The flight to Singapore was a pleasant one. Silkair is pretty slick and the landing at Changi Terminal 2 was one of the smoothest ever!

Walked around the airport and settled at a pub to catch the Manchester United Vs Aston Villa match, only to find out that it’s not on Singaporean TV or something like that.

We boarded the plane at 12.30am (Monday) and the flight was pretty empty. I asked the air steward if I could get a row all to myself and he said the last row is empty but it’s three seats instead of four. Good enough for me. I had three seats to myself!

The gadgets in the plane are really nice. It has a large screen, a USB port to let you view files in your pendrive, iPod connectivity, a set of composite ports as well as power adapters! I watched 2012 on the plane and a few sitcoms.

I only had one meal on the plane. I thought there were two. I was really hungry in the middle of the flight and asked for some peanuts to eat. The only meal, breakfast, was pretty good as well. I had the Japanese omelette thingamajig. It was a small portion (because I was hungry) but it’s good.

We got to Japan at about 8.00am local time and went through immigration. The immigration was really strict but everyone got through it without any problems. Got our luggage and went out to catch the bus Epson got us.

The weather here is not too bad. 13 degrees Celsius, i.e. slightly colder than Genting. I had my jacket in the bag but I didn’t wear it. It was too hot. We took the bus to Matsumoto city, about 4 hours from the airport. We had lunch next to the Matsumoto Castle. The lunch was awesome. You’ve never really had Japanese food until you visit Japan! Serious! Visited the Matsumoto Castle and it was really nice. Went into the castle and saw how the people of Matsumoto (?) defended their city a few centuries back.

We then took a walk around the Matsumoto City, took some more pictures. Everyone was pretty tired by 3pm and the bus took us to the hotel, which is about 10 minutes away.

The hotel is a quaint little hotel with its own hot spring. The rooms are the very typical Japanese room, with tatami covered floors and no bed. It has its own natural onsen, aka hot spring, as well! I went to the onsen to bath myself and I went out to the hot spring. The boiling, steaming hot water was perfect with the cold weather.

When you want to sleep, you’ll have to get the mattress from a cupboard and make your own bed. I “customized” my bed before going down for dinner with four layers of hard mattresses, 2 layers of softer ones and two duvet to keep me warm.

The room doesn’t have internet connection (I typed this on the first day but couldn’t post it).

I went down with my normal clothes for dinner but the host asked me if I would like to change to a Yukata. I said alright then went back up to the room. I had NO IDEA how to wear the Yukata. I put the long one on, tied it, then put the thicker one over the long one. Thank God I wore it correctly.

Went down to the dinner place and found out that EVERYONE wore their normal clothes, only the Epson bosses were wearing their Yukatas. Oh well.

Dinner was AWESOME! We had really traditional Japanese food and everything was really nice! One thing I lean about the Japanese is that they are VERY well mannered in every way. They’ll pour beer for guests and superiors whenever they see fit. The other thing I learn about them is that they are REALLY serious about their karaokes! During dinner, they had a portable karaoke machine with thousands of songs in it. The Japanese spent most of the night singing.

After dinner, I came back to my room and was surprised to see my bed “recreated”. The one I did was wrong but it was comfortable. Well I wasn’t wrong per se, just that they made it nicer and moved the table to the wall.

We have to wake up VERY early in the morning tomorrow to check out. We’ll be heading to Epson’s plant about 1 hour away from the hotel. Then listen to some presentations. Then we’ll be travelling for 4.5 hours to Tokyo. I have another long day tomorrow. Good night!