Career Break Travel: Tokyo, Kanagawa & Saitama

After being on the road for more than 2 months, we were craving our favourite comfort food – ramen. And where better to get some than the birthplace of ramen, Japan?

Japan was our next stop after Uzbekistan, and the last country out of 10 that we visited on our 3-month long career break trip.

Days spent in Japan

A total of 19 days, with 10 nights in Tokyo (including 3 nights near Disneyland), 3 nights in Kanagawa and 5 nights in Saitama

Highlights

• Bowls and bowls of piping hot ramen – Need I say more?

• The beautiful red spider lilies at Kinchakuda Higanbana Fields – I’ve always loved being in fields of flowers, and the vibrant flower fields did not disappoint!

• An interesting visit to the Meguro Parasitological Museum – Definitely not the best place to visit before lunch as some of the parasites reminded us of soba or ramen noodles! We even saw an 8.8m tapeworm that was taken out of a man who ate raw fish!

• Having fun at the Shinagawa Shukuba Matsuri – Although the day was cut short because of the incoming typhoon, we enjoyed watching the parades!

• Disneyland – WJ and I are kids at heart, and Disneyland is always a must for us whenever we go to Tokyo! We’re definitely not sick of it yet!

• Walking around aimlessly – We didn’t have many sights we planned to see in Japan and it was so relaxing just strolling around the cities. We walked into random alleyways and streets that looked interesting.

Lowlights

• The weather – It rained… a lot. While it didn’t damper our spirits too much, we couldn’t do some of the hiking we wanted because of the bad weather. There was also a typhoon two nights before we left Japan, so we were quite lucky the skies cleared up in time for our flight!

Because we bought 2 tea sets in Uzbekistan (complete with bowls and plates), we had to lug 2 heavy boxes with us whenever we moved to a new hotel. Imagine doing that in the rain! But we didn’t want to take any chances for broken pieces or a lost package if we shipped it back home!

Fun mention

• I’m extremely timid when it comes to scary rides and even regular roller coasters are a big no-no for me! WJ managed to trick me into taking the Tower of Terror ride in DisneySea our previous trip, and I almost screamed my heart out! So I warned him not to bring me on any scary rides this time.

We went on the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride. All was fine and dandy until the very end when there was a sudden drop for too many seconds. That was when I realised that this portion was where I was hearing the faint screams before!

Where we stayed

Hotel Select Inn Isehara was pretty close to the Isehara station, and very convenient. We hiked up the misty Mount Oyama while we were there.

We stayed at Pearl Kasai Hotel in the Chiba area mainly for Disneyland. It offers a free shuttle bus to Disneyland / DisneySea, just a 10-minute ride away!

The curry rice breakfast every morning at Hotel Select Inn Saitama Moroyama was sumptous! We used the hotel as a base to explore Kawagoe and Kinchakuda Higanbana Fields too.

We stayed at APA Hotel TKP Nippori-ekimae in Tokyo to visit the Asakusa area.

Hearton Hotel Higashishinagawa in Tokyo was a good point to explore the Rainbow Bridge and the Odaiba area.

The last hotel we stayed at was Narita Gateway Hotel. Our flight was in the morning and we didn’t want to spend our morning making our way to the Narita International Airport. So we stayed at a hotel close by and with a free shuttle service!

How much we spent in Japan

Item	Expenditure
Accommodation	$1,370.88
Food	$576.15
Transport	$1,360.60
Attractions	$391.81
Miscellaneous	$356.73
Total	$4,056.17

We spent a total of S$4,056.17 for the both of us over 19 days.

Transport costs include the flight from Tashkent to Tokyo, but excludes the flight back to Singapore.

Find the budget breakdown of our entire 3-month trip here and see how much we spent in total.