★Visit Japan Campaign Report (Day1)★ THE TRIP OF TWO SEASONS FOUR WINDOWS FLIGHT

After all the articles I read, all stories I heard from families and friends, all videos I watched, thankfully last February, I got the opportunity to visit Japan thanks to the 8th Visit Japan Campaign by FUN! JAPAN. One thing in common from all the sources about Japan that I read, heard, or watched was the positivity in everything or I could say that none of them have had bad experience about Japan, so here I’d try to share with everyone what I saw, heard, watched, and experienced in this wonderful trip. Let’s start with the flight.

Finally, the day arrived, I couldn’t be more excited, and I packed everything the night before, so the journey began. I arrived at the airport, collected a pocket wifi I’ve booked beforehand, proceeded to check in and everything’s ready smoothly. I flew with AirAsia X, so the gate was a bit far since all AirAsia X’s widebody aircraft were using the further side of the terminal, and the boarding began smoothly, I managed myself to my seat, of course, a window seat. The view was amazing especially when the sunset for the day and the darkness took over the light. It took more than 7 hours to reach Tokyo that day, and beside me through the flight was a Thai couple on their 3rd trip to Japan, they said that they really love Japan. Meanwhile, I didn’t sleep at all since I thought if I slept on board, I’d have a hard time sleeping that night. At 22.30 PM local time, I arrived at Tokyo Haneda International Aiport. The flight was exceptionally smooth. I had two meals on the flight, so I wasn’t really hungry that night.

I was amazed by everything since I landed. Well, I deplaned at 22.45 PM, and guess what, at 23.05 PM I was out of the terminal waiting for the shuttle bus. “It was efficiency at its max”, I told myself. Haneda has 3 separate terminals, 1 for international and 2 domestics. They even reached 80 Million passengers in 2016, which was more than KLIA and KLIA2 combined for last year, 2017. I wonder, have I ever deplaned in KLIA and out of the terminal in less than half an hour before? Or anyone here who read this, have you? I knew every terminal designed have their respective capacity, but designing it to be efficient took it up to a whole new level. Think about it this way, why does a smaller capacity airport operate slower than a bigger one?

One of the best airports to kill your time was actually this airport; there’s a lot to do, even for kids. So no need to worry when you’re here early or a long transit should your child got bored and might be throwing a tantrum. There are these remote control cars they could play, there’s a Hello Kitty themed shop, and a lot more.

One of the differences I noticed was they nearly had the same amount of custom counters as the immigration counters, and it’s a lot, more than 30 immigration counters. Most airports I’ve been to, like ours in Malaysia didn’t provide a lot of custom counters, adding more of these counters actually make the passengers arriving process much more efficient and quick. That, of course, comes after a super-fast baggage handling service. We still have a lot to catch. It’s not just about the infrastructure and facility; it’s about the system and the attitude to obey the system.

I took the free shuttle bus to transfer to Domestic Terminal 1, where the First Cabin Hotel was located, as a capsule style hotel to stay for the night. I had a great rest that night provided the great facility and superb hospitality.

One more thing I loved about this airport was the observation deck; all three terminals have their own observation deck which would be a perfect spot for a plane spotter and aviation enthusiasts especially when all the observation area were open, I meant outdoor as it was situated at each terminals’ rooftops. I bet this airport was indeed a very well designed airport.

Top of Haneda, Gulliver’s Deck.

NEW FRIENDS, A JOURNEY TO THE PAST

Heading to Tokyo Station from Haneda airport buy bus

I met Walter-san from Taiwan first as he was staying at the same hotel as me the night before, so we went to meet the others together at the arrival hall of the international terminal. I met Wila-san from Thailand, Ica-san from Indonesia and Cheak-san from FUN! JAPAN. So the journey began, and we made our way out of the terminal to ride a bus heading to Tokyo Station.

Heading to Kanazawa from Tokyo Station by Shinkansen

The bus ride to Tokyo wasn’t that long, it took nearly one hour to reach Tokyo, that was 11.20 AM and our shinkansen or bullet train would be leaving at 12.24 PM to Kanazawa. That’s our destination Kanazawa in Ishikawa prefecture. We’ll be on the Hokuriku Shinkansen line but before that, we need to buy ekiben or train bento boxes for our lunch in the shinkansen. The station was quite busy actually and Walter-san suggested a good ekiben shop, so we were all heading there while pulling all our suitcases.

I was really bad at making decisions, especially when the choices were thousands I meant all the ekibens with so many shapes and colours, I really couldn’t choose one. As Cheak-san was translating the ekibens, I saw a saba ekiben, I knew that’s the one because I love saba or mackerel so much. We all got ourselves delicious ekibens and couldn’t wait to eat it on the train.

Enjoy our Ekiben lunch box on the train

The timing here in Japan was perfect, everything was on time, I couldn’t even keep up; I really need to train myself with this habit. We got on our shinkansen and the lunch commenced, I meant the train started moving and we all helped ourselves with the meal pronto because we’re all starving. I really liked the train, the carriages were spacious, the seats were comfy, and they have power points for each seat too. I actually opened the Waze app in my phone to see the speed of the train, I was curious of course, and the train actually sped up till 230 km/h the moment I checked, I bet it went faster than that. The train took 3 hours and we reached Kanazawa Station at 15.20 PM sharp. The view on the train was absolutely beautiful, fields of white snow as far as your eyes could see, white hills, white valleys, everything seemed so snow white.

Heading to Shirakawa-go from Kanazawa

Kanazawa Station, a very beautiful station with a big Tsuzumi Gate at the front will keep you in awe. The gate resembled tsuzumi or a Japanese drum. There’s also the great dome of hospitality, once you step out from the station, before reaching the tsuzumi gate, on top of you are a giant dome made of glass, it represents Kanazawa’s hospitality to all locals and visitors disembarking out of the station as an umbrella since Kanazawa has high rainfall and snowfall.

It was a shortstop indeed as we need to ride the bus to Shirakawa-go which where we’d be staying for the night. At 15.45 sharp, the bus driver started the journey, our journey to the past. Because Shirakawa-go was an ancient and historical village, a world heritage site, hundreds of years old, survived through time, and we got the opportunity to visit and learn. It was a bit more than an hour journey, but by the view was amazing. We went through the mountains, and lots of tunnels, and of course, the snow-covered valleys were beautiful.

The girls got a room, and we boys got one, I really liked how warm the carpet was, because of the carpet warmer, I was surprised such appliance existed. Since there’s snow, one mustn’t leave without making a snowman.

Later after dinner, we all took a stroll around the village, just walking around the peaceful and quiet white looking village. It was so peaceful indeed. It was freezing, but it’s warm. You might feel cold, but your eyes were warm, seeing this lovely village covered in white, glorious white.

We came back to the house and started to make a snowman. It was cold, the snow was cold, our fingers were freezing, but we managed somehow to make a snowman or rather a snow queen. Using icicles we picked, we made an ice crown for the queen, snow queen. We all had lots of fun. The queen survived till the next day too.

Later that night, we were exchanging souvenirs we brought from our countries with everyone. There’s food and many more. I really liked the pastries Walter-san brought for me, cookies from Ica-san, and the cool pant Wila-san gave me. Thank you, everyone!