Kansai Day 2 (21/10/07): Himeji

breakfast was onigiri which was actually rice balls (but which were triangular in shape) miso soup and green tea. for the first day, the onigiri is probably quite special but i think i'll get tired of it soon.

today we took trains for the first time. as we were using the Kansai thru pass, we could only take non-JR trains which actually gave us many many choices to get to our destinations. cuz besides JR (japan railways) there are many other different companies that also run trains, for example there is kintetsu, Hanshin, Hankyu. different company trains go to different places, for example kintetsu goes to Nara, Hanshin goes to Kobe and Hankyu goes to Kyoto. of course JR also goes to these places but it tends to be more ex and may not always be faster. the good thing abt kansai thru pass is that it includes the subways and buses as well, so that makes it very useful for getting around within osaka, and within kyoto, and not juz between places.

we took a subway from yotsubashi to Umeda first then took the hanshin railway to Himeji. It was a long way from Umeda to Himeji, close to 1.5h and there was not much scenery to see. we passed by houses that have temple-like roofs, and we saw high-rise flats as well and some of them are so close to the track that it may even be possible to jump onto the train.

at himeji, we engaged an English speaking japanese guide (but i cannot rem his name). it was quite an informative tour and although i couldn't quite catch all the things he said, i could see he was making tremendous effort to make himself understood and i appreciated that. it turned out that Himeji was a castle of defenses. it was constructed to prepare for an attack so there were places for samurai to hide, holes in walls for shooting arrows and guns, large steep steps to hinder movement, misleading paths to fool the enemy and so on... but these defenses were never tested because the castle was never attacked. the castle looked nice beside the blue sky but pity there was no sakura or maple to frame it. but the guide showed us a tree which was called the October Sakura, this is a special sakura tree which blooms in the end of the year, around oct to dec.

after lunch, we headed to Kobe. the main draw there was the Nankinmachi (Chinatown) but we also hoped to see the Kobe earthquake memorial and exhibition. we stopped at the memorial at Merikan Park for a while then headed for the city museum. the earthquake in jan 1995 devastated the harbor in Kobe very badly and the exhibits at the park showed how they eventually restored operations. in fact at himeji this morning, the guide showed us a large crack in the stone wall, which was caused by the Kobe earthquake.

the Kobe City museum reminded me of Europe again - the numbered exhibits, audio guides and the numerous exhibits that seem to look the same after a while. but this time it wasn't so bad. it was an exhibition on the Maya, Inca and Aztec civilizations. in fact i thought it was quite an interetsing exhibition but we only entered the museum slightly before 4 pm when it was gg to close at 5 pm so it wasn't really worth it to get the audio guide (500 yen) and i figured i was gg to skim thru the exhibits anyway.

basically what i gathered abt the incas and Aztecs was that they believed in human sacrifice to appease the gods. the Aztecs would in fact dig out the hearts of the pple to be sacrificed. then juz like in Taiwan, there were numerous exhibits of pots, basins, jugs with effigies on them, which after a while, yup, looks similar too. oh the incas like using gold to make their containers but many of them were taken over by the spaniards when they overran them.

after the museum, we went over to Nankinmachi. I ate fish-shape pancake (similar to those pancake in Mr Bean) which had many different fillings in them, eg cheese, green tea, caramel, chocolate, marron, red bean, vanilla... it's nice because the filling was thick and plentiful and the crust was thin, just the way it should be!

we actually intended to look at one more shrine - Ikuta shrine, but it was closed by the time we got there. our dinner was quite a pathetic affair that night, at least for me, because we bought from the B1 of the Sannomiya Daimaru. JY bought the Tonkatsu bento while i got a salmon sashimi sushi. but the salmon was quite tasteless and i couldn't really taste any sweetness in it. but girls will like the food section there cuz they actually indicate the number of calories beside each bento set.

today was a pretty tiring day, but there's probably more walking in the days to come. when we checked in, we were disappointed that the so-called double room was no different from the single room the night before. the only difference was there were two sets of verything - 2 sets of pillows, 2 sets of slippers, 2 sets of toiletries. so the room was still as small as ever. come to think of it, the hotel was really quite smart, this means that all their single rooms can be converted to double room at a moment's notice. and there was only one key per room which also controls the power as well which means that i can't go down and use the internet if i can't sleep :(

Kansai Day 1 (20/10/07): SIN --> Osaka

The start of the holiday! the flight there was quite pretty smooth and cozy cuz it wasn't a full flight (in fact i think it was a half empty flight) so i din have to queue very long for the washroom each time.

the limousine bus was cheap and easy to find and the tics were easy to buy too from the self automated machine. we caught the bus at bus stop 11 which goes to Namba OCAT for 880yen, 48 min. it's known fact that Japanese buses and trains as well are very punctual, so at 4.25 sharp it departed. it's indeed true that it's really much easier if u know their language or if not one of ur companions should know, because i realize that most of the pple there either cannot speak a word of English or are quite weak in it and it's impossible for them to understand us or for us to understand them. even the pple at the info counter of OCAT (they are suppose to give information, mind u) dun seem to be very helpful in giving english instructions. it's a good thing JY is quite good at japanese that we managed to get some instructions abt which direction to start walking from. but they got very funny concept of time, they actually told her our hotel is 2-3 min walk away which we know for a fact is not. there must have been a miscommunication somewhere...

anyway we chose to walk there, lugging our luggage with us. we could have taken the subway to Yotsubashi station from which our hotel was 1 min away from exit 4, but Yotsubashi was juz one stop away from Namba, so we decided to walk, and take in the sights at the same time. there were two giggly jap girls we wanted to ask directions from, but b4 we even approached them, they already avoided us. did we look like ghosts??

After walking for abt 20 min or so, we finally reached the hotel Toyoko Inn Shinsaibashi-Nishi. we checked into our single room after paying double room charges, but they issued us an extra set of everything - the pillows, toiletries, towels. i suppose we were already lucky cuz they could have made us get another single room. anyway the bed was actually big enough for two girls but still we were glad that we will be moving to a double room tmr.

this evening we explored Shinsaibashi and Dotombori. i felt that shinsaibashi-suji was colourful but not spectacular. the same thing could be said of dotombori. the japanese were certainly into cute things because here and there we could see cute characters such as bears, crabs on display at shops' entrance and they are really huge. some of them are the logo of the shop, those that display crab are selling crab, that's why. disappointly the shoping centres and some of the shops close quite early, whcih was really not what we expected. daimaru closes at 8 pm. that's even earlier than singapore!

some thoughts on the first day: it's good to be able to speak the language. but if u can't it's not impossible to travel f n e. u juz have to be very good at reading maps, very good at making correct guesses and first and foremost u must really do ur homework well before hand. then the rest, leave it up to luck...