Matsumoto is a place where one of the most beautiful historical black castle is built.
Matsumoto is a city located somewhere in the middle of Nagano Prefecture. A place we had to visit since its Matsumoto Castle is included of our planned itinerary for this trip.
After a short public bus ride from Matsumoto Station, we arrived at the outermost of this amazing landmark. I have already caught sight of the black castle grandeur and started snapping pictures.
For all One Piece fans out there, it is unfortunate that the management of Tokyo One Piece Tower has made a decision to close it down since 31 July 2020, due to the impact of COVID-19 outbreak.
Besides being a beautiful landmark for photography, the Tokyo Tower is an indoor theme park for the popular Japanese manga series, One piece.
A quick introduction for non-otakus, One Piece Japanese manga series is about straw-hat Luffy whose goal is to be a pirate king. Having eaten the gomu-gomu devil fruit, he was granted a rubber body along with its elastic properties. Being a leader of Strawhat pirates, Luffy and his crew set sail to achieve their individual dream! The manga series is still ongoing with multiple arcs that kept me glued onto, week after week.
Karuizawa, a town located in the Nagano prefecture is worth spending a few days to explore, especially for the various recreational activities it offers. Since it was winter when I visited this town, I had compiled a list of top 6 things I did in my previous post.
How about checking out which hotel I stayed over the 2 nights while visiting Karuizawa? Hotel Karuizawa Elegance is already considered a better hotel as compared to the others much more cramped ones.
It was quite convenient as it took us about 10 mins to get to Hotel Karuizawa Elegance from Karuizawa station itself. There was nothing much along the way except for a couple of restaurants where we had a quick forgettable dinner in one since everywhere closes early in the midst of winter.
The hotel is made up of 2 different buildings and its furnishing was pretty much basic. Judging from web images, I supposed visiting during other seasons besides winter would do justice to its appeal. As for its room, it was spacious and pretty much mundane. Cozy enough for a good night’s rest.
Anyway, another bonus point would be that it is located pretty close to Kyu-Karuizawa Ginza Street. A great place to shop for souvenirs as well as for food. Just take note that shops do close early during winter!
Karuizawa is a town known for its mountainous region of Nagano prefecture. Locals and tourists alike travel over to Karuizawa for various recreational activities, from exploring waterfalls and nature trails to skiing at ski resorts during winter.
Besides that, there are also various beautiful churches, museum and shopping districts to satisfy a non-sporty / non-nature loving person like myself. It only took about 2 hours of train journey from Tokyo to this beautiful town! Check out what are the 6 top things I did during winter in Karuizawa, Japan.
Supplements are something that most people around my age (shhhh) might start looking up on since maintaining of well-being is of utmost importance. Who would want health problems to seek you out earlier in life if you had a choice? In fact, our usual diet/daily intake often do not tally to what our body requires.
For me, I shall skip the being skeptical part of supplements since I myself do need to take Vitamin C tablets due to inconsistency of eating sufficient fruits and vegetables on a daily basic. Checking out Nano Singapore Shop, an ecommerce platform that gained a worldwide reputation for affordable beauty and health supplements. With countless media mentions and of course being FDA approved, GMP certified (good manufacturing practice) and using 100% natural ingredients, led me to scroll through their supplement offerings.
Have you ever heard of this proclaimed statement about Disney(land) being the happiest place on Earth? Not exactly knowing where I have heard this from, I tried recalling how I felt stepping into Tokyo Disneyland almost 15 years back, compared to recently.
One of the amazing takeaways from this trip was to visit Kawagoe City, also known as “Ko-Edo” which lies in the Saitama Prefecture of Japan. This city very much managed to preserve the Edo-period ambiance and is not too far from Tokyo. Make sure to add this city into your itinerary for at least half a day to experience a part of Japan’s rich culture and history!
In fact I dreaded this trip’s flight to Japan as I had to transit at Vietnam for 6 hours before arriving at Narita Airport. Despite being cheaper this way, it was definitely a torture waiting for my flight. No more transit flights for me though.
Anyway, it was already nightfall when we arrived at Hotel Mystays Ueno Inaricho, which took us probably about 10 minutes walk from the nearest station – Ueno Station. One important thing I look out for while staying in any hotels would be a convenient store such as 7-11 within its vicinity. Thankfully there was one so that we could get our water and supper supply for the 2 nights.
AWADH, an Indian restaurant located in Orchard, The Centrepoint, is the only Indian restaurant in South East Asia serving authentic Lucknawi cuisine. Some might be curious about what’s so unique about Lucknawi cuisine which originated from the city of Lucknow itself.
We were introduced to a small segment of spices, out of the 120 that were used in Lucknawi cuisine before commencing the meal. Using age old secret recipes which are their family’s heirloom, the chefs of AWADH uses these aromatic herbs, spices, flavored ghee, and saffron for their dishes. It is definitely a dying art which the chefs uses to temper with the dishes as they had mastered the complex cooking techniques picked up from young.
The sighting of a fantasy bridge held up by a pair of hands started making rounds on the internet about 2 years back, catching the attention of many. I was one of the many whom was intrigued by such amazing structure and made a trip to Da Nang for that experience.
Known as the Golden Bridge (Cau Vang), it was located on Ba Na Hills, a hidden “playground” which offers much more than just a bridge. Ba Na Hills is basically a theme park & resort nestled on a mountain top. Who would have expected that?
