japan trip!!!

i am finally back from my japan trip. not exactly as fun as what i expected mainly because of the tour!!! i think the key factor to a fun tour is the itnerary and then the tour guide. the itnerary is super good on paper but due to the poor time management and money-minded tour guide, super good became lousy.

he committed the very first rule a tour guide should never break. he left 4 members of the group along the streets and the bus drove off without them. he did not do a head count before that. omg!!! luckily, my family saw them on the streets if not i dont dare to imagine what will happen next.

on our very first day, we saw many goodies we wanted to buy but we were hesistant. we had to change hotel everyday so having too many luggages is very troublesome. furthermore, the guide told us that he would be bringing to places where we could see the same things again. and so, we stupidly believe in his words. i only managed to find the raisin and cream cookies at the airport and never saw the melon jelly we had at otaru. most of the goodies i brought back from japan were bought at this snack shop at the mrt station. luckily my dad and i decided to went out to walk around the hotel that night to see if we can get any stuff because by that second last night at hokkaido, we had not gotten anything yet. so can you imagine how desperate i was at that moment to get my hands on hokkaido snacks!!!

for me, the highlights for the trip were the lavendar farm, the white chocolate factory and the asahi beer factory. what was most frustrating was that we spent a total of 2 hours plus at both the white chocolate and asahi beer factory. damn! super pissed that day. it was not the group's fault for the tight schedule. it was due to the poor time management of the guide. usually, a group would spend at most 1.5 hours at the eating place. but my group was different. we could spend like more than 2 to 2.5 hours at the dining place. most of the places had their own shops outside the resturants. and i am sure that guide earned some commission from our purchases at that shop. even when most of us were just hanging around, talking, waiting to move on to the next destination, the guide still did not mention anything about moving on. omg!! so much unnecessary time was wasted.

and the food was another disappointment. i seem to be eating the same food everyday. steamboat, buffet, hotplate, and the cycle just repeats. irritating!!! the buffets were the most irritating part. they were those buffets at the hotels which is super cheapstake. damn!! i was so angry with the guide that i told my dad not to give him too much tips and wrote super negative comments on the feedback form. angry!!!

one trip down, another one coming up. yeah!! super exciting because we finally decided where to go for the 4 days. everything seems to be going fine now and i hope it would be fun fun fun. yes! cant wait. =)