days to remember

Moving Notice~

2007-12-10T12:00:00.002+09:00

Dear all,

Thanks for visiting my blog all these while. I'm moving to new blog, please visit http://alvinjani.mylovepress.net/ to continue update with our latest news.

We've combined both our blogs, so it'll be much easier for you guys to visit just one site then. :) see you there~

Tokyo Sea Life Park & Harajuku

2007-12-09T11:31:00.000+09:00

We were struggling whether to go DisneySea or not as it would be our last day to go if we want. We only found out DisneySea is not for water games the night after we went Disneyland. After consideration, we decided to give up going DisneySea, as

i) The weather forecast is advising us not to go, it'll be gloomy day and it might even rain~

ii) We didn't buy the multiple day pass, which will be cheaper, it's gonna cost us like RM100 extra if we buy the DisneySea ticket again. Not so worth it.

iii) It's so tiring as it'll take another whole day again.

We didn't really plan our trip, except that Disneyland is the MUST. In fact, we just read the catalogue and choose our destination the night before, or even the second day morning.

Since we are not so in to the shopping stuff, we chose to go to Tokyo Sea Life Park, which is just one station away from the Disneyland. We need not rush to go, so we took a better rest. But that day was really cloudy and gloomy, and it's cold!

Far, far away, can you see Disneyland's castle? Like fairy land in fairy tales..

This time we were smart to present the brochure before we bought the tickets, and we got a discount of 140yen per person. ;)

I think this is a real special and unique one --- Leafy Sea Dragon. The rest I'm not going to post up here, you can simply browse them in http://picasaweb.google.com/alvinlms/TokyoSeaLifePark

The penguins here are not so cute as those in Ueno Zoo..

By the way, i forgot to mention this in my previous post. In the Ueno zoo I found there are quite a number of the birds/animals got their name as 'Japanese --- bird'. And I was thinking, these animals also have nationality. Kekeke...

Outside of the Sea Life Park there's park with beautiful sceneries. This is the first day I'm using the Canon camera, the effect wasn't that good lar. Need more improvement on my skills. ;p some more, the weather is not good.

It's not easy to carry that heavy camera every where~!

We found this chinese restaurant in the train station of the Sea Life Park. This is the only meal that we think it's consider cheap as in Tokyo. This whole meal cost us almost RM40. If other restaurant, normally it'll be like around RM30 per person already, and sometimes it's not enough to fill out big tummy. Hehe..

So, next stop will be at Harajuku. Since this is also one of the recommended tourist spot, we came to have a look.
This is another shopping street -- Takeshita Dori. I found that it's very popular in Tokyo to have streets like this. It sounds to me these streets are just to 'dig' money from the tourists. Hehe..

The difference between this street and Ameyoko is that this is full of fashion stuff and packed with young fashionable people . Anyone want to try these maid costume?

These fashion are definitely not my taste~ I wonder why the young ones like to wear like this.. One thing is that they always have the poster or photos of the artists wearing the similar clothing or accessories, to attract the youngsters.

We didn't get to see the youth culture in Harajuku, since it's not weekend and we were not lucky enought to catch any of them here. Or maybe we didn't notice. Anyway, just type Harajuku in google you'll be able to find out a lot more about this fashion place.

Underground shops are quite common to be seen in Tokyo. This doesn't mean that it's illegal. But their shops are located underground.

We just have a walk on a street and decided to go back, since these are not our taste of fashion. In addition, it seems like going to rain too.

Time is still early when we are back in Shijuku Station. so we went to Bic Camera, another store equivalent to Yodobashi and Sofmap. Again I'm not interested in these, so I went window shopping at the good department. :)

There are plenty and plenty of seafood! these are only small part of them.. Most of these are for you to take them raw. Even those prawns~ After the sushi nightmare in Yodobashi I don't really fancy to try them at the moment...

This crab is not covered by mud or what, it's some kind of furry crab, and it's still alive!

I love crab, and I'd very much like to try one of these~

Too bad, we can't bring these back home..

Hmm.. Sounds cruel, after visiting Sea Life Park and now thinking of having seafood meals~

Ueno & Akihabara

2007-12-06T21:26:00.000+09:00

We got the map and tourist guide from Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Tourist Centre, after collecting information and ideas and studying the tourist guide catalogue we decided the next spot is Ueno and then Akihabara, since it's just nearby, you can visit both places in one day.

As we've heard from others, Ueno would be overflowed by the Japanese during the sakura and cherry blossom season. It was on the Msia newspaper too. Though it's not spring season now, but we still can enjoy the autumn view ma.

Outside of the zoo it's the Ueno Onshi Park, The scenery is so beautiful~ But too bad, the sky is gloomy again.

I always like to go to zoo, I like animals ma. ;p After buying the tickets we realised we can get a discount of 120yen per person by just displaying the catalogue we brought along with us~ Aih... too bad lar.

Beautiful birds! Or should I say, beautiful photos~ Looks very professional huh?

This is my favourite. Forgot to insert in last night. Hehe..

If I'm not wrong, this is Black-tailed Prairie Dog. Hmm... Why 'dog'? beats me! Superbly cute! Just like my hamsters. Haha... But many times bigger than my hamster. Very fat and chubby~ I hope I'm not going to become like that!

Pallas's Cat -- I wonder is it the guy called Pallas found this cat? It really looks like tiger!

Cuties! The background picture, Is it used to 'cheat' the rats that they are staying in a big wide field? Haha...

This birdy has an interesting name! Guess what it is? It's called Secretary Bird!

I just don't see which part of it looks like a secretary!

Super Duper Bumper fat and heavy hippo! It was called to take lunch, so we saw it came out from the water and was taking it's sweet time walking even slower than 90 years old man. Man that's walking with hundred kilograms! I was looking for information whether they state the Hippo's weight but no, so I don't know how heavy it is, but I'm sure it's few hundred kg! See that man? This hippo is almost the height of an adult. Ok lar, someone just told me hippo's is count by thousand kg, not hundreds. So, this hippo is equals to a hundred people's weight?

Something went wrong with me laptop... or maybe just my PowerPoint? I don't know. But one thing is confirmed, there's Trojan virus, and I'm scanning the laptop now. ah, the point is, when I was trying to edit photos in the PowerPoint, the colour went crazy. But the effect of this two gorilla is coincidentally nice, so I just bear with it lar.

left: It's chilling cold!

right: (checking at his foot) hmm... this looks yummy, can I eat?

This Galapagos tortoise is enormous!

1 -- At first I thought this penguin is on guard for the female one in the nest!

2 -- Then I noticed this penguin swimming back with the leave~

3 -- I was wondering...

4 -- OOOoooh~ It's for the mama penguin in the nest! Hmm.. What is that third party doing there, kepo kepo then?

I bet you should be familiar with this species of penguin if you have watched Happy Feet. Last time I thought it's just a cartoon character! It does look very much like the one in Happy Feet. Hehe..

Emperor Penguin are the largest penguins. They look so smart!

This owl doesn't have any special look, but a special name --- Malay Eagle Owl. Hehehehe...

There are a lot more.. But since I was informed that it's taking time to load the page as there are too many photos, so I'm not gonna put a lot here lor..

Please visit http://picasaweb.google.com/alvinlms/UenoJapan for more... But that is also part of the photos only. Hehe..

There are many museums in Ueno.. We passed by This National Museum of Western Art. But people like us, don't have any sense of art, so we just took some photos outside instead. At least we've 'passed by'.. ;p

This is a large one.. But don't know all these art pieces' names lar.

Before departing for Akihabara, Alvin's most eager-to-go place, we took a quick glance at this Ameyoko street, which is famous for stores containing clothes, miscellaneous goods, fresh fish and dried food.

Not much to see, I mean for people like us.. ;) We are not going to cook in Tokyo, and stuff there are not cheap.. at least for us. Just these clothing are quite interesting... I wonder who will wear these... But they are very expensive oh!

Ok... Finally we are in Akihabara, an area with the most advanced electric products. Most of the employees in Akihabara are fluent in several languages, therefore customers can easily purchase overseas models and products.

We saw few young girls wearing in maid costume -- just like what we saw in Hiroshima University Festival -- doing promotions for their shops. No... I will never do that.

For people like me there's nothing interesting in Akihabara la~ But for Alvin it's like 'heaven'~ Haha... We went few shops and also those bigger stores, then he found this 'treasure' in Sofmap... Great offer for this Nikon D40X together with two lens.. It's like half of the price you can find in market. Well I don't really know about these stuff but I just know --- I'm upgraded to his Canon S5 IS~ Kakakaka...

No more running out of battery and memory (he got 2GB memory card man, mine is only 512MB!), no more lousy focus, better colour and better close up... OOOoooo, that's the only good news I heard so I don't mind adding another camera~ Kekeke...

But my Olympus FE-190 is not bad also.. The biggest advantage it has is light, slim and easy to carry. I like to snap photos everywhere, can't be possible to bring the heavy camera everywhere. Sounds crazy for two person taking 3 cameras huh~ But I think this photographing hobby is good what. I have more good photos then. Hehehe...

The only bad thing is why this doesn't happen before we go to Disneyland and the zoo... I missed out lots of shots as my camera ran out of battery and memory so fast~ haiz

Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade Dreamlights

2007-12-04T16:14:00.000+09:00

We met Mickey and Minnie once again somewhere near the Toon Town. I still prefer Minnie in the winter costume. keke...

It's a Small Word

I thought this is just some kind of a decorations... As it seems not so many people line up outside there, we just gave it a try.

But actually the line was quite long inside... I said quite long is because the other queueing line are even longer. I was telling Alvin that we were cheated already, this is only a ride on the boat for one round inside this hall.

But it surprised us!

There were so much to be seen! The dolls, dancing and singing in the song 'it's a small world', are all in different costumes, coming from all over the world!

Is that cowboy? from Mexico?

This is obvious --- China

Another Chinese costume

We have the Arabians too

Red Indians, are they?

This is... from Mexico also? Sorry my geographic failed. ;p

These I definitely don't know...

In conjunction with the coming Christmas, the dolls were wearing their winter clothing as well. Wow~ That means each season you enter they will be in different clothing.

Arab costumes again... There were so many, hundreds of them! You can see some more photos in http://picasaweb.google.com/alvinlms/TokyoDisneyland

Night view of 'It's a Small World'. It's telling you the time now is 6.45pm.

I'm not Alice, this is Janice In the Wonderland~

Minnie Mouse's wishing well. It is said that you can hear a message from Minnie if you toss a coin into the wishing well. But I didn't do that. ;)

As I said, everything you gotta queue up. That includes also going into Minnie's House. And there were the crews there helping you to take photos again. But hmm... it doesn't look very nice then.

Minnie's living room. The fire looks real, huh? The sofa is hard as rock....

Well, Alvin said this is a very good phrase!

Mickey's hand glove~ I like it, but there's only one glove left when there's suppose to be two of them..

At back of the castle.. the paintings on the walls are really artistic and splendid~

Can you guess the story on these wallpapers?

Yup, it's Cinderella's story, and this castle is also belongs to her.

Going inside it's The Glass Slipper, there are varieties of glassware, and you can watch the skilled artisans demonstrate glass cutting. Those work of arts can easily cost you over hundreds. So don't even think about it.

The marvellous glass castle owned by Cinderella~ I wonder why it belongs to Cinderella?

Amazing pieces of art!

Night view of Cinderella's Castle~ that is romantic! Too bad we can't go up to the top..

Twinkling Holiday Moment presented by Mickey Mouse and gang to light up the castle with dancing singing. Hmm.. why it's not light up by Cinderella then?

You know, the people were already booking the space to watch this show as early as 2 and half hour before the show starts! That's crazy. I guess these are the people who holds the annual pass to Disneyland. They should have enjoyed the other games more than enough already. Even the Christmas Parade didn't attract them too. But for me I still prefer the parade a lot more. Partly also because i don't understand what they were talking about.

The last parade of the day --- Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade Dreamlights~!

Do you know this giant cat? I forgot..

Though the crowd in Disneyland had decreased compare to daytime, but this parade doesn't repeat, so the crowd was still flooding the area.

My camera died off after taking this shot. haiz~

Peter Pan and Wendy fighting Captain Hook again~

I didn't watch this cartoon... anyone?

Winnie the Pooh and friends~

This is ...?

Here comes Buzz Lightyear!

Woody and Jessie~

Nemo's friends~

Aaahhh! My favourite!

They were dancing and dancing, make us can't take a clear photo of theirs. Haiz~

Now see Cinderella's magic dress!

Purple, white, blue, pink .....

That's awesome!

The Price Charming can only follow at the back. Hehe..

Lilo and Stitch again!

Chip & Dale~

Donald Duck and friends!

And finally ---- Mickey and Minnie~

That's the end of my Disneyland long long posts... There's a lot of the attractions in Disneyland I missed out... Time is just not enough! and we were extremely exhausted after the whole day. After watching the firework, we rushed to go back. It was a frustrating and tiring journey in the morning so I thought taking bus to go back directly to the Shinjuku Station would be a better choice.

But I was wrong --- The cost was more than double the train tickets we spent in the morning! and the bus stopped at the furthest exit of the station and we were kind of lost... We went to McD nearby our hotel to buy some burger, as the meal in Disneyland are super expensive and yet not filling for us. We took like one hour walking back to hotel then. AAhhh~~~~~~~

But if there's chance, I'm sure I want to go Disneyland again. And I would not miss out DisneySea this time!

Video Clips on Disneyland

2007-12-04T11:05:00.000+09:00

Photos alone doesn't speak that much... Now let the videos speaks even louder to you ;)

This is Mickey and Minnie's short parade...

Taken when the parade stopped in front of us for like 10 minutes, singing and dancing. But too bad no cartoon character was in front of us lar.

One Man's Dream II - The Magic Lives on

This one is very nice oh~ Just pity that my camera has low resolution and we were taking from far away... and I don't have wide angle. hehe

Last one... This one taken in the 'small small world'. It's quite dark. And we were sitting on a 'boat' sailing through quite fast. We sat at the back row so the people in front blocked a little when I was taking video. This is a very small part of it, those after these are simply awesome! But my camera was out of battery and memory. Haih~

Share the photos with you on next post. :)

Actually I took more, but very limited memory for my 512Mb memory card, so I deleted some of the video. Hai~ Sayang lar.

My pc don't have quick time player, not yet download, so can't open the video actually. So I only get to watch it after I upload them. ;p

Disney's Christmas Dreams on Parade

2007-12-03T14:12:00.000+09:00

We were very well alert on the time, as we didn't want to miss the Parade! Have been hearing people telling us the parade is the best of all. So we returned from the island after have a short walk around there.

The main parade is the ''Disney's Christmas Dreams on Parade'', but half hour before that there's ''Lilo & Stitch's Aloha Christmas''. About two hours before the parade already there were those 'experienced' people, settling down along the route that the parade is going to pass by, just to get themselves the best view of the parade.

We too, found ourselves a place to sit, as you are not allowed to stand by the 'road side' so that people at the back would not be blocked. There were crews giving instructions and well, we don't understand a word. The two frustrating thing in this Disneyland is that almost everything is in Japanese, and also, it's too crowded and you need to queue for long time for everything --- play the games, buying food, take photos, and also, going to washroom. So most of the time you will be WAITing and WAITing.

Here comes Lilo & Stitch~!

Following by their... alien friends

I don't know their name lar...

Then there's... Stitches??? Hmm... I guess they are Stitch's 'siblings', haha.. They come in 4 colours~ there's another yellow Stitch, but sorry, I'm not gonna post up so many photos, there's too many. But these 'Stitches' are not all the same, notice their heads --- so they are not very closely related? haha..

This is just a very short 'warming up' parade, actually people are waiting for the main show ---

The Disney's Christmas Dreams on Parade!

First we have -----Chip & Dale~

Then this Christmas tree and the dancing 'Christmas trees' just stopped in front of us.

This guy is pretty good looking but this lady is a bit... hmm... no longer young. hohohhoo..

They were singing and dancing for like 10-15minutes, then the parade move on, stop in front of the castle, then move on, stop at the last part before they end the parade. So they actually repeat the whole performance for 3 times. The crews were guarding tight on the parade.

They were moving too fast, we had to speed in taking photos!

The parade was on again late in the afternoon so we watched it again, this time from the other side. I can guarantee you, it's really worth to watch. Every year they have different decorations of the 'car' and their costumes and performances are also following each season's subject. I believe Christmas is one of the best! Christmas is a big event in Japan. But then, it's not because of the coming of Jesus Christ but Santa Clause and Snow Man.

So we had photos taken from different angles...

Hawaiian dance? Do you notice the another girl was wearing watermelon skirt? ;p

Santa Clause is coming to give you present! But I'm not a good girl, so I don't have present lar. haha...

The second time the sky is getting darker, so the photo taken wasn't very satisfying too.

Goofy and the Toy Story gang!
Eh... Where's Buzz Lightyear?

Do you see him?

Then I saw the angels coming....

Wah so pretty! I also want to wear like that..

I was like WAAAAHHHHHHH~

Magnificent! This is the best!

I'm really impressed~!

Donald Duck & Daisy~

I was thinking if Donald Duck might fall~ kakaka...

This is also very impressive!

OOOOOoooooHHHHhhhhh~

All the couples are here!

Sleeping Beauty, Snow White...

And Belle! 3 beauties in the 'car'. But Belle at the back ah... So pity oh. But this 'Belle' is not as pretty as I thought... huhuhu...

Cinderella is definitely the most popular beauty I guess~ She owns the castle~!

Hmm... I also want to see Little Mermaid lar~ But you can only find her in Disney Sea. Sayang lar...

Now the main character is out! Mickey!

I was still excited over the whole parade and really busy snapping photos when...

Huh... I thought which cartoon character came...

DoCoMo is the sponsor for this parade, so they also play a part in the parade.

What is DoCoMo? It's one of the biggest cell phone company in Japan. And the most popular one too. The one we are using is Softbank. haha..

After watching the parade we rushed to watch the One Man's Dream II - The Magic Lives On at the show base in Tomorrow Land.

It started with Black and White scene where I actually thought that Mickey is just part of the picture~

Then Minnie also pop out from the 'house', while Mickey presented her a bouquet of black and white flower where he changed it to a colourful bunch.

Then everything turned colourful~

Orang Utan dance --- do you see the banana hat? kakaka...

Bug's life!

Just a Little Magic...

It's not so easy to capture the photos as we are at the second last row..

Wendy got caught by Captain Hook!

'Dic Dac Dic Dac' --- The crocodile coming to hunt for his favourite food --- Captain Hook!

Peter Pan comes to the rescue!

Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty~~

Cinderella joined the joy~ And Snow White too. But the photo is blur lor.

Then we have Donald Duck on the act and Goofy the Director!

And the final show --- Mickey Mouse and gang in the dance~

There are a lot, but most of the photos are blur la. I can't post so many also. ;p

Pity part of it is that we don't understand the show. Well, what to do. Most of the visitors are Japanese. huhu...

Tokyo Disneyland! ---- Here we are!

2007-12-02T14:19:00.000+09:00

This is the most significant and the main point of the trip!

Tokyo Disneyland~!~

It took us like almost 2 hours to travel by train to Disneyland. It's a bit frustrating as it's another long journey. Some more when we change train in Tokyo Station, we took like 20minutes just to walk from this track to another. It's so far!

It's no joke you know, Tokyo has 10 different train company, and there are so many lines for you to travel around Tokyo. It can be really confusing when you want to travel from a place to another.

Nevertheless, finally we are here -------- Disneyland!

That's me in my birthday cap and in front of Disneyland~ This is not the entrance yet, walking along the path for about 5 minutes then you'll reach the entrance, and the ticket is 5,800yen per person, which cost us ~RM350 for both.

This is one of the most popular Disneyland around the world, so you can imagine the crowd -- I believe it's count by 10 thousand visitors!

Once entering Disneyland we were already surprised by the cartoon characters who are mingling around with people, and I was really excited over it! Cute Pinocchio!

Can you recognise who is that? Cinderella & the Prince! They were surrounded by so many people that we can't even get any closer to them.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! My favourite cartoon characters! But they are statues only; and in order to take photo with them, you gotta queue up! There are two DL employees helping to take photo.

Tale as old as time, true as it can be~~

Then we met her --- not so crowded by kids, finally.

Jessie from the Toy Story~ Woody was so jam packed with his fans around him, so we only manage to take photo with his girl friend Jessie.

Snow Man~! I really wonder how these people can see and breathe in their costume... I do feel pity for them. I think it'll be more suffering in summer as it'll be real warm in the heavy costume!

After that we gave up taking photos with the cartoon characters. We are not so familiar with DL and the kids are over thrilled to see them, shouting and hugging them, but I really can't act so.. So, people like us are very hard to get their attention.
While we are busy taking photos...

Mickey and Minnie were here~ ~!

These two characters are the most popular ones in DL, so you would not be able to take photo with them so easily. They only march around the castle on car.

Just to see them from a distance away..

The enormous castle would be perfect if only the sky is sunny and blue. This is one of the regret for our trip in Disneyland. But can't do anything also, as we've known from the weather forecast that everyday is gloomy day, some of the days are raining even.

Shadow in the water..

Bad Alvin, the very first game we tried is this Big Thunder Mountain! I never want to challenge myself on these type of game.. Too scary~!

He said this one is very mild one, not scary!

I regretted already when we were half way queueing as I saw parts of the route... I shouldn't have believe him! Some more it took us like almost half hour to queue... We didn't know it's such a long queue!

I was really scared...

Not because of the speed but the moments where the mine train just shoot down from the top, I felt like my heart was thrown out! I hate dropping down.

Why did I put myself in that?

After the scary ride we went to Tom Sawyer Island Rafts which is just nearby.

It brought us to the island where there are Tom Sawyer's Treehouse, Injun Joe's Cave, Smuggler's Cove, Fort Sam Clemens and an Indian Village. But actually nothing much interesting there.
Teeter-Totter Rock

Barrel Bridge

The only funny thing is when Alvin thought that two eagles on the edge is real and thought he caught a rare scene. They do looked real as they are gesturing like parents feeding their child. Hohoho...

More coming up on Disneyland..... ;)

Tokyo Metropolitan Government

2007-12-01T21:12:00.000+09:00

I came across a few who thought we were joining tour to Tokyo. Just to clarify, we went by our own, just that we booked the air ticket and hotel in a package.

Initially we just planned to go to Disney Land and thus wanted to book for the Diney Land package, which is 3 days 2 nights and staying nearby Disney Land. After we have thought through it that why not we spend more time in Tokyo, since we are already there, to have a look around Tokyo also. It's not cheap to go Tokyo ler.

You know how much is it to take bullet train from our place to Tokyo? About 30,000yen = ~RM900 per person, for one way only. Now the package we took is cheaper than that, 44,000+++ yen, and that includes the hotel fee, and the breakfast. That sounds much more worth it, huh? And we can online for free in the hotel, so Alvin brought along his laptop too.

Some more the plane we took is Boeing 747 400 oh~ kakaka...

After check in and taken a short rest, we started our sight seeing in Tokyo by the nearest tourist spot ---> Tokyo Metropolitan Government 東京都庁舎, also referred to as Tokyo City Hall.

We only found out that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) is just nearby our hotel the night before departure. As we have been asking around for the interesting tourist spots and the Must go places in Tokyo. This is recommended by Lydia, and as we were looking for our hotel in the map, we found out it's just 5-10minutes walk from New City Hotel. That's great!

This 243 meters building was once the tallest building in Tokyo, until Tokyo Midtown was completed in March this year. It is also once the second tallest structure in Tokyo, just after Tokyo Tower.

We meet Yuko san at the Tokyo Tourist Information Center, who happily showed us the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Building.

This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Hall. According to Yuko san, they only have 4 Tokyo assembly main meetings in a year. But whenever there's any emergency cases like serious earthquakes etc, this hall shall serve as the main control centre.

If the hall is vacant, tourists are able to enter. I think it's not so easy to meet the chance where they are having meeting in the hall as it is only 4 times in a year. ;)

This is the connection path to the Assembly Building.

Taken from the path, this is the Assembly Building. There's two path connecting them actually. We were taking a round tour from South to North.

The Metropolitan Buildings consist of three main buildings:

Tokyo Metropolitan Main Building No.1

Tokyo Metropolitan Main Building No.2
Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Building

We were in the main building no.1, where tourists will be enchanted by a full view of Tokyo from 202 meters high, at 45th floor.

There's North observation platform and South observation platform, unfortunately the North observation platform is closed on 2nd & 4th Monday. So we are only able to get up to the South observation platform. Anyway it's not much of the difference I guess. As you will also see buildings and buildings on the other side too.

Anyway the view was not that good as it's quite hazy. But I have to say it's better than KL. hehe..

Kho said if the weather is good enough you may be able to see Mount Fuji. We didn't lor.. And not sure which platform you'll be able to see it too.

This is the only day with sunny weather. All the other days in Tokyo were very gloomy, and it even rained on the last day before we leave. So we didn't go back to the TMG also.

There's souvenir stall at the platform.

The t-shirt is nice lar. But expensive so didn't buy also.

These dolls are very tiny only. But it's costing you like RM100 for one, so keep your hand back.

You'll find quite a number of these decoration boards at the information centre. They've combined Japan's uniqueness and the specialities in these deco. Just a few of them here.

After visiting TMG, we went to Yodobashi, this store is similar to Akihabara, it's one of the biggest electronic and electronical store in Shinjuku. This is what Alvin get to know from Yuko san. So, we came.

Alvin is always interested in walking those shops; while I just walk around the streets, observing the restaurants and the prices. Hehe.

We had our 'dinner' at a sushi stall there... 130 yen for 2 pieces, the cheapest I can find. But really ---- yiiakkks! Some more Alvin doesn't take raw food, so we quickly finished the few I took then off we go.

In the end we bought a few 100yen burgers in McD. The good news is, McPork is only 100yen! And it's tasty~ Really too bad McD in Msia don't have.

Yuko san insisted that we must come back to enjoy on the night view of Tokyo. She said it's really romantic.

So here we are, coming back after we went to Yodobashi.

Far, far away, can you see Tokyo Tower?
Bring you to a closer look...

Nah! That's Tokyo Tower, we saw it already, so we are not going to the Tower. ;p

Going to Tokyo~!

2007-12-01T13:52:00.000+09:00

It's a real tiring journey from our home to Tokyo... We get up early at 5 something, took breakfast and packed luggage, rush to the bus station nearby our house, after arriving at the JR train station which they called Eki here, then took train to Shiraichi Station, from there took another bus to Hiroshima airport, then took the plane to Haneda International Airport, from there we took monorail to Hamamatsuchio, then change to JR train to Shinjuku, then walk to our hotel.......

complicated?

ok...

Home ---> bus station (15min) --->

Saijo Station (15min) ---> Shiraichi Station (15min) --->

Hiroshima Airport (10min) ---> Haneda International Airport (1hour 15min) --->

Hamamatsuchio Station (20min) ---> Shinjuku Station (28min) --->

New city Hotel (15min)

Total --------- 6.15am - 1.45pm

Above is the estimated travelling time, not including boarding, waiting time, walking from tracks to tracks, studying the map, searching, enquiring for directions, etc.

Carrying our luggage all the way........
Now we regretted not to bring the small dragging luggage when we came to Japan.

The expenses of taking the buses and trains, is 3,020yen (RM90++) and that is excluding the air ticket oh~ Hmm... I'm getting numb to the price already.

In conclusion, we took the whole morning just to get ourselves from Higashihiroshima to Shinjuku.

You know how damn tiring it was???

There's this place where you can view all the planes here... But no no, it's not free, you got to pay 200yen per person (RM6) to enter.

And there's binocular for you too! BUT pay first before you want to see anything from that stuff. I forgot the price, either 100/200/300yen lar.

I'm just pretending I can see! ;p

This is our plane --- Boeing 747 400. One of the largest plane~~~ There's two levels in the plane, the upper floor is for the First Class passengers. Of course we are not sitting there! ;p

Again I'm sleeping...

Arriving in Haneda International Airport, we saw this cutie plane. Wah, that's a lot of pokemon!

I'm already feeling sick after such long journey. I'm the type that can't travel far. I went washroom for few minutes as feeling like throwing out. Then we were late to pick up our baggage, it was already the luggage for the next flight when we got there!

The crew announced asking us to collect out luggage at counter. That was a bit embarrassing... But their system is real good. And before you leave, they will check you sticker (given to you when you check in luggage) and take off the one on your luggage. So no one is going to take other people's baggage.

Arriving at Shinjuku Station we are already exhausted and starving. So we decided to take our lunch there.

Hunting for cheap and nice food is also another tiring job. Everyone is rushing, rushing. They don't care if they knocked you. It's your fault that you are blocking the way!

Then finally decided to have our first meal in Tokyo at this Miami pizza restaurant... I was taking quite some time to read the katagana on the menu, only then the waitress offered us the English menu. Ooohhh... Tokyo is different, they have lots of foreigners, so they normally will have the English menu. That's great.

One pizza is costing you about RM30. But it's yummy~ That makes me feel good again. ;)

I shall take quite some time to share with you on our trip... be patient lar~ ;)

It's My Birthday~!

2007-11-26T22:21:00.001+09:00

Hohohohoho... It's my first birthday after wedding and my first birthday in foreign country.

Most of you would not know that now I'm in Tokyo, having a 5 days trip here, 26-30th Nov. We planned this trip is simply because:

It's my birthday!

It's going to be winter and it's gonna be really chilling!

We want to have a trip!

Aren't these reasons good enough? Hahaha...

Last night we already pre-celebrated my birthday at home... Alvin spent about 3 hours cooking big meal for the dinner.

I'm so hungry~~~~

There're fried drumpsticks, fried prawns, fried mee, fried egg in soup, which Alvin insisted that it's a MUST for birthday, fried vege and chicken soup~ ooohhh, that's too much for two of us.

I'm eagerly wanting to eat~

We spent long hours finishing the dinner. But it was the best meal since we are in Japan, and the best Alvin cooked for me. :)

Oh, we had red wine too! Do you know how much is that? Less than RM10! Hehehe... but I don't fancy bout it again..

It's 12am! Cutting cake time~ We bought the cake from YouMeTown after back from church.
This small cake cost 1260yen ler! It's around RM37++

Super expensive!

And the candle is 100yen for 3! That is RM1 per candle. Oh gosh... I didn't want to buy but Alvin secretly went to buy then..

Its not birthday without candle..

All my wishes are dedicated for family...

Yummy cake!

Thank you all for your wishes through sms, email or in friendster.. I'm sorry I can't reply you, but the warmth of your wishes I've kept in my heart. Thanks~!

Tiring day... Travelled so much! Gotta get rest...

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

2007-11-22T13:06:00.000+09:00

We spent unexpected time in the Cathedral, so there wasn't enough time for us to explore the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. After recharging energy in SOGO which we spent quite some time in hunting food around, we finally reached the Peace Memorial Park 広島平和記念公園 which is about 15 minutes walk from the Cathedral.

First building hop into our sight is the Atomic Bomb Dome, which I thought it was smashed into pieces and not even keeping it's building structure.

This was taken by a tourist from US, his SLR camera is consider quite good de oh, what do you think of his photographing skill? :)

Sunset view of the Peace Memorial Park. Taken on the Aioi Bridge, a nationally known T-shaped bridge. I also just realised that this bridge was the target of the A-bomb. The bomb missed slightly, exploding 300 meters from the bridge in the air over Shima Hospital.
Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students

To make up for the labor shortage, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act in August 1944. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labor service in munitions factories and the like. Then, in November, many students were required to participate in tearing down homes and other buildings (building demolition). The purpose was to create fire-breaks to limit the expansion of fire in the event of air attacks.

Under the Memorial Tower there are thousands and thousands of paper crane. Do you think that is all? I thought so, too.

There are few more spots not far away..

There are millions and millions of them!

On the left it's the Monument in Memory of the Korean Victims of the A-bomb.

I didn't know that there were Korean victims too in this tragedy. Copied this from the website of the Peace Memorial Park:

Japan took control of Korea during the Meiji Restoration and annexed in 1910. Many Koreans who had lost their means of livelihood were forced to come to Japan in search of work. Moreover, to make up for the wartime labor shortage, Japan also brought many Koreans to work in Japan through forced service or conscription. At the end of the war, about three million Koreans were living in Japan, and it is said that tens of thousands of them suffered the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.

Children's Peace Monument
Sadako Sasaki was exposed to the bombing at age two, contracted leukemia ten years later and died. Shocked by her death, her classmates put out a national call to "build a monument to mourn all the children who died from the atomic bombing." With the support of students in more than 3,100 schools around Japan and in nine other countries, including England, the Society was able to build this bronze statue that stands nine meters high.

On the top of the three-legged pedestal stands the bronze figure of a girl holding up a gold-colored "folded" crane. On opposite sides of the pedestal are suspended boy and girl figures symbolizing a bright future and hope. On the stone underneath the pedestal is inscribed, "This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world."

The Children's Peace Monument is surrounded by stations of the paper crane. I really admired at these works done by children who are only in primary school.

We didn't walk over to the other side, so didn't know it's the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims and the Pond of Peace. So, introduce to you next time, when we visit the place again. :)

Peace Bell

On its surface a world map without national boundaries is engraved to symbolize "one world." The platform evokes the radiation warning mark, expressing the hope for abolition of atomic and hydrogen bombs. On the opposite side is a mirror that reflects the hearts of those who ring the bell.

The pond is adorned by famous lotuses grown from seeds from Professor Ichiro Oga, who dug them from 2000-year-old ruins in Chiba City. After the bombing, lotus leaves were placed on people's wounds to reduce the pain of burns and console their spirits.The Peace Bill was selected in 1996 for the Environmental Agency's "One Hundred Sounds the Japanese People Wish to Preserve."

You may toll the bell..

Walking around the park, the scenery is truly awesome, splendid, marvellous, wonderful! Any better description? I have very limited vocab. He he...

The leaves, are changing colour. Some are yellow, some are red, some would not want to wear any other colour other than green, and some would just leave the tree. Autumn is always the most beautiful season to me. Coming next is spring, where flowers blooms everywhere!

Always my best personal photographer...

An irritating incident occurred when we were in the park -- my camera died!

No, not that it's spoilt, but No more battery left and that means I can't take any more photos. I did try with Alvin's camera but it's not under my control. Haih~

Before we left, there's this 2 ladies posing their pets on the bench for them to take their beloved doggies' photo. See how luxurious is the life of the pets here?

After shooting endless photos the doggy still got 'coat' to wear on. I think even that pink coat is gonna cost more than all the clothes I'm wearing. huh...

We also noticed the senior citizens feeding birds in the park. The birds are familiar with them. Or they are used to be fed.

I almost can read 'lonely' on their faces...

Looking at the countless paper cranes pleading for peace... I just can't get these thought out of my mind for days..

If it wasn't the Second World War -- and the atomic bomb would not be dropped here, taking away thousands of lives. Compare to those sacrificed in the war, these victims are not considered a huge number.

If the war continues, how many more souls will be crying in grieve?

If you are not cut on your own body, you would not feel the pain.

Memorial Cathedral for World Peace - II

2007-11-21T13:33:00.000+09:00

Going to the back of the hall, to the right side of the Cathedral. Can you guess what is that?

This is the tank for baptism in the olden days. But nowadays the ceremony is held in front of all the parishioners, so this place no longer serves its purpose. But it is kept well as remembrance. On the left wall hang a wooden crucifix, according to Teresa san, is carved from wood.

On the left, there's a chapel, named after our Holy Mother of God. They have their daily mass here, 7am.

Now move upwards -- we are going to climb to the top of the bell tower! But first, we move to the first floor where the pipe organ is. This is one of the largest pipe organ in Japan. I was so surprised when Teresa san said this organ is only played by one person. I really wonder how can a person play this organ? it is so big that it can accommodate like 20 people inside.

Every month there is pipe organ concert in this Cathedral. I'd very much like to join the concert if given the chance. :) But it's costing a lot to come eh~

The church is not always using the pipe organ, they use piano too.

Moving upstairs, there's a corridor where you can see the cathedral from another view.

Up up up, now we are going out into the sun, where there's a bridge or a path to the bell tower. From here it's another view of the design.

Going down a few steps, now we are outside of the bell tower.

See that little bird on top of the roof there? It's not small actually but far from sight. Take a closer look..

This is Phoenix, the symbol of Japan. Actually the windows are also design with the specialities of Japan, a type of tree.. Hmm... forgot again. See how terrible my memory can be, if I don't write them down everything will be wiped away in one second. There's also church windows the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, surrounding the Cathedral.

Entering into the bell tower, we went on to the top. Seeing Alvin carrying his bag and the staircase is quite narrow, Teresa san offered to leave his bag in this little chapel while we go to the top.

The BELLS!

This is enormous~! Can you believe this is over 1 tonne? If I'm not mistaken it's 1145 or 1150kg! Not even 20 strong man also can carry that. There are four bells all together, the size and weight varies from one another. The smallest bell also weights 250kg.

I can't imagine if I'm here when the bells ring...

This is not the top yet! Again we go up, up, and up, now reaching the last level before you get to the top.

This staircase is called the staircase to heaven. ;) Before you go up, take a look at the windows here. Does it make you think of something? Teresa san even imitated to me to let me guess what it is like...

Key to Heaven! Did you make the right guess? I didn't. huhuhuhu.

It was a bit scary to climb that staircase.. It's 45 meters high, and finally ---

The whole of Hiroshima City!

From the very bottom to the peak, now we are at higher position than the Phoenix. The two picture beside that is the Elisabeth University of Music, run by the Catholic Church.

I've been mentioning Teresa san for so many times, you might wonder who she is... Tata~

Then from 'Heaven' we landed on earth safely. ;p

This is another building of the Cathedral, opposite the bell tower. Upstairs are Bishop's Office.

Mother Mary and Jesus can be of any racial and appearance.. This is Korea costume, not Japanese oh~

This is indeed an awesome and fantastic experience! We spent at least 2 and half hour in the Cathedral, with our stomach protesting......... But worth it! :D :D :D

For more photos, please visit

http://www.alvinlms.blogspot.com/

http://www.evland.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=16011&extra=page%3D1

Memorial Cathedral for World Peace

2007-11-20T00:55:00.000+09:00

19/11/07

We went to International Party of Hiroshima University which is organised in Granvia Hotel, Hiroshima. Since it's costing us 2280yen to go to Hiroshima by JR train, we went there in the morning to explore the city.

I'll post more on the city next time, now I'm gonna bring you to the very first place we wanted to visit when we go to Hiroshima --the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace. The Memorial Cathedral of world peace is also known as the Noboricho Church of Hiroshima. This is a Cathedral dedicated to the memory of the Atomic Bomb victims, a symbol of love and peace for all nations.

It surprised me on how pack the city is and how the cathedral actually stands in the middle of the busy roads surrounded by tall buildings. This is the bell tower.

Late Pope John Paul II visited Hiroshima and made his world famous Appeal for Peace. In front of the Cathedral stands a bronze statue of the Pope as a lasting remembrance. In Japanese his name is read as ''Yohane Pauro''. Hehe

We met this volunteer, Teresa Y. Omori san, who warm-heartedly showed us around the cathedral, almost to every corner and explained to us the stories about this church.

When the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, this German priest -- Reverend Hugo Lassalle (1898-1991) was seriously injured. He had over 500 wounds over his body, the glasses pierced into his body, and he was burnt too. It was a critical stage then. But with God's grace, he survived.

The church was less than 1500 meters from the hypocenter of the bomb. During his recovery he began to think of rebuilding the church as a monument to World Peace. This would be a place for all, regardless of their beliefs and religion to come and pray for the souls of the victims. It would be a symbol of love and peace for all nations.

His dream was supported and with the blessings of Late Pope John Paul II he set about soliciting funds from Europe, America, and from all over the world. With the help from all sources this cathedral started to build in 1950 and completed at 1954.

Father Lassalle served in Japan throughout his life, and he wanted to become a Japanese so much. The government approved his request and he has a Japanese name -- 爱宫真備 Enomiya Makibi. A year before he went back to God, he was attacked by cancer. His love and passion had touched many people. After his death the church placed part of his ashes in the cathedral in memorial of him.

Walking into the church you'll see this 3 words:

Faith

Hope

Love

This picture on the wall behind altar is made from various types of precious stones from different country. They are given by the Germany government. Germany was one of those donates the most in the building of this Cathedral.

Do you notice something different from the usual catholic church we visit? It is not cruxifix but it is the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Observe these lamps well.. What do you think it looks like?

Its design is based on lotus flower. The Buddhist community too donated in building this cathedral. Guess which one is taken by me, and which one by Alvin. ;p Actually most of the photos are Alvin's production, a lot of the photos I took spoilt. ;(

On the right side of the church is Mother Mary's statue. Teresa asked me to kneel on left side of of the statue then the right side and asked me of the differences of Mother Mary.

When you are on the right side, you'll find Mother Mary's eyes are more capturing.

On your left you will first see the confession room.

At the end that is where they place the Jesuit missionary, late Reverend Hugo Lassalle.

More to come...

I Love Mikan!

2007-11-17T23:21:00.000+09:00

After visiting the shrine we were brought to another place to have our lunch. Along the way already there are a lot of 'mikan' farm. Mikan is mandarin orange in Japanese. Mountains and mountains of the mikan trees! This excites me, as our very aim today is to pick the mikan!

I don't know the name of the lunch place, but it's like the centre of the mikan farm as there's the symbols of mikan everywhere. Even the truck. The view there is simply marvellous! We entered an exhibition hall, everything is about the mikan. Of course we don't understand a word.

When we finally wanted to settle down to take our lunch, we found that we don't know where can we have lunch. There were a few tables beside the truck but then while we busy taking photos the tables are fully occupied. The other crowd of people also nowhere to be seen. So, imitating some of the participants we just sit at one of the benches to take our lunch.

Suddenly the whole sky became cloudy, the wind was blowing. And I can assure you, it was REALLY strong! If you didn't stand properly you might fall. And its chillness can freeze me up. Imagine we had our lunch in such awful condition... gggrrrrrrrrrr... I lost appetite already. I even have to wear gloves, yet still shivering while eating.

We only found out before we leave that there's a building with cafe inside which we can actually sit there and eat comfortably. =.= haiz~

These are the artistic photos taken by Mr. Alvin when I was actually quite a distance away. Nice huh? haha.. I'm also learning a little bit of photographing. Can you differentiate which are taken by me and which are Alvin's? hehe. Any improvements?

After everyone got up to the bus yet we are still not moving towards Kono Farm to pick mikan. Waited for half an hour only we saw two of the participants boarding their bus. All the tour guides were looking for them. I don't know if they do not understand the Japanese and thus they were not back on time or they went too far and forgot the time. Actually every time when we are suppose to depart we'll have to wait for at least 15 minutes or more to get everyone on bus. This dragged us behind the schedule.

One thing I noticed is that none of the mikan farm are fenced up. You can simply enter any farm freely. This is how Japanese culture is. Trust and Honesty.

Finally we arrived at the mikan farm, but due to the delay of the departure time at every spot we only have less than one hour at Kono Farm. We were told before hand to bring extra scissors as the farm unit only can provide a pair of scissors for two person. But we forgot to bring...

We bought a plastic bag at 500 yen (RM15) and you can fill up as much as you want in the plastic bag. And you can also eat as much as you want in the farm itself. I only ate 3 or 4 then I got fed up already. Alvin ate over 10! In the end I'm busy picking mikan and he's busy eating and talking. There are quite a number of Malaysians or Indonesians.

Once getting in the farm some of the participants already got themselves strategic spot and settled down to have their 'picnic'.

On the way back they drop us at a rest house to go washroom etc. There's a souvenior shop there, selling food and also cute mikan decorations.

This is our price of victory~ wahhahahahaha~ We gave some to Prof Okuda, Funato san, Kho, and Alvin's lab mates, and the rest for our own. Worth it huh?

Oyamazumi Shrine - Part II

2007-11-17T14:43:00.001+09:00

These are sake containers. I'm not sure whether they are filled or empty. All these are being given to the shrine, but I forgot by whom lar.. Funato san told me once but didn't note down. Hehe. Imaging drinking these sake... Oh gosh, you can swim in the sake!

There are three treasure houses in Oyamazumi Shrine, namely Shiyo-den Hall, Kokuho-kan (National Treasures' Hall), and Kanji Hakubutsu-kan (matritime affairs museum, or Memorial Hall of the ship Hayamamaru)

Kanji Hakubutsu-kan was constructed for permanent preservation of the ship called 'Hayamamaru'. Numerous books written by Emperor Showa and animal plant specimens from the Seto Inland Sea are exhibited along with other materials concerned with the Suign (Inland Sea navy) and matritime affairs. The exhibition also includes representative ore samples dedicated from all over Japan.

Armor, warrior helmets and swords are exhibited at Shiyo-den and Kokuho-kan.

Actually it is prohibited for photographing in the museum. But I got took a few lar... ;p Entrance fee is required to enter the museums, if I'm not wrong it's 1500 yen per head, meaning RM45. But again we do not need to pay a single yen for it. Aahhhh~ What a pleasure! ;D

Basically its swords, swords, armors and armors... I don't really like the swords. They are too long, too sharp, gave me sense of dangerousness. The whole sword is about 2 meters long I think. i believe one slash the enemy's head would be down. huh........... War is cruel. I want peace~

We are restricted not to enter the museums with our shoes on, so we have to take off our shoes and place them beside or in the cabinets provided. These brown slippers are given to wear into the museum. But then there are people who just throw their own shoes into the containers. Again that's not what Japanese will do.

It's a funny scene where you see the Europeans especially, find difficulties fitting into the slippers, and the kids find them too big to wear on. ;D

We were fortunate enough to have met a few special little girls and little boys in Shrine. They were brought to shrine for ''Shichi Go San" Festival. ''Shichi Go San'' means "Seven Five Three". Odd numbers are considered lucky numbers. Girls of age three and seven and boys of age three and five are celebrated on Shichigosan, and it is prayed for their good health and growth.

Shichigosan takes place on 15th November every year, but it is not a national holiday. So the parents would either bring their children on the day itself or the closest weekend. I knew about the Shichigosan festival, but I didn't notice that it is held in November. Thus, we are considered really lucky!

Most girls wear kimonos when making their Shichi-go-san visit, while boys don haori jackets and hakama trousers. I like this girl, very pretty, naive and adorable. And her kimono is the prettiest to me. I think she's only 3 years old.

Before we leave the place, we found that there's a pair of couple getting married in the Shrine~ That is really lucky! And they were taking their family photos. You can observe how Japanese show their respect to a ceremony through their attire.

The bride is wearing the most gorgeous Kimono called Uchikake. I read from internet that most people rent this kimono, however the rental still costs around A$5000, which is about RM15000 ++. WOW! This is even more expensive than buying a western style wedding gown.

On our way back to the parking place for bus there are souvenior shops along the streets. I found these towels very attractive so took a picture of it, only to realise something funny with the photo after we got back home. This lady is drying the towels using the dryer I think, and coincidently when I took the photo her dryer was on this piece of towel, some more on the important part. hahaha... ;p

Just beside the parking space there's this shop where there's a lot of food are being given to have a try on. I tried quite some of them, some are delicious! Some taste weird and some are even a bit nasty. But there's this mushroom tea which we like a lot. It has a very pleasant smelly and taste. It really taste and smells like mushroom! And also the orange tea, and mandarin orange tea. Very special and fragrant. Time is running out so didn't manage to try all the food. Ooooo~ I love it. ;)

Oyamazumi Shrine - Part 1

2007-11-16T11:28:00.000+09:00

International Exchange Bus Tour 2007

I think I mentioned before that we will join this trip on 11th Nov. ;)

We got up as early as 6.45am to prepare for our 'bento'. Rushing indeed but managede to be at the assembly point in time. There were 9 buses all together bringing like 300 international students with their family members. The first abnormal matter is that we don't even need to report our attendance and they didn't even check if we are one of the participants before we hop on to the bus.

We simply chose a bus but it was full already, and it is obvious that all are Malays. Oooohh. That's a lot of Malays in this uni. The second bus was quite empty when we get on it. But after a while a whole group of China people joined in.

Though Japanese are punctual, not the foreigners. Though the gathering time is preset to be 8.30am, but still there were still people coming slowly after 8.30am taking their sweet time. We waited for about 30 minutes for the late comers, then off we go!

It didn't take me long for the 2nd weird thing: the pretty tour guide started to explain instructions and delivering informations about our trip, and guess what --- it's totally in Japanese. We looked at each other and no one actually knows what she was bluffing about. Since this is an International Exchange Trip, it is expected that the tour guide should explain in English. One of the China man is expert in Japanese already, he translated the info to his fellow friends. I'm really grateful that I'm a Chinese and understand Chinese. ;p Only then we were asked to take attendance on the name list and each was given a batch to identify which bus we are on. Ours is a green one.

I have this habit of sleeping on all sorts of transportations regardless airplanes, cars or trains. So, as usual I slept almost all the way. Before we reach our first destination -- Oyamazumi Shrine 大山祗神社，which is located at Omishima 大三岛, we actually crossed bridges, One of them is Tatara-Ohashi Bridge. The 1,480m-long bridge is the world's longest cable-stayed bridge.

Views along the way is really impressive, as we were travelling along the beach! The sight of brilliant blue sea, the boats, the bridges... Too bad we can't take much photos of them.

We were taking the highway to reach Omishima, and the tollS paid is really costly, got 3000 over yen, 5000 over yen. But we don't need to pay any, feel soooooo good~ ;D

After about 1 and half hour finally we were there. Given about 2 hours time we moved towards the shrine following the crowd. Actually before going we know nothing about this shrine, but we got the pamplet introducing on Oyamazumi Shrine and so let me do a little bit of story telling first...

Oyamazumi Shrine is the main shrine (Gohonden), also called a treasure shrine, is constructed on 1427. Oyamazumi Shrine is famous for the guardian deity of mountains and marine transportation. Omishima boasts the highest number of weapons designated as national treasures or important cultural properties, and the National Treasure Hall is regarded as the number one in Japan for these collections.

Torii & Komainu
One or more torii gates mark the approach and entrance to a shrine. Believers respect animals as messengers of the Gods. Komainu are a pair of guardian dogs or lions, often found on each side of a shrine's entrance. In this case, it's a pair of lions, which is very similar to Chinese tradition.

Purification fountain
Found near the entrance, the water of these fountains is used for purification. You are supposed to clean your hands and mouth before approaching the main hall. But for this one its quite a distance from the entrance. After the torii gate there's about 100m to the Purification fountain.

Main and offering hall
Depending on the shrine's architecture style, the main hall (honden) and offering hall (haiden) are two separate buildings or combined into one building. The main hall's innermost chamber contains the shrine's sacred object, while visitors make their prayers and offerings at the offering hall.

At the offering hall, visitors will throw a coin into the offering box, bow deeply twice, clap hands twice, bow deeply once more and pray for a few seconds.

Ema
Shrine visitors write their wishes on these wooden plates and then leave them at the shrine in the hope that their wishes come true. Most people wish for good health, success in business, passing entrance exams, love or wealth.

Omikuji
Omikuji are fortune telling paper slips found at many shrines and temples. It is sold at 100 yen per piece. Randomly drawn, they contain predictions ranging from daikichi ("great good luck") to daikyo ("great bad luck"). By tying the piece of paper around a tree's branch, good fortune will come true or bad fortune can be averted.

Shimenawa
A shimenawa is a straw rope with white zigzag paper strips (gohei). It marks the boundary to something sacred and can be found on torii gates, around sacred trees and stones, etc.

御守
This is the charm for protection. Different charm offers different protection. See the red charm? It's for the pregnant mothers, to protect them on safe pregnancy and delivery.

St. Julie's Church

2007-11-13T23:59:00.000+09:00

In order to make sure that we are able to find our way to the JR station on Sunday, we cycled to the station on last Friday, just to confirm our route. Otherwise we might be wasting time seeking our way to the station and be late for mass then. We used another way to downtown, as it's a rather hilly all the way from our home if we were to use the straight road from the university. So we used the further but smoother way, and we managed to reach our destination in 45 minutes. Riding to downtown is not that tiring, it's a bit going downhill. In another hand, going back is more tiring.

Another purpose is to confirm where is the parking lot for bicycle as Prof Okuda mentioned we cannot simply park our bike, there's a special parking space for our bike. We found it indeed, and it cost 100 yen to park for whole day. It's a bit dark inside, but you can still see that there's 2 levels for the bike. This actually doubled up the spaces for parking. I believe there are thousands of bicycle inside.

Our second visit to Higashihiroshima Church, I would say it's quite a different experience than the first time we went there.

This week it's a different priest celebrating mass, and followed by the usual alter server, then we have 3 cute little alter boys following behind. But after that I only realised that they are not alter boys but that it is their first holy communion that day.

There were several parishioners snapping photos, so I dare to take photos during mass then. But i wasn't at a strategic seat, so I didn't take a good picture. The whole atmosphere was joyful and warmth, everyone is happy to see the boys receiving their first holy communion.

Again everything is in Japanese, but this time I found a booklet which has the liturgy of the mass in English version, with the Japanese language and the pronounciation of the Japanese on different columns. There's another alien language which I don't know. We can read the pronounciation while we know what is going on too. This make things much easier for us.

This time I remembered to capture photos of the cushions, though I didn't manage to take much of them. ;)

After mass as we were about to leave, a sister grabbed me to join their 'tea time', then only we realised that they have this chit chat time after mass every week. Suddenly I missed the supper time after mass in St. Anne's Chapel.

We had a pleasant time, they served tea and coffee, together with some cookies and chocolate sweets. At first we had a chit chat with the priest, Father Jerri, who is actually from Indonesia. He had been in Japan for 8years already and so he can express in Japanese fluently. After that we also meet a few parishioners who can speak english well.

We get to know that there's shortage of priest in Japan, so they do not have a parish priest stationed in this church. So they have different priests take turns to celebrate mass every week. Also, actually this church is named after St. Julie, not Higashihiroshima Catholic Church as we thought before this.

It is not impossible for us to attend mass at the cathedral in Hiroshima City. We can go there by taking the JR train, just different direction and it's further. There's English mass in cathedral on Sundays at 2.30pm. So maybe we could try it some time.

I love the cookies, and I love to capture the moments of joy and love like this.

Hiroshima University Festival - Part II

2007-11-10T15:45:00.000+09:00

Still remember my previous post about the celebration or the festival of Hiroshima University? Well, the festival is not only about food and performances, but there were also various exhibitions of different societies or clubs in the campus. After filling our tummy (which we spent 1300 yen!) we went to have a look at the exhibitions. We only went for ‘a look/looks’ as we can’t read them anyway. ;p

They actually have this stamping hunt, where u collect stamps from every exhibition station, after you completed the chart, you can go to the counter outside there to try your luck by rolling a wheel with balls inside, the numbers on the balls will determine the gifts you would redeem.

I wanted to collect the stamps initially, but gave up as they actually require you to fill in some evaluation forms or questionnaires at each station. We can’t read a thing lar. So we just walk around only.

There’s this exhibition of paintings, comics, railway research, calligraphy, computer games, etc etc... Just a few picture of the stations we visited. We didn't take picture at every station though.

There weren't many paintings in the painting exhibition hall, but there were a few which I thought is a nice one... especially the little girl with cat. I guess you know why ;)

I like the chinese calligraphy they exhibited, or I should say the kanji calligraphy. You actually would find a big part of the Japanese culture is very ''Chinese''. They also have this zodiac calendar like Chinese.

I'm not into these stuff and my calligraphy is extremely BAD (what a shame #^o^#), but it's always fun to snap photos. hehe.

There were papers for visitors to perform their talent in writing the calligraphy. We didn't try, of course I don't wanna let others know how bad my writing could be!

Alvin caught this shot of a lady (who is no longer young in age) writing this two words -- if you can read them -- naive. Can you catch what I'm trying to say? ;p

Hmm... can you understand the art of this writing?

Just to let you all know that finally we have internet connection at home last night. They have came to install for us, now I can access internet anytime as long as I'm at home. HooooRaaaay~!

Flowers & Flowers...

2007-11-08T11:49:00.000+09:00

I told you before there are a lot of pretty flowers around here right? I'm shooting photos of the flowers whenever I can. These are some of them. Of course I can't take photo of all the flowers, but I'm trying my best. :)

Let the pictures tells the story...

These purple ones, I think Fr Chris would like them, huh? ;p

I believe ris will be excited over these tiny and elegant ones. :)

These should be DF's favourites~

When you walk along the road often there are plants and flowers outside of the houses or the shops. And most of the time, there will not be just one or two types of flowers but quite a few types.

Normally they are of the same kind but different colours.

I don't know the name of these, they are not flowers definitely, but they gave me a sense of the winter. Do they look like fake christmas trees?

Which of these are your favourites? :) I'm greedy, I like them all. haha.

I promise more will be coming up in future. There are still a lot to be explored here. ;)

Hiroshima University Festival

2007-11-06T15:08:00.000+09:00

I think I wanna share with you on this event first as I think it's very interesting...

We went to this 56th Hiroshima University's festival --- or I should say it's a celebration of their foundation of the university. See the crowd? and me? hehe

Few days before the festival you can see their preparation for the event. I think their decorations are rather weird -- maybe I can't understand what is their theme and what they are trying to bring out for this celebration.

They build a temporary stage, just behind Alvin's faculty. You can see how important this festival means to them. All of these are done by the students themselves. They have a whole day performance, last for 2 days. But I don't think the performances are real good ones. haha...

Instead there's another group singing at the other side of the festival, I think they sang much better. They didn't have a stage to perform at, no music instruments. They themselves are the musicians and the singers. I have to say they form a very good band.

Above are some of the food.. the fried food in cups, the banana dipped in chocolate, tang yuan... These are the food we didn't try. haha..

Now these are the food we tried: pork in popiah skin, I don't know the name of it; the ice-cream with oreo; tang yuan.

There are about 50 stalls there I think, but quite a number of them have the same menu for the items sold. We tried quite some of the food, which after that regretted as they weren't so nice and worth the price. Can you guess what I was eating? BBQ chicken... But out of the 5 sticks we bought, two of them are actually the chicken SKIN! Oh my God, where got people sell/eat the chicken skin??? It's rather oily and.. yiakks!

I pity this guy in the costume.. It was a hot sunny day and he has to wear this and walks around to promote his stall.

It's nice to see the students cooking together to sell for their own stall. I have to say they almost did all they can to attract more people to buy their products. With the photos here you can see they can really sacrifice their own image to promote their stuffs. Everything they sell, they prepared them on the spot. Even though some of them seems to be putting themselves in a mess but I admire their spirits and motivations. and the main point is -- they really enjoyed themselves! Then I thought of our coffee morning back in SFX and HFK. Hmm...

I find these people very funny in their costumes.. There's even Doremon! Haha... But I wonder why these guys have to make up and wear like a lady to attract customers? By the way, in the Japanese TV programmes, often i found the weird people in the entertainment programmes.. You find the guys like to make up and act like women, but seldom find the women act like men(there are, still). Well, I'm not so used to these.

Another Window Shopping...

2007-11-02T14:31:00.000+09:00

After attending mass we went shopping at the department stores which we’ll pass by on our way back. We found another 100 yen shop --- Daiso, which is few times bigger than the one we have in YouMeTown. There are a lot to explore in there, and at least things here are more affordable for us. I like the cute little stuffs here.

I found these ‘pet’s houses’ here, or maybe I should say pet's 'beds'? haha.. I’m not sure whether we have this in Msia. But pets here are so lucky, they have such comfortable home to sleep in. Pet lovers, want one? I don't need one, as I'm going to keep hamsters, which you can't keep them in these 'beds'. ;p

You know when Christmas is near..

And Halloween...

Higashihiroshima Catholic Church

2007-11-02T11:48:00.000+09:00

28/10/07 - sun (nichiyoubi)

Today we cannot be piggies but have to be early birds to go for mass. With the help from Funato-san now we are clear of the direction to the church. She even helped us to call the church too. We are attending 9am mass and we have to depart from our place 2 hours before that.

Taking bus to Saijo JR Station then take train to Nishitakaya station, from there walk for about half hour (hilly roads again!) then finally we are here --- Higashihiroshima Catholic Church. It took us one and half hour to reach there. Not a long time, just about the time we spent to attend mass back in KL. But the transport fee is far different lor.. It cost us RM54 for transport. Next time we will cycle to the train station and not taking bus.

I have to say that the JR train is very similar with our komuter train.. Look at the photo you know I’m not telling lies. But the fare is very different then. Nishitakaya is only a station away and it’s costing you 360 yen round trip. Oh well, it’s cheaper than our bus fare.

Reaching there already a sister welcomed us. She's the one who answered the call from Funato-san. It’s not a big church, plain and simple. I believe it can accommodate about 100~150 people. The first thing that attracts my attention is the cushions on each bench. I forgot to take a picture of those cushions after mass. Next time, k. They have 5 cushions on each bench, but strictly speaking those are not cushion as it's empty inside. But the unique part is that all the cushions are made of different clothes. Either each of the parishioners made one or the church wardens made from the old rags, I don't know.

The mass, well of course everything in Japanese and we do not understand a word. And there seems to be a bit different from ours. Half way through the mass I just noticed the alter server appeared from don't know where. There's about 50 parishioners attending the mass, sitting according to the cushions arranged. I noticed this station of the cross, which i think it's quite different from our practice of hanging them around the church and theirs are hanging all on the 3 boards.

After mass there are announcements made by parishioners, and we were asked to introduce ourselves. Of course in a small community aliens are easily spotted. After the announcement there's a guy approaching us and said that there's a parishioner able to fetch us from the JR station before mass. They have this service given by the volunteers among the parishioners. So next week we do'nt need to walk to church liaw. :) Walking back to the station is not a problem as it's all the way going down hill. hehe

Experience Japanese Culture Day

2007-11-02T10:42:00.000+09:00

27/10/07 - sat (Doyoubi)

There’s this Experience Japanese Culture Day in JICA – Japan International Cooperation Agency. Again, we cycle there after studying the map. It’s actually the place Prof Okuda brought us to have buffet there.

It’s about half an hour cycling from our apartment, passing by Prof’s apartment. Strictly speaking it’s not really far. But I had a hard time going there. The way to JICA is very hilly, (or I should say everywhere is) especially when we are almost there… You can see my gloomy face pushing the bike. It’s so steep that we are not allow to cycle up there --- I wonder who can do that!

Though we were just about half an hour late, there were not so much of choices at the flea market already. Anyway we still manage to get a cap for myself (I can’t stand the sun shine every time I go out la), and a warm clothing for each of us at only 100 yen each. Of course, these are the 2nd hand stuff, otherwise it would not be so cheap.

We met Otake-san who is helping out there; she said we were late, so the good stuffs were sold out already. What to do… Pigs overslept. ;p There are stations for us to explore, all are introducing the Japanese culture, mostly their traditional games. I’m not familiar with those though, but some are quite similar with chinese tradition.

There’s this pressed flower art – Oshibana, where you can see people pasting the leaves and flowers on the cards according to their own creativity. They are really nice~ Then there are stations for origami (paper folding), Furoshiki games, bunbun games, Ken-dama (cup & ball), Koma (like the gasing we play).

Folklore game, where the blindfolded players have an outline of a face with no features on the floor in front of them. The object of the game is to place paper cutouts in the shape of the eyes, nose, and mouth on the face. Hanetsuki (shuttlecock & paddle), I like this paddle, very unique and special!

They also have station teaching you how to wrap the bento (the box lunch) with cloth, use chopsticks to pick up the beans, and some I forgot the names… didn’t jot down or take photo of all.

Suddenly there’s a performance in the centre which attracts everyone’s attention. It's Zenidaiko - Japanese Percussion Instrument. Even Otake-san also said it’s her first time to watch it. Basically it’s how they throw the sticks according to the song. And the amazing part is that all the performers are not young people but the elders. I believe the younger generation would not appreciate this traditional culture already. It's a pity that there's no kimono station here. I would love to take part in that. ;p

I wasn’t feeling well so we went back early and our plan to cycle to downtown also cancel. But I believe there will other chances to experience these cultures. Next weekend there’s another similar event coming up at the stadium in down town. But I think we are going to miss that as there’s this annual celebration in the university itself, celebrating the 56th year of the university. Funato-san told us there will be a lot of stalls with special food from each countries, and performances. We will go for it. :)

I can only do WINDOW Shopping...

2007-10-31T15:16:00.000+09:00

26/10/07

I like to do window shopping here. Well, actually most of the time you can just do window shopping here. Their technology is so advanced that everything is very high tech, sometimes you can’t even find the very common stuff we use back in Msia. Take for example, we wanted to find a broom to sweep floor. But you can only find vacuum cleaner at costly prices in super market. In the end we found the broom in 100 yen shop.

There’s this DeoDeo department store which sells all kinds of electronic stuff. From tooth brush to shaver to TV to air con or cell phone, name it and you can get it. They have all kinds of heater, with the price varies from 2000++ yen to 30,000 yen. We bought two, the cheapest one of course. But regretted later when we found 2nd hand heater at even cheaper price in the recycle mart. After all, we are using it only for this winter.

I saw this dish washer here, very interesting! Just put your plates and bowls inside and it will wash them clean, and dry them up for you, you don’t need to worry about it. Of course, it's not cheap. If i'm not mistaken one would cost you about RM1800 or RM2000 like that.

The laptops here are not cheap. Convert into RM, it also cost youRM3000 ++ and above. Same goes to camera, TV etc. Maybe the stuff in this store are all too advanced.

Then I found this automatic toilet cover, which it will automatic open up when it detects anyone approaching. When there’s nobody there, it will cover back after 6 seconds.

One thing I can’t stand about is the weather here. Though it’s noon time and the sun is shining bright, you still have to wear sweater to go outside. And if you are walking or cycling, you get hot and sweat, but the wind blowing against you is still cold. That makes me very uncomfortable. The worse part is my sweater is really keeping me warm, to the stage where when your body is warmed up, you will feel fire burning on your back!

Oh ya, the winter cloth here are far cheaper than those back in Msia. You can get a new one with less than RM100. I think this is the first time you hear me saying there's sth cheaper than what you can get in Msia. ;p

I told you before how expensive are the fruits here, right? Just look at the price in the photos here, simply multiply them with 0.03, you get the figure in RM. This big juicy apple cost you ~ RM9 for one. Wipe your eyes, ya, it's RM 9 for one!

And this tiny cup of watermelon ------- ~RM15 per cup!

Now do you think we still wanna buy?

That's not the best. Now look at this...

RM 38 for this bucket of grapes!

I fainted...

My Apartment

2007-10-31T12:45:00.001+09:00

25/10/07

Introducing to you my apartment; it costs us 50,000 yen per month to rent it, which means RM1, 500! And this doesn’t include the furniture and the bills. Thanks to Prof Okuda and his family, we need not spend too much on the furniture. But then there are still quite a lot need to buy.

We are staying at the right corner, ground floor. There’s two rooms, equal in size I think. You can have a clearer picture of how it is like with the picture and layout of the house.

If you look at the layout, you'll find that the doors are all opening outwards. The corridor is quite narrow, so when you open two doors or even three doors, the doors will be knocking together. The same goes to the toilet and washroom doors. So it's weird for me.

This is our room, that's the only room that you can go through to the balcony, and the only room attached with an air con, which also serves as the heater. All the three doors of this room are sliding doors.

We have a balcony outside our room to dry our clothes under the sun. One lucky thing is that it's always facing the sun no matter morning or afternoon. But though the sun may be shinning bright, your clothes would not dry fast as the wind is cool still. It takes a few days to have the clothes to get dry.

This is the view from my apartment. You can see that's cemetry just opposite our apartment. For Japanese, they believe that their ancestors protects them, so they are not afraid. Actually it's also a common scene here.

I don't know if every house in Japan has a bath tub. But Funato san told us that Japanese has this practice of sharing the bath tub water in a family. They will soak themselves in the warm water for about 10 minutes after taking shower. Then the person will cover the bath tub (i don't know what they call it) so that the water can keep warm for the next person to use. Otaka san told me we must take bath instead of taking shower so that your body can be stronger and warmer. oh well, unless there's really such a need, otherwise we don't wanna waste water like that.

Coming out from the bathroom that's our washing machine and sink. It's quite narrow so I couldn't take a whole picture of it.

The water bill here is very expensive, as the government treated the water for you, you can drink directly from the tab. But that is not all. You have to pay extra 50% for the water you use, meaning multiply the amount of water you use with 1.5, that is your water bill. Why 50%? The extra money is for the government to treat the wastage.

That is the toilet with it's 'clothes' on. Actually it's very common here but not for us. Ha ha... I feel sakai most of the time. You can see there's a tab above which you can wash your hands there before the water goes into the toilet for flushing.

This is what you won't see in Msia: people simply leave their things outside of the house and nobody will take it. These two toy cars outside of our apartment, owned by the little boy next door. We often meet the mother playing with the son outside of the house.

Meeting new friend

2007-10-31T11:37:00.000+09:00

24/10/07

This morning I actually took the courage to take bus alone (initially wanted to cycle but didn’t as not familiar with the way) from the university to SunSquare, in downtown, to attend the Japanese class there. Along the way to the bus station I took some pictures, these are the common scene here. The paddy fields, (you can find it everywhere, even a small piece of land they would not waste it1) the trees, (I don't know what's the fruit's name in English) flowers, and this plastic bottles which i still can't figure out the purpose of hanging them there. They look cute to me. :)

Lydia brought me to the class and left as she’s expecting a guest to visit her. The level in that class is too high for me, I hardly understand any words they said! They already can read the Japanese sentences and fill in the blank for the grammar and vocab exercise. Anyway, Lydia said I have to memorize all the Hiragana and Katakana first then I would be able to catch up. That’s tough. I hate memorizing.

Today finally I met a lonely lady in Japan. Why ‘finally’? I’ve heard many times from Father Chris about the lonely wives in Japan who walks the dog everyday and you almost can see them everywhere. but so far the first and only person I found walking the dog here is an old man nearby my apartment. maybe this is just a town yet so there are not so many of the lonely women walking dogs?

I met her at Lydia’s place -- After the two hour dummy class I went to Lydia’s place again where I was invited to join for lunch as her guest was interested to know me, and guess what, her hometown is just one hour drive from mine – Sarikei~ what a surprise to meet people coming from the same place as I do! her name is Otake san.

The whole afternoon she shared with us of her life. she worked in Sibu for few years before so she knew Sibu quite well too. I said ‘knew’ because that is over 20 years back and there’s too many changes occurred, not only in Sarikei but also Sibu. then she went to work for 7 years in KL, and there she met her husband, working in the same company. She’s a Christian who used to pray to marry a Christian man but eventually she fall in love with Japanese.

She struggled a lot after going to Japan. At that time there wasn’t so many of the foreigners in Japan, and there’s no free Japanese language class like we have now, all she knew was her husband. That was a tough time, she had to pay to learn Japanese, and travel by train to attend the class, and she has no friends. The Japanese are very polite, but they hardly open their hearts to accept other people. it’s not easy to make true friends with Japanese.

Nevertheless, she stayed here for more than 20 years, with two daughters in high school. her husband has been transferred from places to places, so she stayed in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, etc.. and now in HigashiHiroshima. only the last 2-3 months she started to join this international community club, and get to meet more people. before this all her life is about house works, children, husband, and shopping (or window shopping she said). but I didn’t dare to ask if she had or has a pet. from the conversation, I guess no.

Now that she’s so used to the life here, this is her home. Life here is much more comfortable compare to Msia. The facilities, the systems, the benefits, etc.. (I totally agree with it!) Coming back to M’sia she only feels like a guest, not a member. Her parents passed away already, and everything had changed in Msia. Yet she didn’t give up her nationality as a Malaysian. After all, this is where she was born and grew up.

She also brought me to cheap stores to buy food. When new friends bring me to new places to buy stuff, things are getting cheaper. That’s really nice of them. But it’s not easy for me to go there often, as it’s far.

Buses are really punctual here. When it’s mentioned in the time table bus is coming at 4.49pm, the bus is there. And the stations they are stopping, the price and etc are stated very clearly on their digital board. But it’s not cheap though. For me to travel to downtown cost me 540 yen, this is more than RM16. Once you get on the bus, you have to pay 150 yen already. But it’s very comfortable, fast and efficient. Again, Japan offers you good quality and good services, and you pay for them.

Living in Japan..

2007-10-31T11:15:00.000+09:00

23/10/07

We found out the location of the church here already last week but Funato san said it’s very far and it’s not easy for us to get there. As we were unsure of how to go there, we miss the mass last week. After studying the map we should be able to go to the church this Sunday by taking bus and train then walk for about half an hour. Hopefully it won’t cost a lot to go there.

I’ve not been cycling for years since primary school I guess. Now I got the chance to pick it up again. I tell you, it’s a tough task. You hardly find any road that is flat, everywhere you go the road will be steep, either going up or down hill. Going down hill is of course easy, you don’t even need to cycle. But going up hill is extremely tough. It’s much worse than walking on your feet. At certain parts where it’s too steep for me I have to come down and push my bike instead. I have to admit that cycling is making my legs (esp. my laps!) pain even more than the time before I get my bike.

Everything is very efficient and systematic here. But then there are also things that are not so efficient. We want to apply for streamyx at home, but they need to take about 3 weeks to one month’s time to have it done. While in Msia, you just need 1-3 days to do it. So it’s hard for me to online still at the moment. Though Prof said I’m welcomed at the lab to surf the internet but then it’s not so nice to go often too.

This is Alvin’s lab; I found some interesting stuff there. Japanese like plants. Normally you can see green plants or flowers outside of the houses or sometimes inside. But this little Halloween plant attracts my attention. I wonder why it needs a pot with soil as it’s not a living plant. ;) Anyway, they are not only fond of plants but also animals. See that snake with a clip on it? There are different types of birds, tigers, dogs, crocodiles, lions etc on each person’s desk. Perhaps those are the souveniors they got from trips, I don’t know. :)

The sun sets very early here, at 6 pm it’s totally dark here. And 6 am the sun is up. During winter the day time will be even shorter. The temperature was lower last week, but this week seems to be better. We don’t feel that cold.

Japanese Class

2007-10-29T15:53:00.001+09:00

22/10/07 - Mon

Today Funato san brought us to a recycle mart and finally I get myself a 2nd hand bicycle which cost around RM150. There’s no worry of buying 2nd hand things in Japan. They will examine properly and fix the stuff before they re-sell it again. So I’m going to get my bike tomorrow morning as they will only send it by then.

We bought a 2nd hand TV at the same price with my bike. The TV box we bought is not compatible with the port here, and we kept on having problems with watching DVD. Otherwise we’ll have no entertainment at home lo. We saw a whole shelf of the porn movies at the recycle shop. I think that’s funny. They don’t sell other tapes but just the porn.

We went to attend the Japanese language class at International House in the university at night. It’s on the other side of the uni so we took about 30 minutes walking there. Half way walking there’s two guys came forward asking us about the direction to the International House. So coincidentally they are also going for the Japanese class. Their name is Jim and Greg. :) coming from L.A., they are working in a company in downtown. Americans are very out-going and daring people. They adapt themselves easily everywhere.

The class started at an unexpected way. The instructor (who actually can’t speak English) asked us to make a big circle and started by throwing a snoopy doll to one of us saying ‘konbanwa’ (good evening). So we gotta keep the ball rolling by saying ‘konbanwa’ if the doll is on our hands. Then she start the 2nd round by introducing herself, and so do we. Then the 3rd round is where we are from, so on.

The girl standing on the right is our instructor. A very cute and pretty girl. The others who are standing behind us are helpers, but they hardly express anything.

I found it kinda weird as they didn’t explain to us the meaning, it’s the students besides us explaining to us. Some of the students, like Jim & Greg, they have been here for few weeks so they know more than us. When there are students who don’t understand what is going on, the instructor have difficulty to explain, the other students will explain. This is very awkward to me.

On the right that's Jim, on the left that's Greg. they picked two person each round to act on the conversation they created. It's funny when you see a guy wearing an apron which is obviously too small for him. ;D

They didn’t start by teaching us the Hiragana or Katakana, but they are helping us to be able to communicate in Japanese. Nevertheless, they do put in efforts to teach us, with pictures, and the items they prepared, and even acting, we do learnt sth. They make sure every students speak. Japanese used a lot of foreign words, especially Chinese and English, modified into their own pronunciations. And I find Japanese put in a lot of words in their sentences, making the sentences very long. That’s why you find them talking a lot while we can actually conclude in few sentences only.

Raya Open House in Hiroshima

2007-10-29T15:04:00.000+09:00

21/10/07

We went to a Muslim’s apartment in SunSquare as they are having the Raya open house today. A Chinese from UTM, Kho brought us there. SunSquare is at the downtown of Higashihiroshima, the apartment where Miss Funato wanted to book for us initially. It’s quite far from the university but convenient to go to the shops nearby, and it’s near to bus terminal, railway station. quite a number of foreign students, especially the Malaysians are staying there. we met quite a number or Malays there. Kho said there’s about 40-50 Malays from M’sia stay there.

The Muslim’s house we are going to is actually a Chinese lady called Jasmine, who can speak Chinese. I think she is a marriage convert. Her family is not here, she is here for her PhD. There are also some foreigners and Japanese visiting them for the open house. We enjoyed the nasi lemak with super spicy sambal, fried mihun, curry, super delicious popiah which I took a lot, cake, nice drinks which i don't know the name.

After eating we went over to Kho’s apartment which is just a few doors away. His 4 month old baby girl is really a cute one! and I have to say that she's growing like a 1~2 years old baby's size. They shared with us quite some of their experiences as they have been staying here for 2 years already. By the way, Kho is also doing his PhD here, his wife Lydia followed him here.

Their apartment is quite small compare to ours; the one we are staying in now is twice the size of theirs. but I think that’s good enough already, as our apartment is a bit too big for us, and the bigger the house is, the more energy you need to heat up the place. I actually imagined a very very small apartment, where you may even need to store your mattress in cupboard after you wake up so that you can have space to walk and do works. But instead it’s much bigger than what I thought. Maybe the place we stay is not so developed so you can have more space in the house.

Lydia told us that the tour in Japan itself is so expensive that even the Japanese themselves can’t really afford it. That makes us wonder if we can have a look around in Japan before we go back... but the good news is we might have a free autumn trip on 11/11 which is organized for the international students. I’m looking forward to that. :)

Kho then brought us to few places to buy cheap stuff. It’s cheaper compare to the stuff we bought in YouMeTown so we bought a lot of stuff. We were over thrilled to find a packet of about 10 garlic only cost around 200 yen. Rice is also much cheaper so we bought another 10kg of rice at 2980 yen. :)

After we reached home Prof Okuda came to send us his bicycle. He has an extra one back in Hiroshima City and he purposely went back to bring it here for us. I have to say we are really blessed to have these people that brought us to many places and helped us in many ways. Though we didn’t manage to attend mass today, but He still looked after us so well.

first meal..

2007-10-29T14:28:00.000+09:00

20/10/07
it’s getting colder and colder everyday… when it’s cold people tends to sleep a lot… or maybe that just apply to the two pigs here. =p

today we just have our meals at home, simple and nice. but a bit failed… we finished cooking, excited to eat, only to find out that the rice is not cooked! we can’t read the Japanese words, we actually set the rice to be cooked only after 6 hours~ after dealing with the cute little rice cooker for about half an hour, we decided to cook the rice on stove for this time. I look at the food getting cold, feel like a puppy waiting for owner to feed. huhuhu… We used heater to keep the food warm, but actually it didn't help much. It was indeed a nice meal as the food itself is already nice, unlike M’sian food, too much of the preservations.

After asking the others only then we know that the rice cooker here takes like 40 minutes or more to cook. It put a big question mark in my mind as I thought Japanese are very efficient and want everything to be fast?

do you think the 4 season fruits like grapes, apples etc are cheap here? no! a little bit of the grapes cost you 798 yen or ~RM24! in the end we bought some banana at about RM6. that’s funny. but it's not cheap as well.. one banana also costs you like ~RM1.

today we decided to put heater outside of our bathroom so that it can welcome us with ‘warm air’ after we take bath, otherwise its freezing cold after coming out from the bathroom. we bought some stuff from the 100 yen shop, one of them is the cloth to cover the toilet pad, so that it’s not so cold when you want to do business in toilet. :) it’s very cute!

wanna add on to the hygienic of the Japanese. In YouMeTown, the public toilet have this piece of paper that you can place on the toilet bowl when you use it. then flush away just like that after you use. it’s again sth new to me!

Welcoming Party

2007-10-29T11:38:00.000+09:00

19/10/07

Here you can find quite some nice and pretty little flowers along the way. the leaves are also special and very nice to me, and you can notice the colours are starting to change already. I'll put some more photos here later. :)

Prof told us that Japan had a very long and hot summer this year, which it’s up to 40oC! The weather is changing due to the global warming effect. the autumn this year is about 2-3 weeks late, so everything pushes backward. then I wonder if we can watch the sakura and cherry blossoms before we leave Japan or not.

Tonight we had a welcoming party at Prof Okuda’s apartment, which is about 20minutes walking distance from the lab. They already put it on the notice board in lab. We walked there with one associate professor, and another guy in the lab. Together in the party are Alvin's lab mates.

It’s a really enjoyable night, we had the BBQ using electronic BBQ hot plate. One of the guys brought a huge box of meat, which we finish not even half of it I think. we have quite a few types of beef, and some ‘weird’ parts of the animals, e.g. beef tongue (Prof Okuda said it’s very expensive stuff), intestines, (thanks kim!) chicken neck. When we look at the price, my chin wanna drop to the ground already... that's few hundreds ringgit there!

This is the first unhealthy meal we had in Japan.. Though it started off with only a small piece of butter, but then most of the meat is full of fat, making everything also becomes oily.

You see that round pieces of meat? That's the beef tongue, nothing much special, just that i think it's a bit hard to bite.

Then the long pieces ones are the chicken's neck without the bones. I think that's very fat and... The thought of it's a chicken's neck makes me feel a bit disgusting. But still acceptable lar.

This is Prof Okuda. I think he's handsome. :)

There’s also quite some vege, mushrooms, but after barbequing them, everything is oily. They also have this sweet potato rice, and pumpkin salad, which is very nice.

Japanese really drink lots of wine. Prof Okuda gave us tried two types of rice wine (sake), sparkling wine, beer and red wine. But too bad, I really don’t enjoy those.

I had a nice girls’ talk with the 3 girls who are also Prof Okuda’s postgraduate students, from left is Yamasaki Nozomi (she's very particular about 'Nozomi' ;p), Yuko and Hatae. It’s hard to remember their name, so I record in my hp. There are 3 guys + a professor associate, who left earlier, I didn’t talk much with them though. the 3 girls actually are only 22 or 23 years old. We have difficulties in communication, as they often take few minutes to express in English and I take time to understand what they are trying to say also. but they are very nice and funny, I like them :)

We took a 35-40minutes walk back to our apartment from Prof’s place, it’s really freezing cold! And who say we will lose weight here? I don’t think so!

Settling Down

2007-10-25T16:54:00.000+09:00

18/10/07 - thur

we had our first breakfast at home, a simple but nice one. just the roasted bread, with some majerine on it and a cup of oat. I can tell you, food here is much better than what we have in M’sia. even the cheapest bread and majerine. of course, you pay more.

We bought our cell phones, taking the prepaid line here as the postpaid line will require you to sign a 2 years contract and it’s not cheap. The prepaid phone is cheap, only around RM150 for the phone alone (it comes with the cell phone number in the phone) and you just need to reload it every 2 months with 3000 yen. Then why people still go for the postpaid cell phones?
- You have plenty and plenty of choices for the cell phones while prepaid phones only have 3 choices. --- by the way, we chose a flip phone. :)
- The postpaid phones are those good ones with camera etc. prepaid, none.
- You can access internet with postpaid cell phone, not the prepaid phone.

There should be lots of other reasons but that’s what I understand only.

Today we were left to settle the rest of the things ourselves after buying the cell phone, so we started to walk quite a lot, which at the end of the day, my legs pain. huhuhu… walking to the YouMeTown takes about 25-30minutes I think. we went quite a few places then.

We found a few Mac D here, seems to be more popular than KFC, but the price is at least a double of those we can get back in M’sia. Cost you about RM30 for a set meal. But they have pork burger~ that’s what we never find in M’sia. Maybe we should try once before going back. :)

Prof Okuda brought us to a buffet dinner tonight, where the food here is Halal and quite similar to Malaysian food. it’s nice, and the point here is, it’s cheap! normally if this kind of buffet in M’sia sure cost you RM20 and above or even more, and this one, it’s 700 yen per person, which is about RM21, we consider it as very cheap. It’s buffet you know~ we had lunch of at least 1000 yen and now u can get a buffet dinner at 700 only. But then, there’s only a few choices and they don’t seems to refill the food. I wanted to have more cakes but there’s no more.

I'm In Japan!

2007-10-25T16:26:00.000+09:00

17/10/07 - wed
sunny day in Japan

It is already 6.15am (Msia time) in the morning when we arrived in Kansai airport. Japan’s time is one hour earlier so we actually lose one hour when we travel from M’sia to Japan. Local time 7sth we manage to get ourselves in the airport, which is a real long one, at seaside. We just follow the crowd, and then tried to communicate with the locals in English in which they try their very best to response in their super broken English. But the Japanese are really polite and helpful people, and the signboards here are very clear. Thank God we can read the Kanji (Chinese characters) so there’s no problem for us to take the JR train from Kansai Airport to ShinKanShen, which took slightly more then one hour. After resting for a short while, we proceed to take bullet train (shinkanshen) to HigashiHiroshima. It actually means the east of Hiroshima, so we are not in the city but a town on its east.

Japan is really clean, comparing to Msia. We hardly see any rubbish thrown on the street or anywhere. The government put in a lot of effort to make the country clean and tidy. The train system is really good! Fast, safe and comfortable. I like to watch the captains of each container, they are really smart! I told myself I must take a photo with one of them before I leave this place. Didn’t dare to do anything funny when I know not a word of Japanese.

The most amazing part is when we are waiting for the train, the first one to queue up is not the passengers, but the cleaners, at each entries. they’ll immediately clean up the train blocks once the train stopped. but of course, it doesn’t happen at every station but only at the last station. And it shocked me when I saw the chairs in the train turning in 180o! Their technology is far more advance than us; the chairs would just turn another side when the train stopped at the last station so that passengers would be comfortable. Everyone dress up so smartly in their uniform even if they are just the cleaners.

We reached HigashiHiroshima station at 12.40pm, already tired and hungry, dragging the over 60kg luggage (including backpacks). Alvin’s co-supervisor, Prof Okuda was in Tokyo for meeting, so his assistant, Miss Funato came to pick us up. together with her is Prof Okuda’s father, who can’t speak in English. they came in two cars, just in case we have too many luggages. :p

Arriving at the apartment we rent, which is near to the Hiroshima University, its far better than imagined.. two rooms, a kitchen cum living room, a store room, bathroom and toilet. it looks very new, and in fact it’s 1-2 years old only. after sometime only we get to know that the 2 months deposit we paid is for them to fix everything in the house and make it looks just exactly the same as before we moved in. if there’s any money left over they will return to us. But I’m not sure about that in our case. So that’s why you’ll find the apartments just like a new one.

We received few boxes of stuffs from Prof Okuda in the house, the comforters, some towels, kitchen utensils, bowls, cups etc, even toasters and rice cookers, fridge and washing machine! it saves us lots of money there. we are really grateful for that.

we settled the contract of the apartment, gas company coming to install the gas, took quite a long time before we could finally go for our lunch at 2.30pm. I tried the pork rice and Alvin tried the chicken with cheese inside, it’s delicious and obviously much healthier than food in M’sia. All the food are at least RM30-RM60. Prof Okuda’s dad treats us for the meal, though we can’t even talk much. Miss Funato has been our translator all the time.

They served us a special type of bowl with sesame, where we smash them into powder, then we add in either sweet sauce or the spicy sauce which is not spicy at all. It serves as sauce for our meat, rice etc. It really taste good! And they have this sauce which contains sesame also, and the orange sauce, I don’t know their names, you add them to the cabbages, it’s really yummy~

We get to go to a supermarket nearby, called YouMeTown to buy some stuff for ourselves, and get to meet Funato’s youngest son who is 2-half years old, same age as my niece Leanne. very talkative and easy going, even let me carry him though I know nothing of what he’s talking about.

Foods are costly, especially rice & fruits. we bought 5kg rice at over 1880 yen, which means around RM56.40. and that’s the cheapest we saw. and, imagine garlic, one or two only, cost you 248 yen, which means around RM7! that’s crazy.

Japanese take dinner early, 6pm we were brought out by Prof Okuda’s 3 students for dinner at a cafeteria in the university. meals there are much cheaper then. You can get your food as cheap as RM7 sth or less than RM15. You have to say it’s cheap cos there’s no meal can cost you less than RM5. Alvin chose curry rice, but it literally just the curry sauce and rice only. So that is the first time and the last time. :p I had ramen, which is much better then the one in M’sia.

We spent the night unpacking and put everything in place. It’s quite warm at day time, especially when you are under the sun, though the wind is cool. But at night, the temperature drops. To save electricity, we didn’t switch on the air-con. And we wore shorts and t-shirts, covering ourselves with comforters. waking up this morning we made decision to wear long pants and sweater even in the house.

I'm Flying...

2007-10-25T16:05:00.000+09:00

16/10/07 - Tue

raining in Johor

The flight from Johor to kl was at 6.45pm on 16th Oct, and it took 45minutes, but I think they spent at least 10minutes on the airport way. It wasn’t really a pleasant flight as I think the pilot is not so well trained, the plane is not very stable. We’ve started to hear the passengers taking the same flight speaking in Japanese. I never knew there’s so many Japanese staying in Johor?

This is the machine for immigrasen clearance. Malaysian use this for express immigrasen clearance. you just need to put your passport there, the screen will show your photo and your details. then place your thumb there for the thumb print check. It's my first time, so I was kinda excited!

We were in Boeing 777 200 to Japan. Or to be specific, our destination is Kansai Airport, Osaka. It’s good that we had taken our dinner at Mac D in KLIA as only a hard bun was served as supper on the plane. Anyway it’s a tiring day and I’m not feeling well, I wanted to sleep so much. It’s already over 1am after they finished bugging us with announcements and services.

Of course sleeping on plane is never as comfortable as sleeping on bed at home... we woke up at 4sth, even earlier than the time I woke up on my wedding day. I had my earliest breakfast ever, which is at around 4.20am.

I once thought the food on international flight would be much better, but I got to prove that I was wrong. I chose omelet, but didn’t have good appetite to finish my breakfast. Not enough sleep + the flight wasn’t very stable making me dizzy and feeling like throwing out.

As we were approaching Japan, the sun rise. we were seated on the west wing so couldn't enjoy the sun rise. you can see the tiny spots on the window? it's just like snow, the frozen water drops cause by the low temperature outside of the plane. the temperature went down to below 0 degree celcius.

It’s a waste that I really don’t like wine since it’s free on MAS international flight. Alvin did take a cup to white wine, and it taste nasty to me still.