Japan 2016 - Leaving Urayasu for Karuizawa

after 2 days at theme parks, its time for us to leave and head on to other attractions...snow park! i have a bad feeling about this though, i think we wont be seeing any snow. the boys would be upset but we already told them this early in the season there's chances of no snow, especially at the place we're going to.

in my initial plan, we would be spending 2 nights in karuizawa. enough time for a day's skiing and then some shopping. but my plan was changed and it was supposed to be reverted back to original but there was no more room available at the hotel to add another night's stay. so its just an overnight trip. on a positive note, we're able to cut our trip to osaka to two parts - karuizawa-tokyo and tokyo-osaka instead of karuizawa-osaka in one go.

when i booked the apartment in urayasu, i was torn between 2 places. one was the one we stayed at, right in urayasu town, and the other was closer to disneyland. both had two bedrooms, similar facilities, nearby grocery shops and near transportation to tokyo disney parks. but i decided with the one in urayasu town because it would be nearer to a metro station to take us to downtown tokyo. we'll be going to tokyo with loads of bags so that was really the deciding factor.

the place was just 5 minutes walk (slightly more with our luggage) to urayasu station and from there, 20 minutes metro ride to otemachi station. otemachi is a huge, huge station, connecting many lines. its just one stop, or 3 minutes walk from tokyo station where you can take the shinkansen (bullet train) to many cities outside tokyo. otemachi is actually very daunting because it has around 14 exits (each with an a and b and c) and to get from the platform to one exit takes forever.

our last day in urayasu was not as hectic. we were supposed to leave the apartment by 11am and karuizawa is not that far away. i wanted to time our travel nicely so that we'll get there in time for check in. we took our time with breakfast and shower, packed our night clothes, packed the food especially amira's food and formula, packed our carry-ons and went around checking if we've left anything behind.

amira was ready for cold karuizawa

we left exactly at 11am, took a leisurely walk to urayasu station and spent a whole long time getting one-way metro tickets to otemachi. its kinda nice though their machine, but manouvering around, trying to find the buttons took a long time. there's only one metro line (tozai line) and the platform isn't too far from the entrace. the train wasn't packed as it was late morning, on a weekday and the boys were able to sit until we reached our destination.

getting out of otemachi station isn't so easy however. i didn't know which exit to take (and it being under renovation made it more difficult to find our way around) so i decided on the nearest and hopefully it was an exit with the least stairs. once outside we followed signs towards tokyo station - which was about 10 minutes walk away. along the way we saw many other exits from otemachi station that we could have taken. oh well...tourists.

once we got to tokyo station, i went to the nearest jr rail office to convert the jr pass vouchers to actual passes. i also booked seats for our trip to karuizawa and back, the next day. our train isn't for another two hours, so we went in search for lunch in the station.

the platform was a bit crowded but we could easily find our train and our seats. the coach was a not packed at all. there were all sorts of passengers, businessmen, families, solo travelers. the journey seemed short as we were all fascinated by the surrounding (some by their gadgets) and we got to karuizawa around 3.30pm.

our hotel was just outside the station, across the main road. we took the overhead bridge from the station exit and walked across the bus and taxi stand to the hotel. everything was booked and check-in was easy. we had two rooms, not connecting and not near each other although both on the same floor. it was fully booked and we saw many luggage left by the hotel patrons in the lobby.

we got to our room, unpacked a bit (there really was nothing to unpack as we were only there overnight), prayed and went out to the outlet across the street. it was 4pm and getting dark outside. most shops close at 8pm and we didnt have much time to look around. just stops in nike and adidas (being the first couple of shops we came across) took up the 2 hours.

we walked a bit but could not find the desire to shop more because it was so cold and we were so hungry. i think it was -2c that night. we stopped at the food court for dinner and hot drinks. while eating we studied the outlet map to see where we wanted to go. we had decided along the way that we'll change our reservation back to tokyo to after lunch the next day and we'll spend the morning at the outlet.

the boys were freezing on the way back to the hotel. i'm glad we got the hotel though, it was small and basic but its very near the station and made it much bearable to walk in the cold. karuizawa is definately a place i'd like to come again if we ever take a trip to tokyo again.