你是我的宝贝

saw this on Felicia Chin's blog. thought it sounds so sweet, so wistful, so happy and it made me think of you.

Reminds me of Faye Wong.

Japan Short Notes #13

Day 14- 29/09/09

We spent the day touring Kyoto.

Places that we visited:

1. Nijo Castle

2. Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)

Our collective responses when we first sighted this building was "WOW! It's gold leh!" Then we started debating between us whether it's made up entirely of gold or just plated.  Truly impressive!

3. Kyoto Imperial Palace

Not so fantastic buffet lunch at the Kyoto Handicraft Centre. The entire group that we toured with consisted mainly of Caucasians, with  only 3 Asian couples. The funny thing was that because we are Asians, many assumed that we do not understand English very well, and were largely ignored by the tourists in this group. Ok, there weren't much time to socialised but the fun part is sitting next to 2 men from Germany (I think) trying to hit on a lone female traveller. One guy speaks better English and kept interrupting his friend (who was struggling with his English) and whom kept clarifying that his Japanese girl friend in Japan is just a friend and nothing special. Haha.. that's entertainment and they were rather loud!

By the way, KHC sells lots of Kimono and they are all so pretty! The decorative dolls and souvenirs were all so cute! I  wanted to buy it all, but senses and hubby prevails and I only bought a doll.

After lunch, we visited:

4. Heian Jingu (Heian Shrine)

5. Sanjūsangen-dō

6. Kiyomizu Temple

To be honest, we were both so tired at the end of the day that we couldn't really remember the temples and details of the places that  that we visited. It was crowded with school kids on excursion trips and alot of tourists! Kyoto is really a tourist destination spot! And it's proven by my simple theory... almost every place that we visited sells magnet! What's so special about that? Well, magnets are generally a gaijin's (foreigner) souvenir preference, almost all tourist spots in the world sells magnet. But for Japanese, they tend to favour handphone chains as gifts to friends and foodstuffs like preserved food or seasonings. It's true! I've been to places which caters to overseas tourists and local tourists and the stuffs they sells are slightly different.

We spent the night as New Miyako Hotel and had a lovely dinner.

Japan Short Notes #12

Day 13- 28/09/09

We joined a day tour to Miyajima Island and around Hiroshima. 

I love Miyajima Island! It's so beautiful and the deers roamed around freely. The deers there luurve to eat papas, yes papers. They will come up to you, nudged around and grab any ticket stubs or brochures. We also saw them loitering at the front of the shops and one of them was eyeing a piece of A4 paper that states the price. When the paper conveniently fell to the ground, the deer rushes in and gobbled it up before anyone could react. They really love paper!

We were given a tour and history lesson on the Itsukushima Shrine.

For lunch, we ate very yummy tasting oysters. The owner gave us 2 for the price of 1. Twice!

Lastly, we visted the A Bomb site, Peace memorial park and museum.

We had a scare at the end of the day as we discovered that we left our camera at the museum! 

Fortunately, we managed to get it back and had a kind experience with an elderly caucasian couple. They were worried that we did not have enough money to take  a cab and offered us money. Fortunately we had enough and as fate had it, hubby met them at the computer room in New Miyaki Hotel, Kyoto.

Japan Short Notes #11

Day 12- 27/09/09

The start of our 7 days self tour. First stop, Hiroshima.

This is my first time taking a train, MRT not considering. The shinkansen ride was nice, comfortable and fast! Well, the total journey from Shin Yokohama to Shin Osaka takes about 2.5 hours but time passes by quickly. We had our bento lunch, music and beauty sleep.

The transfer from Shin Osaka to Hiroshima take about 1.5 hours and we finally arrived at Hotel Granvia Hiroshima. 

We were pleasantly surprised when a station master at Hiroshima station approached us and asked if we needed help. We were trying to figure out the location of our hotel and were staring at the map. It was indeed a first in Japan ever to have someone approach us offering assistance. It could be possibly the fact that Japanese are daunted by having to speak English. Many of them do learn English in school but they don't dare to speak very much due to the fear of embarrassment.  This is very unlike us, we just heck care and just hantam lah! Hahah. Really, if hubby and I live in fear of embarrassing ourselves, we would be very hungry and lost in Japan. I mean I do get embarrassed when I get unfriendly stares or look when I open my mouth and they hear  an obvious foreign accent speaking (broken) Japanese, but I do get overjoyed when they understand my questions and vocabs! If nothing else works, we will point and order. Something we often do in Japan, when we look for food, we would look for places that are cheap and good. This means we have to be contented with no English speaking staffs or menu. We would have  to point at pictures and order "hitotsu kudasai" (one please). Unfortuantely, loal eats means lots of locals would be in the shop and they would look at us in amusement as we order. 

Anyway, Hotel Granvia Hiroshima was nice, high thread count bed sheets, firm mattress, tempur memory foam pillows. Sigh, it was a good night sleep.

Our view from the room was pretty gray, view of carpark. Because we were hungry, we decided to have dinner at the shopping centre next to the train station and had Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. Made with yellow noodle and lots of veg, it's different from the Osaka style where the ingredients are mixed with batter. According to the tour guide lady we met on Day 13, apparently Hiroshima won 9 times when pitted against Osaka style Oknomiyaki!

It's certainly healthy but since  Okonomiyaki is not one of my "must eat"  Japanese food, it's not something I would crave again.

At the Okonomiyaki store, I smiled at a young pretty lady inside as she calls out "Irashaimase" (welcome!). I coaxed her out of the store, point and order, followed her in, stared at her as she clarifies the order, guessed a few words, exchange hand gestures, feels shy when so many eyes are on you as I become the current entertainment and sigh in contentment when the food arrives, smelling so good and we leave full and happy. =D

Saturday

Lovely steamboat lunch at Ron's place with Von & family. Played with Lu and Baby Sofia. Enjoyed ourselves catching up with old friends and dancing with the baby.

Von left around 4 +, hubby fell asleep on the couch, Ron and I chatted and watched Discovery Health. Wanted to leave at 6 + to library and town but dark clouds gathered and thunders were loud and threatening. In the end we ordered pizza and watched "Day of the Dead" and "License to wed" on cable.

It was nice to be indoor on a rainy day with strong winds. For awhile we imagined the rain to be snow and if I could fool myself hard enough, I could be anywhere with 4 seasons other than hot, humid Singapore.

Later in the night, hubby and I went to HV Cold storage and we encountered a guy covered in blood!

Yeah, Halloween.

Happy Halloween! Bert says Hi!

Yay! We have received the money from our insurance for hubby's medical claims! =)

Japan Short Notes #10

Day 11- 26/09/09

Today was a lazy day. Went to K's place for KFC lunch, salad, pretty maple bread and K made rice with seasoning ( I can't remember what it is called).

Lazed and watched Transformer 2 ( the p edition). The quality was really bad, subtitles all wrong and it "jumped" at certain scenes. *gasp* Anyway, from what I have managed to watch, I thought the story was rather comical, it doesn't seems as nice as the first part but I will watch it again when it's out on L DVD.

Had a lovely stroll to Toys R Us and I saw this which was rather cute for Lu.

Later, we found this, a reminisce of our childhood when bubble gum was Legal.

And later  at Lawson, this very cute rice ball packaging.

Japan Short Notes #9

I had written about our cousin T's birthday celebration here (Day 8 -23/09/09).

Just thought of something to illustrate the post and because it's so cute! hehehee.

Japan Short Notes #8

Day 10 - 25/09/09

After days of shopping and jostling with the crowds, we decided to go to a park for the day for some fresh air. We went to Sankeien Garden and had our bento lunch next to the river and spent the rest of the afternoon nuaing before hubby visits the Dr.

from left: Lovely painting by an old man in the park, our bento lunch and green tea, pretty lalang looking plant swaying in the breeze.

Yup, you've heard right. Hubby wasn't feeling well, cough could have either started from (i) climate change, (ii) too much BBQ food from the birthday party or (iii) bacteria infection from anyone in the various crowded shopping areas we've been. Anyway, I was worried that the cough may develop into something serious and since he informed me in the morning that he has green phlegm, alarm bells rang in my head we request cousin T to accompany him to see a Dr.

In Japan, they don't call clinics where they see a GP a clinic. Instead, they are all called hospitals, either a small hospital (where only 2 or 3 Drs- GP are) or a big hospital ( major hospital like SGH etc). Hubby bill adds up to 6100¥ SGD 91.50!!!!!

Small amount to pay from good health. Could be worse if his cough progresses. BUT! It would be awesome if insurance would pay- it's pending claims. (actually my heart hurts when I made the conversion from yen to SGD just now... *ouch)

Sankeien Garden

A Japanese style garden spreading over 175,000 square meters in Yokohama which was build by Sankei Hara, a silk trading business man. Boasts special features including historic buildings collected from Kyoto and the Kamakura areas. Various range of seasonal flowers arranged creates every seasonal landscape in this garden including cherry blossoms. Beautiful enough to invite people from every region of the country. The cherry blossoms are lit up in the evening (Mar/25-Apr/10.2005) .

• Location :58-1 Hommoku Sannotani, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken
• Number of the trees :approx.600
• Time:The outer garden:9:00am-16:30, the inner garden Gasho zukuri houses: 9:00am-4:00pm
• Charge :The outer and innter garden:JPY300, Gasho zukuri houses:JPY100
• Access :From JR Negishi line, Negishi station, at Bus Stop No. 1,take any one of the municipal buses labeled Route No. 58, 99, 101, 108 or 126. Get off at Honmoku (10 minutes'ride),and then walk to the Garden(7 minutes).
  Form the East exit of Yokohama station, at Bus stop No.2, take either municipal bus labeled Route No.8. Get off at Honmoku Sankeien Mae(35 min. ride) and then walk to the garden(5 min. walk).
• | More detail (Note: English version is in a PDF file) |
• photo:Sankeien