🇯🇵 Tokyo, Niigata, Yuzawa, Kusatsu - Winter 2023
We planned a trip to Japan during CNY with the bro, SIL and little nephew who is less than a year old! We did a 10 day trip, both separately and together split across Tokyo and some cities up north (Niigata, Yuzawa and Kusatsu). Traveling in the winter was cooooold and not the most convenient but the snow made some activities really fun hehe.
Tokyo
Had our usual food favs:
1) Kaiten Sushi Nemuro Hanamaru (usually our first meal whenever we land in Tokyo!)
2) Tsukiji Market (Kitsuneya Gyudon, Yamacho Tamagoyaki, Maruni Matcha Latte, Sanokiya Maguro-shaped Taiyaki)
3) Morinaga Hotcake Bun from Family Mart (I love hotcakes!!)
4) Suzukien Asakusa Matcha Ice Cream
5) Fuunji Tsukemen (had our share and then picked bb nephew out and sat at Starbucks so his parents could dine in peace cus the shop is very small and not baby-friendly haha)
New things we tried:
1) Cafe Reissue - cute latte art, but coffee is so-so (novel but wouldn't go back!)
2) Gonokami Seisakusho - Shrimp-based Tsukemen (don't typically see a lot of shrimp-based broth, would revisit!)
3) Kaneko Hannosuke - Tendon (long lines, pretty good tempura but I'm not a mega fan of fried food in general so I don't think I'd stand in line for this again!)
Visited the Samsung Galaxy Harajuku Store as they had a pop up for YouTube Shorts (related to what I was working on that time haha)
Met some Japanese colleagues I used to work with - it's always fun meeting folks in person after working closely on video calls!
Somehow fell terribly ill again and the husband had to go through medication in the pharmacy with the help of Google Translate lol
Of course spent a day at DisneySea! Bb nephew's first visit so it was definitely memorable. He was wearing the Duffy onesie that my Sis gifted him, sekewt 🥺
My ugg boots also decided to die on me that day, fortunately it's Disney so the guest services actually had shoe glue to tide me through the day lol.
We also did a family photoshoot at Asakusa!
Niigata
We took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Niigata, spent 2 days there. There's not a lot to do in the area so it was a pretty chill and slow 2 days.
Our hotel was not very close by, and idk why we decided it was a good idea to take a bus + walk when the bro/SIL had a stroller in tow and it was snowing. But we made it 😂
It's a relatively small compound with souvenirs, of course lots of different senbei to buy, and you also can draw on your senbei with soy sauce and grill it. Quite a cute experience!
We also visited a Sake place for a free tour! There are English-speaking tours but we couldn't make it so we went for a Japanese one instead. Didn't understand much but we got to see the interior and some brewing equipment. Niigata is known for Sake but we're not big on alcohol so we didn't get any.
Yuzawa
Took a train down from Niigata to Yuzawa, and rented a car for the next 2 days.
TBH I didn't think it was worth a specific visit, there's a 1,000 JPY entry fee and you take a walk through the 750m long tunnel, with information about the gorge and its surrounding area across different viewpoints. The last viewpoint is the light tunnel that you'd probably see in most photos.
2) Soba making
SIL booked this experience in the vicinity where we got to make soba noodles from scratch.
We stayed at Maruyama Onsen and loved it! The rooms were spacious (all 5 of us bunked in one room), hotel provided free snow boots, ski sleds, ski gear available for rental, and food (both breakfast + dinner) was good.
4) Ishiuchi Maruyama Snow Garden
We booked a dome tent and ordered some food for a "picnic", and also had fun sledding right outside the tent. The weather wasn't the best as it was snowing and visibility was poor, but we still had fun!!
Kusatsu
Took the train down to Kusatsu, our last stop before heading back to Tokyo. It's apparently one of the more popular onsen towns in Japan but I didn't enjoy my time here at all cus there's nothing much to do lol. The onsen in our hotel was just so-so as well, kinda comparable to what you could find in Tokyo.
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