We had to get up early this morning to check out of the hotel by 7:15am. We caught a taxi to Haneda Airport, and it turned out to be a good chance to use up the remaining balance on one of our Suica cards. As advanced as Japan is in so many ways, there are a few things that feel surprisingly outdated. For example, you can use your iPhone or a physical Suica card to tap on and off public…
We woke up this morning and took our time enjoying the beautiful Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. Around 10am the girls left for a skincare appointment, since Japan is famous for its beauty treatments and products. They were gone for about three hours, so I went out to do a little grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the morning relaxing in the room until they got back around 2pm. We said goodbye to Bart and Ale, checked out of the Ritz,…
Vivi had the great idea of getting up early this morning and heading back toward Tokyo. The weather was forecasted to be even worse today than yesterday, so there wasn’t much point in staying at a decent hotel when we had a spectacular one waiting for us in Tokyo. We left Lake Yamanaka and drove back to Odawara, returning the rental car by 10am. We caught the shinkansen to Tokyo Station at 10:39am, and just 36 minutes later, we were…
We got an early start today, meeting for breakfast at 8:00am downstairs at the Moxy Hotel. As expected, it was the least impressive breakfast we’ve had so far on this trip, but it gave us enough energy to get moving. We walked from the hotel to Nijo Castle, which is nearby. I had bought “Castle Admission” tickets online ahead of time, but it turns out those only allow access to the gardens, not the castle itself. Very confusing. Still, the…
We had a very slow start to the day today. It was our last morning at the Ritz-Carlton in Osaka, and we all went down for breakfast at the buffet. It was good, but I have to admit that the W Osaka’s breakfast was better. After packing up our things, we left the hotel around 11:30am. The girls went shopping for a couple of hours while Bart and I waited nearby, and then we finally caught a train to Kyoto….
We got up this morning and had breakfast at the W again, which was excellent. We chatted with a girl named Nasa who worked there and was from Mongolia. She was very nice and incredibly knowledgeable, and it was interesting hearing about her experience living and working in Japan. After breakfast, the girls went to check out some skin treatments nearby, so I went shopping at Uniqlo and picked up a few things I needed. Later in the day, we…
I woke up at 4:45am, so the jet lag isn’t quite finished with me yet. Vivi and I went down for breakfast at the W, which had an excellent buffet and great service, as you’d expect from a hotel like this. We met Bart and Ale at 9:30am and took the train to Nara, which took about an hour. It was raining when we arrived, but that didn’t seem to bother the deer at all. They were everywhere, wandering freely…
I woke up at 6:30am today, so hopefully the jet lag is finally over and I’m on Japanese time now. We all met in the lobby and went out in search of a breakfast spot, which turned out to be harder than we expected. We first tried the Osakura Hotel, but it just looked like another overpriced hotel breakfast, even more expensive than the Edition, so we kept walking. We eventually found a café called Tully’s, and it was perfect….
I woke up this morning at 4:30am, so at least it was an extra two hours of sleep compared to the night before. I took my computer down to the lobby of the hotel at 5:30am and worked on the blog and some Inspire Travel Designers tasks while the city outside slowly woke up. As a group we didn’t get started until 10:30am, but once everyone was ready, we took the subway to Shinjuku. We were all pretty hungry, so…
Today was a busy day! I got up at 4:30am, quick shower, taxi from the hotel to the Dubai Mall (Fashion Avenue entrance) to get in the queue for the Burj Khalifa at sunrise. I got there around 5:20am and there were already at least 100 people in the queue, but once they started letting us in at 5:30am, it moved pretty quickly. It was just so strange that the entrance to this is inside the mall, which is, of…