Short Trip to Japan. Part 2

After 3 hours, I reach my first hotel which is ANA Crowne Plaza (1-3-1 Dojimahama, Kita –Ku Osaka. www.anacrowneplaza-osaka.jp) which is located near Yodoyabashi Subway station.


Apparently Yodoyabashi is more like a working area and thus not much area to explore. We took the subway to Namba which is like the shopping center of Osaka similar to Singapore Orchard Road. Only bigger.

The space between building are shelter up and rental out to shop selling food, fashion to slots machines giving the area endless shopping area at every turn and corner.

Over in this area, I have my 2nd Lunch of stir fried slice pork with rice, soup and salad at a place call song wu, which is specialize for their beef. It cost about 550 yen to 780 yen a meal base on the portion and meat type (beef or pork). (This is 1 of the standard meal I end up having over travelling days as its TASTY, Value for yen and most definately FILLING for the stomach)

After the meal, we went to visit the electronic town of Osaka call ‘Den Den Town’ where all the electronic stuff are gathered. 1st hand, 2nd hard of hardware to toys where even old album recorded in gigantic black ‘CDs’ can be found.

Here are where companies like Softmap ( electronics ) and Joshin ( toys and figurines ) are found every few block away. (www.joshin.co.jp ) The weather drops drastically when its dark which is about 5pm and cold breeze at night send me hiding behind building and entering shops to keep warm. (Air conditioning in shops actually blows out warm air) So if you are traveling to japan during winter. Its still cold even if there's no snow!

A Short Trip in Japan. Part 1

Recently, I made a short trip to Japan as part of my company incentive. Period of my travel was from 06 Jan 09 to 12 Jan 09.

The flight I took landed on Nagoya airport is located beside the open sea. Talk about stow away making a run for the plan. For Singapore to Japan, the flight time is about 7 hour and the first impression I have upon alighting the plan and waiting to hop on the bus to the airport lobby is ‘Cold’.




Temperature is under 10 deg and the occasional wind make it all the colder. Checking in and out was a breeze and the airport is clean and spacious like others I visit.

After checking out, we were to take a 3hr coach to Osaka where the hotel is.
Nagoya strike me of as a smaller town with dotted farm land and high tech factory found all together. The building and houses are located sparsely apart, giving it a open non clustered feel.





I was told that Nagoya consist of several island and thus there’s lots of bridges the coach was driving across. View is great to a urban concrete dweller like me with the blue sea at the near distance.

During the bus journey, we had a ‘pit stop’ like from Singapore to Genting, where I have a early lunch over a bowl of ramee. Jap Noodles. Its a simple dish which I bought over the vending machine.




There’s no waiter/ waitress to take order so its insert notes / coins into the vending machine and press what you want. The order is then transmitted wireless to the kitchen which will shout out our order once it’s ready. A bowl of ramee range from 500 yen to 700 yen.