There and back again... A Japan Business Trip Story...

Just came back from another business trip to Tokyo. A red-eye flight on a Monday night out from Changi returning on a Friday night flight back from Haneda. That gave me the full 4 days from Tuesday to Friday in Tokyo.

A few observations I made during this trip:

1) Massive influx of foreigners working in frontline service roles.

2) Food is great and still very affordable, especially with the cheaper JPY

3) Shopping for clothes (e.g. UNIQLO, GAP etc), easily cheaper by 20-30% compared to Singapore

4) Never seen such a great number of European/American tour groups

Kobe Beef course meal for 9,800yen? Sure~

Love the place to bits but hotel has been a bit expensive the last week. Glad the company was paying because I will not be flying into Tokyo and staying there during the peak season. After 4 days of walking and eating I was pretty tired (more due to the overnight flight and shopping for the missus than the work...) and was ready to go home.  But it also invoked a thought in me. We might enjoy Tokyo for a long weekend more than a Phuket or Bangkok trip.

I probably can get away with short 4-day getaways like this in future flying into Tokyo on a Thursday night and returning on a Monday evening. A quick check on Google Flights and Booking.com revealed that a ticket on Zipair would cost S$574/pax (or S$1,148 for 2) and a hotel room at Sotetsu Fresa Inn Ueno-Okachimachi (incl breakfast) for 2 will cost S$466 for the 3 nights from 12th Jan 2024 to 15th Jan 2024.

That works out to S$1,614 for 4 days in Tokyo from Friday to Monday. How would you spend those 4 days? I would probably do the following:

Friday - Arrival, rent a car and drive over to Atami or Kawaguchiko for a night's stay at an onsen ryokan or maybe do a night of glamping at QOONEL+. (Note: that will increase the hotel cost since any accommodation at those tourist area will cost more than Tokyo's business hotels)

Saturday - Check out from Onsen ryokan or glamping site, spend half a day sightseeing before going back to Tokyo. Check-in and start roaming the streets of Tokyo.

Sunday - More shopping, more eating, one can take a walk at Asakusa and Tokyo Sky Tree or Meiji Jingu Shrine and Omote-sando. Find a nice cafe and chill the afternoon away.

Monday - Check-out, have a nice breakfast followed by shopping at Ueno Ameyoko before going to the airport.

Tuesday - Go back to the office with a refreshed mind and body!

I figured the entire trip will work out to slightly more than S$1k/pax excluding shopping. It's definitely a bit tiring on the overnight flight but for the quality of the food and climate I think its a big upgrade over any South East Asia destination. 

Would you do it?

Maximizing your dollars in retirement... Flights

Two of the biggest cost drivers in a Nomadic Retirement Lifestyle will be the air tickets and the accommodations. Previously I've mentioned that it will cost a couple around S$4.7k/mth to stay in Japan, and accommodations would have taken up 30-50% of that budget. 

On top of that there's the little problem of finding your way to the destination. A plane ticket can easily cost between $600-2,000 depending on the destination and period of booking. If you average out over 3 months that's going to add another $200-600/pax/mth. That makes it around S$2.500 to S$3,000 per pax/month to retire in Japan.

Google Flights

Apart from the normal airline sales, normally I will use 2 methods to find the best prices for my flights. One of them is Skyscanner and the other is Google Flights. My personal favourite now is Google Flights though.

Google Flight UI is plain and simple, just like vanilla~

There are 3 features on Google Flights which I like when I plan my trips:

Historical prices

The historical price alert lets you know whether the price for your selected dates are the norm for your destination. Now if you are a retiree you definitely have no reason to fight with families with a reason to go during the school holiday period. 

Sometimes it also depends on the destination country's vacation period so its really handy tool to have.

Price Graph

The Price Graph is probably the opposite of the Historical Price graph. It gives you a projection of the prices in the region of your target dates. From the printscreen above you can see its probably better to delay my trip to Jeju by a week.

Date/Price Grid

Most people will probably be more familiar with the Date/Price Grid deployed by Singapore Airline's website. It's similar yet different from the Price Graph, because the Price Graph is populated based on the number of days selected for the flight selection whereas the Date/Price Grid allows you to choose to shorten/extend your trip based on the best prices. 

Either way the Price Graph and the Date/Price Grid are great tools that has benefited me many times in the past.

So the next time you plan for a long term trip, try to maximize the savings by pairing the Price Grid/Graph with the destination’s lowest price point for accommodations to stretch your dollars!

A Nomadic Retirement Life…

So what is a Nomadic Retirement Life (NRL)?

That means we will spend different periods of the year in different parts of the world, preferably where the climate is optimal for that period of the year. 

We can be in Tokyo from April for a few weeks, watching the sakuras and chasing it north until ending up in Hokkaido by June.

Ueno Park, Tokyo, Japan in April

Lake Shikaribetsu, Hokkaido, Japan in June

As summer approaches we will return to Singapore for a couple of weeks before going to Melbourne or Sydney for Spring in the Southern Hemisphere to enjoy the cooler climate. 

Three Sisters, Sydney, Australia in June

Towards the end of the year we can choose to reside in Hiroshima, Fukuoka or Jeju to enjoy the cold, yet not freezing, winter~

Itsukushima Shrine, Hiroshima, Japan

Jeju, Korea

Kurokawa Onsen, Kyushu, Japan

Staying an extended period of time away from Singapore allows us to immerse ourselves in the lifestyle of the locals, not having to rush for that next flight, or to repack our belongings into the luggage every other day. It is a lifestyle that is impossible while still running the corporate rat race with the limited vacation leave. Another benefit of extended long-stay overseas is the potential to stretch the Singapore dollar to its maximum cost-performance.

Of course such a lifestyle is going to cost a bit of money to finance. Not to mention all the logistics like booking accommodations and travel insurances. Apart from that there’s still the little problem of maintaining an address in Singapore and whatever health insurances to cater for the unforeseen.

Annual expense

1. Health Insurance
2. Housing
3. Transportation
4. Daily Living Expenses

Travel expense

1. Travel Insurance
2. Overseas flight ticket
3. Local transportation

So as dreamy as NRL sounds, I believe its actually achievable with a bit of planning and discipline. We intend to work for another 10-12 years when the kids would (should...) be independent and we have paid up all (or most) of our mortgages. 

Kansai - Chugoku Drive

Something to consider for Post-Covid... 14 days trip, 10 days of car rental.

Start from Osaka and end in Osaka...

This is going to be epic! LOL~

Shirakawa-go : Japan Kansai-Kanazawa-Kinosaki Drive - Part 5

Day 6
Today is about making our way from Takayama to Kanazawa, with a pitstop at Shirakawa-go and Gokayama!

 

Thanks to the snowfall the night before, the road from Takayama to Shirakawa-go was very scenic! The drive wasn't too long, taking approximately 1 hour. We probably took more time than that as we stopped along the way to take pictures~

We largely walked around the area, and visited the interior of some of these grass-thatched structures. It's probably going to look magical when its all snowy and the air was really fresh. But my stomach was calling for food, especially in the cold weather it just keeps calling out more frequently~ LOL~

After our lunch as we continued our drive towards Kanazawa, we made a small detour to Gokayama 五箇山. 

   

  

Gokayama is a lesser-known village compared to Shirakawa-go, but it is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Lesser crowd and quiet environment actually suit us more! 

After a good stroll around Gokayama, my stomach decided its time to replenish~ We hopped back into the car and started our drive towards Kanazawa~ By the time we reached Kanazawa it was already nightfall!

The Tsuzumi ("drum") Gate at JR Kanazawa Station

Apart from beautiful parks and museums, Kanazawa is also famous for cheap and delicious seafood! After checking into our hotel we quickly went out to grab a meal (or two)!

After our dinner, we decided that it wasn't enough so we went back to the area surrounding Kanazawa station to look for supper! 

The next day will be a full day discovering Kanazawa!

 
See the rest of the trip below:

• Part 1 (Osaka-Nara-Kyoto)
• Part 2 (Kyoto)
• Part 3 (Gero Onsen)
• Part 4 (Takayama)

An Eulogy...

My sister passed away exactly 1 year ago today. She fought with stage 4 cancer for 40 months. She was a brave woman. She talked of the disease openly, and I never saw her cry once during her battle with cancer, except on her deathbed...

It took me a long time to accept this fact and I sort of avoided family events because of this. It took me a year or so after knowing her illness before I started to meet her privately, mostly during afternoon day-offs from work. I would spend the afternoon accompanying her to her children's football and netball matches.

As the days gone by, whereby I think she had an idea that her days were up, she kept repeating the same words to me during our afternoon meet-ups, "Look at me, I have all this money but cannot do/eat/go"... She would encourage me to do the things I want to do, go travel, try new hobbies, eat my favourite dishes and spend money in general~

She was a saint in my eyes in many ways. Even if I try, I cannot find major flaws in what she did with her life. A fair mother, great temperament, very very few vices and well-liked by everyone. During her funeral I met many of her ex-colleagues and friends. Some of them I knew from many years ago, some of them whom I met for the very first time. All had only nice things to say about her. Many didn't know of her illness and were shocked to know that she's been living with it for years. I guess its attributed to her kind nature as well. Didn't want to be the centre of attention and didn't want to overly bother other people (Common trait in the family)...

The initial months of her passing was tough for me, to the extent I had to see a shrink. I would suddenly cry uncontrollably and I simply couldn't function. That's not to say its alright now. I still break down in tears once in a while, but I manage to keep it to periods when I'm alone... or I'll just rush to the nearest restroom.

I think of her from time to time, especially during the mornings when I take the short walk from bus-stop to office. Back when she was hospitalized, I would use that time to send her a WhatsApp message to check up on her as well as chitchat with her. Now I will look up at the sky and hope that she's in a better place without pain...

I have my regrets. I wished I've made that trip to Japan with her. Or anywhere else for that matter. That regret is never going to be resolved as she's here no more. End of this year I will bring her kids to Bintan... and that's probably the best thing I can do for now... I'm also traveling alot this year, fulfilling a promise that I will do whatever I want while I still can.

And thanks to her I've went to 2 rounds of endoscopy scan in the last 3 years, in which both scans resulted in benign polyps which could turn bad. I guess in a way she saved my life...

Thanks for taking care of me all these years. You're a fantastic sister and a friend... Let's be siblings again in our next lives... Hopefully I'll be the elder one next time and I'll take care of you... 

Takayama : Japan Kansai-Kanazawa-Kinosaki Drive - Part 4

Day 5
It's all about Takayama today~ Its a drive to Takayama Old Town, then to our onsen hotel for the night in the middle of Hida-Takayama~


The drive today is short and easy, which gives us more than ample time to enjoy the streets of Takayama Old Town as well as an early check-in so we can have a nice outdoor onsen dip after we check in.

Hello Takayama~

I really enjoyed Takayama~ It's got such old world charm but everything was so clean and neat~ The best thing I enjoyed about Takayama was the streetfood! Wah seh~ The amount of delicious street food this place managed to squeeze into one stretch basically caused us to have our lunch while standing up~ LOL~

1. Hida Beef meat bun for a start~

2. Beef Croquette next!

3. Skewered BBQ Beef~ Yum!

4. Beef Stew~

5. Hida Beef Burger!

6. Finished off with Pudding from this shop!

The cold weather really helped with the appetite~ but it also helped with the walking after the food~ Clean, flat and neatly organized streets made it such a joy to talk around the old streets and taking in the sights and atmosphere. Along the way there was a few shops that offered free sake/miso soup so we gladly obliged~

J fascinated by the small fishes in the drain... the water was very clear!

We spent around 3 hours in Takayama before we continued our journey to our hotel for the night~ As we drove deeper into Hida-Takayama, the scenery started to change~

Our lodging for the night was at 奥飛騨温泉郷　穂高荘　山月 (Hodakaso Sangetsu)

Now the thing about this hotel... is the fact that it has a mixed outdoor onsen! (One more item on the bucket list checked!)

The outdoor onsen is situated on one side of the valley so it offers a magnificent view of the opposite mountains~

And as with all onsen lodging in Japan, its the dinner I look forward to the most~

For this stay package, it also came with A5-ranked Hida beef~

And we were still in time for some Ayu 鮎 fish!

After dinner all of us were so satisfied and tired that no one tempted to venture outside to challenge the outdoor onsen for one more time~  We did take a stroll outside the hotel and it was starting to snow. And that gave us the sight below:

Wow~

Breakfast was just as wow~  but unfortunately I was still trying to digest the food from the previous day...

After breakfast we still had some time before checking out so we took a walk outside the hotel. The scenery of the entire place basically changed overnight~ The fresh snow with the last of the autumn leaves gave the place very fresh and vibrant colors~ Everybody loved the cool crisp air~

Next stop will be Shirakawa-go and Kanazawa!

See the rest of the trip below:

• Part 1 (Osaka-Nara-Kyoto)
• Part 2 (Kyoto)
• Part 3 (Gero Onsen)
• Part 5 (Shirakawa-go)