Japan Short Notes #1

Greetings from Japan!

It's Day 5 here and I'm cool and relaxed sitting here in my cousin in law's place with nice cool breeze blowing in. The weather has been pretty good, averaging 25 degrees celcius daily and dropping to a nice cool 19 degrees celcius at night. Hubby's cousin T and family has been very kind to us, feeding us to lovely meals and preparing breakfast for us daily. We hate to be such a bother but they seems very happy to have company and though we do not mind taking the train alone to explore, our niece- K worries about us getting lost.

Our cousin has also been very kind to set up a Mac laptop and internet access in our room. He understands hubby's needs to get access to emails and well, our needs to be connected. =D

ok, I plan to do daily recap of each day in short notes.

Day 1 - 16/09/09

Depart Sg at 815am by ANA. Good trip, flight 50% full, lots of empty seats, saw people sleeping and occupying rows of sleep. we sat at the E exit for leg space. Hubby watched Terminator and Night of the Museum 2. I read half of Tess Gerritsen's Body Double, slept for 2 hrs. Had a horrible experience prior to leaving home for airport. I threw up my previous night dinner of herbal steamboat eaten at D&L place. No idea why, threw up like a merlion, I was terrified of falling sick man. Worried that I won't be OK. After 8 times of heaving, I prayed and it finally stopped. I took Stemetil and ate half a muffin and drank some water at the airport.

ANA provided only 1 meal (so stingy.. hubby says maybe cos our tickets was cheap?). Some fettucine pasta and salad. Good meal actually, just couldn't eat much at it was early. Around 9.30am. Gave most of my share to hubby.

I started to get really hungry at 3pm (Japan time). There was only rice cracker and green tea or juices. Then they served Haagen Daz Strawberry ice cream and I decided to heck it and ate it. But of course hald goes to hubby too.. =)

Arrived at Narita airport at 4.30pm, custom check was a little strict, guy asked hubby lots of question about place of accomodation but i got through pretty quick. Lady at luggage custom clearance asked more questions.

A little joke. lady at luggage clearance asked where are we going now. Hubby misunderstood and told her we are going Yokohama, followed by Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and etc. The lady looks a little stunned and overloaded with all the info and I started laughing. Then she started laughing and we got through.

Took an hour of bus limosine from airport and sky started to get dark at 6pm. Niece K with son Rion came to pick us at YCAT and we met with cousin at this great soba restaurant. Regardless of the amout of soba (small, medium or Mt Fuji) the prices are the same. We had the medium servings and we finished only half. The amount was huge! There was also ebi and veg tempura at the side. All for 1000¥ (S$15)!

Another little joke.

At Changi airport, our luggage was overweight. 56kg. Lady was a little lost for words.... she stared at the screen, luggage and us and finally asked...

"Mr T, are you going to Japan for business?" he said no.

"But, you go Japan so heavy, come back how?"

I think was genuinely concerned.

I told her " They are all gifts" * smiles*

She seems reassured, yay, no extra charges!

I've got a feeling our return luggage will be worse....