Japan Reflections P1

Shall try to post something today and stick to the weekly update cycle. Basically, I just came back from holiday into my first week of work, and I am loaded with a bunch of things to do. Gotta rush out some designs by Friday for work. I'd say doing it alone as a one-man-show is kind of a challenge, but #ChallengeAccepted.

Regarding the Japan trip, I do want to reflect upon it before I forget everything. So here's a short recount of my trip first. I think I shall split the reflections into 3 parts. The first part will cover Day 0 to Day 3. The next part I will try to squeeze in as many as I can. Then the last part I will cover the actual after thoughts and reflections. Actually, This is a work in progress, so I might edit and update it to do it more justice. I'm just rushing it out at this point.   

Day 0 and Day 1

Day 0 and Day 1, basically we left from Changi Airport sitting SIA to Narita Airport in Japan. Upon arriving in Japan, we gathered with the rest of the tour group, and headed straight to Tokyo Disneyland. It was a long and tiring day, and everywhere was crowded. At night, we went to eat some Chinese food at a chinese restaurant. I don't even know why we eat that in Japan. Totally missing the point. We also headed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building later to view the night sky in Tokyo. It's pretty impressive. What's nice, was that at night we got a chance to walk around Sunshine City, where I found the Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo. It wasn't as large as I had imagined it to be though. Like a normal departmental store size. There, I scored my goal for the trip. A huge sized Pikachu! That's basically my entire goal for the trip, good to have it settled on the first day. 

Day 2

Day 2 in the morning, we took a long bus ride down to Asakusa Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo. Took quite a bunch of nice photos there, the buildings and monuments were quite awesome and well built. Next, we also took a brief walk around the Shinjuku area. It was literally just a walk. We walked one round around their back alleys, and got to see some of the more "colorful" shops there. We didn't go in of course, too many parents around. Haha. But I felt it was kind of lame just to walk one round and not visit any of the other shops to do shopping. Maybe really no time coz of the traffic jams. Lastly, we paid a visit to Sanrio Puroland, land of the Hello Kitty! I think the place is mainly for kids though, and girls who are into that stuff. I didn't find it all that fun, then again I didn't go any of the rides coz all long queues. But there really got nothing much. Just load of products on sale. I tried walking around the perimeter of the area to explore, but winter time like all quite dead, or it's really not a popular area...

Day 3

Day 3 morning, we left the hotel and headed straight to go to Oshiro Hakkai to see some of the shops near Mount Fuji. Afterwards, we went to see Mt. Fuji itself. And boy was it magnificent! I mean, we didn't exactly scale up Mount Fuji, but we at least took a bus to get pretty close to see and take pictures. I just think it looks majestic and it's special. The scenery in Japan is just beautiful, a far cry from the concrete jungle of Singapore. Later in the day, we visited the Gotemba factory outlets for some shopping! Unfortunately because of all the long traffic jam, we only had about 1-2 hours to do our shopping. Way too short considering how many branded shops are over there. But I would say the prices are not exactly super cheap. I did score a pretty cheap pair of adidas shoes, which I think look pretty unique and striking. In the evening, we got a chance to experience the Japan Bullet Train! And then when we arrived at our hotel, we went to the shopping center beside it to take a look around. The shops there close pretty early though... 

To be continued...