Posts Tagged With: asia

Japan 2020 Day 12: Niseko (dinner in Kutchan)

B went off to ski again today and I basically just napped, ate snacks and watched the snow fall out of the bedroom window.

In the afternoon we tried again for the private hot bath at the accomodation and this time we had more success! It’s interesting that they have styled it just like an onsen even though it is not an onsen and really is just a hot tub (water is from the tap, not a geothermal source).

Dinner was booked at our most fondly remembered Niseko restaurant – Nakama. Last time we came (6 years ago) Nakama was a hole in the wall place down a back street mostly frequented by locals in Kutchan. They didn’t speak any English but had a great reputation and were recommended by our accomodation. This time around they have moved to a “Kutchan Main Street” venue and are much busier since they received a mention in the Michelin Star guide book. I was next level excited to revisit the place where I first had ramen and gyoza….I ate so much I had a ramen baby belly! It was good. Really good.

Japanese food eaten today: katsu curry, ramen, gyoza, vending machine got chocolate

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Japan 2020 day 6: Osaka to Tokyo on the Shinkansen and dinner at Kobe Beef Kaiseki 511

Booking Shinkansen tickets before you arrive in japan has previously been tricky. This is something you want to do a few days beforehand (at least) so you can get good seats – we found the smartEX travel app to be awesome. You need to authorise your credit card on it and make sure you take that card with you to Japan but all we had to do was stick the credit card in a machine and it gave us our tickets (both base fare and reserved seat in one) which we had booked a week in advance! We also made a last minute change to a slightly earlier train with different seats and it was very easy to do in the app.

Be aware of new rules from May 2020 about travelling with luggage, they are cracking down hard on it, especially oversized stuff. Luckily this didn’t impact us, we just got on and stowed our suitcases behind our seats in row 1 – a very good reason to choose the last row in a carriage! The seats are spacious, there are snacks available on board and scenery is awesome even when you fly past at over 250km an hour.

You can buy snacks and bento boxes at the little kiosks before you board the train and on the train, B bought this pork cutlet box for ¥900 before we boarded. I also like the fact that the Shinkansen trains have seated toilets (not squat ones) and lots of leg room at the seats. Something to be aware of is the location of the smoking room on each train – as a non smoker it stinks and the doors opening and closing only contains some of the smell.

Our hotel in Tokyo is in Akasaka (considered a bit of an upmarket district quite close to the city centre) and is a 2 min walk from Akasaka-Mitsuke metro station. The hotel is called Hotel Risveglia Akasaka and I picked it because it was close to the same price as APA hotels but definitely not an APA. We previously stayed in an APA hotel in Tokyo and the room was so small B couldn’t stand up straight or lay on the bed straight! So APA are cheap rooms but not great if you’re 6ft tall. This room is still small – only 16 metres square – but it has enough space to move around in and a full shower. It also has a gloriously SOFT bed! Our room looks over a cute little alleyway.

Dinner tonight was at my favourite restaurant ever in the whole wide world Kobe Beef Kaseiki 511 in Akasaka. I’ll be honest, it’s the main reason we came to Tokyo, It was a 2 min walk from our hotel and it serves some of the best Kobe beef in the world in a degustation format. The ‘511’ in the name of the restaurant comes from their mission to use only the best – A5 grade beef with a beef marbling standard value of 11. As a result of the beef quality, it’s not cheap – about ¥17000 for one person – but it is absolutely amazing food and the service and wine pairing are great.

B says “everytime I come here I think is it worth it…then I eat the steak….and it’s so good”.

Steps taken: 7000 (nap day today!)

Japanese food eaten: pocky, bento box with katsu pork, weird Japanese hot chocolate, Kobe beef and all sorts of other oishii (delicious!) food at A511

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Japan 2020 Day 4: Universal Studios, Osaka

So for those who don’t know me….I’m a planner. It’s just who I am. Which B loves because it means everything on a holiday is organised, we are rarely late for stuff and I do things like get express passes at theme parks haha. I highly recommend the express passes by the way!

I pre-purchased our Universal Studio entry tickets online using klook as other travel blogs talked a lot about not queuing up at the gate and also getting a fast pass. I bought them four weeks in advance and the 7 ride fast passes were already sold out so I got us a 4 ride one. Just to be clear – if you buy a fast pass you ALSO need to get an entrance ticket separately, so at that point you are looking at around $200 AUD each adult. We consider the time vs cost ratio reasonable as you don’t have to line up for more than an hour for each ride – most express rides get you through in 15 mins or less.

The weather was not raining (phew!) but it was cloudy on/off and the wind chill was noticeable. We took one backpack with extra jumpers, tickets, water etc in it knowing we could buy a locker to put our things in for each ride so we could go on them together as this is what we did in Singapore at Universal Studios. It was a 5 min walk + 16 min JR Osaka loop train trip to get there from our accomodation in Umeda.

It’s worth noting entry here is not as smooth as in Singapore because they do mandatory bag checks. It took us about 20mins to make it to the gates (and we were not that far back) and then we made a beeline for Hollywood dream and space fantasy since we didn’t have express passes to them….but they were closed. Doh! So we went to Spider-Man which had no wait.

We then went on the flying dinosaur without our express pass (not timed until 2:30pm) which was AWESOME. We had to wait about 30mins to ride it. We went on it again at 2:30pm with our timed express pass and the wait time for us was about 8 mins vs 60 mins for everyone else.

Trying to work out where to meet for the Harry Potter timed entry was a bit of a clusterfuck so definitely allow an extra 10mins for that. We eventually worked out timed entry didn’t apply on this day due to low numbers so we could just walk over to the Harry Potter area and wander straight in. The butter beer was worth a 10min wait. The ride time when we entered was 60mins and we waited about 5 mins – those fast passes really do rock! It’s worth noting the Harry Potter ride is a mix of 3D and being moved around in a cart. We didn’t know that going in and neither of us felt great after due to motion sickness. We had a break for lunch and more kwells at this point.

We also gave Terminator 2 a go and while the first part is a bit meh because it’s all in Japanese and you have no idea what’s happening, the mixed stage show with 3D sections was very cool. Same with Backdraft – the final stage part was great but the bits before were lost on us as it was all in Japanese.

We also went on Jaws which was less roller coaster like but still good fun. The ride is all in Japanese but you get the idea pretty clearly – oh let’s go on a lovely boat ride in this quaint small town….SHARK!

We were at Universal for 7hrs in total (9am – 4pm) and went on every adult focused ride except for the two closed ones and the Jurassic ride. We skipped the Jurassic one because you get very wet and we were already freezing….plus we have done it before in Singapore. We skipped the kid ones because B was not coping with the children’s pitched music and squealing haha. We also skipped WaterWorld because we have seen it before and last time I got absolutely drenched. I do recommend fitting that in if you haven’t seen it before though.

We got back to the apartment around 4:45pm with very sore feet. We ventured just up the road for dinner and had okonomiyaki again, this time from the local place. While it was still yummy, it had nothing on my experience the other day!

Steps today: 18980

Japanese food eaten: nothing Japanese based at Universal (chips, onion rings, burgers) but dinner was okonomiyaki with Asahi beer and we got hot chocolate can from a vending machine!

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Japan 2020 Day 3: exploring Osaka

Our tiny little apartment here has 5 doors worth of sound proofing….which it needs because the train is literally 2 metres from the balcony. We slept very well though (despite the rock solid bed) so obviously the soundproofing works.

Today’s weather was 8-14C which for someone who now survives Canberra winters is no big deal lol. B said it was “perfect weather for wandering around”….so wander we did! I was glad I grabbed my jacket at the last minute though as the wind was freezing. We went on an adventure to find Kiji Sky okinomanyaki restaurant which is in the Umeda Sky Building basement and comes with rave reviews. They are also another one of those places that has a Michelin Star but is still very cheap – we have found one in Singapore as well in the past. We had to go on quite a trek to find it through shopping malls, train stations, strange alleyways and underground passages.

We eventually made to the basement level of the Umeda sky building where everything looks like old shops….and discovered every single thing was labeled only in Japanese and signage was limited. Thanks to google and other people posting photos of the front, we found Kiji Sky at shop 11 and it was amaaaaaazing. We did have to queue for about 30 mins before getting a seat but it was totally worth it.

After our early lunch (¥750 for one savoury pancake split between us) we caught the nearest metro train to Osaka Castle and did some exploring there. The sun had well and truly gone by this point and all the photos are quite grey. Osaka Castle is quite different to the other ones we have seen in Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara because it was fully destroyed about 6 different times since the 1500s so has been rebuilt from photos and pictures each time! This means on the inside it has very little old world charm as it was rebuilt in the 1950s to more modern design and construction standards.

We headed back to the hotel for a rest and to put some extra layers on before venturing out for dinner to the local Hankyu Sanbangai Food Museum which is basically an awesome food court located underneath a shopping centre….attached to the huge Umeda train station. A few travel blogs I read said this was a great, cheap option as they were all small, individual retailers and had lots of choice. We went Hokkaido style for dinner and had pork ramen, gyoza and beer.

We are going to bed early tonight to ready ourselves for tomorrow’s day at Universal Studions Japan! Eeeeeek.

Step count: 16 050

Japanese food we have eaten today: Okonomiyaki (pork), chocolate pocky, tiny red bull and a can of hot chocolate from a ridiculous vending machine, ramen, gyozo and Asahi beer for B.

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Japan 2020 Day 1+2: travelling to Osaka

At 8am in the morning we dropped Bear and Jet off at their dog hotel (after I interrogated them about their very detailed smoke and bush fire management plans). They love staying at Hanrob and I love that they let them hoard together and manage Jet’s anxiety really well – it’s win win.

At the last minute we changed our 3hr bus Canberra to Sydney ticket to a 5pm flight – the road was open and closing intermittently because of the bushfires in NSW at the moment and there was no guarantee we would get through on time. I was already nervous about connecting to our AirAsia flight as it was! Yay for the flat beds again though. We elected to fly Syd-KL, 11 hr stop over, KL – Osaka over a direct Sydney to Japan flight because the cost for the flat beds was the same as it was to fly economy on qantas. We both felt the flatbeds were worth it.

We did experience a slight flight delay from Canberra due to the weather and bushfire smoke but we still made it to Sydney just in time for our international flight connection to Kuala Lumpur. After 8hrs of veeeeery turbulent flying and landing in KL at 3am, we spent the next 8 hrs at the samasama airport hotel which is awesome because it is in KLIA2 (the Airasia terminal) so there is no need to collect bags or clear immigration. The room cost about $110 AUD for the 8 hours and I prebooked online which got me a discount.

We had a lovely sleep in our queen bed and then some food in the attached lounge before boarding the next 8hr flight on to Osaka, Japan. The flights really aren’t that bad when you have comfy flat beds, USB ports, free entertainment devices and a quilted blanket. I still maintain I would rather deal with an 11hr stop over than for 16hrs straight in economy on qantas for the same price! B is less convinced haha.

We arrived at Kansai airport in Osaka at 10pm at night local time after a very long day and a half of travelling. We used our icoca cards which are still valid from 6 years ago and caught a train from the airport into the city (easy), swapped to the subway (also pretty easy to do) and then walked about 6 mins to our lovely little apartment here.

In total it took about an hour and cost us ¥1600 each versus what would have been ¥20000 in a taxi. Taxis in Japan are very expensive so we didn’t even consider that option.

I booked the accomodation in Osaka on booking.com and it is called “Osaka Umeda Hotel Apartments” which basically means it’s a dude renting out his apartment like on Air BnB. Considering the prices of surrounding hotels though, this was excellent value for about $100 AUD a night! His directions provided by email were very detailed and it has wifi which is not always a given in Japanese hotels so I’m happy. His detailed directions combined with google maps got us there with a 5 min walk from the local Umeda station which is a big transport hub.

Our plan for tomorrow is to recover from 30 hours of travelling with a sleep in and then do some low stakes wandering of Osaka since neither of us have been here before.

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Day 6 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): what I learnt about massages and ping pong shows

Today started with my favourite activity: lounging by the beach and drinking pineapple fruit ices.

We then had a free Thai massage at the hotel where I learnt a few things about Thai traditional massage:

  1. They use their fingers, knuckles, hands, forearms and elbows to really get in there! Some people like that, some don’t. So make sure to tell them to go gentle if you need too!
  2. They use coconut oil which feels lovely afterwards but it causes you to sweat a lot more. We forgot to shower before heading back out to the street and literally had pools of sweat dripping off us. It was pretty gross.
  3. Unlike in Australia they get real up close and personal. I had my butt and my chest massaged….B said they came mighty close to his bits a few times lol

After the massage we headed out to Banglor Road while debating if we would attend a ping pong show.

I’ve been reading a lot about the ping pong shows and while it all sounds like a bit of fun I have concerns about both the women in the shows (many have their passports held to ensure they work) and the wildlife that is used in some shows….those poor tree frogs! In the end, I opted for us not to go for these reasons.

Instead we had our last round of street food (I’m obsessed with pad Thai now) a final cocktail and took pretty sunset beach photos before heading back to the hotel to prep for our 26hr trip home tomorrow…..argh. We are travelling Phuket – Kuala Lumpur – Sydney – Canberra with some long waits in between unfortunately.

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Day 5 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): elephant retirement park!

We spent the afternoon at an ethical elephant sanctuary today – the Elephant Retirement Park about 40 mins drive from Patong Beach – and it was amazing. Most of our time was spent with Euro, the big male elephant, but we also hung out with an old grandma and some rescued babies. This baby was called Pinky and he was my favourite, even if he was a fruit thief ❤️❤️❤️

I did a lot of research on ethical animal sanctuaries before we came over and I am aware these guys (alongside all the other Thai elephant sanctuaries) walk a fine line with the photography opportunities….however it’s also how they get a lot of their funding which allows them to buy more elephants out of working conditions. Not ideal but certainly better than animals being left in the circus or on ride farms.

They have a no harmful contact and no chains policy here and the animals do seem genuinely happy, our elephant buddy knew when it was mud bath time and happily clomped in and rolled around like an idiot lol. They also explained the ones that display distress towards people due to their backgrounds don’t have to meet anyone – they stay up on the mountain doing their own thing.

During our half day we paid a bit extra to be in a small group for a VIP tour (Mel + larger groups = bitchy Mel) and it turned out we were totally on our own. Woohoo! We learnt how to cook our own lunch of pad Thai and tam som, ate it, took Euro for a jungle walk where he had a great time playing in the waterfall, gave him a mud bath, gave him a wash and then fed him and the grandmas rice balls since their teeth are bad.

They actually grabbed my phone off me (the guides, not the elephants) and took hundreds of photos. Literally hundreds. There will also be some put up on their Facebook page later on which they took with their better quality camera.

Something to be aware of is that we were standing or walking for the better part of 5hrs for this tour and I was in a fair bit of lower back pain by the time we got back to the hotel. Normally, a sit down for an hour fixes it but not tonight…..even a spa and painkillers didn’t help! As a result, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant (Kontok) which was more than double the price of street food but was very yummy. The two curries and two soft drinks cost $37 AUD which is great value compared to Australian costs but quite high for Thailand prices.

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Burasari Resort: Phuket (Hotel review)

Well, here is a summary of the positives and negatives of this resort! Obviously this all comes from our point of view.

Link to their website: https://phuket.burasari.com

Cost: we are here in the high season and 6 nights cost us 46000 baht or $1985 AUD. That was for a mood suite though, there were cheaper rooms.

Positives

1. Free mini bar which is refreshed once a day is omnomnom

2. We stayed in a mood suite which comes complete with a 7 foot bed (quite hard though but I think that’s a Thai thing) and a personal spa bath on the deck. The rooms are really attractive and well put together, they also include a bag and beach towels you can take to the beach/pool with you which is super handy

3. Customer service after our asshat party next door neighbours woke us up every 20 mins from 3am was mostly positive. After the initial complaint was poorly handled (see below) we were very satisfied to have our room moved to a quieter part of the resort and to be offered a free massage each at the day spa (4200 baht value). Now to be fair, this offer came with the understanding I would remove my very VERY angry trip advisor review….but I thought that was fair.

4. Pool bar is nice but sadly only open 2 hrs a day which seems weird. Either way….it’s a nice bar and the 2 for 1 drink offers make it excellent value. The resort also has a restaurant with free breakfast and a second bar which served cocktails at resort prices – around $15 AUD.

5. Finally, the biggest positive is proximity. You are a 30 second walk from the beach and a 5-10 minute walk from Banglor Road. There are taxis galore and it’s easy to get anywhere. We ate dinner at a street food market every night and each meal was 50-100 baht, with all beers at 80 baht.

Negatives

1. They had a lot of trouble with the fact they thought I was someone else (same name) and never seemed to quite get past that despite repeated attempts to fix it. I gave up in the end.

2. The noise levels from some rooms are very high due to street noise. The downside to being in the centre I guess!? Having said that, the pool rooms also looked amazing but one morning there was a kid in the pool literally screaming for 2 hours. I was pretty glad not to have a pool room that day! I think I would again book a mood suite but request one away from the street

3. As previously stated we did have a problem with the room next door and the initial handling of it was not good. When I rang down to reception at 5;30am I was told to go knock on the door myself. When I told them I would not be doing that as they were very drunk males who had already told someone else to “fuck off” they implied it was my own problem then. After this, the matter was handled much more appropriately.

4. Not enough pool chairs (maybe 20 in total for a large-ish resort) and despite saying people can’t hold them, they don’t enforce this policy at all. Very frustrating.

Would we stay again?

Yes we would. Overall I give them 4/5 stars with the only deductions being for the initial suggestion. I *manage* the drunken asshats and the limited pool bar and pool chair issues. The food and service is generally good, the rooms are lovely and we went to the day spa twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times despite the marked up cost. We were very happy and intend to return again at a later date.

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Day 3 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): Banglor Road and street food

We had some “overnight issues” in our room which basically translates to drunken asshats in the room next door partying from 3am onwards and the staff not doing anything about it. The hotel arranged for us to change rooms after I complained though which is definitely a positive!! Now our room has an even bigger spa and a day bed.

We started the day with our free breakfast (omelette station!) and then a few hours of relaxing poolside.

At 11am we headed over to Spa Burasari for a couples exfoliation, massage and facial treatment. Not the cheapest spa treatment ever but the cost was outweighed by the fact they understood me saying “gentle, gentle!” and the convenience of it being within the hotel. We were so impressed we are going back again on Tuesday.

After the massage we walked up to a recommended restaurant called Restaurant No. 6 and enjoyed a 300 Baht meal of two fruit ices, chicken and sweet corn and chicken pad Thai. Yummy and very reasonably priced.

We then walked back and did the room swap to the new room before enjoying the benefit of the free mini bar….again. Mmmm mini bar. We spent some time at the pool swim up bar and then I wallowed in the spa like a beached whale for an hour or so. Dinner was in Banglor Road again at the open food market, I tried to find a name but it doesn’t have one…so instead you can see the entry on the map below with a red coloured cross. Our blue location dot is higher up because we were sitting at the back of the markets eating pad Thai, fruit ices and a chicken satay stick!

Afterwards we walked back along the beach to the hotel and had some quiet time.

Cocktails: 1 strawberry dacquiri, 1 strawberry mojito

Tomorrow: possible beachside relaxation? Unsure….

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Day 1 & 2 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand)

The travel time to get here was nuts! 23hrs from start to finish to get from Canberra to Phuket….at least we had Air Asia flat beds on the longer legs though. Oh, and I got to cuddle assistance dogs at the international check in area in Sydney!!

We finally arrived in Phuket at 10:30pm local time last night and it was a one hour drive to Patong Beach, we used a private car hire through the hotel for that which cost a bit more than a taxi but was easier after that long travelling and better for Bs motion sickness. We are staying at the Burasari Resort which seems to have the best of both worlds – a 30 second stroll to the beach and 10 min walk to the infamous Banglor Road! The resort itself is very quiet although there is a fair amount of “street noise” since we are so close to the main bars and beach. The hotel has a few pool areas but only about 20 pool lounges which were all taken by 10am. Some rooms have their own pool wade in areas from the balcony which is pretty awesome….I might consider that next time.

The room we are in is a “mood suite” and it is gorgeous, we get a free mini bar refilled each day as well as a private deck spa. I bought my own bubble bath along and may have used a little too much today….

After a day of relaxing in the spa and reading, we had some mid afternoon drinks at one of the hotel bars (Misty Bar) which was very quiet and had comfy lounges. I had a number of delicious pineapple mojitos complete with pineapple love hearts.

We then for a walk along the beach to watch the sunset and to explore Banglor Road for food and entertainment.

We wandered past quite a few bars full of very…boisterous….Australians and decided to just grab some food and then come back again another night. We had yummy chicken sticks at the local food market. Banglor Road is full of tourists, bar spruikers, locals selling wares and is possibly the first place in my life where I’ve had someone walk up to me and offer a “free fucking show” with an emphasis on the verb meaning of that middle word! Maybe another time….

Cocktail count: two delicious pineapple mojitos

Mini bar damage: destroyed (picture to follow with hotel review)

Tomorrow: sleep in, massage, cocktails, pool/spa and maybe a Muay Thai show

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