Hello kitty Shinkansen and Hiroshima

Departed from Hakata to Hiroshima very early in the morning taking the hello kitty Shinkansen at around 6.40am. 


The whole train was decorated in hello kitty theme. Although I was not a fan of hello kitty, I still find it cute. Why can’t it be a Pompompurim train? 

As this was a very early train, there were v few ppl around. Turned out the non-reserved section of the train was the nicest of all.

Above was the non-reserved section of the train. If u booked seats, you won’t be able to get these nice looking seats. You will just get the normal looking seats.

The washroom was decked out in pink.

A telephone room?? Who still use that nowadays?

A place to store luggage and bicycle.



At the end of the non reserved section of the train are some photo taking spots.




We got the whole place to ourselves as there are hardly anyone around.



Finally reached Hiroshima around 8-9am. We deposited our luggage at our hotel first before going out to Miyajima. 

From Hiroshima, we took the San-yo local train to Miyajimaguchi station which is about 30mins ride away. From Miyajimaguchi station, just follow everyone on the train and walked towards the pier to take the ferry. Since we were covered under the Sanyo-Sanin JR pass, we do not need to pay for the ferry. Just go straight and board the ferry and then upon arriving, just show the pass when exiting the ferry pier.

View of the JR ferry.

Our first stop was lunch at Kakiya which specializes in cooking oysters.

It’s one of the best oysters I ever eaten. The grilled oysters in the shells are so big, plump and sweet! Beside grilled oysters on the shell, there are different ways of cooking such as croquet oysters, stewed oyster with rice, miso oysters etc...yum yum..

Spotted many deers wandering around the island. Their fur looks bald in patches...guess they have been eating too much junk food from tourists.

Entrance to the itsukushima shrine, also known as the floating shrine coz it appears to be floating on water during high tide. Entrance was 1000 yen per person. Quite costly in my opinion just to enter a shrine.

As it was high tide, we could not walk to the tori gate.

After that, we walked around the stalls selling souvenir and food and bought some maple cakes and curry oyster bun. 
The oyster curry bun was really good. Quite a few pieces of oysters inside.

After that, we left around 2pm and took the San-yo line to Yokogawa station. Directly in front of the station was the tram and we took tram line 7 to go to the Hiroshima Atomic bomb dome. The tram accepted IC cards so we were able to use our Suica to tap in and out of the tram.

This iconic building was one of the few remaining building left intact after the bomb. 

We went to the Hiroshima peace memorial museum. Entrance fee was 200 yen. You can also rent an audio kit for 150 yen but we din not see the need as there were English descriptions on almost all the displays. 

Taking a break from the with a Sakura shio ice cream with a paddle shaped biscuit.

The ice cream was surprisingly yummy and I love the paddle shaped biscuit. Seems like there a lot of souvenir shops selling these big rice paddles in Hiroshima. Not sure what it signifies but probably means abundance coz it’s used for scooping rice. After that, we walked to Sogo mall which is nearby as there was a Pokémon Centre upstairs.

Every Pokémon Centre has its mascot Pokémon. For Hiroshima, it’s Pikachu riding a shiny Gyarados. 

For Singapore Pokémon Centre, it’s Pikachu riding Lapras. So cool.

For dinner, we had Hiroshima okonomiyaki at Hiroshima station second floor. There were several good stalls at that level. We tried Yochan.

The place was quite small, only can seat about 10ppl. We were seated at the counter....not choice as there were no other seats available.

The good thing is you can watch up close and personal at how they cooked your okonomiyaki and have the option to eat from the hot plate in front of you instead of on a plate. But the bad thing is you smell of cooking as the smoke and fumes are all going to go towards your face.

However, despite the strong fumes and smell, the okonomiyaki was awesome! The noodles was slightly crispy and the cabbage was soft and melts in your mouth. Definitely the best okonomiyaki I ever eaten. 

After that, we went back to our hotel APA Hiroshima-Ekimae which was only 5 mins walk away from the station. 

Pokémon Safari Singapore Sentosa 21 April 2019

For the first time, Pokémon safari is coming to Singapore and and it will be at Sentosa Island. Managed to ballot for a ticket on Sunday 21th April together with Hubby. 

Was so excited to get the ticket coz many ppl din not managed to get it. Guess they wanna control the crowd otherwise it will turn out to be like what happened in Tainan Pokémon Safari where it’s impossible to log in and play. Anyway, I think this Pokémon safari was v well organized and hope there will be another one in future in Singapore, maybe at Gardens by the bay??

We parked the car at Vivocity and walked across the bridge to sentosa as it free if u walked in. 

Free paper pikachu hats were readily available and distributed at many places without the need to queue up at all. This is so unlike what we encountered in Tainan Pokémon safari where ppl need to for an hour just to get the free paper hat.

Saw many nicely done and colorful photo pin up for photo taking. 

Hubby posing with his legendary birds.

More photo taking with Pokémon.

Found my snorlax buddy.

The giant inflatable Lapras looking pumped up and well again after it deflated yesterday.

Poor Lapras....even he couldn’t stand the freaking hot and humid weather.

Notice many ppl crowding around this smeargle and then I realized they are trying to photobomb the smeargle against this smeargle....

There is even this Pikachi meet and greet where u can take pictures with him. But we happened to missed the timing and decide not to wait for the next session. Poor guy in the costume must be melting....

Got quite a few tents set up with each gym’s leader in front. Seriously, the sun was so strong that I am in no mood to take pictures with any cardboards after this....coz I feel like an aloha grimer.....melted in the sun....arghhh....we try to find whatever available shade we could to hide so as not to get a heat stroke. 

I like this picture as all the gym leaders are together with the Professor. 

The walkway of Pikachu leading to the merlion.

We stayed for about 6hrs before calling it a day and took the free shuttle bus to harbourfront bus interchange. Caught 3 shiny shuckles, a shiny crabby, shiny dratinis, shiny eeve and a shiny sunkern. The unowns made up of the word ‘SENTOSA!’ so I managed to collect another S and ! to my alphabet collection in addition to the T,A,I,N,Z,O,E which I got from the Tainan Safari. Not a single shiny Lapras but hubby caught 3 shiny Lapras so I made him trade with me. Lucky Donki! The Lapras were v difficult to catch as they keep escaping from the balls and I had to use golden razz berries and ultra balls and it’s not a guarantee catch even with that also. Wasted many good balls and berries....

And thus that concludes the end of Pokémon Safari Sentosa. Overall, I feel it was v nicely done and I feel proud that Singapore had done a great job in handling this event. Hopefully there will be another such event in Singapore again!

Uminonakamichi Seaside Park-Flower paradise

We went to the this park on the day we arrived in Hakata on the 4th April. All the flowers are in bloom when we arrived, how lucky! 

We took the JR Kagoshima line from Hakata Station and change to the Kashii Line at Kashii station and rode all the way to Saitozaki station which is closer to where all the flowers are. 

Besides the tulips which are in full bloom, we also managed to see cherry blossoms, blue nemophilia, cosmos, canola flowers and many other different variety of flowers.

The weather was excellent for photo taking as the sky was cloudless and blue, making everything look so vibrant and colourful!

Black tulips.

Pink tulips.

Bright red tulips...the red looks so intense.

I Spent a lot of time taking pictures here coz it’s just so beautiful.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom. We thought we can only managed to catch them when they are falling.

The cherry blossoms against the blue sky view reminds me of Van Gogh’s paintings which I saw before. So grateful for the nice weather that day!

Sea of blue nemophilia with cherry blossoms in the backdrop.

Quite a large area of blue nemophilia.

Decide to picnic here. Glad I brought my mats along. 

There were v few people around and it’s nice to hanami here instead of squeezing with the crowd in Tokyo or Kyoto. 

Maybe becoz it’s a Thursday. That’s all the people we had around us.

Other scenic areas in the park 

Sakura Sakura...here I come...

Today is my last day at work before starting my trip to Japan for hanami viewing. Last day as in end of the work week for me and not end of my working life...haha...how I wish.... Yessss......can’t wait to get away from all these craziness and breathe some fresh air before I went crazy myself....

Need to empty my mind of all these craziness....and think happy positive thoughts.

I hope the cherry blossoms have not all fallen off yet...this time I’m gg to a part of Japan I have never been before: Chugoku area plus Hakata and Kumamoto. Hope it will be fun.