We didn’t make any real plans for the Kyoto leg of the trip, so we figured we would just re-visit 奈良 Nara on the first day we were in Kyoto since it was close by.
Right after stepping out of the train station, we noticed something was going on, with some folks dressed up in traditional costumes. A quick search later, we realised we had stumbled into the preparations for the 采女祭 Uneme Festival.
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Our main activity for this trip was to walk the 熊野古道 Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trails, which are ancient pilgrimage trails on Japan’s Kii Peninsula, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site along with the sacred sites they connect.
The trails offer various trekking options, ranging from half-day strolls to multi-day treks. Since we aren’t the most active couple, we opted for the easier half-day walks, on the Nakahechi pilgrimage route. The route starts from Tanabe on the western coast of the Kii Peninsula and traverses east into the mountains towards the three famous Kumano grand shrines, namely 熊野本宮大社 Kumano Hongu Taisha, 熊野速玉大社 Kumano Hayatama Taisha and 那智大社 Nachi Taisha.
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Scoot started having its Tuesday promo, and we found a relatively inexpensive deal! After hubby mentioned it to a few friends, we found ourselves an additional companion for the trip and a free Taiwan SIM card plus free MRT rides between Taoyuan Airport and Taipei Main Station. 🙂
It was K’s maiden trip to Taipei, and she wanted to try beef noodles and do more scenic visits, so this trip deviated a bit from the 8-meals-per-day kind of itinerary, haha! Hubby wanted to eat a lot of braised pork rice, so I die die squeezed in 4 meals of beef noodles and braised pork rice into the itinerary. Happy bellies, happy companions 😛
This time, we decided to stick to our our usual hotel stay in 新驛旅店台北車站 CityInn Hotel Taipei Station. Note that Branch II and III are just side by side, and we have stayed in both before. Both felt the same.
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When hubby got the “free ticket” from Cathay (with a SGD 200+ tax), we somehow managed to deconflict and squeezed out a short weekend trip to Hong Kong and we paid like SGD 600 for my ticket -_-“
Chiong-ed home for a quick shower after my night class, we grabbed our backpack and took public transport to the airport where we had a quick supper prior to our red-eye flight. I was so tired that I slept through most of the turbulence, except the part where I kinda got lifted up my seat… the importance of keeping your seat belt on at all times!
This time, we decided to stay at Four Points by Sheraton at Tung Chung, mainly because we wanted to stay nearer to the airport due to our flight timings. It was great that there were free shuttle between the hotel and Tung Chung MTR, as well as between the hotel and the airport! The room was quite nice and we were happy with our stay 🙂
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After a rather successful test-water half day trip to Johor Bahru, we decided to go ahead with our road trip that was supposed to be done before COVID-19 hit us.
As we have only 1 driver among the 3 of us, we decided to take it easy by having multiple breaks.
Our itinerary for the 4D3N trip:
Batu Pahat
Time to hitch a ride with Dr. K to Melaka!
This time, we decided we would run some errands and venture further too. Our itinerary for the 4 days is here!
Day 1
Our niece had started her university studies in 京都 Kyoto, Japan, and we decided to go over for a visit during our holidays 🙂 Despite the typhoon midway during the trip, we still had a great time! Here was what we did:
Day 1
The weather turned out better than expected, and we decided to go ahead with the hike from 貴船 Kibune to 鞍馬 Kurama as planned.
We headed for breakfast at a Happiness Cafe nearby at 7:30am, and caught the 8:30am subway to Kyoto station. It was crowded at Kyoto Station and we had to squeeze into our connecting train. The crowd-at-door syndrome was not unique to Singapore 😅
At 出町柳駅 Demachiyanagi Station, we purchased a ¥1800 discount ticket (Train – Hot Spring All in One Pass 貴船鞍馬散策チケット) each that would allow us a return trip to 貴船/鞍馬 Kibune/Kurama (usual ¥860) , plus the entrance fee to the 鞍馬寺 Kurama Temple (usual ¥300), and entrance fee to くらま温泉 Kurama Outdoor Onsen (usual ¥1000).
Dr. K was going back to Melaka over the weekend and we decided to hitch a ride 🙂 Just like the previous trip, we thought to explore another city while en-route to Malacca.
We set off from Singapore on Saturday and visited Breakfast in Johor Bahru at 榕树下粿条仔 Restoran Rong Shu Xia first before having a pit stop at Yong Peng 永平 and visited 永兴福州饼面厂 Eng Hin Kedai Membuat Kuih-Muih and 元延原创永平正宗西刀鱼圓 Yuan Yean Fishball Eating House.
The rest of the day was spent at Melaka where we went to
We woke up bright and early at 5am, and GoJek-ed to the airport, reaching way ahead of time to check out the Harry Potter set-up at Terminal 3, and to have breakfast. This time, we tried The Green Market at Terminal 2. Food was pretty decent! There was a Harry Potter exhibition at the airport, so we had fun taking some selfies before the flight 😛
Our flight was on time and some 300 minutes later, we arrived 😀
It took us about an hour to clear immigration and queue to get out of the airport due to the security checks. It was a 10-minute brisk walk to Terminal 1, where the 长途汽车站 Coach Station is, and where we experienced the first blast of 7 degree Celcius smoky air…Thankfully the queue at the ticket counter was very short, and we managed to grab tickets for the 4pm coach to 杭州 Hangzhou (¥115 per ticket including insurance; sales stop 2 minutes before scheduled departure). Continue reading
Eat.Eat.Walk.Walk . 吃吃走走 