Tokyo, Japan

Japan is a wonderful choice for many newly-weds to go for honeymoons. One, no visa is needed, it'll save some money out of budget. Second, Japan is famous for its culture, good manners and cleaness, so no need to worry about the being robbed on the street, it is totally safe to travel there. Third, I got married in the wintertime and Japan has many hot spring spots to steam up the erotic passion. HA~~~

What attracted me more was Hokkaido, the far north in Japan. The sightseeing tours in Hokkaido are all scheduled for hot springs, seafood buffet, hot springs, seafood buffet and more hotspings.

But, then, my hubby's friend back in the army was going to Japan for the honeymoon, too. We, then, decided to join them in the same trip to Tokyo. Everything was new and fresh!!We arrived there around 4 pm in the afternoon, and since Japan's daytime is much shorter. It was already dark everywhere, though the day was still very young.

The weather was cold. It was only 33.8 Fahrenheit, Much colder than Taiwan and was dryer.The first night schedule was loose! We went to a shopping mall for dinner and was mislead by our tourguide to get lost in the bus tracks. Our tourguide was nice, but wasn't sharp enough sometimes. We were supposed to take the hotel trolley back to hotel that we stayed, but we got on the wrong hotel trolley and stopped at a train station. Night life in Japan is poor.

In Taiwan, many stores open up until 12 am.

In Japan, stores simply close around 9-10, some close earlier! We were forced to stick around the station for the next connecting hotel trolley back to our hotel!

The first morning from hotel's window.

We watched the news in bed to know there was snow in Tokyo and opened the window to find the surprise.

It was my first encounter with snow.
Too excited to care about how bloated I was.

The first morning's plan was heading toward the mountain areas around Tokyo.

Here, we stopped at a tourist service center.Vending machine isn't a new invention.

But to see so many together in a shop was definately an eye-opening scene.Many different flavors of coffee and brands of tea. Hot ones. Cold ones.

Even the food machine which you could get the steaming food from it.

The particular square setting was the front door of the temples. When seeing this, you could expect a temple somewhere near it

During out trip in Tokyo, we visted several famous temples. They were all so sacred and devine.

Beatiful architecture.

There were fountain places like this one near every temple. For worshipers to clean their hands with the spring water and to rinse their mouths too. Don't understand why rinsing the mouth before going into the temple. Anyway, people don't swallow the water but instead to spit it.

These two scary statues were two Gods.

One was supposed to the Thunder God. While the other was the Wind God. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to tell apart which one was which?

This was taken on our way to our second night hotel.

The Fuji Mountain.

It was so SO beautiful.

The tourguide said, we were lucky to see it without clouds around. Most of the time, people would miss it due to the bad weather. Even with the good weather could disturb the view.

Before we went for the hot springs. We tried on the traditional custume, which is called, YUKADA.

It is like the bathrobe.

When we were about to leave our second morning, it happned to be snowing outside.

The snow wasn't big enough to be spotted.

Another temple visit!!

This one was bigger and more sacred than others.

In Japan, they have the regular temples for ordinary people and ones for kings only.

This one was for kings.

We ran into someone who served in the temple. I guess, he was going to hold a ceremony or something, but was asked by many tourists for photos.

Tokyo Tower. We had our lunch in the basement of it.

I like this temple better because it was like our temples in Taiwan. Around it, there were vendors and shops for snacks and souvenirs.

This Japanese sushi chef was cute and shy.

The raw sushi was so delicious!

Expensive too. We didn't have enough time to dulge our appetite.

Disneyland, the forth day of the trip.

We stayed over 12 hours in this wonderland.

We got up early to line up for the entry and found out that lots of others got up much earlier than us did.

I forgot how long did we line up for the entry.

Time went by while we were chatting, feeling excited about the facilities inside.

The weather was still cold then.

Seeing many Japanese families there to get ready for fun. For all tourists, we used the one-day visit pass. But, according to our tourguide, some Japanese love Disneyland so much that they bought the year pass to be there anytime they want.

And I did see some of them using the card pass, not the paper pass.

Exotic castle! Somewhat European. Don't you think?

For the first 8 hours, I was smiling non-stop like a kid. WOW~~~ at this and that. Tried on every kids favorite facilities.

Such as this one. The Turning Cups.

The Western Area.

We did stay there for over 12 hours.

Unfornately, I didn't make it to the Cartoon Town to take a picture with Mickey or Minnie or Donald Duck.....Alas!!!

Humungous Smoked Turkey legs~~~~

It smelled so good~~~

My hubby couldn't resist it and so we bought two.

But~!!!

It wasn't juicy. Dry and not juicy.

So... I took a few bites and left it all to my husband.

The big show in Disneyland is, there will be a parade almost everyday at 2 pm.

The time we took this picture wasn't even 2pm.

It was maybe 1:30 or something.

However, lots of Japanese had put out their picnic pads on the floor and occupied on the sides of the parade route.

We were so impressed how organized they were and couldn't help take this piciture.

Of course, people gathered up quickly in a short time, when we finally decided to find a spot, there weren't good ones to take.

I am sure, poeple who work in Disneyland always work in delight.

The parade lasted for about 30 minutes.

All the characters in the parade sang along the way to the end.

We, audience just cried out WOW~~~~

HA HA HA .......WOW....HA HA HA

That's Micky. Minnie

Peter Pan~~~~

Snow White.

It was great to see this famous character.

But....I think, this Snow White was a bit too old.

I was happy still though

Disneyland is sure a wonderland.

Lots of little girls dressed up like princesses.

It was too bad, they didn't sell princess custume for adults.

The last morning before we departured.

We went to MINATO station.

Here we took a monorail.

This monorail in Japan was so special.

It was like cable car, only the monorail in Japan used a magnet track to hold the roof of the car.

So, basically, the car slided under a sky bridge with its bottom floating.

Time to say goodbye. We were at NARITA airport.

Overall impression over Japan was good.

The only flaw was, it was difficult to find a bilingual tourist guides.

Everything was in Japanese.

They should put up more bilingual signs to help the tourist.

Chinese is definately a better option.

But at least more English signs to help out.

I like Japan.

I think, I will visit it soon again with my husband.