Japan Trip – Day 7 (京都)

Carried on our day tour of beautiful Kyoto. The trip wasn’t exactly pre-planned, cuz we ended up missing many of the iconic (and kinda must visit places like Kinkakuji – 金閣寺, Ginkakuji – 銀閣寺 , Ryoanji – 竜/龍 安寺) as they were really off the center of Kyoto.

Started the day by first going to Nanzenji (南禅寺), since it was just directly behind our ryokan (makes no sense to miss it). It was pretty cold early in the morning, but there were already a few old folks there doing their morning exercises, and students making their way to school. We went and made some prayers there and walked around, enjoying the morning fresh air.

Japan Trip – Day 6 – Kyoto (京都)

Today had a great weather, due to the whole day’s worth of rain yesterday, which is a pity, cuz we had to depart Hakone for Kyoto (京都） already.

Went outside for a short walk, (fresh air, great sun, cool weather) before breakfast and leaving Hakone.

Japan Trip – Day 5 – Hakone (箱根)

Set off early for Shinjuku station to take the train from Shinagawa (品川) station to Odawara ( (小田原), one mistake though, we didn’t take the Shinkansen!! Local train was slow, bad learning experience…

After some extra time (ok.. some is an understatement), we finally reached Odawara, where we went to purchase the Hakone 2 day free pass, allowing unlimited travel within Hakone (inclusive of certain bus services).

Japan Trip – Day 4 – Tokyo Disneysea (東京ディズニーシー)

16 December 2008

Woke up slightly later, since we should make full use of the hotel room having spent a bomb on it.

Spent some time to pack up and stuff some of the stuff we got yesterday into the bags before checkout, and going over to Disneysea.

Had breakfast (instant noodles + milk) bought last night.

Japan Trip – Day 3 – Tokyo Disneyland (東京ディズニーランド)

15 December 2008

Woke up early today, and headed for McDonald’s for breakfast, normal food places only open from 11am…

The meal ordering system was a bit different because they do not use those fanciful Mac names for the food items, but rather like describe whats it in, eg. Potato etc..

Ordered and it turned out to be a McGriddles + a Mega McGriddle lookalike.

<My iTunes is hard to control w/o my logitech drivers, think I need to install them sometime, getting irritating to not have volume control and track forward.>

Bad thing was that there was a smoking section in the place, the plastic thing to seperate the 2 sides weren’t exactly helpful.

Japan Trip – Day 2 – Ikebukuro (池袋), Shinjuku (新宿)

14 December 2008

Today’s destination was to Ikebukuro (池袋). True enough to Murphy’s Law, it rains when you wear a new pair of shoes going out, so.. Guess what weather it was on that day.

Anyway, it’s a good thing that Andon had umbrellas to borrow. Walked towards Sunshine City, a whole self contained “city” with many many stuffs like an Aquarium, Observatory, Arcade, Shops, Food…

Japan Trip – Day 1 (Asakusa, Ginza, Shibuya)

12 Dec 2008

Set off from Terminal 3, with thanks to Aya & Danny for the ride to the airport 🙂

Flight was SQ638 aboard the Airbus A380 from Singapore to Narita Airport. I must say that the A380 is really a big improvement in comfort compared to the 747s and 777s I’ve been used to, its much more spacious, with more personal baggage space and a much bigger Krisworld screen with usb ports, personal charger and keyboard. Though it would be much more useful on the return trip to view all your photos on the screen.