Chitose Yakiniku Dinner

Since we arrived kinda late, we were rather hungry and cold. So the first thing we did was look for dinner. We didn't want to eat in the hotel, so we went out for a walk in the snow looking for food instead. My husband found this place, and at first I thought it was a korean BBQ. But since there wasn't much of a choice and I hated walking in the slippery snow, we went in here. 

The place is call Tokuju Yakiniku, and it was packed. A group of Chinese went in before us and we queued behind them, and for some reason, they were turned away. I spoke my minimum Japanese with them and we were seated in no time :) What can I say, always learn the local language!

This was our first meal, and frankly the menu looks kinda expensive for me. So haha, husband decided to give me a treat! Yay!

We ordered a set so that the cost was kinda controlled. It looks sufficient I guess. The whole meal cost around SGD60 or SGD80 for two person. I guess the meat was kinda premium? I can't really tell. 

Different part of the meat was served as part of the set, a long with some minimum vegetable, mainly onions and pumpkin. 

And you have to cook them yourself. But I must say, this was one of the best Yakiniku I've ever eaten! Probably because I was so cold and hungry. 

My husband ordered a ramen as well cause he wanted something warm and soupy. It didn't taste that bad either. For a similar service of such bbq meat, you could probably get it for around SGD20 in HCM :P  Just saying. Japan is a very expensive country!

Here's me in the snow outside the shop. It's amazing I am not freezing myself silly. I guess the weather wasn't too bad when we arrived. It got worst along our trip before clearing up a little. Basically, at the end of the trip when I saw the weather forecast showing -1 degrees, I was relief that it was finally warm again! At -1 degrees! 

Grand Terrace Hotel Chitose

Remember that post about Wakayama in June 2018? Doesn't the above photo reminds you of it? Well, it's my welcome drink to Hokkaido! Or to be more accurate, to Chitose cause we arrived at night and I didn't want to take any chances getting to our hotel in pitch dark winter. So I booked us a hotel near the airport for just one night, and the airport has a free shuttle bus that picks us up and transfer us directly to the hotel! So Chitose Grand Terrace Hotel was our very first stop of the trip, and above is our self bought welcome drink!

Above is the photo of our hotel and the small shuttle bus. As you can see, it is covered in snow. This is probably my 1st real full blown experience of a winter wonderland. I have seen snow before, once in Tokyo (flurry), and once in Korea. But never have I seen so much snow as I did in my trip to Hokkaido!

So this is what the plants look like all covered in know. And as you can see, it looks like quite heavy load too! We later found out that it was the heaviest snowfall in Hokkaido since the last 50 years or something. There was even a fight that broke out in the airport due to cancellation of flights! So much drama! But this was our holiday, and we enjoyed every bit of it!

So while checking into the hotel, which is quite huge, there were view looking out into the winter garden. This was my very first time seeing such a scene, so I took the above photo on my way to our room. 

Above is what the hotel garden looks like. Since it's December and near Christmas, I guess they decorated the plants to make it look festive or something. I must say, it all looked rather peaceful and beautiful. And so here starts the beginning of our winter wonderland trip in Hokkaido. Please note the sequence of event may be jumbled up a bit cause although I do have an itinerary, but due to snow storms and all, public transport was disrupted here and there and we had to change along the way.

And before I end this post, I would like to share my very first foot print on the snow! My foot print look kinda like a bear eh? Lol.

Ref:

Grand Terrace Hotel Chitose

Hokkaido 2016 Trip

I actually have to leave for a girl's weekend out at Bangkok tomorrow, but because my auto blog post is running out soon, and I have made a commitment to post on a daily basis, I've decided to start on my 2016 Hokkaido trip post. Hopefully this won't die half way like my Italy blog post, which I promise will be completed one of these days! Determination and integrity is what's driving these blog post these days. So god damn I will try to post daily for as long as I could manage it! So let's start!

I'll start by sharing with you my itinerary below. It was a 1.5 week trip to Hokkaido. I initially wanted to go to Kyushu or Kansai area, but because the cost of the flight was almost the same, plus my husband has been bugging me about Hokkaido, I decided to give it a shot, in winter no less! Pure madness. I have been to Hokkaido before long time back on my backpacking trip across Japan. But that was more of a touch and go trip. So this time, I wanted to explore more in depth, on my own sweet time.

So first few day of the trip was planned to be in Sapporo area. There are many things you can do in Hokkaido, and I am going to share everything that we did with you along the way. I guess it should take up at least a month's post or more! 

The following week will see us travelling to more far out area to the onsen town. I planned for only 2 cause it was winter and travelling was going to be some problem. I am not the most fun person in the snow cause I get cold easily and I hate getting wet or falling on slippery ground! I chose to go back to Noboribetsu which I also went last time and had fond memories of the onsen there. And I picked Jozankei, a very Japanese onsen just to test my Japanese. I wanted to go places were most tourist won't go. 

So having all planned out, we were off on 21-Dec-2016! And we won't be back till 2017, spending Christmas and New Year in Hokkaido! Stay tune!

Unlimited Cable Car Ride - Visit to Quayside Isle

Since my Dearest have never been to Quayside Isle before, we took a detour from the cable car ride, and took a bus here for an evening walk. This is where the rich live, with their marina and yatch and cute dogs.

You can have a nice walk here, either in the morning or evening. I love coming here cause it's not so crowded. Plus there is an EATZ here where you can have more affordable food. I came here once for morning walk and had a traditional Singapore breakfast set here. Totally worth it. You use to be able to walk along the sea line as well, but they have since gate it up for residence only....

We stayed will sundown, and I treated my Dearest to dinner at this place I don't even remember the name. Some fish market place. We had a plate of SGD30 per plate fish and chips, and I have been hooked on breaded fish and chips every since. It was on the expensive side, but it was so darn delicious! I wish I can go back there soon! The place was recommended as one of the romantic places to bring your date -___- But happy to say the food was awesome too! Plus the service too! Bread was served without extra charges with balsamic and olive oil! (Already a win for me! If only the bread was free flow...). Ice water was also serve without asking, and with no extra charge!!!! 

The view here at night was romantic as well. Fairy lights all over the trees...

Lovely lanterns that reminded me of Vietnam....

And since it was still December, Christmas decoration was there up!

It's always lovely to spend the day with people who wants to spend it with you too!

Unlimited Cable Car Ride - Visit to Mount Faber

One of the places we visited on our unlimited cable car ride was Mount Faber. I haven't been here for  like, 4 years now. And wow, so much have changed. The last time I was here was for a corporate event. I was attending FundTech Conference with my colleagues. We came here for dinner, so I didn't quite remember seeing anything memorable. But in daylight, there was so much more to see!

Here's a sign that tells you some of the attraction you can see. You can do a walk from Harbour Front to Mount Faber to Southern Ridges Path all the way to Clementi or Kent Ridge Park if you are interested. It is a nice walk. 

There were a few high end restaurant found here, and probably people hold their ROM or weddings here, cause there was this strategically placed "Bell of Happiness" here. 

"Dusk" was one of those high end restaurant. It would probably be very nice to come here for a meal in the evening and watch the sun set and light comes up. 

If you step out of the main building, you can talk a short walk around Mount Faber to explore around. I thought this path was rather nice looking, but a but too short. It would have been nice if it was longer with plants covering it. 

At one of the look out point, you can view the concrete jungle that is Singapore. It mainly look towards the city direction, and you can see HDB everywhere with the city skyline behind it. Here is where you can really admire the HDB planning.

There is a small park here, nothing much to see. You can find a miniature merlion here for photo taking.

And some memorable mural made of bronze? 

Here you will also find the most scenic toilet in Singapore. Singapore love transparent looking glass toilet walls. This is the ladies toilet, and you can look out into the view. This is a two way glass. But I've been told in Changi Airport guy's toilet, there are also toilet with one-way glass where you can pee and look out at people....

Isn't the view beautiful from this toilet?

Unlimited Cable Car Ride - Night View

This post just shows the night view from the cable car. After taking all the route, we actually detoured to Quayside Isle for an evening walk and dinner, before going back to take the cable car back to Mount Faber to see the night view. It was, after all, UNLIMITED RIDE! Above is scene looking out the cable car at Telok Blangah where all the PSA cranes are.

Here's a view of a Costa cruise ship dorking at Harbour Front, all light up and glitter. There's something about cruise ships and great city. You can't be a great city if no cruise dork in it!

Close up of the cruise, reminding me how much I miss my cruise holidays. Next one coming up in December 2018!

And lastly a view of Resort World Sentosa at night before we parted ways and headed home. It was a very eventful year end. 

Unlimited Cable Car Ride - Day View

It was a damn busy December 2017 for me. After playing host to my fried who visited me, the very next day I was out again on a local tour with my Dearest colleague to Sentosa. Or to be more accurate, she actually has an unlimited cable car pass that was about to expire, so she invited me to spend the day with her riding cable car! Don't you love friends like that? I mean, have you every rode a cable car unlimited before? So we met in the morning at Harbour Front and took the cable car to Mount Faber. You can check out the next day's post on that. After Mount Faber, we took the cable car to Sentosa.

Along the way, we can see Keppel Bay condos as per above. This is where rich people live, but not as rich as those who lives in Quayside Isle (stay tune!). 

We got a great view of the AYA highway from the cable car. This reminds me of my postgrad days when I would always ride from Kent Ridge back to Bedok with my school mates. When it was night time, it was like a Playstation game simulation. 

Here's a view of Sentosa water park and Resort World Sentosa from above.

And the view of that expensive spa which I want to spend a staycation on if I ever got the chance. But for now, I can only see it from above. There are a few hotels which I would love to spend a staycation in, one is this spa, the other is Fullerton Bay Hotel, and maybe Marina Bay Hotel. But so far.... closest was Marriot Hotel. 

Here's a view of Siloso Beach.

And since this was actually one day before New Year's eve, they were gearing up for the New Year's day count down! 

PeiShi's Visit to Tampines One

We should always have an appetite for life as long as we are living, cause that gives us something to live for, a purpose to enjoy the life that we have. And as beautiful as that sounds, I actually found this quote in the wall of KFC at the Tampines Hub! We went there for breakfast cause I have a thing for KFC breakfast porridge. It's delicious!

It's kinda weird sitting there eating fast food and having these thoughtful quotes all over the wall. Usually these are found at a more wholesome places! Lol. 

After breakfast, we actually visited the library, and finally made our way to Tampines One to get our ride home. At Tampines One, I stopped by my favourite Bubble Tea store PlayMade. Yes, this is actually my favourite cause they have flavoured pearl! And they make their pearl fresh daily, and it's really soft and chewy! My favourite is the Pick Cactus pearl. I usually order milk tea without sugar, and add pearl. It's kinda expensive thought, around SGD3+. 

I've seen advertisement of their other drinks as well which looks yummy. They always say they use fresh ingredient and that you can really taste the flavour bla bla bla, but the price is so expensive that I could have gotten a full McDonald meal for that cup of tea. So I've never ventured more than my normal order of tea before. 

And as I've mentioned in a few post back, StarWars fever was still in Singapore at that time, and even Bubble Tea wanted to jump on that bandwagon. Again, too expensive of a hype for me. Pass. 

PeiShi got me a nice match cake from this store that sells Japanese pastry. I keep telling myself I'll go back and get the same thing one day, but since I've been putting on too much weight already, that day hasn't come yet. So please don't close down Chateraise! And that ends the adventure of PeiShi's visit to Singapore with me! Hope you enjoyed it!