We just came back from Japan for the March holidays and I think i will like to record down our trip.
We booked our air tickets from SQ back in Oct 2022 and paid around 3.6K for 4 of us which makes it quite reasonable as ANA or JAL would cost around 4K.
The plan is to fly into Nagoya where we will visit Legoland Japan and depart from Osaka.
We booked a night stay with Legoland Hotel which comes with 2 days of park tickets for 2A,2C and paid SGD 600 for it.
Osaka's accomodation was booked via Airbnb where i tried to find 1 near Shinsaibashi and has washing machine as we did not have enough warm clothings. Found 1 which is 1 stop away and 4min walking distance to the metro station and we paid SGD600 for 5 nights. Very worth the money if you asked me and on some nights we walked back from Shinsaibashi and it only took us 15min walking in the cool night weather.
After clearing immigrations, we went walked around and Dinos declared that they are hungry and prompted us to go up to 2nd level foodcourt to see what is on available.
I made them pack some small toys in their bags to entertain themselves during waiting time. It came in useful quite often during our trip.
We were due to land at 8.30 am Japan time and was awaken 2 hours before landing for breakfast service. Dinos slept for 3hours and woke up just in time for breakfast. Thankfully I have asked my mummy to fetch them home for a nap so that they get some rest before flying. As for the parents, we really survived on 3hours sleep and chiong the whole day with them.
Clearing Japanese immigration is a breeze if you had filled up your details via Visit Japan web and gotten the neccesary QR quote. I registered for all of us under 1 email and screen shot the relevant QR code and send to Mr Love since he is taking 1 Dino to clear immigrations. I also uploaded our vaccination certificate and got a blue screen (instead of red) in the fast track page. This is an essential step because we were asked to show the page before we were let through to the immigration. Children are not required to submit though. I tried but couldn't upload the certificates. There are quite a handful of staff on ground to assist the arrival passengers but few spoke English.
I asked the tourist information counter at arrival hall of Nagoya station for the purchase of their IC card (EZ link card equivalent) and initially I wanted to get the Tokai card which is issued by the Central JR company but was instead directed to buy the Manaca card which is issued by Meitetsu (Nagoya train operator).
I repeatedly confirmed with the staff that this card can be used in Osaka and they confirmed the same. And because we are travelling with children, we can submit our passports and buy child's card which is entitled to the same child's fare for the residents. They will verify the passports and print their name on the card. Child's fare is half of adults so it's worth the hassel to get it done. And besides, these cards are valid for 10yrs. We also noticed that when scanning the child's IC card at gantry, there will be a bird chipping sound to alert the station staff that concession cards are being used.
Took me nearly an hour to settle all the stuff before we proceed to wait for our train. We were scheduled to take the limited express train to Nagoya station at 10.07am and adults fare is 890Yen/pax.
Upon reaching Nagoya after 30min of ride, we walked quite a long distance to transfer to the local line Aonami which is bound for Kinjo Futo where Legoland is located, the ride to Kinjofuto is another 25min.
It's another 10min walk from Kinjofuto station to Legoland. The plan was to check in, redeem our park tickets, deposit our luggage, go for lunch and then enter the park.
So happy
Dive straight into this Lego bricks pool the minute we enter the hotel. I was able to settle our check in peacefully while Mr Love watch over them and also took them to the restrooms. Staff here can speak simple English and gave me a simple rundown of the amenities available and also helped us to book our breakfast slot because the booking webpage is all in Japanese.
We walked around and decided to give this Japanese curry shop a try. It was much later then we realised it's a franchise since we saw it in Kyoto too. Have to order through a kiosk and make payment with cards before a receipt is generated for the staff to collect and prepare the food. I was amazed to see them going cashless since my last impression of Japan when I visited 18yrs ago is that they only accept cash.
Dinos ordered the same. Kid's meal that comes with a burger patty. There's sausage, egg that can be top up but I think they might not be able to finish. The rice portion is also smaller at 100g and it seems that the curry served is also a milder version as compared to adults.
I forgot the exact amount but the total came up to be below SGD 30 which is quite reasonable since we were pretty prepared for the high costs in Japan.
We are ready to hit Legoland after lunch and Dinos cannot wait to enter the park already.
