#longoverduehoneymoon trip _ Universal Studio Japan

Hi hello

Sorry terberhenti sekejap...bukan apa saya kena tapis dulu gambar apa yang sy mau upload. Kena resize gambar lepas tu ada kerja sekejap jadi terdelay lah penceritaan trip saya ini.

Apapun, lets continue...

So, what is so special about Universal Studio Japan, Osaka?

Ehm, I cannot give you the answer since i've never yet been to other universal studio...paling dekat di Spore pun belum sampai...tiba2 di Osaka suda jejak kaki..pelik kan. 

So, untuk ke USJ from our hotel, we took chuo line -- the green line-- that cost us 160 yen each. But we have to stop at Benchento to change to JR line (the government train). From Benchento to nishikujo have to change line to universal city. So sorry i couldnt remember the train fare... we didnt use our KTP (pls refer to my previous post) since we going to use it to Kyoto, Nara and Kobe.

Pic: JR Line station at Nishikujo

pic: all JR line is in orange color. quite look old but still very clean

After some tersilap berhenti train, we finally managed get back to the right station. hehehehe.

Pic: warm welcoming greetings from USJ

pic: USJ is so big. you really need at least 1 whole day to finish all the place inside the USJ.

entrance fee: 7400 yen each

we didnt take the express pass because I didnt want to play the games. Gila scary! Besides, i am too old to have 'panik jantung'. So no more roller coaster. That's why sightseeing is just enough for us. That fee is very expensive you know about RM279.72. so since we didnt play, (except at Spiderman house) so we really took our time enjoy the views and took many pictures there!

pic: 1st time ambil gambar dengan Pink Panther. Terasa budak2 semula

pic: this is the best ever for me! Who doesnt love Harry Potter. 

see: it's like a dream come true. The train quite similar to the movie

see the view. The best i must say!

Ok, orang Jepun ni selain budaya displin mereka yang tinggi, sikap friendly mereka, pembersih..satu hal yang saya perhatikan ialah mereka sangat sporting. Masa masuk USJ, saya perasan mereka suka pakai baju (dlm group) tema. Ada yang pakai baju Harry Potter, Minions, ada yang cat muka..pendek kata sporting lah. Dan paling best, bila kita mau ambil gambar dengan mereka, mereka sangat happy!

pic: The Hagemaru Clan. Ramai student Jepun, mereka ni sedang buat field trip

Ni lagi group minions.

Banyak lagi gambar, tapi yang lain saya suda upload di FB. Tidak payah lah benda yang sama kan. Tapi saya sangat happy lah dpt experience masuk USJ ni. Husband pun happy. Sambil tengok gelagat orang Jepun. Memang membuka minda betul lah. Will I go here again? I will but next will be with my kids.

ambil kenangan bersama di sini.

So, kami keluar dari USJ sekitar 6 petang mau dekat jam 7 suda. Sebab next destinasi kami adalah shopping di Namba. Katanya Namba ni happening masa malam. 

Nanti saya update cerita Namba pula ya.

Till my next entry.

Thanks for reading!

#longoverduehoneymoon Trip to Japan - The Arrival

We reached at Kansai International Aiport (KIX) at 3.45pm (Japan time - 1 hour ahead from MY). About 6hrs journey. It was quite exhausting as we really don't have enough rest because of our miss flight story, you can read it here . Plus not so much activity to do on flight- you know lah AA everything must be paid like rental movie or rent power bank to charge your phone! So yeah, i'm quite restless and sakit leher.

By the way, we will be given 2 forms to be fill in and submit to the Japan Immigration. So keep the forms properly because they immigration officer will asked you that form. By the way, 2 white forms and 1 brown form. The brown form (sorry i forgot to take pics on this) is basically is for the husband to fill it as a 'ketua rumah tangga' so only 1 form for this for each family!

One more thing, while you waiting for your luggage don't be surprised if suddenly got dog come near you. This is how Japan police want to check foreigner if you try to seludup masuk any prohibited things like drug. To be honest, I was quite shock when suddenly got dog near me and try to 'bau' me. I don't really like dog actually because i am more to "cat person' that 'dog person'.

So after everything is clear, 1st thing 1st, you must go to Kansai Tourist Information Centre. Take many pamphlets (in english of course) as many as you can, that of course related to which place you want to go and it is highly recommended if you buy the Kansai Thru Pass (KTP) for 3 days. (there is 2 options one is for 2 days pass and the other one is 3 days. Depend to you how many days u want, but as for us, because we dont want to go thru so many hassles during our trip we choose 3 days!)

This KTP is about 5200 yen per person and it covers the whole trains, subways and buses in Kansai area that shown on the card EXCEPT for trains under Japan Rail Pass (JR pass). If you want to know about this pass, pls do some research about this. (^_^). So Since we have no guide, and travel as backpackers and being not very familiar with Japan Train System, i think this KTP really help us! You can buy this KTP at the Kansai Tourist Information Centre in the airport.

But bear in mind that, this KTP is only valid for 3 days! SO if u stay at Japan more than 3 days, you need to plan very well when you going to use this pass.

After you buy this ticket, of course the next move is go to your hotel lah kan..so we chose Sun White Hotel located at Tanimachi-Chuo Ku somewhere in Osaka. I will tell you more about this Hotel. By the way, any hotel  in Osaka, you have to use the Nankai Line (orange line). (as shown below)

For us, we didn't use our KTP instead we buy single way ticket. Because we plan to go to Kyoto, Nara and Kobe. So the last thing that we want to have in Japan is STRESS! why, the trains system in Japan is way too complicated and for the 1st timer like us, better use this pass for a longest trip that need to exchange many trains.

This is Kansai Region Map. Basically Osaka is in the heart of this region. So if you planning to go other province like Kyoto or Nara, it is easy if you chose Osaka to stay and make it as ur 'base camp'. 

 This map is included in your KTP. So as you can see (click to enlarge), there are so many trains and subways (by color codded)..so you really need to study this map. Some blogger suggest to install Japan Rail Map-Tokyo Osaka or Japan offline map, guide, weather, hotels (App Store), i didn't know that this app is exist before I went to Japan so yeah, if you planning to go there i think this app will help you.

So back to Nankai Line, because we still have no idea how to buy ticket, we just went straight to the Nankai Information Centre and buy ticket. Done! Price 920 Yen (RM35 ~ using at that time exchange currency that will be 100 yen = RM 3.78)

Those who can read kanji (chinese, Korean) will have some ideas on what have been written there, but for us buta kanji, we just understand the figures only! But basically it is tell us this ticket is from KIX to Tengachaya Station (K20) where we have to exchange train from Nankai line to our place that will be Tanimachi Line (purple Line).

So from Tengachaya station, actually we can go straight using Sakaisuji Line (brown Line) to Hommachi Station (C17/K15) and make another exchange train that is Tanimachi Line (purple Line) heading to Tanimachi 4-chome. That will cost 240 Yen. But, because we followed what we got from our research thru Mr.Google, he asked us to stop at Minami Morimachi Station (T21/K13) and then exchange to Tanimachi Line, so a little bit extra yen there and jarak bertambah! But it's ok, as long as we reach to our destination safely. But if you happened to stay at the same hotel, i advise u to stop from Tengachaya to Honmachi Station, then hop to tanimachi line. By the way, from Tengachaya you have to click on 240 Yen for Tanimachi 4-chome. upsss..so far boleh faham ka ni? ka still have no idea? It's ok. It is NORMAL! (But at least you have some ideas by giving you the name of station!)

Anyway, from KIX to Tengachaya is about 1 hr journey. I was like jakun because throughout the journey, I still couldn't believe i am at Japan already. And my 1st impression about Japan is that the city is very CLEAN! The people of Japan is very polite and helpful. And very discpline too. Compare to our countries, They will give way to passenger to exit 1st then only they enter the train. No adegan tolak menolak lah sini!

Then, from Tengachaya to Tanimachi 4-chome, it tooks another 15 min i think. And when you reached the station u still need to know which exit you have to take. But in my case, keluar saja dari train, we go to no 4 exit from the tanimachi 4-chome.

Nah ini lah maksud sy, setiap line ada colour dia sendiri. Tanimachi Line is purple colour ye!

So after all the penat mengharungi 6 hrs journey plus 1hr ++ trip on trains, we finally reached at our Hotel. The SunWhite Hotel. Very strategic hotel. Because it is near to the subways and many shops around this hotel. So very convenience, I tell you. (^_^)

As you can see, the building behind me is the hotel that we stayed for 6 days 5 nights. Thanks to my husband for very wise decision choosing this hotel! 

That's it guys! That was our story upon our arrival at Osaka. Like I said, we really enjoyed our trip.

Next story will be Trip to Universal Studio Japan.

See you in my next post.

Thank you for reading!

#longoverduehoneymoon Trip to Japan - The Miss Flight Story

I was so wanted to do a post regarding travelling..well u know to give you some tips here and there..unfortunately since the day 1 i started my blog i have never have the kind of 'travelling story' to share with you...so basically my blog was all about my life story which if you can see that my blog becoming almost a dead blog! hahahaha

So I'm back again here... I was dying to write this on as I wanted to keep this as my sweetest memory plus I wanted to share with you our #longoverduehoneymoon trip to Japan.

Why with that hashtag? You see, since we got married, we never went to have our REAL Honeymoon like other couples. I got pregnant Joshua right after 2 months from our wedding day. Yeay so much fertility there...I know! (^_^)... since then, our life was quite busy...not only have to adapt to each other and but also adapting with the new title 'mommy and daddy to be'. So we got married on march 2011...and 2016...we finally have our honeymoon ..yeayyyy... Excited? I was beyond excited... like wow going oversea?...it was my 1st time indeed!

This whole idea trip to Japan is coming from my husband. It just happened to be that my husband got a friend a Thai friend whom he met during their 20 day course at Beijing and that friend is currently pursuing her Ph.D (last semester already) at Tottori (one of the province in Kansai area). So my husband told me that, 'sementara masih ada kawan dia di Jepun, bagus pergi sana at least bab guide sudah free'...at first i was quite reluctant because...I know Japan is among the expensive country in Asia (Spore of course the most expensive country in the world)...and my biggest worry is that where to find money...sedangkan duit sedia ada pun just cukup2 to cover our monthly expenses. Mau saving tu memang kalau mau terbang tahun ni di Japan patutnya suda simpan dari tahun lepas lagi...

But here is my husband strength lies on...his strong determination...If he already set it in his mind then he will do it...

But of course... to me is all by God grace and favour to us...

So cut story, we did got some money..on April 1st, I went to renew my passport and bought the ticket...total ticket for both of us plus i chose quiet zone seat and luggage so all together is about RM2400.

The next move is asking cuti rehat from my boss. And thanked God she approved it without any hesitation. Wow...u see with this my current boss, it is actually really hard for us to simply take holiday without any solid  excuse reason. But she said YES easily..so it is actually the 1st sign that God indeed 'merestui' our journey to Japan.

The 2nd sign is that, our trip was during school holidays. So my husband managed to ask help from my mother in laws and his sister who is a teacher to come to KL and help us to look after our kids. They agreed upon it...therefore i am so thankful for them. I thanked God because his favour to us in so many ways.

---------- The day that we supposed to fly--------------

ok this is will be my biggest lesson learnt! I have never imagined this 'thing' will ever happens to myself. Looking at how quite frequent flying to Sabah since I was 13. There is no ever thought that I will miss our flight to Japan. Crazy right!

But it happened! what funny thing is that, I bought the ticket , i gave my husband a copy of it...and I just looked at ticket once only; that was on the day I bought the ticket online! So i was so confident that we will fly on 7th of June on 1.00 am. So here is the tricky part..well it is tricky when u only look one time only to ur ticket! So...i dunno why even my husband didn't even said anything about the hour of our departure time. And he actually still working on the 7th June. So when we reached at KLIA2 on the 7th at 11 pm. Getting ready to check in, i was actually confused because I cannot find our flight number on the display LCD. Until we went straight to the counter and there he goes the AA stewardess telling us that we missed our flight. Kan...jam 1pagi maksud nya awal pagi of 7th lah kan..yang datang awal pagi 8th siapa suruh... #failmatematik #facepalm

pic above: muka kecewa tapi husband sempat belanja starbucks dengan caption macam tu! (-_-)

My husband dah start mau marah sama saya....pada mulanya sy mau argue sebab sy suda bagi tiket sama dia juga...but at that point.. i thought fighting is useless! In the airport some-more...it is just not worth of our energy!

So then, we asked the AA what time will be the next flight...again THANK GOD..there is still kosong for the next day flight at 8am on the 8th of June. Although I have to top up some extra money which again #habisduitaku, but then..I still praise Jesus because...there is still got flight...fuhhhh..

of course when this happened, I admitted that our mood of #honeymoon is slowly faded! I keep on blaming myself for not listening my inner voice..(and I thought it is the Holy Spirit) who keep on reminding me to have  a look to our ticket..but NO i ignored it. Again this is my lesson learn. I should listen to what God want to say.

In the meantime, my husband called our Hotel Room informing them that there will be a little changes of our check in time. Thank God once again...we didn't miss our booking. Fuhhhh.

Of all these, still I want to thank God for everything. I guess this honeymoon trip is also taught us husband and wife to be more understand each other and have patience, And biggest lesson learn to me is not ignoring my 'suara hati nurani'. And maybe next time I will not chose subuh punya flight to avoid mistake like this! hehehehe

Anyway, although our trip didn't start very well....but I tell you...once we reached at Kansai..the whole new environment make us super duper excited!

Will tell you more on my next post!

See you...

Thank You for Reading!