We went to Japan for the sole purpose of getting up-close and personal with Japan's famous cherry blossoms. Fortunately we were not totally dissappointed. Ueno Park, the famous place in Tokyo to view thousands of cherry trees in blossom splendours, when we reached there.. almost all the trees except for a few have turned green! No flowers. Just leaves :(
Luckily at Hakone Peace Park they were still flowering. So we did manage to catch a few "Kodak Moments" :)
Since we went in spring, we didn't expect to see snow.. but we were pleasantly surprised that there were some leftovers at Mount Fuji lower station. We didn't get to go to the 5th Station cause the road was closed.
Frankly speaking, there was nothing particularly outstanding in this trip that I'm actually having a tough time recalling the details. Maybe two myths were busted during this trip:
Myth 1: All Japanese people are slim (except sumo wrestles of course!) cause they worked hard and eat fish. Well I found a few chubby people during this trip.. ;p
Myth 2: Everywhere in Japan are very very clean. Well.. our first hotel was not very clean. The room and the dining area can benefit from a thorough cleaning if you ask me..
This was a very short and basic tour by Reliance Travel. The tour run from 16-21 April 2008. 6 days 4 nights. Tour price was RM4.7k per person. Unfortunately, the hotels and meals provided were pretty mediocre. I suppose I was just unlucky. I'm sure other people experiences were much better. It's just that when I left the country, I simply don't have any lingering feeling of ever wanting to come back.
Hemm.. maybe Hokkaido can make me change my mind. I was told by many people that Hokkaido is like heaven on earth! We will see..
If you're interested, I've uploaded 228 photos of Japan. You can access them at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.
Njoy!!
