TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

Japan, Tokyo, Nakano This video was originally published in this blog in July 2021. The photographs shown in the video are based on my visit to Nakano in 2017. Before the trip, I had read about this quaint part of the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area and resolved to pop by for some sight-seeing and a walking tour if time on my itinerary permitted. And yes, I did visit Nakano on that trip. But why a video and not an article? Sometimes, pictures do speak more than a thousand words! Another reason was that I wanted to share what I saw and experienced in Nakano from a visual perspective.  And of course, my side trip to Nakano was an item in my travel bucket list.  ****************** I visited Nakano as a side trip while in Tokyo in the spring of 2017. Just minutes away from Shinjuku, Nakano is a world away from the hustle and bustle that defines Shinjuku. Here, serenity reigns. Being a rural area, the ambience is all about being slow paced and quiet. This is also an amazing place to catch s

Japan, Tokyo, Ueno Park Most of us who had visited Japan or who are planning to visit Japan will wish to see for ourselves the blooms of sakura in Spring. After numerous visits to Japan, I have had the luxury to admire sakura blooms at different locations in Japan. Doing a trip to Japan in March 2017, I went to Ueno Park in Tokyo. I was fortunate that the sakura was in full bloom during my visit and I got to enjoy hanami (cherry blossom viewing) together with locals and visitors alike. The original article was posted in this blog in April 2017. ****************** The period between late-March and early-April is always a good time to visit Japan, in particular the Tokyo area. The main reason is this period usually coincides with the annual sakura or cherry blossom season. Huge blooms of pink and white sakuras are a sight to behold. The crowds and the high seasonal prices of hotels and airfares may be a put off but it is also important to remember that sakura only blooms once a year and

Year 2023 Personal Travel Wrap-up......  And so, 2023 is nearing its goodbyes and we are all looking forward to a brand new year in 2024. For travelers, a brand new travel year beckons. Personally, 2023 marks the first year when leisure travel truly resumes, after 2020 and 2021. Yes, I traveled a fair bit in 2022 compared to the two preceding years. But travel in 2022 was tentative, punctuated by the need to handle cumbersome vaccination certifications submissions prior to each trip, downloading official apps from individual countries and registering on these apps before embarkation, masks wearing, expensive travel insurance as well as limitations in where one can travel to. All these requirements were thankfully, slowly peeled away towards the end of 2022. Year 2023 is when we feel like normal again. Truth be told, COVID-19 is still everywhere, endemic. However, a combination of annual vaccinations and naturally acquired immunity from previous infections by previous strains of the vir

Month-long Pan-Asia Trip, East and South-Asia Asia This was a major trip which took me months to plan. Because there were many key details to follow such as accommodation, train travel times and inter-city transport connectivities, I had to cancel and re-book many of my hotels and train tickets bookings repeatedly. And also because I was visiting many of the places for the first time, my only source of information was from the internet. Not much of this information was accurate and some of the inaccuracies nearly resulted in me missing my inter-city connections. Lesson learnt and note to self, take information from the internet with a big pinch of salt! But this was a wonderful trip. I am unlikely to be able to go on such a long trip with so many different destinations in one single vacation again anytime soon. Work schedule always dictates that I can go away for at most two weeks at any one time. Thus, I was really glad I managed to complete this trip. While I had to lug my work lapto

Travel Trip Plannings......  Much has been said regarding how the anticipation and planning of a leisure trip are the most enjoyable parts of a trip, any trips. From my personal perspective, I would say the finalisation of the major components of trip planning comes with an exhilaration that is most satisfying. With most pandemic-related travel curbs removed and revenge travelling reaching a crescendo, securing those previous seats on flights to popular destinations can be a challenge. This is more so for those of us like myself trying to make every travel dollar stretched. I had personally witnessed air tickets and accommodations prices rose like a bull rally on the stock markets. Each day I login in to the airline and hotels websites, I saw prices climb until they were out of reach of my limited travel budget. Thus, it was with much relief when I managed to finally secured my air tickets to Tokyo in end-July this year. The peak summer travel period! I need to get to Japan in August f

Revisiting places.......  I have a habit of re-visiting the same countries, same cities and same towns when I travelled on vacations. My creature-of-habit style even extends to the accommodations that I stay at, the places I dine in and even the stores that I shop with during trips. I always believe that on any first visits, we only have sufficient time to mentally decide whether we like a place, whether this place somehow struck a chord with us deep within and so on. On a second visit, we start to get to know the place as it grows on us. And from the third and subsequent visits onwards, we start to appreciate the place at a deeper level as we discover more and more about it, especially those proverbial off-the-beaten-track aspects of it. I start to make friends with the locals, true friendships that continue even after I returned home. We kept touch through social media, phone messages, phone calls and of course, in-person when I return for another visit. And these are the reasons why

Japan, Tokyo, Nakano The original article was first published in this blog in July 2021.  I have always been happy to visit small towns when travelling. Unguided with maps or GPS , I enjoy simply walking around with no fixed plans, exploring and taking in the experiences and chance encounters that come my way.  While in Tokyo in 2017, I decided to take a side trip to Nakano, a ward of Tokyo which is just a 10-minute train ride from crowded and busy Shinjuku. I discovered a gem of a town, one filled with cherry blossoms trees in full bloom (my trip was in early-April), tranquility and most of all, the charms that come with travelling without any pre-planned itinerary. Instead of a lengthy article struggling for words to fully describe my side trip to Nakano, I decided that a short video is a more appropriate medium to share my experience of the magic of Nakano. ****************** I visited Nakano as a side trip while in Tokyo in the spring of 2017. Just minutes away from Shinjuku, Nakan

Woke up today to the news that my favourite travel destinations in Asia, Japan and Taiwan, will soon reopen to leisure visitors. As part of the re-openings, strict and cumbersome anti-COVID measures will be dropped or scaled back. It has been a long while since I last visited destinations in these regions of Asia. I love the food, culture, sights and sounds of Japan and Taiwan. Even though other regions of Asia, which are also on my favourite list, continue to remain shut to leisure visitors, I can at least explore more travel options for 2023. Sakura viewings in spring, Japan's hanabi  (fireworks) festivals in summer, hiking in the National Parks of Taiwan and spending a couple of nights in the magical town of Jiuefen. I can't wait to plan and book my trips! Ema (small wooden tablets used by worshippers to write down their prayers or wishes), Ueno, Tokyo, Japan (2017) The magical and lovely town of Jiufen, Ruifang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan (2016) Next and hopefully so

I visited Nakano as a side trip while in Tokyo in the spring of 2017. Just minutes away from Shinjuku, Nakano is a world away from the hustle and bustle that defines Shinjuku. Here, serenity reigns. Being a rural area, the ambience is all about being slow paced and quiet. This is also an amazing place to catch sakura blooms (cherry blossoms) away from the crowds of central Tokyo. This video consisted of photos I took of Nakano. From the moment I alighted from then train at Nakano Station, walked around and enjoyed the surrounding areas and finally returning to the Station for my trip back to Shinjuku. These photos are presented in this short video in chronological order, based on my walking tour of Nakano. Walking Tour of Nakano, Tokyo, Japan (2017) Walking Tour of Nakano, Tokyo, Japan (2017)

  Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan and Chiba Prefecture This was another previous article written by myself and posted in this travelogue blog as the very first entry. Although this was a working trip, it was also the very first overseas trip for me traveling without any family members. Needless to say, it was also my first trip to Japan, a country that I had come to enjoy visiting over the years. While Japan and Tokyo are no longer strangers to me after so many visits over the past years, this post which was unedited from the first time I wrote it, truly reflects what I felt and experienced during that so-called virgin sojourn into a land unknown to me (at that time). ****************** Japan is a large country and I have only been to Tokyo. Although Tokyo is the capital of Japan, I'm sure there is more to the country than this city. In May 1995, I was sent to Tokyo on a one-week working trip while I was still working in Apple Computer. I shall not go into the detailes of the working nat

Next Travel Destinations....... when leisure travel resumes... After months of not being able to travel due to the current pandemic, I must admit I missed travelling and am looking forward to my next trips when leisure travel is able to resume. My last vacation before the closures and restriction of international borders was when I travelled to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in end-Jan 2020. While my last flight before the pandemic swept the world was in November 2019 when I travelled to Seattle (United States) on a business trip. As and when international borders closures and restrictions are lifted, the destinations for my first leisure trips will be Tokyo and Taipei. I missed the food and the shopping in both of these cities. Neon-lit giant billboards in Akihabara, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, Japan (2017) In Tokyo, I love dining on donburi (rice bowl dish); unadon (rice bowl topped with fillets of charcoal-grilled eel glazed with special sauce) and kaisendon (seafood rice bowl with slices of s