Big in Japan 2005 - Day 7
Finally our last day in Japan. It feels kinda sad to leave this wonderfull place. Of course, the mood affecting my partner and I is mostly the dreaded feeling of going back to our monotonous working life. ..heh...We took picture at the Japanese garden in the hotel. We are having mochi ice cream, which costs only 150 yen here. Back home, it can easily cost up to SGD$3+, so Bon Appetit even though we just had our breakfast( burp). As our flight is 18:00 hours, we visited the Aeon Shopping mall for our last chance to pickup last-mintue gifts. Nothing so special about this place, but it gave me a chance to checkout their famous phones upfront and close. They really felt heavy and can be quite bulky but I guess that is of little concern for the functionality that was placed into the phones . A lot of their entry level phones are already having camera functionalities, Internet accesses, etc and subscribers on 2 years bond can purchase them for 1 yen only. Unlike Singapore, japanese handphone do not come with sim card.

Finally arrived at the Narita airport (aka Tokyo airport) in the afternoon. The airport was built to ease the traffic at Tokyo's other airport. It was said the Government has a lot of time negotiating for this airport to be built. After much negotiation, the Government has to agree that there will be no midnight flights to this airport and also there must be a lot of security put up around the airport for the safety of Narita's residents. As such, this airport has a rather strict custom. Spent the last few minutes shopping around the airport and its finally time to head home. We will miss you Japan, Sayonara, we hope to visit you again.

Big in Japan 2005 - Day 6
Today we have our whole day to the Disney themepark. Our group was splitted into 2, one to Disneyland, and the other to DisneySea. Due to the heavy traffic, we arrived at DisneySea at around 10:30 am. The park is situated next to Disneyland. It was said to be built due to overcrowding condition in Disneyland. Disneyland was attracting a daily crowd of 20,000+. A popular ride there can take up to 2 hour whereas one in DisneySea only take up to 40 mins. We chose DisneySea because we have been to Disneyland in LA, USA before. If you were to ask us, DisneySea is more adult-themed when compared to Disneyland as there are less kiddish rides and also more musicals performance. In DisneySea, you will find many japanese gals wearing the mickey mouse ear hair clip and big white gloves.

Popular rides in the lands are depicted as rides/musicals needing "Fastpass". So our strategy is very simple, take as much Fastpass rides within the day. The Fastpass rides are indicated in the brochures so you can plan appropriately. For a ride in Disney, there are 3 queues. Normal standard waiting time, Fastpass queue and single/handicapped queues. At the entrance of the queue, you can see 2 timing. One will be for standard queue and the other for fastpass. If you choose to queue up normally, the standard time applies to you. The timing is rather accurate so if it display as 30 mins, it means you have to wait for 30mins. A fastpast timing needs a bit of explaination. If the timing indicates as 14:15 hrs, it means that if you choose to obtain the fastpass from this ride, you can come back between14:15 - 15:15 hrs (Fastpasses are good for 1 hour) and walk in through the fastpass queue. The attendant will give you priority over the standard queue. However, fastpasses can only be obtained once and utilised before you get the next one.

Our strategy has enanbled us to clear all the fastpass rides! First, obtain a fastpass to "Journey to the centre of the Earth", queue for "20,000 Leagues under the Sea", "Indiana Jones Adventure : Temple of the Crystal Skull", "Raging Spirit" took the fastpass ride, and queue for "Mermaid Lagoon Theme" and then "StormRider". In between, we also watched musicals "Sail Away" and "Enchor". We really enjoyed ourselves in "Enchor" the broadway styled musicals, even though they are in japanese narration.

As for the rides, personally, I find only "Raging Spirit" and "Journey to the centre of the Earth" more thrilling. Musical of "Mermaid Lagoon Theme" is very very interesting, and is definitely worth a watch as the characters are playing a scene of the Mermaid show, where Ariel is dreaming of having her tail changed to legs. Many disney characters can be spotted in various locations at different timings. As fastpass rides were our priority, we only try and take pictures with them when we chance upon them. Taking pictures have no queue system like in US, so you have to brave yourself and squeeze through the crowd and grab the character by its hand. Speaking in English will not work as most of the guys inside the characters are Japanese, so grabbing them is the best chance to have your photos taken. After a fun-filled day, it was time to meet up with the rest of the group to have dinner. We were brought to a countryside restaurant for shabu shabu (Japanese barberque) for this evening. Afterwhich, we were brought to our Hotel for our final night stay in Japan.

Big in Japan 2005 - Day 5
Packed and ready to leave our traditional stay. Have a chance to take the picturesque view outside this homely hotel. Recharged from last night onsen, we are ready to take on the world today. As we were leaving, the entire hotel crew turned up to send us off. Turns out that the entire family runs the show in the daily operations of the hotel. From the cook, the attendant, the counter attendant, the manager, etc. Along our journey, we need to enroute along Mount Fuji, and as the weather was clear, our kind guide/driver decides to bring us to another hill point to try and catch a glipse of Fuji.Unfortunately, the elusive Fuji still managed to mask herself from our camera. However, a bonus here is that we get a good tranquil shot of Lake Ashi.


In the city of Yokohama, we visited the biggest chinatown of Japan. Compared to the Kobe chinatown, this one has more restaurants. We stopped over at a Kuan-di temple located here for visitation. Little orientation was given to this temple and I guess the attributed reason was that our stomachs are rumbling already. A famous delicacy sold here is a big pau, the size of a man's palm! Price is about 500 yen. Well time to head for lunch!



We arrived at our lunch venue Odaiba in the shopping mall called Pallete Town overlooking the famous Rainbow bridge. Do not be mistaken that I have uploaded the wrong photo of New York. We are indeed in Tokyo. In the background is the rainbow bridge. It is a suspension bridge that is of similiar structure of Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

Next to the mall is the Toyota showroom. Various models of Toyota cars are displayed here. Take note that purchases made from here will take months to be delivered to Singapore, so unless you can wait, forget about the idea of purchasing from this place.



Our next destination is the famous Asakusa Temple. This temple has a legend to it. It hosts a 2" Godness of Mercy and the divinations obtained from this temple is well known to be very accurate. Legend has it that in 1200 A.D., a pair of brothers has found a 2" gold statue. Back in those time, Buddhism is still not as widespread and thus the brothers have no idea what it was. Out of fancy, the elder brother took it back and placed it in their home. His health begin to deterioriate as the days passed. The younger brother worried for his brother's health went around the nearby villages for help. He finally chanced upon a monk and brought him to their house. Immediately he recognized the statue and told the brothers that it is highly inappropriate to place a Godness in such a shabby area. Hearing this, the brothers went around the village asking for donations to build a temple to house the statue. The villagers donated generously and soon the brothers gain enough to build the temple we see in the picture. After the statue is housed in its proper place, the brother's health begin to improve. Not only that, the villagers life got better as harvests become bountiful and netful of fishes are caught every day. To commemorate the brothers, a Shinto temple is also built just beside this temple for visitors to visit/pray as well.

Like all famous temples, rows of shops lined up in front of it(nakamise street). One must-try food from this locality is a freshly baked red-bean paste pastry cake, known as 'Ren-Xing-Shao'. It is simply delicious. You will not miss this as the shop usually has a long queue. The cheapest bargain that sells this is 400 yen for 20 pieces! Take note that as this delicacy is stuffed with bean paste, it is good only for 3 days.


As the sun is setting, we were on way to Ueno Flea market. We were told that the locals usually visit this area to stuff up their fridge with festivity food. You can see shops selling raw sea food, nuts, green tea, etc.

Our next stop is to the top of Metropoliton Tower (45th storey), which is a Government office open to tourists to catch a bird's eye view of the entire Tokyo. Please pardon the badly taken shot.

After the sky view, we were brought to the famous Shinjuku to have our dinner. The setup of the restaurant is rather cramp and we have problem trying to communicate to the waitress our order. The best we can do is to use body language and point at pictures. It was a very nice dinner at a relatively cheap price! I love the pumpkin coroqutte. After dinner, we were given some time to shop around the area to have a feel of shinjuku night life. I can tell you, it is the busiest street I have ever been. It is a Wednesday night and the crowd is fabulous and alive. Japanese moved in an orderly fashion. On the steet, they know which side they must be on and join in the traffic to move in the side they want. The picture was taken as a less crowded alley so do not be misled by it.

At one corner of the street was a Pachinko shop. It was packed with men with boxes of metal balls and attempting to pump them up through a lever of a pin ball style machine and with luck, gain more balls in return. We were told by our guide later that the balls are later exchanged for gifts in the shop itself and these gifts can be later sold back to another shop further down a street for cash. This is the japanese in-genious way of "legal gambling". Actually we spotted many of such shops during our earlier days but it was only until now that we finally let alose our curiousity to our guide. She further briefed us that the idea was started by a korean technician in the early 70s (if I have not heard wrongly) and royalties were since paid to this person for every such machine built. Talk about making $$$ from innovation.

Big in Japan 2005 - Day 4
This morning, we travelled on the road for 2 hours to Mount Fuji. This 2 hours spent on the road is very relaxing thanks to our driver who drives very smoothly. In fact as I noticed, most japanese drives very courteously and steadily on the road. We were told that this could be due to the very strict traffic ruling. In fact, it is very difficult for them to attain their driving licenses as well. Do you know that japanese do not have identity cards? Their best form of identification is their driving license, which could save them the hassle of going down to the local municipal to get documentation proof when they are getting employment.

Enough said, back to our trip. Mount Fuji is well loved by Japanese as it is symbolic to them. Mountains in Japan has gender and Mount Fuji is a 'she' mountain. She tends to be elusive and our tour guide explains that she is only viewable for 75 days in a year. Unfortunately during our stay, we are not in those 75 days. We only managed to see her silhouette from far. A sad rumour which we heard about Mount Fuji is that she is due to erupt. Historical records showed that she blow her top every 300 years and the last known time of eruption is in 1706. That last eruption causd 5 lakes to be formed. (Lake Ashinoko being one of them). Unfortunately, even with modern technologies, there is no accurate way to predict a volcano eruption. The best warning system they have used is to station a lot of CCTVs to monitor the natural habitats of the wildlife in the mountains. Should there be any sign of unusual activity among the wildlife, it may be an indication and the people living within the central prefectures may be evacuated. Today we are on our way to the 5th step of Mount Fuji. On our way we passed by the infamous 'Black Forest'. This is a creepy columns of trees and we were briefed that a lot of Japanese committed suicide in this forest. As this area is near the area with seismic activity, compasses do not work. People who wants to leave the world just need to step right in. There is an annual forest cleaning activity whereby volunteers would sweep across the forest. More often than not, they will discover dead bodies. In fact, this forest has grown to be so 'popular' with people seeking death that the government placed a lot of counselling lines at all entrance of the forest. These lines are 24 hours manned by professional consellers whom will help to dissuade the potential victims who picked up the lines. This tactic has effectively helped to lower the incident rate.

We visited the souveneir shop at the 5th step. The toilets there have no flushing capability as water is precious and 'bio-waste' are chemically cleansed away. If you are interested in the red-bean mo-chii, this is the place to purchase them as both my wife and I find them nicest here. Afterwhich, we spend most of our time outdoor hapily snapping the beautiful scenery. Noticed that some of the leaves have also reddened due to the colder temperature at the highland.

After a quick lunch, we were rushed to the other side of the lake Ashi to take a short 10 mins cruise around the beautiful lake. As it was drizzling, the cruise itself is not that interesting.
After the cruise, we were brought to Owakudani Valley. It is an area filled with heavy sulphuric smell due to the heated water from the volcanic activity in the vicinity. From where the coach is parked, we have to climb a extremely long flight of steps to reach the top of the valley where there is an eating area which sells eggs cooked from the steam of the heated water. It is sooted black and taste just like normal hard boiled egg. The locals have rumours stating that eating such an egg can increase your lifespan by 7 years. Haha, we were treated to one by our fellow tour members (Thanx Ernest and partner!).

After a long day, we were off to the hot spring spa hotel. We were really excited when we open the hotel door. It remind us of Doraemon (Xiao Ting Dang) house. We would be sleeping on tatami. The entire tour group put on the hotel yukata and we were treated to a sumptuous japanese steamboat dinner.In this traditional japanese inn, yukata are allowed around the hotel as well as to the shops outside the hotel. We had a very good sleep after the relaxing hot spring spa.

Big in Japan 2005 - Day 3
The morning begins with the Kiyomizu temple. This ancient temple was built without any modern connectors like nails/bolts. How are the structure supported you might ask? If you look closely at the beams supporting the temple, you can see protruding logs. Holes are punctured through the larger supporting logs with the smaller logs connecting through the holes, thereby creating a stable joint system and thus stabilising the entire structure. Primitive but it serves its function after all these years. We were lucky enough to see a little redding of the maple leaves in this area. In this temple there is an area where you will see hoards of people queuing up to drink from 3 streams of spring water. The 3 streams are supposed to bless the drinker good results, loveship and longetivity respectively from the left. The spring water is extremely refreshing.
Walking downhill from the temple, we were greeted with rows of shops. These shops by far sell the cheapest local produce. For example, you can get a Japanese doll for 1050 yen, a Japanese fan for 1000 yen, etc. Similar japanese doll in glass frame would cost S$200-S$300 elsewhere. Further down the street, you get to purchase an one of a kind doufu ice-cream. As for the taste, imagine 'dou hua' in ice-cream form.
I still prefer 'dou hua' in its original form.

Next we visited the Nishijin textile centre in Kyoto. This place produces material for making kimono. For the benefit of the clueless, a Kimono is the traditional costume for Japanese, just like Qi-Pao for the Chinese. It is not cheap and can easily cost up to a Toyota car as we were told. That is why modern japanese woman prefer Toyota car and you seldom see their womanfolk dressed in kimono. Afterwhich, we were presented by a kimono show which displays the various beautiful kimono design the shop has to offer.

On our way to Heian Shrine. Our coach picked up a a 19 year old Geisha. Geisha is a highly regarded profession in Japan. In fact, there is an association that govern Geishas. The prerequisite of a Geisha is intelligence. At young age, they are required to go through tough training in many areas such as dancing, musical instruments while juggling with their studies at the same time. Note thatGeisha do not perform 'extra' services other than pure entertainment required of them. Any Geisha who broke the rules will be banned from being one for the rest of her life. We were told by our guide that by preparing herself for us (photo-taking session), it took her more than 1.5 hours! Here is a photo of us with her. It is very rare for the Japanese to see a Geisha on the street, and that explains why a lot of other people on the streets were chasing after our exquisite guest for a photoshoot.

Our next destination is the shrine behind us in the photo, and that is the Heian Shrine. All shrines have a 'Touji' leading to it at one end of the street, which is shaped like a 'Kai' chinese character. It represents a unison of the heaven and Earth. Shrines are built to commemorate and pray to almost anyone/anything. This Shrine is a popular venue for the 753 ceremony. For young girls at age of 3 and 7, it is always good fortune for them to visit such Shrines to be blessed. Young boys only need to visit once when they hit 5. This day we were lucky to see one 'kawai' boy.
Next we were brought to take the infamous 'Shinkansen', otherwise known as the bullet train. It can travel up to 240-270 km/hr. While we travelled for 15 mins for 1 stop, our coach need 1 hour to reach our destination.

We were then brought to the'onsen' hotel with the hot spring facility. This was a bonus to us as this was not part of our itinenary. On-sen otherwise known as hot spring bath is a common open bathing area. It is believed to provide beneficial effects for the body depending on its source. (This particular one has its water pumped from 1200m below the sea and boost better complexion when dipped in it). We need to strip to our bare before entering the pool and come face to face with strangers/fellow tour members. Of course man and woman has separate onsen, so guys off with your naughty thoughts. We put on our 'yukatas' (available in all the hotels of Japan) and proceeded to the pool during the 'quieter' hours. Remember its time to get out of the pool (about 10 min) when you start to sweat or you may risk side-effects of over-cooking yourself in hot water. Onsen is not suitable for people with high blood, pregnant, etc. We had a very good sleep this night due to the relaxing dip we had.

Big in Japan 2005 - Day 1/2
(Oct 15 21:00 hrs - Oct 21 23:55 hrs).
Took a cab with my wife from our habitat. Finally a break from our work. Phew! Met our CTC tour leader.
Took a 7 hours flight on JAL. Japan is +1 hour in time from Singapore's time. Touchdown at Osaka around 07:00 hrs Japan time. Tour commence the moment we arrived as we met up with the local tour guide, Kim Ng. We were brought to the coach which will be with us till the last day. A tiring day ahead of us since we only had short hrs of sleep on plane.

First destination is the Todaiji temple in Nara deer park, where thousand deers are free to roam around. Biscuit packs for 150 yen are available for purchase if you would like to feed the deers. You can save on that as the hungry deers would surround you anyhow. They seem to mistake anything you hold for food! In fact, one of them has 'taken a fancy' on me and had followed me right to the shops up the street! Within the temple you can see a huge bronze buddha, which has been rebuilt several times as evidenced by the different colouration on the different parts of the buddha. Beside the Buddha stood a pillar with a small 60cm x 60cm hole rumoured to bless anyone who can squeeze through with plenty of good fortune and wisdom. How I wish my waist is smaller.

We reached Kobe Chinatown in the afternoon to have our first self paid meal for the trip. Honestly, the 200 yen ramen we took are ordinary. My wife love it though. BlueberryMeiji yogurt
is a must try in Japan. Trust me, you will not like the Meiji Yogurt in Singapore after you have tasted the Japan version. It is less sweet and contain plenty of juicy blueberries...yummy...the thought of it make me drool. We walked quite a distance before we finally found a dustbin to dispose the empty yogurt container. Dustbins are placed at very few places to prevent bomb planting. Despite this, Japan is still very clean. You hardly see any litter around.

After lunch, we proceeded to Mosaic Town in Kobe. Its hard to imagine a disaster ever struck this beautiful harbourland in 1997. Following by this is a short journey to the famous Osaka castle. The original castle has already been burnt over the many civil wars. The current structure was rebuilt using the original blueprint. Our next stop is Osaka shopping and eating paradise Shinsaibashi shopping street. It is an extremely crowded street where you find many pretty gals and handsome men in all sorts of trendy outfit. You see gals with perm & blond hair just like Ayumi Hamasaki in high leather boots, carrying furry and branded handbags. Young men wear smart coats with hairstlye that reminds me of the charming Korean Actor 'Pei Yong Jun'. I see many Japan superstars! We roamed the Umeda street for the spectacular citylights before we had our first Japanese dinner. On our way back to the coach, we were captivated by a restaurant which has a gigantic moving crab as signboard.

First night in the hotel, we spent some time figuring out the toilet buttons. It comes with washing facilities and seat warmer. In Japan public toilet, there is also a flushing melody button to camouflage whatever not so nice peeing or shiting sound in the toilet..ha..ha.. Japanese are indeed very thoughtful and innovative.