Japan trip articles

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

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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 (^^)

 

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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~ ♥

Kamikochi ♥ 上高地

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. Today, I’ll be #aloneinthemountains again^^

You can purchase a round-trip ticket from Matsumoto to Kamikouchi at this machine, it’s blue to help you identify it (the others are green).

The ticket costs 4400yen, and must be used within 6 days, so you can spend a night or two at Kamikouchi. The ticket covers both the train and bus trips.

As with all the other mountainous areas I’ve been to thus far, almost all the other people going were seniors, carrying backpacks and wearing hiking boots. Don’t be fooled by the younger-looking people, this train also passes by a university…where they all got off!

I felt a tad out of place because of my bright pink bag, shorts and (lack of) footwear. As mentioned yesterday, my shoes broke. Rather, they fell apart; the whole thick sole.

Thus, I ended up going with the only other pair of shoes I brought, sandals.


View of a river while on the bus.


First sight of Taishou-ike, where I would start my hike ♥ The pond was formed when an explosion by one of the volcanoes spewed lava that blocked off the runoff path, and thus a pond formed.


Off to the nature trail~


#aloneinthemountains photo#1

The row boats are free for visitors to use, just exercise caution while using them. I would’ve loved to go on it, but I’m #alonginthemountains and never rowed a boat before so…what do you think would’ve happened!

Beautiful view of the pond with low clouds. It was not so cloudy so there was still a reflection on the pond~


Saw a duck!


A bridge in the middle of the forest.


#aloneinthemountains photo#2


The water is actually really clear!


#aloneinthemountains photo#3


The willows on Kamikouchi


A portion of Tashiro Pond.


#aloneinthemountains photo#4


Tashiro-ike, a small pond roughly 30-minutes further up the course from Taishou-ike.


#aloneinthemountains photo#5


Other side of the pond.

After the pond, as you progress along the trail, you can choose to go along the river course or nature course. Of course I chose the river course because I love seeing water features in the mountains.

The river, Azusakawa, along the river course.


The water is so clear! (And also very cold!)



Another bridge~


Toilet in the middle of the mountains~

View of the meander of the river, I really enjoy sights of water features in harmony with greenery and mountains! They make beautiful scenery.

I love this picture ♥


#aloneinthemountains photo#6, love the backdrop! ♥


Valley and low clouds


#aloneinthemountains photo#7





Bus terminal at Kamikouchi.

At the souvenir store at the Kamikouchi Bus Terminal, they sell different boxes of “special Kamikouchi” goodies. But actually, I saw the exact same special goodies at the Kurobe Dam store and Matsumoto Castle store, with the exact same packaging and contents, just that the name was different…And of course I’ll always make a beeline for the keychains section to see if there are any One Piece/Chopper keychains. Sadly there’s no Kamikouchi LE version, just the Shinshuu one, which I already bought at Tateyama :D The Shinshuu region is famous for its apples, so there are a lot of apple-flavored versions of products specially available only in the region, like apple KitKat.

I kind of fell asleep on the bus back, but woke up to catch the sights of winding river.


Also saw one of the dams. There was no discharge though, so the sight of the Kurobe Dam wins hands down!

Took the Kamikouchi line from Shin-shimashima back to Matsumoto, and explored shops in the station for a while before heading to the bus terminal.

Rode a bus from Matsumoto to Nagoya, a pretty comfortable ride; there were less than 10 people on the entire bus. And because it was a rather late bus, they had designated female-only seats. I arrived in Nagoya at around 11pm, took the subway to the downtown area of Sakae where my hotel was. Both stations were packed with salarymen and OLs waiting to go home.

Oh, the arduous task of lugging of luggage up and down stairs! And the horror being approached by creepy people who “want to be your friend”. Female travelers going solo, do take caution when being out late at night!