This is also the fourth couple trip Theo and I have taken since the kids arrived. First was to Ho Chi Minh City in 2006, Bangalore in 2013, Seoul in 2014 and now back to Tokyo in 2016. Coming back to Japan almost feels like a third home to me after Malaysia. I love the […]

2016 came and in the turn of an eye, one third of the year has gone by. Perhaps it comes with age. The older you are, the faster time seems to pass. Compared to last year, I would say I feel like a totally different person after being inundated with Japan’s sub-culture, spending much of my […]

Being back in Tokyo for the third time was a welcome relief after 8 days of finding our way around in Osaka and Takayama. We even have our own Suica card from our last trip which was way more convenient than having to buy tickets for every ride. Much of our time in Tokyo was […]

Today we leave Osaka for the Japan Alps and according to weather forecast it should be snowing in the two days we are in Takayama. As we approached the town, we could see snow on the ground, roofs and on trees and then it started snowing before my eyes like a scene out of a […]

Kyoto is the old capital of Japan before the present day Edo/Tokyo. I had read so much about the end days of the Shogunate era before the Meiji restoration (thanks to the game Hakuoki) that it was with a certain sense of trepidation that I arrived in Kyoto. Our first stop was to head towards […]

What do deers and dolphins have in common? We saw both of them on this day of our trip which was in a way meant mostly for the children to catch some nature after days of city life. In the morning we took the Kintetsu line near our place to head towards Nara. Another town […]

There were two things on our agenda today – visit Himeji Castle and shopping at Den Den Town. However we left our apartment relatively late and after spending more than 20 minutes exchanging our rail passes at Shinosaka station, we could only catch the 12 noon train to Himeji. Thankfully the trip only took about […]

Some distinctive features one can almost immediately observe about Osaka – its orderly gridlike road network, the number of cyclists on the road and the love for shopping streets which can be identified by the ‘bashi suji’ in their names. Our first stop for the morning is the Kuromon market. I didn’t realised it was […]

It has been ages since I blogged about my travels. In 2013, I extended my work trip to Korea, then we went for a short family trip to Bali again. In 2014, we took a family vacation to Tokyo after 10 years and I totally fell in love with the country. So in 2015, we […]

Hijikata’s route felt more like a historical account than a love story so it was quite disappointing from that perspective. However it still makes for a good and compelling read. Perhaps the futility of all their struggles, knowing that at the end, the Shinsengumi would be exterminated and that the shogunate rule overturned made it […]