Okay, honestly? This post is going to be  a little overwhelmingly lengthy, because I will be introducing 3 different passes from three different railway companies for those of you who intend to travel to the Kansai area of Japan.

But stay with me here and I hope it will be a worthwhile read for you to make the best out of your next Japan trip!

In this blog post, we are focusing on the Kansai area of West Japan. While I believe all of you are familiar with the classic route to conquer Osaka, Kyoto and Nara, there’s so much more to explore within the Kansai region with just a couple of train rides. read more

I finally understand the reason why I am falling so far behind documenting my personal Japan travel journey now. For work trips and other sponsored trips, I can submit my blog posts overnight and I am very proud that I hardly ever asked for extensions and I think some of my clients are pretty pleased to receive a full blog draft 2 days post-trip.

This is my 56th visit to Japan, and despite all I know and love about Japan, I have never actually “lived” in Japan before. The longest stay was couple of weeks in service apartments.

So with the kids having a long summer break, we are spending 1.5 months here in Tokyo, and for the first time in my life, I am finally getting a taste of how it is like to “live” in my favorite city in the whole wide world.

Read my previous post on Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture.

Konpira Shrine, Kotohira

Kotohira (琴平) is a small town outside of Takamatsu city, and it houses the largest shrine complex in the whole of Shikoku – Kotohira Gu or Konpira Shrine – or nicknamed Konpira San by the locals.

Kagawa was my 44th prefecture.

I had a short day-trip to Takamatsu, the capital city of Kagawa prefecture during my JR WEST trip, and one day was obviously not enough to fill even an edamame-size of my bottomless desire and curiosity to leave no stone in Japan unturned. It had just left me craving for more.

Australia is one of the countries that I visit the most other than Japan (considering what a Japanophile I am which all of you already know), and we have been making yearly pilgrimage to Queensland since even before Cheesiepetits were born.

In my last blog post I have introduced Conan museum in Tottori. Actually there’s one more themed manga town which is equally famous in Japan (although not so many foreigners know about it) – Ge Ge Ge No Kitaro.

Ge Ge Ge No Kitaro was written in the 1960s about “yokai” (Japanese folklore ghosts/spirits/monster?), not my era but the older generations will be very familiar with it, and actually it’s animation is still airing until today in Japan so we can say that it’s a timeless classic! read more

A new category created with this post – Tottori (鳥取) Prefecture.

It is located at the Chugoku region of Japan’s main island. Read this blog post if you wanna know more about regions in Japan. I won’t deny it, Tottori is probably one of the most forgotten prefectures in Japan. Every time I told a Japanese person that I wanted to travel to Tottori, their first response was “Sand dune? What else do you do there?”

Haha. So yea. Hopefully after my Tottori blog posts, I can change some of your perception towards this very unique prefecture – it is the only place with a sand dune in the entire Japan!! read more

Hello! A blog post to continue my #CheesieConquersWestJapan journey.

I have been to Kyoto several times but this is my first time visiting Amanohashidate (天橋立). Did you know that Kyoto actually is by the sea? Many people don’t picture Kyoto and the ocean together, but Amanohashidate, located at the Kyotango Peninsula is also dubbed “Kyoto by the Sea”. It’s a very very different side of the usual traditional Kyoto we have in mind. 🙂

Wakayama was my 45th prefecture! Also adding a new blog post category today ^^

It’s so near Kansai airport, it’s hard to believe I left it for almost the last to explore. Today I am sharing about one of the highlights of my Wakayama adventure – Themed trains!

Hello all! Today I’m sharing with you the cutest bullet train in the world – Hello Kitty Shinkansen!

I knew about this themed Shinkansen run by JR West last year, but I hardly get a chance to visit west Japan area (I’m always in Tokyo!) so I was really sad when missed the campaign period as I saw some review website saying that it is running until Oct 2018 only.

But that was not true! It is still happily running every single day between Hakata and Osaka! 😀

It does rest for a few days for maintenance services so be sure to check out its calendar to make sure you don’t miss it the day you wanna board the train! read more

A quick photo post on my trip to teamLab Planets in Toyosu, Tokyo!

I’m sure you would have heartd of teamLab by now especially if you live in Singapore. teamLab is an art collective founded in Japan and has now expanded to various countries abroad including China, Singapore, USA, France and more. It’s founder, Toshiyuki Inoko, born in 1977 in Tokushima, Japan, founded teamLab in 2001 and his primary mission was to connect nature with people.