We had a long weekend , yay yay~ July 19th was sea day so we took a short trip to Kusatsu in Gunma Prefecture Kusatsu area is know for ski resort, hiking a mountain, and famous hot spring!

Our trip started at 6:30am We needed to catch a train at 7:20am in Ueno station!

It was only 3 hours by express train! So fast and we didn’t get tired at all

Kusatu is located on that is an altitude of 1156m so that it was a bit cooler than Tokyo Main activity was to get relax and take hot springs in different places!

Continue to part 2!

We got a wedding invitation from my Singaporean friends on January and we made a plan to go there!!! Last time we just love Singapore so why not going there again?! We bought the tour from HIS which is the largest travel agency in Japan. We got free half day tour, hotel to airport pickup, free breakfast at hotel, one free lunch and free coupon at Narita airport! Well, it is not really free, but everything was included with the package! It was our first time to take a trip with tour company, hehehe. Of course, it was so much easier than going by ourselves. They take us everywhere by bus The flight schedule was a bit tough though…It was 8 hours flight…We arrived at Hotel in Singapore at almost 3 am

sleepy smile at hotel

In the morning, we needed to be ready until 9am so it was hard to wake up The wedding was also the next day so I needed to have lots of energy! But tasty goods and good weather made me active!

When we started the tour, it was raining so much

Even though it rained a lots, we had so much energy!

We watch the movie, Avatar on the plane. Andreas imitated the Avatar face all the time in Singapore

Jewelry factory and china town

food market

in Buddhist temple

The founder of Singapore,Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles

with mango ice cream

The most famous statue, Marlion

with baby Marlion

@ Hindu temple

Our first lunch in Singapore It was so spicy and tasty!!

Continue to Part 2

We went to Orlando (FL, USA) for our 5th anniversary! We stayed at Disney Resort hotel and enjoyed Disney world!! Of course, we bought the cheapest flight so we had to transfer twice in Frankfurt and Washington DC. We had also bad luck…The thunderstorm was coming so we needed to wait for a while in New York…We got stuck in the plane. Well, actually i should say that was very good luck! Because we could see the space shuttle launch from our plane. It looked exactly like in the video from 3000 meters in the sky from the plane!

When we arrived in Orlando, it was already at late night. For first day, we just checked in hotel and rested a bit for next day!

we took a bus from Otaniemi at 6am!

I was sleepy even I took a cup of coffee

Mr.A was so happy after having a glass of beer at Helsinki airport

at Frankfurt airport

let’s go to Orlando, yay

On the second day, it was just for shopping You know, US has always good deals and tons of brands! So we went to two Outlet malls which I LOVE, and one BIG shopping mall (Florida mall)! OMG, I bought many MAC cosmetics and cute clothes!

I put some makeup for shopping day

Happy jumps

hahaha which jums do you like?

In front of our hotel, there was a trolley stop which takes us to both outlet malls.

green trolley was the first trolley. so many restaurants, bars and shops!

You kwow what? So many Lizards were in this area, hihihi

We went to Orlando premium outlets first.

Then, we went to Prime outlet!

It was just nice day so we played around a bit

Orlando shopping mall

M&M

funny hat

dinner at Crab House. It was very tasty =)

On Sarturday, we took one day trip to Tallinn! One day before the trip, it was rainning so much we were afraid of going there… BUT we were lucky enough that it was nice day at least in the morning! My friend, Yuan, joined us

Andreas recovered from his sickness…kind of

at the terminal in Helsinki

Andreas was drinking beers in the ferry! It took to get to Tallinn around 2.5 hours…I was a little bit feeling bad because the ferry shaked a lots

When we arrived in Tallinn, it was not rainning YET. The forecast was not promising…we could have the nice weather at least for 40 mins, hihihi

yay~no rainy

these are from Medieval age.

after we saw many sites, it started rainning. So we took a break and had a lunch at my favorite place!

at Beer House! This honey beer is so so good

garlic bread, my lunch pork libs (so big!), and Andreas’ choice (so small, hihihi)

with Huge beers!

at the old gate

random pics from Tallinn

Yuan ordered cold coffee with alchol! It was very tasty =) Thank you for sharing, Yuan!

The way to go back was only for 1.5 hours!

in the ferry on the way back

first class and normal seats in the ferry…

mmm.i didn’t see any differences between first class and normal seats in this ferry, hihihihi

Finally, I am updating our South Spain trip.

We were in
Malaga –> Sevilla (2 nights) –> Granada (3 nights) –> Malaga (2 nights)

Out flight was quite early morning so our friend,David, gave us drive to the airport. It was really helpful When we were in Spain, the weather was excellent so we really had good luck

When we arrived in Malaga, we took a but to Sevilla!

from the airplane

first tapas and little beer before getting in the bus! In Spain, when you order beer, wine or some drink, you also get little dish called “Tapas”. It’s like Otumami in Japan!

Let’s go to Sevilla

Hotel in Sevilla

In Sevilla, it was amazing that they have so many orange trees! I really liked it so…We tried to catch one all the time, hihihi

we tried to catch one, but never get one orange, hehehe

First day, we just walked around the city and saw flamenco show at the restaurant.

flamenco show in Sevilla

I love to drink, Sangria

it was wonderful night

In the second day, main attraction was to visit to Seville Cathedral (JPN)  and Alcázar of Sevilla (JPN). Third day, we moved to Granada in the afternoone so we had enough time to visit to Archivo General de Indias (JPN).

Link to wikipedia Sevillila (JP)

My cousin, noriko, love Starbucks coffee. So do I!

Sevilla cathedral was gorgeous

from outside of cathdral. Let’s go inside!

Entrance

There was a little park in the church. You can see moorish style.

Then, we went the tower up!

from the top

Now, move on to Alcazal of Sevilla. This alcazar was also great. You can see mixture of moorish and spanish culture! There were many tolopical trees too.

entrance

Where is Mr.A?

I liked that place a lots!

Happy Tapas time
at night, one tax drives recommended to come this place. It was close to our hotel and place is called Alameda de Hercules!

good foods

I was busy and lazy to update my trip report at the same time. I will try to update soon.

Japan/Hawaii

South Spain

Netherland/Belgium

Keep watch for it!

OMG This trip was much longer than what I expected.

On the departure day, we did not have any sleep because we might miss the flight We needed to leave at home at 440 to take a bus…we both were SO sleepy, of course

Helsinki –3.0 hours–> Paris –11.5 hours–> Dallas –2.5hours–> Mexico city

Bad thing was that our second flight got delayed because of snow storm. Also, the flight had to take a long route…bad luck so we missed our third flight to Mexico City. We got stand- by ticket so it was unsure that we could go to Mexico city on the same day…It was so stressful to deal with this kind of thing during holidays

  at Helsinki Vantaa airport

I will update more pics later

The second day in Budapest, we went to the City Park (Városliget) It was a bit far from the central, but several interesting attraction were there.

Heroes’ square (H?sök tere) - The Millennium Monument.
Museum of Fine Arts (Szépm?vészeti Múzeum) has a large of European artwork from Greek and Roman times to the present. Especially, Spanish Baroque painting is great.
Vajdahunyad Vára is a castle on a little island on a lake built for the 1898 World Fair. In the winter, the lake is turned into the city’s biggest ice rink. Nowadays it houses an agricultural museum.

In the middle of our visiting in the morning, it started raining And also, it was so cold, so out visit was short and quick except the museum. Because they had really good collections so we had a very good time!

Museum of Fine Arts and Heroes’ Square

Sry…I didn’t know you have to pay for taking a photo.

hello from Budapest

Next, we visited to Budapest Opera. We just saw the building and inside!

Opera house

Then, we went to Saint Stephen’s Basilica.

Inside and outside of basilica

This day was really cold so we took a rest in front of cafe shop

the night was also nice

With a statue

I think this dish was a traditional dish from Hungary

So after we checked in the hotel, we started to go sightseeing in the Buda side.

We were so lucky that the temprature on that day was not too bad It was warmer than in Helsinki.

Maps of BUDAPest

Castle Hill was our first destination. Our first visit was Matthias Churh.Unfortunately, it was under reconstruction, so we couldn’t see over view of this church

This church was built 700 years ago. Then, Turkish occupied so in 1541 the church became the city’s main mosque. In 1686, Turkish expulsion an attempt was made to restore the church in the Baroque style, again this building became the church again. Isnt’t it insteresting? Especially, the inside patterns and design was quite unique.

From outside

Let’s see inside of the church

Fisherman’s Bastion is famous for impressive views across the Danube to Pest. It was built between 1890-1905.

musicians

Then, we walked to Budapest Historial Museum. Since Buda castle was destoryed during WWII, they did not show from the castle. Inside of the museum Medieval castle was shown. It was quite huge remaining and interesting to see them.

at Buda castle. Huge rion was friendly

entrance of Medieval Royal Palace.

There were remainigs of Chapel and Jail inside.

old telephone

Andreas thinks this looks like Japanese because of the tiny eyes

at night

at Széchenyi Chain Bridge

It was already raining a bit, so we decided to go shopping Andreas wanted to buy a couple of shirts, so he tried some shirt on at H&M!

Guess which one he bought??

Now, it is time for dinner. Foods, foods, and foods

I was so happy after one day in Budapest