Japan Trip 2023 – Feb

After 3 years of hiatus, finally I was able to get myself back in Japan.

The airticket fare was expensive (I booked them right after Japan’s Prime Minister announced that Japan will allow visa-free, independent tourism again), but the hotels booked were surprisingly cheap. I guess the hoteliers didn’t get around adjusting their prices yet, when I made my room bookings. Heh.

Despite what I said in the 2019 trip blog that I won’t want to travel with Bruno again, I had to this round, simply because my mom still didn’t allow me to travel on my own and she didn’t want to go with me on this trip. Sigh… I had no other choice but to let him follow again… which, to be honest, I kinda regretted. He did and said some things during the trip, which pretty much surprised me and made things super awkward between the two of us.

I really hope that I won’t need to travel with him again. I need to find someone else to travel with, or I’ll just go solo and lie to my mom or something…

In any case, I decided to revisit the cities this trip, but going different/new places this round (although I still re-visited certain attractions towards the end of the trip).

Day 1 – 12/2/2023

For the first time ever, I chose not to have an inflight meal, thanks to the worry of catching COVID-19 at the start of my trip.

We reached the airport pretty early, got checked in and all, before deciding to head to Jewel first to look for early lunch. Our intention to get ourselves filled up before going up the plane, and then buy some bread to munch on the flight after everyone’s done with their meal and were masked up again. I was hoping to lunch at 翠华, but unfortunately the crowd put us off…

We ended up at Sembawang White Beehoon, which incidentally was pretty nice. I think I have a new lunch option at work now… we ordered a plate of fried calamari to share, and it was really good too! Fresh and soft!

Soon we boarded our SQ flight, and the air steward (didn’t catch his name though) was so nice – after he knew we have opted out of our inflight meals, he kept coming over throughout the flight to let us know they have snacks and refreshments available if we are hungry. What a heartwarming gesture!

I made use of the complimentary 2-hr inflight WIFI for the first time and took the chance to message my mom… haha! The connectivity was pretty unstable though – but it was nice to stay connected with family and close friends on the ground even though I’m so high up in the air.

We reached Kansai airport without much fanfare, and to be honest I was a little stressed because our flight reached late in the night at around 9+pm, and we needed to catch the late trains into Namba. But thankfully, the immigration queue wasn’t that long, and the wait for luggage was pretty quick too. We made a beeline to the Nankai ticket counters and phew, zero queue! We got our tickets pretty fast and waited for the Nankai Airport Rapi:t train to arrive.

Very spacious seats – awesome for people with long legs. The ride was uneventful, and soon we reached Namba – and now came the dreaded part: we need to drag our luggage for about 15-20minutes (even though Google Maps say 7min… I’m pretty sure Google Maps’ “walking speed” isn’t meant for humans), and the streets of Japan is now all full of tactile pavements. Sigh, while it’s good that Japan is slowly catering to the visually impaired, it’s very tiring for regular tourists like us who are dragging big luggage across these….

We still hadn’t had our dinner (just 2 miserable buns on the flight), so I bought some onigiri and miso soup to eat in hotel later after checking in.

I booked Vessel Inn Namba at a really good price (around S$50 a night for single room), so I’m quite happy with my choice even though the room was really small. I can still maneuver in the room – but not so much. I’m fine with it though! Love the coffee kettle…. so stylish!

Day 2 – 13/2/2023

Couldn’t believe I managed to wake up so early even though I slept quite late last night. I couldn’t really sleep that well – woke up like twice during the night. Munched on my apple custard bread (bought from Famimart last night) and went out alone to buy the green car tickets for the trip from Osaka to Kanazawa a few days later. I could have reserved the tickets online, but JR West website doesn’t allow specific seat choice – so I decided to buy the tickets from the ticket machine instead.

I haven’t gone around in Osaka that much during my 2016 trip as I really didn’t like the city. So this time, I just relied on Google Maps to get me around – and I found that it was drizzling the moment I stepped out of the hotel. Meh. I tried to take a few steps with just my windbreaker’s hood up, but realised the drizzle wasn’t that small. Sigh, fine, I went back to my room to grab my umbrella, and started my adventure to locate that JR Namba station. Followed Google Maps, enjoying my “solo” walk, taking videos around and sending them to my mom, all in all – I really like exploring by myself without Bruno following me around.

Found the station in the end, located the ticket machine, successfully bought the tickets – yay! It was really quite a smooth and easy process. I decided to splurge on green car this trip – partly because I wanted to eat my ekiben in trains, and I feel green car would have less passengers and thus less chance of me getting COVID-19 with my mask down…

Walked back to the hotel feeling accomplished, and stopping by the Lawson next to the hotel to grab more breakfast (it was really cold and I got hungry real easy in cold weather) and trying Lawson’s brewed Cafe Latte. It was surprisingly good! Not as smooth as 7-11’s latte, but it was still good! Better than Famimart’s latte for sure, lol.

Bruno finally woke up, and we headed to Kintetsu-Namba station to buy a 1 Day Kintetsu Rail Pass to Nara. Well, as usual, he’s just standing around waiting for me to do everything… out of frustration, I told him to check with the ground staff where to buy the 1 Day pass. He hated to talk to strangers, but well, he had to do it anyway… so we were told that we had to buy the pass at the ticket counter because we needed to show our passport in order to buy the pass since it’s meant for tourists.

We got the pass in the end, at JPY1500 each, and it included the express train to/fro Kintetsu-Namba and Kintetsu-Nara stations, as well as unlimited rides on Nara buses. I really like Kintetsu and Hankyu trains – most of them have either very cute or very posh exterior designs and the interior design is also classy. This Nara train that we boarded had a very cute exterior design!

It was really rainy and windy today, so we both had to bring out our umbrellas and wear gloves too – while we opted to walk towards Yoshikien, because the queue at the Nara bus stop was too long! On hindsight, maybe we didn’t had to buy the 1 Day rail ticket after all… we didn’t even take a single Nara bus while we were there! We just walked everywhere. We did get to see some deer – one of them came really close to me.

Then it was really getting too cold for Bruno, so we seeked the warmth of the Starbucks nearby. He sat indoors, while I chose to sit outdoors because I wanted to get away from him for awhile and to enjoy a hot beverage while sitting outside in the cold. I was happily drinking my hot latte when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he came out to sit too… sigh. There goes my “alone” time. But at least he is rather 识相 this round – he didn’t sat in the same table as me. He sat at the table next to me, and there’s a considerable gap between us (yay for social distancing measures).

I noticed there’s a Kyoto Gyukatsu outlet next to Starbucks, and I pointed out to Bruno since that’s his favourite restaurant (and I kinda like it too). We decided to head there for lunch, and it was as good as I remembered.

After lunch, we decided to head straight to Yoshikien – rain or no. On the way there, the view in front of us was soooo picturesque – it was almost like out of an oil painting! The mists hung over the hills over at the horizon – it was so lovely!

We then went into Yoshikien – it’s actually free admission, but there’s very few (or should I say NO) tourists in there, probably because the gates always looked perpetually closed. It’s really a lovely little garden, with small stone steps and ponds everywhere.

After Yoshikien, we headed to Isui-en, which is literally just next door but it’s a paid garden. It’s a much larger garden, and apparently better maintained (but we also liked Yoshikien because it’s cozier and more serene). Both looked awesome in the dead of winter, and I would only imagine how amazing these two gardens would look if we had visited in other seasons, especially during fall!

At the insistence of an elderly staff at Isui-en, we visited Todaiji (it was not in my plan because Bruno isn’t a fan of pure temples – he usually prefer temple grounds and gardens). I’m not entirely sure if I had slowly opened my mind to historical and cultural stuff after knowing Zack（耳濡目染）, or I’m just purely more interested in such things, but I quite enjoyed my time at Todaiji and almost wanted to go for the museum, if not for the fact that Bruno was 100% not interested in paying for museum ticket.

My legs was almost dying at that point, and I was thinking I might not be able to make it back to Kintetsu-Nara station. We left Todaiji and while still in the park, we came across a row of retail shops and I noticed there’s a Cafe CONCE (don’t understand the weird English shop names but never mind) which they offered latte on the menu. I decided to go in and rest my legs, while getting my afternoon caffeine fix at the same time. I ordered their apple cream cake to go with the latte, and it’s so good! It’s the first time I had apples in a cake that WEREN’T SOUR! OMG it’s literally the best apple cake I’ve ever eaten.

After recharging my feet (and emptying my bladder), I felt re-energized to continue walking – and continue walking we did, all the way back to the station. It was still a little early, so we took a quick look at the shotengai next to the station. Nothing much there though – we literally walked to and fro and then went back to the station and took the train back to Kintetsu-Namba. As I still wasn’t hungry, I told Bruno to get his own dinner. He was a little apprehensive, but to my surprise he said OK. We went on our separate ways (yay!) and I went into an omurice restaurant Shinsaibashi Mitsuya at Namba station. I ordered their basic demiglace omurice (really wasn’t hungry), but boy, it was so good that I cleaned up the entire plate! The omurice was tomato-based so it was a bit sourish, but that’s just nice for me as it opened up my appetite. A really satisfying dinner!

After dinner, I walked all the way to JR Namba station again to top up my Suica card – been using it for everything, including main meals! Really hate dealing with coins and all – so it’s good to just use all the cash to top up the Suica card and use the card to pay for almost everything!

Went back to the hotel and popped into a 7-11 to buy their “CUP DELI” – which was my favourite salad for the entire trip! It has cooked octopus, broccoli and edamame in basil sauce – really nice!!

Day 3 – 14/2/2023 

Happy Valentine’s! Well, I wasn’t too happy because of something Bruno said to me, even though he damn well knew it’d change things between us… but it’s my problem and that’s that.

Bought instant Starbucks Cafe Latte (no sugar!) from Lawson the night before, so I happily made myself a cup of frothy latte while munching on the bread which I bought as well. The latte was okay – not fantastic but still drinkable. Doesn’t feel like it has much of any caffeine in it though…

Today we were set on walking around Kyoto (yes, just simple walking around), but our first stop is Kurasu. We both loved Kurasu (I brought him to the Singapore branch a few years ago and he fell in love with their Dirty Matcha), so we thought we definitely should drop by the main branch in Kyoto, After all these years, we finally did! It was a hard find too – but we managed to find it in the end. The cafe was small but cozy. And their matcha latte tasted exactly the same as what they offered in Singapore – so you know the Singapore branch is totally authentic too!

We then took a quick train ride to Karasuma station (to note: never ever tap INTO the JR station when you are trying to take private subway lines!) and walked to Nishiki Market. We had been here before, but previously we got there really early and most of the shops weren’t open. This round, most of the shops were already in business when we reached, so that’s great. I couldn’t help myself but bought a tamagoyaki sandwich and a jumbo tempura ebi – all of which I ate myself. The tamago sandwich was really soft and fluffy, even though I got my fingers all gooey and wet with the semiliquid tamago flowing out of the bread. LOL. I don’t understand why can’t he go and walk on his own and insisted that he went into the sitting area with me even though he’s not eating. Like, wut? You can go explore on your own, you know? In the end I got really quite frustrated with him, so when he wanted to go sit in an eatery to eat his grilled eel (while I wasn’t interested), I told him I’d continue exploring on my own and we’ll meet at the end of the market. He wasn’t very happy about it but too bad, I really don’t want him around me after what happened in the morning. I was just so uncomfortable.

Soon though, he’s done and we met at the designated place, and off he went to the capsule shop while I browsed the menu of a restaurant Ichiba Coji opposite the capsule shop. I told him I wanted to have lunch there, and because he went for dinner last evening at peak hour, we agreed that he’d stay away from me during dining while his mask was down. Hence we entered the restaurant as individuals and sat at different tables (which allowed me to enjoy my meal alone too). I ordered the daily limited quantity lunch set – black wagyu hamburg and black wagyu steak combo. It was so good! Their tofu was also made right at the restaurant and it gets free refills! It’s one of the most satisfying lunch I’ve had in Japan, and it wasn’t too expensive – just JPY 2178, which is really reasonable for its quality and quantity!

One thing about travelling during winter season is that… after you have your warm meal swimming in your tummy, it’s really very demoralizing to step out in the cold… I definitely almost gave up on trying to finish up our original walking trail – because it was just so cold! In the end we gritted our teeth and proceeded… went into a Ghibli shop, then finally stumbled across the famous Kyoto Starbucks (it’s a tourist attraction on its own, I tell you), and yup finally we finished our walking trail… the route was nice, all the traditional houses and all, but nothing super fantastic. I’m sure it’ll have a different feel during sakura season… the weather was very maddening for us though. It was first rainy, then it became warm, then suddenly it was raining again, then it became snow, then it became small hail (like what?!), then it became almost like a heavy downpour… and when we went into a coffee shop to hide (and bought very bad black coffee), suddenly it’s warm sunshine out there again. Like wtf, seriously.

We then walked back (on very tired legs) to try and find the nearest Uniqlo to buy some extra clothings for next day’s day tour up to the mountains (because of the sudden cold snap – I was worried we might not have enough warm layers). Along the way, we popped by Sono58 cafe for regular latte.

And guess what? After we left this cafe, Bruno suddenly noticed he lost one of his gloves…. I’m literally having question marks all over my head – how does one lose ONE glove? He had them on all the time for the day… and only took them off at the cafe. And when we left the cafe, we had checked and ensure nothing was left behind. Like uh… how? He rushed back to the cafe and couldn’t find it either. I’m literally speechless…

Anyway since we’d decided to head to Uniqlo, he could get himself a new pair of gloves there, and I needed a new pair too – the old one had some black material disintegrating on the outside and inside of the gloves. Time for new ones…

After finally buying some extra clothings, we headed back to Dotonbori for dinner. We didn’t venture too much further in – we saw Fugetsu and decided there and then that – OK, Fugetsu it is. Singapore’s only branch had closed down in Suntec, so I really missed their yakisoba…

After dinner, I specifically went over and took a photo of the Glico Man… just for the sake of it. Haha!

Oh, and did I mention how much I love the deodorant spray provided by Japan hotels? They are literally miracles… spray them liberally on all your clothes and you won’t smell! You don’t even need to get them washed or changed… just spray these and save your luggage space! Really! (Advice only applicable for those travelling in Winter season….)

Day 4 – 15/2/2023

Initially my plan was to head to Nagoya for a 3D2N stay, and then to head over to Nabana no Sato on my own. But to be honest, I was a little apprehensive as it was difficult to get English information on Nabana no Sato, and I wasn’t feeling super confident about getting there (and back) by myself.

I ended up changing the itinerary and stayed longer in Osaka, while opting for the Klook day trip to Nabana no Sato. They included a trip up to Gozaisho Ropeway – which was why we scrambled for more layers of clothings at Uniqlo the previous day, because the cold snap was still in effect, and we had to be up there in the mountains with minus degrees.

We had to first check out of Vessel Inn Namba, and dragged our luggage to Hotel Monterey Osaka at Umeda station – it was such a headache to find an elevator down to the subway station at Namba. Honestly I won’t want to do it again – I’ll just forward my luggage next time.

In any case, it was too early to check in and thus we left our luggage at the hotel and explored the hotel vicinity and recce the Klook meeting place first so that we’d know where to go. It was still about 45minutes to the meeting time, hence we just plonked ourselves down at a Starbucks nearby while passing time.

We got to the Klook meeting place on time, and the day trip started on time as well. The bus took us all the way to Mie prefecture, and halfway through the journey, it started snowing! The scenery turned white and it was quite beautiful along the way. Soon though, we reached the place where the tour arranged a sukiyaki beef lunch. It was good! Not fantastic, but good and warm enough for the tummy. The tour guide then informed us that the ropeway was still in operation (they would suspend it if the wind is too strong), so we could still go up. I checked the site – wow minus 9 degrees.

It was absolutely cold even when we were at ropeway station, which was at the foot of the mountain. I remembered I was quite worried since I noticed only we were in jeans while others were in water-resistant pants. But well, too late for regrets! We got our ropeway tickets from the tour guide and off we go! The ropeway climb up wasn’t too bad – except that the wind was quite huge between the gap of 2 valleys… the cable car did swayed quite a bit. Was I worried? For one second, yup. But I have the penchant of brushing such thoughts aside – I mean, I’m already in the cable car, so if something’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. What’s the point of thinking and worrying about it already? Right? Instead I just focused on the scenery, taking videos, messaging my mom and sis all the way. The tour guide was in our cable car during the uphill journey, and I must say he was quite annoying… he almost talked non stop, and I think I was the only person in the cable car who totally ignored him. Oops…

In any case, the cable car finally reached the top, and after the tour guide showed us where to meet at what time, off we went to explore on our own. I did climbed up, walking through all the snow (and yes, successfully getting snow INTO my weatherproof shoes – I really ought to have bought hiking shoes instead of running shoes, sigh). The view was absolutely worth it though! It was so pretty – the white snow against the clear blue skies. I would love to stay there longer.. if I had brought along my sunglasses. I didn’t, and I really didn’t want to blind myself, so I took some pictures and videos, before going back down indoors. Once back indoors though, I’m glad I didn’t stay out even longer because I could feel the partial blindness setting in. I had to quickly find somewhere to sit and close my eyes and rest them for a while before my eyesight got back to normal.

Then it was the trip back down… and this time at the same part of the ropeway journey, the wind was even stronger and the cable car swayed even more… We were in the cable car with a group of Hongkies, whom I assumed are families/relatives. There’s a guy in this group whom I had felt his eyes on me for the entire day trip… it was odd. I thought one of the ladies in the group was his wife, but apparently not. They are probably his mother and his aunts… it was so awkward in the cable car when I was sitting in the middle of the group and he was sitting at the back. I could feel his eyes on me the entire downhill trip, and it was so uncomfortable that I didn’t take any photos or videos on the way down. I just looked down on my phone and messaged my mom on Whatsapp all the way (I didn’t want to speak with Bruno either). I heaved a breath of relief when we finally reached the ground ropeway station. Although I could still feel his eyes on me even when I was browsing around in the souvenir shop, at least I had the freedom to move away and out of his sight whenever possible.

Anyway, we were back in the bus and the tour guide brought us to Nabana no Sato. It was really cold there, and in the end we sought refuge in the Beer Hall and got ourselves some dinner before the illumination starts at 5.45pm. I ordered boiled gyoza with dashi soup (really in need of some hot soup in my tummy in such cold weather), and curry rice, and ordered a subsequent serving of edamame as well for some greens.

When we finally dared to step out into the cold again, the light up started as the sun set. It was really pretty! Unfortunately my P7P couldn’t capture just how beautiful everything looked – but it tried its best!

Day 5 – 16/2/2023

It was so late when we got back to the hotel the previous night, so I was telling Bruno let’s just wake up naturally and if we have the time, we’ll go to Minoo Falls. If not, we’ll skip. We managed to get ourselves ready by around 10am, so I guess well, we can still make it I supposed. We took the Hankyu line to Mino-o station and walked about an hour from there, with a brief stop at Franc et élégant YUZUYA, a shop that sells yuzu merchandise and one that sells some food as well. We popped in, and to our chagrin, they only had alfresco seats… which was terribly cold. I was a little mad, because along the way there were other eateries but Bruno kept saying no to all of them, and we were left with this option at the end of the path… it was expensive and cold, and this could have been avoided if he could just agree to one of the previous options. Oh well.

Thankfully the staff switched on the heater which was right next to me… so I could toast my legs and my hands at any point. I ordered their curry rice and a large pot of vanilla black tea (really needed something hot!) – well, their rice came cold… even the curry was cold. Only the fried chicken was crispy and warm… I was glad I ordered the tea. I couldn’t finish it though (it was too large a pot), and Bruno quickly jumped the chance to drink something hot (he didn’t even pay for his share… hmph).

We then continued our walking to the waterfall… I kept my pace even though we were going uphill – it was tough, but I surprised myself as I kept going. At no point did I feel that I wanted to turn back – and this was honestly quite rare. Bruno was panting somewhere way behind me, and I didn’t really care that much about him – it’s just one way up, I doubt he would be lost anyway. I made it to the waterfall – and honestly it wasn’t that great LOL! I expected a better view… but well, maybe it was the wrong season to make that climb. I sat down and rested, while waiting for Bruno to reach.

I’d say Minoo Falls is not a must-visit place… if you are up for a hike in comfortable weather, and it’s around the Fall season, sure, you can fit that into your itinerary if you have the time. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s really worth the effort and time going up there.

Anyway after getting a quick bite (I had a chiffon cake and a latte) at a bakery right at Mino-o station, we travelled all the way back to downtown Osaka, and head to Tennoji, to go up to Harukas 360 observatory deck. I love it up there, looking down at Osaka, but Bruno was afraid of heights (I have no idea how he was able to take cable car rides though) and had to sit down away from the glass windows for the entire time that he was there. I wonder why did he even buy the ticket to go up with me… I can jolly go up the 60 floors myself while he shop in the mall downstairs. *shrugs*

We had dinner at a soba restaurant on the 12th floor of the Kintetsu mall. It was pretty nice – I paid for his dinner as a birthday present for him.

Day 6 – 17/2/2023

We forwarded our luggage straight to our Tokyo hotel last evening, and checked out of Hotel Monterey Osaka early in the morning to catch the 8.10am Thunderbird from Osaka station to Kanazawa station.

I really love green car seats – so spacious, and some trains have the 2×1 seat configurations which I love, because I could take the single seats column. I also bought an ekiben to eat (it’s a must-do!) as well as a small bottle of hot matche latte from the vending machine. The ekiben has all the samplings of what’s “famous” in Osaka: takoyaki, oden, yakisoba, croquette, etc. It’s pretty good! I finished everything lol.

We reached Kanazawa station at around 12+pm, but because I had ekiben on the train, I wasn’t really that hungry. I dropped off my terribly heavy Techonaut 30 at Via Inn Kanazawa, while Bruno offloaded the items in his bag into a coin locker at the station.

We then proceeded to buy a 1 Day Kanazawa bus pass (again, I feel this is not that worth at the end of the day) and made our way to Omicho market. Well… it’s just another seafood market. I don’t do fresh food shopping in Singapore, so I couldn’t compare the prices either… I just let Bruno lead the way and I followed behind, since there’s nothing much that I wanted to do or see.

Eventually it’s time for lunch, and again he wanted to say no to everything and just go to the next place in the itinerary, until I reminded him that restaurants and eateries in Japan generally close in the afternoon and will only re-open at 5pm. If he is totally fine to skip lunch then sure, we can just go straight to the next place on the itinerary. He was like “Oh yah…”, to which I rolled my eyes. Hello, this is not the first time you’re in Japan…

We settled on Nouka Banzai as they have cooked food apart from the usual sushi/kaisendon offerings. I noticed on their menu that they have Noto-beef sushi, and on the back of my mind, I vaguely recalled that Noto-beef was very famous, so apart from ordering the Oden and Noto-Pork steak bowl combo, I separately ordered a piece of Noto-beef sushi as well – one which cost me around S$7… extremely expensive, but I just wanna try it for once. Oh boy it was so good. Can I say it’s actually better than wagyu beef…? The oden and Noto-pork bowl were both decent, but that Noto-beef sushi really stood out. The miso soup that comes with my combo was also chockful of ingredients – definitely recommended!

After the satisfying lunch, we then walked to Oyama Jinja shrine, a place where it’s usually overlooked by overseas tourists. It’s free to enter, and they have a small garden/pond, which looked so serene.

Since we still had some time, we decided to pop into Blanket Cafe, which was just next door to the shrine, for some coffee. I like the atmosphere of the cafe, but not their coffee…

After getting our afternoon caffeine fix, we then walked over to Higashi Chaya district (because, again, bus stop was just full of people and every bus that came along was crowded to the max). In all honesty, the architecture of the traditional tea houses is very nice, but it’s just so boring there… We just strolled around aimlessly and took some photos, before deciding to walk (yes, walk again) back to our hotel at Kanazawa station.

We checked in to Via Inn Kanazawa – a hotel with superb location as it’s located right IN Kanazawa station itself. So convenient! Single room was small, as expected, but there’s a business desk which was just nice for me to work on my laptop in the evening. View out was awesome too!

Soon though, we made our way back to Kanazawa station to take the bus (yes finally we were able to use the bus pass again) to Kenrokuen for their Winter Illumination event. It was so pretty! I was glad the illumination event dates coincided just so nicely with my itinerary.

We wanted to go over to the Kanazawa Castle illumination event as well, but unfortunately the route within Kenrokuen ended on the other side of the park, and Bruno was too hungry to make one big round back to Kanazawa castle, so we ended up having our dinner at this Udon restaurant うどん割烹 どんすきー which I randomly found on Google Maps – and boy oh boy, what I ordered was so good! It was their winter menu special, and I’ve never had such sweet carrots before! Everything single piece of ingredient in my hotpot tasted so amazing and I finished everything – literally everything. I would have finished all the broth if I wasn’t feeling so stuffed at the end of the meal!

Day 7 – 18/2/2023

Today is Bruno’s birthday, but honestly I just wanted some time to myself. My initial plan was to totally spend the day on my own, leaving him to his own devices, when I suddenly realised it was his birthday, and it wasn’t very nice to just leave him alone like that. So I told him maybe we can meet in the afternoon to head to the 21st Century Contemporary Art Museum, which he agreed. But unfortunately I kinda twisted my ankle slightly in the morning during my solo adventure, so as a precaution, I went back to the hotel after lunch and rested the ankle until dinner time when we met up to find dinner at Kanazawa station. Well, that’s the story of this day. Now let’s begin my day.

I woke up at around 5.30am in the morning (*cough yes, that early) to take advantage of the 6am – 7.45am free admission to Kenrokuen. I have no idea why there isn’t more people knowing this – maybe they knew but they didn’t want to wake up so early? In any case, I left the hotel at around 6.15am and none of the buses were in operation yet. So I spent about 45min walking from Kanazawa station to Kenrokuen in the cold morning – but I really enjoyed it! I followed Google Maps’ route and cut across Kanazawa Castle grounds, and reached Kenrokuen easily. There’s barely anyone in the garden! It was almost like I have the entire garden to myself. It was so zen, so lovely, so quiet… I took so many videos and photos – without anyone else in the pictures. (Won’t attempt to link anymore pictures here – check out the album in Google Photos.)

I dutifully led myself out at around 7.40am, and ventured into Kanazawa castle next door, and had a lovely time exploring the empty grounds as well. I found myself at Gyokusen-inmaru Garden, and it was really a lovely little garden with nice landscape. Unfortunately this is where I twisted my ankle when I was going down the stairs out of the garden in the midst of Googling for a nearby coffee place while waiting for my next destination to open… sigh.

I took a short break at a nearby Starbucks over at Korinbo area, and I nearly got into a quarrel with my mom over Whatsapp because she chided me for leaving Bruno to his own devices. It’s so frustrating – how old is he already? Why is she expecting me to baby him still?

Well in any case, I’m happier on my own, so I continued my journey and walked to my next destination – D.T. Suzuki museum. Don’t ask me why, but this is on my bucket list (and now I can strike it off). I really love how zen this whole place is – I spent quite some time sitting out in the cold and looking over the water, contemplating about stuff.

After visiting this museum, I then walked back and headed to a nearby Ippudo for lunch (which coincidentally Bruno visited same outlet after me). I continued my way to Coffee Stand Hana, where I had great coffee (and a free postcard), and it was there where I discussed with Bruno about my twisted ankle and we both agreed that I should head back to hotel to rest my ankle instead of continuing to walk for the rest of the day.

We met for dinner and opted for Tentoten, where we both ordered half Noto-Beef & Noto-Pork bowl. Good thing we popped in early (that guy still said wanted to KIV and looked around, which I pointedly said if we continued looking around then be prepared to queue later), after we were seated, the crowd suddenly appeared and a long queue formed.

Went back to hotel room to pack – checking out next day for last leg of the trip – Tokyo!

Day 8 – 19/2/2023

It was raining real heavily since last evening, and I was so glad I opted to stay right at Kanazawa station. I don’t need to worry about carrying that heavy-ass backpack while walking under such heavy rain to the station to catch the shinkansen to Tokyo.

I booked the Kagayaki Green Car tickets online, and it was a breeze collecting the tickets from the ticket machines at Kanazawa station. The green car this round was 2×2 configuration, but thankfully I did not had anyone sitting next to me – the perks of being in a green car. Heh!

We checked out of Via Inn Kanazawa, and spent about 20min getting our ekiben and drinks, before heading to the platform to catch our shinkansen. The ekiben I bought was octopus with soy sauce rice and some oden on the side. It was so delicious! I also got the cold cup deli from 7-11 as well for some greens for the day, and also a bottle of hot green tea from the vending machine.

We got to Tokyo in no time, and by this day, cold snap had passed and the weather for the day was forecasted to be rather warm. We first went straight to the hotel to drop off my bag, then we head to Niki no Kashi to check out the prices of the snacks that we intended to buy. I couldn’t find the snacks that my mom wanted though… I did scouted some snacks that I would be getting for my colleagues in the mean time.

Then we headed to Cafe de Crie for a tea break, where I ordered a Matcha cake with a latte. Matcha cake was delish, but the latte was forgettable…

We then checked in to Tosei Cocone Ueno Okachimachi, and I really love the view from my room! This is my temporary home for the next 4 nights.

After resting for awhile, we left the hotel again, and headed towards Ginza. I’ve never been to Ginza even though I’ve visited Tokyo so many times. Not a fan of high-class CBD areas, to be honest… I’m here only for one thing – Sato Yosuke Ginza Inaniwa Udon! Again, we were lucky to reach early and there’s no queue in front of us. Not long after we were seated, queue started forming…

They don’t offer English menu, but if you have basic hiragana knowledge, you will do just fine understanding the simple menu. Otherwise, there’s always Google Lens translate option, which works just fine too.

We both ordered Tempura hot udon – and yup I managed to finish up everything again! Bruno had a hard time trying to finish his udon though… The udon chips that they served right after you placed your order were so good! A wee bit saltier than expected, but still good!

After the meal, we walked around Ginza aimlessly… I have nothing much to say to him throughout the trip, so it was rather unbearable to be just walking around aimlessly with someone you barely talk to. Ultimately I told him let’s just get back to hotel. He wanted to go back the same way where we came from, while there’s just a JR station right ahead of us. I don’t see the need of trekking back – why so rigid? In the end I told him I’ll just get back myself. He can take whatever route that he wanted.

To be honest, I’m just happy enough to stay in the room by myself, switching off all lights and watching the night view from my bed, thinking about stuff. It’s such a therapeutic experience…

Day 9 – 20/2/2023 

Nothing much planned today – we headed out early to February Cafe for their breakfast (previously we always only visited in the afternoon for their coffee), and I thought there’d be a long queue forming by the time we reached. Nope, I think this trip we had been quite lucky when it comes to food and queueing… we’re one of the first customers, so we placed our orders and got our seats smoothly without much waiting. I ordered Croque Monsieur and it was so gooooooood. Their latte was perfect, as usual.

I had always wanted to visit overseas local supermarkets, so this trip I specifically planned a trip to two local supermarkets in a day (also just to compare prices with Niki no Kashi) – Life Supermarket and OK Supermarket (they are so near each other in Asakusa). I regretted buying some items from Life, as OK was actually cheaper! Dang it. We had lunch at Katsuya, a rather cheap place but their katsu was good!

Bruno wanted to go back to hotel to repack his luggage so that he could gauge how much he could buy from Niki no Kashi, while I preferred to buy my stuff from Niki no Kashi first before going back to repack my luggage. Then we suddenly remembered that the hotel would be having a power outage from 11am – 2pm… and we definitely do not intend to climb 17 floors of stairs. Bruno then wanted to just “wander around” Asakusa, which to me, was just a waste of time. I told him I’ll just go on my merry way…. we’ll see each other tomorrow.

I popped into Akihabara, unplanned, just to help Zack look for his Slam Dunk merchandise, but oddly I couldn’t find any. I went into big stores like Animate!, but still, I couldn’t find a single Slam Dunk merchandise! Damn… not wanting to give up so fast, I then travelled back to Tokyo Station character street to look at Jump Shop where they are known to have some Slam Dunk merchandise in the past. But nooooo, nothing there too! I asked the staff finally, and they said the Slam Dunk merchandise were all sold out due to the popularity of the movie that’s still showing in theatres while I was there. Geez, what a disappointment. I felt so bad when I informed Zack that I couldn’t find any Slam Dunk merchandise for him…

In any case, I went back to Niki no Kashi thereafter to buy the snacks that I wanted to get for my colleagues, then I headed back to the hotel to repack my luggage to see how much space I have left, so that I can gauge how many more boxes of Moonlight cookies I can get for my mom. Since I didn’t had Bruno with me, I figured I could go eat dinner at some soba specialty restaurant (something which I can’t eat if he’s with me since he hated soba). I found Namiki Yabusoba and headed there for dinner. It’s an authentic traditional restaurant, and payment is by cash only (tax included). I ordered a light Tamagotoji Soba, and it’s so good! It’s filling enough but light on the tummy too. Most importantly, it’s hot, which helped so much in the bitter winter cold out there.

It started to get dark when I left the restaurant, so I headed to Kaminarimon and Nakamise shopping street to take some evening photos, as well as the night-time Sensoji. Shared some photos to Zack and he seemed to like some of them, even helping me to edit one of them a little and watermarked it for me (nope, I’m not sharing it here).

Day 10 – 21/2/2023

As planned, we were supposed to visit Small Worlds Tokyo today, and so we did! Took (and changed) trains to Odaiba, and as we all know, Odaiba is a reclaimed land island, and the view was so pretty as we took the Yurikamome line to Odaiba-kaihinkoen Station. I really love how blue the water and the skies are! (Though I have no idea why the video I took looked so blue on my phone, but when I uploaded it to YouTube, it looked so much paler… =[ )

I had taken a lot more videos on my phone while I’m on Yurikamome line. Don’t ask me why, I just love what I saw! Didn’t upload them all to YouTube though…

We dropped off at Odaiba-kaihinkoen station first for breakfast as we picked The Open Bakery to try. It was SO WINDY on the ground, geez, coupled that with the single digit temperature, we were both almost half frozen when we got to the bakery cafe. I got their special “sandwich” (I’d call this a burger), which is fried chicken patty with their inhouse special sauce. Pretty good! Their latte was great too. Love the interior design as well. Prices were a little steep – but I didn’t mind it that much. Hey, I’m travelling after three years, I think it’s fine to splurge a little, eh? This place doesn’t seem to have much tourists though – all patrons seem to be regulars except us.

It’s about 15minutes to 11am, so we left the bakery and head back to take Yurikamome Line to Ariake-no-tennis Station, and after a few minutes walk, we reached!

I stumbled upon this place when I was looking for activities/events to attend in Tokyo, and boy I was hooked the moment I saw their website. I’m a huge fan of miniature worlds, so this is definitely a must-visit for me! And yup I simply adore the entire place and ALL their exhibits. Yes, ALL THEIR EXHIBITS. I wish I could spend the entire day here, looking closely at all the details… the exhibits are so interactive too! They have the launching of NASA spacecraft, they have the activation of NERV vessels, all their exhibits have several buttons for you to press so that some character or item will move, etc etc. It’s all so fascinating and intriguing! I couldn’t take in all of them in just 2-3 hours… I just couldn’t. But it’s okay, I’ll definitely come back again a second time and I’ll make sure I have plenty of time to spend viewing all the exhibits in detail! 

Okay okay, that’s enough videos. In any case, I love this place so much that I bought a souvenir tee from here. Though I’m not a fan of Sailor Moon, I really liked the design (I have a weird penchant for pencil-drawn art…). Didn’t take a photo of the tee… I’ll upload it another day if I remember.

Again, let me say this loud and clear: I’LL BE BACK! 😀 😀 😀

All right, so Bruno and I agreed to go on our separate ways the moment we reached Small Worlds, so naturally I left without him since I have another place in mind to visit, and that’s Shinjuku Gyoen. I saw from 小红书 that some sakura trees are already blooming there, so I thought why not visit since I had some time on my hands?

And yup I did see some sakura blooming! Can’t really capture how pretty it is (though I still prefer koyo season during autumn). Took a few photos but really doesn’t feel they did the actual sakura trees justice. Oh well… and for the first time, I was approached by a stranger (a girl!) – she wanted me to help take a photo of her and the sakura tree, which I happily obliged. Solo female travellers (though I’m not technically one yet) should help each other out! Heh~

There are more of course, but I’ll just leave them up on my Flickr album instead, as well as other Shinjuku Gyoen photos. I’ve been to Shinjuku Gyoen so many times that I think it’ll be too boring if I just kept showing the same photos here again and again…

Left the garden at around 2.45pm, and I figured I should be getting lunch at some point (I was trying to cut down on the food that I’m eating, obviously… I’ve put on so much weight T_T ). Went back to Ichikakuya Ramen (been here back in 2016 and fell in love with their ramen) and happily devoured one huge bowl of Shio Tonkotsu ramen. It had been 7 years since, and the taste remains the same! I was almost in tears…

So something kinda bad happened after this… I went to Tully’s to get a latte, and originally I wanted to drink it in-store, but there’s no seats left. So I took it away, and sipped while walking to Shinjuku station. I couldn’t find any rubbish bin on the street when I was done with it (what’s new?), so I took out a plastic bag and threw the empty cup in, tied it REAL tightly… and chucked it into my backpack. Little did I know… it still leaked anyway.

By the time I reached hotel and unzipped my bag, I was mortified to find out that the leftover coffee was all over the base of my backpack, and even my sling bag (which was in the backpack) was not spared. I quickly removed all the items, and dump the backpack into the baththub to wash away all the liquid coffee, while I used wet tissue to wipe my sling bag. However, as my coffee was LATTE, it had MILK in it and god, we all know how spilled milk smells like. Argh. No matter how much I rinsed the backpack, it still smell like shit… resigned, I just left it on the clothes line to dry overnight and turned my attention to my sling bag. I didn’t want to wash it as well (in case both won’t dry in time and I’d have no bags for the next day) so I simply sprayed the deodorant spray liberally on it – which didn’t help at all. Meh.

I was talking to Bruno about this on Whatsapp, and asked if he’s still outside. He said he’s back in hotel but will be out again since he’s looking to get dinner. I asked him to help me get some charcoal as they tend to help with absorbing odours. He instantly agreed to help and almost went out immediately to those 100yen stores to help me find some. He took pictures and asked me which ones I’d prefer… in the end, we couldn’t find any charcoal but we bought some hanging deodorants/odour remover which I threw into the bag. Unfortunately they didn’t help too, but they did add some fragrance to somehow cover the spilled milk smell…

In any case, I was quite guilty for neglecting Bruno during most part of this trip, while he jumped to his feet to help me whenever I needed him. So instead of leaving him to his own devices again the next day, I told him about my plan to head to Enoshima (which wasn’t in my itinerary this trip) and asked if he wanna join in. Well, of course he said yes…

Day 11 – 22/2/2023

So, good news of the day – my backpack did dry overnight, despite it having all those sponge and cushions at the bottom and on the straps. Amazing Japan toilets.

Bad news of the day – well, it still smells like shit. Not as bad as when it was unwashed, obviously, but still…

Never mind, I’ll just use it anyway… hopefully at some point the smell will go away….

So, Enoshima it is. Instead of following Google Maps suggested route straight to the T, I took another route – we alighted at Ofuna station and I switched to the Shonan Monorail instead. I’ve been wanting to get on the monorail for some time now, so I’m glad I finally got the chance to try it! No photos of this – you can Google it yourself. The experience was quite something… I highly suggest you to try it out yourself! The monorail goes really close to the pillars and people’s homes at some corners… it’s rather exhilarating!

Anyway we got off at Shonan-Enoshima station, and amazingly we saw Mount Fuji in its full glory right from the station observatory deck! I tried out my P7P 11x zoom and it’s SO CLEAR.

I love my Google Pixel 7 Pro to death. <3 爱死了！

We then slowly strolled to Enoshima, and of course, on the bridge towards Enoshima, we see more of Fuji-san~

Enoshima itself is a quaint little island, with a lot of temples on it. There’s just too many stairs to climb, so we simply bought the Escar ticket, which allowed us to ride escalators up all the way to the top (you have to climb your way down though). I didn’t take too many photos of the temples since I always felt it’s impolite to snap away at religious places. After taking the escalators all the way up, we entered the Samuel Cocking Garden, which was free of charge (there wasn’t much to see in the garden in winter, to be honest), but I paid for the Enoshima Candle ticket to get up there. Bruno learnt his lesson this time as he opted to stay on the ground. 😡 I happily went up on my own, and was totally wowed by the view.

Since I’d already paid the admission fee, I might as well enjoy my time up there right? I sat down (there were benches built into the tower) with Mount Fuji right in front of my eyes. Yes it was extremely windy and cold, but I’m happy just sitting there, gazing at Mount Fuji in a distance, enjoying the cold wind and thinking about stuff. (Aye, I like to sit quietly and contemplate about life if the environment is just right for it, if you hadn’t notice by now.)

I came up with a bunch of Japanese teens (young men), but I hadn’t paid much attention to them (too young!). But when I was sitting there enjoying my view and the wind, they started to pace to and fro in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them trying to balance their iPhone on the bench next to where I was sitting in an attempt to take a selfie for themselves, failing miserably of course. Suddenly one of them approached me and asked (in Japanese) if I could take a photo for them. I blinked, and suddenly all my basic Japanese knowledge fled my brain. In the end I told him in English that I couldn’t speak Japanese, so the guy immediately tried to rephrase his request in English instead. I already knew what he was asking, so of course I obliged. Took a photo for them, and they were happy with it. One guy kept looking at me though, even when the rest were already leaving… probably because he didn’t expect that I wasn’t Japanese? I don’t think I looked like a Japanese though…?

Finally realised that I’m starting to freeze up there, I went back down to look for Bruno and we took a break at the food kiosk. I nudged him to buy the octopus senbei as I know its one of the specialties on Enoshima. He obliged, and we had one cracker each. It’s so thin, but it’s so good! And it’s not oily at all!

We then went searching for lunch, and we randomly picked a restaurant that seemed to have cooked food (instead of just seafood kaisendon on menu). Bruno ordered curry rice, and I surprised him by ordering a Sakura Ebi + Shiraisu bowl. This isn’t something that I would usually order – but I told myself I SHOULD try it. Shiraisu (whitebait) is what Enoshima is known for, and where else to eat fresh Shiraisu other than in Enoshima? And to my own surprise, I found my bowl of Sakura Ebi and Shiraisu to be quite delicious, if not just a wee bit salty. It goes really well with the rice though! We also ordered a grilled squid to share, and it’s extremely fresh too!

After the meal, we were kinda lost not knowing which way back down…. so we just followed the crowd. I had the feeling that we were heading the wrong way and towards a dead end… and it turned out that my hunch was right. It was a dead-end (and it was the path to the caves, which we weren’t up for exploring), but well, it came with some beautiful sea views. Would be lovelier during sunset, obviously, but no I wouldn’t want to be there during sunset….

… And the reason why I didn’t want to be there during sunset is because I needed to climb back up all those steep stairs!!!! I almost DIED on the way up. Geez… I didn’t give up halfway when going uphill to Minoo Falls, but hell I almost gave up while climbing up those stairs at Enoshima. NEVER AGAIN.

We dropped by a cafe TRASPARENTE L’acqua to rest our legs (my thighs literally were trembling uncontrollably by the time I finished climbing those stairs), and it was really a much needed break. Well, and their latte was good too, with amazing views to boot!

We slowly got back down to the main street and while we walked back to Shonan-Enoshima station, we noticed that we can no longer see Mount Fuji…. she’s totally obscured by the clouds! We were so lucky to see her so clearly earlier this morning…

I suddenly remembered I needed to collect our Skyliner tickets to Narita Airport (which I already reserved and paid for online) for the next day, so we had to head to Keisei station first, before going back to the hotel and did some last minute packing. I couldn’t remember what I ate for dinner.. probably some onigiri bought from 7-11….?

Day 12 – 23/2/2023

Checked out hotel super early… at around 5.45am. Dragged our luggage all the way to Keisei station (that’s about 15~20min walk I think), and got onto our Keisei Skyliner. He requested to sit by the window again… and promptly fell asleep all the way again. There goes my intention of staring out of the train window to contemplate matters…

Flight was uneventful (yay for inflight WIFI again), but this time I did opted in for inflight meal (figured even if I get COVID from this, I’d be already at home anyway, and won’t be disrupting the trip). Glad I did, because this braised pork with mushroom sauce WAS SO GOOD. I’m drooling as I type this… the meat literally melted in your mouth! =D~ The ice cream provided thereafter was of my favourite flavour too – Vanilla! Double yay!

So there ended my 12 day Japan trip after 3 years of hiatus (thanks to covid)!