Whirlwind In A Mama's Head

Last year for Easter weekend, our family went to Lake Toba . It was my very first time in North Sumatra so I was quite excited. I had several friends who were born and raised in Medan so I tried to get as many information and references as possible for this trip. Thank you, guys! You know who you are.... If one simply wants to go to Lake Toba, there is an airport closer that you can fly into from Jakarta. This time, however, I flew to Kualanamu International Airport in Medan, the capital city of North Sumatra. For this trip I drove from Medan to Lake Toba and back with a somewhat circular route, allowing us to cover more cities. Upon arrival in Medan, we rented a car (booked in advance) and I drove to our destination for the day: Taman Simalem Resort . The drive itself was about 4 hours long, but we stopped in Brastagi's Asia Restaurant for lunch (recommended!) and also at Sipiso-Piso Waterfall.

It felt good to finally finish my Japan Winter 2019 series after more than 4 years lol. I had forgotten a lot of details but at least we have the spots and pictures. The journey started with Kyoto , and then to Kobe and Tokyo, with side trips to Himeji , Nara , Kawaguchiko , Yokohama , and Chureito Pagoda . I especially loved seeing the cool construction of the Rokko Shidare Observatory.  We also had good timing with the Kobe Luminarie ! Now, since I have quite a few posts on Tokyo, I'm going to list them here so it's easier to find. You can also see the links for my other travels on the Travel Link page.  Asakusa TeamLab Borderless Odaiba Rainbow Bridge Odaiba Tsukiji Fish Market and Ginkgo Avenue Koishikawa Korakuen

  And we have finally arrived at the final post of the long Japan Winter 2019 series!  In the last couple of days we were in Tokyo, we did a lot of shopping, so there's not a lot to write home about. Anyhow, there are a few things worth mentioning. 

  It was getting closer to the end of our trip, this day was planned to be laid-back and relaxing. Early in the morning we all went to the Tsukiji Outer Market. It was still very busy there even though the fish auction had been moved to Toyosu. Of all the places we visited in Japan, I think this visit to the famous fish market is the one that my dad looked forward to the most :D We didn't spend too much time there, but we did buy the grilled butter scallop that my dad really wanted to try :) We then split up the group with some of us having sushi at Tsukiji and the rest went elsewhere. 

After spending about half a day inside the TeamLab Borderless Odaiba , we went to a mall in Odaiba for a late lunch. I can't remember what the mall was called, but they had an area where they displayed old cars. That was pretty cool. Here are some of the vehicles we saw... We also saw this futuristic car displayed in Odaiba :) We hung out at the mall and moved on to a cafe while waiting for the Rainbow Bridge to light up. We found an escalator by the deck to go down closer to the beach and were able to take some amazing pictures with it! Let's not forget that Odaiba has one of my favorite Daiso stores in Tokyo, I thought that's worth mentioning :) That evening Miss Kiki had forgotten her Pasmo Card at a restaurant where we had dinner, she was pretty upset about it. So while everyone went ahead to the hotel, I went back to the restaurant with Miss Kiki (we ran to make it just in time before they closed!) and we had a fun time going back just the two of us. It wasn't with...

On our 4th day in Tokyo, I planned a full day in Odaiba for the whole family. We finally took a train from the Shiodome station near our hotel (normally we use the subway). On this train, we purposely lined up for the first compartment so we could get the front view. It was a cloudy day but fortunately, it didn't rain.