Japan is so beautiful!

We had 8 full days in Japan, touring Osaka, various parts of Hokkaido and Tokyo Disneyland. We travelled mostly by bus and took two internal flights. It was freezing cold, especially in Hokkaido where the temperature dipped to -10 degrees Celcius. It was snowing so we got to enjoy some fun time in the snow.

Here's a full account of the trip.

Hotel

We stayed at different hotels every single night. Why did we change hotels everyday? Well Japan is really big and we travelled far and wide to visit the "must-see" places. It makes no sense to travel all the way back to the hotel, so we stayed where we finished off for the day. It was really tiring carrying our luggage day in and day out. But to make up for it, we stayed at some nice boutique hotels in the cities and also got to experience the Japanese style of living in some hotels further out of town too.

This is Cross Hotel, a lovely boutique hotel in Osaka. Very nice, very convenient. Highly recommended!
Nice layout of the bathroom even though it's small.
The shower room is separated from the WC. There's a nice big bathtub to unwind too!
This is a typical Japanese style hotel room. There are no beds in here!
This is my favourite item in the room. A tea serving set.
In the evenings, hotel staff come around to set up mattresses on tatami mats and we sleep like the Japanese.

Food

We feasted on so much seafood that we're staying away from them for a while now. Everything there is huge! I'm not talking about the serving portions but the size of the seafood itself. Scallops, fishes, octopus, squids and crabs are so huge that they look rather frightening. Nevertheless, they were delicious.

Each scallop only cost about RM9.
I don't need to eat a lot to get full!
Grilled mackerel with seafood soup.
This is one huge king crab to be shared amongst 4 people!

Beautiful sceneries

We visited some very beautiful places in Hokkaido. We saw hotsprings in the mountains, the very serene and peaceful Lake Toya, farms that has turned into nothing but a snowground where we went snow mobiling (and got toppled!), and to a place called Otaru where it's well known for its glass products and music boxes. Nice little town.

View of Lake Toya
View of the mountains from Lake Toya.
Taking a break at snow mobiling in the middle of nowhere!
Ray and I, icy cold at a hotspring.

Disneyland

The tour included a day pass to Disneyland. Tine left me a comment earlier about visiting Disneysea instead and I think I have to agree with her. I only saw Disneysea from the outside and it looked more appealing to the adults. Disneyland was fun for me 15 years ago, but now it doesn't hold much.

However, this Disneyland trip is still memorable since it's the first time Ray and I visit it together. We didn't go on much of the rides. Took lots of photos instead. We managed to catch the parade show and did a little shopping.

Ray and I with the fairy-tale casle behind us.
Just checking to see if anyone missed me enough to send me mails :P
Is this the real life Mr. Donald Duck on the grounds of Disneyland?

Shopping

In my post before leaving for Japan, I said I wasn't going to spend a lot because things are expensive. Things were expensive but it didn't stop us from buying. Haha. Ray was always saying "We're here all the way, might as well buy!" How not to spend with that kind of encouragement, huh?

We bought a box full of Japanese food stuff. I also bought 20 puchi puchi, orders from my colleagues. The girl at the shop looked quite shock as I "sapu" all her puchi puchi, digging into unopened boxes to find the colours I wanted!

Then came the highlight purchases of the trip...

The bag is rather small and not too practical, but I couldn't resist!
This one could pass off as a mummy's bag to make up for the small one, right? ;)

Cute stuff

Japan is so full of cute items, attractive packagings and Hello Kitty stuff. I think most people buy a lot of Japanese food and sweets just to look at them instead of eating. Who could blame them?

Apparently these are nice to look at but doesn't taste good.
A moo-moo pack.
Chocolate biscuits in the shape of Hello Kitty.
We had tea and coffee at a cafe where you get to take the cups home. Of course it's all billed for.

To sum it up, Japan is a really nice place to visit, albeit a little on the expensive side. In all 4 seasons, they have equally nice attractions. But I think if we go in the winter times, there's more to experience in terms of snow sports. Anyone thinking of planning a trip there anytime soon? :)

Anyway, I'll leave you with more photos here...