Japan, again

One had traveled in a period when he lost track of the whereabouts of his saving. And mine was last year, when logical reason was defeated by impulsiveness of travelling ideas. In the span of seven months, I managed to travel to no less than six countries and more than a dozen cities, even half of them were far away across the earth.

Pretty tough times (saving-wise), though was overjoyed smiling ear to ear.

Among those traveled points, one remains to be the most exciting and unexplored. It was Japan.

My last time here, Japan was at its beautiful season of Autumn. I vividly could remember how alluring those crimson, orange and yellow coloring every trees on every corner of the cities. After the trip was over, I promised myself that another visit here had to be on different season, none other than the glorious cherry blossom of Spring.

And yet this year, we booked the trip too early for that.

At its peak, cherry blossom in Japan will bloom around mid of April. And please don’t accuse me of not doing my homework for some checking on the internet because I did. Yet somehow I was mixed up between the terms of first bloom and full bloom. I thought, how silly me, that period of first bloom and full bloom would be the peak time of the flower to blossom, unfortunately the exact peak moment was 1-2 weeks after the full bloom.

Another day, another lesson to learn.

But that didn’t hinder us for capturing pictures in front of blossoming cherry tree. We were grateful for those quite early ones. I guess we were just those too early birds that got the tiny worms 🙂

Trip to Japan would never be enough without tasting the local delicacies of Osaka. It was our first stop: night strolling at Dotonbori. We paid a visit to one of the most delicious Okonomiyaki in town. And indeed it was heaven. For a satiate meal for dinner, we tried this one Ramen shop that had sign of no pork and lard. Indeed, it was another level of challenge to actually finding a restaurant that had Halal certificate. So we did the bare minimum by choosing one without pork nor lard.

Sightseeing the crowded Dotonbori at night was always exciting. From strolling down along the Tombori River Walk, looking at various restaurants and cute shops, up to fighting for the perfect spot for the Glico sign.

The next day was Kyoto.

What was the most righteous way of enjoying the old capital of Japan other than wearing yourself a kimono? I guessed, none.

We booked a one-day kimono rental via Klook and that decision was perfect. The moment we entered the store, they professionally took care of us knowing that we had a minimum knowledge of this. They let us select the color of our kimono from wide arrange of choices. Trust me, it took me forever to choose the one. They also hang several references for the color choices on the wall, sure that helped us a lot.

After you had peace with yourself on color fabric to choose, they swiftly helped us to wear all those layers of clothing. Since mid of March was considered a cold windy month, they put extra layer on us. If you felt that you were no good with cold, it’d be no harm to bring your own warmer inner cloths like Uniqlo’s Heattech #NotEndorsed

At first, it was kind of hard to walk with the sandals that came with the kimono. It drastically affected my speed of walk, and yet after got used to it it crossed my mind that it might be that very sandals which was the main key to enjoying Kyoto up to its fullest. By taking small steps after another witnessing the beauty of old Japan.

I always had the curiosity to climb the mountain up to the very end of the Torii gates. But packed itinerary always hindered that. Fushimi Inari, on my second visit, was largely the same. As calm and charming as ever. Do ensure that if you choose to come here, which is a must, to come early in the morning. Otherwise the place will be packed with thousands of tourists from all over the world.

My previous post on Kyoto can be seen here.

Disneyland Tokyo

Dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fall asleep

I got the chill when hearing the Cinderella’s song was being played when I entered the gate walking through the World Bazaar. In one word, Disneyland was indeed magical!

I fell in love with each and every corner on this theme park, it was beautiful and easily swayed you away to your beloved childhood memories. Where the magic of USJ was centered at the Harry Potter part, Disneyland was from all of the parts. Not mentioning the wonderful parade and amazing closing fireworks at night. It gave me goosebumps  every time remembering those fireworks adorned the night sky behind the Cinderalla’s Castle that we were so familiar with.

The highlight rides surely were the Winnie the Pooh and the Star Wars! Several tips before visiting this theme park are to check the visitors forecast from their official website so you can manage the time when will be the park is not packed with tourists; and tap the Fast Pass as soon as possible after you enter the park. That would save you a lot for the queuing time.

Gala Yuzawa

To pay our clumsiness on the cherry blossom peak misdate, we chose to play some snow on Gala Yuzawa resort. More detail on this trip can be found here.

Summing up of the place: your new desktop wallpaper 🙂

Tokyo

Tokyo undoubtedly is a city that will never be fully covered on several-days visit. It simply has endless areas to explore, corners to post on Instagram, stores to shop and foods to taste. This time, we enjoyed ourselves there based on list that was still considered mainstream by most people: hassle of Shibuya’s crossings, luxurious stores of Omotesando, overcrowded Asakusa and pedestrian shopping from Japanese-own style of Takeshita Street.

Having great sense of optimism and intense monitoring on social media, we visited several parks there with hope of some early cheery blossom tree: Yoyogi and Ueno Park. And yet to our disappointment, we managed to find only few of them who had blossomed fully. The overall area of the park was huge. Perhaps in total, we walked several kilometers there. On Ueno Park, local government had prepared spots along the cherry trees for Hanami or flower viewing which would be on peak at two weeks after our visit. So much that I could imagine how beautiful the park would be with all those white and pink colors.

Taking the credit from all those influencers, Gyukatsu Motomura perhaps was the most famous gyukatsu shop. We tried the outlet on Harajuku which based on people’s comment is the least crowded one and yet the queue line was still rather long and we had to wait for around 30 min. The place itself is considerably tiny given how much the demand for this dreamy meats. #HonestReview I was not a fan of this type of food especially on medium raw beef.

However, it was worth to try though! For standard meal package, it will cost you around JPY 1300.

On the ever crowded Sensoji Temple, we drew our fortune to obtain one from seven fortune paper or Omikuji. One Omikuji would cost you JPY100. From the wooden Omikuji box consisting tens of Omikuji rod, you drew one of the rod and looked for your fortune paper by matching out the number on the rod with the number on the drawers. The popularity of drawing the bad fortune was considered high, and I was no exception. I did get the bad one too 😦

For us who got the not-so-good fortune there were suggested to leave the Omikuji slip on the temple by tying it on the wires there. That was to symbolize that the bad fortune would not follow us anywhere.

Aside from the unfortunate fortune paper, we enjoyed ourselves by doing some considerate amount of shopping there. The market near the temple easily was the go-to-place for buying souvenirs and all Japan-specific items such magnets. pouches, rain dolls, etc. This had to be checked further, but when I compared the price for the items there they basically had the same price with items sold on the airport. I guessed price disparity was perhaps something that you didn’t have to worry in Japan.

Our very last destination was Tokyo Skytree in Asakusa. Tokyo Skytree towers as high as 634m making it the tallest tower in the whole world. Its height surely surpassed the already famous Tokyo Tower. This tower offers the highest panoramic view for the whole Tokyo. Imagine on a good shiny day, Mt. Fuji can be seen from the Observatory Deck, majestically stood there before your eyes. As we visited the tower at night, the view was contrast. The vast stunning city night lights welcomed us.

We got the ticket for Observatory Deck via Klook for JPY2800. Considering the expensive ticket, it was worth to spend more time there. Probably during the golden hour in the afternoon it would offer another beautiful view of the city, but we just missed that too. Our packed itinerary on the last day made us to only save a couple hours on the Tower.

Looking at the Tokyo’s night light from its highest point pretty summed up our one week journey in Japan. The view there it somehow reminded me that endless places were yet to be explored on Tokyo alone. Not mentioning those other cities of Japan. Something new and exciting and tasteful will always there, lurking in the corner waiting for us to be discovered and to gladly savored.

I am sure that paying a visit to Japan would always result in a lot of agains.

-R

Two seasons later