I'm home safely. The photo above is a shot of the street lights in singapore from a moving cab. Can't wait to get back to my house. Tired from all the travelling that we did yesterday. I wish i was still back in japan though. :-) this has got to be one of the best trips i've been on. It isn't so much that i like japan, it was meeting manami, sachiko and sachiko's father, it was all the different food adventures, it was travelling with good friends, it's all these that made this trip so memorable. I really enjoyed myself. Will have to go back again for more food adventures and to meet my wonderful japanese friends. As for now, it's time to rest. :-)
Am now at ueno on the keisei skyliner bound for narita airport. Before we left takasaki, sachiko took us to this really good soba restaurant near the train station. The soba from this restaurant called ume no hana is 100 percent buckwheat and uses no preservatives. I wanted to buy some to bring home but was advised not too as it probably wouldn't keep. :-( apparently the takasaki area is quite well known for it's soba too and there is a reason why, the soba we had for brunch was really awesome. :-)
It's our last day in takasaki and japan. After brunch today, sachiko will take us to the train station where we'll take a 2 hour train ride to ueno. Because we wanted to save money, D and i had decided to take the local train instead of th JR shinkansen which would have taken us only one hour each way from ueno to takasaki. From ueno we'll take the keisei skyliner to narita airport where we'll say goodbye to japan for now. The above picture is a photo taken from a postcard of the lake and waterfall we were unable to see. Maybe next time. :-) k, gotta go pack. :-)
Sachiko and her dad were trying to take us up this mountain to see this huge lake and waterfall but the traffic up the mountain was very bad. It took us about 3 hours to get to the falls and the lake. We were told by a parking attendant at toshogu that it would be an hour to hour half drive so we thought we would get something to eat when we get to our destination. In the end it was too dark to see much. In the darkness, we were able to spy the white rush of the water off the falls and we also saw the reflection of the waters in the lake. Most of the stores were closed so we got some japanese rice crackers and a sponge like cheese cake as snacks. The rice cracker was rather spicy, kinda good. :-) although we didn't see much, i enjoyed the ride and it was a nice adventure. We also saw several wild monkeys on the way up and that was cool. :-)
Today, the biggest attraction for the day was the visit to the toshogu. We visited several shrines and what is believed to be the final resting place of tokugawa ieyasu, the founding member of the tokugawa shogunate i believe. The buildings are really ornate and quite beautiful even though they are quite old. The photo above is of 3 monkeys. They illustrate see-no-evil, hear-no-evil and speak-no-evil. It's quite a cool place. Now we're on our way back but have unfortunately been caught in a traffic jam on this rather tall mountain... Most unfortunate. :-(
We're still on our way to nikko. So far we've made two stops. One was a toilet break, the other was to catch a view of a man-made lake created because of a dam and also to check out some of the local produce and sample some of the street food. We had some freshly made walnut manju, shitake tea and fried japanese sweet potato. Very tasty!
It's another beautiful day in gunma. We're off to nikko today. Today we check out ieyasu tokugawa's final resting place, i think. I read about this place before but don't remember if it's his tomb or a shrine dedicated to him or both. This morning we went to a gas station to fill up and it was quite cool. The station was manned by young and pretty girls who acted like traffic controllers as they guided your car into position. Then there was some bowing and several sentences said in japanese. It was kinda fascinating. I'm not sure if it's like that at all stations. We went with sachiko's father who speaks almost no english so we couldn't ask.
After our trip to mt shirane, we made our way back to kusatsu. The town is really quaint and very picture postcard pretty. This is a shot of the yutakabe or something like that. I can't remember how to say it. Will have to check later. The hotsprings here are very sulphuric. Smells a bit. After walking around a little and eating a few snacks, we went to one of the onsens and had a soak. Very nice. :-)
We've reached shirane. Sugoi ne? This is the lake at the top of mt shirane. We first drove through the town of kusatsu then took a cable car and short bus ride to the top of the mountain. Then we walked up the steep slope to get to the crater at the top. Really cool, isn't it? :-)
On our way to kusatsu and shirane we made 2 stops so far. The first was at a rest stop where we could take a really good photo of mt asama. Mt. Asama is approximately 2500 m high and is a still active volcano. Later on we stopped at a place near the base of the mountain where there is a shrine and a lot of volcano rock formed from harden molten lava when mt asama last erupted. Sugoi!
Gunma wa takusan yama ga arimasu. There are lots of mountains in gunma prefecture. The mountain you see in the photo above is miyogi mountain. Sachiko went on a hiking trip up that mountain when she was a child. Sachiko told me that gunma is shaped like a diamond and it is surrounded by mountains on 3 sides which is why everywhere you look, it's mountains. Very pretty.
Am now in the city of takasaki. We're off to kusatsu, shirane and we'll drive through karuizawa today. Sachiko prepared a traditional japanese breakfast for us today and it was delicious meal of salmon, miso soup, pickles and rice. Too bad i forgot to take a photo of it. Maybe tomorrow i'll try. :-) ok... Off we go. :-)
Arrived at takasaki station. Wow, that was a relatively long trip. Am kinda beat but real glad to be finally off the train. Am glad i didn't take the wrong train too. For a moment in the train, i was actually a little worried as i didn't see signs that said to takasaki. :-)
After we visited the shrine, we went to visit the imperial palace. There were lots of cyclists in the park in front of the palace. We can't enter the palace but we did take snap shots of the fountain, the samurai statue, the moat and this bridge. Sorry, i can't remember how to spell the names without the help of the tourist brochure. Will try and remember to fill them in when i get back home. It's quite a petty park and the weather was very good for walking. After this it was off to ginza for more hello kitty hunting. D was trying to find a specific hello kitty product. We found the shop but not the item she was looking for. So we had lunch, checked out the sony building, returned to our hotel, picked up our bags and headed of to takasaki. Am currently still on the 2 hour train ride to takasaki. Hope it's the right train. :-)
This morning was actually quite cold. After breakfast we decided to visit a few tourist attractions in tokyo. First up is the meiji shrine. The above pix is of the front entrance. To get to the main building required a walk to through a small stretch of the mark which was shaded by many trees, making it both a cool and pleasant walk. While there we were luck enough to observe a wedding procession. It was quite interesting.
After our visit to the hello kitty shop in shinjuku, it was time for sy and rufus to go pick up their luggage and return to singapore. D and i tried to walk to shibuya to check out this famous intersection that features in tons of the videos we've seen of tokyo. In the end we got lost and gave up the walking idea and stopped for some curry rice before taking a train to shibuya and getting a shot of the intersection. After that we headed to ikebukuro to find more hello kitty stuff :-) and have dinner there.
Today, sy and her husband will return to singapore. D and i will stay on in tokyo for today and then make our way to takasaki, gunma tomorrow. Before sy and rufus went home, we made a trip to shinjuku together. We had gone there to find this hello kitty shop which was totally sanrio overkill. But we had to find it both for D's sake and for my niece's sake. :-) hey ytsl, this photo's for you. :-)
I'm kinda losing track of things a bit since i'm actually a bit behind on the mobile blogging and i can't remember if i've already started on day 8 and i forgot to check while i was online just now. anyway, no matter :-) . After our visit to akihabara on day 7. We met up manami, my friend and colleague in tokyo. Manami brought us to tip AWESOME sushi place in meguro. The sushi there is the best i've eaten in my life to date. The chef is also really cool and manami had a lot of fun trading stories with him. Of course we had to rely on manami to translate and he was really interesting. The chef made us this really really good sushi from a fish called sanma, i think, and this fish and meguro have a pretty cool story to go with it. Will try and remember to tell it when i get back. It was really cool to meet manami too. Up to this point, we've only communicated via phone and email, i was quite excited to meet her and she was really cool too. We stayed at the sushi restaurant for a long time and by the time we got back to the hotel, i was really beat and crashed out without even showering... Heh heh. :-)
After we reached tokyo, we checked into our hotel which had small rooms but decent my tokyo standards. Then we had lunch, walked around a bit the went to akihabara to check out gadgets and toys. Very cool. My kinda town. :-)
It's day 7 of my trip to japan. Today we woke up to another lovely day in bandai atami. I still ache from the rigours of yesterday's trip to the waterfalls. It's our final morning in this idyllic little town. After breakfast and a little freshening up, we'll head of to tokyo. I kind of like it here. Nice, quiet and full of nature. Am sure i'll miss that after i return to singapore.
The walk back from the falls seemed faster that the trek in but it was no less painful. By the time we made it back to the farm we were exhausted. It was also 3 or so in the afternoon and we haven't had anything to eat since breakfast. We weren't actually planning on the trip to the falls. We kind of made that up while we were at the farm so we weren't prepared and had no packed lunches. We made do with some takoyaki and toasted onigiri and waited for the bus to arrive. When we finally got back to the city, we all went and soaked our feet at this hot spring feet soaking place just outside the train station. That's a picture of the hot spring station i took yesterday. Ahhh... Felt so so good. Now am back and flat out on the tatami floor in the inn. Will have dinner soon but first i crash. :-)
After checking out the animals at the farm, we decided to check out another waterfall near by. It turned out to be quite a walk. It was a total of approximately 5 km to the falls from the farm. First was a few km of steep road till we got to the entrance in the forest to the falls. Then it was more walking over rocks, branches and soil for about 1.5 km then it was the climb down. I think it was about 300m down. It wasn't the easiest of climbs as it some of the steps were a little high for my short legs and we had to clamour over rocks at places cuz there weren't any proper steps. In the end the payoff was worth it though. The falls are quite lovely and made all the lovely cuz it was mostly quite untouch by civilization. It helped too that the colours of the trees around it were turning. Very, very kirei. I got no coverage on my phone though, so this isn't a very good place to get into trouble. :-) we saw several other people at the falls. Quite a few of them were older people. Amazing cuz they were quite fit cuz they didn't look like they even broke a sweat. WOW!
After breakfast today, the owner of the inn we were playing in was kind enough to give us free tickets and a lift to ishimushiro bokujo, a sorta cross between a farm and a park. There are goats, horses, cows etc. Kinda nice, especially for the kids. There were a bunch of japanese kindergarten kids in the park and they were squealing for joy. The soft ice cream here is also really good and one can get fresh milk here if you like.
Good morning. I've just woken up to a lovely morning at bandai atami. I can hear the birds chirping just outside my window and except for the distant sound of traffic, it's rather quite. Last night we had one of our several food accidents. We ordered what we thought was a mixed platter of sakana sashimi and got this. When it was placed on our table, we were like this looks like meat... ... ... We asked the lady who brought us our food just what it was and she said uma and we were like... ... ... Who ordered HORSE!!! :-) but we ate it anyway cuz we wanted to try horse meat, also know as sakura sashimi, just that we didn't intend to try it then. :-)
After breakfast today we went on a hike in the mountain side. It was a relatively short and easy hike but it was fun. After we finished the loop, we went in search of one of the waterfalls in the area. It wasn't a very big one but it was pretty. :-) after that we went to the nearest big town, koriyama... I think that's what it's called. Will have to find out later. :-)
We're spending the day in bandai atami. Breakfast this morning was a simple buffet of japanese food. Kinda nice. I like the salad dressing in particular. It's a soy sauce and lemon mix i think. We did the onsen thing last night. Boy was the water hot. I don't know if the supposed curative features of the onsen waters actually work but it did feel rather comfortable. Time to go. Later. :-)
After a day of travelling, we're finally reached our destination. It's a little town a few hours via train from tokyo and it's called bandai-atami. Boy am i pooped from travelling and i'm glad to reach our destination. The inn we're staying in is very nice and the town is very quaint. We're here for the onsen, i.e. Hot springs. I've never been to one so it should be interesting. :-)
It's day 4 of the trip to japan. We woke up to a cold and rainy morning and i didn't feel much like getting out of bed. Still, we needed to check out today as we're heading north to a place near tokyo. Now am on the hikari super express train. It's going to be about 2 - 3 hours before we need to change trains. Going to rest now, maybe study some japanese or play some ds. :-)
After our trip to the observatory, we made our way to the aquarium in osaka. Before we entered the aquarium, we had lunch at a food court nearby. I had curry rice which was okay. Still prefer my onigiri from breakfast. The aquarium itself is kind of cool. It has an 8 storey tank which houses all kinds of sharks, rays, fish and the highlight... two whales. I love aquariums and someday i would like to visit the one in okinawa. The rest of the day was spent walking and eating. We had sukiyaki and shabu shabu tonight which was really cool considering that i've never had either. On our way back we stopped at the arcade and played taiko which was really really fun. :-)
We decided to have a easy day today and slept in a little. At about 10am or so we made our way to the floating garden observatory. It's a circular structure at the top of this building and it offers some really spectacular views of the city of osaka. I must saw it really is a pretty dense city. After taking some photos and taking a break, we made our way to the aquarium which has a huge 8 storey tank and whales. Cool.
For dinner today, we went to namba and ate at this crab place. Man, it was really good. The dish you see in the photo above is the cold dish. I think it serves as an appetizer. We also had grilled crab, crab steamboat, crab sashimi and crab tempura. Wah, super. Then there was some sushi and some of the best chawamushi i've ever had. After that, we went outside and had some really good takoyaki. Ah... Satisfied. :-)
Next we headed to miyajima where this really famous temple is. When the tide rises, the legs of the structure in the photo above is submerged in water. Very cool. Aside from that, the best part of this island is the street food which is really to die for. I particularly love the grilled oysters in shell. Now i'm on the train back to hiroshima where we'll head back to osaka for dinner. :-)
The first thing we did when we reached Hiroshima was visit the atomic bomb memorial park. The above is what is left of one of the buildings that remained standing after the bomb was detonated over the city. After that we visited the museum which was really depressing and sad. The effect of the bomb was really horribly devastating. In the museum, they have two models. One of the city before the bomb and the other after. If you've never sen photos of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the model of the city after the bombing will really illustrate to you just how destructive it was. It's really quite chilling. :-(
This is the second day of my 12 day trip to japan. We're now on the shinkansen on our way to hiroshima. Breakfast was a plum onigiri which was extremely tasty and hot can coffee from a vending machine. Yummy. :-)
My first okonomiyaki. :-) we had dinner in a very japanese restaurant. The menu was entirely in japanese and there were no pictures. We had a hard time ordering. Lucky i'm travelling with sy who speaks some japanese so ordering was not so bad. The sashimi was really good. The food was mostly good. I ate my first slice of raw octopus too. And we accidently ordered some almost raw chicken which was kinda tasty but very sinewy and we found it hard to eat so didn't finish it. Am back in the hotel. Resting after a hot shower... Ah... :-)
I must admit though, we did more eating then sight seeing today. It took us a while to navigate the confusing train system and we were also rather tired. Still the food looks so cool, so we had onigiri, waffles, pizza, dango and this green ice-cream puff, which from kyoto, is really delicious. Later we may go to the food street for dinner. Depending on how tired we are. :-)
Am back in the hotel room in shin osaka. Today at kyoto, we visited this really cool temple called kiyomizu temple. It's make up entirely of wood and part of the temple sticks out into the air off a cliff. There were loads of people today, not sure why. Aside from the tourists, there were lots of japanese who where there to pray. Some of there japanese girls are really something else. They were wearing these really high heels and were still able to climb the steep hill up to the temple... Wow.
Am in kyoto now. That's the kyoto tower just outside the train station. We're having a light snack and coffee at a ucc cafe. After this we'll explore the city. Cool. :-)
I've landed in kansai airport in osaka. Now on the haruka train to the city. We just exchanged our jr passes for a 7 day rail pass. I'm really excited to be in japan. It's my first time so am super excited. :-)
I'm now at changi airport t3 waiting for friends. I'm finally on leave. So happy. Work has been horrible and stressful so am so so glad to finally get a break. Will be heading to the land of the rising sun on this trip. Will lose 3 japanese lessons for my grammar classes and 2 conversational classes. Am a little worried about the exams in november so have brought my notes with me so i can do some studying if i feel inclined to. Still am so so so happy to take a breadther so not going for classes is fine by me too. :-) K. Going to just rest for a bit. Been a pretty busy day. Later. :-)
