Hakone - Day 4 - 7 Dec 2016 Mount Fuji

We have a long itinerary on Day 4 - to try to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji! The best part is our Hakone Free passes cover all the transport for all the rides that we took this day.

Most visitors will do the following rides in this sequence:

1) Hakone Tozan Cable Car
2) Hakone Ropeway Car
3) Stopover at Owakudani
4) Hakone Sightseeing Cruise

However, we chose to do the reverse, and took a bus to Togendai (BusTerminal) first to catch the morning cruise out to Lake Ashi. It was a good choice because we realised that the queues for the cruise was so bad by early afternoon and I supposed visitors will have to wait for the next round (frequency is about 1 hour) if they can't board the cruise.

Togendai Station

The round trip of the cruise is about an hour (there are specific timings for departures at Togendai station). Given that we had almost 45 minutes to departure time, we took the opportunity to shop at the souvenir shop and also to try out one stop of the Hakone Ropeway Car to pass our time :)

a stretchable banana toy!

I took this picture before hopping onto the Ropeway car. I only took note of the current temperature for the day (which was measured at 3.4 degrees) and didn't realise that the visibility for the day was low and not possible to see Mount Fuji (they cancelled the Mount Fuij symbol).

As it was still early in the morning, we had the luxury of having the whole cabin to ourselves..although it's an enclosed area, we still felt cold inside..

The whole cabin was so clean and spacious and could take up to 16 people

We almost missed our cruise after 1 round trip on the Ropeway car, so we were one of the last few to board..

Obviously all seats in the lower enclosed decks were taken  by the time we were onboard so we went up to the highest deck. It was so windy and cold and I couldn't even bring myself to take many pictures..

taken from cruise ride, no sight of Mt Fuji :((

Still not able to spot Mt Fuji..

We didn't get to see Mount Fuji from our cruise ride because it was quite cloudy on that day. I must say that it was horrid standing out on the open deck for even 10 minutes because the wind was chilling cold and the temperature on that day was recorded to be 3 degrees!

After the Cruise, we hopped onto the Hakone Ropeway Car and stopover at Owakudani station for lunch. When we came out from the station in Owakudani, the wind was so strong and cold that we couldn't even bring ourselves to stand in the open for barely 5 minutes! It was one of the 2 coldest places we touched on in this entire trip (apart from Nagano).

The children, surprisingly didn't seem to be bothered by the cold weather and continued to have fun

I couldn't even bring myself to smile properly for photo-taking as I was shivering so badly from the strong wind and chilling weather!

We had lunch near an ice-cream store that sells good udon and don sets.. 

my fried rice set was so good

Ice-cream after lunch.. This ice-cream is really nice.. having ice cream in extreme cold weather doesn't make you feel any worse, in fact, I personally feel that it helps to lower your body temperature to blend into the weather better! None of us bought a sulphur egg to try.. I'm visual by nature, so the sight of a black egg did not help to improve my urge to lengthen my life by 7 years for eating one!

Last picture before we left Owakudani

Taking the Hakone Tozan Cable Car back (using our Hakone Free pass). This is actually a tram ride back to Gora station..

After Owakudani, we took the Hakone Tozan Cable car down to Gora station where we parted ways with Brian's family as they proceed to Open Air Museum (we could not withstand any outdoor activities). We took the local train to Odawara station to shop and have our dinner there. Little did we realise that the whole journey took us about 45 minutes and we were so tired by the time we reached Odawara... so I did not shop at all :((

Hakone - Day 3 - 6 Dec 2016 Little Prince and Glass museums

On Day 3, we checked out from our hotel and headed for our second destination to see Mount Fuji! With all the luggage we have, we carried around and took a local express train to Hakone which was covered by the JR East pass (Shinkansen does not travel to Hakone). The train stopped at Odawara station (which is a good spot to stay, given the choices of food and shops available around the area) and we had to take Hakone tozan bus number 4 (bound for Tougendai) and got off at Shinanoki Hakone Highland hotel (the whole trip took about 40 minutes). The bus ride was rather inconvenient as we blocked the passage way with our luggage and some commuters had difficulties getting through the aisle to move to the back of the bus.

Our hotel was located opposite the Hakone Highland hotel. We stayed in Shinanoki Ichinoyu - room was nice, we were given the first and second level and Brian's family took level 2 while we settled for the first floor. At least this Japanese style inn has a private bathroom attached to our bedroom. Hotel is within walking distance to the Venetian Glass Museum. Apart from this, I personally feel that the location is not convenient as there were not many dining choices around the area (better choices would be at Odawara or Hakone Yumoto areas instead)

All looking and listening to the instructions by the hotel staff, telling us how to get to Little Prince Museum

Favorite pose by the boys this trip

We headed to Little Prince Museum first. It was near lunch time and we settle it at the pasta restaurant near the Little Prince Museum. It has a cosy setting and serves reasonable nice food and good coffee (highly sought after beverage for me throughout this trip!). Costs us about JPY1600 per person..

Outside the restaurant

Cosy place that shielded us from the cold

He managed to finish an adult portion all by himself

We took a picture while enjoying the cold chill outside the restaurant. The weather in Hakone was much colder than Tokyo city and we were trying to get used to it...

We bought a multi- museum pass to enter into both Little Prince and Venetian Glass museums. I forgot the story about Little Prince although I read the book when I was in secondary school. It was hard for me to share the background of the story with the boys as a result. Nonetheless, they had a good time playing in the open spaces under the chilling weather..

best buddies

the garden is beautiful!

with the Little Prince Statue

I remember this flower has some significance

Outside the Venetian Glass Museum

It was breathtaking the moment we entered...

Weather was so cold that Elliot had to wear a face mask to cover his nose and mouth. 

playing for a long time at this particular spot

they loved the soap bubbles from the Santa house

The boys were very captivated by the ducks in the pond

waiting by the pond while we went to look for Brian and Winnie

sun set at about 4pm and it was a different view

I think both museums are worth a visit but it'll be better if we had known more about the Little Prince story. After the museum tours, we rested at our hotel for an hour before we headed out to find some place for our dinner.

Having Wi-fi is important when you are navigating in Japan, or any foreign country, With the help of GPS, we found a few eateries after 10 minutes walk in the cold (it was 5 degrees at night!).

Small establishment which serves big portions of set dinner. It was quite nice but I felt that it's too pricey for simple set dinners like these.. and we were layered with 8% consumer tax as well (wondered if Japan has the same tax structure as SG, if so, I doubt this small outlet has high turnover to implement consumer taxes). Nonetheless, in places like Hakone, I can't complain too much.. hahaa

chicken teriyaki set

Tempura Udon for E

my all-time favorite tempura don set

Tokyo - Day 2 - 5 Dec 2016 Shinjuku

On Day 2, thankfully, Caden felt much better after a night's rest. We had a few tasks to settle in Shinjuku station

1) getting the JR pass vouchers exchanged into the JR passports,
2) buying Hakone Free Passes,
3) planning how to get to Hakone from Shinjuku (in the end we decided to tap onto our JR passes)

We had our breakfast located near our Tokyo Stay Shinjuku hotel. It was a 24-hour outlet selling Udon and and various rice bowls with very simple layout. Payment was done at the vending machine and there were barely only 8 to 9 seats available. One corner was designated for customers to eat while standing. I realised later that quite a number of locals took quick breakfasts there (standing at the corner table) and slurped the food in less than 10 minutes before they took off. Anyways, although it's a small establishment, the food was really good.

Thereafter, we headed towards the nearby shopping malls (Isetan, Muji, etc) and spent our morning browsing (didn't buy much then). I love their food halls and it was enough for me just by looking at the variety of stuff they displayed there.

such pretty broccoli on sale in Isetan!

I only spent a fair bit of money getting the motion sickness medicine (with the help of Google Translator to Japanese words) from a drugstore. Turned out to be rather pricey - for 6 pills, it costs about $12 per box, and we bought 2 boxes (per dosage is 2 pills) as we have a few long distance train rides to go, plus our return flight back home. In Tokyo, it's hard to find English speaking staff in the shopping stores unless we dine at international oulets like Mcdonalds, Lotteria, etc.

We spent a long time at Shinjuku station asking questions about the JR East passes that we have booked (what can we use for, how long can we use, etc). We had reserved our JR passes and paid in SG before the trip, so we were given a voucher. We need to exchange these vouchers for the JR passports (card) at Shinjuku station along with your passports (we forgot to carry them out with us). Once you have exchanged for the JR pass, you will have 14 days to utilise five trips on the JR East line (either the local trains along the route or Shinkansen). The number of trips are capped to 5 only, so we decided to use the pass to travel to Hakone, and from Hakone to Nagano, and from Nagano back to Tokyo.

we spent such a long time at this counter

Shinjuku station can be a big maze. We took a long time to find the booth selling Hakone Free Passes in Shinjuku station (it's located near Odakyu shopping mall). By the time we found it and bought our 2-day Free pass tickets, we were famished because it was passed 2pm! The crowd around Shinjuku station was huge on a Monday and so we decided to settle for Bento sets in Isetan and head back to our hotel rooms to rest our tired legs and eat after all the walking and getting lost in the station..

the trees along Shinjuku street is quite a sight

After lunch, we left the kids ALONE in the hotel room playing their monopoly games and other games which they brought with them, while we went back to Shinjuku station with our passports getting the JR passes exchanged. Winnie and Brian went on to get their stuff in Shibuya and we chaperoned all the children out for a simple dinner nearby our hotel at Lotteria's.

After dinner, I was hoping to shop at the newly opened Beam's flagship store in Shinjuku but turned out that it closes at 8pm each day, so I missed it!

We decided to take some pictures as a result...

Taken when both of us were out without kids

Back in hotel lobby

Obviously the boys enjoyed each other's company so much and Aidan and Elliot didn't seem to miss their parents :)

Tokyo - Day 1 - 4 Dec 2016

Long awaited holiday to Japan! We had planned for a trip to Tokyo in April 2010 but could not travel due to the Tsunami incident. After 6 years, we decided to ignore the radiation concerns we used to have and plan for a trip this December.

Our itinerary as follows

Day 1 Arrival Tokyo
Day 2 Tokyo
Day 3 Hakone
Day 4 Hakone
Day 5 Hakone to Nagano
Day 6 Nagano
Day 7 Nagano to Tokyo
.......

Day 12 Depart Tokyo


We have booked ANA tickets in Aug (about 4 months before our departure date) and it cost us about S$2700 per family (2A2C). I was very busy with my part time assignment jobs right up to the eve of the trip so I didn't manage to look through what to do in Tokyo (decide to research on my stay there given the lack of time).

On the day of the flight, Caden couldn't withstand the turbulence we faced during the journey and continuously vomited on the plane. Initially I was seated beside him and Ethan but I couldn't bring myself to hold the vomiting bags for him so I passed the task to my lou..

before he felt nauseous

When we reached Haneda airport, we thought it was much cheaper to take the train to Shinjuku instead of taking the Limousine buses. Although I had been advised by JTB  to take the bus, our group decided to go for the train route instead given the price variance and time difference. And it turned out to be quite a hassle as we had to carry our luggage when we are changing the lines in between the stations. Some stations do not have escalators available when moving up or down so we took a lot of effort to carry our baggage up and down when changing trains.

At Haneda airport

Caden didn't feel well through the whole day and even threw out his expensive dinner by the time we reached Shinjuku so we were so worried that this was caused by food poisoning.

We could only snap a picture of Ethan having his expensive pasta ... and enjoying it


After dinner, we checked into our hotel in Tokyo Stay Shinjuku and it was quite a nice stay (for the first 2 nights) given its strategic location (near Isetan, OiOi, H&M, Muji, drugstore, etc). Small cafes, eateries were within walking distance around the hotel so it was really convenient. We tried checking out Family Mart to get some medication for Caden but they don't carry.. so we just hoped for his recovery by the next day.