Day 0: Arriving in Japan!
We took the subway to Kyoto for our accommodation of
the night, 9 Hours Capsule Hotel!
The first impression that we had was that the place looked very sterile and clean. Everyone was given the same set of pyjamas to wear and all the toiletries that we needed! Joce said that it looked like a high-class prison LOL. The capsules are in this room which is always dark so I couldn’t get a good picture.
After settling down, we went to buy our first meal, but it was so late that every stall was closed, except Family Mart (our 7-11 equivalent). So we had a luxurious meal of ippudo Maggie mee + peach flavored cider which was very nice! I think this started our mad obsession with peach-everything in Japan.
Day 1 – Kyoto
This was probably the most intense day of walking in the whole trip (while we were still energetic). So we went to see the more popular shrines and temples in the area, walking everywhere by foot in the blazing summer heat.
So. Many. Attractions.
We were really looking forward to sushi lunch at Izuju which was so raved on Trip Advisor and really expensive as well, but turned out to be a flop. Singapore sushi beats this in so many ways…. The sushi rice had a ginger taste and everything had that same rice so just…. no…
Dinner at Okonomiyaki Kiraku was much better! We were also starving from all the walking haha.
To conclude the night, we went to the Kyoto station’s sky garden observation deck lvl 11 to see the Kyoto tower!
Pro tip: (lol inspired by https://thetravelintern.com/ultimate-usj-guide-universal-studios-japan-planning/ to give pro tips for Japan trip): it is free to look at Kyoto tower from afar than to see the skyline from Kyoto Tower! But that’s good enough!
To conclude the night, we went to the Kyoto station’s sky garden observation deck lvl 11 to see the Kyoto tower!
Pro tip: (lol inspired by https://thetravelintern.com/ultimate-usj-guide-universal-studios-japan-planning/ to give pro tips for Japan trip): it is free to look at Kyoto tower from afar than to see the skyline from Kyoto Tower! But that’s good enough!
Day 2 – Kyoto
When it was finally our turn, we were initially dismayed to find out that we were at the end of the line, because… what if everyone kopes the noodles too fast and we have nothing to eat?! But the restaurant ingeniously assigned each group one ‘lane’ that we can eat from, so we definitely would not be left hungry!
The duration of the somen experience was only about 15 minutes, so it was very hectic trying to feed ourselves and take photos and do the instagramming haha. Such first world problems lol…
After the experience, we saw there was Kifune Shrine beside the somen place so we went to take a look and take pictures – tourists will be tourists.
Pro tip: don’t put all your eggs (peaches) in one basket.
Day 3 – Arashiyama
We woke up early to try and catching the Arashiyama bamboo groves without the tourists but got distracted by the quest for good wagyu beef at Otsuka. The beef was soooo incredible and flavorful and soft – recommended!
Pro tip: go at sunset hours when the enthu tourists have left
Went to next attraction which is the Kyoto Toei studio. We had very low expectation for this place but was pleasantly surprised! There was many ninja related activities – physical challenges like climbing up and down wooden obstacles, making our way through laser obstacles, watching sasuke ninja shows and more! The place is used to film period dramas also so it was cool!
Our dinner was at Tempura komefuku where the served hot fresh tempura sticks and it was an awesome meal!
Day 4 – Tokyo Disneysea
We took the Shinkansen to Tokyo for our Disneysea experience! The place was so picturesque and the best place ever for photos! Staff were so friendly and helpful. We analysed that we couldn’t do their job because how is it possible to be so exuberant non-stop?! Haha. The rides that we took were all quite tame until the final ride at the Tower of Terror, a horror themed ride with free fall drop! This was awesome! At night the wind also became extremely strong and because of my low immunity, I almost fell sick from being tossed in the wind like a ragdoll. Spammed Panadol and water and thankfully I survived.
We texted the Airbnb host to settle this and continued with our itinerary lol. Went to the city area for our shopping – Akihabara, Shibuya, Shinjuku. Had lots of snacks and walked a lot as always.
Met up with CC for okonomiyaki dinner. It was one of the best meals, and what more, we cooked it ourselves! So fun. CC has become so proficient in Japanese after going there for 7 times. The way he ordered was so pro that we looked on in amazement and joce took a video too.
When we reached our Airbnb at night, we got news from the host that the electricity couldn’t be restored for the night… much to our horror. Even if we could bathe and sleep in complete darkness and heat, we really needed to charge our phones, if not it would be very hard to get around the next day…
In the end, we decided to move out of the place and find another place to sleep at for the night in Shinjuku. Researched and found a manga café. People actually play video games overnight at such places. It was about 2000yen per night, but we had no choice so we took it.
It was the worst night ever. The space given to each pair was very cramped, like a baby’s playpen? And there was a table in front where people sit cross legged with a huge computer screen (for gaming). We had to put our legs under the table to sleep and the table was so short that I had to come out of it every time I wanted to flip over lol. Before day break I already gave up on sleeping and was waiting for the alarm to ring LOL. It was truly traumatic.
Day 6 - Tokyo to Hakone
And walked by the Sumida river to … the attraction that the Liu siblings was most excited about - Tokyo Skytree Pokémon center! Haha they had their fill of shopping for all the pokemon plushies at a cheaper price as compared to Singapore. It would be appropriate to put a picture of HC cuddling the plushies but it’s probably not for circulation TTTT
We then took the Shinkansen to Hakone. When we reached, it was quite sad because it was raining very heavily. But we reached our hostel (K’s House) and it was so nice and spacious and awesome! A nice place that beats the traumatic manga café experience. There was also a common space where people could just chill with games, books and even a guitar. Some tourist was playing the guitar so awesomely in the morning and it was so cool.
And dinner was the most fantastic yakitori I’ve tasted just 2 minutes away from the hostel. 1 x chicken meatball, 1 x spring onion with chicken, 1 x chicken thigh, 2 x fatty pork for 700yen.
Day 7 – Hakone
Pro tip: get the Hakone 2-day free pass for 4000yen to go through the course (railway, cablecar, cruise)! Very worth it.
The railway brought us up to Owakudani volcano, where the wind started blowing like crazy. One of the must-dos there was to eat the black eggs, we tried them and… they tasted like normal hard boiled eggs lol.
The Lake Ashi cruise was also very fun because the scenery was fantastic. Hakone has such a nice chill vibe! We ended up having oden from Family mart which was yummy in the rainy weather.
We spotted another Tori gates and there was a queue to take pictures.
Pro tip: be very prepared for phototaking to NOT incur the wrath of the people in the queue behind. We became very systematic – joce will snap for me, YL then HC, then I’ll grab the camera and take photos for joce XD
It started raining so we went to a café for some café latte and café mocha while enjoying the scenery.
We went back and had to have yesterday’s yakitori for dinner again! Still fantastic.
Day 8
We woke up very early in the morning to queue to ‘catch our lunch’ - Hirobun Nagashi Somen! This activity is only available in summer so we had to go for it! The somen would flow down bamboo pipes with flowing water and we had to catch it with chopsticks and dip it in the soy sauce! The wait was quite long at 1 hour but no fret because the area was so cooling (due to the waterfalls giving out natural air-con)
Pro tip: Joce downloaded the whole Harry Potter series movies to entertain ourselves every time we needed to wait lol.
After the experience, we saw there was Kifune Shrine beside the somen place so we went to take a look and take pictures – tourists will be tourists.
Next stop was Nishiki market at Kyoto. There were many nice snacks to buy and we surely stuffed ourselves silly. Found peaches going for about $20 SGD for 3 and Joce wanted to buy all 3 for herself (peach obsession alert) while me, HC and YL shared 3 peaches.
Next was our adventure to Fushimi Inari (probably the most famous/touristy shrine in Kyoto because of the very social media friendly orange Tori gates). A lady came up to us to offer a kimono rental services at 2000yen which was really cheap compared to the market rate so we took it up! The lady patiently and painstaking tied on the kimono for us and it was so beautiful! Lol she then offered hair-setting services for 1000yen and we decided to pay for it also since our hair was getting very frazzled by the end of the day (ahem especially Joce).
We then started the hike up Fushimi Inari in hopes of catching the sunset. It was sooo hard to climb, what more in a kimono which restricted leg movement (plus my kimono was tied on too tight so I couldn’t breathe in fully also)… We stopped at many place to take photos and continued huffing and puffing up the many many stairs. A few other tourists expressed their concern and pity at our miserable state hahaha. Alas, we climbed to the halfway point where the sunset was supposed to be visible but…. It was too cloudy and we couldn’t catch a nice sunset…
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| view from the top |
Back we went and had dinner at Musoshin ramen which was another flop. I ordered “black ramen” thinking it would be the black garlic oil in pork broth which turned out to be ramen in sesame soup?! Joce ordered thai green curry broth which tasted just like mee rebus sauce?! The Liu siblings cleverly ordered the original broth and theirs tasted the best.
Pro tip: in moments of doubt, choose original ramen broth
Remember the peaches we bought in the afternoon? The sad outcome was that, when we went back to the Airbnb accommodation, Joce’s peached had spoilt and tasted horrible… so that’s $20 down the drain XD
Pro tip: don’t put all your eggs (peaches) in one basket.
We woke up early to try and catching the Arashiyama bamboo groves without the tourists but got distracted by the quest for good wagyu beef at Otsuka. The beef was soooo incredible and flavorful and soft – recommended!
So when we finally peeled ourselves back on track to see the bamboo groves, it was already filled with tourists and super hard to take photos without being photobombed! But it was still a very pretty sight!
Pro tip: go at sunset hours when the enthu tourists have left
Day 4 – Tokyo Disneysea
Day 5 - Tokyo
In the morning we were shocked by someone ringing on our doorbell. YL answered and we understood that we needed to pay the electricity bills, or else “electricity cut-to desu”. But the electricity bill was $60 and it was our Airbnb host’s responsibility to pay it so we didn’t want to fork out the money. (we also half thinking that this was a scam). However, to our horror, the guy really went to cut off the electricity!! A hilarious moment I rmb is when HC came out of the blanket with frazzled hair and asked “is this a nightmare?” hahahahahha.
When we reached our Airbnb at night, we got news from the host that the electricity couldn’t be restored for the night… much to our horror. Even if we could bathe and sleep in complete darkness and heat, we really needed to charge our phones, if not it would be very hard to get around the next day…
In the end, we decided to move out of the place and find another place to sleep at for the night in Shinjuku. Researched and found a manga café. People actually play video games overnight at such places. It was about 2000yen per night, but we had no choice so we took it.
It was the worst night ever. The space given to each pair was very cramped, like a baby’s playpen? And there was a table in front where people sit cross legged with a huge computer screen (for gaming). We had to put our legs under the table to sleep and the table was so short that I had to come out of it every time I wanted to flip over lol. Before day break I already gave up on sleeping and was waiting for the alarm to ring LOL. It was truly traumatic.
Day 6 - Tokyo to Hakone
The initial plan was to watch the auction at Tsukiji market at 5 am but we decided that we couldn’t wake up and reach that early, especially after the previous night’s manga café fiasco. So we went at a humane time of 9am! We chose to lunch at sushizanmai (mainly because it was airconditioned) and the food turned out to be great! I picked the ala carte to choose what I really wanted – the fatty tuna (normal and seared versions), octopus, salmon and mackerel and they were delicious! Price came out to a reasonable 1338yen.
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| Sky tower covered in fog! |
We then took the Shinkansen to Hakone. When we reached, it was quite sad because it was raining very heavily. But we reached our hostel (K’s House) and it was so nice and spacious and awesome! A nice place that beats the traumatic manga café experience. There was also a common space where people could just chill with games, books and even a guitar. Some tourist was playing the guitar so awesomely in the morning and it was so cool.
We then went to the Tenzan onsen (most famous onsen in the area) where there were 5 hot pools and 1 cold pool. The hot pool was amazing at relieving our muscle aches from all the walking. We went back to the hostel feeling 50% recovered!
We filled our tummies with the recommended lunch ‘Tofu Katsuni’ where it was very yummy tofu in a hotpot before starting our adventure.
We spotted another Tori gates and there was a queue to take pictures.
It started raining so we went to a café for some café latte and café mocha while enjoying the scenery.
We went back and had to have yesterday’s yakitori for dinner again! Still fantastic.
There was more dressing up at Odawara castle, Joce became a samurai and I became a damsel in distress (Hime-sama). Gosh the outfit really suits joce lol so cute. Only 500yen each!
Had dinner at Dotonbori eating very nice food like kushikatsu, takoyaki before calling it a night at our cute hello kitty accommodation.
Day 9 - Osaka
Woke up really late (I think this was the peak of our tiredness) and went to queue for lunch at Kani Douraku. This was highly raved by Joce’s sis even though it costs like $80 per pax!! So being kiasu we had to try it too. Surprising there was no queue and we got in immediately.
Had dinner at Dotonbori eating very nice food like kushikatsu, takoyaki before calling it a night at our cute hello kitty accommodation.
Day 9 - Osaka
Woke up really late (I think this was the peak of our tiredness) and went to queue for lunch at Kani Douraku. This was highly raved by Joce’s sis even though it costs like $80 per pax!! So being kiasu we had to try it too. Surprising there was no queue and we got in immediately.
Pro tip: going japan in summer makes for smaller crowds!
The crab was seriously the freshest I have tasted. It was really really delicious! But for $80, still slightly ouch.
We then went to Nara deer park, expecting to pay 600yen to enter the park to play with the deers. But turns out that the deers were out at the entrance so we could save on the entrance fees into the park lol! We just needed to buy the deer snack for 150 yen and they will come charging to us.
Pro tip: spot a docile chill deer who will sit there and allow unlimited selfies
We had dinner at a random ramen shop in Osaka and it was good! (strangely the randomly selected shops seem to be better than those on trip advisor)
Day 10 - USJ
The crab was seriously the freshest I have tasted. It was really really delicious! But for $80, still slightly ouch.
We then went to Nara deer park, expecting to pay 600yen to enter the park to play with the deers. But turns out that the deers were out at the entrance so we could save on the entrance fees into the park lol! We just needed to buy the deer snack for 150 yen and they will come charging to us.
Pro tip: spot a docile chill deer who will sit there and allow unlimited selfies
We had dinner at a random ramen shop in Osaka and it was good! (strangely the randomly selected shops seem to be better than those on trip advisor)
Day 10 - USJ
Our final attraction was USJ! We were all looking forward to playing with the roller coasters and it really didn’t fail us! The rides were extremely thrilling. Our favorites were the flying dinosaur, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, and Hollywood Dream. The flying dinosaur was so cool because we faced down and swooped like birds in the air, there was one point where we came so close to the water! The rides are really well thought out and themed nicely. Lol another one of HC’s epic comments was that he didn’t really like flying dinosaur because when facing down, the gravity is pulling down his face LOL.
Lunch and dinner of the trip were bentos because the food in USJ was too exorbitant. The only downside is putting the bento in my bag and having it smell like fried chicken for the whole day. But we did have the butterbeer and butterbeer ice cream at Harry Potter land and it was so so delicious.
Our accommodation at USJ was the Singulari Hotel which was super shiok, 3 people could fit comfortably on the huge bed. A pity that we were too tired to try the sky spa which is like an onsen with a good view! But still, it was one of the best accommodations we had.
Thus ends the very exciting and packed Japan holiday! I have always wanted to see Japan for myself and it was very eye opening and amazing. The culture is very rich and there are so many picturesque places! Totally tanned by the summer sun though, wanna visit again when its spring!
Phewwww.... I under estimated how much effort blogging takes! At least the memories are now recorded properly!
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| Yeye energy level cmi haha |
Lunch and dinner of the trip were bentos because the food in USJ was too exorbitant. The only downside is putting the bento in my bag and having it smell like fried chicken for the whole day. But we did have the butterbeer and butterbeer ice cream at Harry Potter land and it was so so delicious.
Our accommodation at USJ was the Singulari Hotel which was super shiok, 3 people could fit comfortably on the huge bed. A pity that we were too tired to try the sky spa which is like an onsen with a good view! But still, it was one of the best accommodations we had.
Thus ends the very exciting and packed Japan holiday! I have always wanted to see Japan for myself and it was very eye opening and amazing. The culture is very rich and there are so many picturesque places! Totally tanned by the summer sun though, wanna visit again when its spring!
Phewwww.... I under estimated how much effort blogging takes! At least the memories are now recorded properly!
