HazelDiary

Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China is the political, educational and cultural centre of the country. The city is rich in historical sites and important government and cultural institutions. And the most impressive cultural attraction about Beijing is The Great Wall of China. Read More

Din Tai Fung is a well-known Taiwanese style restaurant and it is one of the must-visit restaurants when in Taipei, Taiwan. The restaurant specializes in Xiao Long Bao and their pork chop fried rice. We were in Tokyo for a week and decided to have Chinese food for dinner on one of the night. Thus, we decided to visit Din Tai Fung restaurant located at Nihonbashi Branch out of their 17 branches in Japan. Read More

I am back with my Japan travelogue post and this is about an impromptu stop at Echigo Yuzawa. Our initial plan is to see the snow monkeys of Jigokudani, Yamanouchi at Nagano but due to the faulty shinkasen train service, we cannot go in the end. So, we just took the shinkasen train towards Niigata to see where to explore. Read More

During my 4 days trip to Taipei, Taiwan last month, I visited Nung Chan Monastery. The monastery is located at Beitou District, Taipei, Taiwan. It is formally in 1975 by Ven. Dongchu, a scholar monk and disciple of renowned Chinese Buddhist Master Taixu. It’s named ‘ Farming Ch’an ‘ as its early residents dedicated themselves to Ch’an practice and grew their own food. (taken from Wikipedia). Read More

Changi Recommends has recently launched their newest ChangiWiFi plan, called Pay-Per-GB, which allows travellers to USA and Europe to rent a Wi-Fi router for just $32 per trip to satisfy all their overseas data needs. Suited for the less data hungry consumers, the basic Pay-Per-GB plan costs $32 and entitles consumers to 2GB of Wi-Fi data, with the option of topping up anytime during the trip at $20 per additional GB (Please refer to Appendix A for more details). Read More

Kawagoe (川越) is a Japanese city northwest of Tokyo. It is approximately 30minutes train ride from Central Tokyo. My Japanese friend recommended us to drop by here for a day trip destination so we headed over after our lunch. Read More

I am back to Taipei, Taiwan on the last week of December 2018 for a short gateway and visited Fei Qian Wu 肥前屋 for dinner. Fei Qian Wu 肥前屋 is known for its famous unagi don or unadon in Taipei. The restaurant is established over 50 years ago by a Taiwanese-Japanese family. We were there around 4.20pm and started to queue for early dinner. We were 2nd in line and the restaurant is open for dinner at 5pm. So, yeah! We queued for 40 minutes for this. Read More

With our 5-DAY JR East Pass Rail, we decided to use 1 day to explore Ushiku Daibutsu (牛久大仏). Ushiku Daibutsu is a statue located in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. It is completed in 1993 and it stands a total of 120metres (390ft) tall, including the 10m (33ft) base and 10m lotus platform. The statue held the record for the tallest statue from 1993-2002. Read More

I finally visit Tokyo Disneyland during my recent trip to Tokyo, Japan. My last visit was to Hong Kong Disneyland few years ago. I was told that Tokyo Disneyland is the classic of all. I was contemplating whether to go for Tokyo Disneyland or Tokyo Disneysea initially. I ended up choosing Tokyo Disneyland for this trip. Read More

After exploring Kamakura, Nikko, we found another less touristy place, Mount Nokogiriyama. Nokogiri Yama (aka Sawtooth Mountain) is located in the Boso, Penisula in Chiba. It is known for two giant Buddhas, over 1500 arhats, temples and quarry caves. The mountain is also ideal for hiking with rewarding top view. If you are not into hiking, there is a cable car to the top to save the trouble and time. Read More