Autumn Reminiscence - Nara

at Nara

the fragrance of chrysanthemums

ancient Buddhas 

                                                  Matsuo Basho

Guardian Kings
Temples and ancient sites
Historic treasures
 Shinto's messengers of God
(no, this is not a haiku- just me lazy to write full sentences) ^^

 

 

 

 

 

When you such beauty before you, no words are needed. And no mere words can justify it, not to mention amateurish attempt at capturing the beauty. ^^!

Previous autumn reminiscencets can be found here:
Autumn Reminiscence - Lake Kinrinko
Autumn Reminiscence - Shikoku Mura

Sixmats, you mentioned you are planning to head over to Mount Fuji again. Care to try the Ultra-Trail Mount Fuji event on May 18th? ^^

2011 Trip Recap, Part II

Still not too late to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR, right? あけましておめでとうございます again! :)

A continuation from my earlier post, recapping our trip to Japan made a few weeks ago in Dec 2011.

From Takamatsu in Shikoku, we made our way to Honshu Island on Day 8. Visited Nara for a few hours, stopped at Kyoto Station for a while, walked around Namba before finally calling it a day by boarding a sleeping train from Osaka to Tokyo. A pretty productive day, if I say so myself. ^^

Arrived Tokyo on Day 9 at 7.00am and proceeded on with more train journeys, all the way to Hakodate and view & touch some snow. Not to mention eating some awesome seafood there.

Stood in awe in front of the Kamakura Daibutsu on Day 10. It was raining the whole day we were there so had to re-adjust our plan but that's OK. There's always next time, right? ^^

Day 11 was spent with our most gracious host that day, Minor and his wife. It didn't rain that day, but it was COLD! Brrrr....

Day 12 was a sunny day, lucky for us. We took a stroll by the Sumida River, walking from our hotel in Senzoku and pretty soon found ourselves in Kinshicho.

 Went to Ogawamachi on Day 13 for a spot of shopping

On Day 14, we started our day at Kappabashi. Then, we made our way to Ueno and visited Yanaka Cemetery and stumbled into a few more interesting sites along the way. We eventually stopped to rest at Nippori before making our way back to Ueno.

The last day of our 2011 trip saw us visiting Yokohama again. No concrete plans of going sight-seeing anywhere so we just meander around the area before finally making our way to Haneda Airport and boarded our AirAsia X flight.

A totally awesome trip. We got to see the sights we wanted and more. A few we didn't make it but we are not totally bummed over it. As I see it, that's an excuse to make a return visit, if we need any. xD

2,000KM In 24 Hours!

The beauty of JR Pass, allowing us to travel at almost obscene mileage to god knows where in Japan without worrying about any extra cost and we can pretty much plan our trip on a whim.

We scrapped plans to visit the neighbouring island near Takamatsu. Decided not to go to Obokke Kobokke and Kochi either. And with skipping those places; we covered almost 2,000km instead, but to where? Stay tuned until the end of this post!

I started the day by doing a short run, this time along the Tamamo-Koen instead of the port area. Anyway, Tamamo-Koen is just beside the port but the good thing about running near the park was that it's less windy (read: less cold). I actually woke up earlier and had the intention to do a 10K run that morning, but the blister on my left heel started to bother me a bit so I cut short the run to just a 6K instead. :(

From Takamatsu, we took the train to Okayama Station then onwards to Shin-Osaka but not before buying ekiben at Okayama Station. Raimie insisted on having an anago ekiben, one of the more expensive ekiben sold at the stall. *clever boy*

Then, we made our way to Nara. Patted some deers, stepped on a lot of deer poop, looked at temples and gazed in awe at the autumn colours there.

Plenty of school kids on field trip to Nara that day. Not to mention a lot of foreign tourists along with Japanese tourists.

After Nara, we made a stop at Kyoto Station; walked out a few minutes from the station and decided to it was too cold to venture any further and look for Kyoto illumination; so we just stay put in the warm departmental store until it's time to make a move to Osaka.

Spent a little bit of time walking around Dotonbori and Shinsaibashi area; which by the way is very much alive even late in the evening. For info, this photo was taken at 11.00pm at night. *^^*

With a big nose like that, who can resist, eh? xD

Enjoyed a cuppa (or two) of free coffee at McDonald's using coupons that were handed out earlier. Well, free coffee for those ordering small sized coffee, 50yen for medium sized. Can't say no to that, right?

Took a 11.23pm (if I'm not mistaken) train from JR Namba Station to Osaka Station and waited for a train that was arriving at 12.34am.Of course at 12.30am, the train station were already deserted except for the train station staff and paasengers boarding the midnight train.

and with taking the midnight train, we spent the night in this train cubicle and slept on a mat type sleeping section in the train and screwed our hotel reservation at Shin-Osaka. But now, spending almost 1,000km in 12 hours; where we were actually heading to? It's only half of the total journey that we made when we reach to the last stop of this midnight train. Any guesses? ^^

Walking in Osaka, At The Park

You don't think I am finished yet with my useless photos of Osaka, do you? Bwahaha! More wandering around Osaka, and this time it's to the park. Osaka-jo koen to be exact. Translation : Osaka Castle Park.

But first, let me show you the Shin-Osaka Station.

The very boxy and dinky looking (compared to other stations around Japan, in my opinion) Shin-Osaka Station. Our hotel was near to this station.Walking from the station to our hotel, I had the same feeling as going to Puduraya bus station. Ah... it's been awhile since I last inhaled that much smoke fumes from vehicles.

But there are nice things to see there too, like this taxi driver feeding some pigeons while waiting in a queue for passengers.

Not exactly walking, but saw plenty of these view on the train before we started off walking to some places we didn't intend to go in the first place!

I really wanted to capture all those awesome red bridges we passed by in Japan while taking the train, but have yet to get a good photo of them. :(

In front of the Osakajokoen station. Nice orange jumpsuit, eh?

There was a concert going on at the Osakajo Hall with some band playing so plenty of fans milling about, looking very excited. We did in fact became curious (not to mention very "kay-poh') and went around the back of the hall to check out what the fuss was all about. Saw plenty of crews, a lot of vehicles for the equipments but alas, no stars. :(

A road train in service at the park.

I wish I had taken some photos of the many, many cats (fat ones too!) at the park- at the entrance of the Osaka-jo (Osaka Castle) actually. Somebody must've been feeding the cats well there. I wonder whether  those cats are still there, as this particular visit was yonks ago. :D

Despite the chill; it was spring - a nice ice-cream break after a visit to the castle. Can't go wrong with ice cream! :)

Kobe, The Port City

Admittedly we have yet to explore much of Kobe yet, as the only stop we made there was to look at one of the filming site of Ultraman Mebius' 2006  movie titled Ultraman Mebius & Ultra Brothers (ウルトラマンメビウス&ウルトラ兄弟).

So what exactly did we do in Kobe other than going to the Waterfront? Let Mommy go in and out shops looking for clothes, that's what. I still have a pair of pants that I love dearly, bought at Uniqlo Kobe in my wardrobe.

A point of interest for Muslims - the first mosque built in Japan is in Kobe. Hajjah Halela's daughter got married at the Kobe Mosque on March 19, 2011. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing and linking up that post here. A Z Haida, who used to stay in Tokyo while doing her PhD visited Kobe Mosque way back in 2008, the same year we visited Kobe. ^^

What about Kobe beef, you ask? Eerrr... Kobe beef  isn't exactly high on our list of things to eat.

Osaka Walking - More Walking, Folks!

I really don't have anything insightful to add in my Osaka post. We had fun just wandering around. Who wouldn't, when one is in Osaka? It is a fun city!

Say hello to Glico Man.

 And got chummy with this clown. You guys knew this fella, right? ^^

Got fixated with this God, moving his jaw up and down at certain time during the day. People were actually video taping it!

What's the fascination with the Statue of Liberty?

Stumbled upon a Yakult lady, selling Yakult on a bicycle.No one is too tough to drink Yakult! XD

Dotonbori, away from the maddening crowd and Raimie in his male model mode.

Had some nice lunch and the boys enjoyed their bowls of udon a lot!

and at the end of each day in Osaka, a stop at Aeon was a must. It sure was fun running around in this supermarket.

We won't have much time to travel around Osaka during our next trip, but I told Zaini that since I have a lot of day shots of the place from earlier trips, we should visit this area at night next. I'd like that, but we'll see how it goes. *^^*