Tokyo Trip - Day 4 : 28th Nov

It's Day 4 and we were still on the 6-7-8 am schedule. The thing abt checking out hotel each day is managable for us as we have organised our stuff into respective sections and had planned the night before the attire for the next day. Today is the day trip around Central Tokyo where we would cover a few tourist spots in the city.

We were dropped off in a garden near the Imperial Palace. For some reason, the track that leads towards Imperial Palace was sealed on that day and we could only take some pictures outside..

This is the Nijubashi Bridge in front of the main entrance of Imperial Palace


We relied alot on these vending machines to get us hydrated during the day.. the ones carried by both of us (which is a bottle each) only lasted us for abt half a day). The cold weather made us dehydrated faster and I actually developed into rashes during the trip.



Next, we reached the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building where you will get a bird's eye view on the 45th floor. Caden wasn't too interested in the scenery and kept himself very occupied with the goods sold in the 2 store set up on that level. I was stuck on the Astro boy's merchandise and comtemplating if I should be getting another bag since I already got myself one at Disney store 2 days back.



Jude then dropped us at Isetan in Shinjuku and we were busy figuring out where our hotel would be in the next 2 days (Sunroute Plaza). In Isetan, they have a food corner on basement 1 where you can buy their bento sets or al la carte japanese snacks and bring up to the rooftop garden to take your lunch.. It was a Sat when we were in Central Tokyo so we saw a fair no of families doing their picnics at the rooftop garden.




In Asakusa, where ginko trees were spotted with autumn leaves.. refreshing air and beautiful scenery with shrines and some Japanese ladies wearing their kimonos. We were given time to tour around Sensoji Temple area.

Caden holding on to a toy Ninja sword which we bought for Ethan.

At Nakamise Shopping lane, there were many stores selling traditional Japanese souvenirs and we simply love this burger ice-cream which costs abt 300 yen per piece and it is really nice to eat the ice-cream in cold weather! It's a hit amongst all the children there.

At Palette town - a few interesting shops to browse their fashion goods in Odaiba. Caden had a fun time playing in their arcade and even managed to input his name in the tennis machine where his score brought him to the 1st on their list (which I think it's damn kelong)

At night, we had the Japanese BBQ dinner near our Narita Hotel and this is the last night we were together with our tour group. I had lotsa of scallops and my ah lou ate alot of beef again..

Tokyo Trip - Day 3 : 27th Nov

We started day 3 at 6am as usual and packed all our stuff to prepare for check-out and move on to a next hotel in Central Tokyo tonight. Since we are staying at Ryokan, we have been served with traditional Japanese breakfast with rice and miso soup and Caden seemed to enjoyed it alot..

View from our room

Leaving our Ryokan onsen at Lake Kawaguchi

Ah Jude (our tour guide) took us to Oshino Hakkai Village for a shot from the foot of Mt Fuji and we had our first Japanese coffee in this cold cold morning (cost us 450 yen for a tiny cup!). We could have gotten the Japanese Mt Fuji souvenirs here cos it was more costly up on the hill at 5th station. The titbits sold were fairly reasonable as well - 3 packets for 1000 yen (SGD 16 equiv).

Clear Mt Fuji view (behind us)..

Our bus went on to drive us up to the 5th station of Mt Fuji and the wind there was very very strong on that day. We had to climatise ourselves in order to withstand the cold weather (Jude said it's abt 3 deg) and strong wind. I was almost blown off in a few occasions and yes, literally, really blown off to the other side of the road as I walked. Caden didn't want to remain out on the track to enjoy the Mt Fuji scenery and kept asking to be hiding from the wind inside the souvenirs shops. Jude told us that we were very fortunate to see Mt Fuji so clearly on that day as she had led groups that did not have the chance to see Mt Fuji at the 5th station (so considered a wasted trip up).

We were here on the 27th Nov!

I braved the cold wind to take this morning shot of Mt Fuji at the 5th station

Ah Jude arranged another Japanese lunch for us and it was fantastic. We were served Udon set and Caden had his kiddy fried rice meal. Japanese meals are always very nicely arranged so it was very appetising to begin with.

Next we proceed on to Peace Garden at Gotemba (it was so near to my Gotemba premium outlet!). There we saw the ginko trees with Autumn leaves and up at the temple, you get to see another view of Mt Fuji. Caden had a good time helping his Mummy and PaPa to take pictures and playing with his Buzz Lightyear sword which he got at Disneyland.

This pose is directed by Caden

We then rushed on to Hakone where sulphurous fumes rise from crevices in the rocks, which is known as Owakudani Boiling Valley. It was a tiring walking up the hill to see how the sulphurous eggs are being cooked which are believed to lengthen your life by 7 years if you eat one. As Caden is prone to cough, we didnt venture up and to be honest, both of us are really tired after the full day of walking. We spent a fair bit of time in the souvenir shops hiding from the cold weather.

This is the track up to the top..

many tourists come here for the eggs which is believed to lengthen 7 years of your life if you eat one

with my fav Sanrio character

Next, we moved on to Yokohama train station to experience the bullet train to travel to Central Tokyo. It wasn't as fast as I had imagined it to be, probably it's known as bullet train as it took a short amt of time to travel from one city to another, as compared to our coach bus on the run. the speed of the bullet train can be comparable to our underground mrt train so Caden kept asking me why is it so slow as well..

how it looks like inside the train - very comfortable with toilets attached

We had shabu shabu for dinner and my ah lou ate 3 plates of beef while it was a torture for me since I am not a fan of beef or pork.. We were given free time to shop around at Ikebukuro but again we didn't shop for too long as we were really dead tired after all the walking in the parks and sulphur mountain in the day. We missed Ethan alot and called home on the same night but mum said that he was playing happily at home and when asked where's PaPa and Mummy, he will say,"sit aeroplane, go japan" :)

Tokyo Trip - Day 2 : 26th Nov

Our tour guide reshuffled the itinery to start our 2nd day in Tokyo at Disneyland since she said that the crowd on a Thurs is typically lesser than Friday's. We started the day with 6am morning call, 7am breakfast buffet and 8am check-out from the hotel. This 6-7-8 timing was the schedule for the next few days so it was very tiring for us..

The bus trip from Narita to Disneyland took us abt an hour plus and we only reached Disneyland slightly 15 mins after the opening hour at 9am. It was freezing cold in the morning and when the wind blew, it became very chilly. I think it was abt 10-12 deg then. The queue to the entrance has already been formed and thank goodness our tour guide had already purchased the tickets beforehand and we entered into the theme park without having to spend time queuing.

But.. the horrifying thing once you entered into the theme park was that the queue for almost every ride station was very long and the average waiting time is at least 45min per ride. Even the fast pass timing was fast running out and the first fast pass ride that we got for Buzz lightyear ride was scheduled to be on 1145am-1245am.

The kind of crowd on a Thurs morning

As our tour guide instructed us to meet at the main gate at 3pm. we only manage to catch 2 day parades, 3 rides (it's a small world, buzz light year and kiddy roller coaster), 1 4-D scientific show plus many photos taken with less popular disney characters (these are the ones you don't need to spend too much time queuing to take pictures). Note Caden is carrying a 25 dollars popcorn bucket..

watching the 1st Day parade - with Xmas theme

Caden's fav disney character

2nd day parade

We had lunch at this curry rice place which serves very nice chicken japanese curry rice, and that restuarant provided a nice cosy place for us to rest our feet.. The afternoon temperature seem to rise higher as we no longer need the down jackets to keep us warm..

With the kind of crowd on a weekday, it's definitely not enough to do most rides in a day and watching the parades at the same time. Japanese families love to gather there and do picnics along the parade track to eat and watch at the same time. This is definitely a place where it's heaven to all kids and even the merchanise stores and popcorn (one bucket of popcorn plus the themed bucket cost SGD25!) stations are flooded with people!

Tokyo's nightfall started at 4pm, so by the time we gathered and pick up the minority grp at Disneysea theme park and proceed our journey to Onsen at foot of Mt Fuji for the night, the evening scene came dancing on us, Caden fell asleep during the bus ride as we made our way to our hotel for the night at Mt Fuji.

We had a traditional dinner at the onsen place and wore the kimono alike clothes into the dining hall.

Our tour guide strongly encourages us to try the hot spring but that means you have to strip naked into the pool with other ladies/men. When I went down to the hot spring bath place at 8plus pm, I saw 3 ladies from my tour group just finished their bath, blowing their hair at the changing room and another mummy with daughter from my grp too coming into the bath place. As I was too shy to soak with these ladies I excused myself and came down to the bath place at 10plus pm after Caden has slept for the night.. I didnt manage to soak too long cos it was quite late and I was all alone in the bath place so didnt think it was too safe... My ah lou had a good time doing his at the men's section at 8pm so it was quite a nice experience for him.

Our ryokan - we drank alot of green tea each night in our resting place.

Tokyo Trip - Day 1 : 25th Nov

Our flight has been scheduled at 820am, so we need to check in at the airport by 615am with our tour group. We had to pushed ourselves to wake up at 520am to settle the last min logistics and leave home before 6am to the airport. Ethan woke up at 530am together with us and followed us downstairs to catch a cab. He was crying when he realised that 3 of us got into the cab without him, but thereafter, we heard from mum that he was happily playing in the playground later in that morning.

The flight to Tokyo took abt 6 hours from SG and Caden was really restless throughout the whole journey. As 3 of us couldn't sit together, we took turns to keep Caden occupied throughout the flight before the plane touched down at Tokyo airport.

Our tour guide was a born Singaporean but based in Yokohama. She greeted us at the airport and our tour group was fairly small with 5 groups of family, biggest grp consists of 7 members. The first stop was to check into our hotel near Narita airport at Excel Tokyo Narita (very nice place) and we were all shocked to know that Japan sees their nightfall starting at 430pm! As Japan is 1 hour ahead of us, we did not have too much time on the first night but to have our dinner at Aeon (shopping mall near Narita hotels) and some time for brief shopping at Jusco (a big hypermart).

We should have done our titbits shopping at Jusco in day 1 if we had known that Central Tokyo (shinjuku and shibuya) did not have any hypermarts at all, not even Cold storage alike supermarkets in the shopping malls.

The food court at Aeon serves very nice ramen and we also had some time to relax and peoplewatch the locals taking their dinner at the same time. Aeon also have some nice small shops that sells fairly decent clothing but I didn't get any stuff cos I kept reserving my $ for my last 2 days of free and easy in Central tokyo.

Foodcourt in Aeon - really clean and they clear their plates after their meals, plus disposing the stuff into the right recycling bins

In Japan, they have many food vending machines like this for you to select the kind of food you want (e.g different types of ramen/udon or rice) and pay for them first using 1000 yen notes and then pass the dispensed coupons to the staff in the stalls who will then prepare your order

taking it really relaxed on the first night - Caden already got his first toy in Japan

We retired very early that night as we were dead beat after the long flight and super early hours.

Tokyo trip - countdown

Obviously I am getting more excited with this trip that I have been entering entries into here in the last few days. We got 2 vacuum bags from robinsons as ours broke while packing over the weekend. We were quite disappointed to see one of the wheels of our luggage broke out into pieces (probably Caden and Ethan were playing with it while we were away at work) so we hope that can last for the whole trip..


I think I will miss Ethan awfully when I am away.. and yes.. awfully. Cos this sweet cry baby loves to hug me when I am back home and made me feed him mouthfuls of rice when I am having my dinner. He will usually dragged my hand to get titbits for him, usually prawn crackers, honey stars, raisins or coco crunch.. and say goodnight to us before he hops into his sarong and sleep for the night... really sweet boy...

Tokyo trip - last min surf!

I have assigned the task of setting the itinery for our free and easy days in tokyo to my ah lou long back. To be honest, both him and myself do not know much abt tokyo, ie, where to head out or what to do best to fully utilise the 2 extra days, my ah lou simply selected shinjuku and shibuya to curb my shopping urge.. and he thinks its good enough to occupy us for the 2 days..


this weekend, I have finally started to surf the net and checking out various blogs to read people's experiences in tokyo. Only through this, I realised that there are actually more places to visit in tokyo and definitely I need to visit Harajuku to bring Caden to this mega Kiddy land so that he will be awfully amazed by the range of toys offered in Japan.


am still frantically checking out the various blogs to get better understanding.. anyways, I only have my job to blame for this last min rush.