Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Tokyo Trip - Kinugawa Onsen - Part 1

OK, OK, I know many of you have been asking me why no updates. There are quite a few reasons. Number 1, I've been really busy with work. Number 2, I've been travelling. Number 3, a lot of events and things have taken place, and happened. At this point of blogging, I'm in one of the worst of moods, very stressed and extremely tired. In short, BURNT OUT.

But since I'm waiting for my Nissin cup noodles to "cook", I'll put up some pics of one of my trips in February (during the CNY period). Yep, I know. it's now May. But anyway, now I'm blogging again...

Another biz trip to Tokyo with all the good food, great sights, and catching up with old friends again. This time, we travelled went to Kinugawa, 2 hours north of Tokyo. Kinugawa or 鬼怒川 literally means Angry Demon River, was actually a very popular place for hotsprings/onsen. But apparently in the 1990s, the economic recession forced the entire town to go bust.

Me in the A380 - upper deck

My seat had side cabinets to keep my barang

Happy Vincent's 1st time in the A380

And yes, after supper, 1 movie and it's time to catch up on the much needed sleep! Good night!


Anyway, after flying 6.5hours on the A380, we arrived in a very cold Narita airport on Wednesday morning. It was only abt 5 deg cel I think. We took the airport limousine to to Tokyo City Air Terminal in Hakozaki. Bus ride was abt 1 hour. From there, Charlie picked us up, and we headed to the office to drop off our bags, and then have breakfast.

Skyline of Tokyo @ 8am

We walked onto this bridge...

... and realised it was so nice. There were ducks swimming in it too!

I was quite tempted to walk in and ask how many million yen it would costs for a SL63AMG. Pity they weren't open yet...

Such pretty flowers outside the car showroom

See, pretty right?

Car's fall sick in Tokyo?


Breakfast was at Denny's Restaurant (yes, I know. An American restaurant in Tokyo, but we were just hungry and Denny's was easy. Mich took us there). And after a nice hot bowl of Ramen (and yes, they served Ramen in Denny's, but not nice!) we headed back to the office to work.

Time passed really fast over there. Stanley arrived later in the morning, and made his way to the office too. We were all happily chatting when he declared he was hungry, then we realised it was lunch time! But none of the rest of us were really hungry yet because we had our Ramen not too long ago, hahaha. So Stanley waited another hour or so before we all head out for Tonkatsu.

よしの (Yoshino) The place where we had our とんかつ(pork cutlet rice)

Still in preparation apparently, but they were ready to serve us.

A quaint little place...

The menu...

My pork cutlet rice. おいしいね。。。

Mich was paying for our lunch

Walking along the back alley to the office

Tiny shop in the corner of an alley...

The apartments are soooo tiny. You'd be lucky is it's any more than 30sqm each!

Wanna guess what these are? Nope not letter boxes... They're locker boxes for office keys. So that there's no need to make so many keys for each staff


Later that afternoon, Kevin arrived. Then followed by Wannong & Haiyan. At about 4pm, we packed up and made our way to Kinugawa. The 2 hour bus ride!

Ever seen me in speckys? Nope, I've perfect eye-sight. These fake speckys belong to Mich. Good for hiding my eye bags!

Haiyan was tickled pink to see me in speckys

Peach flavoured beer. Tasted quite good!

So strange to see the guys sitting like that in a row. Hehehe, I have funny thoughts!

Eiko & Yoko. 2 very sweet ladies who took very good care of me during the trip. I was quite sick that time. Flu, sore throat, cough etc etc... Like what a doctor might say, Full Package!

And irritating Charlie won't let ppl sleep in peace. He goes around taking pics of anyone who dozes off!


Finally, we stopped for a toilet break. Somewhere very very very cold!


This place has a supermarket and lots and lots and lots of vending machines!

That's Mich trying to buy something hot to keep himself awake


Are these ciggies expensive? I don't smoke, so I have no clue. But 320 yen is approx SGD 5.30 for a pack. Sounds cheap to me!


The Kinugawa Royal Hotel was actually pretty old. Looked quite forlorn in fact. But I have to say it was still considered very clean. Mich checked us all in, and there were a mixture of modern rooms with beds, and traditional ryokan rooms with tatami. I went for the ryokan rooms of course! Something different since I'm all the way in Japan...



Views of the exterior of the hotel



Views from my ryokan



Inside my ryokan

And every evening, there'll be a fresh set of sweets & hot green tea waiting for me in my room


We had very little time to freshen up before dinner, but I managed to take a quick shower, and then head downstairs for a very sumptious dinner. There were so much food to eat! Like one of those scenes you'd see from the TV program "Japan Hour"! Steamed crabs, grilled fish, seafood stew, a pot of rice cooking in the traditional "tetsugama" cast iron rice pot, sushi, sashimi (lots and lots of), and a lot of other little side dishes which were very interesting. I can't remember what they all were, but I think tofu, pickles, seaweed and such... Of course we had a lot of beer & sake. The rice was very very delicious. Very nice plump and fluffy grains, which were very fragrant too. I don't normally eat a lot of rice, but when I was there, I ate a lot! Which explains how fat I am now lah (-_-")

Look at all the food... There's more that can't fit on the tray!

The sashimi platter

Yours truly here with Eiko

Haiyan & me


That evening after dinner, I went to the onsen. It was in the hotel, and had both indoors and outdoors. And NO, it was NOT mixed bath. Males had their own onsen and females had our own. SEPERATED, in case some of u sickos are thinking otherwise. And it was really relaxing to just soak in the hot water. Relaxed all the muscles, took away the tension, strain and anxiety from all the pre-travel prep-work, the travelling time itself, and revitalised my tired and dehydrated skin quite a bit. I also found that I slept better that night. Did I mention that I was sick just days before I left for Japan? Caught a nasty throat infection, and didn't have time to see the doc. So when I was there, I was literally croaking and coughing away.

OK, I should pause here for now, and post somemore pics in part 2 of my Tokyo trip!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever been to main subway station in tokyo? I was there 30 years ago. going from okinawa to yokoska? to narita to pusan korea. I was stationed in okinawa with 3rd Mar. Div. very busy and packed like sardines. long ago memories. pk usa

Unknown said...

Nice trip! Wish to go Japan again but not now! Nice blog u have there!