Japan Trip 2019

Prologue

It was a trip that happened in Oct 2019, but I had only managed to finish writing and posting it in 2022. I’m such a procrastinator…

This, will most likely be my last overseas trip with Bruno. I have finally came to realise that we are really not compatible – I get all upset with him during travels because he was just way too passive and I need to push him to do every single thing. He cannot react to situations and everything needs to be highlighted and instructed by me before he would go do it. This has made my travels with him very frustrating and I am gonna put my foot down and say – no more. Why am I wasting my time taking care of one extra person and it doesn’t go both ways? He is supposed to be my companion – we are supposed to be taking care of each other. But all these years it’s starting to feel like he’s my SON and I have to take care of him all the time. Ugh. No. Just no.

(Update in 2022: It sort of did ended up being the last trip – because well, COVID-19 happened. It has been 3 years since we last travelled, and honestly, I probably wouldn’t mind travelling with Bruno again – as long as it means we are able to finally travel. I’m still waiting for Japan to open up to tourists at time of this posting…)

I brought my mom along for this trip as well, as she missed out on Hokkaido during her Japan trip with my cousins last year due to an earthquake affecting Hokkaido just a couple of weeks before they depart. This trip was almost a logistic nightmare in the end due to Typhoon #21 running along the coast of Japan causing us to misconnect our flight. I’m still waiting for news from my travel insurance…

We also skipped a few places which I would have went for, if not for the fact that I have to cater to my mom since she cannot walk too much. Oh well, I will be back some day.

There will not be any Flickr links this time – most of the pictures will be embedded in the posts.

Day 1 -15/10/2019

So, for the first time, my mom stepped into an airport lounge before a flight. We went to the SATS Premier Lounge at Terminal 2 – and the food was really quite disappointing to her. She liked the ambiance and atmosphere, but the food quality was really quite bad.

I bought our airtickets from ANA this time, because it’s an airline that I always wanted to try, but they were as expensive (or even more expensive) as SQ’s. I got them at a relatively cheap price – about S$789 per pax, from SIN to NRT, then CTS-NRT-SIN on the return leg.

However, I’ve learnt my lesson… never ANA again, unless there’s really no other choice. You’ll read more about my decision on the last day of the trip.

So while we were in the lounge, Bruno was somewhere else because he didn’t want to pay to get into the lounge (I can only get one pax in for free). After we got out of the disappointing lounge, we met up with him and off we went to our first stop – Tokyo.

The reason why I wanted to head to Tokyo first was because I had ordered several stuff from Amazon JP, and sending them to Tokyo was actually a tad cheaper than sending them to Hokkaido. Also, I wanted to bring Mom to Niki no Kashi where she can decide if she wants to buy any of the Moonlight cookies that she loves so much.

Can’t expect much from anything that comes out from SATS or DNATA airline catering kitchens in Singapore, to be honest. The food was just decent, at best.

We reached Tokyo in the late afternoon after an uneventful ride, and it’s just taking the Keisei Skyliner again to Ueno. From there, we dragged our luggage through Ameyoko and checked in to our hotel Tosei Hotel Cocone Ueno, which was a relatively new hotel in the area. My mom and I stayed in a room, while Bruno stayed in another. The hotel upgraded our room from a deluxe twin to a Japanese twin, which unfortunately to us, felt more like a downgrade. It was cumbersome to keep climbing up and down the sleeping area, and the space was really tight to place two luggage thanks to that ledge. It was horrible – I shouldn’t have accepted the upgrade, sigh.

After we settled our luggage and rearranged our day bags, we then went over to Ameyoko to check out Niki no Kashi and to grab dinner. I picked Tonkatsu Yamabe as our first dinner in Tokyo because they had rave reviews about how authentic and traditional the shop was. It was really good, but my mom didn’t seem to be very impressed. Bruno and I enjoyed it a lot though. The place was very popular with locals, and I didn’t really see that many tourists or foreigners there. They do have an English menu, so tourists will be fine. I managed to speak a little Japanese to the crew there too, by asking for half portion of rice in Japanese. I’m sure it wasn’t quite proper Japanese but at least she could understand me. Yay!

Day 2 -16/10/2019

Got up early today to go Ueno to collect our JR East-South Hokkaido rail pass – only to have the collection delayed because Bruno forgot to bring his passport. Hurhur. He ran back to the hotel while my Mom and I browsed at the FamilyMart opposite our hotel. Her first experience of just how muddleheaded this guy can be. She could fully understand why I would get so frustrated and angry with him now, LOL.

But the nice thing about Bruno is that he literally does everything that I instructed him to do. No, he doesn’t take initiative, but he would follow orders pretty well. I told him to look after my mom and to accompany her wherever she goes while I go queue to collect the rail passes. and he really did. I was able to queue and fill in forms in peace (even though I struggled a bit as I had to fill in 3 different forms and had to juggle with several passports), knowing there’s someone with my Mom and that she’d be fine.

I got us the tickets, as well as the pre-ordered seat reservations after about 20-30 minutes, We then proceeded to take the metro to Asakusa where I brought my mom to Nakamise shopping street and Sensoji. Temples are places that my cousins would refuse to step into so it was a first time visiting a temple in Japan for my Mom, even though she went to Japan more times than I did. I thought she’d be interested in Nakamise shopping street, but she’s not very into it after all. She’s really more interested in the temple. She even did the incense ritual after I told her that many locals do it so that their pains and aches would go away. Haha!

No pics of Sensoji, by the way. Had plenty of those pics last year.

We explored the small gardens around Sensoji a little, and found a nice little pond with a stone bridge. All 3 of us actually spent quite some time taking photos there… it’s amazing how much time Bruno and my Mom would spend just taking photos of one single place.

One of the highlights (read: headache) of this trip was to bring both of them to a very good unagi place. I personally am not a fan of unagi (in fact, I kinda really avoid unagi whenever possible) because I had an issue with swallowing bones, soft or not. Yes, I know they can be eaten, and I can still feel the bones, even though they are supposed to soft. But anyway, I decided to go for Koyanagi as it’s very near to Sensoji and we could get there in the queue early so that my mom didn’t had to wait too long.

We were the first in the queue as we reached at around 11:15am, and subsequently the people who queued behind us were all locals – we were the only foreigners! We waited till 11.:30am and the restaurant opened its doors on the dot. We were being given English menu after I asked for it, and they provided hot towels too.

I ordered medium while my mom and Bruno both ordered large. The price was quite steep but it was really worth it. I finished it to the last grain of rice even though I’m not a fan of unagi – that says a lot! Their tamagoyaki was lovely too. Bruno ordered the mushroom miso soup and said it’s very good as well. This meal was perhaps one of the best in our trip – definitely well worth the money and headache that went into researching for a good unagi place!

After lunch, we then slowly walked over to February Cafe to get my second dose of caffeine of the day. Mocha for my mom, and latte for both of us. Biscotti was of course, Bruno’s. We managed to get seated outside the cafe again, so it was great! Cold weather and hot coffee just go together so well.

After coffee, we went to Ueno park for a walk aimlessly – but there’s nothing much to see, considering my mom was not interested in Ueno zoo, and that there’s no autumn foliage yet in Tokyo in mid October. We went back to the hotel to rest a little before heading out to Ueno station for dinner. This time, it’s Bruno’s “must-go-when-in-Japan” Ichiran Ramen again. Since it’s the first time that my Mom visited it, we opted for the one-person booth experience so that she can experience it for herself. It was nice seeing her surprise and her adaptability. She was perfectly fine with the idea and thought it was a very novel experience.

We were lucky to skip the queue too, because we were there early, at around 5.30pm. There was literally no queue outside and we were seated after a 5 min wait after getting the food tickets from the vending machine.

I accidentally took them to a rather long detour (I remembered the wrong intersection), but they were busy chatting with each other that they did not noticed (ha-ha!). When we were back at the hotel, we went up to the highest floor for the rooftop view – it was pretty nice. I got to try out the night mode of my Huawei Mate 10 too!

Day 3 -17/10/2019

Initially I wanted to go for both Kamakura and Enoshima in a day, but decided that it’d probably be too rushed for my Mom. So, considering that my Mom really does not have that many opportunities to visit temples in Japan, I decided to just concentrate on Kamakura and leave Enoshima for the next time.

We took the JR to Ofuna, then changed line to Kamakura, where we took the Enoden from Kamakura to Hase. The Enoden was a cute little train, very traditional-ish.

From Hase, we then followed Google Map and walked to Kotoku-in, where the Big Buddha is. We literally paid the entrance fee just to see the Big Buddha, because there wasn’t anything much to the rest of Kotoku-in. Nevertheless, it’s a place for you to place a tick in your check list for Kamakura, but it’s definitely not a place that you’d go again.

After leaving Kotoku-in, I led them to the next place – yet another temple, Hasedera. This is a huge temple compared to Kotoku-in, and there were naturally a lot more things to see. Very tranquail big ponds, a cave (not for tall people to explore), and a lovely hill view looking out to the sea. Now, this is a place that I probably won’t mind spending the entrance fee again to return to… just for the view.

I had scoured Google Maps months before the trip for food places, and I stumbled upon this little place with an unassuming name – Woof Curry. It was a little out of the way from the usual tourist route, and there didn’t seem to be much tourist action going on and very little English reviews anywhere, but still I took my chance with them. And oh, I’m so glad I did. THE FOOD WAS SO GOOD! It literally went above and beyond our expectations. Their serving was huge, and I still wish there was more! The owner was so friendly too, asking us where we were from and chatted a little with us before we left. I hope they remain in business for a long time, because I definitely will visit again!

After lunch, we took the Enoden back to Kamakura. I was toying with the idea of visiting another temple in Kamakura which has a mini bamboo forest, but we needed to take a bus from Kamakura and that’d make the timing a little tight, I didn’t want to tire my Mom out so we decided to just have coffee at Kamakura, and strolled Komachi Street a little before taking the train back to Ueno.

We had coffee at 5 Crossties Coffee which was next to JR Kamakura Station. The coffee wasn’t that great, but their soft serve was good!

Komachi street was just a touristy shopping street – nothing much to shout about except for some rice crackers shops which had pretty interesting flavours of rice crackers.

We went back to Ueno station and had a hard time finding dinner because 1) we weren’t that hungry and 2) it was so difficult to find a restaurant with food that my Mom would want to eat… sigh. We settled with Omurice restaurant Youshokuya Sandaime Taimeiken (洋食屋三代目たいめいけん)　that’s within Ueno station. I thought I wasn’t hungry, but wut, I was able to finish the entire plate of omurice on my own… (Can’t remember the names of the dishes anymore, sorry!)

Went back to the hotel early to pack and to arrange for luggage forwarding at the hotel reception – because we are starting our Hokkaido leg the next day! Yay!

Day 4 -18/10/2019

So yay! Hokkaido! Here we come!

First time visiting Hokkaido… so we were all super excited. I spent so much time doing research… can’t believe when the trip finally happened. I was nervous, stressed and excited at the same time.

Early morning at 6.30am, we carried our backpacks, checked out of Ueno hotel, and first head to Family Mart to get my morning latte. Then we made our way over to Ueno station to catch the 08:46 shinkansen to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto station. We were super early, but we were able to buy some Ekiben to eat on the train. After waiting for quite a bit, our Hayabusa train finally arrived!

It’s obviously not the first time that any of us had sat in a proper shinkansen, but that didn’t stop all of us for being excited about the shinkansen trip. About midway into the trip, I finally opened up my ekibento and dug into it. It’s not super uber fantastic, but there’s really something so fascinating about eating a bento on the shinkansen, and watching the scenery flew by… that somehow the food tasted better than it actually is.

It was an uneventful ride, with Bruno nodding off as usual whenever he’s on a train. Soon we reached Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto station at 12.52pm, where we got off the shinkansen to transfer to a Hakodate Liner to Hakodate station.

And thus, we finally set foot at Hokkaido for the first time!

We just had to grab some lunch right away, as it was already rather late at around 1.30pm. Everyone’s first impression about Hakodate is really just seafood and crabs, so naturally my mom’s interested in getting some crabby cuisine. We decided to go for Hakodate GAYA, which is rather near the station. They had English menu, and since they were still open for lunch, why not?

I was finally able to order edamame (I really didn’t understand why it is actually so hard to order edamame in normal restaurants in Japan…), yay! I also ordered ordered a crabmeat don, while Bruno and my mom ordered the snowcrab (with shell) set. Sorry for the blur photos but yeah. The food was okay…. crab was pretty fresh…. but I still feel they were a tad overpriced.

It was still very early so we ended up heading to another market Hakodate Jiyuichiba since the Morning Market should be closed by this time. It was a long walk (my mom was complaining for the entire journey) but it was a fruitful onr because she managed to get decently priced yet cheap, good quality dried Hokkaido scallops. Instead of walking back, I decided that we should just hop on a bus (with my half-assed spoken Japanese to confirm with the driver that the bus was going back to Hakodate station) instead. My mom then started complaining why did we walk in the first place when there’s a bus… sigh.

We tried to check in, but it was still about 15min before 3pm, so Toyoko Inn requested us to just wait at their dining area. As it was really cold outside and she had just walked such a long distance, my mom just wanna rest and charge her phone while waiting. So Bruno and I left our heavy bags with my mom and went out for a quick walk around the hotel.

We managed to find our way to the “harbour”, and boy, the views were so magnificent!

We then went back to the hotel to check in, before going to the bus stop outside the hotel to take the bus up to Mt Hakodate. The ropeway was closed for maintenance, but there was a bus service that would bring us up. The views were really breathtaking up there, but it was also unbelievably cold. So cold, that we weren’t able to wait till the sun fully set and all lights came on. It was really way toooo cold. After taking some pictures, we quickly went back to queue for the bus, and thankfully we were able to get a seat for all of us this round.

When I was doing my food research, I found a ramen place Tutuiken that’s near Hakodate station and our hotel in the most inconspicuous place – behind a carpark. The comments were all positive, so I decided to give the shop a try. We finally managed to find the small one-man restaurant, and thankfully it wasn’t all that crowded and the owner (and chef) managed to find a spot for all 3 of us.

I ordered Yaki Soba, while both my mom and Bruno ordered the miso ramen. The food is so good! It was a bit of a wait for the food to be served, but that’s understandable because there’s only just the owner doing all the cooking, serving, collecting payment etc.

After a satisfying dinner, we then went back to hotel to rest for the night.

Day 5 -19/10/2019

We had a simple breakfast at Toyoko Inn, and visited the Hakodate morning market that was literally just next to the hotel. As we were all not fans of raw seafood, we gave most of the food stalls a miss and literally just walked around the market looking at what they were selling. My mom started comparing the prices of the dried scallops against the ones that she bought yesterday… and she was gleefully telling me her purchase was so much cheaper.

We then took the Hakodate Line to Onumakoen station to visit the Onuma Quasi National park. It was raining slightly and it was so foggy everywhere – which was a bit disappointing as we weren’t able to view the dormant volcano (Mount Komagatake) that lied beyond the national park. Although we weren’t able to see the mountain, the fog literally added another layer of mystery and beauty in our photos. I wasn’t that interested in the short cruise, but Bruno managed to convince me to go on one – and I’m glad he did. The boat actually brought us out of the fog and we managed to the silhouette of Mount Komagatake! Yay~

We went back to Hakodate station and grab some seafood (cooked) lunch at the morning market restaurants. I ordered the Gindara set – still a lot of bones, but the fish was really fresh. Grilled fish (with bones) just not my first choice of meals if I can help it…

We took a coffee break and rest over at Pronto cafe (now permanently closed in 2022) in Kiralis Mall while charging our phones… It was a really nice cafe with clean toilet. Their coffee was okay-ish and the cake was good! Unfortunately when I checked the map in 2022 when I posted this, it shows that this cafe is now permanently closed…

After the break, we took the city tram to the red brick warehouses to stroll around and hopefully buy some souvenirs… but we ended up not buying anything at all. LOL. We did discover an odd cigarette bin with Singapore’s Merlion printed on it……….

I wanted to have dinner at Lucky Pierrot, which is a fast food chain exclusive to Hakodate only, but it was still early and we were all still so full. That and the fact that Lucky Pierrot allows smoking within the premises. Although there’s “non smoking” area, I honestly don’t believe that non-smoking area won’t smell any cigarette smoke wafting through the air. So… I’ve only took a pic… guess I’ll try the food some other time…

We ended up going back to Hakodate station empty handed… and because the food at Tutuiken was so good, we went back there for dinner for the second time. This time, I took the Miso ramen while my mom ordered the fried rice and Bruno ordered the yaki soba. We were all satisfied with the food again… the owner recognised us from yesterday too! My mom dropped him an “Oishii!” compliment, which had him grinning and thanking us.

This would be our last night in Hakodate, so we got back to the hotel and packed our day packs and rested for the night.

Day 6 -20/10/2019

Today we’d be heading to Sapporo from Hakodate, but we are stopping at Toya station for a brief day trip at Lake Toya.

This is one part of the entire trip which I wasn’t super sure of the itinerary because it was just too hard to get accurate information on the transport around Lake Toya.

The weather this day was so clear, and while we were on the train to Toya station, I managed to capture a very clear shot of Mount Komagatake from the train. This is honestly my favourite photo from the entire trip, I think.

By the time we reached Toya station at 09:31, we were supposed to take the 10:44 bus but there was really nothing to do for 1 hour around the station. In order to save time, Bruno decided to take the cab and he offered to pay for it. So we grabbed a cab (after dumping our bags into the locker at the station) and got off at Lake Toya. The wind was cold, but the sun was warm. The scenery was so beautiful… I would have enjoyed myself if not for the swarm of little black insects flying against my face THE ENTIRE TIME. Geez…. all 3 of us ended up wearing masks to block these insects from going into our mouth and nostrils, but I honestly really hate the feeling of these insects hitting my face like trucks and getting in my hair etc…. ugh! Bruno and my mom seemed less affected by them.. and they still enjoyed soaking their feet in the public footbath along the lake’s pathway…

We took a quick lunch at 岡田屋 (Okadaya) (temporarily closed in 2022), and the food was actually rather good. I ordered their butadon, which was very nice. They also had English menu. Their toilets were old style though… squat toilets, haha.

We then walked a bit more, before seeking refuge in an old style cafe/restaurant Smile Garden (temporarily closed as well in 2022). They don’t have latte or cappucino…. so I ended up getting Au Lait (even though I know it will be very bad), which I regretted… honestly, I’d rather drink canned sugary coffee from vending machine instead… Bruno ordered matcha latter, which he didn’t really enjoy either.

I certainly don’t want to waste money to grab another cab, so we made our way to the Toyoko Onsen Bus Terminal to wait for the bus that will be going to Toya station. While my mom waited at the station for the train that we’ve booked seat reservations on, Bruno and I made our way to Patisserie Violet to grab a cake to munch on while on the train later. I bought a slice of rum and raisin and it’s SO GOOD! Rich and creamyyyyyyy~ I also managed to capture a very nice sunset photo while in the train to Sapporo…

We finally reached Sapporo station, and we made our way to the hotel that I’ve booked for our Sapporo stay – JR Inn Sapporo. Can I say it’s the best hotel that I’ve booked amongst all our stays in Japan? The price was so reasonable and the twin room assigned to me was so big! My mom absolutely loved this hotel. It was also very near to Sapporo station – with 3/4 of the walk under shelter and safe from the cold winds outside.

I brought them to a soup curry restaurant Hiri Hiri 2 just opposite the hotel and the curry was so good too! I ordered 0 level spice (I really can’t take spicy stuff), my mom I think ordered level 2, but Bruno butt itchy and ordered level 3… in the end it was too spicy for him and he almost got a heat rash from it. Literally 屁股痒…. roll eye….. My curry was redder because I didn’t add coconut while my mom added coconut into her curry. It was really good though – I really like Hokkaido soup curry. I should have eaten more when I was there…

Day 7 -21/10/2019

Spent the entire day at Otaru – there’s honestly nothing much to write on this day, so I’ll just let the photos do all the talking!

Day 8 – 22/10/2019

I booked a day trip to Biei via Klook. The blue pond has been on my bucket list but because it’s so inaccessible (and I don’t drive), I jumped on the opportunity to visit via a day trip organized by Klook. I’m really not a fan of tour groups, but I supposed this can’t be helped.

We started off the day with an amazing complimentary breakfast buffet provided by the hotel. There’s always several different kinds of bread every day, there’s potato salad, hard boiled eggs, etc. There’s also coffee, corn soup, juices etc. Small selection but quality was great!

We then headed to the gathering spot at Sapporo TV Tower, and before we knew it, we are on the bus to Arashiyama zoo. It wasn’t winter season yet, so we don’t get to see the penguin parade, but we could still get pretty upclose to them. The zoo wasn’t huge by any means, but the entire place was on a slope, so while it was easy to walk down, it was a little difficult to walk back up to the complex where we would need to gather to go to the next destination. Will I revisit? No, not likely, unless I had no choice but to follow another day tour again that would include this zoo.

The day tour includes a buffet lunch – which is, well, forgettable. Of course it wasn’t bad by any means, just that there’s nothing amazing enough for me to remember.

Then, it’s the blue pond and the Shirahige waterfall!

One thing I had to mention… although the fall colours are just so amazing, this is the season when the flying insects are migrating. There’s just hordes of flying insects swarming in your face at Shirahige waterfall area – it’s really a terrible experience. I would probably go again at some other season… (even though fall season has the nicest colours).

The bus trip back was long (didn’t even have a toilet break session I think), and the bus was quiet throughout the entire journey. I think everyone was tired and was resting, sleeping, browsing through the beautiful photos taken on their mobile phones. I took a few amazing sunset photos from inside the bus. Really love these. The last pic was so blurred that it looked like an oil painting, no? 😀

We were back in Sapporo, feeling hungry, so we decided to randomly go into a Chinese restaurant Nangokusyuka (原宿南国酒家 札幌店) at Sapporo Stellar Place. Unfortunately this restaurant has been permanently closed as of today’s writing (12/11/2022). This is sad – because their food was really good!

Day 9 – 23/10/2019

This is a pretty relaxed day – I didn’t had anything much on itinerary except to go to Mount Moiwa. Hence I slot in a shopping trip at Tanukikoji shopping trip and a visit to Baristart, before heading to Mount Moiwa in the late afternoon.

Although I always wanted to visit shotengais in Japan, I often find myself wandering aimlessly when I’m there, and feel like I’m wasting my time. It’s such a dilemma! Same goes for the trip at Tanukikoki (狸小路). We simply just walked along the covered shopping street, and got ramen as lunch. The ramen was… not too bad. Then we went over to Nijo Market for a quick visit – my mom wasn’t too enthusiastic with the prices at Nijo Market though lol. Took a picture of Sapporo TV Tower while on the way there. Then we popped into Baristart for my daily 2nd caffeine intake.

Then, it’s a trip up to Mount Moiwa! The view was so good… for awhile. Then fog came over and settled in… sigh. Oh well… I’ll probably revisit at some point for sure. Would really love to see a clear night view.

Day 10 – 24/10/2019

Went to Nakajima Park today – amazing fall colours! Finally we managed to enjoy true fall colours in Japan…

Had lunch at Ootoya – although it’s a chain restaurant, they served real high quality food and the taste was absolutely amazing!

And because there’s nothing much else on the itinerary, we just did some light shopping before going back to hotel to pack and rest. Thereafter, we had dinner at Barikiya (ramen). I feel it’s a-okay but Bruno somehow loved it.

Day 11 & 12 – 25-26/10/2019

We were supposed to fly into Narita airport from Chitose, then take an international flight from Narita back to Singapore. However there was a typhoon that skimmed past Japan, thus the wind was so strong that the pilot aborted landing and made a steep climb back up. My mom had a huge scare of her life… a lot of other passengers were screaming as well. At that point… I was just glad I was on the trip with her.

The pilot rerouted the plane to Haneda airport instead, and chaos ensued as we needed to retrieve our luggage and find our way to Narita airport by ourselves. What’s supposed to be a straightforward transfer became complicated when we realised almost all transport options (bus, trains) have been suspended. By the time we actually did managed to get to Narita airport, we were several hours behind the boarding time. The ANA counter staff did not help either, only gave us a US hotline and asked us to call for alternative arrangement. It was such a frustrating experience. After 2 hours of being on the line as IDD calls and several trips to the counter to express frustration, one ANA counter lady finally gave in and helped us scour her system and booked us on the next available flight the next day. And with that settled, we realised there’s no way to get back to town for a hotel (all hotels in the airport vicinity were fully booked) as it’s too late and all transport services had ended. The Narita airport crew were nice enough to distribute complimentary food ration, mineral water etc, and even provided sleeping bags for all who are stuck in the airport. My mom found a nice cosy quiet spot to lie down somewhere in an alley, while I chose to stick by our luggage with a charging spot. The sleeping bag was surprisingly comfy, and I did managed to get some hours of much needed sleep after all that frustration.

I took an early morning shot from the airport when I woke up at around 5+am in the morning – I kinda like the shot very much, for god knows what reason. Our breakfast include some buns which we bought previous night at the Lawson convenience store in Narita airport, before we headed to the food court for a proper breakfast. I ate niku udon – not the best but one can’t complain after such a long night.

We managed to freshen ourselves up, and head to Ippudo ramen for lunch, before catching the afternoon flight back to SG. This time, the flight was uneventful.

After this trip, I’ve learnt quite a lot of lessons. First, don’t ever fly into Japan during typhoon season, not even if it’s towards the end of the typhoon season already. Second, it’s still best to fly with SQ, even if it could be more expensive. When there’s delays like this, you’ll notice ANA staff will help their Japanese customers on priority… Non Japanese customers will take a backseat. I’m quite sure if that has been a SQ flight, we would have been put on the next available flight right away.

Sleeping over on the floor at the airport is an experience I won’t ever forget. It’s not a bad experience. Far from it. I kinda enjoy the experience – I just felt guilty that my mom had to go through it as well. My mom was surprisingly quite upbeat about the experience too – she handled it more calmly that I would expect her to. She probably felt I was already too stressed with trying to get us onto the next available flight, and she shouldn’t add on to my stress. Love my mom.

The reason why it took so long (3 years!) to write this… it’s simply because I’m lazy. And that the next Japan trip will be coming up – hopefully I won’t put it on the backburner like I did for this trip.