Just got back from Japan last night! Really enjoyed it thoroughly as I managed to meet so many of my close friends!
Met up with Jeannie - it's been like forever since we last met 3 months ago! Hohoho. Jeannie is a really good friend of mine. Like a big sister most of the times.. sometimes she'd be like, "I've seen u grow up since a young boy..." And that's true! I've known Jeannie ever since I was like 1 year into studying Jap or less... I've seen her from the time she was in NUS till she grad and now getting married too... ahhhh how time flies~
Met up with Seiko... twice! - At first, I traveled to Himeji for the Yukata Matsuri and stayed there for a night... then the following day she took a day off from school and accompanied me for a short while... The shocking part is that... on the 4th (one day before I flew back to Singapore), she came to Hakata at night just to have dinner with me and send me off the following morning... while I felt that it was a total waste of money... I was a little touched too :P
Ayuka Takasuga - Ayuka is a really good friend of mine too... while she was in Singapore, we did so many stuff together like watching movies, having dinners, strolling in Orchard and even going on a trip to Thailand in Sept 06!!!... she treats me as a little brother and perhaps looks out for me on a lot of stuff... although she's really naggy. We did have a little friction while I was in there... which really made me feel bad for the next few days... but I am glad it was solved and hopefully no scars were left behind.
Keiko Gonoi - Keiko! Keiko! Keiko! Akita Bijin (Beautiful lady from Akita). Keiko is Ayuka's friend and went on a trip to Thailand with us. We met for a couple of more times after the trip and after Ayuka went back to Japan, we (together with Setsu) met practically every week for a movie... those wonderful slack times were great... hahaha. Too bad this time I only met her for a mere 2-3hrs! Keiko happened to be away for a long trip to India while I was in Japan! And on the night before I flew off to Okinawa (27th June), she came back and rushed down to Ikebukuro to meet me! It was so nice of her and great to catch up with her again...
Setsu Hagihara - Setsu is great! She moved over to Tokyo just less than a month ago when I met her and was trying her best to settle in with the rude Tokyo dwellers! We had Sushi at Shibuya... and she was complaining about Tokyo all the time! Although I love Tokyo for its modern culture and great shops, I do agree with her.. Tokyo people are a little too cold and unfriendly... She's having some problems with a horrid old woman at her work... hope she has it settled by now... BTW, she is Keiko's friend, and after I got to know her, together with Keiko, we watched movies every week!
Aki Okazaki - I met Aki twice! First was at Shinjuku, where she treated me to Tempura, and next was when we met for a whole day event to Odaiba! Where she picked me up at Shinjuku and drove there with her sister Yuki. We ate an expensive buffet for lunch and dinner and went for Karaoke after that. Shopping was so-so. All expenses were paid by Aki and she even drove me back... :D
Eriko Tsuru and Kumiko Kumate - It's only been 3 months since I last met them at Osaka and this time, we met at Okinawa, together with Jeannie as well. We ENDURED the dirty BASE Okinawa together too... It wasn't too bad until Kumiko spotted some cockroach which sent the 3 girls rather jumpy for a while. We often met up with me for a lot of stuff in SG. We went to watch movies, have dinners and some Karaoke occasions...
Kaori - It's been 2 years since I met Kaori in Shibuya! I recalled going to some contemporary pub to have a meal and drink some alcohol and then taking some weird purikura together... hahaha. I was so shocked to find that she was married! But it was really good for her... she seemed to have found her perfect match. We met up at Ebisu this time where the clothes were good but the prices attached to them were skyrocketing. We had an Italian course lunch too... and she paid for it as well :O
Takanori Takeshima - I have known Takanori for only a very short while and we met only for a few times in Singapore... 5 to 6 times... nonetheless I was shocked to learn from Mariko that he was in Japan since March and was lucky to get to contact him. He treated me to some expensive restaurant near his workplace, Mizuho Securities at Tokyo Station, and it was really good!
Atsuko Onishi - I met up with Atsu at Shin-Osaka on the 22 June for a bried moment before heading to Himeji. It was nice of her to travel all the way to Shin-Osaka... which is really boring... but I had no choice as I was at Atami the day before and my Shinkansen could only reach there at 1pm and the next one was at 3pm...
It was a pity I couldn't get to meet up with a lot of other people... However, I am glad that this trip allowed me to catch up with everyone else.
My schedule extended to places namely
Tohoku; (where at Miyagi and Iwate had earthquakes and I was warned repeatedly not to go to)
where I went to Aomori-shi and Hirosaki on the 17th June (Hirosaki is another part of Aomori which had a really beautiful park and castle... we didn't really do much there but it was really countryside and I thought it was a really nice town. What really impacted me the most were the delicious scallops, which I had for lunch (some set meal) as well as for dinner in Ramen.);
to Akita-shi on the 18th (Wouldn't say Akita is boring but the city really doesn't have anything much... I could remember the Kaneko shophouse museum the best and the horrible Kirintanpo);
cycled the city of Morioka on the 19th (Recalls the kind yet frail old man at the bicycle shop who was apologizing to me for the war Japan waged on ASEAN countries in WWII but I told him most people forgotten about it anyways and he seemed really relieved);
roamed the streets of Sendai on the 20th (What's in Sendai... many shops yet nothing to interest me... but the beef tongue tasted great and the horrid Sendai Green hotel was so far away...);
and also visited Atami (not a part of Tohoku) for its small, narrow and yet beautiful streets on the 21st (Atami's beach was supposed to be really beautiful... too bad it was raining throughout... however the sushi man gave me a really great impression of the countryside);
and finally headed to Himeji for the Yukata Matsuri on the 22nd before heading back to Tokyo on the 23rd.
I was in Tokyo from 11th till 17th June and also from 23rd till 28th June, flying off to Okinawa early in the morning. BTW, Kenny and I learned our lesson the hard way... we went to club at Club Air in Shibuya, missed our trained and had to pay roughly 7k yen (about 100 SGD) on Taxi back...
I was in Okinawa from 28th till 1st July, but hanged out only at Kokusai-dori because the weather was killing and we didn't have too much spare cash to go too far. Anyways, we visited most places by Taxi (Financially killing!) and
On the 1st July, Jeannie and I set off to Kyushu! We landed in Hakata, Fukuoka and decided to stay there for a night before venturing to Kumamoto on the 2nd.
In Kumamoto, we went to Kumamoto city and found that the accommodation was too expensive but we were shocked that even in the neighbouring town of ASO, we were cheated! Aso no Fumoto! I'll never forget that cursed name. The old lady said that since her relatives were around, we could not use the other rooms and told us to make do with a single room when we were supposed to have a room to ourselves! Worse of all is that she did not lower the price! We felt so cheated of our money.. we actually planned to visit the Kusasenri, a grass plane which seemed really beautiful but decided to hasten our pace towards SAGA instead...
We went to SAGA on the 3rd of July and were relieved to find that our hotel where we were gonna stay for the night was 1) 5 mins from the train station! 2) BIG and COZY! 3) Had FREE INTERNET!! Saga is supposed to be really boring but Jeannie and I practically walked EVERYWHERE. We walked northwards to the castle and then headed southwards back to our hotel and West from there to YuMe Town... where I found a nice Kinokuniya and Jeannie got her sunglasses (AT LAST!)
On the 4th, we went back to Hakata really early... Checked into our beautiful Ryokan, went shopping at Tenjin, where I got a bag, and headed to Canal City for a brief while before meeting Seiko at Hakata Station at 8pm for dinner. We had Motsu Nabe but nobody touched the main ingredient... which is the insides of a cow... yucks.
On the 5th, Jeannie and Seiko sent me off... I guess Jeannie missed her train... she was at there till 1050 when her train sets off at 1100... I was really happy that she waited so long... but it's all due to the stupid attendant who refused to close one eye on my heavy luggage. We took a farewell shot and that probably ended my best memories of Japan.
