Dear Dayre,
Breaking news.. I'M ALIVEEEEEEEE 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Sorry I went missing in action since Japan! It's been busy busy busy. I know I promised to update on my Japan trip so here I am!!!
#yinagoestojapan
So thankful to fly SQ, it's legit the best for long flights! My flight departed at 1.30AM and I arrived at Osaka early in the morning, no time wasted. Took my flight alone because I'd booked YZ another flight so he'd be joining me later – SQ was already full ☹️️
My client was JTB – So the first three days of my trip was planned already! Which I was super excited about!!
Day 1 – Abeno Harukas
Day 2 – Universal Studios Japan
Day 3 – Osaka Castle & Living Museum of Osaka
Day 4-7 – Free & Easy!
Arrived at Kansai Airport and the client from JTB as well as a translator was waiting for me at the airport.
My accommodation for the first three days was at Hotel Universal Port, right next to USJ!
So we took the shuttle bus right from the airport to USJ, a direct 50 mins ride.
The bus comes at hourly intervals and there's a timetable at the bus stop!
Quite affordable by Japanese standards I guess. Airport transport is always pricey!
On the way to USJ, my translator Keita handed me this map of Osaka!
Did you know that every color of the train line stands for something??
Pink – Color of the priests. Used as there are Temples or other religious areas around the line!
Green – Color of nature and parks
Red and Blue – Most important lines with colors representing our veins
Aqua – Near the water
Can't remember what the other colours stand for but I thought this was rather cool!
Our first stop after I deposited my luggage at the hotel: Abeno Harukas!
The largest departmental store in all of Japan and also the tallest building in Japan!
It's 300m tall. #justsaying
So so so hungry and looking forward to my first meal in Japan 😻 Pork katsu egg don!
I LOVE Japanese departmental stores.
From the basement up, it's usually fresh produce, cooked food, sweets and bakes, and as you go up you get to the skincare and cosmetics, electronics, apparel, home and decor, and more!
Japanese fruits are my ❤️❤️❤️😍
Japanese sweets that are always so nicely packaged and presented!
Special Halloween limited edition flavour, pumpkin flavoured creme brulee!
Japanese are so ingenious.
This is a wafer biscuit containing soup ingredients inside! All you need to do is to pop it into hot water and you'll get instant soup, in various flavours.
Bento sets look so nice already 😻
Cordless hair straightener! Cool stuff but it's so expensive and also you need to charge for a few hours for a few mins of usage 😨
Chopstick rest in the shape of an origami crane. So pretty!
Also visited the stationery section and I was browsing the washi tapes! 😻 Not as crazy over these as Evonne or Trish but I do like to buy the ones I really like.
I bought a calligraphy brush for my watercolor painting 😆
On the 60th floor of Abeno Harukas is the Harukas 300 observatory deck!
It's even taller than the Umeda Sky Building and the view from the observatory is really stunning.
Harukas300 has its own Abeno bear mascot. He's super cute! On a clear day, he's got clouds on his fur and on a rainy day, he has rain drops instead 💧💧💧
It was a cloudy day but even then, we could see really far and even spot famous landmarks like Dotonbori (could see that Don Quijote wheel!) and see Kobe city far off along the coast.
Helipad view!
Pineapple candy flavoured soft serve!
This is the toilet at Abeno Harukas's observatory deck. Wtf chioest view award goes to this washroom.
Mad nice leh!
And the view at dusk was incredible! 😻
We had dinner at Abeno Harukas too, there are tons of restaurants and I opted for Shabu-shabu.
Shiok 😋
Returned to Hotel Universal Port after dinner. The hotel is super duper cute with minions all around it!
This is the hotel lift. Can cuter or not seriously 💕
Wahahaha really too cute!
I've never seen prettier looking amenities in my life. Love the way everything is individually packed and the amenities provided were so good! From hair ties to bubble bath and even those plasters for sore muscles perfect after a long day of walking 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
And of course I had to run a bath! Typical Japanese toilet will have a small bath tub because the bath (onsen) culture is so strong.
Love bidet toilet sprays and warm toilet seats really. It makes going to the toilet feel so good?! 😂
On day 2, I woke up bright and early for USJ!
If you remember, I visited last year as well and this time round it wasn't any less enjoyable than it was, and even more so because I got to experience the new Halloween attractions!
Spot the minion flag 🤓
My favourite place of all in USJ is still the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.. 😍 I'm a true blue Potter Head!
The Harry Potter ride is the best legit. It's a 4D Ride and is utterly realistic!
I never knew that you could actually perform magic inside hogsmeade with one of these wands….
IT'S LIKE REAL MAGIC!!!
Head to one of these designated spots as seen on the Marauder's Map.. then recite the incantation and wave your wand!
Witch in the making…
INCENDIO!!! 🔥🔥🔥
Fire came out of the chimney! 😱
And butterbeer… 😍🍺
Awesome view from The Hog's Head!
We went on the Flying Dinosaur next and it might just be the scariest ride at USJ despite the kiddy sounding name! Lol. After which there was a "live" dinosaurs show and wow was I impressed with the realism of the dinosaurs!
Very enthusiastic actor/staff leading the Dino show. I love how the Japanese are so enthusiastic about everything!
Lunch 🍴
Reborn party!
The theme for Halloween at USJ this year is "Reborn" and "over-the-top extravaganza" which means wild wild celebrations and Halloween madness!
Love all the park visitors dressed up in various costumes!
Only in Japan…. So many people were dressed up together in the same costumes/themes!
Even the parents dressed up their kids!
Special stuff for Halloween include a super up-sized turkey leg if you manage to "win" it by spinning this wheel!
Left: Super-sized!
Right: Regular turkey leg!
Anyway, YZ finally reached Japan and joined me at USJ!!!! 😘😘😘😘😘
We did the Jurassic Park ride which had one really steep drop, thank goodness for our ponchos that kept us dry 😂
And then it was time for the Reborn parade!
I love how high energy everyone was 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 All dancing and singing along!
Iphone 7 plus telephoto mode so legit!
Our matching minion shirts 🤓🤓
Minions show that was hilarious! I keep wondering how do they get the minions so "short"? How to fit a proper sized human inside that minion mascot costume? (It was around shoulder-height)
Halloween themed churritos that were actually really yummy 😝
You won't believe what happened… we went into a haunted house (The Exorcist) and it was honestly quite creepy!
The front part had mechanic dolls that would do scary shit like turn its head 180 deg around and all that.. and at the very last part, a "real" human ghost appeared and started chasing us!
YZ ran so fast that he knocked into me around the corner and hit me in the lip 😂😂😂 OMG… I started bleeding and had some swelling in my lip but luckily it wasn't serious and went down quite fast!
Couldn't have asked for better weather that day 😍 Just look at the sunset!
And then we went back to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at night and I was blown away by how ethereal and magical Hogwarts looked at night!
Even more amazing for all the Potter Heads! Because of Halloween, there was a special Deatheaters show and I was totally GEEKING OUT! The show started with a green firework shot into the air (The Dark Mark OMG) before an exciting duel between Death Eaters and the "village folks" aka the good wizards!
Seriously too much of a treat for Potter heads 😍😍😍 I LOVED IT!!! Feeling so lucky to be able to "live" in the books for that moment.. it was so thrilling!
Amazing day at USJ ended with dinner at Parkside Grill and I had grilled lobster! 😋
😊😊😊