Contributed by Bobidom: Japan Trip - Part 1

Previously, i thought that my trip to Japan, tagging along with my mom's ministry's educational visit would be a boring one.
And now, I'm back home, with a smile on my face *and painful knee* , wishing I was there longer =P

It was a 8 days, 7 nights trip from Tokyo - Fukui - Tokyo by the way...
So since there's so much experiences, stories and photos to share,
i'm gonna split up the posts part by part (as usual).

Here goes~ :)

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After an almost 5 hours flight from KK to Tokyo via MAS, we arrived safe and sound at the Tokyo Narita Airport at about 8pm Tokyo time.
Our journey to Okura hotel took around 40 minutes.
Along the way, I saw Disneyworld, the Tokyo Ferris Wheel, Tokyo Tower and other clean & beautiful night views of Tokyo.
They reminded me much on all the J-drama / Animes i watched before.
At that moment, I still can't believe I've stepped my foot in Japan XD *dogok betul*

Nadia & Cici

Nadia & I at the Okura Hotel, Tokyo

In Okura Hotel, we were greeted with a set of origami & a hotel robe looks like a yukata XD
Bell boy was quiet surprise to find us change into our yukata-robe so fast. Heh :P

Welcoming note with an origami

Our bird and turtle origami

FASANA & the bell boy

Mom and sis got hungry so we ordered a set of TENJU tempura set (for mom & cici), Onigiri for Nadia and as usual, only dessert for me, the Tiramisu.

Our late dinner

The tempura was over cooked on the outside and half cooked on the inside.
It didn't taste as great as we expected of a dish in Japan.
But the Onigiri and my tiramisu was very nice!

Referring to my bad Tiramisu experience in Jakarta last year, i thought the Tiramisu would taste like plastic too. But it didn't :) Yey!

Tempura hangus

Delicious Onigiri

Hrmmm~~~ need I say more?

Cam-ho before going to bed...

Aihs~ my mom is so darn sporting.
Love her to bits ^3^ *muaks! muaks!*

Anyways, the time in Japan is +1 from Malaysia local time.
Mama asked us to get ready by 7am (6am in Msia) the next morning.
so me being me, I gotta wake up an hour earlier *yawn* =_="
This was my breakfast the next morning by the way.

Aha... just cornflakes =_="
I don't eat breakfast much below 8am.

Our flight to Fukui took an hour.
While waiting for the boarding time, I walked around taking photos and admiring all the food samples displayed in every shop.
They looked VERY tempting XD

In Fukui, we were greeted by Akiko-san and one translater name Yumi.
Akiko-san used to work as a volunteer in Sabah's social welfare organisation before.
For this educational trip, she was responsible for all the official arrangement between the Ministry and Sakai Social Welfare organisations for us to learn more about the Japanese social welfare future plans & current activities.

Since we had not much time, we were brought straight to lunch at Rasa Sayang Restaurant, a Malaysian Restaurant in Fukui City own by a happy go lucky man name Mr. Chin, who hailed from Perak.

The food was alright. Simple sweet & sour fish, japanese rice, small portion of fried mee and a salad with yummy sweet sesame sauce.

After lunch, we were rushed to the Sakai (pronounced as Sa-Ka-i) Welfare Council Volunteer Center.
There, we were briefed on the local welfare services by the Social Welfare Corporation which legally placed in every municipality.

The briefing was quiet boring.
It reminded me of the lectures back in Uni =_=
I only loving the part where we got to try out some of the items they use to teach the youngsters and volunteers.

Learning to feel to be blind (Ignore the pose... I'm serious!)

Learning to feel to be deaf (Ignore her pose.. she's serious!)

Plus, best experience of all, meeting the elderly in person :)

Can you guess how old she is?

She's 97.

Yes!

Still standing tall and active.

Doesn't look like one does she?

In most social welfare centre in Japan, elderly are taken care with so much love.
Other than tender loving care treatment from volunteers and paid staff, the ambiance of the house and other activities laid out are all interesting and well managed as well!

Handcrafted by the elderly as part of their activity

With the old generations growing more in number, the community themselves donated at least 500 yen/month per household (Approx. RM15 our money) to support the government in helping out the disable/elderly e.g. to build more shelters for them, more activities and facilities, food, support etc.

Wouldn't it be great if we can have the system too?
Wouldn't it be great if we can AT LEAST change the ambiance of our old folks home here too?
Heck, we all will get old soon right?

Anyways, back to my story...

After a brief introduction and Q&A, we were presented with a song from all of them:

They were so pleasant!!!

If you can see, there's no man among them.
According to the care taker, majority of old women in Japan tend to live longer than the men.
Sooooo you get the gist.

In return to the song they presented, we sang the Rasa Sayang song :)

One of them loves karaoke so much :)
So she decided to sing solo for us *awww*

When my sis and I approached them to talk and take photos with them,

one of them said in a certain Japanese dialect, "make sure you take care and becareful when you go back..." and few asked if the 3 of us can speak japanese.
Some we responded..
Some we nodded and smile only XD *lol! fail.com*

Point is, it was a very touching moment.
Some even cried when we hugged and say goodbye :(
Uh... made me scared to get old @_@

For dinner, we were invited to Akiso-san's house for a welcoming party.
As you can see, her house is overlooking the paddy field and it was just so lovely.
I really wish to have a garden like hers.

Cici was playing around the prayer room.
To make her stop, I made the Ju-On sound and told her that ghost might haunt her XD

We also met Akiko-san's students from Malaysia who's currently studying in Fukui University.
They were helping out Kobayashi-san (Akiko-san's husband) in the kitchen.

Oh.. this one is from Japan. Not Malaysia.

For your info, Kobayashi-san too, worked as a volunteer at Cheshire Home in Sabah before.
Both husband and wife met & paktoh in Sabah before getting married in Japan ^_^
and both can speak Bahasa Malaysia as well.

The food Kobayashi-san cooked was A LOT.
The tempura and other dishes kept on coming and coming!
Even with 20 over people, there were still lots of left over @_@