2011 Trip Recap, Part I

Firstly, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! あけましておめでとうございます *^-^* Hope that 2012 will be a good year for everyone. 

To celebrate the new year, a look back at 2011's trip to Japan which we made and ended just a few weeks ago. Hopefully, there'll be more Japan trips for us in the future! (Although we *agreed* to take a break from visiting Japan in 2012 & 2013). 

We went sightseeing in Yokohama on our second day in Japan, the first day being too late to do anything other than checking-in and sleeping in a hotel near Haneda Airport for us.

From Yokohama, we made our way to Yufuin. Checked-in at a pretty cool cottage and had two baths all to ourselves. 

The first half of Day 4 was spent sightseeing in Yufuin. Pity it rained after I had my morning run there because after we checked-out, we were unable to travel much around the area because it was a tad cold with the rain. But we made it to Lake Kinrinko and walked around the town area.

Day 5 was spent at Huis Ten Bosch, feeling like we were not in Japan but in Holland albeit Japanese speaking part of Holland. LOL

The evening was spent with a blogging friend, Hanny who lives in Kitakyushu, making and eating takoyaki with her two boys.

From Hakata, we made our way to Shikoku Island on Day 6 of our trip. Lrong was in Takamatsu that day and had kindly suggested to meet for lunch but as luck would have it, we were unable to secure any early train seats reservations and with the one we had, we arrived too late to meet-up for lunch.

So instead of heading straight to Takamatsu as planned earlier, we made our way to Matsuyama first. Walked from Matsuyama Station to Dogo Onsen and stopped whenever we see nice/interesting sites; which I will post more of soon.

Day 7 was spent visiting Shikoku Mura and Ritsurin Koen and the evening was spent walking around the port area and what is touted to be the biggest shopping street in Japan.

There were rainy and gloomy days when we were there but through Day 7, we were lucky that the rain didn't spoil our plan much. How were the days after that? Stay tuned!

Day 8 - Day 14 recap soon!