In which our intrepid traveller lands in Japan
Moukarimakka? That's a bit of Kansai-ben to whet your appetite.
The Land of The Rising Sun. The country of cherry blossoms, ramen, sushi and pachinko parlors. The Pearl of The Orient. Whoops, wrong analogy. But seriously, how am I to describe the one other place (the first being my bed) that brings me so much joy and untold happiness. People ask me, "How was your trip?" I find it hard to put my whole multitude of emotions into mere words. It is more than a sentence of colourfully stringed words. It is more than jumping around and squealing. It is something like a smile. A subtle smile and a sigh. Everyone has a different experience in Japan, and I don't want to set a high or low benchmark for people to feel. I don't want people to come to me and say, "What are you talking about? Japan wasn't all that nice!" or "Nonsense! How could you just say that Japan was wonderful? It was more than that?" Words constrict your emotions.
Enough about feelings and whatnot. You're here, I suppose, to read about my intrepid travellings around the Kyoto and Osaka regions of Japan. And so you shall.
We departed for the cluster of more than a thousand islands yesterday night, and spent the rest of the early (read: 1am-6am) morning trying to find a comfortable sleeping position in the rather uncomfortable seats in the plane. All economy class seats are relatively uncomfortable, so I'm not discriminating any airline. We had an enthusiastic flight attendant who was very into movies. His name is too long (he's Thai) for me to remember. I wish there were more cool flight attendants like him. :\ We reached the air-space of Japan around 6am and I managed to catch a picture of the clouds, before the flight attendants would wrench the camera away from me. XD;;
There, you can see a part of the wing in the photo.
So, we touched down in Kansai International Airport at around 7:30am this morning and proceeded through the quick and systematic immgrations check. The airport was scarily very deserted, and it was disconcerting to my mum and me, as both of us were used to seeing crowded airports. After collecting our sole luggage (and panicking if we remembered the lock combination) we boarded the tour-bus: C1. Coach 1.
We drove past the many toll-gates (my gosh, there were so many!!) and rolled off to Kyoto, our one-afternoon stop. I was quite bored, so I took a few photos.
Mmm. Cars. Road.
PINK CAR! It was awfully pink and I took a picture of it because I wanted to show Meryl that there were PINK CARS in Japan. XD;; I also noticed that their car-plates show where the car was from, like "Naniwa", "Osaka", "Nara"... It was very enlightening. In the meanwhile, our tour-guide Florence (who I am jealously jealous about because she married a Japanese man. XD) was telling us the history and geography of Japan and the history of Kyoto. Most people in the bus were sleeping. O_o;;
Our first stop, was lunch. XD At the Kyoto Handicraft Center. It was 6 floors of traditional handicrafted goodness and I spent my first 1000 yen there buying a small reversible pouch. A bit extravagent for my tastes, but it was green. How could I not resist?? After abotu a half hour of examining the goods, my mum and I purchased a cute Maneki neko for my dad. She dissuaded me from buying back a sword though. :\ The buffet lunch was held at the 6th floor cafeteria. There was a mix of both Western and Japanese food. My mum thought the cream for the pasta was actually soup. Or actually, I thought the soup was cream for pasta. XD;;; I stuffed myself, which was a feat because the day earlier, I had a nasty stomach problem.
The view from the sixth floor window.
Next, we headed for the famed Kinkakuji Temple. The last time I went there in 1998, it was rainy and it was hard to take photos. This time, it was in the blistering heat that we arrived there. But I'd take a sunny day over the rain anyday for taking photos. It was relatively crowded with students (high school boys... high school boys...) and I took a bit of rubbish photos.. *sweatdrop* For space reasons, I'll just put up photos of the main attraction. You all can peek at my other 419 photos later when I put the link up. XD;;
This one is sideways. You can tilt your head to see it. XP
I went around the shrines there and prayed (like a typical student) for good results and the likes, and I bought a 400 yen omamori for myself. Its red and hanging out of my pencil box now. :3 I also bought my friend's souveniers there, blue and red omamori. In the gift-shop, I saw a love omamori and got that for Ellen, who shall be receiving it once I IM her about her address. :p
Next, we set off for the Kiyomizu Temple, which my family didn't go to in 1998. The temple grounds are so freakin' big.
Don't even ask why this joker got into the picture. I guess he thought it would be funny to intrude into my almost perfect picture. BAH. I hate you!! I don't even know who you are!
Here's the fountain/stream thingy where you can line up and drink water from. I didn't, because the queue was insanely long and we only had a few minutes before getting back onto the bus.
After that, we took the bus back to Osaka and jumped onto our fluffy beds of the Osaka Hyatt Regency Hotel. <3>3~
There was an option toget lost in the city travel around by ourselves rather than follow the bus back to the hotel, and being the insane daring travellers we were, my mum and I tagged along with a group of her colleagues (if I hadn't mentioned this, this trip is a convention for my mum and her company) who were to be our OSAKA BUDDIES. XDXDXD Basically for the rest of the time in Osaka, this whole group rarely split apart. We wandered up the street and stumbled upon the Red Light District. XDXDXDXDXD!!!!!1 Imagine my delight reaction when I saw all the rather... well, how am I supposed to desribe a red-light-district? So basically, all the lewd jokes came out.
The ONLY photo I took at the red-light-district. Someone actually took a VIDEO there. >_<;;; We found our way to Umeda station and shopped around there. Yes, shopped. How can you stop a group, outnumbered by women, from shopping? Not I. I got a CookieMonster umbrella for less than 10 SGD there, who am I to complain?!
The beautiful fountain in the middle of the shopping area.
Wotcher! Here's looking at you! The intricately carved/manufactured cherub standing at the fountain. I faild to noticed if it was naked. :x
FOOD. Alas, we've eaten. ;___;
With painful feet and our wallets much lighter, we managed to find our way back to the hotel without much problems. We just harassed the station guards. XD Tomorrow, shall be OSAKA CASTLE DAY.
The Land of The Rising Sun. The country of cherry blossoms, ramen, sushi and pachinko parlors. The Pearl of The Orient. Whoops, wrong analogy. But seriously, how am I to describe the one other place (the first being my bed) that brings me so much joy and untold happiness. People ask me, "How was your trip?" I find it hard to put my whole multitude of emotions into mere words. It is more than a sentence of colourfully stringed words. It is more than jumping around and squealing. It is something like a smile. A subtle smile and a sigh. Everyone has a different experience in Japan, and I don't want to set a high or low benchmark for people to feel. I don't want people to come to me and say, "What are you talking about? Japan wasn't all that nice!" or "Nonsense! How could you just say that Japan was wonderful? It was more than that?" Words constrict your emotions.
Enough about feelings and whatnot. You're here, I suppose, to read about my intrepid travellings around the Kyoto and Osaka regions of Japan. And so you shall.
We departed for the cluster of more than a thousand islands yesterday night, and spent the rest of the early (read: 1am-6am) morning trying to find a comfortable sleeping position in the rather uncomfortable seats in the plane. All economy class seats are relatively uncomfortable, so I'm not discriminating any airline. We had an enthusiastic flight attendant who was very into movies. His name is too long (he's Thai) for me to remember. I wish there were more cool flight attendants like him. :\ We reached the air-space of Japan around 6am and I managed to catch a picture of the clouds, before the flight attendants would wrench the camera away from me. XD;;
There, you can see a part of the wing in the photo.
So, we touched down in Kansai International Airport at around 7:30am this morning and proceeded through the quick and systematic immgrations check. The airport was scarily very deserted, and it was disconcerting to my mum and me, as both of us were used to seeing crowded airports. After collecting our sole luggage (and panicking if we remembered the lock combination) we boarded the tour-bus: C1. Coach 1.
We drove past the many toll-gates (my gosh, there were so many!!) and rolled off to Kyoto, our one-afternoon stop. I was quite bored, so I took a few photos.
Mmm. Cars. Road.
PINK CAR! It was awfully pink and I took a picture of it because I wanted to show Meryl that there were PINK CARS in Japan. XD;; I also noticed that their car-plates show where the car was from, like "Naniwa", "Osaka", "Nara"... It was very enlightening. In the meanwhile, our tour-guide Florence (who I am jealously jealous about because she married a Japanese man. XD) was telling us the history and geography of Japan and the history of Kyoto. Most people in the bus were sleeping. O_o;;
Our first stop, was lunch. XD At the Kyoto Handicraft Center. It was 6 floors of traditional handicrafted goodness and I spent my first 1000 yen there buying a small reversible pouch. A bit extravagent for my tastes, but it was green. How could I not resist?? After abotu a half hour of examining the goods, my mum and I purchased a cute Maneki neko for my dad. She dissuaded me from buying back a sword though. :\ The buffet lunch was held at the 6th floor cafeteria. There was a mix of both Western and Japanese food. My mum thought the cream for the pasta was actually soup. Or actually, I thought the soup was cream for pasta. XD;;; I stuffed myself, which was a feat because the day earlier, I had a nasty stomach problem.
The view from the sixth floor window.
Next, we headed for the famed Kinkakuji Temple. The last time I went there in 1998, it was rainy and it was hard to take photos. This time, it was in the blistering heat that we arrived there. But I'd take a sunny day over the rain anyday for taking photos. It was relatively crowded with students (high school boys... high school boys...) and I took a bit of rubbish photos.. *sweatdrop* For space reasons, I'll just put up photos of the main attraction. You all can peek at my other 419 photos later when I put the link up. XD;;
This one is sideways. You can tilt your head to see it. XP
I went around the shrines there and prayed (like a typical student) for good results and the likes, and I bought a 400 yen omamori for myself. Its red and hanging out of my pencil box now. :3 I also bought my friend's souveniers there, blue and red omamori. In the gift-shop, I saw a love omamori and got that for Ellen, who shall be receiving it once I IM her about her address. :p
Next, we set off for the Kiyomizu Temple, which my family didn't go to in 1998. The temple grounds are so freakin' big.
Don't even ask why this joker got into the picture. I guess he thought it would be funny to intrude into my almost perfect picture. BAH. I hate you!! I don't even know who you are!
Here's the fountain/stream thingy where you can line up and drink water from. I didn't, because the queue was insanely long and we only had a few minutes before getting back onto the bus.
After that, we took the bus back to Osaka and jumped onto our fluffy beds of the Osaka Hyatt Regency Hotel. <3>3~
There was an option to
The ONLY photo I took at the red-light-district. Someone actually took a VIDEO there. >_<;;; We found our way to Umeda station and shopped around there. Yes, shopped. How can you stop a group, outnumbered by women, from shopping? Not I. I got a CookieMonster umbrella for less than 10 SGD there, who am I to complain?!
The beautiful fountain in the middle of the shopping area.
Wotcher! Here's looking at you! The intricately carved/manufactured cherub standing at the fountain. I faild to noticed if it was naked. :x
FOOD. Alas, we've eaten. ;___;
With painful feet and our wallets much lighter, we managed to find our way back to the hotel without much problems. We just harassed the station guards. XD Tomorrow, shall be OSAKA CASTLE DAY.
