Happy V Day 2014

Hope you guys have a wonderful V Day with your friends and love ones 

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Irritating flight passenger VS a guy with balls lol

Some thing you just gotta share~!!
http://storify.com/EliLanger/this-man-is-hilariously-live-tweeting-his-flight-n

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15 Days Central Japan Spring Trip 2013 Day6 (Kyoto

What's in Kyoto?

Temples, temples and more temples...

Day 6

11+am

Based on sakura report in previous post, we decided to include Ninna-Ji temple (仁和寺）as part of our itinerary.

Made our way to Ninna-Ji (仁和寺）. The temple was founded in 888, but due to wars through out the years, none of foundation from the 9th survived. The oldest buildings such as the 5 storied pagoda are dated back in Edo period in early 1600s. 

Ninna-Ji is also famous for their late blooming cherry trees called Omuro Cherries.

Yessssss~~~!!!! Lucky us : D

Am totally glad that we made a special trip there for the sakura :)

Here are some photos: 

 

The place was simply gorgeous :D

Rows and rows of sakura trees~ 

And some of the different colours sakura as well

Green sakura waiting for its time to flourish 

2pm++

Next stop we head down to Ryoan-Ji (龍安寺) which is about 5mins bus ride down the road

Ryoan-Ji (龍安寺) originally an aristocrat's villa, was later converted into a zen temple in 1450 that site the most famous rock garden in japan.

An interesting feature of the 15 rocks garden's design is that, there will be at least one of the rocks hidden from the viewer from any vantage point.

Here are some photos:

Waiting for Sakura Rain

Miniature display of the rock garden with the full view of all the rocks positions

4pm++

As most temples closes around 5-6pm, we head out to our last temple stop for the day - Ginkaku Jin 

Yessss all that "Gim Gim" (golden) goodness that one could imagine~ looks extremely beautiful under the evening sun

We practically rush through Ginkaku Jin as the PA system kept announcing that they were closing.

5pm++

Took a bus to Gion area.

This place is just beautiful ~ with lots of preserved buildings and shop houses. You might also spot tourists wearing kimono, etc.. ~ as it just seems so natural for anyone to wear it and not feel out of place :D

Probably a note to self to rent a kimono if I ever have the chance to go Japan again :)

By this time, we were quite hungry and decided to grab some food from this happening Okunomiyaki restaurant

Verdict:

They only have one item on their menu.. So it is pretty simple to order.. Lol

Both the ambience and food were quite good, not to mention their pricing were reasonable too :))

6pm++

Walked along Gion shopping district...

Why does this looks so familiar?

My long lost twins?

Spotted Gion temple along the way and decided to have a look as it seems to be holding a festival..

To my surprise, it was actually a night cherry blossom viewing festival~!! Nice

Of coz~ my attention soon turned towards those appetizing food sold there lol...

Verdict: 

The fish was really some worth trying :D 

Despite being to a couple of festivals, this was probably the only place I saw selling it.

8pm++

Reached Gion Main Street.

And it seems to be quite quiet... :s

After walking inwards for a short while we decided to head back out as we thought most of the shops were closed..

Apparently, after checking with my friends, we realized the liveliest part of Gion is actually somewhere in the center of Gion which would require 10-15mins of walk to reach there...

As we weren't aware of it, we went ahead to explore other parts of Gion which we spotted while taking the bus.

For some reason I really love Kyoto alleys, as it always has a whimsical feel to it... Like a magical adventure waiting for me

We couldn't quite decide what to have for dinner, as everything seems so wordy with no images.

Until we came reached the last shop in the alley and we saw something familiar 

ODEN was writen in japanese

Yes!!! My Pte ltd japanese has paid off pretty well

Verdict:

The food was decent.

But it was the experience that we had, that made it so special.

The staff and lady boss were friendly, and an uncle spoke to us about his trip to singapore many years ago, after we intro ourselves as a singaporean tourists.

PS: after knowing my brother was going to koyto for a visit. I printed out the group photo we took and sent him on a side quest to deliver photo if he was interested to visit the store for a meal :)

Am glad that they still remembered us after 4years (2017)

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The Color Run 2013

Had lots of fun over the weekend ~~

It was Color Run :D

After reading article about lens and camera being ruined by this event... I was seriously having doubts going... 

 

But then again those irresistible neon colors.. 

Yup...

Ended up going there.. with my digi camera into a zip lock bag

Today's gears are IPhone 5 + Olympus camera

They have 4 color stations in total. 

Each can be found every 1km

The colors are Pink - Blue - Yellow - Red

I only managed to go to Pink and Yellow station 

Here are some of photos. Hope u liked them 

 

Let me give u a HUG~!!

Trigger Happy

After PARTY~~~ 

The rest are can be found  in my fb page :)

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Food Craving...

What do you crave for today?

Mine was Ritz Apple Strudel :D

Haven't had it since my poly days lol~~ happy guessing how old I am :p

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15 Days Central Japan Spring Trip 2013 Day4-5 (Osaka, Tango Peninsula,and Kyoto)

Day 4:

Today we went to Osaka Aquarium before we set off to Kyoto - Tango Peninsula. 

Osaka Aquarium is also known as Kaiyukan (海遊館). It exhibits various forms of life inhabiting the Pacific Rim. Some of the impressive exhibits includes the Yu-chan the Whale Shark, sea otters, etc

http://www.kaiyukan.com/language/eng/index.htm

11++AM:

Tadaaa~~!! Reached Osaka Aquarium..

Here are some photos :))

Osaka Aquarium

Sea Otters Feeding time（≧∇≦）

Hmm... Seems to be a Capybara

Pacific Whitesided Dolphins

This is one of the many marine life that amazes me.

Trails of light running through the side of its body

Harbor Seal giving the nani (what)? Look hehehe

Finally~~ Yu chan the whale shark!!

The photo might not do it justice, as it is alot bigger than how the photo portray it to be..

Just imagine the fish (below Yu chan) from head to tail is probably around 1.6m-1.7m

Bought some souvenirs.

As we were not very hungry, we bought a penguin nikuman (meat bread) for our lunch 

2pm

Head toward Kyoto - Tango Peninsula. 

It's a 2-3hour journey from either Osaka or Kyoto

Distance between Kyotango, Osaka and Kyoto

So why did we choose this place?

There's no other reason than the fact that our itchy hands clicked the "booking" button *accidently* after going into http://www.taiza.jp/  while surfing for Kyoto ryokan. (Yes, we are suckers for good photography...)

If you are interested in staying in kyoto ryokan, you can try going to

http://www.kyoto-ryokan-en.com/

View it at your own risk. ;)

Anyway as I was saying, the Tango Peninsula is at the Sea of Japan. The place that we went to is basically a harbor town called Tango, the closest train station is Amino and it is said to be a popular tourist sport amongst Japanese. 

Habor=Fishing=Fresh/Cheap Seafood

So we booked ourselves a 1 day stay with a mid range dinnerset meal (which includes crabs, beef and sashimi) + standard breakfast included at 28,000yen for 2 person

Here are some photos taken along the way:

Students making their way home

Beautiful country side in Kyotango

Stretch of pink flowers greeted when we finally arrived at Amino

The ryokan that we stayed was 15-20mins car ride away from Amino train station.

Good thing they provide free transport service to fetch us from the station.

Gorgeous view from my room :)

Highlight of the day: FoOOooodddd~!

(Top right photo was taken from their website but.. Pretty much the same as what we saw 😁)

Verdict: いちばん + Super 美味しい (Ichiban + Super Oishii)

The food was exactly what we expected it would be.. Maybe even better since some of the dishes we have not tried before~ *happy desu~*

Day 5:

We woke up early today for our breakfast and morning walk, as in the afternoon we would be heading to Kyoto.

Breakfast - Love everything about it

From fresh sashimi to boiled tofu, everything is just so delicious :D~~~

(Close up photos are available on fb page)

After breakfast, we decided to head out to explore.

Knowing that we were foreigners, the hotel staff generously offered to bring us around. Yay~~~~ Super happy. I must say they really provide very good service from the minute they picked us up :) 

Heard of stories that  ryokans, etc located in foreigner tourist spot like tokyo/kyoto areas tend to be more commercialized, hence losing their friendliness/warm welcoming feeling towards their customers... 

Although all the hotels/ryokans I've stayed have good service. But none like this.. I guess this area hasn't been "polluted" by foreign tourists yet... 

Then again... this is one of the most expensive ryokan we had stayed.. Maybe it's more of "what you pay is what you get" kind of service *shrug*

(Note to self: Probably another trip to japan might give me a better idea on this matter lol :p)

Here are some photos:

Peace + Quietness along rivier side

The wind was blowing so strong that my umberlla "flipped" the other side... Seems as though a thunder storm was coming

Challenge the storm!!!

And failed miserably... ＿|￣|o

Scenery along the harbor

View from the top

Underneath the cherry blossom

12pm+

Head towards Kyoto

3pm+

After checking into the hostel, we went to Kyoto tourism board at kyoto station to search for info on sakura viewing 

Sadly.. as mentioned on my previous post, this year's sakura bloomed much earlier than past years.. (the earliest in the history compared to past years sakura blooming record).

From the board, most of the sakura has started falling except for Hirano shrine (平野神社). What's more was that Ohkasai (cherry blossom festival) was on :)) 

Without much thought we set off to Hirano shrine.

We took train to Kitanihakubaicho, and walked towards the red dot indicated on the google map.. Along the way, we were lost in the "jungle" couple of times as some of the roads were blocked. However, when we finally "reached" the shrine, the place looked small and deserted.... And it seems as though there was no festival at all.  

Since it was not the first time we were cheated by the google map...plus the fact that we were so exhausted, we gave up looking for help and went back to the train station.

Soooo... where the hell was that festival ??

We only found that out while we were writing this blog post... 

Picture says a 1000words... (Yellow pointer is the main enterance.. And the white pointer is where we think we were..)

Enough said..

7pm+

After leaving Hirano Shrine empty handed, we decided to go to Nijo castle (二条城）as it was said that there was night sakura viewing available that day...

Here are some of the photos for the day :)

10pm+
Head back to Kyoto station, to look for food and found ourselves at Dai-ichi Asahi Ramen store as it was one of the only few stores open than 7-11 that was open at that time. At almost 11pm the shop was still very crowded.

Dai-ichi Asahi serves Kyoto-style ramen which is known for its thick shoyu-based soup. Apart from that, their noodles turn out to be straight noodles and slightly thicker than regular noodles. 
We ordered Standard Ramen (650yen) and Bamboo Shoot Ramen (700yen).  Overall, we find the food to be quite good, and definitely a place to drop by for late night supper if you are around Kyoto station. 

Honke Dai-ichi-asahi
〒600-8213
京都府京都市下京区東塩小路向畑町845
5：00～26：00　※木曜日定休

http://www.honke-daiichiasahi.com/original.html

That's all for Day 4-5

Posts:
15 Day spring trip - Total Expenses
15 Day spring trip - Day 1-3 

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