Japan

Hi all. I'm back from my trip to Japan and ready to document down the highlights of the trip here on this blog. For a start, I'm told that I'm a shade darker now. As I post more of my adventure in Japan, you'll begin to understand how I got so tanned in Japan. I'm also a lot poorer now as Japan is really a very expensive place to visit, with an average meal per person costing around S$15. But guess what! My spirit is lighter. My body feels healthier from all the walking and hiking. And I hope to go back again in another 4 years time :)

To start of the blog on Travel - Japan, I thought I'll start with all the interesting characters I met along my trip. The very first interesting character was Irie Yosuke whom we met in Akihabara. A Japanese flute player who was trying to sell his solo CD titled "Phenomenon of the Earth". He was a wonderful player, but his CD, which was selling at S$30 for 8 songs, was a bit on the high side for me. Still, if I came across the CD again, I think I'll like to buy it. You can watch a sample of his performance at the reference link below (but the clip does him no justice as he played better then is shown).

The next person we met was Mr Hiroshi Matsuura from the Kamakura Welcome Guide Association. He was our free tour guide at Kamakura, and took us walking around the town from 10am till 5pm non-stop (except for 1 hour for lunch). I've given him an idea of what we wanted to see there, but he was kind enough to show us a lot more then what we were expecting. And with his explanation, we were able to appreciate Kamakura a lot better then if we had explore it on our own. Thank you Mr Matsuura! You're a wonderful guide! Photo here shows Mr Matsuura with my husband and my dad.

At an unlikely place high up in the mountains of Hakone (at Owakudani大涌谷 to be precise), I saw these two adorable Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty is everywhere in Japan!

And last but not least, I was able to met up with a primary school friend of mine whom I have not seen in 20 years! Here's a photo of us taken at the Imperial Palace Ground. Thank you for coming all the way from Yokohama to bring us around! Let's meet up again when we're 52 over a bowl of porridge!

Stay tune as I share with you more details of my trip :)

Ref
Irie Yosuke YouTube Clip
Kamakura Welcome Guide Association
Hello Kitty