
Took our time to get ready, left our luggage with the hotel stuff first, checked out, and went to search for breakfast, and found a cafe near the hotel.

The winds were still blowing with much outside.



After that, took the subway one last time to Roppongi, which was one (or was it two) station(s) away, to walk around, and see if there was still anything we could buy back to Singapore.


And, getting ready to leave the hotel after we retrived our luggage. Headed to the train station where we took the Narita Express to get us to Narita Airport. And yes, we lugged the luggage around. Heavy like... heavy luggage.

The Narita Express was delayed for about half an hour due to the strong winds still blowing at Tokyo. Luckily we planned ahead and gave time for such incidents so that we will still make it on time for the plane home.

Did some last minute buying of stuff from the transit mall before heading off to the plane. Since it made no sense to sleep on the plane, cos by the time we reach Singapore it'll be sleeping time (you know, 12am, 1am like that), so I watched movies, documentaries, shows. Made use of the time fully. It's not everyday you get to sit a plane. (Unless you really do sit a plane everyday.)

Left Japan at around 7pm and reached Singapore Changi Airport T3 at around 1am Singapore time.
'A warm welcome back to Singapore' :)