My First Adventure to Japan
I've been wanting to post my holiday to Japan for months. Yet this post has been in draft for some weeks now. Actually, I don't feel like blogging it (it's such an amazing journey that words can't even describe it). But this is my first time going to Japan. After all it's been my dream since elementary school to go there. And it's such a wonderful experience and I can't wait to go there again. If only I could watch arashi's concert, my dream will be complete.
It's an 8 days trip which I think too short to cover 4 major towns in Japan. In general my itinerary look like this Tokyo-Sendai-Kyoto-Osaka-Tokyo. Thanks to JR Pass, we could use shinkansen freely during our trip which safe a lot of time.
My plane ticket was bought in January. We actually got a really cheap tickets. We got Garuda round trip ticket around $460 plus it's direct flight. At first we planned to use night bus to go from Tokyo to Kyoto, but after discussing our itinerary, we think it's convenient if we use JR Pass. In total we rode shinkansen around 5 times. So it's a catch right?
Day 1
We arrived at Haneda around 10 am, we took some time in Haneda to take care of several things like pocket wifi, JR Pass, money changer, make up (lol), etc. The funny things, we actually met some korean artists in Haneda and in such a close proximity. There were this group of girls in front of money changer that me and my friends use. At first I thought they were there to pick up their family or friends. But, when we walked in front of them to get to the money changer, there was a man in black, i think it's some kind of bodyguard, ushering us like telling us to go faster. Then, suddenly a man with a mask came from arrival direction, and those girls screamed our ears off until that man disappeared. Well, I don't really know about Kpop artists, but that must be an artist because after that man Tae yeon from SNSD walked out and after that another men with mask. Actually this experience made me frustated. Why in Japan, when I even haven't seen an arashi poster, I met Kpop artists instead. I don't even know their name except Tae yeon, I couldn't even brag about it properly since I don't know who they are. LOL
This is us in Haneda after some make up touch up. LOL
After that we rode Tohoku shinkansen to Sendai, it took around 1.5 hour. There is no particular place that I want to go in Sendai, my travelling partner, Depe, has a friend who studied in Tohoku University and he helped us secure Ghibli museum tickets, so we met him in Sendai to get the tickets and just to hang out for a bit. We talked quite a lot, I asked him about the recovery in Tohoku area after tsunami, keep in mind it was our first meeting and he didn't know I'm an arashi fans. He suddenly talked about when arashi came to Miyagi to held a concert last year. He said it was such a chaos, there were so many people gathered in Sendai station to welcomed them. And he was just coincidentally there. What a lucky guy. I'm so jealous.
With my new friend who guide us through Sendai
Day 2
We got up early to catch 6 am shinkansen to Tokyo, because it took around 4.5 hour from Sendai to Kyoto so we had to go super early. The journey in shinkansen was nice. One thing you could expect when travelling in Japan is safety. There was a girl who sit next to us, she's travelling alone. Then one time, she just left her phone in charging condition, and her bag was opened, she was no where to be found. I'm amazed. I just hope if japanese come to my country they don't keep this kind of habit. LOL
So we arrived in Kyoto around 11.30 am, and we went straight to hotel which apparently very close to Fushimi Inari Taisho to dumped our luggage. After that we walked to Fushimi Inari. It's sunday and you can imagine the place was crowded with both local and international tourists. And the humidity didn't help our case either. Since me and my friend can't stand the heat and the crowd, we decided to stop climbing and come back to hotel. Luckily, we arrived at hotel before heavy rain started to fall.
Around 4 the rain stopped, we went to kiyomizudera, as expected, another crowded spot, but not as crowded as fushimi inari. We got there almost 6 pm so we got a sunset scenery. It's so beautiful!! After that, we wanted to try halal restaurant in Gion called Naritaya, and stupidly didn't take bus, we walked from kiyomizudera to gion which made us cranky cause it's quite far actually. Remind me how different distance perception on maps againts real road. Hahaha
Day 3
Because we failed to finish our itinerary in day 2 due to our unwell condition and heavy rain, we decided to hit all the spots on day 3, and we actually did it. i'm so proud. LOL Makes me think I'm a Sakurai with our packed schedule. The first place is Arashiyama, the place is magical. I'm in love with the bamboo forest.
Then we moved from Arashiyama to Nijo castle which is quite near. We toured inside the castle which can't be photographed. But we took a lot of photos around the castle.
Look I found Nino!!
Our next destination was Sanjusangendo. And we're experiencing such a heavy rain right in front of the temple. Good thing this place's main attraction was inside so it didn't affected by rain. As expected we couldn't photographed inside the temple either.
Then after this we went to Ginkakuji Temple in which I completely misunderstood, I thought Ginkakuji was Golden temple, and Kinkakuji was Silver temple. I actually wanted to see both temple, but since we didn't have much time, so I decided to just see golden temple. But I totally forgot that kin was golden and gin was silver. So we end up in ginkakuji instead of kinkakuji.
That ended our trip in Kyoto. Actually there are so many places we can't explore because of our time. After this we moved from Kyoto to Osaka. We arrived quite late. Our initial plan was to drop our luggage in hotel first, then we went to Namba. Unfortunately we got to hotel quite late since we lost our way to the hotel. Damn it google maps again!! So we arrived in Namba already 10pm. Like there was nothing there anymore. Most shops had closed. We're lucky there was one takoyaki restaurant that still opened. But the queue was quite long. My tiredness eventually was gone because I met Nino's billboard face to face with glico man. And I couldn't resist not to take picture with him.
Day 4
This day was dedicated to Universal Studio Japan. Sadly I couldn't explore USJ until night because we need to catch shinkansen in the evening if want to make it to Tokyo today. I was so shocked with the number of people who came to USJ. There was so many people inside, we barely rode anything. We only managed to ride hollywood dream and of course our main purpose there, Harry potter. Hollywood ride queue was around 1 hour, and harry potter queue was around 3 hours ;_; can you imagine my feet? the queue's killing me. But I was so satisfied with it.
Day 5-8
I dedicated these four days to explore Tokyo. And it's still not enough to cover all area. Damn it. I definitely have to go to Japan again. I specially want to go to Hokkaido so bad.
Asakusa
We rental yukata for a while. Walking around Asakusa using yukata. So fun.
Ghibli Museum
Such a magical place. I'm so fortunate Syahril could help us getting ticket to Ghibli. And I heard now you could buy ghibli museum ticket through their website. One thing I could remember well from this place is I lost a lot of money here. I couldn't resist buying so many ghibli's goods. LOL
I didn't take photos of Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara because I mostly there for shopping so my hand was quite full. I wnet crazy in mandarake and uniqlo. Damn my money was easily lost in Japan hahaha
On my last day, I met Mui. This was such a coincidence we are in Japan around the same time. So we decided to meet up. After so long known each other online, we finally meet in person. We met in Odaiba. We even took commemorative photo in front of macho kun.
And I also met Koro sensei!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Luffy!!!!!!!!!!!
And of course gundam!!!!! I love odaiba lol
Look Mui and Depe bonded over pokemon go! Leaving me all alone cause I don't play pokemon go heeee
That summarize my trip to Japan. You might realized I've become so lazy to write explanation toward the end and just posted photos as many as possible.
On the side note, I'm waiting for my copy of Are You Happy? album. So glad mols could buy it for me while being in Tokyo for work. Yaaaaaay!!!!!!
It's an 8 days trip which I think too short to cover 4 major towns in Japan. In general my itinerary look like this Tokyo-Sendai-Kyoto-Osaka-Tokyo. Thanks to JR Pass, we could use shinkansen freely during our trip which safe a lot of time.
My plane ticket was bought in January. We actually got a really cheap tickets. We got Garuda round trip ticket around $460 plus it's direct flight. At first we planned to use night bus to go from Tokyo to Kyoto, but after discussing our itinerary, we think it's convenient if we use JR Pass. In total we rode shinkansen around 5 times. So it's a catch right?
Day 1
We arrived at Haneda around 10 am, we took some time in Haneda to take care of several things like pocket wifi, JR Pass, money changer, make up (lol), etc. The funny things, we actually met some korean artists in Haneda and in such a close proximity. There were this group of girls in front of money changer that me and my friends use. At first I thought they were there to pick up their family or friends. But, when we walked in front of them to get to the money changer, there was a man in black, i think it's some kind of bodyguard, ushering us like telling us to go faster. Then, suddenly a man with a mask came from arrival direction, and those girls screamed our ears off until that man disappeared. Well, I don't really know about Kpop artists, but that must be an artist because after that man Tae yeon from SNSD walked out and after that another men with mask. Actually this experience made me frustated. Why in Japan, when I even haven't seen an arashi poster, I met Kpop artists instead. I don't even know their name except Tae yeon, I couldn't even brag about it properly since I don't know who they are. LOL
This is us in Haneda after some make up touch up. LOL
After that we rode Tohoku shinkansen to Sendai, it took around 1.5 hour. There is no particular place that I want to go in Sendai, my travelling partner, Depe, has a friend who studied in Tohoku University and he helped us secure Ghibli museum tickets, so we met him in Sendai to get the tickets and just to hang out for a bit. We talked quite a lot, I asked him about the recovery in Tohoku area after tsunami, keep in mind it was our first meeting and he didn't know I'm an arashi fans. He suddenly talked about when arashi came to Miyagi to held a concert last year. He said it was such a chaos, there were so many people gathered in Sendai station to welcomed them. And he was just coincidentally there. What a lucky guy. I'm so jealous.
With my new friend who guide us through Sendai
Day 2
We got up early to catch 6 am shinkansen to Tokyo, because it took around 4.5 hour from Sendai to Kyoto so we had to go super early. The journey in shinkansen was nice. One thing you could expect when travelling in Japan is safety. There was a girl who sit next to us, she's travelling alone. Then one time, she just left her phone in charging condition, and her bag was opened, she was no where to be found. I'm amazed. I just hope if japanese come to my country they don't keep this kind of habit. LOL
So we arrived in Kyoto around 11.30 am, and we went straight to hotel which apparently very close to Fushimi Inari Taisho to dumped our luggage. After that we walked to Fushimi Inari. It's sunday and you can imagine the place was crowded with both local and international tourists. And the humidity didn't help our case either. Since me and my friend can't stand the heat and the crowd, we decided to stop climbing and come back to hotel. Luckily, we arrived at hotel before heavy rain started to fall.
Around 4 the rain stopped, we went to kiyomizudera, as expected, another crowded spot, but not as crowded as fushimi inari. We got there almost 6 pm so we got a sunset scenery. It's so beautiful!! After that, we wanted to try halal restaurant in Gion called Naritaya, and stupidly didn't take bus, we walked from kiyomizudera to gion which made us cranky cause it's quite far actually. Remind me how different distance perception on maps againts real road. Hahaha
Day 3
Because we failed to finish our itinerary in day 2 due to our unwell condition and heavy rain, we decided to hit all the spots on day 3, and we actually did it. i'm so proud. LOL Makes me think I'm a Sakurai with our packed schedule. The first place is Arashiyama, the place is magical. I'm in love with the bamboo forest.
Then we moved from Arashiyama to Nijo castle which is quite near. We toured inside the castle which can't be photographed. But we took a lot of photos around the castle.
Look I found Nino!!
Our next destination was Sanjusangendo. And we're experiencing such a heavy rain right in front of the temple. Good thing this place's main attraction was inside so it didn't affected by rain. As expected we couldn't photographed inside the temple either.
Then after this we went to Ginkakuji Temple in which I completely misunderstood, I thought Ginkakuji was Golden temple, and Kinkakuji was Silver temple. I actually wanted to see both temple, but since we didn't have much time, so I decided to just see golden temple. But I totally forgot that kin was golden and gin was silver. So we end up in ginkakuji instead of kinkakuji.
That ended our trip in Kyoto. Actually there are so many places we can't explore because of our time. After this we moved from Kyoto to Osaka. We arrived quite late. Our initial plan was to drop our luggage in hotel first, then we went to Namba. Unfortunately we got to hotel quite late since we lost our way to the hotel. Damn it google maps again!! So we arrived in Namba already 10pm. Like there was nothing there anymore. Most shops had closed. We're lucky there was one takoyaki restaurant that still opened. But the queue was quite long. My tiredness eventually was gone because I met Nino's billboard face to face with glico man. And I couldn't resist not to take picture with him.
Day 4
This day was dedicated to Universal Studio Japan. Sadly I couldn't explore USJ until night because we need to catch shinkansen in the evening if want to make it to Tokyo today. I was so shocked with the number of people who came to USJ. There was so many people inside, we barely rode anything. We only managed to ride hollywood dream and of course our main purpose there, Harry potter. Hollywood ride queue was around 1 hour, and harry potter queue was around 3 hours ;_; can you imagine my feet? the queue's killing me. But I was so satisfied with it.
Day 5-8
I dedicated these four days to explore Tokyo. And it's still not enough to cover all area. Damn it. I definitely have to go to Japan again. I specially want to go to Hokkaido so bad.
Asakusa
We rental yukata for a while. Walking around Asakusa using yukata. So fun.
Ghibli Museum
Such a magical place. I'm so fortunate Syahril could help us getting ticket to Ghibli. And I heard now you could buy ghibli museum ticket through their website. One thing I could remember well from this place is I lost a lot of money here. I couldn't resist buying so many ghibli's goods. LOL
I didn't take photos of Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara because I mostly there for shopping so my hand was quite full. I wnet crazy in mandarake and uniqlo. Damn my money was easily lost in Japan hahaha
On my last day, I met Mui. This was such a coincidence we are in Japan around the same time. So we decided to meet up. After so long known each other online, we finally meet in person. We met in Odaiba. We even took commemorative photo in front of macho kun.
And I also met Koro sensei!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Luffy!!!!!!!!!!!
And of course gundam!!!!! I love odaiba lol
Look Mui and Depe bonded over pokemon go! Leaving me all alone cause I don't play pokemon go heeee
That summarize my trip to Japan. You might realized I've become so lazy to write explanation toward the end and just posted photos as many as possible.
On the side note, I'm waiting for my copy of Are You Happy? album. So glad mols could buy it for me while being in Tokyo for work. Yaaaaaay!!!!!!