20 February 2010
- We fly to Bali on the 7th day of CNY via AA. Air ticket cost RM280 for the four of us, excl luggage & meal.

- AK364 landing at Ngurah Rai Intl Airport at around 8pm. There is lot of leaflet/booklet at the airport and most of it is in Japanese. I took a few of it as the map in the Japanese booklet is much better and detail than those in English version.

- We pay Rp75000 for airport taxi to our hotel at Seminyak. After settle down our luggage and everything, we then went to dinner at Made Warung which is only minutes away from the hotel.

- Foods are average, but the environment is so good and the place is so crowded too.

After checking in and pass through all the security checking, we went to buy the Shiroi Koibito chocolate which is available only at Hokkaido and Narita Airport. At the meantime, we bought the Tokyo Banana too, as ‘souvenir’ to our colleague.

Tokyo Banana… the shape is like banana and the taste is like banana too..

I thought to bring KW to have lunch at the lounge, but too bad as there is only snack serving. No choice …

She enjoy the potato chips

And not forgotten a glass of cola ….

The comfortable seat of Qatar Airways Privilege Club,

Power plug and LAN port for internet access

Btw, we have a great seat at the lounge….

As usual, the boarding gate of MAS always the last one which we have to walk a lot… is it the rental for a distant boarding gate cheaper?

KW dozes off during the take off while KX is very excited…. But luckily he fall asleep too after playing for a while. The cabin crews are very friendly which is totally opposite from the flight to Narita before. Also, the toys given is much nicer than the earlier one although they are still ‘cheaper’ than Cathay’s.

Our lunch and snack on board…

According to the air stewardess, MAS decided to change the MH71 from boeing 777-200 to the ropey airbus with the reason not much passenger. Damn….

It took me few hours to pack all the belongings to the luggage and boxes…

Luckily still manage to get up on time to change the kids and catch the taxi sharp at 8am. I ask the hotel help me to book for a taxi to Disney Ambassador Hotel for airport limousine bus.

The taxi driver is very well manner and helpful to help us load and unload the belongings to and from the taxi. We were very impress with the service from the 5 star hotel of Japan. A hotel staff brings us to the hotel front desk to pay for the airport limousine bus ticket after ‘checking-in’ our luggage which will be then load to the storage bay of the bus.

We walk around in the hotel and purposely have a glimpse on the famous ‘Chef Mickey’ restaurant. The queue for the Chef Mickey is long, their breakfast is open for the hotel guests only and advance reservation is needed. I always wish I can have breakfast here one day!

I noticed the bus ticket which is put inside my pocket was lost and the worst is, it is almost time to board the bus!!! Immediately I run to the front desk to check if anyone has pick up it and pass to them. Thanks god, the tickets were with them! Someone found the ticket in the Disney store of the hotel.

There is not many passenger in the bus and both of us fall asleep soundly for the entire journey to Narita airport…..

This time, we go to the park by taking the Disney cruise line (the monorail) which KW described as Mickey train. Just to let her experience to take the Mickey train which she always wanted to… She like it and enjoy the ride so much, worth to spend.

We thought to go for another round of ‘it’s a small world’ ride since the kids like it so much, but we didn’t. The weather just too cold… and I thought maybe next time la…

The fantasy blooming in the sky sharp at 8.30pm and it marked the end of our holiday.

It is a tiring night as I have to think of how to squeeze all the loots to the luggage. But, it seems like impossible and I have to buy a box from the hotel in the middle of night.

The kids…

While waiting for the monorail to Disneyland

The monorail platform

The mickey handrail of the monorail

Some shots inside the shop of Disneyland

And last, night view of the landmark of Disneyland, Cinderella Castle.
I am trying to make myself stood steady when taking this shot, not bad huh!!

We actually planned to visit DisneySea on the last day we were in Japan, but we didn’t although we have already bought the ticket. We bought the 3 days passport. The weather wasn’t good on that day; it is raining even before sunrise. So, what else can we do in the raining day?

What’s more? Shopping lor…..

At first I thought maybe we can go to Garden Walk Outlet which is only few train station away, but I scare I spend too much, so better go to Shin Urayasu since I want to buy more vacuum bag.

Shin Urayasu is only one station away from Maihama and there is shopping mall connected with the train station. There is Daiei supermarket, Daiso 100Yen shop, Uniqlo, Comme Ca ISM, Muji and many… apparently, it is the best place for me us.

The kids were in their dreamland while I am ‘battling’ with the Yen. So syiok to shop without the kids disturb! LOL

As usual, having fun with the Disney character right after enter to the park.

And went to rent a stroller after that,

Our lunch …

A lot of people waiting for the parade,

the 25th anniversary special parade, Jubilation!

And we saw this, Mr. Incredible

KW with her Ms Minnie

KX is curios to those character head …

Sleeping baby….

KW and the castle

A picture illustrated a thousand words.

Finally, it is the day to Disneyland. We take the hotel shuttle bus to Maihama station. Distance between JR Maihama station and Disneyland is about 10 mins walk. The weather is hot and I sweat while walking to the theme park!

The park is not as crowded as last time we went. But, I still get the fastpass for Pooh attraction as the waiting time for Pooh is about nearly an hour. As usual, we spend most of the time at Toon Town and Fantasy Land.

It’s a small world is the favorite attraction of the kids, especially KX. He enjoys himself so much and even dance during the entire boat ride.

OK, enough of crap, let’s share our happiness from the photo here ….

We first return to station Ikebukuro via transit at Shinjuku, and then change to subway for Shin-kiba before proceed with JR to Maihama. There are 2 routes to Maihama from Ikebukuro.

1. Ikebukuro [JR Yamanote Line] Tokyo [JR Keiyo Line] Maihama
The disadvantage of this route is, the platform for JR Keiyo line is far, about 15-20 mins walk.

2. Ikebukuro [subway Yurakucho Line] Shin-Kiba [JR Keiyo Line] Maihama
the advantage is the platform is much nearer

It is raining dog and cat in Ikebukuro by the time we reached there. Lucky that our hand carry is keep in the locker and not with the hotel.

KW was so happy when we reach the Maihama station. Mickey is everywhere in the station and she even tells me she want to go to see Mickey. I have to tell her the sky is dark and we can only go on the next day.

We go to the hotel by the free shuttle bus provided. After checking in to our room, I bring KW to the hotel restaurant for dinner while hubby feeds KX in room.

In the restaurant, the light turns off suddenly but soon we saw the beautiful fireworks outside the window. That is the fireworks from Disney. How nice being greet by the beautiful fireworks! KW is very happy to see the fireworks while having her dinner. It was a great experience for us, too bad hubby and KX missed it.

Ps: msau is so nice giving me a pack of fever patch when I borrow the fever medicine from her later the night.

We return to the drugstore at the covered shopping street to buy a thermometer and also to buy the fever medicine. I left the medicine in the big luggage which will arrive in the hotel only on the next day.

I was like “WAHHH..” when I saw the price of the thermometer! The digital thermometer prices up to around RM200++! No point pay so much for a digital thermometer, I rather spend it for ear thermometer from Braun here. So, I simply buy the cheapest.

Immediately we put the thermometer under kw armpit. Gosh… I just realize it took 10mins to get the most accurate temperature! We didn’t wait for 10mins as the temperature already show 38C even just a few minutes. So, feed her medicine and let her nap in the stroller.

KX is the most happy as he finally can get out from the stroller and walk.

I have really no heart to shop anymore as I was so worry about KW. I am worry if she needs 3 days to recover and how she enjoys the fun in Disneyland if she is not feeling well!!!

It was not a good day as the weather forecast show ‘raining’ almost the whole day. With such weather, better stay indoor, right? So, we decided to have another shopping day at Kichijoji (吉祥寺).

We send our luggage to the hotel we going to stay in Maihama via the courier service from the front desk and keep a small hand carry bag with us as the luggage will arrive in the hotel on the next day. I store the hand carry bag in the locker at station Ikebukuro as later we will return to this station and take the subway to Shin-kiba. No point carry the bag go here and there…

It is drizzle at Kichijoji … anyway, it doesn’t stop me to shop walk since most of the shopping street are covered. My first mission is hunting the famous matsuzaka-beef ball.

See, have to queue to buy the famous matsuzaka-beef ball (松阪牛). No photo for the beef ball, too hungry liao, but it is really delicious and huge!

Spot this cute cigarette from the vending machine opposite, thought to buy for my colleague, but sold out

I am really surprise when I saw my favorite can-do 100 Yen shop. I personally feel that the quality from can-do is better than daiso. I bought some snacks and vacuum bags.

Our next mission after is hunt for the GAP store. Manage to find one at 0101 City. The store is huge. I bought some T and short pants for the kids. T is 900yen each and short pants is 1400yen each.

We were undecided what to eat for dinner, then I ask KW if she prefer to eat rice or noodle. She said noodle. So, our dinner for the day is the famous ramen (麺創房無敵家) of Ikebukuro which is located at East Ikebukuro.

Saw msau family outside the room and we decided to join together for the famous ramen.

“wow” “so long queue” that are our first impression to the ramen restaurant! After waiting for nearly 40mins, we got our seat finally.

We are bit greedy I order the large size ramen as though to share with KW since upgrading is free. The ramen is delicious but, just too large the size!

See the queue, we are queuing somewhere behind ler!

Some photo outside the restaurant…

they are hiring …

the ‘sauces’, the left one is tea concentrate; just add it to the plain water if you prefer to have tea instead of plain water.

inside the small restaurant…

and the delicious ramen!!!

We wake up quite late on that day and lazing in the room until afternoon. Our destination for the day is shopping exploring Ikebukuro. Since we are staying in Ikebukuro, so we don’t have to take any train or buses, instead our transport for the day is our feet.

We first explore around the west and north Ikebukuro which is near to the hotel we stayed, then only we headed to the east Ikebukuro. East Ikebukuro is in another side of the JR station and it is much busier.

We have our lunch at a famous ramen restaurant from Osaka. The ramen here in Tokyo is not as nice as the one in Osaka. But, one thing good about this ramen restaurant is, they serve porridge, rice + ramen soup.

We headed to Sunshine City which is just opposite the ramen restaurant. Bring the kids to Toy ‘R’ Us and have our first shopping spree at Uniqlo. Uniqlo is a common brand in Japan, their clothes is cheap and the fabric is good although it is made in China.

After that, we went to Tokyu Hands to search for the bento tools. There are a lot but most of the items in my list are sold out, especially the collection of pooh! Anyway, I just try my best to grab whatever they have.

It is a fruitful shopping day. Really can’t imagine if I shopping at Shinjuku and not Ikebukuro, there must be even more fruitful!

This is ramen restaurant we went …

Kid Utensil was served without asking

While waiting for the ramen…..

The porridge ramen

The ramen

Uniqlo, see the star blinking effect from the light? My S80 showing sign of retire…

And some of the photo of the street in Ikebukuro => here…. I am using DC to snap the photo, with one hand, and some of the photo is snap while walking.

Btw, our local budget airline really too fast in launching new route and my pocket feel too burden to chase after them. Mind you, the introduce fare will be much cheaper than regular discounted fare. I bought the air ticket to Japan at super cheap price during their launching few months ago. Well, maybe I should skip their new launching now and save the money just in case they have new route to Arizona in future. I heard that they have the plan to fly to the state. Anyway, better start to save the money and check out those arizona vacation experts or arizona lodging experts when I am free so that I can expect how much I am going to spend for a trip there.

With the Hakone Freepass, we pay an additional 870 Yen per person for the return highway bus from JR Gotemba to Shinjuku. We make our reservation for the return bus at 7.25pm right after we reach the JR Gotemba station.

Didn’t manage to take any photo in the outlet and I am really short of time to explore the huge outlet! GAP is huge but the price not really that cheap so I come out with empty hands. Osh Kosh is quite expensive too, it still needs about 1500 yen for a T after the discount, my budget is less than 1000 Yen for T.

There is lot of people carrying the loots from COACH and first thing come into my mind is, the bag must be very cheap! LOL I spend quite some time in COACH outlet and finally bought the sling bag. No time to explore the Agnes B outlet shop as we have to rush the shuttle bus back to JR Gotemba at 7am!

Sadly, the shuttle bus has just drive off when we reach the bus stand!!!! If I didn’t manage to take the 7.25pm bus return to Shinjuku then I have to take the last bus which is 7.45pm. Also, if msau didn’t see me, I am sure she wills think that I was ‘kidnap’ by the branded shop!

No choice, we take the taxi and show the drive the bus will depart at 7.25pm. The driver is very ‘keng’ as he manages to send us to the bus stand sharp at time!

After checking out the onsen hotel, we continue our journey to visit to the Museum of Little Prince and Venetian Glass Museum. Both the museum looks so beautiful with European style.

The entrance of Museum of Little Prince has a bubble making machine, the kids love it so much and chasing around for bubbles. KW makes some fuss when the exploring journey to the museum started as she refuses to take photo.

The Venetian Glass Museum is beautiful and romantic too. The garden is very into European style and I just like the greenery of the garden. The jam workshop is great and has lot of flavor of jam for guests to test! They are so yummy! Meet msau and her family in the Gelato ice cream stall and we had our very first yucky watermelon gelato ice cream!

The kids are so happy to meet with each other and keep holding each other hands no matter where they went. They seems even closer than me and msau ler! Hahhaha ….

We have soba noodle as our lunch. The soba restaurant located just opposite the Venetian Glass Museum.

and here the photo….. before we continue the journey to outlet.