It has been a few months since we have been back from our trip to Japan and Taiwan and I thought I would reflect and discuss my top 15 memories from the trip. These will include a lot of different things but they are the memories and things that have stuck with me. I wouldn’t have had these memories without the amazing people I traveled with. Both of these countries are amazing and if you haven’t been there you should go.
1.The proposal
Obviously the number 1 memory of this trip was my proposal. We had just entered the park when Anthony started babbling something about the castle and Chris wanting to see it. I had the day planned and was not amused to be dragged off to the castle. In the end Anthony had to drag me down to the castle. We made it down to the partners statue which is the Mickey and Walt statue which is at every Disneyland and Anthony stopped and said he had to tie his shoe. He kneeled down and the next second he had dragged out a ring and proposed. When he was finished all the visitors in the park clapped and everyone congratulated us. I didn’t notice the hidden Mickey in the ring until later. However it was a truly magical experience. 15 minutes later when I had gotten back in control of my self and the Disneyland itinerary it started to snow just as we were lining up for Buzz light years Astro blasters. It was truly beautiful and such perfect timing to a perfect day.
2.Ryokan
This was an amazing one night get away where we got to experience so much of Japan’s history. Firstly when we arrived we were escorted into our beautiful rooms which even had the beautiful paper walls. The next second Anthony and I copped the main Mama-san and were redressed by her with her criticizing eye. Luckily for us she was not seen again as she was so scary. Being dressed in the Yukata made it so much more enjoyable and we met in the dining room after taking lots of pictures in the rooms. Dinner was great but then our Geisha arrived. It was so awkward at first as we had no idea what we were doing and we watched her play some traditional instruments and dance for us. After a while we got talking to her and she opened up to us. She was so nice and we got to ask her all the questions we wanted about her being a geisha. The time went so quickly and before we knew it dinner was over. I ended the night actually going into a traditional Japanese onsen (naked) with Alysha and surprisingly it was a very relaxing experience. Then we slept on the floor in the traditional ryokan style. This will forever be one of my fondest memories mostly because of the people i got to share this with.
3.Flying a lantern in Shifen.
I think Shifen as a whole is my favourite area in Taiwan. When you enter the tiny town you are surrounded by shops that have are divided by a train line in the middle. It is so quaint and so pretty there. Once every hour a train goes past and the people all yell loudly to get the others off the tracks. Our tour guide had taken us in to this area and pointed us in the right direction to paint a lantern. This was something I was so excited to do. We choose a four colored one and all started painting it. It was such a nice feeling with all 6 of us sitting together thinking about what we wanted in the future and what wishes we wanted sent up to the sky. When we were done we took the Sky Lantern out to the middle of the railway tracks to release it to the sky. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJAKS5oHqS8 I cannot explain why this is one of my top memories besides that fact that I felt very at peace surrounded by people I love.
4.Gaston’s proposal
Meeting Gaston at Disneyland was definitely one of my highlights. It started off with me squealing with excitement to see Gaston and then Drew stalking him to try and get in front of the Japanese people. Anyway of course being the only white people in the group Gaston immediately spotted Drew and dragged him up with him. Gaston was so funny. Drew mentioned that Anthony and I had gotten engaged in the morning so Gaston came up put his arm around me and exclaimed “I have been asking Belle for years to marry me, you are a lucky man” The rest of the conversation is on video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zI-js-OElY . Drew then got some pictures with him which was hilarious then Gaston asked if we all wanted to come up. Gaston had not realized there had been 12 of us and he was so shocked when 12 loud Aussies came at him from the crowd. After laughing and getting our photo done Gaston said to me “We must reenact this morning and got down on one knee. If you know me well enough you know that my favourite movie is Beauty and the Beast so this made my day as well as the rest of the groups. We saw Gaston going in later and he looked at me and said See you Amy!!! Amazing.
5.Drinking Butterbeer at Hogsmeade
I have no words to describe how amazingly awesome the wizarding world of Harry Potter was. It was exactly like stepping into the movie. The shops were there with their roofs covered in snow and everything you would expect to see was there. We stopped in the middle of Hogsmeade to order a hot butter beer. It was incredibly sweet and warm. The shops in Hogsmeade had the owl post, the monster book of monsters. I really could have spent ages walking around. We also had lunch at the Three Broomsticks which was so beautiful we ate outside overlooking Hogwarts. We were able to walk through the castle as well and see the detail inside. The amount of detail in this park is incredible and we could have spent much longer just wondering around looking at things. I hope one day i get to back when there are less people so I can spend much longer there. The other fond memory from here was trying to eat the chocolate frog with the group. We could not break it at all video here https://youtu.be/Wi6eM53xD-s. Also warning for others Bertie blotts every flavour beans have very gross flavours.
6.Sunset at Miyajima
Miyajima is considered one of the top 3 sights in Japan and to be honest before I went it wasn’t high on my excited list. We arrived by ferry from Hiroshima and as soon as we got off the ferry and started walking we came across deers. The deers themselves were so cute but to make the sight even cooler we got to see the deers on the beach a little further down. We walked along the beach for a bit and then detoured into a small market place to walk down to the temple. This whole area was so quiet and so quaint that we all wondered down the street slowly. There are deers wandering the street here too which I though was hilarious as the looked like they were shopping. This is not my video but an idea about the street is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2iUrK64iC0 At the end of the market is one of the top 3 sights in Japan The Great Tori. The gate and shrine were beautiful. Walking around this area was very peaceful. We were then able to see the sunset behind the beautiful gate. It was one beautiful place.
7.Beitou - Land of Hotsprings
Oh the hot springs of Beitou. The first part of this day involved us wondering around and climbing mountains to find our way to a local part. This was awesome because as we walked into the part we found the free hot spring foot bath in the park. It was beyond packed locals everywhere. We found a spot up the end. Washed our feet and got ready. We put out feet in up the empty end and pulled them out quickly. It was 53 degrees up that end and the locals thought we were hilarious, I don’t think many tourists find these. We eventually got a spot closer to the other end where the water was less boiling and relaxed. I wish that we had these in our local parks here it was also a great experience to know we were right off the tourist path. We kept hiking and finally made our way to the Marshall Zen Gardens. Anthony and I ordered a private hot spring for $30 and got to relax looking at the beautiful views of Beitou. The view and hot spring were AMAZING! Here is a picture of the room and view http://thetaiwanphotographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Beitou_Hot_Spring-18.jpg
8.The beauty of Taroko Gorge.
This day has so many hilarious memories as well as some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. We had hired a private driver called Tonny Teng for the day who drove us around the area and had many great sayings such as “Come back Sarma, It’s winter.” Although my favourite was that he met us holding a sign with his own name on it. The Taroko Gorge area is beautiful to drive around and the cliffs and views are out of this world. I really enjoyed our walks along the gorge that day and being able to see different parts of it. The huge marble cliffs and the gorge in between is so beautiful its hard to explain and the pictures don’t do it justice. It is seriously the most beautiful place i have been to.
9.Nakano Broadway
Oh my God. Nakano Broadway is literally a nerds paradise. There are 3 floors of tiny tiny shops all squished in with so much merchandise it is scary. Every store sold different things. There was one shop that sold a lot of Disney stuff and it had old pins and everything. You had to search through things carefully to find what you wanted as there was so much stuff there. I also loved the fact that we found the rest of Dani’s cat gatchapons here. It made me really happy that everyone found what they were looking for here. Anthony found his transformers, Tm found his anime statues he had been looking for, And drew and Dani enjoyed themselves when they came later. We also got to try authentic sushi train here which was an amazing experience. I absolutely loved Nakano Broadway and it would be one of the first places i will return when I go back to Tokyo. My favourite thing I bought from here was the limited edition pin from the opening of Disneysea. As well as the snow globe for $10 AUD. What a place to find bargains if you know what to look for.
10.Tea ceremony Maokong
Maokong is an amazing place to visit. We took the cable car up to Maokong from the zoo and watched the tea fields spread underneath us. Maokong is a mountain town known for their tea. We had watched a few vlogs and had plans to have a tea ceremony in a tea house overlooking the mountain. In the end we found a nice tea house and proceeded to have our tea ceremony. The steps were Step 1: You need to warm the teapot and heat the cups with the boiling water. Step 2: This is when you smell and appreciate the tea. Step 3: You scoop the leaved into the small pot. for us it needed to be half full with green tea. Step 4: Fill the teapot with water til it overflows and fill the bowl the teapot is sitting in with boiling water. Allow it to brew for 30 sec. Step 5: Pour the tea and strain it leaving tea leaves in pot. This is good for a couple of times. It was so nice to sit up there in the cold mountain air having an amazing time and drinking the most amazing green tea. Rob continued our tea ceremony and he was fantastic.
11.Sumo’s
I did not expect Sumo’s to be up there on my list of favourite memories in Japan but there you have it. We got to go down the sumo carpet on the way in and it was like we were famous https://youtu.be/v_fVUNgWc0Y. We got taken on a tour of the sumo stadium and then were escorted into the venue. The sumo stadium was amazing we had to sit in the aisle while we waited for a fight to stop. We watched the main fights of the top ranked Sumo’s and were impressed by the ceremony and tradition that follows each fights. Also those sumos are flexible.A fight would only start as soon as both opponents placed their knuckles on the ground. My favourite fight was when we saw a smaller sumo who was 50kg lighter throw his heavier competitor over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfQQLqgDKQ8. It was so much fun to watch and before we knew it the sumos were over and we had to leave. If I every live in Tokyo I will definitely return to the sumos. Also I loved seeing Dani get so involved and excited over the fights.
12.Maid Cafe
This was without doubt our craziest night and I think that why I remember it so well. The other 6 from the group were home in bed when the 6 from the Taiwan group went out. I remember we were messaging the other group while we were out and they seriously must have thought we were drunk somewhere. Chris had been wanting to go to a maid cafe and we found ourselves out late after dinner and thought why not. We went into Maid Dreamin’. At first it was odd as I was the only girl in there but soon enough our maid was over with us playing games and being silly. Before we knew it Chris had bought a glow stick and we were watching a crazy dance show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfQQLqgDKQ8 We let our hair down that night and had fun wearing animal ears and getting cool desserts. When we got out of there we all could not stop laughing it had been so strange but so much fun.
13.Gondola’s at Tokyo Disneysea
Anthony and I got to Disneysea and made a pact to do the park at a slower pace and really take in the park. We started our second day at the park by going on the Gondolas. The gondolas go around Mediterranean harbour and out near the volcano. The amazing this is that the gondoliers all speak Italian as well as Japanese. As we went under a bridge one of the gondoliers sang Santa Lucia which was very awesome. The gondola ride around Mediterranean harbour also let us look at the amazing detail that was put into the park. Spending time with just Anthony in the park was fantastic and this was a great way to spend our first day alone in 3 weeks
14.NYE Taipei atmosphere.
We spent our New Year hanging out on the banks of the river in Taiwan. We had a nice view of Taipei 101 for fireworks and got a spot early. I cannot explain the atmosphere down by the river. It was like being in a war zone (in a good way). There were firecrackers and fire works being let off in the street. People has bought there own BBQ’s and were all cooking food. The atmosphere was really amazing. The best way i can show you is to show you the video Steve took of around us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVwi4RWWAZ8. Also we had these hilarious Taiwanese people who wanted to practise there English and when they asked where we were from they keep saying “Kangaroo”. We tried to teach them Koala but apparently we are only known for our kangaroos.
15.Eating at the Alice in Wonderland restaurant
Lastly is the lunch Anthony and I had at Alice in Wonderland Restaurant - The Queen of Hearts Banquet hall. We went for my birthday. The restaurant is so well themed and absolutely stunning. We entered the restaurant through the door knob and were greeted by the card guards. We sat in front of these huge stained glass windows of Alice in Wonderland as well. This restaurant was just beautiful.
Well there are my top memories. Both of these countries were amazing to visit and I have to say I am truly blessed to travel with such amazing friends. All of these people I consider to be family not just friends. I am also lucky to have got to have such amazing experiences and been to some beautiful places.