Monday, November 27, 2006
yoKohAmA/tOkYo
argh... a week there on business trip
yokohama is about 1.5 hours (train/bus) journey from tokyo with a population of over 3 million ppl, yoko is japan's 2nd largest city and is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture.
towards the end of Edo Period (1603-1867) during which Japan isolated herself fr the rest of the world, western nations forced the country to open its ports to foreign trade.
in 1859, Yokohama's port become 1 of the 1st ports to be opened and Yoko quickly grew from a small fishing village into 1 of the Japan's major cities.
oh.. Yokohama's Chinatown is also one of the world's largest.
keke.. why i so informative?
cos i take a half-day tour "Rambling in Yokohama" but the sweet japanese lady told us "only japanese language".. but frankly speaking, do we care about ENGLISH?
places we visit :
- minato mirai 21 districts
- yokohama red brick warehouse
- yokohama foreign general cemetery "Minato-no-Mieru Oka Koen"
- sankeien garden
- yokohama bay bridge
- yamashita park
we take a direct flight from SG to Narita airport, then catch a limo coach to Yokohama excel hotel tokyu.
hungry.. so we look for food lor
see the food here?
the top 2 is for my colleague ken, the below 2 is mine.. some sort of wanton noodle.. but funny wor, it must accompanied by a bowl of rice
the rice taste good n yummy
the noodle lagi best...
as for ken, he can eat much more than me but just manage to finish his bowl of noodle.. that plate of rice with curry is so yummy & tasty but he's just too full to swallow
wasted man!
after our lunch, we take the yokohama sightseeing coach trip lor
as i mention before.. only japanese.. so the whole damn trip, i only understand 1 word "Yokohama".. but the tour guide does try her best to accomodate us.
argh.. she talk, we sleep lor..
after our exhausting sightseeing trip, we look for food again..
then we found this one, food stall near the street.. all stand there n eat
of course we prefer a restaurant lar... our meal only 1550 yen per person, with unlimited refilled of rice n salad
after dinner, we shop around takashimaya
we shop = windows shopping lar
Louis Vuitton, Channel, Gucci, Prada, Burberry... how to shop?
dun talk about big item like the louis vuitton bag which easily cost SGD1.5k
let's talk a about a simple shawl from Coach & Burberry
nah.. i snap via my 3G moto phone
Coach = SGD260
Burberry =SGD525
interestingly, most of the school kids here got burberry shawl.. so rich?
then their uniform are really from polo ralph lauren
huh... the differences so great?
imagine what we wear in m'sia & s'pore on school uniform & how much it cost?
then we also browse those long jacket/coat like piere cardin... easily cost more than SGD1k+, how to buy? it is stylish lar.. but just too expensive for us
my colleague is looking for some brand of cosmetic for her wife and we also bought a bottle of cK eternity eau de parfum spray 100ml
cost us ard SGD50.. frankly speaking, places like japan n korea.. all these stuffs are way cheaper than south-east-asia
my lady friends also ask me to bought them those biore uv moisturiser n clinique dunno what type of stuff lar, i think is toner or something.. still much cheaper.
some say only can found in japan, some say v cheap there.. i agree lor
frankly speaking, japan is indeed a solid country.
it doesn't even need to depends on tourism.. imagine how many millions can be generated from tourism industry?
not agree?
ok.. let's dig old data out for Malaysia itself (always see the Visit Malaysia year, right?)
tourism industry generated around $11.2 billion in revenue for m'sia in yr 2002, can you imagine how many billions now?
we're talking about money now (in a macro mode) - the economic importance of tourism in asia-pacific countries cos tourism is the major source of foreign exchange earnings in these countries...
It ranked 2nd in HK, Malaysia & Philippines while ranked 3rd in Singapore & Indonesia.
Japan still hold tight to japanese languages (while maybe lately open-up a bit) and its economy really depends heavily on its local consumption and demand
clap..clap..
japanese gal buy a few louis vuitton bag a year (normal small range is ard SGD1300), how many m'sia gal can afford such bag as a cost of RM3000.
how many % of the population in m'sia will buy a RM3000 handbag?
our old premier launch a vision in the 80's that we shall follow the japanese.. but i guess he should go there n stay for a period of time to understand the japanese, then decide whether m'sian can follow or not!
sMurFy at ... [ 4:38 PM ]
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