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

I travelled to Japan for the second time this year in August 2026. I had visited Japan's Kansai region in my trip in January. This trip, I visited Tokyo and Fukushima. Fukushima was especially interesting for me because it was my first time visiting the Prefecture. I took a Shinkansen from Tokyo to Fukushima, enjoying my onigiri onboard while viewing the passing scenes of parts of Tokyo, Saitama and Tochigi. And yes, they still sell snacks onboard the Shinkansen and I bought a bottle of cold coffee to enjoy with my onigiri bought at Tokyo Station before boarding. Summing up my Tokyo and Fukushima trip in a simple infographic? That idea came to me while I was dumb scrolling the internet on a lazy Sunday morning. I tried asking an online AI to generate this basic infographic for me by providing some details of my trip to the AI. Of course, I forgot other trip details during the process. However, the first-cut output was rather impressive, to me at least. No original photos I had take...

I have "met"  Godzilla many times in Tokyo! The last meeting I had with the famous and colossal legend was in November 2024. Godzilla, Godzilla Store Tokyo ,  Shinjuku Marui Honten Annex , Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan (2024) I had specifically reserved almost one whole day of my Japan trip just to seek out Godzilla at all the locations it has been known to appear. These include Shinjuku Tôhô Building , Hibiya Square , and of course, Godzilla's very own  Shinjuku Marui Annex (Shinjuku Marui Honten Annex). I also bought a Godzilla-themed t-shirt at Don Quijote Akihabara . Here are some "proofs" of my meetings with Godzilla! Godzilla, Hibiya Square, Tokyo, Japan (2024) Myself with my Godzilla merchandise paper bag,  Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan (2024) A Hobonichi X Godzilla Weeks Diary for 2025 bought at the Godzilla Store Tokyo,  Shinjuku Marui Honten Annex, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan (2024)

Japan,  Tokyo This article was first published on my other blog, Monde des Stylos . This other bloc entered on anything and everything related to Pens and Stationery. Since I started using fountain pens a few years ago, I have always wanted to attend the Tokyo International Pen Show (TIPS). Thus, being able to be at TIPS 2024 is definitely an unlocking of one of my Travel Bucket List items. And to be able to attend TIPS with my Japanese friend, who is a fellow fountain pen user, certainly made the event even more meaningful for me. ****************** This was my very first time attending a pen show. I did not actually planned to attend this event. But somehow, my travel dates to Japan in autumn of 2024 coincided with the show. Realising this, I gladly took the opportunity to include the show into my travel itinerary and through social media, managed to get in touch with a kind gentleman based in Tokyo who helped me with my event ticket booking. Thus, on 3 November 2024, I attende...

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 ...

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 s...

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...

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...

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 Augu...

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...

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 sprin...