Diner en Blanc - Old Kallang Airport

Kingsley and I attended our fourth Diner en Blanc event, this time with our friends Andrea and Ashley.  Due to the haze in Singapore the event was initially postponed for a month and, additionally we suspect that the location was moved.  The secret location this year was very near our condo at the Old Kallang Airport.  It was also a significantly smaller crowd with about 700 guests compared to the 3000 that attended last year. We found the organization to be very different (in not a good way) from previous years as well, with a new team running the show it felt like many critical things like music and the MC being on time, were an after thought.  However, when you are there with great friends you can only have a wonderful time...and we did! We had a lovely picnic dinner, shared some wine and enjoyed a little post dinner dancing.  Overall another successful year! 








Japan - Hakone

Hakone is a gorgeous mountainous area in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan. Officially classified as a Geopark by UNESCO, Hakone is famous throughout Japan for its sulfur hot springs, Shinto shrines, and black eggs hard boiled in sulfur. Kingsley and I had a lovely relaxing weekend getaway here staying at the Hyatt Hakone.

Selfie on my way to the onsen ended up looking like an advertisement for a Japanese horror movie.


We had a lovely sushi dinner at Sushimiyafuji

This cute little restaurant is owned by a husband and wife team. They speak very little English but since I can speak Japanese we had no trouble communicating. We had the horse mackerel sashimi special and chef special omakase. The mackerel was delicious! It was so good that we ordered another one. Sushi was fresh and delicious assortment of fish and the miso was excellent.
The husband makes many beautiful, tiny paper cranes, these are displayed throughout the shop. We were also given a tiny keepsake with two little cranes inside as a parting gift.


This is an orchid made only of origami, the most impressive part was the leaves were made of hundreds of tiny cranes. 


The misty fall colors, chilly temperatures, cedar fires and onsens made it a perfect fall weekend escape.





Japan - Reunited in Tokyo

After a month apart, Kingsley and I were finally reunited in Tokyo and spent a long wonderful weekend together.


We went to the Imperial Palace to explore an Kingsley decided to tag alone with group tour # 357



Hello Kitty Mania




Christmas decorations were all over Tokyo and we found Santas sleigh flying over Kyoto.