Honeymoon in Japan, Part 2 (2018)
We started the new year taking a surprisingly short trip from Kyoto to Osaka. We were extremely surprised that it only took about an hour on Shinkansen. We literally had to shovel the content of our bentos into our mouth just so we can get ready to deboard the train. It was still delicious regardless. 🍱
Day 1 of 2018: Osaka 大阪市
I’m going to be honest here, Osaka weren’t our favorite. I think we were trying to pack too many experiences in two weeks time. I didn’t have enough time to research what Osaka is all about and we were only there to go to Universal Studios. We both enjoy amusement parks AND I really wanted to got to Harry Potter World. Our hotel room was too cramped for 2 tall humans but I would blame myself for not doing enough research. I vow to go back to Osaka with Juan and execute a proper do-over.
Oh, I also have to mention here. Travel Tip: Most places in Japan will most likely be closed on the 1st of January. It was quite unfortunate, but we managed and was still quite happy exploring a quiet city for the first day. We also enjoyed our time at Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. See pictures below. The weather was lovely as well so after the Aquarium, we walked around quite a bit before finding ourselves some food. Food was also hard to come by on the 1st of the year but we found this place that serves Okonomiyaki! It was good and we went back to the hotel early as we are headed to a full day of amusement park for day 2 in Osaka.
Day 2 of 2018: Universal Studios
We love Amusement Parks! I think I enjoy it more when I’m with Juan. We move at the same pace, we get hungry at the same time and generally have similar comfort level with roller coasters and things in that nature. Harry Potter World Osaka was amazing. I am a big fan of Harry Potter - I’m House Hufflepuff. 😉 I also really enjoyed the fact that we went during winter. There’s nothing better than experiencing Harry Potter World in a colder climate, we enjoyed our Butter Beers immensely. I am usually not a big fan of Amusement Parks’ food, but Japan came through again with better quality food anywhere we go. I’m sharing lots of pictures from Universal Studios here below. Please feel free to skip along if you aren’t the biggest fan of Amusement Parks. hah. Oh, we also found out that Juan has a hard time with combination of 3D screens + actual ride, he felt so dizzy after Hagrid’s ride we had to leave and he didn’t enjoy his Udon dinner as much. We are constantly learning about each other in these travel together, and I appreciate him being such a great sport about it all.
Back to Tokyo 東京,
We spent the rest of our honeymoon in Tokyo - and we were ready. The first day in Shinjuku was just a taste of how amazing Tokyo is and now we get to focus on some amazing experiences and food we have planned out.
There is so much that goes into the planning of our honeymoon, I forgot to mention that I created a google map that was split up by each day’s itinerary. We don’t usually do all of the things we put in the google map, but just in case we needed to fill in the gap between plans, we have a backlog of suggested places around the area we are exploring on that particular day. After creating Japan 2017-2018 google map, I also prepared a 3.5”x5” pocket notebook filled with daily itinerary and our travel information - Flight infos, Hotel names and confirmation numbers of any reservations. That way, if either of our phones die (which reminds me, Juan’s phone actually died in Osaka. It won’t turn on and we ended up with only my phone for the remainder of the trip!) Anyway, yes, the small pocket notebook contains all our plans. So, we could look at what we have for the day without having to be on our phones too much.
Travel Tip: It is easy to create google map(s) of your itinerary, and it even makes asking directions much much easier. It takes a bit more effort to write down daily travel details in a pocket notebook, but we loved it because it made our trip so much more enjoyable for us.
Anyway! back to Tokyo we go. A few photos snapped during our train ride back, we didn’t get bentos this time round - we took a very very early train from Osaka - and weren’t very hungry for food at 6am. ☺️ But we did get hungry enough to eat some ramen before going shopping and finally checking into our hotel. It was the largest room we managed to find in Tokyo area. So I’m posting a photo here. Hotel name is: Hotel Mystay Premier Hamamatsucho. We were really glad for this room after experiencing extremely cramped room in our Osaka Hotel.
Juan is a big fan of games might be understatement of all the years. So when I stumbled upon this Arcade called Anata No Warehouse Kawasaki during my research, I was excited to show it to Juan. This arcade is now closed permanently (I’m very sad about it). This arcade was based on Kowloon Walled City. If you don’t know the history of Kowloon Walled City, you can check it out here and here. Kowloon Walled City is historically fascinating - they were demolished in March of 1993 according to these sources though and I still can’t decide how I feel about it, I marvel at it but also understood why they were demolished. Well, the inside of this arcade was very much replicas of some areas in Kowloon Walled City. I wasn’t supposed to snap pictures, but glad I rebelled a little and snapped a few pictures. (shhh)
After Anata No Warehouse, we were pretty hungry and happened upon this large shopping mall. We found a place serving exclusively different types of Omurice and was ecstatic about it. I wanted some Omurice and it was decent for a random find. We also found a small arcade within the shopping mall and Juan got to experience VR Mario Kart! He was playing as Princess Peach while I snap tons of pictures of him. He absolutely loved that experience. Needless to say, it was a successful first day back in Tokyo.
We started Day 10 of our honeymoon heading over to Pokémon Center & Sunshine City.
Some of you may know that I used to work for Pokémon Company International. I wanted to check out the shop and buy some merch for my co-workers/friends. I was quite impressed with the size and how constantly busy Pokémon Center is. I guess it makes sense, but it is definitely still impressive. After PC, we went over to Sunshine City to check out J-World Tokyo. Juan and I both grew up watching a bit of Dragon-Ball Z. It was cool to find a museum dedicated to it. We had lots of fun taking pictures and generally being very silly.
Afterwards we made our way to Akihabara and the rest of the night was quite honestly a big blur of amazing toys in glass display. We were too tired to absorb Akihabara in it’s magical state, so we decided we should go look for proper food and walk around Takeshita Street in Harajuku/Shibuya.
We went to Baird Tap Room in Harajuku. I read that they are known for their micro brews and yakitori. Juan said he wasn’t super hungry, but I was hungry (always) and I ordered some yakitori items and coaxed him to try some. I tell this story often, but he ended up eating the majority of the items I ordered. I think ever since then, he never doubt my ability to find food he’d like in any new restaurants on our travels together. Another ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!
