Day trip to Gotemba Premium Outlet

Hellos! Haven’t been updating regularly because I was thinking of what to write. Not much happenings in life, so yes… not much updates. (._.)

Then a piece of good news came! Y-chan told me that he’ll be attending his company’s annual retreat and will be going to Hakone. (;_;) Knowing that I can’t tag along, I asked my friends if they’re interested to meet up for lunch or something. After some discussion, we decided to go Gotemba Premium Outlet. 😀

So we took bus from Shinjuku in the morning and was supposed to reach about 1030am (which is about 1½ hours ride). But to our horror…… there’s so much accidents on the road which the whole ride took an additional 2 hours to reach the outlet. Although we prepared some snacks in our bags, we were so hungry & thirsty by then that our stomachs didn’t welcome them at all. 😦

Upon reaching the outlet, we dashed to the food court to settle our lunch before shopping. And we gobbled down a cow…. Okay, sorry for exaggerating. A piece of steak. 🙂

I believed that it’s the weekend and everyone’s out to hunt for something because it was so crowded everywhere. AND, and… I finally bought the plates from Iittala which I’ve been aiming for months. Simple design and good for everyday use. ♥

One of the main reason for us to visit the outlet was to see Mt. Fuji at a closer distance. 😀 As snow has already capped the tip of Mt. Fuji, it’s almost the best timing for viewing.

Mt. Fuji is such a beauty. ♥

It’s such a waste that I forgot to bring my camera out with me. 😦 Only took a few shots with my lousy phone. *sighs*

After we’re done with our shopping, it was about time we have to board the bus to go back to Shinjuku. We thought it’d be a smooth trip back as compared to the morning’s traffic. BUT NO! Oh my goodness. It was supposed to be a 2 hours ride back but because of a fatal accident, it took us 4 hours to get back to Shinjuku. Our hunger nightmares began when we were informed of the traffic jam. *sighs* My bum was aching after sitting on the bus for 4 hours straight. (T_T)

Lesson learnt #1: pack ‘real’ food and a bottled drink in bag.

Lesson learnt #2: go during weekdays.

Lesson learnt #3: able to bitch about anything in foreign language (other than Japanese) at your own pace.

P/s: Can’t wait to attend the Singaporeans gathering organised by the embassy in December because I get to eat chicken rice, satay and laksa! 😀

Recent Food problems in Japan

For the past 1 week, TV news have been reporting about companies/hotels admitting to the same problem – False indication of food ingredients used in their menu.

I always think that it’s safe and can trust the Japanese with regards to food because they takes pride in doing it. However, after seeing the recent news reports, I’ve lost some trust in them. 😦

It all began with a chained of hotels in Osaka end October this year. A check was done on the ingredients used in their actual dish against what was indicated in their menu. And guess the outcome?

Quite a number of ingredients used were found to be different from what’s indicated in their menu. For example, a dish in the menu indicated that the hotel uses a certain species of prawns but the ingredients used in the actual dish was prawns that looks similar to it yet cost efficient. Even to some cases like ‘home-made chocolate sauce’ which was indicated in the menu but after the checks, it was found that they replaced it with chocolate sauce that’s readily available in the market.

I thought it would stopped at some other random hotels/restaurants but NO. The problem grew bigger and bigger with established stores like Takashimaya, Isetan and Daimaru admitting to the same issue.

Totally disgusted with this because these companies just step out and declared that they made a mistake on their side for the ‘misleading menu’ and apologised for it. I wonder how this is not called ‘cheating’! I mean, if these companies knew that they cannot deliver what’s in the menu, then change the menu or even just remove it.

So angry whenever I see the news reporting new cases of this issue! But thank goodness it’s REAL food that they’ve used and not artificial food (i.e. eggs made from chemicals, pickled bamboo shoots made from wooden chopsticks – you know which country I’m referring to).

I shall take a good look over the menu list of my wedding dinner when the day comes and hope I’m not a victim of it.

Will similar issue happens to Singapore?