Spring trip to Kawaguchiko

I’m back! A bit later than planned, but lets get back on track! This post will be about our Spring vacation trip last year to Kawaguchiko. We stayed there for one night and it was sooo nice! You might have seen it in the news a bit last year. Many tourists were creating havoc around the Lawson near the station as some TikTok/Instagram person made the view of Mount Fuji with the Lawson in famous. The local officials tried to stop it by putting up a net. There was this whole thing that was kind of ridiculous. Anyway, rest assured I didn’t take this shot. I got some much cooler shots of Mount Fuji instead.

We hopped on a train early on April 1st. It took about three hours to get there (if you take the coach from Shinjuku I think it is slightly quicker, traffic pending, but I think they were all fully booked when we tried to book one). We arrived around 11am and went for a little wander. We found a small pizza place we wanted to try for lunch and saw they opened for only two hours (12-2), so we headed there for just before 12 because the Google reviews said they were popular. It was a good decision because while we were first in, it quickly filled up after we were seated. The pizza was delicious!

After that we headed to the Mt. Fuji Panoramic Ropeway, which is next to Lake Kawaguchi. There was a fairly sizeable queue, but we expected it. It didn’t take too long before we were getting in the cable car and quickly ascending up the mountain. It was pretty steep, as you can kind of see in the photo below.

The views up the top were absolutely breathtaking! Mt. Fuji was mostly clear and looking majestic in all its snowcapped glory. Plus the view on the other side of the lakes was equally awe-inspiring. There is a rabbit shrine up there, a lover’s bell, and also a giant swing that you can pay to swing in to see the view whilst in motion (we didn’t partake though because queues!).

After queuing again to get back down, we headed to a sake brewery that we had passed on the way from the station. Neither of us are big drinkers, but it’s nice to try something a bit different every now and then. They did a tasting there where you pay a nominal amount of money and can go try some different sake and umeshu (plum wine). It was very interesting!

After this we hopped on a bus that took us around Kawaguchi lake and got off on the opposite side where there is a museum called the Kawaguchiko Forest Museum. Because it was the middle to latter part of the afternoon, we got a huge discount to go in (they have various performances earlier in the day). It was sooo interesting! It wasn’t busy either, which was great. The museum held lots of old instruments. But there was also a European inspired garden, which was beautiful. As well as various artworks and installations. A real all rounder of an attraction. You could easily spend many hours here, I think.

We took the bus back after this and headed back to go check into our cheap and cheerful business hotel for the night. We managed to get some more cool snaps of Mt Fuji on the way.

After resting a bit in our hotel room, we headed out to get some dinner. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but Shyam is vegetarian, so sometimes our choices are a little limited. But we saw a Sushiro (staple conveyor belt sushi place all over Japan) on our walk to the hotel, so we headed back there. I said the fateful words ‘I don’t think it’s that busy’ as we neared it. It was very busy! But actually we didn’t have to wait too long before we were seated. Then we got to order some interesting dishes. It’s very different to Yo! Sushi back home, haha.

After a very satisfying dinner, we went back to the hotel and chilled before bed. We were very tired, haha.

The next morning we headed out to a herb garden that was enroute back towards the lakes. It’s kind of a bit out of the way and maybe lesser known about, so it was super quiet there. The gardens were beautiful and they also had a Mt Fuji viewing deck with all these wonderful purpose built photo spots (places to set up your phone to take photos), so Shyam and I actually managed to get some decent photos together for once, which was nice.

After we finished our fun photoshoot, we walked down to the lake and got on a bus. This time we stayed on it until we got to the next lake, Lake Saiko (there are five lakes in total, which is why the area is called ‘Fuji 5 Lakes’). Our first stop was at the Saiko Bat Cave. You pay your money, get given a hard hat, and then hike into the woods until you eventually reach the cave. Sadly didn’t see any bats, but it was quite an exciting cave experience. I wouldn’t recommend trying to explore deep into the low ceiling part like I did. I realised very quickly I’m too old to walk stooped like that for too long these days.

We stopped off in the gift shop for a bat magnet and a snack whilst we waited for the next bus to come. Then we went a couple of stops round to the Saiko Iyashi-no-sato Nanba (a traditional Japanese village). You pay a small entrance fee and then there is a large cluster of traditional Japanese houses and huts. Each has a different attraction inside. There were different kinds of crafting (some of which you can do a workshop in), actual model traditional houses, teashops, sweet shops. A bit of everything honestly. It was fascinating.

After the traditional village my memory is slightly foggy, but I know the buses were being kind of awkward. So we got one so far and then ended up going on a pretty long walk round a large chunk of Kawaguchi lake. It was tiring but really beautiful. We got some more lovely views of Mt. Fuji, got to walk through a long tunnel, and see many different lakeside views. It was definitely worth it! I’d love to rent bikes and cycle round it next time.

When we eventually got back to the station area (we didn’t walk the whole way, we took a bus from about halfway round), we found this out of the way okonomiyaki restaurant tucked behind the station area called Zoo. We got seats at the counter and the chef was a bit of a character. It was kind of a locals place and I think we were fairly lucky to get in because plenty of people got turned away. He cooked our okonomiyaki and soba in front of us. It was delicious!

We left there feeling extremely full, headed back to the station via the lockers to pick up our belongings, and began the long train journey back home. All in all it was a brilliant, very memorable trip! I would recommend at least an overnight trip here to explore the area. You could easily do two or three nights. Next post will be all about our trip to Disney Sea!

White Day 2024

So I’m fairly sure I’ve written about White Day before, but just in case… In Japan, Valentine’s Day (still on February 14th) is a day for women to give chocolate to men. This also extends to giving chocolate to family members, friends, and even co-workers. Then a month later, on March 14th, the men reciprocate. Though, traditionally, this means giving back a gift (not necessarily chocolate) that is worth three times as much money.

Anyway, Shyam and I have kind of half adopted the Japanese way of things for Valentine’s. So I’ll make a card and buy chocolates on Valentine’s Day (maybe go for a meal too but not always). Then on White Day, Shyam tends to bake me something and take me out for a nice dinner somewhere. So today’s update will be about the awesome place he took me for White Day’s dinner last year.

We went to a restaurant in Shinjuku called Flower Wall Mone. The concept is that they have digital art playing on the wall as you eat. The place is also beautifully decked out in flowers. It’s basically the perfect spot to go on a romantic date. But also great for like a girls meal out too. I can’t upload videos on here, so I’ll try my best to show what it was like with photos instead.

It was moving digital art. So the bunnies would be jumping across the wall, the cherry blossoms were blowing in the wind, etc. It felt really magical in the moment. That was the real gem of the restaurant, but I did enjoy the food too. There was a pie in a mug that was a fun dish to order. I honestly can’t remember what was in the pie now, but I do remember it was delicious. We also had garlic bread, which always gives a restaurant many plus points in my book as it’s rare to find on menus over here.

I’m sure we ate other things too but I don’t have photos of them so I don’t remember ^^; It was a really lovely experience though. I also got to choose a small bouquet of flowers to take home, which I think was a special White Day thing the restaurant was doing. I’ll leave you with a photo of the two of us our waitress took for us. Next time will be a much longer entry about our trip to Kawaguchiko last Spring.

A birthday trip to the planetarium

Crazy I know, but I’m already back with another update! This post will take us further into January 2024.

So Shyam’s birthday is January 15th, and since this was the first time I had an oven available to me for his birthday, I attempted to bake him a cake. Now, please bear in mind I’ve never really cooked a big cake before. I’m proficient at cupcakes, okay at loaf cakes, so-so at traybakes, but I’ve never made a big sponge before. And technically this time, I still didn’t. I basically used my chocolate cupcake recipe and dumped it in a small sponge cake sized tin and baked it until it was cooked through, haha. And then badly decorated it. But he liked it! (And yes we still had our Christmas tree up! It was my first time in 5 years in Japan to have one, so I was reluctant to part with it).

I don’t actually remember what we did on the day except for birthday cake and presents (ie. there are no photos to remind me), but I’m sure we had some nice food or something ^^; But one of the presents I bought him was tickets to the planetarium, which we didn’t end up doing until January 28th. There are a bunch of these planetariums dotted around here, but we went to the one in Yokohama. This was a special performance running at the time called ‘Songs for the Planetarium’.

So we arrived in plenty of time and indulged in the special (and kind of pricey) snacks at the cafe there. They had themed drinks and doughnuts. The drinks were nice, but honestly the doughnuts looked miles better than they tasted, haha.

Then we headed into the planetarium. It was like a cinema screen layout really. Standard seats laid out in rows and then the premium seats at the front, which is what I had plumped for. Now these seats, as you can see below, were more like beds than seats. We felt very special to occupy one of them, haha. We posed for some photos and then the show was about to start, so we got our audio guides set up and got comfy.

Unfortunately I don’t remember the details of the show now and can’t actually find any info about it anywhere. But basically it was a series of different stories set to specific music and played out on the starry ceiling. Our audio guides gave it to us in English, but honestly I was more interested in just listening to the music and watching the pictures. I do remember one of the stories making me cry. It was a really lovely experience.

After the show we had a little look in the gift shop and I bought Shyam a pocket watch and we bought some special planetarium hand soap (which we still haven’t actually used, haha). And we took one or two more photos of the lobby area.

And that was that. Sorry it was an entry sketchy on the details. This is why I’m trying so hard to catch up so I’m not writing about events from the distant past ^^; I’ll be back, hopefully very soon, to write about last year’s White Day meal.

A winter hike in Nikko

I lapsed in my catch up blogs again ^^; but I am truly determined this time. I’m going to try and update 2-3 times a week, then I’ll finally finally be caught up. So this blog takes us back in time to January 5th, 2024. My friend, Morgan, suggested we go on a day hike to Nikko, so go we did, despite my being not at my healthiest for most of the day.

My alarm woke me up early on January 5th and I immediately had doubts about the planned daytrip. I was still somewhat in the throes of a GERD/Gastritis flare-up. I don’t think I’ve gone into detail in here about that diagnosis, but basically sometimes I get double whammied with tummy symptoms and it’s pretty rotten. The thing with living with a chronic illness, though, is that flare ups happen often and without prejudice, and sometimes you just really want to power through so you can live your life, y’know. So I took a deep breath and decided to push through.

I packed a lunch and met Morgan at the train station. I explained my flare up situation to him and he was still happy to go. So off we went to Kitasenju station to get the limited express train out to Nikko. We encountered our first problem here. The tickets for our desired train were all sold out, so we had to go for the next one, which I think was an hour later. I had a chance to back out again here, which I nearly took, but luckily I didn’t. So we bought our tickets and then set in to wait. I grabbed a chamomile tea from the Starbucks at the station and that helped to settle my stomach a little bit.

We eventually got on a train and we were on our way up to Nikko. The limited express train takes about an hour and a half. It’s a fun journey as you watch the urban landscape gradually change to fields and mountains. We arrived later than planned. It was already nearly midday, but we didn’t let that deter us. We immediately went to catch the bus that would take us to the start point of our hike. Now, the bus was the part I was most worried about re. my tummy, because it goes up these ridiculous winding paths. But, happily, it was okay! I even enjoyed the journey a bit.

We got off the bus at Ryuzu Cascades and found our first scenic spot of the day. We also went into the gift shop there to ask the owner if it was necessary for bear bells this time of year. She said it was safe since they were all hibernating, so from here we began our hike, taking many photos of the waterfall as we past it.

The early part of the hike took us through a very wintery, barren looking area. Bare trees, sad looking grass, and a snow covered path. But it all felt magical to us. Snow is a rare treat for us city dwellers. Something we have to travel to see. It was a bright sunny day and we soon shed coats and scarves as we walked. Also, the fresh air and exercise was doing me the world of good as my tummy seemed to finally be calming down.

At around 2pm we stopped for lunch. We found a little wooden seating area with a nice view (I’m sure the view would have been nicer outside the dead winter months, haha). I managed some actual food for the first time that day (onigiri).

The next part of our hike took us along a boardwalk, which was also partly snow-covered. We got to a place called Senjogahara Marshland. Apparently it’s known as ‘the battlefield’ because there was a legendary battle there between the god of Mt. Akagi and the god of Mt. Nantai. I’ll include a photo of the very informative board explaining about it.

After the brightness of the Marshlands we headed into the decidedly darker, colder confines of a thick woodland area. The coats went back on and we started making each other jump with the quiet, eerie surroundings. Then Morgan jumped for real as several monkeys suddenly crossed the path ahead of us. I was actually the brave one for once and led us on despite the monkeys (they just minded their own business). So we continued on our way through the dark dark wood, hehe.

And eventually we happened upon another magnificent waterfall. This was the Yudaki Cascades. This was more than 70m tall and crashing down into the river below. We heard the roar of it way before we saw it. We got to climb up the trail directly alongside it, which was really cool (and rather tiring, haha).

Our reward for the tough hike up the side of the waterfall was a ginormous lake that was completely frozen over. This was Lake Yunoko. The next part of our hike took us round by the side of this huge lake. We got some glorious photos of it. Also, with it now closing in on 4pm, it was getting cold, so even my hat went back on by this point. I was very glad to have brought all the winter clothes with me I don’t usually use in Tokyo.

Once we got to the other side of the lake, we reached the Yumoto Spa resort. We finally saw many other people here. On the way we had barely seen anybody. It was still pretty quiet though. Most of the spas seemed to be shut. Maybe because we were still technically in the New Year’s holiday period.

There is an area here that is the source of the hot spring water. It’s full of these little huts that I guess are pumping the water (I’ve no idea honestly). But it smelled very strongly of sulphur. Not a pleasant smell, I can assure you. We also saw deer and monkeys in this area, which was cool.

We took a bus back around 5pm. All the way back the long and winding roads to semi-civilisation. We then had a little bit of time to kill before our train back to Tokyo, so grabbed some yummy hot soba in this cute little restaurant near the station. Then we hopped onto the train, gratefully clutching hot cans of drink from the vending machine and settled in for the journey back home.

Overall it was a lovely if tiring day out. It started out not great for me but the exercise and fresh air really helped a lot. Since then I’ve realised that exercise is usually great treatment for many of the symptoms I experience, and this trip was the beginning of that. Thank you to Morgan for organising this lovely day out. Sorry it took me over a year to blog about it ^^;

Christmas 2023

I had a pretty sociable, busy Christmas in 2023. It was somewhat spread out on the days leading up to the big day. On December 21st, Shyam and I hosted a Christmas party together for the first time at our own place. He made most of the food, as always, haha. But I contributed with my usual mince pies, as well as the apparently popular apple crumble and custard. It was a very eclectic group of people and everyone had a great time!

I didn’t take many photos unfortunately, but above are Shyam’s charcuterie board and my mince pies. There were also two chickens, Shyam’s famous roast potatoes, carrots, etc. Always a good spread in our house! Hehe. Oh also, I made an origami wreath for our front door. I used to make them for my office door at my old job in the UK.

Two days later, we attended another Christmas party at a friend’s place. They lived in a nice, spacious apartment in Odaiba, with lovely views that included Mount Fuji. I might have stood out on their balcony for longer than would be advisable in the low winter temperatures, to admire said view. Many different people attended this party also. We had a good mix of food (I can’t remember what and I have no photos, alas). I do remember that one of the activities was gingerbread men decorating, which caused lots of hilarity, though I wasn’t very good at it, as referenced below ^^;

On December 25th, as we’d already had lots of Christmas food at the two parties, we decided to go out for Christmas dinner. There aren’t many options in Tokyo for traditional Christmas dinner, so we just went for something we wanted instead. We chose Sizzler because we knew there would be a Christmas atmosphere, we really like their cheese toast, and they have excellent apple crumble in the dessert buffet. I booked us a table at the one in Kichijoji, which allowed us to have a lovely walk around Inokashira Park before dinner. It was a lovely afternoon/evening.

And then on Boxing Day, we went on an amazing afternoon tea cruise across Tokyo Bay. It was one of Shyam’s presents to me. It was a 50 minute cruise, although we were boarded well in advance of the departure time. We had a table reserved in the Four Seasons lounge on board, where they served us afternoon tea with unlimited tea. It was so lovely drinking tea and eating cake whilst watching the view constantly change as we sailed around the bay.

After we had had our fill of tea and cake, we left our bags at our table and headed up on deck to see unobstructed views of the bay. It was cold outside but so lovely to feel the breeze on our faces and have a laugh as we took some silly photos of each other.

We had a nice surprise upon re-entering the ship from the deck. A lady was setting up in a kind of foyer area and she was going to sing some opera. We had no idea this was going to happen. She personally encouraged us to take a seat. There were about twelve or so chairs lined up, so we quickly claimed two. Shyam is a big fan of operas, and I definitely enjoy it, and she was fantastic! Many more people stopped and claimed the remaining seats or remained standing to watch her performance. It really capped off a truly brilliant hour or so on the ship.

This entry is nearly over. We didn’t do too much on New Years. We just met two of Shyam’s friends at the Showa era izakaya we like, Hanbey’s, and then were in bed well before midnight, haha. The next entry will be about an epic daytrip I took with my friend, Morgan on January 5th.

Autumnal trip to Karuizawa

On November 11th 2023, I took a shinkansen from Tokyo to Karuizawa to spend the night in the the mountains with (some of) the same group of friends I went to Korea with in the summer. BTS is a music group with the power to bring people together, and through them I’ve made so many great friends and get to experience so many things I wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to do. I’m forever grateful for that.

So this time we decided to rent an Airbnb for the night and enjoy the autumn leaves together in Nagano prefecture. I arrived a bit later than the others as I had a hospital appointment in the morning, but the shinkansen soon whizzed me there to join up with them. They had hired a couple of cars, so I got picked up from the station and then we went to a supermarket to go stock up on food for the night.

This was my first view after getting off the train:

After we’d raided the supermarket we drove to our accommodation for the night. It was a cute cottage halfway up a mountain. There was a wood burner inside and all the other amenities we needed. One of our members immediately decorated the room to make it fit for BTS ARMY, haha.

We cooked up a bunch of food, had some nice wine and a glass of soju or three, haha, and just generally had a lovely evening relaxing and goofing off a bit. It’s over a year ago already, so I don’t remember details well sadly. This is why I need to get up to date with this blog. I can’t even remember the sleeping arrangements in this place. But I do know we had a great time.

The next morning we had breakfast and then cleaned up and headed out. We got a bunch of nice photos from nearby the Airbnb.

We drove to the Usui pass and visited the Usuitoge Kumano Shrine. From what I remember it was a fairly typical shrine. Lots of stairs to climb, etc. But also, for some reason, a pink door in the middle of the woods, haha.

We headed into Karuizawa town centre after that, where we got some interesting food and visited a few more points of interest.

A lovely night away soon had to come to an end though and we all gradually parted ways. I took the shinkansen home, which in itself is quite a treat. I know in this blog and the last I took two shinkansen, but it’s not a regular occurrence usually because it’s pretty expensive. I hope I can spend some more quality time with this group of friends, but it’ll be difficult since one friend has moved back to the US, sadly.

Will be back soon with a blog for Christmas 2023. Getting there! ^^;

Trip to Shizuoka

So this post is about a wonderful daytrip I got to experience on October 31st 2023. I was idly scrolling Facebook one day when this post appeared about a trial tour. I’d seen this sort of thing before but never acted on it, but I thought why not this time since it looked interesting and the tour day just happened to be on a day when I didn’t need to be in school. They were offering a fully paid for tour to Shizuoka (shinkansen and full course lunch included) for free. All I had to do was write them a review afterwards. It kind of sounds like a scam when I write it like that, but it wasn’t!

So bright and early in the morning, I trekked across to Tokyo station to catch the 8:03 shinkansen to Shizuoka. (Yes, I have the itinerary from my email open in front of me right now, lol). It was a very pleasant hour ish journey. I don’t get on shinkansen very often because they are expensive, so I enjoyed it. I met the tour guides and other participants at the station. I can’t remember exactly how many people there were but around a dozen. They paired us off and assigned a guide for each pair. My partner was a lady a bit older than me, and our guide was a really lovely, enthusiastic, older Japanese man with pretty decent English ability.

Our first stop on the tour was Sengen shrine. We went there in private cars. The shrine was under reconstruction, so large parts of it were under scaffolding. We got a very long, informative explanation about what they were doing to it and why. We were also given special access to go inside, complete with hard hats, to see some of the work going on. It was very cool!

Next stop was lunch! We went to this very nice hotel called Nippon Daira Hotel. We had no idea beforehand, but they were laying on a full course meal and unlimited drinks! It was crazy! None of us could believe it, haha. We got sat in our pairs and quickly ordered our first drinks. And then the food started coming. I’ll share a photo of the menu below plus some of the dishes. It was all so good. I got to taste a lot of food for the first time.

After a very filling lunch and a few umeshus (plum wine) we got to explore the grounds of the hotel a little bit. It was so beautiful.

Next stop was Kunozan Toshogu shrine, via the Nihondaira ropeway. I love going on ropeways, so this was the major selling point for me when I decided to sign up for the tour, haha. From what I can remember (it was over a year ago ^^; ) this ropeway was similar to others I have been on and, of course, had excellent views on the way. The shrine itself was lovely. We got another exclusive here. This time it was a tea ceremony experience. My first time making matcha traditionally (and probably my last since I don’t actually like it ^^; ).

We got to see inside the attached museum after this but weren’t allowed to take photos, and unfortunately I don’t remember it at all ^^; Then we took the ropeway back and went to the Nihon Daira Yume Terrace, where you can sometimes see breathtaking views of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately it was too cloudy whilst we were there, but we did get nice dramatic cloud formation views.

And so we got a lift back to the station and I enjoyed the shinkansen back home again. It was an excellent trial tour. If you get a chance to do something like this, please go for it! I’ll be back very soon (I really do intend to catch up this year, like for real ^^; ) with an autumnal weekend in Kaurizawa.

My birthday 2023

Ahhh life has been a bit crazy the last couple of months, but I will never let this blog die. I’ve slipped to more than a year behind again, but I will catch up someday. Somehow ^^;

So this post will be pretty short cause it’s just going to be about my birthday last year, but I want to record it in here because it’s important to me.

My birthday fell on a Sunday last year, so Shyam and I got to spend the whole day together, which was nice. We did some shopping and then we went and got our nails done together. It was so nice (if a little embarrassing because I am a compulsive nail biter and the lady didn’t have too much to work with). I think the colours we chose compliment each other well, hehe.

Oh and just before we got our nails done, we had a taste of home in the heart of Tokyo, hehe. Costa is getting more and more popular here lately.

Then we headed onward to Asakusa. I knew we were going to a restaurant for dinner but I had no idea where and what kind of food. It turned out to be a rather fancy restaurant called ‘R Restaurant and bar’. It’s attached to a hotel and has amazing skyline views as you dine. Shyam had bagged us perfect seats out on the balcony with a good view of Tokyo Skytree.

It was a course menu that consisted of various dishes, which were mostly French cuisine, I think. There was caprese, onion gratin soup, scallops and mushrooms, and various other things. Basically anything I didn’t photograph, I forgot ^^; And of course there was a very lovely birthday dessert plate at the end.

And of course I had a cocktail to complement it all. It was a very lovely birthday and, maybe one day, you will read about the equally lovely birthday I had this year too, haha. Until next time!

TeamLab Planets

I am back! Only a few days later!! So this post will mostly just be photo heavy, but I’ll try and include any anecdotes I remember as well.

At the end of August last year, Shyam and I finally made it to TeamLab Planets. We had already done Borderless before it closed down in Odaiba (the new one has since opened, but I’m not sure how different it is and if it’s worth going to). Planets is based not far from Odaiba and has a very exciting water theme. You have to take off your socks and shoes and roll your trousers basically up to your knees.

So I just realised I never actually blogged about TeamLab Borderless. What?? So I better just say that TeamLab is a pair of digital art museums in Tokyo (they have other pop-ups, possibly permanent exhibitions in other places too): Borderless and Planets. I won’t go into what they are too much, it’s easy to find out about them online. But they are incredibly popular with residents and tourists alike. Both places are a fully immersive experience.

This post is about Planets. I’m not sure why I neglected to blog about Borderless, but Planets was my favorite, so ehh.

So when you first go in, you take your shoes and socks off and put them in a locker by the entrance. Then you head inside and immediately walk up a wet, fairly steep slope. It felt like going into a swimming pool. I don’t actually remember the details well other than that (it has been over a year ^^; ). But there were several distinct sections with various digital art displays. So I’ll just share some photos.

There was an outside garden area with these mysterious silver orbs. We had to put on slippers to go out here.

And, I think this was the last area, the artificial flowers that moved up and down and were super cool and made a great photos spot.

It’s too long ago and I don’t remember what part I deemed as my favorite. I just know I found the whole thing very exciting but also relaxing. 100% worth a visit if you are in Tokyo. And that’s another catch up blog done. Relatively short compared to the last one, lol.

Summer vacation 2023 part 2

As always I am way later than I hoped to be with this. I am very much over a year behind again. I shall, as always, strive to rectify this situation ^^;

So after an epic 3 and a half weeks back in the homeland, I had a short but sweet couple of days back in Japan before jetting off again, this time to… Korea! Last time I was in Korea was in July 2019 for quidditch, lol. This time I went for an equally geeky reason. I went with eight fellow BTS fans and we stayed in the same Airbnb they stayed at for their reality series ‘In The Soop’. It was epic!!

I caught a flight from Narita in the early afternoon and arrived late afternoon in Incheon. Everyone else was already there and I was to meet them at a restaurant (which BTS had been to before – yes this trip is very much going to be like that, haha). So after a little trouble getting my travelcard (the lady in the CU was very helpful and definitely didn’t laugh at my butchering of gamsahamnida – thank you), I was on a train and on my way to Gangnam to meet the others.

They were already inside when I got there, but quickly made space for me and started feeding me up on all the non-spicy food items they could get (this was mostly meat and rice, lol). After we had eaten a lot and also managed to temporarily move to the table BTS sat at for photos, we were on our way. We all decided we could just about squeeze in some dessert, so we went for a traditional Korean dessert called Bingsu. Basically shaved ice with a whole lot of toppings on. The one I shared with one of the others was red bean and kinako. It was sooo good!

After that we all parted ways to our various accomodations for the night. I was sharing a hotel room with one of the others, so we chatted a fair bit before bed, hehe. But we had to be up bright and early the next morning as we were catching the train out to Chuncheon where the Airbnb is, so we went to bed at a fairly reasonable time.

The next morning we all met up at Seoul station at around 10am, I think. Then we caught the train up to Chuncheon. I think it took about two hours on a fairly high speed train. Then we did a major shopping spree at a supermarket there. The Airbnb is in the middle of nowhere, so we needed to stock up on all the supplies we would need. We also grabbed some lunch here. Then the taxis that our Airbnb host kindly arranged for us turned up. They were very unimpressed with how much luggage we had between us (which was mostly grocery shopping bags) but hey ho they took us after some grumbling.

The taxis took us on a fairly lengthy journey, which involved many small, winding roads. The scenery change on the train was pretty dramatic, but in the taxi it was even more dramatic. We were really out in the middle of nowhere and it was beautiful!

Eventually we arrived at our destination and we were all immediately blown away. Seeing it on TV in the show was amazing enough, but in person? The views were incredible! I think we all got lost in a daze of staring and taking photos for a good while when we first arrived.

Eventually we went inside and it was very exciting to see all the rooms that we had seen on TV in real life. We toured around and then claimed our beds. I was in Taehyung and Hobi’s room with one of the other girls. The whole interior of the main and upper house is so nice. Also the boat house was cute, but far too many bugs down there for me to be brave enough to volunteer to sleep there, haha.

After a while, our host, Lisa, arrived complete with her famous doggy, Happy. Happy was in a commercial with Choi Wooshik!!

Lisa was so lovely! She brought us all Korean skincare products as gifts. She also gave us some fireworks that we could set off during our stay. And, best of all, she took us out on the lake on her speedboat! It was amazing!! She even showed us which lifejackets the boys used during the show. So I got to wear the same lifejacket as Taehyung 🙂

Then we took some commemorative photos of all nine of us (whilst Lisa was there to help us), including this lovely shot of us mimicking BTS, haha.

Next it was time to get the BBQ going, so Lisa showed us how to do that and then was on her way. We grilled meat, made salads, and laid the table outside, all whilst the sun was setting over the beautiful scenery. It felt very special.

We had a veritable feast of grilled meats, salad, rice, and lots of soju and makeolli, haha. We also had a couple of feline visitors who had clearly smelled our meat cooking, but they weren’t brave enough to get too close to us, sadly. Then it was chill time before bed. We played some old style party games and did a bit of karaoke. It was very fun!

The next day, our one full day in the house, we all did various things, much like BTS themselves did 3 years before. Some of us tried drawing/painting because that was a big thing in the show. I had a go at doing a crayon sketch. It wasn’t amazing, but I think you can see what I was aiming for.

Also, in the garden, there is a swing chair. So I partook in a swing a few times. One of those times I took a selfie and then took a photo of the view from the chair. I think you can see why it was one of my favorite spots.

When evening came again, the nine of us worked together to cook up another feast of various Korean food and drinks. We also toasted marshmallows over a bonfire and then set off the fireworks over the lake. In Korea the fireworks are the type that you hold whilst they go off. This freaked me out a lot considering how I was brought up to not hold any firework except for a sparkler. So I stood back and took videos whilst the others let them off. It was beautiful. I wish I knew how to upload videos on here.

The last morning was a combination of packing up, eating, and soaking up the last few hours in the house. Plus taking loads more photos.

We got the same taxis back to the station (the drivers were much nicer this time) and then took the train back down to Seoul. Most people were leaving, but I had booked an extra night in Seoul to make the most of it. So after many emotional goodbyes, me and the two remaining members went off on an adventure to see the Hybe building. This is the company headquarters where BTS and many other artists are based. It’s a huge skyscraper! It was very impressive (I didn’t get a good photo of the actual building so you’ll have to Google it if you’re interested).

After that we went to the BTS cafe that is behind the Hybe building. A random old man told us about it, haha. The front and inside were decked out in BTS pictures and memorabilia. They were also serving special themed drinks and food. We stopped in for a drink and some photos.

After that I parted ways with my two remaining companions as they were catching a train to Busan (hopefully zombie free). So I went to check into my hotel and drop off my luggage. I was staying in a budget hotel in Myeongdong, which apparently was really out of the way from everywhere, but still walking distance from Seoul station. After a quick rest in my room, I headed out again. This time I went to the old Bighit building, which is where BTS started out before they conquered the world. The building has turned into a kind of shrine for BTS fans with messages written in every available space. It was a pretty awesome sight.

From there I walked to the Han River. The sun was going down at this point so I got some more lovely sunset photos.

I eventually reached the Banpo bridge, which was my aim. I’d read that they do light water shows at night, and boy did they! It was so impressive! Water shot off the side of the bridge and was lit up in various colours. I got photos and videos from the bank and also from when I walked across the bridge. It was sooo good!

After a whole lot of walking, I was so tired, so I flopped into bed with rather minimal food. Whoops. Then the next morning I got up early enough so that I had about an hour and a half before I needed to check out. I went for a wander around Myeondong. Unfortunately a lot of things were shut. I’m not sure if it was a holiday or if it was just a typical Monday there. But it was still fun to just walk around and see what I could see. Including the flagship HBAF shop. Sooo many interesting flavours of nuts in there.

I bought a few bits and bobs as souvenirs, and then headed back to the hotel to check out. Then it was a train back to Incheon airport and the plane back to Narita. It was a rather stressful flight, but I shan’t write about it here because I don’t want to tarnish what an absolutely fabulous trip it was. I think it’s why it took me so long to update this. I really needed to devote a lot of time to write about everything.

Anyways, as always, I shall endeavor to come back with a new entry as soon as possible.