Japan Honeymoon: Day 2 - Hakone (Part 1)

Woke up early as we need to catch the train to Hakone. Reserved our seats with the JR pass, reserving seats is easy, just walk in to the ticket office and show them your JR pass. There are few different ways to get to Hakone, but since we have the JR Pass, we took the 'by JR way'.

We bought the Hakone Free Pass once we alighted at Odawara. Priced at 4000yen (RM152) / pax, the Free Pass provides unlimited usage of transportation (bus, ship, cable car, train) at Hakone.

We took a bus to our ryokan, Mount View Hotel from Odawara station, journey took about half and hour. And it was a fun uphill ride, with view of foggy forest, it feels like we are on our way to find Totoro :)

We left our luggage at lobby and also reserved for the private open air hot spring, 2000yen (RM76). We wanted to reserve for a better looking one, but it was fully reserved.

We walked down the street, about 5 mins walk to take a bus to the nearest Hakone Tozan Railway.

Pretty-looking flowers on the way to the bus stop.

We had trouble taking the bus, but there was a friendly obasan, although not being able to converse in English, she helped us on the directions and bus to take.

With her help we managed to reach where we wanted to go. Can't remember where we stopped, but our intention is to experience the Hakone Tozan Railway.

Some warm Hot Spring bun @ 110yen

To fully utilised the Hakone Free Pass, we took all mode of transportation :)

We took the ship last, and there were 2 stops for the ship, we stopped at Hakone Machiko. Do take note the last ship leave at 16.20pm.

Went to a random restaurant for late lunch at 3pm, and the place was empty.

My Chirashi Don was good, with plenty of fresh sashimis, me likey!

His Spicy Salmon Don, abit too spicy but fresh nonetheless!

With a full tummy, we walked around the pier and took some photos :)

Will continue with Part 2 in a separate post..till then!

Japan Honeymoon: Day 1 - Arrival at Tokyo, Narita Airport

As mentioned previously, we flew ANA Air, ticket price was ok, approx. RM1,350 / pax. Departed at 7am (local time) and we touched down at 1500 (Japan time - 1 hour ahead of Malaysia).

The perks of travelling full service airline, in-flight meal & free booze :)

His American breakfast.

Mine - Asian Burger with rice.

Once we touched down, we went to get our pocket wifi and JR Pass. You can exchange your JR Pass at Narita Terminal 1 station - ticket office or JR East Travel Service center. Just walk in, and the friendly staff will guide you in filling the forms and exchanging the pass.

We bought the pass, as we wanted to travel to Osaka and all the way to Hokkaido :)

We took the airport transfer to town and then subway to our 1st night accomodation - Flexstay Inn Higashi-jujo. The guesthouse location is good, situated 2 mins away from train station and there is 2 convenient mart located within 1 min walk.

4,400 yen (RM172) for 1 night stay with private toilet. Small room but with good location. After checking in, we walked to the quiet street nearby hunting for dinner.

It was quite chilly, although it was summer.

Bought some street food from Oba-san. Was too hungry, didn't managed to snap a photo of the food.

The street was quiet but there were quite a number of eateries and we settled down for ramen and fried rice.

The menu - i guess the place's specialty is Tsukemen, but since it was our 1st night, we need to budget a bit, not sure our cash is enough for the rest of the trip. So we ordered the ramen+rice combo at only 600yen (RM22.80) with free drinking water.

Portion a little small, but it was just nice for us. Fried rice was flavourful, ramen broth was good and it was perfect for the weather.

After the meal, we have a short stroll around the old street, and there was a small market by the corner of the street. We bought sashimi back to our room, but ended up cooking it in kettle. Too chicken to eat the raw fish as we are not sure if it is safe to eat.

But found out that if the packaging is with an artificial leaf, by right it is safe to be consumed raw. ;p

We then went to bed early as we need to make a move to Hakone the day after. Stay tune for our 'zen' Hakone trip and also a visit to the 'Baby Tree' at Hakone.

13 days Japan Honeymoon with JR Pass

After our simple & small wedding at the beautiful and peaceful Enderong Resort at Janda Baik, we packed and are ready to go for our honeymoon at Japan!

It was quite a last minute plan (the honeymoon, not the wedding!), as we need to calculate all the budgets accordingly before deciding whether or not to have a honeymoon.

At last, we decided to just go ahead, as money can be earned back, but honeymoon is once in a lifetime....excuses! And as I am writing this, we are planning for our upcoming South Korea Winter Trip!!!

This will be a short & sweet summary of our not-so-summer trip to Japan. Will update in details soon!

Here's a rough itinerary & cost of our Japan Honeymoon in June 2016:

Cost
Based on 100yen = RM3.80
Flight Tickets (ANA Air) for 2 pax : RM2,757.80
JR Pass (14 days) for 2 pax              : RM3,447.48 / 92,780 yen
Pocket Wifi (Ninja) - 4 Days            : Free with ANA Ticket Promo
Pocket Wifi (Pupuru) - 9 days          : RM263.44 / 6,912 yen
Hotel (mostly guesthouse)                : RM3,388.64
Meals, Transport, Souvenir              : RM 7,524.00 / 198,000 yen
TOTAL                                            : RM17,381.36 

Basic Itinerary
Day 1            Arrived at Narita Airport, Get JR Pass, settled down at Tokyo
Day 2            Travelled to Hakone, Pirate Ship, Hakone Jinja Shrine
Day 3            Shinkansen to Osaka, Den Den Town, Shinsaibashi
Day 4            Kyoto - Fushimi Inari Shrine, Arashiyama Bamboo Groove
Day 5            Osaka Castle, Tempozan Ferris Wheel, Shinsaibashi (BBQ Buffet)
Day 6            Back to Tokyo - Akihabara
Day 7            Depart to Hakodate - Red Brick Warehouse, Chinese burger & Omu Rice, Izakaya
Day 8            Sapporo - Susukino
Day 9            Farm Tomita - Lavender ice cream
Day 10          Otaru Canal - Suitengu Shrine, BBQ Buffet Dinner (crab fiesta)
Day 11-13     Explore Tokyo City


Thanks for reading! Till the next update..

Thanks for reading!