Trip - Tokyo and Osaka

This is our usual birthday trip, every January :)

Japan is never really high on the list, given that it's EXPENSIVE... Haha... But thanks to AirAsia, we bought our tickets at ab. S$400 round trip, cheaper than the Shinkansen! But we are damn kiasu, we got the tickets last April! Unbelievable right?

The timing isn't fantastic though, we landed in Haneda airport near to 11pm and by the time we got to the hotel, it's already past midnight... Luckily the hotel is right next to the JR Shinagawa station, direct from the airport.

Lotsa public transport and walking, as usual... rented a portable wifi for 7 days, which means data connection!! Yippee!! But.. But.. The battery life really sucks and the device powers on for less than 3 hours... :/ A bit the cheat money feeling...

We took SLOW train and connections to Gotemba Factory Outlets... Should have used our JR Pass and taken the Shinkansen! But tourist mah, don't know how to read the map... Haha... For those of you reading this, you can skip the factory outlets in Japan... The discounts are nowhere near those you get in the States.

We actually spend most of our shopping time in 2 places... Daiso and UniQlo!! Haha... And something we found... Cameras are cheap in Japan! Skip Sony, only Japanese domestic version, so unless you read Japanese...

We tried Kobe beef in Kobe! Smooth and tender, but a tad too oily for me though... Hee...

We tried Universal Studios, having tried the ones in LA and Singapore. Well, the characters all spoke Japanese! A bit difficult to comprehend, esp. the jokes... //HA HA//

Highlight of the trip is definitely the Onsen at Hakone... Wendy found a nice (a bit expensive) hotel/resort facing Mount Fuji... The outdoor onsen faces Mount Fuji... even our room faces Mount Fuji!!! Quite an exotic experience getting to the hotel itself, cos we got to take the train, transfer to local train, transfer to tram then transfer to cable car (ropeway)...

Now with a sneak preview of Tokyo and Osaka, maybe next time we will return for some more focused short trip... ie. if Yen remains relatively low and air tickets are still cheap. :)