OK so I'm back with a travel post. A few weeks ago my family and I went to Japan for about a week (hey check out the vlog here), and in that one week I learned quite a lot of things in Japan. Like for example, they have telephones in their highways. I didn't know that was a thing because I've never seen telephones in Indonesian or Malaysian highways. Is that also a thing in other parts of the world? Or just a Japanese thing? Anyway, let me start from the day I arrived in Japan.

I arrived at Kansai Airport, Osaka around 10pm ish. I was REALLY exhausted bc I had to wake up at 4 in the morning that day. So basically from 4am (Malaysia time) until 10pm (Japan time) I was either flying or walking around the airport waiting for time to pass by so I could get into the boarding gate. But yea after we arrived we got into a taxi and went to our hotel in Kobe. That's when I noticed that Japan has telephones in their highways. 

We only stayed in Kobe for 1 night, bc Kobe was never really in our plan. We only stayed there because our flight to Japan was moved to an earlier time. The initial plan was only to go to Awaji Island and Osaka. But because of this unexpected but quite fortunate event, we got to explore a little bit of Kobe. Oh, another thing I noticed, taxi drivers in Japan don't usually speak english, so when you do find one that can, ask for his contact number. 

That was exactly what happened. After checking out from our hotel we got into our taxi and were surprised that the driver could speak english. So my dad asked for his contact number so that we could call him when we wanna go to Awaji Island. Aaaanyway, After checking out we went to Tokyu Hands at Kobe. It's a shopping centre. I'm pretty sure you can find anything that you want here. 

After a while we went to get lunch at a halal Indian restaurant, which I don't remember the name of haha. Finding halal food can be quite hard in Japan (in my opinion), so throughout my entire trip I either ate Indonesian, Indian, or Pakistani food.

So yea after lunch the taxi driver that took us to Tokyu Hands came to pick us up at the same spot he dropped us off earlier and we drove to our resort in Awaji Island. It's called Went Awaji Higashikaigan Resort. Just for extra info, this resort does not have wifi. When you drive from Kobe to Awaji Island, you'll pass the longest bridge in the world, it's called Akashi Kaikyo bridge. it connects Kobe to Awaji Island. After passing through that bridge there's a kind of stop area for you to take pictures of the bridge. That stop area also has Starbucks, A ferris wheel, and a puppy park.

We arrived at our resort at about 3 pm and spent the rest of the day resting. The next day we pretty much also spent the rest of the day resting. We only went to Aeon Mall to do a little bit of grocery shopping. The day after that we went to Akashi Kaikyo National Park.

Like the name, it's.. well, a park. OK it's more like a giant garden with a lake and a green house. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL!! It's a really good place for you to do a "photoshoot" and step up your Instagram game hahaha!

After having lunch at Cafe Bintang we headed back to our hotel and got some rest because the next day, we were going to USJ!!!

We got up early in the morning, had breakfast, and took the subway then JR to go to Universal Studios Japan (hey watch the vlog here). The New York(? I think it's New York. Er idk the point is it's America) part of the theme park is the first thing you'll be in after you enter.





The first thing we did was watch a 4D movie of Sailor Moon haha! since there was no one queueing all 4 of us went in to watch. After that we went to the Spiderman ride. I was super grateful that we decided to get express passes because the lines are craaaaazy long. I really do recommend you get the express pass if you plan on going to USJ.

After Spiderman, I think we went to the Backdraft attraction. If you don't know what Backdraft is, it's a movie from the early 90s about firefighters. The attraction itself is about how the film was created. Since the film is about firefighters, actual fire was used in this attraction. When something blows up or bursts into flames, you can totally feel the heat! Awesome, but kinda terrifying at the same time.

Next, we went to go on the Jaws ride. Everyone knows what Jaws is right? If you don't, well, please look it up hahaha. In short, Jaws is basically a boat ride.

After Jaws, Minions! I loved the Minions world! Super colourful and lively, I just.. love it! To summarise the Minions ride: You're going into Gru's lab to be turned into a minion, and the ride is your minion training session.

Drawing inside Gru's house

It was around 1 pm ish when we finished the minion ride, my family wanted to find a place to pray. But there wasn't any praying rooms in USJ, so I googled where can we pray in USJ, and one of the suggestions said the nursing room. So to the nursing room we went. It was a tiny room, only one person at a time could pray in there. When I was praying, I heard someone talk to my sister, when I got out my sister told me that she was told by one of the staffs to go to guest service if we wanna pray, so we could be given a room to pray in. The staff told my sister off in a very friendly manner though. Oh yea, another thing about Japanese people: they are super friendly!

Anyways, the next and last ride on our express pass list was Harry Potter. Your Harry Potter experience obviously wouldn't be complete if you didn't try butterbeer and go to Olivanders 💁🏻.  So yeah, I bought one cup of butterbeer (the only kind of beer I'll ever get to drink, cuz, you know) and it tasted really nice! I liked it. Then, we went to Olivanders. It's just like in the first movie, where Harry goes to buy his wand. The shopkeeper (or should I say Olivander?) picked out one person from the crowd and that person gets to experience all that magical room will light up thing when he/she found the right wand. To the person who got picked it was probably magical as fu-- oops, sorry, language. Um as I was saying, to the person who got picked it was probably really magical. To the rest of the crowd, well, I'd say it was just fun & interesting. My sister ended up buying a wand, and me, I just got a butterbeer mug haha.

After Olivanders, we finally got on the actual ride, located inside Hogwarts castle. You have no idea how excited I was!! they even had moving and talking pictures on their walls. The ride itself was thrilling too! It was kind of 4D but it wasn't exactly 4D. The point is it was super fun. I had a really great time!




Oh yeah I have an interesting story to tell you when I rode the Harry Potter ride.

So I was really excited and was having a really great time but then mid ride, it stopped. I kinda panicked. I was like "Oh crap what's going on". I thought the ride broke down except it didn't break down. There was an announcement so I listened and it said some kind of safety precaution button was pressed and so the ride stopped. But yeah alhamdulillah all was good. at the end of the ride my family and I got off and the staff was redirecting us to go back on the ride, cuz it stopped halfway through. But we didn't go the second time because my parents have had enough hahaha.

And yeah, that's the end of the story. When we got out it was 6:30 pm ish. I was REALLY exhausted. I spent an entire day walking around USJ, I almost couldn't even feel my legs. Remember when I said that we pretty much took the subway everywhere we go? Yeah this time on the way home we took the taxi bc I literally almost couldn't walk anymore.

The next day was Eid-ul Adha, so after we got up and had breakfast we took the subway to go to the mosque to pray. After prayer we headed back to our hotel and rested. Then later in the evening we went to take a stroll around Shinsaibashi to do some shopping! I got myself a lip scrub (cuz ya girl's lips were crusty and i dont want that) and a small printed silk scarf.

After Shinsaibashi we went to Dotonbori. Idk why but I got so happy when I saw the famous Glico Man haha!



Japan streets at night are soooo beautiful. My mother did some souvenir shopping at Dotonbori, and that's basically the end of the day.