Cheezu!

Just a cheesy post... and being cheesy posing with cutouts all over Japan.

 

 

 

Say cheese!

On A Bleak Winter's Day

Cold and raw the north wind doth blow

Bleak in the morning early

All the hills covered with snow

And winter's come now fairly

Still very, very cold in Tokyo?  

Snow looks lovely and all that, but I sure think being cold will just make me miserable.

Winter Bites

and we saw snow fall in Hakodate. Such a novelty for us and despite getting our frozen ears to feel like they can fall off, it was a blast being on the south tip of Hokkaido in December 2011. ^^

 I saw snowflakes! Through the train window...

It was sunny. It was snowing. It was cold. Brrr.... especially when you  were totally unprepared, dressed for the autumn and not for the winter. But well, it was a spontaneous trip for us and we didn't regret it. A spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment decision to travel 2,000km. heh

The road leading to Hakodate's morning market - at 3pm. Obviously, the market is pretty quiet at at that time of the day. xD

Can't wait for 2014 and we can jump into some (A LOT) of outdoor onsens there! We have this romantic image of soaking in hot spring baths while being surrounded by total whiteness.

"Winter must be cold, for those with no warm memories"

2011 Trip Recap, Part II

Still not too late to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR, right? あけましておめでとうございます again! :)

A continuation from my earlier post, recapping our trip to Japan made a few weeks ago in Dec 2011.

From Takamatsu in Shikoku, we made our way to Honshu Island on Day 8. Visited Nara for a few hours, stopped at Kyoto Station for a while, walked around Namba before finally calling it a day by boarding a sleeping train from Osaka to Tokyo. A pretty productive day, if I say so myself. ^^

Arrived Tokyo on Day 9 at 7.00am and proceeded on with more train journeys, all the way to Hakodate and view & touch some snow. Not to mention eating some awesome seafood there.

Stood in awe in front of the Kamakura Daibutsu on Day 10. It was raining the whole day we were there so had to re-adjust our plan but that's OK. There's always next time, right? ^^

Day 11 was spent with our most gracious host that day, Minor and his wife. It didn't rain that day, but it was COLD! Brrrr....

Day 12 was a sunny day, lucky for us. We took a stroll by the Sumida River, walking from our hotel in Senzoku and pretty soon found ourselves in Kinshicho.

 Went to Ogawamachi on Day 13 for a spot of shopping

On Day 14, we started our day at Kappabashi. Then, we made our way to Ueno and visited Yanaka Cemetery and stumbled into a few more interesting sites along the way. We eventually stopped to rest at Nippori before making our way back to Ueno.

The last day of our 2011 trip saw us visiting Yokohama again. No concrete plans of going sight-seeing anywhere so we just meander around the area before finally making our way to Haneda Airport and boarded our AirAsia X flight.

A totally awesome trip. We got to see the sights we wanted and more. A few we didn't make it but we are not totally bummed over it. As I see it, that's an excuse to make a return visit, if we need any. xD

The Balance 1,000KM Journey Was To...

A continuation of previous post. We've already travelled for about 1,000KM in a mere 12 hours but it was only half of the journey that we set out to do.

Arriving Tokyo Station at 7.00am, after taking the Sunrise Izumo train from Osaka station; we then took the new shinkansen on the Tohoku shinkansen line - the Hayabusa and made our trip to Shin-Aomori. But that's not the end of our trip! Also, just like to mention here, out of the three new shinkansen rolled out this year, we managed to get onboard two of them. Yeay us!

Had a simple breakfast onboard, egg & tuna sandwiches for Zaini and I and Raimie had a Panda choco bread.

After a 3-hour train ride; it was time to transfer train again and this time for the 

Limited express Super Hakucho train from Shin-Aomori at the tip of Honshu Island to the southern tip of Hokkaido; to Hakodate (good guess, Rurousha!) and completed our journey of almost 2,000KM in a bit more than 24 hours. We cut short our trip in Shikoku literally for this because you see, our 7-days JR Passes were expiring that day and we thought; what the heck! Screw common sense. Might as well do something crazy with it. It's not as if this is gonna be our last trip to Japan anyway. ^^

We were greeted by this sight after coming out from the undersea tunnel that the train used to travel from Shin-Aomori to Hakodate. It was raining in Aomori and snow was falling here!

Arrived at Hakodate Station completely famished so first agenda there was to eat lunch. Fresh seafood, of course!

Walked around the station and viewed some schoolchildren's artwork there.

 Before heading out the check the town area.

and went to the nearby market. Friendly marketplace merchants calling us to check their wares but get this... in Chinese! LOL

Walking around a bit then snow started falling around us and before long it became too cold. Raimie complained his ears are getting frozen so I let him borrow my hat. ;)

As we needed to travel back to Tokyo the same day (or night) to fully utilise our expiring JR Passes, we didn't stray too far from the station. The cold, snowy day didn't help us explore much either. So, after buying massive amount of souvenirs at a nearby shop, it's time to board our train back to Shin-Aomori before taking a train to Tokyo then to Kawasaki where we had our hotel reservation already made at Nikko Hotel there.

But not before getting some Hakodate ekiben to enjoy in our train for dinner later. Yummy!

Crazy, arent' we? *^-^*