It's A Wet Day - A Stroll In Yufuin

Yufuin - a town famous as one of the best of hot-spring resorts in Japan. For the hot-spring we went, early December last year.

As luck would have it, it rained the whole day on the second day we were there. Just like what happened at Bessho Onsen in 2010. We wanted to go sightseeing around the onsen resort town but heavy rain thwarted our plan. Two hot-spring resorts, two years in a row!

Good thing the rain was reduced into a drizzle and we just make do with a stroll around the town area, walking from our hotel towards Yufuin Station.

I was tempted to buy one of those colourful umbrellas, but it'll be hard to lug a souvenir umbrella around! Our cheap transparent umbrella was enough to keep us dry from the rain anyway. ^^

Notice what the woman was looking at? It's a place where a certain feline is worshiped. ;)

Pirates!

Who would travel all the way to Sasebo City in Kyushu just to get onboard a pirate ship? We would! It's a birthday present. Raimie's 9th birthday present to be exact. We didn't plan to make a return visit to Huis Ten Bosch; which is where you can find this ship - the Thousand Sunny but saw an ad of the theme park with One Piece attraction prominently displayed when we went to HIS Travel to buy our JR Pass before our trip in Nov-Dec of last year.

Raimie asked us whether he could get a trip to see the ship and all the One Piece characters as his birthday present instead of us going to Ultramanland and we obliged. Can't say no, when he asked ever so nicely, can I? ^^

We met Chopper and of course who can resist a hug with Chopper?

or Luffy?

Scary Kuma

Trafalgar and Captain Kid

Sanji

Usopp!

 Daddy and his "girlfriend" Nami

Brook (sure sounds like my running shoe brand. heh heh)

And lastly Franky

It was a really nice birthday present for any One Piece fan, going to Huis Ten Bosch, got onboard the Thousand Sunny ship and take photos with the characters (statues, but hey! Whose complaining?), don't you think? ^^

On a totally unrelated connection to pirates -

 Is this the same "mother-child" statues as the one is your post, Rurousha? The angle of your photos made me thought it wasn't at first.

I love how serene the mother looks like and how adoringly the older child look up to his/her mom and the little one was happily and blissfully sleeping. :)

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

The Kissing Camels which is the signature image of the Garden of the Gods.

The park is amazing because the surrounding area is high prairie (above 6000' above sea level)  - grasses, scrub bushes and some trees.  And then all of a sudden there are these rock outcroppings

The entrance with Pikes Peak looming behind it

Looking to the south.  There are lots of hiking trails and horse stables, a trading post (founded in 1900), and all roads have bicycle lanes.

Balancing rock that can be climbed on. 

There is alot of history here too.  This monument commemorates the Plains Indians using the trail to Ute Pass.

The rocks and soil are all different colors.  Most are red and then here is this gray / whitish one.  The colors also change with the time of the day.

Designated as one of Top 10 Great Public Spaces!!!

Olympic Training Complex Colorado Springs CO

Ice Skater at the entrance with Pikes Peak in the background.

Denver brags that it is the mile high city, but Colorado Springs is about 1000 feet above sea level higher.  The air is thinner and the lungs have to work harder,  That is why the training center is here for many of the Olympic Sports.  Athletes who train / live here have better lung capacity and able to have better endurance.  It is also fairly dry - no humidity which makes the weather ideal almost all year long.  

The training center is centrally located in the middle of Colorado Springs

Right in the front yard is the countdown clock to the summer and winter Olympics.  We were there at 2:10 MDT 3/14/12.  

Near the front door is this sculpture.

 

 

The 3 men holding up the Earth depicts Strength of Mind, Body and Spirit.

Scattered around the grounds are depictions of all the Olympic sports.

Gene is going to push that Luge to get it started.  LOL

Just waiting for the flame on top of the building.

I puff up with pride every time we drive past this wall.

In Search Of The Famed Yatai

One rainy night in Fukuoka, we decided that it'd be cool to walk around and look for the famed yatai there. Anyway, I am Asian (and a Malaysian). Street food is quite normal for me to enjoy, and at all hours of the day. Come over to my part of the world, and there are plenty of options for street food here.

A yatai (屋台) literally means shop stand. Yatais are also set-up temporarily during matsuris (festivals) and for me, the long lines of the yatais is a sight to see.

Not really knowing the exact place we should head to looking for them that night but I read somewhere that the stalls are set up mainly around Hakata Station, Nagahama, Tenjin and Nakasu.

Night photos in Fukuoka.

Not really sure where to head to, we took the subway from Hakata Station to Tenjin and started our walk from there. It was already raining that time, but we thought we could brave the bad weather since we were already out and about.

Typical dishes served and sold at these stalls are yakitori, oden, ramen. I guess this is where you go to if you want to try Hakata Ramen? Hakata ramen - thin egg noodles in pork based soup is Fukuoka's pride but I'll give them a pass. Can't eat pork, remember?

Anyways, a yatai usually seats around 7-8 customers and such create a place that is great to strike a conversation with the person next to you. That's what I'm told. I wouldn't know myself, being such an unfriendly git. xD

The crowd was noticeably not "up" when we were there, the weather must've made them went to somewhere more rain-friendly. I wish I had taken more photos that night, but gotta be careful of my camera too, in that drizzling weather.

That and the fact that the stall-helpers (staff/owners?) that were hustling for customers look kinda "intimidating" so I felt kinda uncomfortable pointing my camera lens everywhere. Paranoid, much? I guess so.

OLA: Skydiving with Friends from Slovenia

a daredevil exhibition jump at Skydive City in Zephrhills, Florida

Vicariously, that is!

Jure and Katarina at the ProShop in Skydive City, Zephyrhills, Florida

We have become great friends with many couples, seniors like us, whom we met in various campgrounds across the country. But it is a young couple from Slovenia whom we met in Palawan, Philippines last year (please see http://rvcruisinglifestyle.blogspot.com/2011/04/ola-marveling-at-palawans-beauty-part-2_06.html) and with whom we went to Banaue and Sagada (please see http://rvcruisinglifestyle.blogspot.com/2011/04/breathing-cool-philippine-mountain-air.html) who have become our best ‘couple’ friend! Jure, 33 and newspaper sales executive, and Katarina, 26 andl bar owner, might as well be our children but they are now our best travel friends! It certainly ‘isn’t about age…it is about lifestyle’!

the Slovenian dinner at our RV, courtesy of the couple

They arrived February 27 from Slovenia to spend a few days with us, before meeting their Slovenian friends at Sky Dive City in Zephyrhills, Florida. Bill and I had disembarked from the Majesty of the Seas at 9 am and proceeded to our hotel and got lucky. We were able to check in at 10 and rested before we drove to the Miami International Airport to pick them up. We quickly brought their luggage to the hotel then proceeded for dinner at one of South Beach’s hugely popular sidewalk cafes.

the couple at South Beach, Florida

The following day we took the long route to Lake Magic, our Orlando RV Resort, driving along A1A, the scenic coastal byway through the 350-mile long Miami and Fort Lauderdale beaches.  This is Katarina’s first trip to the US and she was really wowed by the seemingly unending white sands, the mansions of the rich and famous, and the miles and miles of wide multi-lane highways. Their eyes further widened when they saw our RV is (Europe has small RVs for its narrow roads) as we took it from storage. 

   

the couple on Merritt Island

four travelers on the road

Jure and Katarina thoroughly enjoyed the non-commercial aspects of America: going through Walmart shelves, cooking at the RV, participating at the Pot Roast Dinner at the clubhouse, buying oranges and strawberries from the roadside farmers, buying hot dogs from a sidewalk kiosk, etc. But they also enjoyed our day trip to Titusville, taking pictures of alligators, birds, turtles, manatees, and racoons at Merritt Island, Kennedy Space Center’s Wildlife Refuge Center (where they demonstrate that technology and nature can co-exist). 

one of the alligators Jure found

Skydive City entrance

But soon they had to leave for their sky diving adventure. Jure has had 170+ and Katarina 70+ jumps. Bill would have joined them had he not had arthroscopic surgery on his knees last August and a heart attack last December! Very curious, we visited them one afternoon at Sky Dive City, less than an hour away from Orlando, annexed to the Zephyrhills Municipal Airport.  We also observed their practice sessions at iFly Orlando, a wind tunnel for indoor skydiving.

Nylon City and its canopy compression engineers packing parachute systems back for next jumsp

handsome Jure preparing for flight

Sky Dive City is Florida’s best known Drop Zone with about 80,000 jumps a year. It is a virtual little city with 14 acres of property and lots of free tent camping and partial and full-hookup RV parking slots. Sky divers from all over the world meet here. Besides the runways for the different planes that airlift the divers to their desired heights (Sky Vans or Otters) and wide fields and a Swoop Pond for safe landing, there is the Sunshine Factory Pro-Shop, Nylon City, a tent for canopy compression engineers, an outdoor Tiki Bar and indoor Recreation center, plenty of bathhouses, and a Hard Dock Cafe. We had great fun photographing Jure’s jumps while Bill was trying to learn the tricks of the trade from him!

Katarina in practice flight

We also took a hundred pictures of Katarina practicing her maneuvers at iFly Orlando, a wind tunnel that moves air up in a vertical column, creating a great indoor skydiving experience.  The facility uses superior technology with multiple fans located at the top of the flight chamber producing a wall-to-wall airflow that is fun to fly in. Combined with experienced professional instructors, the air flow is totally controllable, so flyers do not need any previous experience! It's the closest possible thing to true human flight, in full view of family and friends at the observation deck.

iFly Orlando, indoor skydiving

Jure among the clouds

back on the ground as new ones board

We are so glad we were given the opportunity to experience skydiving vicariously through our young travel friends.  True, ‘it is not about age, it is about lifestyle’ but there are a few interests that I do not share…being less adventurous!  But Bill is getting his mind ready for this!