been dreading to post it cos there's a lot of pictures.
quote from yunn "kua kua kua...". i like this phrase, funny. haha.
Q: shouldnt the hong kong pics be up first?
A: i havent gotten the pics yet and i dont want to download from picasa online. waiting for the roomie to pass me.. haha
hong kong for a start.
haha, thought this looks kinda funny.
here goes, red sky in the morning when we arrived at osaka.
Day 1: 7th Jan 2009, wed.
see the charm in the middle row, it's a typical practice the japanese do to ward off evils and such. and true enough, there's lots of vending machines in japan, and they are EVERYWHERE. anyway, as we didnt arrive at osaka airport but nagoya, we have to travel another 3 hours up osaka by coach. blame it on the huge number of qualifiers that prud didnt manage to get enough flights and room accomodation was a hassle. haha, but we were compensated for staying at ANA crowne instead of swissotel la, with a box of super sweet mochi and 1000 yen worth of the mrt card.
as soon as we arrived at the hotel, it was shopping time! the confectioneries were awesome, similar to singapore's takashimaya but definitely, sg taka is no fight. woohoo, i heart carbos!
dinner was at swissotel with the rest of the qualifiers, food was alright but the sashimi is yummilicious. i bet the roomie loves it here, wish he was there too. =)
as our hotel is located just beside the red-light district in osaka, we decided to walk around after the dinner. pretty amazing as you see the difference between the ladies and us, we were fully wrapped as it was freaking cold while they were wearing evening gowns. in fact, the woman dont do the prospecting, the males do. so, they ignore us totally when we were walking thru the streets. in the end, we settled for some sake and all at a nice cozy eating house and playing silly games thru the night. =)
Day 2: 8th Jan 2009, thurs.
it was a day tour at kyoto where we visited 3 different temples; 3 temples which we have to see when we are there. no real impression of the 1st temple other then remembering that there's a lot of statues and all of them look the same, haha. cos we were busy taking photos around the temple la. and lunch was at this fanciful restaurant with a nice garden. the highlight of the lunch was to make our own tofu. but since i wasnt a big fan of tofu, no photos no photos. the sashimi was very good.
one interesting practice we were made to do is to take off our shoes and locked them up in the locker provided. interesting but troublesome cos most of us were in boots. haha.
we went on to the next location, a golden pavillion temple where the phoenix, 2nd and 3rd story are made of gold. dont ask me the details, i wasnt really listening, hee.
the last destination is my favourite, the kiyomizu temple. we went to get a lot and we get our guide to translate for us instead. hee. after which, we are supposed to tie our lot onto the pillars. the scenary was breathtaking. and we got all the souveniers and foodie stuff down the street between the temple and the holding area for our coaches. lots of stuff to buy and shop and we even tried some of the local food along the way.
we spent night time at shinsaibashi, one of the biggest shopping district and we had some very authetic and tasty japanese ramen, recommended by the sales guy at agnes b. we didnt know how to use the vending machines to get our food and we have created such a queue that the chefs had to come out to give us a hand. haha. the shop was really traditional where u see people hanging their coats on the hangers behind them.
and know what, the japanese can really eat and yet, they're still very lean and slim. so are the hongkies. is it true that all the fat people are too ashamed to go out or is it just the genes and weather and everything? sulks!
day 3: 9th Jan 2009, fri.
free & easy at osaka!
early in the morning, we went to catch a glimpse of the osaka castle. =) as the itinery for the day is tight, we didnt explore the inside. we merely took some pics and went off to meet the rest at the aquarium.
i was fairly disappointed at the aquarium as i didnt see my dolphins show. but there wasnt a dolphin show to begin with, i thought and expected there will be la. (i guess i watch too much waterboys) haha. nothing fantastic about the aquarium, looked almost like underwater world to me. but i guess, it's places of interest that we must go. =)
and we took a ride up the ferris wheel. it was pretty scary, and i was honestly scared comparing to the cable car ride to lantau island in hong kong.
we gave universal studio a miss since there wasnt enough time. shopping hours are pretty short in osaka due to winter, so the shopping malls generally closed at 830pm. so we have to be very focused, just blue label, black label, agnes b, longchamp. the rest of the brands are super ex, so no point looking at them. no shopping for clothes cos it's all winter wear which none fits wearing in singapore. unfortunately, the group of us werent very into cosmetics and skincare, erhm and not really food. so, it was a really see-see-look-look trip.
food there was amazingly pretty and nicely wrapped.
we walked around the shinsaibashi area again on our last night in osaka. perhaps it was friday night, there were a lot more people around. the streets were brightly lit and there were fanciful signboards everywhere, similar to hong kong. thinking back, singapore is pretty boring even though we have a lot of lightings too because you realized there's only 1 colour here? that will be orange. oh, boring.
somehow, the night ended with only phoebe and myself. so we decided to find the most traditonal eating house we see and went in. the disaster came when there was no pics on the menu and both the waitress and us couldnt understand each other. luckily for us, there was a china chinese working in the kitchen, so he came out to take our orders instead. speaking in mandarin is so much easier! and asahi is very good, i heart asahi! =)
night time was spent packing our luggage as we had to leave pretty early for the airport.
day 4: 10th Jan 2009, sat.
goodbye osaka!
it's a city whereby it's enough to be there once, no reason to go back again and again. =)
after looking at jomei's extension to tokyo, i will say the nxt destination i will love to visit is defintely tokyo and disneyland and mt fuji! =)
