Japan Trip Diary 3 (Day 7 - 9)

Day 7: 15 April 2006

Finally a beautiful day of sun in Japan! Jac and me headed out to Shinjuku to meet up with Sherli (also from Bus C - if you remember John & Sherli). Anyway Sherli was in Tokyo for the weekend and we decided to meet up to do our travels. We headed out to Hakone and it was really gorgeous. Want to know the best part of Hakone visit? Abba is so good. It was supposed to be a really cloudy day but the skies were clear and we saw Mt. Fuji!!!!! Wah... I tell you... it is SOOOOO AWEEESOMMMMEEEE leh! Really beautiful. We took the boat ride across Lake Ashi, took the cable car and ropeway and also tried BLACK eggs at the fumerole area. Really happy!!! Saw everything I wanted today.

We headed back to Shinjuku happily and had unagi for dinner there (recommended by Sherli). It was really cheap and good. Enjoyed myself tremendously today. Am really glad Sherli joined us today. It's like the Lord sent her to remind me that I have His favor and He is with me throughout this trip.

Day 8: 16 April 2006

We were supposed to go to the Fuji 5 lakes today but because we had seen Mt Fuji and been to Lake Ashi already... didn't want to go back. So we decided to head up north instead to Sendai with our Japan Rail Pass. From Sendai, we took a local train to Matsushima - apparently one of the 3 most beautiful sights in Japan. We went with low expectations after our Most Beautiful Street in Kyoto experience. Thank God we did. Matsushima is a small little fishing town with a few islands. ok lor... the sights were... ok lor... nice red japanese bridges for you to cross over lor... The nature park at one of the island not really that great lor... BUT! Matsushima has 1 VERY IMPORTANT redeeming thing... SEAFOOD! Wah liao... grilled seafood everywhere you go leh... The kaki fried (fried oysters) also really really good lor... And the goban ice-cream (sesame ice-cream).... unforgetable leh... I had sakura ice-cream... quite nice lah.

By the way - the Sendai / Matsushima speciality is BEEF TONGUE. It was too exotic for us... so we didn't try.

Overall, a nice slower paced day out for us which we enjoyed.

Day 9: 17 April 2006

Today is definitely a day we had been looking forward to! It is... ONSEN DAY!!! Yahooooooo!!!! I had done so much research on the onsen and finally am going... We took the shinkansen to Ito and found that the Ito tourism office not very friendly leh... and SECOND - the local train from Ito to Ito-Atagawa (onsen location) which is only a few stops away is EXORBITANT. Actually that entire area's transport cost is SUPER high. We had lunch in Ito (REALLY ENJOYING JAPANESE FOOD HERE MAN) and then headed to Ito-Atagawa.

The onsen has free shuttle transfer from the station to the onsen and we all fell in LOVE with the onsen. It was simply... G O R G E O U S. The room was incredible. The rotemburo were incredible. The service was incredible even though they don't speak English and everyone relied on my broken Japanese. It was my very first onsen experience but whatever hesitations I had melted away in the beautiful hot spring tubs. A definite MUST TRY and HIGHLY HIGHLY recommended. And the food.... sigh... heavenly............. I don't think even my pictures can do the place justice man. In any case, we soaked day and night and morning... until checkout! haha...

Dinner was quite stressful for me 'cos the ryokan lady insisted in speaking to me in Japanese... and kept having conversations with me... I felt like I was in my Japanese conversation class all over again... I think she was immensely amused by me leh... But nevermind lah... she is really nice.. .teaching us all how to eat our food (which sauce to dip where etc) and how to wear our yutaka (cos me and Jac wear wrongly). After dinner, we soaked once more under the stars and then tucked ourselves into our bed with Jac watching SMAP hour and me listening to the sound of the waves...