the much-awaited JAPAN HOLIDAYS!!!!!

this leave couldnt have come at a more appropriate time, i was feeling totally drained from work... disillusioned and totally sick of everything, i needed to get away and be away for a while... and so it came, not before i went for Yeeming and Sarah's wedding the night before before boarding the plane bound for Osaka, Kansai. Surprise upon surprise, i saw Xiangbin and Jingyi at the airport... they were going on a holiday too, to tokyo and Hokkaido. such coincidences considering that we were all at the wedding dinner last nite but we didnt tell each other of the holiday plans. it was arranged that we would meet up in Tokyo when i eventually finish touring my destinations and when they come back from Hokkaido...

FLight into Osaka was pretty surreal, doesnt feel anything like we are going on a holiday, me, thams and cara. Perhaps the mood hasnt really settled in yet. reaching Osaka in the wee hours of the morning, we got out of the airport and went in search of the limousine bus that can take us to our hotel, in less than an hour, we were promptly dropped at the hotel entrance, cos we were too early, we went off in search of food. We were lucky to find a ramen shop which provided us our first meal of our Japan holiday.. Yummylicious.. adjustments had to be made for our plan as we were all tired and we couldnt get a Ryokan to stay in. Originally, we wanted to stay in Ryokan in Nara and visit Kyoto from there the next day. but that was disrupted cos the Ryokans were really out of the way and we decided to shelf the plan and went to Nara for our first stop. It wasnt too difficult to get about in Nara with all the signboards leading us to the major attractions, temples and shrines and of course the nature park where the deers roam freely... Fascinated, we began snapping photos nonstop but soon we were not so excited by the deers anymore cos they were really everywhere... initially fascinated by all the Shrines and Pagodas, how grand they were, Cara soon lose interest as we went trekking for this particular Grand Shrine that was supposed to be in the woods. Stone paths didnt make walking any easier, there were talks of giving up but the fact that we had already come so far strived us on... Grand Shrine was pretty disappointing thou, it wasn't anything super MAGNIFICENT... it was just a collection of small shrines all together in the woods... so yah.. that pretty much ends our Nara trip.. Kyoto the next day..

The journey to Kyoto was arduously long.. we stood for 2 hours in the train just to get there... but it didnt dampen our spirits one bit even thou it was raining.. having travelled so far, we werent prepared to waste another 2 hours to go back to osaka and spoil our itinerary. As there were too many things to see in Kyoto, we had no choice but to be selective about it, choosing what we think will interest us... armed with info from the tourist information, we proceeded to Kinkakuchi, the golden temple... it was really beautiful and serene, definitely worth the money that we paid for to enter, pity we didnt have time to visit Ginkakuchi, the silver temple which is on the opposite end of Kyoto. should be pretty impressive as well. As we picked up some brochures along the way, Cara wanted to go to this Toei Movieland, where u can view and act as famous japanese movie characters from samurais to power rangers... after much bus transfers, we finally got to the place but only to find it not so impressive.. in the end we only to the entrance and didnt even enter.. pretty much a waste of time. we managed to find a local sushi joint and satisfy our cravings for some good sushi and it was really worth it. According to info, there is this temple which is on a hilltop that has a very nice view of Kyoto and off we went towards that temple..interesting local produce greeted us along the way up... but it was all worth the walk because the air is really fresh and there were quite a lot of interesting things to see at the temple and scenery is beautiful... spent some time there, took some real funny photos before we headed towards the central of kyoto, passing by some more shrines along the way but passing up on the chance to enter... Cara has had enough of the shrines, though there is another one which i wanted to go quite badly.. its the Inari Temple, the supposed head of all the Inari temple in Japan.. but time not permitting as well... ended up doing a little bit of shopping in Kyoto.. not me. but thams.. before taking the train back to Osaka...

By now, Cara was totally sick of temples and shrines... she threatened to boycott us if we decide to go to another shrine or temple.. haha.... which was real funny.. thus the original plan of going to wakayama was scrapped and we stayed in Osaka, visited the Osaka Aquarium which turned out to be very nice, good recommendation by Ivan :) amazed by how big the aquarium is.. there are whale sharks and quite a few of the amazing ocean creatures in them... like turtles, sharks, and even manta rays!!! they managed to do up the place nicely and even had different animals and specialty species of the fishes from different parts of the world in there. was definitely not what we expected as we were all pretty skeptical about going to an aquarium. From there, we took a boat over to Universal Studios which is on the opposite side of the port. Its officially my first Disney themed park.. so its pretty much an eye opener for me... the rides are disappointing thou.. nothing too exciting.. but the park was nicely done up with different themes like, spiderman, peter pan, jurassic park, waterworld, Jaws, just to name a few... there is a lot of american feel in it.. sometimes its easy to forget that we are in japan since we are already so used to the language as if we were japanese ourselves. we stayed for the magical lightup at night, it was really nice to see the lightup parade... and all good dreams come to an end, as curtains fall and we headed back to namba area for dinner. We went into a local sushi shop where they dont speak english at all.. so with our limited japanese, we began ordering food. The old japanese men in the shop were obviously tickled by our presence, they kept talking loudly and laughin loudly.. obviously talking about us, cos i could still make out a few words. I think one of them couldnt resist it anymore, decided to talk to us, which i promptly replied with my broken japanese. after a while, they were talking nicely to us and tried to be friendly and even took photo with us. i think they are interested in cara anyway... hahaha...

Cara's last day with us... She wanted to see the Osaka castle and of course thats where we headed... but the weather is hot, with me ard, the mode of transport is always by foot... funny thou, it didnt seem that far when i walked there the other time. maybe its the weather, freaking HOT!!! everyone was sweating by the time we reached there, the castle looked impressive as it is but any enthusiasm is doused by the scorching sun... with Kobe on the agenda as well, and shopping too as its cara's last day, headed to Kobe soon after... we didnt know wat to expect in Kobe except that it was an old seaport and the buildings there were very different.. and so it was said. reaching there, it seemed like there are quite a few places to visit but rather spaced out apart.. i guess fatigue was catching up with us, we were all pretty disinterested and only wanted to go to wherever is nearest to us and more importantly, we wanted to taste the kobe beef. we were not disappointed, it really heavenly soft and tender and juicy... freaking ex as well.. 50 sin for 2 small slices not more than 60gram... its a delicacy..

Next morning, Cara is leaving for the airport, we were too bloody shack to even wake up and send her off. Later in the morning, we woke up.. packed up and set off for Hiroshima... and our first ever Shinkansen, Bullet train ride... woooh excited!!! train ride took a good 2 hours, we packed some japanese food and eat on the train and fell asleep all the way till Hiroshima... the most disastrous thing that could happen to us on a holiday so far is about to happen in Hiroshima... cos it just so happened that its the Baseball All-stars game that weekend, and its being played in the Hiroshima Mazda Zoom zoom stadium... all or rather most of the hotels in the city centre are all fully booked. As we didnt make any reservations earlier, we were left facing a very real problem of sleeping along the streets. Rather desperately, we sought help from the tourist information counter, after much calling to all the different hotels, they finally found us a room at a Ryokan.. Elated i would say, cos finally we are going to stay in a Ryokan, and we found a roof over our head. To our dismay actually, Ryokan in a city is of course minus all the onsen and nice settings, due to the space constraints. we wheeled our cargo bag across a few blocks of streets only to find our Ryokan a little run down... pretty disappointing i guess but we dont have a choice. a roof is better than no roof. laying aside our disappointment, and bags of course, we set off for the first destination immediately... the Japanese Shukkien(Garden), the weather wasnt too kind on us as it started raining once we were inside the Shukkien. It didnt deter us from completely exploring the garden though, braving the rain, we quite enjoy our walk in the garden. as the rain was getting heavier, we decided to seek refuge at one of the malls there wasnt too far away, and with that, we explored the shopping area of Hiroshima as well. I was suppose to meet Yuki in Hiroshima, but because of tham's presence she refused to come out cos she is too shy to meet strangers. Somehow the all-star game was disrupting our plans, so that night we formulated a plan to see if we can make any changes to our itinerary. Unluckily, we couldnt get tickets to the all-star game. but Luckily, because we covered 2 of the major spots today, we
decided that we cut short our stay in Hiroshima and go over to Tokyo earlier, so that we can have an extra day to pop over to Yokohama. For that, we gotta thicken our skin and ask for a day's refund from the owner of the family Ryokan, which includes possibly losing $100 and forgoing Okayama.

Luckily, the owners were very nice, they refunded us when they heard of our plans, so the next day, we went ahead to visit the Atomic bomb site and monuments. It was pretty heartbreaking to see and read the narration of the stories of the innocents who suffered during the war... both side got their stories to tell... but war... harms the innocent, the peasants and civillians are innocent victims.... moving on to the next destination. Hiroshima castle was on the list, the castle is surrounded by the deep moat around it, to repel invaders i would believe. This castle was pretty different from the one in Osaka which has been refurbished and rebuilt many times cos of fire, but the Hiroshima castle still maintains its ancient feel to it, well preserved i would say. There we met 2 japanese girls who helped us take photo, upon chatting, we found that they are tourists too from Tokyo actually. 4 of us were actually going to the same destination next Miyajima, maybe we will meet them there later, after lunch that is. Thankfully, our boat ride to Miyajima was covered by our JR train ticket. Miyajima is one of the top 3 scenic places in Japan because of the location of the Shrine which will be partially submerged in water when its high tide and the beautiful scenery and sun rise and sun set on the mountain range.

We met the 2 Miss Tokyo in Miyajima again, really quite coincidence cos there were so many people there and still we manage to see each other. The journey back is pretty long, so we din have time to go to the mountain top at Miyajima, hastily, we made our way to one of the biggest temple on the island and found some really cute stone carvings of different Buddhas. There we also met 2 very cute japanese girls from Nagoya, very friendly indeed. Yuki smsed me and told me that there is a very grand display of fireworks at the Hiroshima Port that night, and asked if we were going. In the end, we decided against it cos we were taking the first train out to Tokyo the next morning, so its early sleep for us tt night.

Reaching Tokyo, its was already way into afternoon, good choice that we came over earlier as well, gave us plenty of time to maneuver.. since it was already quite late, we just decided to hang ard in Shinjuku and pop over to Harajuku since its sunday... disappointment is that we din spot tt many at all.. but first day in Tokyo did us both pretty big damages.. cant imagine the days to come actually.

YOkohama was on the list the next day, we woke up early and set off pretty early... it didnt take us long to reach Yokohama, many thanks to Shinkansen and we fully made use of our JR pass to the max whenever possible. The Chinatown in Yokohama is supposed to be one of the draws of the city, of course we didnt miss that out and its our first stop in Yokohama and for brunch as well. They got some pretty impressive buildings there but overall, its still pretty small so we moved on to the Yokohama Marine towers, went up to take a good view of the Yokohama port, one of the busiest and bigger ports in Japan. It was a good panoramic view of the city, visited one of the decommissioned ships lying in the dock and had a koHI in one of the cafe by the seaside. Japanese mothers like to take their babies and kids out to seasides and bask in the sun... cos there are really a lot of mothers who wheel the pram out with their kids during our time in Japan, Yokohama is no exception. Coincidentally, Yokohama is celebrating its 150th anniversary and launching its mascot Tanemaru in a fair there... and there are quite a few rides and a giant mechanical spider gimmick. pretty interesting and it drew a lot of crowd. We also visited the red bricks buildings as recommended by the concierge, according to them, its historical buildings, one of the few buildings left tts built of entirely red bricks... very famous. saw some of the landmarks of Yokohama before a sudden heavy downpour drove us to run for cover and go back to Tokyo, afterall we had pretty much covered what we wanted to cover in Yokohama. Later at night, we watched the news den realised that the sudden downpour was due to typhoon. Typhoon hit Japan in Gunma area, just north of Tokyo, a place which i was thinking of visiting if we have extra time... it caused massive damage and cars were flung around.. luckily we din go there and Yokohama wasnt badly hit... Similarly, due to the Typhoon and torrential rain.. HIroshima experienced severe landslide.. i would say, we are very lucky.

bad weather the next day forced us to postpone our visit to Hakone and Mt Fuji, so its was left to the 2nd last day before we leave for home. The next day was left to visiting the Tokyo Tower, Ginza area, Shibuya and Harajuku.. more shopping damages... and we visited Ueno Park as well, too bad it wasnt Sakura season, otherwise it would be so lovely... walking through rows and rows of Sakura trees.. admiring the cherry blossom. Bought lotsa snacks from Ueno, cos its like way cheaper there...

Last clear day in Japan, no matter what, we are going to Hakone, we utilised our JR pass again to take a train to Odawara before taking a bus to Hakone itself. The bus journey was pretty long... a good 40 mins... but we keep ourselves awake cos we dun wanna miss the stop. Weather dont look too kind on us by the time we reach there, it was super cloudy that the clouds were actually touching the surface of the Lake. Any chance of seeing Mt Fuji was dashed by the sight of that... how can this thick layer of clouds clear up, it was as good as mission impossible.. sigh... we still proceeded of course, we tracked thru a ancient cedar tree forest, the air was really refreshing, been a while since i went for any nature walks... went thru a preservation village before reaching a port where we can take pirate ships across to the other side of Lake Ashi. Being on the pirate boat is pretty fun, with the clouds tt low, we got really drenched when we pass thru it and the wind was quite strong as well... by the end of the journey, my hair was all standing, the boat lady called me Goku, super saiyans from Dragonball... and she was obviously enjoying herself and having a good laugh about it.

On the other side of Lake Ashi, we took a cable car up to Togendai, supposed to be a live volcano but its been dormant for a while, still emitting smokes and it has become a site for mining of sulphur... the gimmick about this place is that they cook eggs in the volcanic water which was suppose to be super nutritious.. eat 1 egg can increase your lifespan by 7 years... i had 3 and thams had 2... so we increased our life by 21 years and 14 years respectively.. haha... since we are here, we took a walk along the side of the volcano, funnily, all the water that flows from the stream are rather milky... and due to health constraints, its not advisible for anyone to stay long on the side due to the fumes, esp so for elderly, young and the pregnant ladies.

that pretty much marked the end of our tour in Japan as we made our way down from Togendai back to Odawara to head back to Tokyo... so sad to leave... and the worst thing to end such a wonderful holiday is that u meet some damn nasty, rude and unreasonable pple on your way back to Tokyo... because of this incident, i developed a severe dislike for Hongkies, they are totally rude, inconsiderate and arrogant... on the train, me and thams were so tired that we practically doze off on our seat, we took 1 row each individually. this hongkie family got on and the granny sat beside me and the fat mother sat beside thams. throughout the whole journey, they were talking loudly, shouting across the cabin as if they own the whole train. disgusting... a man in his 40s was jumping on and off the train into different cabins at every stop.. causing a huge nuisance and the fat woman was worse when according to thams, keep standing up and sitting down... shouting to her sons to come over to look at this and that... he was basically bouncing up and down whether she stood up and sat down. the worst thing is i dozed off and she came over and slapped my hands a few times and said loudly "EXCUSE ME, YOU ARE TOUCHING MY MOTHER!!!" i was in a dazed cos of tiredness, she demanded exchange seat with her. after that when i was more sober, i got really pissed cos i couldnt sleep anymore and very pissed by the fact that she was so rude to slap my hand and reprimand me... c'mon who wanna touch your mother, she is old enough to be my granny, u think i am interested? idiotic woman... spoilt my holiday... thams was having a good laugh about it, i was so angry that i am determined to give her a piece of my mind when we get off the train, but she was fast to disappear... freaking rude...!!! angry!!!

oh well, to think i used to like HK tt much last time, now not so anymore... on the flight back, saw chris and Kaai on the flight, such a pleasant surprise... it was a really good holiday... really enjoyed myself thou it was tiring... i wanna go back again soon.. Okinawa and Hokkaido next... cant wait!!!

we also saw many pretty girls... one of them got a super figure and super demure and sweet looking, like those u would like to bring home to show your mum... and there is one who look like Kelly Chen, sweeter version, wears specs and in suit.. just to recall a few...wow.. i love japanese girls.. hahaha..