i swear i am cursed. i always manage to get window seats on the flights i take (most of the time) but i always score those beside the bloody wing. dammit. if it's the edge of the wing i don't mind, but i always get plonked right in the bloody centre. pfft.

so once we landed in Tokyo, we left for Disneyland.. the japanese kids are soooooo adorable!!! if only my kids could be as cute next time. maybe it's the air and the food they eat over there. haha. all their cheeks very rosy.. very pinch-able..

Disneyland was super crowded as we visited it on a sunday. almost three quarters of the crowd there were japanese! i was quite surprised that the japanese are so supportive of their theme parks.. i mean, imagine Sinagpore, with its future Universal theme park (part of the Sentosa integrated resort).. you think us Singaporeans would go back and visit the theme park for the second, third or maybe even fourth time? to queue up for close to 2hours to take some ride?

i don't think that would ever happen. so much more so, when the average admission ticket would cost about say 40 dollars.

but oh well. the atmosphere in Disneyland is almost, some what magical.. with the castle and all the christmas decorations and parade, the very cute children in their disney chipmunk suits or princess dresses..it made me wanna do stupid things, like get a pair of mickey ears that i would never have use for again in sinagpore!

but i don't think my mickey ears are stupid, i think they are so very cute!! ahah. by the way, ALOT of people wear these around in Disneyland (i saw some guys wearing a different version too). when i say alot, i mean every where you look, you would see at least 5 people wearing a disney accessory bought from the souvenir store. that's how supportive they are. plus i think its nice, cause it really helps to add to the atmosphere there.

they serve their food in really nice paper plates and cups in disneyland!

we bought our tour package from dynasty travel.. the whole schedule was fine, but we had to change hotels each and every night cause we were travelling up to Osaka from Tokyo..

so yeah.. the start of day 3.. the Tokyo city tour.. was on the highway zooming past to some shrine when i saw the Tokyo tower!!! i was so happy. i wanted to see the Tokyo tower every since year 2000 when i was watching that japanese drama serial(i can't remember the title, only the theme song). it's a pity that i didn get to see it at night, i bet it would have be tonnes prettier.

went around Tokyo, these pictures were taken at different spots. The air in Tokyo is fresher than Singapore's, even though their traffic is heavier than ours! the temperature there was about an average of 6degrees. wasn't really that cold, i could still go around in my denim skirt and zara leggings!

travelled alot on the tour bus, the longest trip being 3.5hours, from Tokyo to the Mt Fuji area, where our hotel for that night was at its foot, beside lake Kawaguchi. It's not really a hotel, more like a family inn, with tatami-s for beds. the main attraction there is the hot spring bath, the temperature of the water was about 43degrees.. very nice..

oh and we had this really traditional japanese meal there so all of us came down for dinner dressed in our yukata-s. it was quite a nice experience, and i didn kneel throughout the meal, i sat cross legged! =p

went up to Mt. Fuji the following morning. we were really lucky cause that night it snowed (up in the mountains) and they just cleared the roads as we were about to travel up! so yeah, we went up to the fifth station, which is the furthest you could go up on the mountain if you travel by bus.

you know those white fluffy things you see in the middle of the picture, below the mountains in the background? those are not snow.. they're clouds... the fifth station IS that high up..

it was quite cold, about minus 4degrees up on the mountain, thats why we're all wearing our down coats. the wind was very strong too...

in the afternoon we went for a short cruise ride to Kyoto!

on the cruise we could see Mt Fuji in the background too. very very nice.. (look carefully, it's right in the middle of the picture below)

We also took the bullet train, in a failed attempt to try speed up our travelling by beating the peak hour on the highway.. the tour leader said that we would reach the hotel before the tour bus, but when we arrived, the bus was already there, waiting, and the driver had already moved most of our luggage out...

the vending machines in Japan are the cutest things ever! all very very colorful! and everything just looks so attractive, i mean just look at their bottled drinks. so pretty already. actually everything in Japan is pretty much about the packaging.

look bunny! they have vending machines for ciggies too. so cute right!

the next day, visited more temples and shrines. haha. i don't really mind actually, though i complain about the lack of shopping.

Here's a picture of another cute japanese kid!! she's grumbling cause i disrupted her while she was trying to stuff those tiny pebbles, picked off the ground, into her mouth.

the view at the Kiyomizu temple was stunning.

it's so pretty right! like as though it's taken out of some postcard..

We then went to this restaurant beside the Osaka Castle for dinner. i think the plants by the side of the road up look like big vegetable paus..(cai pau)

very soon, it was the 6th day, the last day of our tour. That morning, we went to the Nara deer park and the To-daiji temple(they're located side by side..)

The deers there are very smart things, they would chase after you upon seeing that you bought biscuits for feeding them and head-butt you if you refuse to feed them.

yeah, so that's the reason why i'm not standing too close. after i took the photo, that deer was sniffing the plastic bag in my hand, trying to see if there were any biscuits in there for him.

after that, we went to the Universal theme park in Osaka!
nothing much to write about the universal theme park in Osaka just that it feels very much like the theme parks in Australia. oH. and i felt really cheated after queuing up for 1.5hrs for this spiderman 3-d ride thing, which the tour leader recommended as it was not available in the other Universal theme parks, when the thing lasted only for 5minutes! pfft.

so that's about the end of my Japan entry. haha. didn manage to do much shopping cause i was with a tour group but the winter coats there were dirt cheap, and of course in very small sizes.. the girls and schoolgirls along the streets are not as pretty as they are said to be- it's just that they really know how to dress up and present themselves very well.

but one thing i like very much about Japan is their culture and up-bringing. the Japanese are very well-mannered people, even the people in the service-line, they're all very good-tempered. they would greet you as you enter the shop and if you leave without buying anything they would also bid you farewell. If it's Singapore, i guess the ah lians in far east would just kick you out of the store for wasting their time.

The discipline that they have- shows in everything that they do. they queue for almost everything, even for taking pictures with the cartoon mascots in the theme parks, they do not litter, and they even have a systamatic way in which they dump their daily house trash!

if only Singaporeans could learn to be more well-mannered and socially-responsible. i think that would help to pull in even more tourists than the two planned IRs!

anyone interested in going to japan, free and easy? =p

30th March 1989

Curtin Singapore;
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