🇯🇵 Deers and Sakuras! 🌸🐐

Dear Dayre,

Carrying on from last night okay cos it passed midnight before I finished updating #yinagoestojapan !!!

I gotta say that after years of takoyaki in Singapore, I have realised today that I have been living a LIE 😱 Takoyaki is supposed to be gooey and soft and almost mochi mochi???

Look at the guy making these tako balls that is some incrediballs speed!!!

Last thing we devoured for the day 😋

NEVER having takoyaki in Singapore again.

First night in Japan and I've already bought this much nonsense from the drugstores and all!

Got Guerlain travel mereorites too from in-flight shop hehehe.

Other stuff in picture:
Lululun masks that are supposed to be good and cheap. Shiseido lip balm that can only be found in Japan. KATE cosmetics contour powder only $7 I think! A brow mascara for my fierce brows and some washi tape! ✨👍

We had a pretty good night's rest at our ryokan (well I did cos I slept the earliest at 2am, the other girls were doing some work) and woke up bright and early at 6.30am!!!

There was supposed to be breakfast for us and because we slept so late, I predicted that we would skip breakfast but surprisingly enough @evonnz woke up in time hahaa and we decided to check out what's for breakfast!

And it was a good thing we did, because…

OMFG traditional ryokan breakfast all laid out for us!!! 😱 Full marks for our ryokan (Yamatoya Honten at Osaka) after I saw this breakfast spread. Maybe it's common, I don't know, but I was super duper impressed!

So much food I can't even.

Hehehe @trishaliang and @evonnz and I weren't that hungry but enjoyed the food so much!

First time having a traditional styled Japanese breakfast! ✨

So after breakfast, we packed up our luggages and huffed and puffed our way to take a train to Nara!

Our luggages definitely feel heavier today 😭

At Nara, there are public lockers where you can deposit your stuff so you don't have to be inconvenienced by the cumbersome luggages. Yay for that!

And we arrived at Nara! That is basically famous for its deer park where you can interact with and feed/run away from the deers.

Which look all doe-eyed and cute but are actually super aggressive and greedy! Once you have food in your hand, they'll nudge you, head butt you and even nip at you to try to get food from you!

Not so cute after all…..

Before the angry mob of deer attacked me. Lol

Mobbed by the deer mafia.

Helpppp they starting pushing at me with their heads and taking bites out of my scarf/coat/everywhere!!!

Photobombed by a silly deer in this really nice shot that @ronineel took for us! Tsk all these inconsiderate deers.

Soooo happy we had our first up-close encounter with sakura blossoms!!!

I kept on spamming sakura blossom videos on snapchat hahaha sorry but they. Are. So. Pretty. 🌸🌸🌸😍

🌸🌸🌸

SO PINK AND FLUFFY! ❤️

@ronineel also took this gorgeous shot of my japanese schoolgirl looking back view against a row of fluffy pink sakura trees!

I was really very excited to see the cherry blossom trees cos it's my first time seeing them in full bloom!

The last time I saw cherry blossoms in Korea, the season was just starting and we only saw a few scarce looking trees in bloom.

So we spent the afternoon roaming around the country side and taking photos and all that!!

It was such a nice walk and the weather was perfect. Sunny but still rather cooling! I wish the weather would stay like this for the rest of our trip!

All was great until it was time to travel to Kyoto from Nara.. With our super heavy luggages 💦💦💦

Had to traverse so much distance, up and down trains and through many streets to get to our accommodation in Kyoto, Ikumatsu! It's a serious workout man. Heng I have quite a fair bit of experience during my Europe travels so this was very manageable. But still, my arms and calves are all aching from the exercise!

Omggggg the ryokan is so beautiful! (We arrived late in the evening and it was already dark so I'll take more photos to show you tomorrow)

At the Kiyomizu Dera temple in Kyoto, which is such a grand sight!

My stupid camera battery DIED so this photo is from @ronineel who took some extremely gorgeous photos!!! Ron did long exposure shots which made the night scenery look crazy nice. 👍👍👍 I need to learn!

Ok I took this with @trishaliang's NX mini which performed surprisingly well even in the extreme low light conditions!

There was a lake with a mirror reflection of the cherry blossom trees and the temple, and the fallen cherry blossom petals were just floating about the lake so serenely.

Mad nice ya!!!! Photo credit to @evonnz!

There was a booth doing lots divining at the temple, so of course I went for a go..

I got the best lot!!!!!

But.

I don't know what it means cos I can't read Japanese. Anyone can help me translate pleaseeeee?

Very schleepy and tired now so if you are really interested I have more snippets of the day and our super late 10pm dinner on snapchat (@yinagoh) heh! Now we are back on our comfy ryokan and I'm about to crash 😴😴😴

Night night liaooooo!