Day 1-11/12 Arrival in Osaka

Upon arrival, we took it real slow since we had hours to kill before hotel check-in at 4pm.  Brushed our teeth, sorted out what to wear, bought our prepaid IC cards (called ICOCA in Osaka), located and took the train to Namba station. 

Japanese vending machines hehe

Spotted a McD in the station... since JE had it on her list to try, might as well tick it off (hubby was already looking for Japanese food!).  SE had an ebi/shrimp burger while I had teriyaki chicken - nice but no temptation to repeat.

Peeps having McDonald's in Japan

Then we started walking the 15mins to our hotel. The temperature was about 12C, comfortable for me while hubby found it a bit chilly.  It was an easy walk as there were shops most of the way (later on, we would be very used to walks of 15mins and more!)

See the giant rubber duck? Hehe

We reached Hotel Arashi about 230pm and they said we could check-in.  Super happy!  I had been worried how hubby would hold up.  In fact he'd wanted me to book another room so he could rest early.  

I was also anxious we wouldn't like the hotel as it seemed pretty cheap at RM570 a night.  Well, it was really value for money!  Location was great, the room wasn't too small (25 sq m according to the booking) and I loved that the toilet, shower and the bathroom sinks (yes two of them!) were in separate areas.  So up to 4 people could be using the facilities at the same time!  Well as long as not all 4 needed to poop heh.

Test bed... ok, comfy

A nifty table to put things on

We dimmed the lights and managed to nap, refreshing ourselves enough to go out in the evening.

Besides McD, I didn't have any targetted food places at all.  My plan was simple - when hungry, look around for food. :)  We ended up having premium beef and udon for our first proper meal - very good, one of our best meals of the trip.  SE loved the grated cabbage.

First dinner!

Happy hubby

After dinner we walked around.

Some pretty food

A must-do to take a photo with the Glico running man when in Osaka.

Now everyone knows where we are

Finally, 'collected' our breakfast.  It would be something we looked forward to every night, getting ourselves breakfast for the next morning.  It was mostly from 'kombini'/convenience stores.  Just a sample below - 'candy' cheese (individually wrapped like candy), yogurt drink, milk, chocolate-filled puff, ham and egg sandwich, cookie, chocolate-covered biscuits, vanilla millecrepe, another cookie, chocolate cake, gummies.  Doggy is next to a box of biscuits which JE said was cheaper in Japan.

Sample breakfast items

A good first day indeed!

To the Airport!

I'd thought a good country for a first visit would be Australia, since it would be easy to rent a car and drive around.  JE was keen on Japan.  The main advantage of Japan would be the current weak currency.  I'd never been there myself - hubby had done a few work trips there and preferred other countries, so we never did go there before the kids came along.

Eventually... Japan it was, 10 days for Osaka-Kyoto-Tokyo..  :)  Luckily I wasn't super-busy at work and could squeeze out time to plan the trip.  Oh it was in this sequence so we could arrive in Osaka at the morning and leave Tokyo at midnight.  The other way, which didn't seem ideal, would have meant arriving in Tokyo at midnight and leaving Osaka in the morning.

All right, time for the trip!

Excited people have arrived at KLIA Terminal 2...

Flying soon!

We only got1 check-in baggage of 20kg and realised we were well within that allowed weight plus the individual 7kg carry-on.  Could have packed an additional, oh, 5kg easily.

 

Passports, ready!

Through the rabbit hole with Alice...

(random display at the airport)

And about to board the plane.  

On the way!

Getting passports

Looking back, the last time JE went outside Malaysia was wayyy back in 2011 when she was below 2 years old.  SE was in my tummy then.  As I kept telling her, she did go overseas and why didn't she open her eyes properly to see the sights?  Hahaha.  Well after there were two kids it was just too difficult to travel far.  Hubby would get grumpy if he had to take care of them for long, I felt it wasn't worth paying for the maid to come along and I alone wouldn't have been able to manage.  So we coasted along with local trips.  Hubby went overseas with his friends.  I was fine to wait, having travelled enough for work before the kids came along.

Then the pandemic happened, and subsequently hubby had brain tumour surgery with an aftermath which took a couple of years to stabilise.  After that SE had the bout with anorexia.

Finally the time seemed right to go overseas again.  Hubby felt stable enough to resume and SE was on the way to recovery.

Step one, we had to get passports for myself and the kids.  Apart from a work trip to Brazil, I had been grounded for oh, as long as JE. :)

Woke up 5am one weekday morning (not easy for non-morning people) and made it to the Shah Alam UTC before 6m.  From google, got ourselves to the right place and woohoo, FIRST!

All set!

Erm our delight would be short-lived.  Fast forward to 8am when the place opened. They announced the system was down.  It remained down until 10am when the officers informed that the technician they'd called to look into the issue hadn't even arrived.  Sigh.  What a waste of a day.  I had to take leave and JE declared she was too tired to go to school that afternoon.

Our second attempt was on a Saturday again waking up at 5am. There were MANY people.  Halfway though, the line to process passports went down.  TWICE.  And it was discovered that my IC had to be changed and there were MANY people there too.  Sobs.  And then.... the line to process IC went down as well.  The problem with these things is you just didn't know whether it would be better to persevere since you had already sacrificed your time that day, or to give up and try again another day.  I had pretty much given up but decided to have lunch there first.  Luckily the line went back up after lunch, the officer was nice enough to let me back into queue and we eventually walked out with passports at 3pm.  WHAT A DAY. 
 

At least in future we can just do online (not this time as SE was below 12).  Anothing thing, I'd thought JE was a first-timer and couldn't apply online.  Totally forgot that she had a passport as a toddler sigh.  So firstly she could have done this whole thing online.  And secondly, had to put her old passport as lost or we would have had to return another day with that old passport in order to proceed with getting a new one.  I had no wish to grapple with this a third day.  

Note here that it would cost RM400 if she loses her passport in future 'again'.  Just don't ever lose your passport, JE!

Ipoh - Food

Besides the attraction of the hotel, this time we didn't have any activities in mind except for food.  The hotel breakfast was pretty good.  I was euphoric to see SE taking a pastry - those who have walked in my shoes of supporting an anorexic child will know the joy of seeing the child making peace with food.  When she was in the midst of the eating disorder, we happened to go for a few hotel buffets and she struggled so much, staring for ages at all the options and returning with a few scoops of plain yogurt and pitiful amount of cheese.

Look, I'm eating this pastry which I took without being asked

What else... went for the curry bread at Soo Har Yee as usual - this time we selected prawns as the crabs weren't that firm on our previous visit.  I normally love the "one-bone pork" but this time the meat taste was too strong for my liking.  

Having our usual dishes at this place

Also... Kong Heng for satay, chicken hor fun and popiah.

OK not bad

JE tried fried ice-cream.  

Hmm ice-cream in a fried casing. Ok-ok lah

Must google up a new batch of food places next time.

Ipoh Trip 2024

We hadn't gone to Ipoh for a while.  Made a trip there the last school holidays.

When the kids were small, I figured they'd enjoy holidays enough without us (actually me since hubby never minded spending!) forking out for expensive hotels.  Now they are big enough to appreciate luxury and we adults are less hardy, time to splurge a little.  

Booked Haven at over rm700 a night (shy to say this is our most expensive accommodation to date!).  Put a picture from the net first... the setting was beautiful.

So glad the rainy weather cleared up enough for us to go to the pool, which was the highlight of this hotel.

Hello from the heated jacuzzi!

From the infinity pool

Hubby normally chills by himself in the apartment.  This time we managed to persuade him to come into the pool.  

  

Hello from all of us! 

(still in the heated pool)

I loved the nature setting of this place.  There was a private trail of 15-20mins easy walk.  

Sign says do not feed the monkeys

The booking listing wasn't the clearest.  It would have been worth the higher rental if our balcony had faced the magnificent limestone hills. 

The apartment itself was nice, spacious.  But as reviews mentioned, it was not super clean.  SE found a potato chip fragment lodged against the coffee table leg when we arrived and kept harping on it.  The next day after housekeeping... the chip was still there.  

My favourite thing... the Coway water dispenser!  Hot water, cold water at the press of a button!  No need to even boil water!  Hehe.

Mummy made me stand here

But we agreed the place wasn't worth a return visit.

Balloon Bunny

Another balloon post.  I'm impressed by these crop of clowns who can make figures different from the usual ones.

A special one please

I really like this Bugs Bunny!   It's so big too.  SE... not so much.  She was wracking her brain on what to do with it.

I got this bunny

I do not like it

Hold it Jojo!

She managed to farm it off to a random small girl.  And spent the rest of the visit looking out for that girl, so that she could quickly escape in case the girl tried to return the bunny.  HAHAHA.

Oh ya SE wears specs now.  A few years (I count a total of 5 years) hiatus from the far-sighted specs she started to wear at 4yo. 
 

18th Anniversary

Hubby and I don't always celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Earlier years maybe, later ones... even I sometimes totally forget.  It has been 18 years, how time flies!

Just a quick post to remember... We tried out Iberico Kitchen this year.  Yeah of course with the 2 kiddos.  :)  

Ribs, pizza and other pork dishes

Check out these piglets!

Food was all right, wouldn't bother to return.  I was quite excited to see Chloe.Co on the same row.  We popped in after lunch for cake, cookie and crombolini.

Just a snack

Food also all right - a little pricy and not that great.  Also a 'wouldn't return'.

At least we checked out two new places.  :)