DAY 02-03: SENSO-JI TEMPLE & AROUND UENO

DAY 02-03: SENSO-JI TEMPLE & AROUND UENO

Friday, December 27, 2019

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SENSO-JI TEMPLE

(29MAY2019)

Out of all the places I've come to in Japan so far, excluding the ones that I've yet to see in the Spring season, which I've never experienced yet, Senso-ji Temple was my most instagrammable place overall. All the reds in the background is a feast for my eyes because it is so alive and it screams culture.

We did one tourist-y thing apart from posing for photos. It's called OMIKUJI, where you get to draw your written fortune. What you do is  you drop a hundred yen in and pray for your wish, then shake the box full of sticks with written numbers. Draw a stick and find the drawer with the same number that you got and then read your fortune. Easy peasy. When you draw a good fortune, you can take the paper home. I lost mine. Bummer. If you draw a bad fortune, don't be sad, because you can leave that unfortunate paper and tie it down here in Japan so it wouldn't follow you home. It was so interesting. I used to see tied paper in hangers around Japan and I don't know the meaning behind it and after doing the Omikuji, I was a little bit knowledgeable than I was before doing it.

You can watch me draw my fortune on my vlog around the 3:40 mark. A little warning though, it is a really shaky vlog.

After doing the Omikuji, we roamed around and watched other tourists do other tourist-y things like light an incense or pray inside the temple, which I didn't try to do. It's not that I didn't want to but I was feeling shy, thinking that I might do something wrong.

We did that for most of the day and we roamed around until we got to Don Quijote, which is just around the area. If there's a Donki here in Manila, I would have gone there everytime. There were lots of random stuff in there, from food to cosmetics to small things that I don't even know if I really needed but just feel like buying.

I guess that's it for Senso-ji. Pretty boring but it's one of the places I enjoyed during my vacation in Japan.

UENO PARK, SHIBUYA CROSSING & HACHIKO STATUE

(30MAY2019)

On our third day, we were already super tired from all the walking of the previous days and I thought I might not be able to walk out of the hotel on that day but okay, I still managed to  pick myself up for yet another long day of walking.

Ueno park, in my imagination, would be a lot more beautiful in the spring time, because in the summer, it's just like any other park there is.

Since Ueno Park is big and there are a lot of things to do and museums to go to, we chose one museum we can spend our time in. We had a lot of choices, most of which are closed that day and we ended up going to National Museum of Nature and Science. I would have loved to explore all of the museums in Ueno Park just because Japan is great at preserving the old and the new and it's a great way to learn about tradition and history but our time wasn't enough, sadly.

We went to Ameyoko Market so early in the morning and most of the stores were still closed so we decided to stroll Ueno first and then came back by midday to eat street foods and roam around the famous market.

Candied fruits are like the thing in asian countries and I've tried the candied strawberry in Taiwan and was hoping to find one in Japan. I don't know if they actually have it, then I saw some strawberries from a distance and initially thought it was the candied one but it was just strawberry on a skewer. Even so, the strawberries were sweet and huge and just plain delicious. That was my most memorable experience in Ameyoko.

My worst food experience in Ameyoko was thinking that the shawarma would be perfect for my taste! Shawarma is my absolute favorite food to go whenever I'm at the mall and here I was thinking that the lettuce would be the same as the lettuce we have back home. Imagine my surprise when I first took a bite and discovered that the lettuce tasted like cabbages! I hate cabbage so I was devastated that my beloved shawarma would taste just like that. Oh well, I got a boyfie with a big stomach so yuhhh.

If you look closely at the photo below, that was my happy face before plunging into that first bite of cabbage nightmare. (My eyes even started to get puffy already just by that first bite)

We were mostly pretty tired in the evening but we need to at least see Shibuya Crossing in action so we took that route on the way to the hostel.

It was kind of underwhelming to see the famous crossing. It. was. just. a. crossing. Girl, what did I really expect? So we each took turns crossing the pedestrian lane and took one picture of each other and that's it. At least we had a photo of us crossing the street to commemorate the famous pedestrian crossing in Tokyo.

After that, we passed by Hachiko statue and took photos with the most famous and loyal dog, Hachi. ❤️

P.S. I had a hard time finishing my past blog posts so I gotta finish them all now before 2020 or else I might never get the chance to write it down ever again. So yeah, all the posts before this and following this one are all backlogs. I may do a round up next year.

DAY01: Disney Sea

DAY01: Disney Sea

Monday, November 25, 2019

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Tokyo Disney Sea

(28MAY2019)

It has been my life-long dream to visit Disneyland, and as some of you maybe know, I've already ticked this one off my bucket list so I'm off to new heights and adventures. Know what? I am bold and ambitious... and broke, but still have dreams that could take forever to become a reality but I still want to do a lot and one of them is to visit all the Disneylands around the world. That could take me forever and I could be a grandma off to the last Disneyland on the list, but hey, I got two downs already, and that is one step closer to the goal.

As a kid, going out of the country are just dreams that could never become a reality unless we become a millionaire family, but now, these stuff are already easy peasy even to middle class like us. Hello budget airlines! Now, I am today years old and a working millenial who wake up early 6 days a week so I could eat pricey but yummy food, or travel to my heart's content.

Enough chitchat. Earlier this 2019, I kind of booked a flight on a whim because I miss my boyfriend who's working in Japan. With not enough money yet and just out of bankruptcy from the previous Hong Kong christmas trip, I just winged whatever I have money left in my pocket and waited for the next months' paychecks to come and save me from the effects of compulsiveness.

It wasn't a tough choice between Disneyland and Disney Sea, the automatic answer would always be Disney Sea and I never regretted that choice up to this day. One, because it's unique to Tokyo and I don't know when I'll be coming back, but I'll definitely come back to tick off Tokyo Disneyland from the list. Two, they say it's more catered to adults, which is true because the colors were so dull and the only colorful place there was the Under the Sea castle of Little Mermaid. Three, I guess it's time to kind of wait out a little on meeting the princesses and discover the lesser known characters of Disney through Disney Sea.

This was the first on the list of our 5-day agenda.  We were staying in Chiba from the night of our arrival to the next day after our trip to Disney. Chiba was closest to the airport and Disney that's why I decided that Disney should be the first tourist-y thing that we should accomplish, and  to maximize the 3-day metropass that we can only use for the next days (lines in Chiba were not included in the lines that were included in the metropass).

The next day after our arrival and Revan's initial shopping at Mitsui Outlet, we went on our way to Disney Sea. Hello? I IZ EGZITED MAH MEN!

It was quite a welcome in Disney. The winds were fierce! So fierce that I can't wear my Minnie Mouse ears because if I do, the wind would snatch it away the moment I take off my hands after placing it on my hair. It was unexpectedly cold for a supposedly hot weather in Japan. Wait, is it supposed to be windy in Disney Sea because we were by the sea or are we just lucky to be there at it's windiest time? IDK, really.

On the entrance, we tried really hard to capture photos in front of the big globe and our hair were all a mess that we were lucky we even got a decent picture of us on that landmark.

The next magnificent thing that you could see after entering an archway leading to the actual park is the tall mountain of Mt. Prometheus standing in the middle of a lake. It wasn't a real mountain but I looked at it as if it was. I don't know Mt. Prometheus but in my mind I kind of thought it was the volcano that erupted in Pompeii. Turns out, it was called Mount Vesuvius and Mt. Prometheus only exists in the Mysterious Island of Disney Sea. Silly me.

Ok, so here goes. Disney Sea was a nautical nonsense trip. It was instagrammable even with its dull color theme, which is browns and all. All around, you'll see gigantic ships ranging from a galleon ship to a majestic one where only the rich people can afford to get into (that type of thing, I dunno how to call it. Cruise ship? IDK). I wasn't able to see any princesses singing around surprising everyone but I discovered that I haven't actually watch most of the featured themed ports at Disney Sea. Like, I never watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Sinbad and others that I can't remember, but I enjoyed discovering them nonetheless.

You know what's fun and unique about Disney Sea? There are seven themed ports inside the park which features different places around the globe. From lands above to down under the ocean's unknown and goes even deeper to the Earth itself!

They have Mediterranean Harbor, which features a Southern European port town; American Waterfront, which is more modern and sophisticated and features New England fishing village; Port Discovery, which is a futuristic marina that is supposedly located across the horizons of time; Lost River Delta, which houses the ruins of an ancient civilization somewhere in a remote jungle in Central America; Arabian Coast, which features the magic and mystery of Arabian Nights;  Mermaid Lagoon, where Ariel swims with her aquatic friends and lastly Mysterious Island, where secrets are unearthed deep within the Earth's core, I think.

I wasn't able to ride every single ride there was, especially the last ride that I wanted to go to but cannot because of bad weather. Journey to the Center of the Earth was the ride inside Mt. Prometheus and I am guessing the most extreme one but we weren't able to experience that and it's such a bummer so the next best thing was the Raging Spirits, which has a 360 loop, so I guess I'm still okay and a little less bitter about it all. We also weren't able to watch the parade that night because the winds have gotten stronger and the rain started pouring and we weren't equipped with the right clothing because we did not expect that sudden drop in the temperature when it was supposed to be summer already.

Hong Kong x Macau Christmas Crowd

Hong Kong x Macau Christmas Crowd

Saturday, July 27, 2019

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It was supposed to be a Thailand getaway for me and my family last Christmas 2018, but things happen and plans change, so we ended up booking our flights to Hong Kong from December 23-26. Most of it was because of me being a spoiled and whiny disney princess-wanna be who wants to see Tink, Belle, Jasmine, Rapunzel and Moana that's why we opted to go. The other reason was because it's supposed to be a vacation with the cousins and titos and titas, but you know, some plans never work out the way we want it to. It made me wish, though, that I opted for a quiet and peaceful place to spend Christmas in because Hong Kong and Macau are really crowded during the holiday season.

First, is it just us or HK is so damn freaking expensive? Guys, tell me because I've gone bankrupt because of this trip. I have no idea so I cannot give enough details about budgeting and all that stuff because this was not a budget travel for us. This is just a recount of what we did there. Nothing helpful here.

DAY 1

We arrived at our hotel later than we expected because of some MAJOR glitch on my brain and my phone, so if you are going to travel by train or by bus, make sure to search in real time and not save the routes because some routes could change and you might get on the wrong bus, just like what happened to us. For the trains, it would be best to have the train map on hand because it's a really big help.

Day 1 summary: WASTE.
It was wrong of me to schedule a flight that late anyhow, so our day 1 is a complete waste. Just dinner then slept.

DAY 2

HONG KONG DISNEYLAND
(Note: Tickets were pre-purchased at KlookFest so we got another discount atop the discounted prices of Klook)

I was really excited because this was my first Disney visit ever, but I guess the underwhelming feeling came from the fact that it was crowded and swarming with locals and tourists. I knew that the day would be wasted if we fall in line to all the rides so we just decided to tour the whole of Disneyland and just ride a few instead of queuing for 2 hours on a single ride and not have seen the whole park at all. 

My absolute favorite was the Grizzly Gulch in the Frontierland. The line is long but you'll get there in no time because there are a lot of carts coming in every 2-3 seconds (I think, lol. or it just felt that way) and the ride was so thrilling. Only my sister and I rode this one because my parents and Nini were scaredy-cats.

Next is the jungle thingy. It was a long line and the wait is not quite quick to go through but the 'journey' to the jungle river was soooo cool and the effects were so high-tech, it wowed us.

Lastly, just for some fun and because the line was not too long, we rode Dumbo, and my parents were so thrilled to be up high and down low. HAHAHA! KIDS!

I told you I came here for the princesses. I would've been so upset if I did not meet a single princess so I was so happy when I saw Moana. I ran like hell and didn't make the cut the first time. I did not give up, though because I returned in front of Moana's theatre and there she was.... walking. We followed her and we were the first in line to her meet and greet. *dundundunnnn* I met MOANA! 

I asked her for Maui's whereabouts and I know, Iknow, she's not his keeper and he's just flying around somewhere. I also asked her if she knows how to selfie and she's clueless! Well, the advancement of technology hasn't reached her island yet so she was very surprised to see her face on my cellphone's screen. Oh and by the way, when you see her, you should ask her to teach you wayfinding because my sister actually learned a thing or two because of Moana's help.

What else do I need to tell you? Oh, the hotdog is expensive. The chicken leg is expensive. The turkey leg is expensive. The water is expensive. Everything is expensive but the chicken leg was sooo yummy.
DAY 3

MACAU DAY TOUR
(Note: Tickets were pre-purchased from Klook)

This was our last day and we booked a tour from Klook. We were picked up from the hotel and we rode a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau.

It was my first time riding a ferry and I kind of slept through it because I did not get a window seat.

I forgot na the travel time from HK to Macau but it was a smooth ride, not because I was asleep, but it really was, from my experience. Going back, though, I got seasick because it's super maalon and I can't sleep but I did not vomit naman. *yay me*


We arrived at the Las Vegas of the East and I can really say that Macau is a fusion of the old tradition and it embraces its new one. Casinos everywhere but still managed to preserve its culture.

We roamed around St. Paul's Ruins, visited Macau Tower, old temples of Macau villages, A-ma temple, and of course, the Venetian Hotel Macau, which is just pretty same with the ones that I can visit here in the Philippines.

There' not much to do in Macau but we enjoyed it nonetheless, especially our funny experience where we were left by the ferry that will take us back to HK because of the traffic. Good thing they rescheduled us for the next trip and we got back to our hotel late because of that.