Not sure about the rest, but here are my personal picks Best Hotelier Experience: Toyoko Inn Hakodate Daimon. "Plush, clean, comfortable, super single beds with fully equipped fresheners. Room rates came with complimentary breakfast, dinner, free internet access and free flow of coffee at the reception. For SGD55 per person a night, the price and location is hard to beat in expensive Japan." Best Railway Experience: Tokyo to Hachinohe (en-route to Hokkaido). "The reliable Shinkansen whisked through the painless 631km journey in a matter of 3 hours. The same distance between Singapore and Penang would otherwise take a whopping 18 hours by the "Express Trains" of the notorious Keretapi Tanah Melayu Behad (KTMB) aka the state Railway of Malaysia." Best City Experience: Wide boulevards and plenty of open spac... read more

Day 9 ~ December 29, 2008 The reality of the 10 hours train journey from Sapporo to Yokohama did not hit us hard today. The comfortable trains were clean and the train arrived and departed on time at major interchanges. Starting early in the morning and after 4 transfers, it was night-time by the time we reached Yokohama Station. Earlier today, it was an emotional goodbye for M as he tried to hold back his tears when seeing us off @ Sapporo Station. 8.37pm ~ We met up with Y and R sans at the Kita (North) gate of the sprawling Yokohama station after experiencing some difficulties figuring our way through the correct gates. Lugging our heavy luggage to R's place, this was going to be our final 3 nights before we returned home to Singapore ... read more

Friday, 26th December 2008, Sapporo "Welcome to Sapporo" said the big signboard as we came out of JR Sapporo Station. Earlier, we had baded goodbye to Mr Mori and Muku at Niseko Resort before continuing our 2 hour train journey to Sapporo. It wasn't difficult to fall in love with Japan's fifth largest city (1东京，2横槟，3大阪，4名古屋 and 5札幌). The well-planned city have what everything Tokyo has to offer. Yet, it have what most major Japanese cities are lacking ~ the crowds. It never get too crowded in Sapporo even during the rush hours. With 3 subway lines criss-crossing the city, it was easy to move around in this relaxed city. I loved their weekends as the one-day subway ticket (donni chika kippu) costs only 500 yen for unlimited travel. On other days, the same ticket was 800 ... read more

23rd December 2008 ~ Tokyo to Hokkaido It took us about 6 hours by train from Tokyo to Hakodate. Starting at 8.56am, our day was almost gone when we finally reached Hakodate Station at 3pm in the afternoon. There were no major complains as the trains were clean and on schedule. Light snow greeted us as we marched out from the train station this afternoon which sent a smile on everybody’s faces. Afterall, it was not an everyday affair that we could see snow falling from the skies before our eyes. We managed to reach the Toyoko Inn Hotel at 3.40pm but was told to hang around in the lobby as the “standard check-in time was 4pm.” Armed with discount coupons which we tore from the train magazine, we managed to slice off yet another 1,000 ... read more

Rubber Band Rocks It was a star studded affair last Saturday evening at a downtown hotel in Orchard as we “anticipated” for our company’s dinner and dance. “Anticipated” was not a strong word. Afterall, it was "N" years ago when the last dinner and dance took place. I’m not sure why there was much anticipation and excitement when we first heard that there was going to be one this time round. At least for me, there was never that same level of enthusiasm in my previous company’s dinner and dance. Certainly, most people in the company were looking forward as it was not within the living memory when the last was held. (Lesson learnt: Never have an annual dinner and dance in the company. Have it once in many years.) Probably, we had to pay $10 ... read more