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date/time Monday, March 31, 2008,5:27 PM

Japan Japan Part 2+3/3

Feeling a bit iffy now so I figure blogging about something happy would cheer me up. So here goes - Japan Part 2+3/3 - Less words, more pictures, because I know I can be really long winded.

After all that snow, we headed to the Takeshima Island, which houses Yaotomi Shrine. Essentially, that shrine's supposed to bestow luck for births and marriages, or something like that.

The island was generally quiet and serene, lacking the hubbub of Tokyo and Osaka (which we would later encounter!)

These were the divinations that people were supposed to refer to after having prayed at the temple.

This was taken on the way back from Takeshima Island, Those seagulls aren't scared of humans at all...

After returning from Takeshima, we headed to a Tea Plantation to watch how a traditional tea ceremony in Japan would be like. The photos of that aren't all that interesting, but as we whizzed past the suburbs, we saw rows and rows of tea bushes! As a sidenote, the green tea in Japan is really exquisite. It's slightly more bitter than what we get here, but its taste is much more distinguishable.

Our next stop was Kyoto, which is my favourite city out of all by far. We visited Kiyomizu Temple, which apparently bestowed luck in love and marriages. I actually was more interested in the scenery. It was one of the most beautiful temples I'd ever seen. Oh, and, I wasn't able to get a picture without people in it, so yeah, my sister's there.

As we exited the temple, the path led us to a myriad of quaint shops below. Some were selling the usual touristy stuff, but some sold food like GREEN TEA SOFT SERVE! I think i ate Green Tea + Chestnut soft serve which was reallllly delish.

The next stop was Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion, which was another one of my favourite landmarks. The Pavilion you see there is coated with Gold Leaf (i.e., it's real gold!) and has been standing there since 1955. The original temple dated back to 1397 but was burned down, twice. It was once a Shogun (Japanese Warlord's) residence but has since been converted into a building that houses Buddhist relics.

We then managed to see a present-day Geisha! OK, not quite. This lady here is a Maiko, otherwise known as a Apprentice Geisha, who's basically someone who's in the final stage of her geisha training. Would you believe it, she's only 18 years old! Maikos tend to be more smiley and friendly, so this Maiko was pretty obliging when it came to photos etc. Geishas, on the other hand, tend to be more serious and sombre, so it'd be rare to catch them with a smile.

We proceeded to the Shinkansen station to catch a bullet train to Osaka.

And trust me, when the train whizzes by, you feel the whole earth shake under your feet. So fast, it's gone in 3 seconds, leaving you with your jaw on the ground and your heart beating twice as fast as it was before.

Within half an hour we were in Osaka. Hungry, we trooped into this Japanese restaurant for our dinner.

Lovely, lovely tempura don + soba.

OK I couldn't resist posting this because that crab is so darn huge, it's bigger than a human. The only catch is that it's fake. Anyway, the point is that Shinsaibashi had LOADS of these crab-adverts and each tried to out do each other in terms of size. Quite funny, because you'd then see rows of them pincers moving and clacking in just one block.

Osaka, Shinsaibashi (shopping district). Yup, they're all advertizing billboards made up of neon lights!

We ended the trip at Universal Studios, which actually wasn't much fun because I didn't get to sit on a roller coaster AT ALL. The only one they had was closed for maintainence! I think I'm going to visit Six Flags soon. Why on earth are there no rollercoasters at Theme Parks?! Gahhh.

And, oh, how could I forget? The famous toilet bowls of Japan which come equipped with a bidet spray thing (a nozzle that rinses your butt), and oh, music to mask any unglamourous sounds of clearing your bowels/bladder. How ingenius!

With that I give you Part 2+3 of my Japan posts :)

Labels: Japan, photolog, travel, vacation

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date/time Thursday, February 28, 2008,3:19 AM

Before I procrastinate even further: Japan 2007 Part 1/3

EDIT: Finally! I started this early right around 30 December 2007 but I kinda stopped after the first few paragraphs. Just 1/3 of the entire trip first:

Spinning: KT Tunstall - Miniature Disaster

Well hello there. If there's still anyone to say hello to, that is; heh. I've been Missing In Action for awhile now and people who even knew that I was away for 7 days from this sweltering island may not even know that I'm already back. Well I am. Back from the land of the TakuyaKimura factory, back from the land of revolutionary toilet technology, back from the land of the rising sun. JAPAN, Japan!

I figure I better write this before I forget everything that I've seen or experienced. Not that that's likely to happen soon, actually.

The first thing that hit me as I stepped out of the Tokyo Narita Airport was, quite literally, the weather. The wind was lashing madly against my face and as my friends would know it, I love gusts of wind like that. So yeap, the weather was quite amazing. Certainly not too hot, and not overtly cold as well. Something like outdoor air-conditioning.

Tokyo; random cityscape

So. First stop: Tokyo Disneyland! Ok, I'm just gonna be frank and say that the 2nd experience of Disneyland's not going to be as magical as the first. The first time you see it, you're kind of taken by surprise. My first visit was to Hong Kong's. Sure, Tokyo Disneyland is probably twice as huge as that in Hong Kong, but I guess the Disney Magic thing shouldn't be experienced more than once in a year.

The first thing you're probably going to notice would be the crowds. Frigging crowded, and you know what? It's not even crowded with tourists like me. It's crowded with locals! And the Disney franchise probably did their research well; not only do the Japanese go to Tokyo Disneyland to sit in rides and just enjoy the scenery in general; they actually buy. A Lot. Seriously, I saw hordes and hordes of people just carrying these insanely huge shopping bags (with Disney Logos on it, no doubt). Fwah. Shouldn't I be the one buying up everything I see, since I come from like 2893728937 miles away? For the record, I didn't. My sister did do quite a lot of shopping, though.

Second, almost everything is in Japanese. Even the safety announcements. The language barrier made me feel a tad alienated; save for the few choice words I could understand, everything was just lost in translation.

So Disney came and went and I was just wasted by the end of it all. By the way, I went on a tour thingy. Which I think, I will never go on again unless I'm travelling with old folk who wish to go on tour or whatever. Kinda limits what you see and doesn't give you the full experience. And if you get stuck with a lousy group, you are so, so, going to regret it.

Then themeparks aside, we embarked on the real stuff the next day. We went to the Ameyayokocho, which is kinda like your typical pasar malam, only they actually sell live seafood there and other domestically produced goods. I saw huge tako (octopus) tentacles which seemed to wave at me periodically.

The dark red things beckon!

Speaking of which, the tako pachis there are BIG! They're not like those mini ones you find in SG, they're kind of like 3 Singapore made tako pachis in 1 Japanese made tako pachi.

Then there was Ginza! Ginza's one of the more glitzy, upmarket areas in Tokyo, and yes, you would expect to find high fashion labels there. Here it is:

Then feeling heady with excitement thanks to all the Ginza glitz and glamour I was trying to do a faux shopping commercial thingy.

Which turned out really faux because of the backdrop, half of which was the butt of a big tour bus. Yay.

Then there was Ueno Lake. We sailed across it on this umm, ship. The thing is, it's got sails on display behind us, but the constant hum of the motor engine was very apparent during the journey across the lake. Maybe they refurbished the boat, I don't know. But anyway it was a pretty boat, and the lake was very serene and calm as well. The wind here was especially strong and my sis and I were freezing our butts off half the time.

By the time we returned we were bound for Kyoto. Most of the hotels we had been staying in so far were all-right, but the night we were travelling to Kyoto we bunked in this really fabulous inn. It was my favourite place of accommodation! We did the whole traditional yutaka and hot spring thing.

Speaking of which, no photos of the hotspring (doh!) but it was basically a very modern one infused with some traditional elements like the tatami flooring outside of the bathing area. My sis and I were really jittery, even before the trip, about stripping for the hot spring because we were abit iffy about the idea of exposing ourselves to strangers, or even worse, tour-mates you were going to have to be with for the next few days. We were thinking, they (the tour mates) were never going to look at us the same way again! The spring was open 24 hours and so we were going to go at 12 a.m. So, 12 a.m. and my sis and I hurriedly tip toed to the hot spring. We went in and we were overjoyed when we saw no one! And so my sister practically rushed straight for the spring, ignored the rules (we weren't supposed to bring in any towels), and brought in a BATH towel with her. I brought in the small one. My sis was so scared of showing anything, she basically chased me off to the other end of the spring. After about 10 minutes of soaking I could feel my heart rate increasing significantly and I was beginning to feel abit breathless. So then I bailed, quickly.

I bet you guys were waiting for something really juicy, but really, nothing.

Then, SNOW! We went to a ski resort. We didn't ski, 'cos our tour's schedule didn't allow for it (see, don't tour!) and we didn't know how to ski anyway. I was really excited at the sight of snow since I hadn't actually seen snow before, unless you count that lone snowflake that had splattered on the window of a plane returning from Shanghai.

So we went sledding:

And it was a really idiot proof activity. But it was fun anyway, judging by how manically I was laughing away as I sped down the slopes:

So there you have it; part one of the Japan 2007 post. It's just 1/3 of my travelogue. Heh. I do hope I find time to complete the rest!

Labels: Japan, travel, vacation

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