Honeymooning in a Winter Wonder Land…

Hi all,

The honeymoon’s come and gone but this being the Christmas season and Christmas being about family… I thought I’d share this story of me and K with everyone. Besides, ang daming tweets asking about these photos, haha. So without further ado, here’s my short photo essay:

This is Day 1 in Tokyo! We spent the night walking around, eventually settling for dinner in the traditional Japanese restaurant I tweeted about. I remember seeing a girl there dressed in beautiful Yukata. Korina looked prettier though, haha. After dinner, we walked around some more. This is near the place where K played pachinko!

We spent a lot of time in Hibiya Park, also in Tokyo. Flowers were in full bloom. Great place to just sit and watch people especially since it was a Saturday. There were food stalls selling Shawarma and burgers with eggs! The place also has an outdoor Japanese opera which we watched later during the day.

The next day we went to Yunishagawa, a town in the mountains that’s two hours north of Tokyo via train and then another hour by car. It’s a small town. We stayed in a ryokan – a traditional Japanese inn – and the picture below is the view from our room. Notice the river in the background. Tiled structures by the river are baths with water from the hot springs! Sarap!

This is the Breakfast Room of the Inn. We had the traditional Japanese breakfast – pickles, tofu, tamago and soup. While everyone else had tea, we were the only ones who asked for coffee. I guess that’s not too surprising since we were the only non-Japanese visitors in the town! We’re wearing our Yukatas here – the ryokan gave us two each – one cotton and another with padding for cold weather.

It was super cold here in the morning! This is me and K in the garden of the ryokan.

We explored the town while covered in five layers of clothing! Because the town only has one road (which followed the river), all we had to was follow it. Though we came across two Japanese temples, the thing that impressed us the most was the scenery. It was absolutely beautiful. Imagine the trees changing colors by the river and then imagine a wild deer passing through… Ganda talaga!

The day before we left, we woke up and the scenery changed completely: everything was suddenly covered in snow! Our view was now like this! This was K’s first time in the snow and I’m actually still looking for the picture when she saw the white-covered gardens and played outside like a little girl.

All in all, K and I enjoyed the experience very much. Not bad for a 50-year old ex-bachelor, I think. All good things come to an end though. The honeymoon, that is, and not the marriage! Hahaha! When I find time, I’ll try to come up with more personal photo essays like this… but until then, from me, Korina, from my son Paolo: a Merry Christmas to everyone.

M.