Kansai Day 8 (27/10/07): Osaka --> SIN

It's Sat again and it's time to go home. again the weather today was rainy. i can't describe how lucky we have been with regards to weather so i shall not try to describe. even at this last minute, i was still buying stuff. Along Namba wal, there were so many cute little things and actually the clothes prices were quite similar to singapore too. later when we were at the airport, there were still foodstuffs to look at which I've not seen before elsewhere and of course i continued spending. as i told JY, u keep seeing nicer things as u go along so if u keep wanting to buy sth better, u can juz keep spending and spending and there's no end to it. either u need to have very strong resistance or u dun bring so much money with u, or keep ur money in a non-accessible place.

we had sushi at a conveyor belt for the first time since we came. surprisingly sushi was not as common as pple would have expected in Osaka. it was more common to see restaurants that sold set meals, like rice, udon... in fact a sushi shop only sells sushi and nothing else. it's not like our sushi tei or sakae sushi which have sushi as well as katsu don, udon, etc. and by the way, for ramen lovers out there, ramen is not that common here either, esp in restaurants. u see udon and soba on the menu but i hardly see ramen. back to our sushi lunch, i thought the prices were quite cheap, considering that the sushi pcs were quite big in size compared to those in singapore. for example the salmon sashimi with rice was only 110yen ($1.40) for 2 pcs and the maguro and unagi sushi were only 210 yen ($2.70) and there were a lot of other raw fish like hamachi, tai (which i have not heard of before) which also cost only 110 yen too. I think sashimi fans will love the sushi conveyor belts in Japan cuz the sashimi is so fresh and the pcs are so big and the price is so reasonable. after trying the salmon, maguro and unagi, i decided to try the tamago (sweeten egg) . the rectangular egg was large and sweet and very nice!

like the railway station in Europe, those in Japan had lockers too for u to store ur bags while u walk around. this is very handy as it means we dun have to walk around, then go back to hotel to grab our bags when it's time to go. we could check out and bring our luggage with us and dump it in a locker near the bus station then go and do our shopping in the vicinity. we took the airport limousine bus to Kansai Airport from OCAT, the same way we came. i really recommend this mode of transport because it's cheap (880 yen) and u are definitely guaranteed a seat. if u take the train (there's a Nankai railway that serves the airport route) it's abt the same price (890 yen) and time but u may not have a seat and if u want to reserve a seat, u have to pay extra.

the flight back to singapore was 80-90% empty (note empty, not full), so it was a very comfortable flight because u get very good service and for the first time in my life i could even choose which washroom i wanted to use cuz they were all empty.

all in all it was a very eye-opening trip and i did get to hear and read a lot of Japanese (though i do not always understand) and i did get to speak a bit of very simple jap too. but i should have eaten more of the custard products there. actually i always love custard but surprisingly i din eat a lot of custard stuff there except once on the last day which made me realize what i had missed. oh well, maybe next time then :)

Kansai Day 7 (26/10/07): Osaka

We are in luck! today is no-my-car-day. in order to encourage pple not to drive but to use public transport, the Osaka transport Authority made the 20th of every month and every fri no-my-car-day. u can get a day pass for 600 yen instead of the normal 850 yen which entitles u to unlimited rides on the subway, bus, tram, within Osaka. so we got to save 250 yen just because we made the right choice in choosing today as our Osaka day.

today we visited two museums. one of them i thought was very interesting was the Osaka museum of housing and Living. the highlight of that museum was a life size replica of a town during the Edo period (the period juz before Meiji period in 19th century). we can go and wander around the town, walk into the houses, look at the furniture and touch the utensils and they even simulated day and night. at night there will be sound effects like crickets and insect noises and when day breaks there will be a rooster crowing and during the day there will be sounds of everyday life like pple chatting, bargaining for prices. oh and they simulated rain as well, but without the raindrops... haha. the sky grew darker and then there was sound of thunder. i thot it was quite interesting. but i told JY that i thought the exhibit would be even better if they have real pple acting as the inhabitants of the town, dressed in their edo period clothes. but this was quite impossible cuz to make it realistic, u will need to employ a huge cast to portray the bustling town. and the investment may not even be worth it because from what i observe there were not that many visitors to the museum and most of them were the locals themselves.

the 2nd museum we visited was the Kamigata Ukiyoe Museum which featured paintings with woodblock prints. this one was a bit hard to appreciate cuz woodblock prints is not sth that we see everyday (unlike housing) so i really need to read the Japanese explanationto understand but again with my lousy Jap i couldn't really get far.

today was a rainy day and we thought we were really lucky because we have done all our outdoor sightseeing the past few days and today was mainly museums and indoor shopping. i realized i am always quite lucky when it comes to weather. I can still rem when i was in Taiwan it rained only on the last day we were there and on the day when we were at the National Palace Museum (indoors) and the weather was perfect every other day. when i was in Phuket the weather was also very good on the two days we were at Phi Phi and Phang Nga and it rained on our last day there. In HK, the first day we were there there was warning for no. 8 typhoon but this was reduced to 1 by the next day. so i seem quite lucky when it comes to weather.

Actaully the museums here are quite cheap - 500 to 600 yen amounts to abt $7 or $8 which is cheap compared to museums in Europe. of course if u can read the language, u will prob gain even more. we also noticed there were many smokers in Japan. and they smoke everywhere, even in restaurants and small eateries, at busstops, but thankfully not on public transport. even the girls light up as and when like nobody's business, but it spoils their image. after smelling so much cigarette smoke the past few days, all of a sudden u appreciate singapore's laws that ban smoking in public places and restaurants.

we went over to Cosmos Square in the evening juz to see what the place is like. but there was nothing much there, we looked at the setting sun, saw a ferris wheel in a distance and that's abt it. perhaps this place will be more developed in the years to come. we had a very nice dinner of Yakitori at Umeda. after dinner we started our last night of shopping. honestly in Japan, there's really no lack of nice things to buy. we were shopping around Hep 5 and shinsaibashi suji. because it was friday, shinsaibashi suji seemed exceptionally crowded and u could see big groups of young men in black suit and tie, in very funny hairstyles (basically coloured hair styled in a very messy way) talking very loudly or on their handphones. we are also not sure whether they are part of a group or syndicate or what they were doing. but that was how colourful the night life here was. but i still think the shops here close far too early. eating places still ok.

Kansai Day 6 (25/10/07): Kyoto


Today was Kyoto day again, which means we had to go to the confusing Umeda station again to change to Hankyu Railways. finding Hankyu Umeda was never a problem, it was finding Nishi Umeda subway station that was a problem (when gg back). Anyway today we reached Kyoto nice and early at around 8 plus. we realized to our horror that actually the Kyoto city bus was covered by the Kansai thru pass. and we had almost wanted to get the Kyoto city bus day pass for today. and the first day we were in Kyoto we paid for 2 trips when we could have saved the 440 yen....


so with our pass, we happily took the bus to anywhere it takes us. we first saw Nijojo, a castle. after Himeji and Osaka-Jo, Nijojo was like a far cry. anyway by now we already could tell a castle when we saw it from far - the moat, the thick walls, the high steps (for strategic purposes). we took photos from the outside then left. the highlight of the day was the kinkakuji金阁寺. unlike the ginkakuji which was no longer 'gin', the kinkakuji was certainly worthy of its name. it was shimmering with gold and with the water around it and the evergreen pine trees and the occasional maple tree that has turned red, it was a sight perfect for photography. i finally got a chance to write a 绘马 which was a wooden plaque on which u can write ur wishes for urself and loved ones and frens, then after that u can hang it on a large board. all shrines and temples have this.


besides the kinkakuji, we also visited the ryoanji (龍安寺), kitano tenmangu (北野天满宫) and heian jingu (平安神宮). JY absolutely loves temples and she can appreciate the beauty of them. for example she was very impressed with the rock garden at Ryoanji. in fact everyone there was impressed by the rock garden, but to me it was just a rock garden, i think i really have no flare for this. anyway the special thing abt the rock garden was that it consist of 15 rocks which are arranged in 5 clusters, each comprising 2,3 4 or 5 rocks and no matter which angle u view the garden from, u can only see 14 of the rocks at any one time. u can only see the 15th when u "attain spiritual enlightment as a result of deep Zen meditation". by the way i only realized this was wat the garden was famous for when i came back and looked at wikipedia. so that was what everyone was staring at , they were trying to spot the 15th rock. and i was staring at the rock garden trying to figure out what they were staring at. doing research before a trip is most certainly a necessity.


i noticed that there were many old folks around. they are everywhere - on the bus, on the subway and esp at the temples and shrines. I asked JY and she confirmed that Japan indeed has the fastest ageing population. i felt quite uneasy to be sitting down on the bus when there were so many old folks around me, so i decided that it's best to stand. there were many old folks but they were still very active at their age, as i have mentioned before.


we splurged on ice cream dessert which cost close to 1000 yen per item, but it was nice and definitely enjoyable. again i ate marron flavour ice cream. after all this was not common in singapore so i should eat it while i am here.





we shopped a bit at Kyoto Gion area that night. Gion is suppose to be the place where the Geisha and Maiko (apprentice Geisha) hang out. we ventured into a dark street which had some shops that apparently close at night and only open for the training of geisha for performing arts (at least this is what we guess from the jap words on the door) and some restaurants which were very expensive and we were wondering is it because entertainment was provided by geisha. we did see a few geisha or maiko taking cabs and alighting there. along the main street there were a number of shops. the things here were not hip and trendy like those in Osaka but they were quaint and handicraft-like. it was the first time JY really spent since we came here. so this was what she had been saving up for. hmm...


ok today was the last of the temples. tmr we will be in Osaka :)

Kansai Day 5 (24/10/07): Nara

Today we finally fulfilled our wish to see the tombs at asuka. this time we alighted at kashihara jingu n caught the 9.41 bus to the ishibutai tombs. the nara kotsu bus was diff from the kyoto city bus. while the kyoto city bus was flat fare (220 yen regardless of distance), the nara kotsu bus was according to distance. when u board the bus at the rear u take a ticket which has a number on it. this indicates the bus stop that u boarded at. above the bus driver there will be a panel with numbers on it. at each no. the fare will be indicated. so as the bus passes more and more stops, the fare will start increasing. when u alight, u drop the ticket plus the fare into a transparent container beside the driver. if u have no coins, fear not, u can change ur big notes for coins at a dispensing machine at the front of the bus.

we saw the ishibutai burial mound first. it was said to be the burial site of king ? but there is no longer anyone buried there now. it was just an empty space. we din spend a lot of time there, cuz we wanted to see the museum (Asuka Historical museum) so we took a long but leisurely walk along the countryside since the bus would only come half an hour later (see what i told u abt buses being very rare at the most ulu places?)

but i certainly din regret missing the bus cuz the walk was really enjoyable. the weather was cool, the air was nice and fresh and the countryside was really nice :) we passed patches of nice petit flowers, persimmon trees, a grapevine (which sold a bunch of grapes for 1000 yen = $12.8) and the occasional temple and also, half-red maple trees, which come to think of it are a nicer sight than all-red maple trees.

the japanese certainly rely a lot on integrity. at the grapevine there was no one tending to the grapes that were on display. they were probably expecting pple to put money down if they want to buy anything and not just take without paying.

Another feature of the roads here which we found quite amusing was the traffic lights. there were hardly any cars on the road and hardly anyone around (let alone crossing the road) yet the traffic lights take a very long time to change. and the cars all obediently stopped and waited. we were wondering why they even bothered to have traffic lights at all in the first place. when we were on the bus, at one point the bus stopped for close to 4 min and i asked JY what we were waiting for and she said, the traffic light.

just outside the tombs there was an ice cream vending machine. this was quite commonly found outside major temples, castles and shrines. i have already tried the cheesecake ice cream yesterday at Nara's Todaiji temple, today i tried the marron flavour (栗子) and it was surprisingly good! i am never a fan of 栗子 but i thought this was really nice. the cheesecake ice cream was very nice too. hmm... why is the ice cream here so nice?

we ate lunch at a small cozy eatery near the museum. we chose a table which was japanese style. that means the table was very low and we sit on cushions, cross legged. there was no menu, instead the item names were written on woodblocks hung on a wall, and they were all in japanese. actually i realized that if u dunno any jap at all, it is impossible for u to come to such places. if u can at least read the characters, it was still not so bad. also if u dunno any jap, it will be difficult for u to come to a place like Asuka whcih was in the suburbs and pple here prob do not know a word of English and it is quite impossible to get directions if u get lost. so i am very lucky to be travelling with a companion who is quite fluent in Jap as i had a chance to explore places which pple can't usually go.

anyway the eatery we had lunch at was probably the place the normal pple go to. like we saw some men who apparently worked in a construction site nearby and dropped in here for lunch. after lunch we visited the Asuka historical museum. it was exhibiting the various artefacts that were excavated from the tombs and temples. there was a famous takamatsuzuka tomb from which paintings on the walls were excavated and the Asuka tombs. there was also a huge collection from the Yamadadera (山田寺) such as the tiles, pillars, statues and sculptures. i kinda regretted not keeping up with my jap cuz i think it would have been quite interesting to read abt the history of these temples and tombs. now i struggled so hard to read thru one signboard and even then i din noe 80% of the words and i din understand 90% of it. so basically i din really know what i was looking at.

we went back to Osaka in the late afternoon and went to see Osaka-jo or osaka castle. it's not necessary to pay admission to go inside the castle if u juz want to take photos and enjoy the walk in the park. u can actually get quite close-up pics. the castle grounds was a good place for jogging, cycling or just strolling cuz the paths were so wide, u dun have to be worried abt knocking into pple (not like at east coast park on a saturday morning). the good thing abt the castle ( and a lot of other places here) is that the maps were plentiful. at any one time, u can look at a map and identify ur 现在地 (current position) then see how to navigate from there. there was one map on the castle grounds that had a place indicated that said 'the place where lordXXX and ladyYYY committed suicide' - hmm... sounds very juicy. but i din go and see the place.

we actually ate a very nice fish-shape pancake (this time it's big) at Tsuruhashi (where we changed from the kintetsu Nara line to the Osaka subway) and we both chose chocolate filling. once again the chocolate filling was thick and plentiful and creamy and the pancake was warm - so heavenly!

that night we decided not to go for proper dinner but to eat small little tidbits instead. we ate takoyaki (octopus ball) and okonomiyaki (some sort of pancake fried on teppan and has things like cabbage, meat in it). i still prefer the singapore version cuz i dun really like the whole octopus found inside the jap version. i still prefer flavours like ham and cheese, bacon and cheese :)

time flies... it's already been 5 days. why does time fly when u are on holiday?

Kansai Day 4 (23/10/07): Nara

i noticed something over the past few days. Japanese ladies and even some men like to hang a lot of handphone accessories on their phone, even the old ladies do that. and some of the hp accessories are pretty huge. it's not juz the ladies, the guys do that as well.

today our destination was Nara. We changed to Kintetsu Nara line at Namba station. it turned out that it was really easy to go round the main sights of Nara on foot. the main sights were all within walking distance of each other. we passed by the kofukuji (興福寺), saw the Todaiji (東大寺) and entered the Yasuga shrine (春日大社) before we came back to where we started. the deer that belonged to the Nara deer park roamed freely and u can see deer peeking in at shops, entering shops, resting along the road or even crossing the road. the cars actually give way to them (and not horn them out of the way). so i think, deer are king here.

Todaiji is famous for its Great Buddha Hall (大仏殿 Daibutsuden). this is reputedly the largest wooden building in the world and houses a colossal bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana, known in Japanese simply as the Daibutsu (大仏). i was reading the short description of the temple on the admission ticket. there was one line which read it was a place for peace and prayer but all around me there were screaming kids on school excursion, it was such a paradox. by the way in Japan, the primary kids do not have school uniform, instead they wear different hats. the girls wear hats with a mini ribbon while the boys wear caps. the bunch i saw at the Nara museum wore blue ones while those at the todaiji were wearing bright yellow.

i must comment abt the old pple i see at all these temples and shrines. they were still so fit at their age to be able to walk around the grounds and the Yasuga shrine grounds was not that small. but there were many of them walking steadily, some with walking sticks, some carrying backpacks. i think the singapore old folks would be healthier and happier too if they can engage in such activities but in the first place there were no such places to go to. unless u count bukit timah hill or Mount Faber? but with our sweltering heat, even i will think twice before gg there for a walk.

we went to the Nara museum which was supposedly the number 2 in Japan. there was a permanent exhibition on the buddhist relics and artefacts as well as an exhibition on the bronze artefacts from China. like China Japan has names for all its different periods as well. the buddhist artefacts came mainly from the Asuka Period (7th century), Nara (8th), Heian (9th - 11th) and kamakura period (12th - ??). of course diff periods have their own styles but again, just like in Europe and Taiwan, u can't really decipher the different styles after a while. the onlny fact that i can remember is that the scuptures from the Nara period are characterized by a lacquer wood used so sculptures with a lacquer-like appearance are probably influenced from the Nara period.

we actually wanted to go and see the tombs down at Asuka but we missed the train at Kashiharajingu and the next one would only leave 20 min later. it was all my fault for causing the delay, if not we could have caught the train and might have had time for a quick tour around the tombs before it closed at 5 pm. that's another thing abt trains. it's like our mrt which comes every 5 min usually (anything more than 5 min we still start grumbling), in Japan if u miss it, esp if it is those trains that go to more ulu places, be prepared to wait and because a lot of the sights close at 5 pm, it can be costly to miss a train. also there are diff types of trains such as the rapid express (快速急行), limited express (特急), or local trains (普通), so the next train that comes may be a local train which stops at more stops and will take a much longer time. moral of the story is: catching ur train is the most important, everything else can wait...

sadly we couldn't see the tombs so we returned to our hotel for a shower. there was a passageway at Namba station which has miniature paintings by famous artist, such as Monet, Van Gogh and some others. some of the paintings look quite familiar, i must have seen them before at Van Gogh Museum. anyway these are prob reproduced (it can't possibly be the originals). but i thought it was quite cool to be able to appreciate artwork even at train stations.

we went down to Nipponbashi for a look, but it was quite disappointing cuz a lot of the shops were closed and the street looked half dark. that's one thing i still can't understand. i thought Japan esp Tokyo and Osaka were supposed to be happening but since the first day we seem to be seeing shops closing at 8 or 9 pm, even big dept stores like Takashimaya and Daimaru close at crazy hours like this. or have we been walking in the wrong places all these nights?

tmr we shall tackle the tombs again. this time catching the trains will be the first priority.

Kansai Day 3 (22/10/07): Kyoto

We were originally suppose to visit Nara today but because a museum we wanted to see was closed on monday, so we swopped our schedule and deceided to go to Kyoto instead. That's another thing abt museums: some of them may be closed on certain days of the week, i have seen a couple which were closed on mondays, so always check beforehand.

it was the first time we experience the morning rush hour in Japan since we came. Everywhere u see men in black suits and tie walking briskly. of course there were ladies rushing to work too but their dressing did not seem as 'uniform' as that of the guys. we took the subway to Umeda where we will change to Hankyu railways to go to Kyoto. At Umeda, we had to change trains and change stations as well. the trains / subways in japan can get quite confusing cuz at one place, eg Umeda, there can be a few different railways and their individual stations, e.g JR Osaka, Hankyu Umeda as well as Hanshin Umeda, and then there were the subway stations as well (nishi umeda, higashi umeda and umeda). and while hanshin umeda is linked with the subway station, Hankyu Umeda (above) was in a separate building. confusing? it was a matter of getting used i guess.

we got off at Kawaramachi and took a bus towards the Ginkakuji (silver pavilion). oh buses in Kyoto are flat fare (220 yen), so best to take longer distances to make it worthwhile. if not get the day pass for 500 yen. i almost couldn't believe that was the ginkakuji - where was the 'Gin' (银)? it looked quite old and run-down, yet it was supposedly one of the must-see sights in Kyoto. on the temple grounds we came across a maple tree which half of the leaves have turned red. sigh... twice i have been to Japan and both time i have missed the seasonal sights. ok but half a tree of red maple leaves is better than nothing... haha.

today we saw quite a lot of shrines and temples - the Yasaka shrine (八阪神社), Ginkakuji, Chionji (知恩寺), Kumano Jinja (熊野寺), Yoshida Jinja (吉田神社), kiyomizu dera (清水寺) and Heian Ji (平安寺). i thot it was quite funny that some of the shrines were just along the main road, alongside the normal buildings, they juz looked so odd and out of place. JY said that the shrines were built first, then the buildings around it came later.

to summarize the route today was Kawaramachi --> (walk) Yasaka shrine --> (bus) ginkakuji --> (walk) Chionji --> (walk) kumano and heian ji --> (bus) kiyomizu dera --> (walk) Karasuma / Hankyu.

we should have gotten the Kyoto bus day pass but we din, so we had to do a lot of walking and saved the bus trips for the longest distances. for Kyoto buses, u board from the back and pay at the front when u get off. on the way from Chionji to Kumano jinja we passed Kyoto University. one thing abt Kyoto is that there are actually quite a lot of pple who cycle around on bicycles. this is esp the case around Kyoto University. as we walked along the path that led to the uni, there were many students cycling with a bag in their bicycle baskets. outside the uni there were many pushcarts selling bento sets, sandwich, bread at very reasonable prices (380yen for a bento as compared to around 500 in the supermarts). from the outside the uni looked quite university-like - very tall trees along the entrance and a very high entrance door, and a very large square when u just enter the gates. anyway there were so many cyclists, i told JY they should have a separate cycling track, like what they have in Amsterdam.

At Heian Jingu, we witnessed the once a year 时代祭 whereby there were pple dressed in costumes that represented the different eras in Japan, starting from the current and gg back in time and there were curious onlookers and spectators standing on both sides. but if u are not familiar with Jap history, after a while u will probably start feeling bored cuz the different period names and costumes may not seem different to u. Anyway, JY sat thru the whole parade right up till 4 pm (we were there at abt 2.10pm) while i ran off halfway to look at the stalls after a while (which was equally boring).

by the time we reached kiyomizu-dera (after squeezing onto the bus) it was close to 5pm. the temple was crawling with students there on excursion. while temples are suppose to be buildings of peace and quiet it is never the case except maybe during the first 15 min after opening.

Today was really a day of walking, we were both beat by the end of the day. to make things worse, we lost our way at Umeda Station. For both yesterday and today, we had problems finding our way from Hanshin / Hankyu railway station to the subway station Nishi Umeda. that place is like a maze! we followed the signs that pointed towards Yotsubashi subway line but halfway we lost the signs and ended up at Higashi-Umeda subway station (nishi means west and Higashi means east). i think we must have spent something like 15-20 min gg round and round the Umeda stations.

my legs actually felt tired today. but HK was still worse. i can still rem what i told my travel companion Jernice then. i told her i rather run a marathon than to walk like this, i think i will feel less tired. and she said 'u are kidding!' i was really really really tired then. today's walk was not quite at the same stage, but close to it.

today i tried sth new. i tried Sakura ice cream. on the first bite it wasn't nice at all. i thot it tasted a bit like medicine and i regretted immediately. i shld have just gotten sth like caramel which i was familiar and which can't taste that bad. but JY immediately said, if i dun even try i won't know if it's nice or not nice. at least i gained the experience. after eating almost to the end, i realized that it wasn't that bad after all. i still din think it was nice but it was bearable. i've kinda gotten used to it. food for thought?