Kawaguchi-ko + FujiQ Highland

Kawaguchi-ko (河口湖) is a lake abt 5 km away from Mt Fuji. Peaceful small town with beautiful scenery.


On clear days, you can get a good view of Mt Fuji from here.


Next to it is FujiQ Highland themepark - the place with Japan's most thrilling roller coaster rides.

Here are some links to videos taken DURING the ride:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Egy_uL9CS8Q&feature=related

1st-person view. During the ride, the camera is not shaking. Rather, its due to the fact that the roller coaster seat keeps rotating during the ride.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=wWgRnrtdilY&feature=related

The ride itself is abt 30 sec, but it takes 40 sec before that to climb to the top of the coaster ride.

Here is another roller coaster:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=tT1tNG98qAM&NR=1

Hakone

Yet another scenic popular tourist destination within close proximity to Tokyo. Its basically famous for its spectacular views, lakes and onsen.

Here is the main lake. Its too cloudy today to see Mt Fuji on the backdrop.
On the lake, you can see a few ferries used for ferrying pple from one end to another



Me on the ferry. Super windy. As it was a weekday, there was hardly anyone else. I felt like i own the whole boat. haha.

At the other end.

The ropeways bring u up and down some hills. View is quite good.

My OWN ASEAN Festival

ASEAN Festivals are actually quite common in Tokyo. Every now and then, some University/college/dormitory will hold such an event. And its pretty much the same everywhere... food, performance and interaction.
After going to 2 such festivals, Kim, Yup, Mint and me decided to start our very OWN Asean festival - a small one of course. As there will only be 4 countries taking part: Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. : )
We bought our ingredients and went to Kim's place. Here is what we dished out:

Hainanese chicken rice, Fish head curry, stirred-fried pork in some Thai sauce, braised chicken wings in chinese sauce, and satays.

The soup for the day was bitter-gourd soup with pork slices.

Not too bad... the food taste good.. and we didnt burn down the kitchen. LOL.

ASEAN Festival

Visited the 3rd ASEAN Festival held at Komba International House. Its a fair where they feature food and performances from various Asean countries (eg, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines... of course, Singapore too!).

Naturally, most pple who visited this event were Aseans themselves.. Its like a big get-together for your fellow countrymen. :)
Here's the Singapore booth: You can see fellow Singaporeans(dressed in the air stewardess' Kebaya costume) selling some food. That green "Uniquely Singapore" banner and the posters are provided by STB(singapore tourism board). At the left hand corner, there's also a cute stuffed-toy of the MERLION(singapore's mascot).

Here are some of our "local food"
MILO Dinosaur, Roti John, Kachang Putih and Green Bean soup.

A group of Malaysians, Thai and Singaporean:
While exchanging contacts, we took out our mobile phones. Guess what, all 6 of us happen to be using SOFTBANK mobile phones. There are 3 main telcos in Japan - Docomo, AU and Softbank. What are the odds of this happening???
Possible reason: SOFTBANK to SOFTBANK phonecalls are FREE during the daytime(depening on your plan).

Good marketing strategy!!