Today, we are leaving the tour group and exploring Japan on our own!!! So excited yet scared, hope I'll not get lost. I've been researching for about 3 months liao since November. Hope I've prepared myself for it. ^_^

Anyway, after leaving the hotel in Narita, we took a free shuttle to Narita Airport to take a train to Ueno-Nezu. We were a bit lost at the airport, looking for the train station that's linked to the airport. At last we found it but there are so many different type of trains!!! There's JR, JR Tokyo, Metro Subway, ... and so on... I was so confused at that moment... lucky I brought along all my research and got on the subway... the photo is how the subway looks like... isn't it a bit like MRT? :P except theirs are more hightech... coz all train will show what's the station it's reaching and the next station... ours in Singapore is still in trial run... guess we are not that high tech after all! Anyway, the only thing I dun like about the subway and train station is they are so not tourist-friendly!!! There's so little escalators or elevators!!! We practically have to carry our lugguages up or down staircases and we have not 1 but 3 big lugguages!!! It was supposed to be a cold day yet after we come out of the station, we were perspiring like we are in Singapore!!! It was such a drag when we have to leave the hotel we were staying to go to the next place that we have to put our lugguages in lockers at the station. No wonder they have lockers in subway station!!!

Anyway, after leaving our station after 1.5 hr of travelling and lugguage-lifting, we have to find our little hotel, or should I say Ryokan, coz it's those small small houses who let out their rooms to tourists... it's a very budget place and we have difficulty finding it coz it was in 1 of their small roads around Ueno. After walking about 10 min, at last we found it. It's a very cozy place and so japanese! Love the place the first time I see it. There were only 4 rooms in total on the 2nd floor and it really feels so at home... That night is the only night I managed to sleep so soundly since the beginning of the trip and I felt so refreshed the next day... (I dun feel very good in all those hotel rooms although some of them are similiar to this one I stay, yet there's no homely feeling!)

After leaving our lugguage at the ryokan, we went out for a stroll in the famous Ueno Park and guess what!!! Cherry Blossoms are everywhere!!! So beautiful!!! I'm overjoyed to be about to see them on this trip!!! It was supposed to be winter time yet Tokyo is almost like beginning of spring! I love this flowers so much!!! It's really very very pretty and so pink!!! It's really a trip worthwhile as seldom can one encounter both winter and spring in a country and I was real lucky to be able to see and feel both!!! Really love Japan so much that I'm thinking of migrating there!!! Hahahahaa... seems like every country I go, I always want to migrate there... if I travel around the world, maybe I'll have a citizenship in all the countries!!! hahahaha...