Japan trip articles

Managed to get copies of these and scanned them~ ♡
Two of my articles on trips to Japan!

  Page 1 || Page 2 

Interview on Chubu in JNTO's Japan Travel Magazine for Girls.

The first one is a travel magazine for girls distributed in February 2013 at the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) booth at NATAS, Singapore's largest travel fair. The article is based on an interview on my solo trip to Chubu/Hokuriku (Central Japan) in July 2011. Plane ticket sponsored by Singapore Airlines, Alpine Route ticket sponsored by Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. You can check out the in-depth entries and photos at my Chubu/Hokuriku page~ ♡ After the trip, Chubu/Hokuriku became one of my favorite places in Japan, so much that I just had to squeeze in Fukui when I planned another solo trip to Kansai in 2012 (^^)

 

  Page 1 || Page 2
Yokohama trip report in Campus Magazine, Issue #20.

Campus magazine is a magazine targeting tertiary students in Singapore. The feature is my report on the Yokohama trip in September 2012, sponsored by the Yokohama Convention & Visitor's Bureau. The report is a photo-diary style summary of popular places to visit. You can check out in-depth entries at my Yokohama page~ ♬ Yokohama is a gorgeous port city, and the night view/bay view is amazing!

Souvenirs from Matsumoto ♥

Remember around 2 months ago I went to Chubu/Hokuriku? One of the places I visited was Matsumoto. After coming back The Straits Times asked for a short write-up, and it came out in the papers a couple of weeks ago.

They asked for a picture as well, all the pictures I had of myself from the trip were self-shots...because I was travelling alone^^ This is one of the less obvious ones I think, at least my arm isn't showing :P The castle in the picture is Matsumoto Castle.

Anyway, sometime late in September, I was notified that the Matsumoto Convention and Tourism Association wanted to pass me a souvenir at the coming Japan Travel & Food Fair. I was quite surprised, wondering why they'd do that, as I didn't recall meeting anyone in Matsumoto, but thought that was such a random and nice gesture.

With the representative from the Matsumoto Convention and Tourism Association, Mr Y.

I don't think I can convey how touched I was by their very kind and thoughtful gesture. I certainly didn't do anything to deserve it, but it was really nice of them to specially give me a souvenir!

With the lovely folks at the Shinshuu/Matsumoto booth at the Japan Travel & Food Fair.

A little FYI about the 3 posters in the background:

from left to right they're of Norikura Kougen, Matsumoto City and Kamikouchi.

Mwahahaha I've been to 2 of the 3, they're all beautiful places!

The beautiful souvenir, Matsumoto oshie (松本押絵)!

This lovely lady currently graces my bedroom wall.

Close-up, the details are gorgeous ♥

It's a traditional, handmade, semi-3D craft;

made using different pieces of cloth, which are stuffed, shaped and arranged.

The lady in the artwork is holding a temari, a local traditional craft of Matsumoto.

Temari on a manhole cover I saw while in Matsumoto.

A mini temari keychain I bought while in Matsumoto.

Mr Y found out I was a fan of One Piece and got these as well!

One Piece figures, Shinsekai version~

I was really very touched by this, along with the letter they wrote.

Thank you very much for your kindness Matsumoto ♥

There are 8 different types, each one comes with a character and a bonus part.

When you gather all 8 types, you can combine the bonus parts to make Franky.

The ones I got were Robin and Brook~

Robin and Brook along with the Luffy, Zoro and Franky figures I recently bought ♥

Excuse the photo quality, this came from my phone^^

Shinshuu Food ♥

Matsumoto is located within the Nagano prefecture, a prefecture formerly known as the Shinano region or Shinshuu. As such, even now Nagano is still referred to as Shinshuu, and it is a region famous for its soba and apples! ♥

In Matsumoto, this was my best meal~

Shinshuu soba! ♥

Another yummy afternoon snack, soba oyaki, a kind of dumpling made with soba (buckwheat).

There are a lot of products specially produced in apple flavors available to Shinshuu region only, like apple KitKat. There’s also apple Meiji chocolates, apple tarts, apple cookies and apple wine~ ♥

Matsumoto and its lovely Castle ♥

I reached Matsumoto quite early in the evening, so I decided to take a walk around the city and explore.

Lots of buildings retaining their traditional architecture.

There are a lot of bridges, as a river, Metoba-gawa, runs right through the middle of the city. They were flying carps across the river at Sensai-bashi, one of the more famous bridges in the city.

Also saw a store advertising horse cuisine…did not try it though!Horse meat is considered a delicacy in the region.

In the morning, I checked out early and dumped my luggage in the lockers at JR Matsumoto Station. The large lockers are 500yen for a day. Then I headed off for Matsumoto Castle.

The elegant Matsumoto Castle, a premier historic castle located in the center of the city. It is also protected as a National Treasure of Japan.

With its stone foundation and surrounding moat, against the backdrop of mountains and plentiful greenery, it truly was a sight to behold ♥


Built over 500 years ago, it is the oldest castle of its architectural style (donjon-style) in Japan.





Love how there's always mountains in the background when taking pictures in Matsumoto~!


You can actually enter the castle; walk inside it and up and down the 6 floors.


Admission is 600yen and includes access to the nearby museum as well, which showcased artifacts on the region’s history, culture and lifestyle in the past.

Inside the castle; these windows were used to fire arrows/ bullets/darts at enemies.

The inside of the castle is mainly wood, and the stairs to access each floor are extremely steep! Especially the one between the upper floors, which are not only high, but also have an average angle of 60°.

The view of the surroundings from the top floor of the castle~♥


It was a bit limited due to the shaped of the windows, but a beautiful panorama nonetheless.


One last photo with the castle after exiting.


There was a little exhibition outside showing the various castles in Japan.


Very pretty castles! ♥


Spotted LE Matumoto Castle/Nagano x One Piece/Chopper keychains. These joined my collection of melon-pan, Tateyama and Shinshuu.

Wandered along Nawate Doori Shoutengai, a little street of shops selling traditional crafts and food items.

The frog is symbolic of the place, so there were a plethora of frog-themed items!


Another bridge+river view!





Also came across a shrine along the street.





Saw the cutest little boy amusing himself by chasing pigeons! ♥ He was very energetic^^

Matsumoto is also associated with temari, a ball wrapped with intricate patterns made sole by rolling pieces of thread. Very colorful and eye-catching, there’s even a manga-artist/author who goes under the pen name of Matsumoto Temari; the author is originally from Matsumoto.

Then I headed back to the train station to set off for Kamikouchi, a mountainous highland area of the Chubu Sangaku National Park, located in the Japan Alps. A beautifully pristine and well-preserved place, they do not allow cars into the vicinity, thus the only way to reach there is via bus.

Time to be #aloneinthemountains again!