陪太子读书
When Malcolm was busy preparing for his final three ACCA papers late last year, I literally ‘陪太子读书’ for I was just as busy researching and studying along side with him on weekends and weekday nights. Hubby only has this to say of me - ‘读书又不见你这样用功’….opps!
So what was I busy with?
Yes I am only this hardworking when it comes to planning for our holidays. The family didn’t go for a good long holiday for the past 2.5 years since hubby decided to take on ACCA.
So this year we (or rather hubby on behalf of Nicole) decided that we go to Japan because the next nearest Disneyland (other than Hong Kong which we have been to last April) is over at Tokyo! Frankly speaking Japan was never on our holiday radar screen primarily because we couldn’t speak any Japanese (other than Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan…okay jokes aside I vaguely remembered 1-10 and some basic greetings in Japanese, and to think I studied that language until intermediate level about two decades ago!!!) and it’s a very expensive country to go for a holiday!
Armed with zero knowledge of the language, some maps and brochures, we took an ANA Sapporo Free & Easy Package from Prime Travel to Tokyo and Hokkaido during the Chinese New Year period. Yes we went to two cities, Tokyo for Nicole and Hokkaido for me.
Initially we planned to travel JAL but because of my delay in making flight reservations, the flights were fully booked for the days of our intended travel. Luckily ANA still has got vacancies after hubby alerted me to check them out, else I would have to kiss my Japan holiday goodbye!
We left for Japan on 15 February night, just a day before all the peak period charges (for weekend and CNY) kicked in, a savings of S$450 for the family, yeah! It was an uneventful flight and we were well rested before touching down at Narita Airport around 7am the next day.
After we put on our winter gear and forwarded our luggage (for ¥3060 by ANA Sky Porter) to our hotel, Villa Fontaine@Shiodome, we headed to our first destination of the day - Ueno Park (上野公園) via the limited express. Malcolm's colleague (a Jap) who happened to be on the same flight as us going back to Japan for a meeting, gave us his home and mobile number just in case we needed his assistance after hearing that we were on a F&E trip rather than following a tour for our first trip to Japan. How sweet of him!
Just days before our trip, we heard from local news that due to a warmer winter, cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom earlier than expected. So we tried our luck at Ueno Park which is Tokyo’s most popular site for hanami (blossom viewing) and we were rewarded with a handful of trees blooming with Sakura! The Japanese were really ‘crazy’ about Sakura, the couple of hours we were there, we could see many of them fishing out their clamshell mobile phones to take pictures of the flowers whenever they walked past the trees! But I must say that the park would be an awesome sight to behold when all the trees are bursting with Cherry Blossoms.
Our next stop was Asakusa (浅草), and the main attraction there is Sensoji (also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple-金龍山浅草寺), a very popular Buddish temple built in the 7th century. To get to the temple, one would have to pass through a 200 meters of shopping street-Nakamise, but we were not complaining as there are plenty of little shops selling typical Japanese souvenirs and various traditional local snacks. This shopping street has a history of several centuries. And of course to mark our trip to Asakusa, a photo at the Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate)-the symbol of Asakusa is a must!
It was late afternoon when we checked into our hotel, we only intended to take forty winks before dinner but slept longer than expected, our bodies must be protesting from the all day long walking!
We ended our first day with a visit to Tokyo Tower (东京铁塔) as it was not very far off from our hotel, in fact it’s just a 5 minutes train ride away. Dinner was settled at one of the local eateries at Akabanebashi, ordering was really easy, trust me…all we did was point at pictures on the menu and when the waiter replied something we just said ‘Hai Hai’ and smiled.
The night view from Tokyo Tower was beautiful, despite condensation caused by the cold weather, we could still see very far from the main observatory deck. The tower is modeled after Eiffel Tower in Paris, France; at 332.6m (8.6m taller than Eiffel Tower) and weighs about 4000 tons (3300 tons lighter than Eiffel Tower), it is one of the world’s highest self-supporting steel towers and the tallest man-made structure in Japan. The only regret was we did not managed to buy a fridge magnet to commemorate our visit to the Tower as by the time we were done with the walkabout at the deck, the retail shop has already closed for the day.
Beautiful Cherry Blossoms @ Ueno Park
Closeup of Cherry Blossoms
Entrance of a Shrine @ Ueno Park
The famous Thunder Gate@Asakusa
The 200m Nakamise
Shopping for souvenirs
Stall making and selling traditional snacks
Praying for health and happiness
The 5 storey Pagoda
The signage that ease our decision of where to eat for our first meal
Sexy Dancers@Nakamise
Tokyo Tower
View of Tokyo Tower from Bottom Up
A picture to mark our visit to Tokyo Tower
So what was I busy with?
Yes I am only this hardworking when it comes to planning for our holidays. The family didn’t go for a good long holiday for the past 2.5 years since hubby decided to take on ACCA.
So this year we (or rather hubby on behalf of Nicole) decided that we go to Japan because the next nearest Disneyland (other than Hong Kong which we have been to last April) is over at Tokyo! Frankly speaking Japan was never on our holiday radar screen primarily because we couldn’t speak any Japanese (other than Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan…okay jokes aside I vaguely remembered 1-10 and some basic greetings in Japanese, and to think I studied that language until intermediate level about two decades ago!!!) and it’s a very expensive country to go for a holiday!
Armed with zero knowledge of the language, some maps and brochures, we took an ANA Sapporo Free & Easy Package from Prime Travel to Tokyo and Hokkaido during the Chinese New Year period. Yes we went to two cities, Tokyo for Nicole and Hokkaido for me.
Initially we planned to travel JAL but because of my delay in making flight reservations, the flights were fully booked for the days of our intended travel. Luckily ANA still has got vacancies after hubby alerted me to check them out, else I would have to kiss my Japan holiday goodbye!
We left for Japan on 15 February night, just a day before all the peak period charges (for weekend and CNY) kicked in, a savings of S$450 for the family, yeah! It was an uneventful flight and we were well rested before touching down at Narita Airport around 7am the next day.
After we put on our winter gear and forwarded our luggage (for ¥3060 by ANA Sky Porter) to our hotel, Villa Fontaine@Shiodome, we headed to our first destination of the day - Ueno Park (上野公園) via the limited express. Malcolm's colleague (a Jap) who happened to be on the same flight as us going back to Japan for a meeting, gave us his home and mobile number just in case we needed his assistance after hearing that we were on a F&E trip rather than following a tour for our first trip to Japan. How sweet of him!
Just days before our trip, we heard from local news that due to a warmer winter, cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom earlier than expected. So we tried our luck at Ueno Park which is Tokyo’s most popular site for hanami (blossom viewing) and we were rewarded with a handful of trees blooming with Sakura! The Japanese were really ‘crazy’ about Sakura, the couple of hours we were there, we could see many of them fishing out their clamshell mobile phones to take pictures of the flowers whenever they walked past the trees! But I must say that the park would be an awesome sight to behold when all the trees are bursting with Cherry Blossoms.
Our next stop was Asakusa (浅草), and the main attraction there is Sensoji (also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple-金龍山浅草寺), a very popular Buddish temple built in the 7th century. To get to the temple, one would have to pass through a 200 meters of shopping street-Nakamise, but we were not complaining as there are plenty of little shops selling typical Japanese souvenirs and various traditional local snacks. This shopping street has a history of several centuries. And of course to mark our trip to Asakusa, a photo at the Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate)-the symbol of Asakusa is a must!
It was late afternoon when we checked into our hotel, we only intended to take forty winks before dinner but slept longer than expected, our bodies must be protesting from the all day long walking!
We ended our first day with a visit to Tokyo Tower (东京铁塔) as it was not very far off from our hotel, in fact it’s just a 5 minutes train ride away. Dinner was settled at one of the local eateries at Akabanebashi, ordering was really easy, trust me…all we did was point at pictures on the menu and when the waiter replied something we just said ‘Hai Hai’ and smiled.
The night view from Tokyo Tower was beautiful, despite condensation caused by the cold weather, we could still see very far from the main observatory deck. The tower is modeled after Eiffel Tower in Paris, France; at 332.6m (8.6m taller than Eiffel Tower) and weighs about 4000 tons (3300 tons lighter than Eiffel Tower), it is one of the world’s highest self-supporting steel towers and the tallest man-made structure in Japan. The only regret was we did not managed to buy a fridge magnet to commemorate our visit to the Tower as by the time we were done with the walkabout at the deck, the retail shop has already closed for the day.
Beautiful Cherry Blossoms @ Ueno Park
Closeup of Cherry Blossoms
Entrance of a Shrine @ Ueno Park
The famous Thunder Gate@Asakusa
The 200m Nakamise
Shopping for souvenirs
Stall making and selling traditional snacks
Praying for health and happiness
The 5 storey Pagoda
The signage that ease our decision of where to eat for our first meal
Sexy Dancers@Nakamise
Tokyo Tower
View of Tokyo Tower from Bottom Up
A picture to mark our visit to Tokyo Tower