Wonderful park, worthy of label that many on the net called the best park in the world.
The day is a breeze, starting with around 8am where crowd has gathered at park entrance, in full swings complete with Disney shirts, outfits, Mickey and Minnie head bands, bags, accessories, and etc. Japanese crowds are really lot of fun.
List of Onsen to visit in Japan: (updated Apr 2025)
Guide for top 3 onsen according to Wikitravel.
Three Great Hot Springs 三大温泉 Sandaionsen
Three Famous Springs 三名泉 Sanmeisen. This list, too, was authored by Hayashi Razan.
Three Old Springs 三古湯 Sankosen
Three Baths of Fuso 扶桑三名湯 Fuso-sanmeiyu. Fuso is a poetic name for Japan and this one is credited to traveling haiku poet Matsuo Basho.
Located in Maihama, Disneyland and Disneysea is a must visit themepark around Tokyo. Most people recommended 2 days for each park, but a day trip.
Tickets available, there is day-pass available via purchase online or via Klook platform.
Some useful blogs:
Disneyland is oriented towards classic Disney and younger crowd. Disneysea on the other hand is oriented towards teens and older with more thrilling rides.
Shows and Parades:
From April 15, 2023 through March 31, 2024, a part of the show will be presented in a special version commemorating the Tokyo Disney Resort 40th anniversary. (25 mins)
Tips:
Credit to <https://thetravelintern.com/ultimate-tokyo-disneyland-and-disneysea-guide/>
I discovered that I had enough points to book 5 nights at Hilton hotel. After a quirky destination choices, I finally settled on Okinawa. This was back in December, hehe.
Planning activities without a car, here is a couple of sites that I am finding useful:
Okinawa is the southern most prefecture of Japan. The main island is where its capital city, Naha is. The prefecture spread across 1,000 kilometres and finding where to spend time amongst the choices can be confusing.
I am going to be traveling with my elderly parents and our favorite activities are food, sightseeing, and onsen. Okinawa is said to have one of the highest life-expectation in Japan and in the world. So we will be keeping an eye on the culture and how people life in this paradise.
Food
This site proclaims that "In Okinawa, food is life." :) Delicious cuisine being the hallmark of Okinawa, it is famous for bone-soup, ice-cream (I heard it from an ex-colleague who grew up in Okinawa).
Okinawa has a special Japanese word, nuchi-gusui, which roughly made up of characters for mind and body. Food as medicine? Exploring nuchi-gusui. That means food is not just the source of energy and taste, but also well being. Approaching the right habit of mealtime is also observed. Okinawa has a habit of eating until 80% full, which is practiced in my family. They called this hara-hachi-bu.
It seems that typical Okinawan cuisine has a lot of Chinese influence, due to prevalence of trade for centuries, and its proximity. Such as pork belly braised (rafute), champuru (stir-fry veggie with bitter gourd), and Okinawa soba (with wheat noodles rather than made of buckwheat). It even extends to the drinks such as Okinawan sanpin-cha or Jasmine tea.
Unique Okinawan dish is goat-meat (Yagi) sashimi and mozuku tempura. Mozuku is a slimy brown seafood, unique to Okinawa that is superfood. Unique liquor is Awamori made from long-grain Thai rice with black koji unique in Okinawa.
Getting around
It seems that car is the most popular way to get around. However, if you avoid driving, bus is a convenient and plentiful with clear maps. There is a monorail line that goes around Naha. As well as you can take ferry or fast boat from Tomari port. There is many sites in Japanese, here's a few useful information.
Fast boat for Naha to Motobu, 75 mins. Takuma 3 is operated by this company, website --> here.
From my research, there is plenty to see and do at Okinawa. Normally people would start by the following order:
For foodie, a special mention is the Ojima island towards the south, 40 mins drive from Naha airport. This article describes the beauty :) of the Okinawan tempura due to its influence from China and Southeast Asia.
Arima Onsen is an hot-spring town that is an easy train ride from Kobe, Hyogo region.
It is one of the three ancient hot spring town in Japan, which description appeared on Japan chronicles "Nihon Shoki" that was started book 1,000+ years ago. It was said that the first mention of this onsen is bathing by a Japanese emperor in 7th century AD (or 1,300 years ago!).
Nowadays, it is wellknown for two specialty onsen in particular "Gin-no-yu" or silver hot spring and "Kinno-yu" or the golden hot spring.
Shima Onsen 四万温泉 acquired its name from Shima = which means 40,000. It is reputed that the healing effect of its water has the ability to cure 40,000 diseases.
The most famous Shima onsen is Sekinzenkan Kashoutei 積善館, whose fascade has inspired Studio Ghibli's anime Spirited Away. We were lucky to arrive on December 18th, on the cusp of the newly fallen snow early winter 2022.
Kissaten is Japanese adoption of coffee house. Kissaten 喫茶店 literally means tea-drinking place. It often hosts a place for afternoon coffee with assorted cakes.
For breakfast some kissaten served, at Asakusa area;
The cafe has numerous short books that seemed to cater to customers wanting to chillout and read. There is single person counter facing the wall, as well as, a small table of 4. Currently during Covid restriction, all dining places only accommodate up to a party of 4.
Onsen is one of my favorite, so whenever I had the opportunities I would spend an hour soaking in onsen. There is a couple of sento or bath houses in downtown Tokyo that are wonderful.
To visit sento, you also need to get armed with an open mind and some Japanese yen. Optionally you should bring a small towel for scrubbing/drying off, a quality body lotion and soap, with a bottle of water to keep you dehydrated. However, all the optional items can be bought or rented at inexpensive price. Sometimes a public bath chooses a day in a week to be closed for regular cleaning and maintenance, so it is good to check which day it is, commonly Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. Public bath normally operates from 3pm onwards through midnight, but some public bath is open a shorter during in AM for a morning soak.
A sento commonly provides small and medium towel rentals, as well as soap and shampoos/conditioner either complimentary or at sale. Normally there is also a laundry shop next to it.
You approach sento, remove your shoes in one of the shoes locker, keep the key, and purchase a ticket on vending machine. Then, hand your ticket to the cashier to obtain entry.
The cashier is located at a lobby or bathing entrance area that generally also has multiple items available for purchase such as travel size soap, shampoo, conditioner, souvenir towel. It will have a drink vending machine that has mineral water and milk.
Notice the entrance to women and men changing area, and do watch out to enter the right area! There is often a smaller red and blue banner over the entrance of each area respectively.
At the changing area, remove all article of clothing and store them in the lockers provided. The lockers would use coins that is either refundable or costing 100yen per use. There is also a toilet which you can use to relieve yourself prior to entering the bathing area. Slippers are always provided for you to wear while using the toilet.
With a small towel and bottle of water, enter the bathing area and start washing yourself. The courtesy is to cleanse yourself and shower as well as cleanup the area afterwards without hogging a seat. From health standpoint, showing with super hot water allow you to acclimatize your body to the heat of onsen water at the start of your bathing experience.
Once you are clean, you can choose the first pool to soak in. Enter the pool carefully, holding the railing if needed to test the heat of water. I generally keep my towel folded on my head or safe on the shelf. It is considered rude to soak your towel, and long hair in onsen water, so do tie or bun up your hair before entering a pool.
Some of the recommended bathing houses in Tokyo:
Daikoku-yu 大黒湯 nearby Skytree: This public bath house is one of my favorites in Tokyo. The name literally means 'big black bath'. It is a really nice onsen especially with an outdoor area that has divine pools and a chillout area on deck where there is swings. Note that this outdoor area which every day and is on the men's side on odd days, and women on even days. One of the two outdoor pools is a large pool with milky bath that has a spacious soaking area and a sitting spot. The other outdoor pool is a refreshing cool plunge bath where you can see the top of Skytree on a clear sky. The smell of the oak/pine? pillar that is being heated from the onsen water gently wafted through the air, is so relaxing to your sense of smell and well-being. Then you can return to indoor area where there are four pools: a soaking bubble pool kept at 35 degrees thus popular for long soak and for children, a seasonal herbal pool with different water every day (when I was there on July 8th, it was rose), massage pool with super jet (at super hot 42 degrees water), and a small cooling pool. Soap and shampoo/conditioner is provided for free with no charge for hair dryer. Closed on Tuesday.
Today's Ginza is one of the premier shopping destination and high-end
dining and shopping location in Tokyo. It is located nearby an islet,
and it is thought that Ginza was originally marshes land that was
reclaimed including the surrounding Hibiya and the site of former
Tsukiji market. Ginza, Shimbashi, and Kanda area are the heart of downtown old Tokyo.
According to this article, Ginza name originated from gin 銀 or 'silver' and ja/za 座 or 'seat' as it was the site of silver mint that exclusively designated by Tokugawa shogunate in Edo (old name of Tokyo. Ginza was the centre of the artisans, merchants, as well as theater actors of Kabuki and Noh players who provided entertainment. It sits on Tokaido which is the old Kyoto to Edo highway linking the two top towns of Japan in olden times.
Later on, Ginza was redeveloped after big fire with bricks to be fireproof and thus developed a number of unique Japanese-Western style buildings and became known to be bricktown or Rengagai. One of remaining building from that era is Wako building with clock on top that was made by clockmaker who founded Seiko.
Sublime unaju at Ginza. Near my hotel at AC Marriott.
Sunday morning upon login at hotel, I went again to Kanda Myoshin shrine near Akihabara. The exhibition by is at its last day and I was awed by his inkwork. Then it was time to visit outdoor markets at Shimo Kitazawa that was teeming with vintage and used shops with lots of music and open square full of knick-knacks and shoppers. I enjoyed some afternoon tea time with scones (eating properly for first time) at cafe Palette, a gem.
At Akhihabara area, I was resolved to visit Kanda shrine or Kanda-myojin (神田明神). At early July it is also hosting an special exhibition by brush-master Masayuki Kojo, a well-known warrior painter. Kanda shrine has been an important shrine especially for warrior class (Japanese samurai) and common folks. It is said that during Edo period, even Tokugawa Ieyasu shogun even paid respect to this shrine.
Firstly, navigating the large Akihabara station is amazing.
Over a sturdy stone bridge on a sunny summer afternoon, I learned the bridge was built on early 20th century and named. Next to it there is a quiet shrine dedicated to Confusius that is set on a rocky green space.
Kanda shrine is one of the oldest temple in Tokyo. It hosted a couple deities, especially for students and mechants.
It is quite interesting that there is many historical site in Tokyo coming from its association with Tokugawa shogunate such as Zojo-ji shrine (三縁山増上寺) in
Daimon area. This was the former family temple of Tokugawa and one of
two official shrine where remains of Tokugawa shoguns rested; the other
one being Kaneiji (東叡山寛永寺円頓院) which is the site where Ueno park is now.
