WELCOME
A place where I note down littles of my life to share with my dear friends. 
I am back from Japan. 12 Days Japan trip ended beautifully. I love Japan! Particularly Kyoto and Osaka.
Tokyo is really a super fast paced city, one that is too stressful for me to take. Tokyo working adults have hardly anytime to spare. Brisk walking to them is slow, they run. They waste no time on breakfast. Some cycle past you, with a cup of coffee on one hand. You wouldn't be able to catch anyone just dazing with nothing to do. They are always pre-occupied. In trains, you see them either catching their sleep, reading storybooks or pressing their handphones. They do not talk in trains..just pure silence. At 10pm, you can still see many people in suits leaving companies and catching trains home. If you are observant, you will find majority of the tables in restaurants single seat or double seats, with few that are catered for groups. You see a lot of lonely tokyo people, particularly working adults entering restaurants, sitting quietly at the single or double seats table, smoking and eating. Very few elderly are spotted in tokyo. Perhaps its to fast for them to keep up tolerate. This is the sadness of the tokyo city.
But I admire their culture. One that Singaporeans should learn from. The first day I landed, I notice that they line up to get onto trains. When the doors open, they wait patiently for the people to get out before entering. They have priority seats for elderly and pregnants, which others will not selfishly sit. They are always polite to others, welcoming you into shops and will not follow you around for fear of you stealing. Furthermore, they will not give a angry face if you do not buy from them even after trying their samples. They do not anyhow litter, given the fact that there are very few dustbins around. The trains are so clean despite allowing people to eat and drink on board.
So if you love sceneries and want to walk among more traditonal buildings and streets, you must go to kyoto. Or you want to look at contemporary buildings but find tokyo too breathless, go Osaka. These are more lively places, where people are more friendly. Shrines in kyoto is simply beautiful, especially together with the autumn sceneries.
I took a lot of pictures. Will load some here with more detailed descriptions, while the rest of the photos will upload elsewhere.
DAY 1: Arrival in tokyo narita airport at about 2pm Japan time. 
We took an hour plus train to Ikebukuro, pull our luggage among the crowd ( the crowd was so over-whelming, with people coming from all sorts of directions) to house ikebukuro and off we went for dinner. Dinner was ramen. It was too salty for us to adapt.
We then continue down to tokyo tower for night sceneries. The tower itself is sparkling. 
The sceneries from above is also awesome. You can spot the ferris wheel and the bridge.
DAY 2: Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Shibuya, Sunshine city for gyoza and ice-cream.
We were fortunately enough to choose a Saturday to go Meiji shrine, coz we bumped into a few traditional japanese weddings in action. They were very formal weddings. 
We spotted a lot of children in kimono coming to shrines with their whole families, celebrating their 3, 5 and 7 years old occasions. So kawaii...
Just outide the Meiji shrine tori gate, is the place where teens gather for cosplay. I managed to get one to take a photo with me.
The next place we went was shibuya. Not of interest to me as its just a place with tall buildings, a lot of sign boards and people. This photo showed the scramble crossing, where at the junction, people can cross diagonally also. 
Dinner was gyoza at the gyoza museum at Sunshine city. We tried 5 stores of gyoza, all with their own unique flavour. 
DAY 3 : Hakone
We woke up early for Hakone. Along the way in trains, beautiful scenery with blue sky and green fields caught my eye.
We took the hakone tozan ropeway to Owakudani. The steam and sulphur were spotted coming out from the crater area.
The lake ashi against the sunset was equally beautiful. 
We took the hakone sightseeing boat on lake ashi. A distinct red tori gate near the shore was seen. 
Since we were at the hot spring area, we went to a hot spring at night. I was initially uneasy about it..but after seeing the others just took off their clothes in front of the locker, I follow suit. The onsen was HOT...but it was an open air onsen. So cool...
DAY 4 : Disneyland
This was a fairytale day! We spent the whole day at disneyland. The japanese are really very ON...they clap and follow the movements at the parade shows and a lot of them wore disney character hats. This year is the 25th birthday of tokyo disneyland.
The parade show. 
The castle at night.
DAY 5: Tokyo to Kyoto on Shinkansen, Fushimi Inari Shrine
This day, we took the famous bullet train to kyoto for our 4 nights stay there. The train is superb. Its so comfortable, with enough leg space even to put your luggage in front. There is toilet on the train and staff pushing cart selling food and drinks. I highly recommend trying this if you go japan. The view along the way is nice. We did not get to see Mount Fuji on our trip to hakone, but managed to caught it twice on our way to kyoto and back to tokyo on the bullet train. 
After putting our luggage in the ryokan, we made our way to the fushimi inari shrine. Its famous for its thousands of orange tori gates stretching up into the forest, with history of a thousand years.
We started climbing the steps through the tori gates at 3pm..and we thought we finish the climb everytime we found a small shrine along the way. But we ended up climbing for 2hours. Imagine the thousands of tori gates contibuted by individuals and companies, with the date and names inscribed on each gate, in the 2 hours climb..amazing!!
The view on the way down the forest.
We were so tired after the climb and had a big dinner before going back to our ryokan. The ryokan provide free try on for yukata..hee. I look a bit stiff here.
Too many things to say...its only 5th day now..I shall continue next time.
To be continued..............