tidbits

A little taste of heaven which me, Kae, Joanne and Claire had at Cedele today after a 2 hour class at Julia Gabriel.



p.s.: I'm hungry now.

Tokyo Trip day 3

Tokyo trip day 3 is also known as Hello Kitty Land day!

Yes, we spent the whole afternoon at Hello Kitty Land, known as Sanrio Puroland, which is located about 40 minutes away from central Tokyo via railway. I think I was more excited than Kae. Hello! It's the land of the Kitty! Grin.

It was a Saturday, hence the crowd. But hey, who cares! It's not a super big theme park, but we were kept busy for 3 and 1/2 hours; we reached there quite late as we slept in as we had a long day prior to Kitty day (yes, Mount invisible Fuji).






Oh, and Kae was not very into the Kitty boat ride. She was scared stiff when we went into a darker area of the ride. Sigh. She needs to build up her courage a little!


And she so lurved the Kitty shop. Hah. She was walking around happily the whole while.



Oh and we managed to meet up and take a picture with Hello Kitty herself in her pretty pink abode. But erm, the person took a real bad shot! DAMN!



One main regret of the trip was that we didn't manage to buy this Hello Kitty red ribbon hairband for Kae. It was all sold out apparently by the time we wanted to make the purchase. DAMN IT!

My babe was super tired and fell asleep while we were on the way back to the hotel. We just dropped our stuff, and went to meet Jack (a friend of dar's) for dinner. He's actually working in Tokyo right now. Dinner was good and on his tab, heehee.



While we shared the remaining dishes, each of us had 1 plate of the sashimi platter, yum yum!






We actually wanted to go for coffee after dinner, but the coffee houses in Tokyo closes really early! Most of them close at like 10-ish! Hmmm. It is so much easier to find a place to chill and enjoy coffee in Singapore on a weekend.

Tokyo Trip Day 2

Day 2 in Tokyo was washed out by the rain.

We booked a day tour up Mount Fuji which comprised of a trip to the Fuji Visitor center, a drive halfway up Mount Fuji to the 5th station at an altitude of 2305m, a Japanese-style lunch at a restaurant, a cruise on Lake Ashi (Ashinoko Yuransen), a ride on an aerial cableway up and down for a sweeping view of the celebrated Hakone National Park and a return back to Tokyo via the Shinkansen. This cost us a cool 32,000 Yen. Yes. You go do the math to convert to Sing dollar. Sigh.

Upon reaching the 5th station, there was NO sign of Mount Fuji at all; it was raining cats and dogs, the winds were blowing, and it was super cloudy. It was plain wet and cold for us.


The lunch was alright for me. It's not fantastic but good enough to fill my empty stomach. Lunch was at this restaurant within a hotel (I forgot the name) just next to the Highland Bus Terminal. I think we should have just taken a bus to this place by ourselves for the Mount Fuji view on hindsight. It's so so so so much cheaper!



After lunch, we went on for our cruise on Lake Ashi. Usually in fine weather, one can expect to see views of Mount Fuji (Ipresume) and the natural surroundings. But as it was a bad weathered day, all we could see were cloud like fogs. It's as if we were cruising through the clouds literally.


And as you can guess, the ride on the aerial cableway up and down Mount Komagatake was cancelled due to the gusty wind and heavy rain. And we were brought to a museum instead. Erm, what museum, I have no idea. Oh Kae enjoyed herself at the museum; she kept playing with this other boy who was also on the tour. Hah!




The Shinkansen ride was okay I guess. It's just a fast moving train. Since it was night time, we couldn't get any glimpse of what the journey back looked like. And we ended the night wiht my only ramen of the trip. Seriously, I think the standard of the ramen is average. I think the more reputable shops in Singapore has better ramen. I want more! I miss Santouka!

Tokyo Trip Day 1

I shall attempt to blog about our Tokyo trip in 8 posts; we spent a total of 8 days 7 nights in Tokyo. We boarded the plane at 1140pm 30 Sep 09 for the red eye flight to Hello Kitty land. And boy, did we not sleep. Kae was actually asleep but then she was woken up by the shrill cries of another baby. Sigh. So, we could not sleep too and had to entertain her for a good 5 hours. She slept under 2 hours.



We arrived in Tokyo at around 8am in the morning. As we could only check in at around 1pm, we went to check out Takashimaya Shinjuku; we reached the hotel at around 11am. Takashimaya was only like less than 5 minutes walk from our hotel, Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku. This was recommended by a friend who was just in Tokyo earlier this year. The hotel room is small yes, but cosy and warm. The best part about this hotel is that it is just next to the entrance of the Toei Subway line, and just 5 minutes walk to the other major train, bus and railway terminals. Super convenient! And it matters a lot as we have to bring Kae around :)


We had the most delish unagi lunch at Takashimya. You should go try this when you are there. If I recall correctly, it's located at the 14th floor. Apparently, the restaurants at the 14th floor have very good reviews. And the unagi did not disappoint. I had no idea there are so many different ways to enjoy a unagi meal. Hah. How turtle am I.



After lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap. The rest of the day or should I say night was spent exploring Shinjuku area. It felt so good to be back in Tokyo after 3 years. And even better to be holidaying again after so damn long.

Happy 21st Month day Kaelyn!

And yes, she's turning 21 months old today. Just 3 more months before she reaches the "terrible twos" stage. Hiak.