Jen Hotel

One of the latest new addition to Orchard Road.
We decided to celebrate Christmas & Boxing day here.

The view is superb 

Like the touch screen lift

View

Good size room

MBS view

Room card

Pool

Not crowded

Night view from room

Day and night views

Mt Takao from Tokyo Shinjuku Station part 2

You can visit this place in different seasons and enjoy the beauty.
This a place where many locals come to hike too.

Most local visitors eat this 3-fortune bun here. The sauce is sweet and the bun is chewy. It is steamy hot.

Comfort food in the cold weather

You can also try this famous super long hotdog after the cable car ride up the mountain.

After the yummy food, we proceed on to hike up the next part. We get to enjoy beautiful autumn leaves along the way.

Beautiful autumn leaves

At the peak of Mt Takao, if you are lucky, you can catch a glimpse of Mt Fuji.
 

At the peak background is Mt Fuji

Mt Takao from Tokyo Shinjuku Station part 1

A day spent hiking

 

Brochure in Japanese

Mt Takao is easily accessible from Tokyo city.  We took the KEIO line which took less than an hour to reach the foot of the mountain. There are many ways to hike up the mountain with various levels of difficulty.

The base station for start the hike

You can ease the way up by choosing one of the 2 type of cable cars. The first one is the one you are seeing below. The other type is chair lift. Both send you half way up the mountain.

Back to Tokyo Meiji Shrine

This time it was a rainy day in autumn and we were rewarded with a different feel of this big garden in the city.

Singapore Airlines - time to upgrade (fast!)

A few days ago, SIA was in the news. Profit slide 73%!
Was it shocking to me? Actually NO!

As a matter of fact, I have been wanting to write to blog titled "time to upgrade SIA" after my recently trip on SQ. I also had the chance to take Delta an United.
Surprisingly, my ratings for both airlines are higher than SQ. There are a few factors I will list down here. I think SIA must start looking seriously at its competitors.


Below is inflight entertainment controller. Can you see the centre button totally worn off. I had to use a lot of strength just to activate it. This is totally a show of time to upgrade.

The next thing I noticed was the seat. Both Delta and United are leather seats and very comfortable. However, SQ is still using fabric. and to my horror, I started developing rashes on the back of my thigh after my 8 hour flight on SQ.

The reason why I opt for SQ flight was usually because of the service (food options). Delta prices are very attractive compared to SQ but that's because their food option is not as good as SQ (or so from my previous experience). 

However, on this long-haul flight, they ran out of snacks. I meant totally NO snack, the stewardess was very nice to offer me instant cup noodle but I was looking for something sweet :(


Therefore, for my next trip, I will not hesitate to go on Delta. Of course till SQ improved or catch up. 


SQ, stop thinking you are the best in the industry. I want to continue to support you. I was the Gold Elite member. I also invested in your stock! Please wake up!

Incheon Airport - Global Tax Free

After all the shopping in Korea, here is a quick look at where to go to get your tax claim at Incheon without missing your flight home.

If you made purchase of 30,000 won or more at a participating retail store, designated by the "Global Blue Tax Free" or "Global Tax Free" logo. Be sure to keep your VAT refund receipt.

 

Gate 28 is where you go and present the receipt/s for the refund.

* Be sure to get the endorsement on the receipt(s) if you are checking-in the items into luggage before clearing custom.

Around COEX

Just outside the hotel, we saw this huge sculpture with name of countries engraved on it

 Inside the Coex Mall, some part of the place is closed for remodelling.

COEX Mall is the largest underground shopping center in Asia. It is located in the basement of the Korea World Trade Center, located in Samseong-dong in the Gangnam-gu area of Seoul

Walking around after dinner

Found near hotel

Mac for supper

Day Two N Seoul Tower

After lunch, we decided to cover N Seoul Tower since we were so close to the cable car. 

Direction to cable car(N Seoul Tower)

Myeongdong Subway Station Line 4 Exit 3
From escalator up, turn left and you should see a tiny park with a 7-11 on the right. It is actually a Y-junction.
Walk up the street on the side of 7-11 and you will see Pacific hotel at the end of the Y. Take the route on your right side and keep walking.
It is an uphill walk, wear a good pair of shoes and enjoy the walk!

You should reach the cable car station in about 10mins.

Cable car fee? We paid for round trip W22500 for 2A & 1C price.

What is nice at the N Seoul Tower? The area where locks are being locked onto the railings. It is the scene from My Love from Star. The observation tower.

The place was quite crowded on Sunday. However, we noticed not many people pay to go up to the observation tower. Most hang around the outdoor and enjoy the breeze, take pictures of the locks.

After going up to the observation tower, it was about 6pm. We decided we were really tired and needed to go back hotel to rest :)

So we had dinner at this cosy Japanese restaurant in Coex. Thumb up for the food!
I simply love the slice beef of Korea. They are so yummy.

Day Two Seoul Myeongdong

Breakfast at grand kitchen, the nice surrounding and lighting made the photo taking of food very pretty. Breakfast is not fantastic, quite normal for 5stars hotel but nothing particularly nice.

As usual, our free & easy style is to sleep in until we are ready to go touring. 
We left hotel almost 11am and the subway is just 2 mins walk away.
 



As we were new to the subway system and we did not do much homework on the places we like to go, we chose a simply direct line to experience it. 
We took subway to Seoul Station to get a feel of the big city.
After yesterday disappointment in the Coex mall, we were amazed with our shopping luck because lotte mart was closed!!!
We walked around the Lotte Outlets.

After that we decided to go myeongdong, which turned out to be a much better choice with more crowd and shops.  There were also a lot of street vendors selling foodstuff and accessories on weekend.



We had lunch around 2+pm at han's deli located along Myeongdong 8-gil (Exit 6 of Myeongdong Station Line turned left, walked about 100metre) It is on the left of the sidewalk 5th level. A lot of youngster frequent this eating place.

What I like about eating in Seoul is that they provide free flow of water. Firstly I do not need to lug bottles of water around for the whole day, it is heavy for sightseeing. Secondly, I do not need to buy sugar-loaded drink that will create havoc on my weight :)

Seoul on SQ

We are off to Seoul for a short-stay travelling on SQ

Departure

On Board

Incheon Airport

Wait for train to arrival hall imigration

Option 1 - Taxi

Option 2 - Coach to town

Very convenient with many lines

Along the way

Day One Seoul

Incheon Airport immigration is very impressive, the clearance is very fast, only took 3-5 mins to clear, there is no queue. Very efficient.

Airport shuttle was also a quick short wait, one hour journey by shuttle from airport to hotel, with some minor jam nearer town on a sat afternoon.
We arrived at the hotel at about 5+pm, as it is summer, the sky will turn dark nearing 8pm. 

Hotel room interior is quite old.
 
Coex shopping is also quite very disappointing, very different from what I read on the internet. There is on-going construction and a limited small shopping area.

At shopping malls like Hyundai dept store, there are seats just outside lifts  for shopping-tired customers to sit and wait. Very considerate service.Thumb up.

After a quick dinner at Coex, we went in search of the G25 convenience shop for t-money. It was quite a small store and I was disappointed that that they didn't carry hello kitty t-money. By the time we got the t-money, the sky had turned dark and we decided to go back for an early night.

Actually subway in Korea is easy to navigate if u know the line number and the exit. Else it takes a long while to figure out anything :)
Talk about it in the next blog!