So cute! Get one today!

awwwww.. so cute can cry.



this baby above so intense.. scally he grow up with lazy eye the papa so bad teach him these kinda things..

=)

Japan 2008 Part (ii) - losing steam but must still blog the good stuff!!!

As usual, when there are like a trillion photos, it gets very cumbersome to put them up. But I feel obliged to (dont know for what.. since nobody reads my blog now)..

FOR YOU FURRY!! I AM PUTTING IT UP FOR YOU!! (Actually not true larh.. i think MONKEY also reads my blog wan, and HS and WH.. actually alot of you read it, except that with these I dont actually have to instruct them to do it. Heh..)

ANYHOWS..

I was saying that I am very grateful for my 2 guides in Japan. When my gal-friends heard that I was going to Japan alone, they immediately volunteered two of their friends to bring me around as guides. These ladies went beyond the call of duty to bring me around.. Last post you guys were introduced to the funkymama Yuki , and today we have Nozomi.. a nice young lady (WHO IS THE PASTOR'S DAUGHTER LORH) working in the local university (man I sound like i am writing for SDU.. all Ps Vic's fault... check out the post in question at his blog here)..

So anyhow this is Nozomi..

I thought her scarf was nice. She said she got it from Singapore. =_=

Nozomi wanted to bring me to Harajuku, but I thought Harajuku is totally do-able by myself. I asked instead for her to bring me to Odaiba, by ferry (which was farnee because on the way there we talked so much we missed the stop and ended up at Yokohama, which is like the next city.. hahaa) .

So anyhow, I wanted to go to an onsen real bad. There was this special theme park onsen at Odaiba which was supposed to have different types of baths (special flavours, etc) and it is built like Edo-Japan. When you get on the inside, everyone changes to like Yu-Katas and you deposit your stuff into lockers. They have this electronic wristlet which acts like your wallet so you dont have to bring any money around.

This is us outside the Onsen. Oedo Onsen.

Panty vending machine! But it's not like the ones at the Sex-shop. The ones here are clean and packed for those who (forgot to bring theirs??? forgot a birthday and need to get a present quick??)


Nozomi was commenting that she thought this foreigner (i.e. me) was very brave to have requested to be brought to an onsen. Most foreigners would be shy because basically you would have to walk around naked (so that you can dip into the onsen, riiiiggghhhhtttt?). I mean.. i didnt really think about it larh, I just wanted to check out the place!

And she was right.. i got the culture shock of my life lorh!!!

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I NEVER SAW SO MANY NAKED WOMEN IN MY LIFE LEH!

But there are no pictures, for obvious reasons. But for those who are secretly wondering, the baths are divided into one for men and one for women... (some honeymoon suites have their own onsens. nice)

I realize the whole deal about the onsen is to soak yourself in SUPER HOT WATER.. then when you cant take it anymore you basically dash out to sit around in the cool air. There was an outdoor onsen Japanese landscaped style and it was spring so the temperature was very cool. And i realized that this going in and out of hot water and air-drying in a very cool landscape garden is very shiok.

So at night, I had a nice girly dinner with Yuki at Odaiba shopping complex. And here we have the famous RAINBOW BRIDGE!



It was super cold and super romantic. Alas there was nobody standing next to me, not even another tourist(!!), for me to exclaim at the beauty (I have this thing for lights at night).

Okay here we tried taking picture in the toilet a-la- XIAXUE style.. I have never tried this shooting your own reflection in the mirror thingys..

Yuki was bringing me clubbing. This was her first night out (EVER) since her handsome Ryugen was born. Calls for quite a celebration, neh?

We went to this club at Roppongi, it was SUPER happening lorh. check out the picture here..


i never saw so many good looking people in one place lorh and it was packed!!! But the name was spelt wrongly larh .. ALIFE! surely they meant alive? =P

So we clubbed till like 4 am.. which is fine, until i remembered that i was supposed to attend my friend's church at SAITAMA (suburban Tokyo lorh) at 9 AM!

I am so proud of myself, i actually managed to wake up and drag myself there. and this nice picture i took from the subs..



so now we know that all the cartoons we saw (i.e Doraemon) are accurate representations of what Japanese neighbourhoods look like. there was another place (and i cant find the picture right now) where they were growing beautiful flowers outside the homes. Very very lovely. Many many colours.. Wish we can do the same... here we only have bougainvilla (however u spell it) lorh..

After that i went to Harajuku! Sorry, didnt get to see very many exciting cosplay.. apparently the fashion now is to be LOLITA.. so you see all these young gals dressed up as french maids, except that there are wearing pink instead of the traditional black and have these huge skirts (betcha wearing can-cans inside) and holding the hand of this young boy who is wearing like normal street clothes..

blows your mind man.

Anyhow, check out this boutique. this is the entrance..

I mean, Harajuku is like PACKED right.. but when you step into this place, it is like another world. I rem when I studied a little design in school and was reading up interior design, good design kinda transports you to another place.

this is totally good design.. the moment you step in, you FORGET you are in Harajuku.. there is nice music in the background, wait i think it was probably birds chirping because it is some garden theme and the walls are lined with carpet grass.. and the ceiling is painted like yellow with flowers and butterflies.. it is amazing lorh.. i HOENSTLY forgot that i was in the middle of sweltering Harajuku..
see what I mean?
But i didnt take more pictures because they didnt really like it, the shopowners that is..

The next day, I took the SUPER UBER FASTEST EVER BULLET TRAIN in Japan, the NOZOMI train to KYOTO..


Actually in the picture above i was trying to point at the cleaners. They are all dressed in baby pink and blue!!!



Okay, to be honest, even though I paid quite abit to go to Kyoto and Nara, after awhile it is just a blur of shrines and gardens.. I am just gonna post the nicer pictures..

It was no longer sakura season when i was there, but it was the beginning for that of the wisteria.. I managed to capture some very lovely shots..


They just grow all over lorh.. (reminds me of morning glories, but they more attas the wisteria)..

Not bad horh my shots..

I am pleased..

Got standard wan lorh.. =)


And here begins the endless streams of shrines and etc.. this was the first one i visited at Nara.. I took a picture because it was the first... after that I gave up.. everything was built like in the 1st 10th centuries and took alot of skill to make and etc..

I mean I know i totally sound like I dont appreciate it but i do, it's just that.. i like pretty flowers more.. and because we were hitting summer.. trust me.. there were MANY MANY pretty flowers..

so here is the temple..

okay this park is cool because it is the famous DEERPARK because they have alot of tame deer just roaming the park (duh, why not elephant park or tiger park right).

so they had all these deer that were just roaming the grounds.


When I think deer I think Bambi.. now i see the deer i think of jason. i think it's the colour. hahaha.

observing these that roam I see that the Disneyfolks were struck by quite a stroke of genius. Deers are alot more endearing on film. The ones here were pretty aggressive, ate the ticket off the pocket of one of my fellow tourists..



i really attempted to go near them, like pose. But deers are quite scary. They are nothing like the real Bambi. Think this picture summarizes how I felt pretty accurately..


Tentative. Heh.

And deers stink.

So part of the shrine after shrine that I visited - of which like all of them were built in 7th century Japan - pretty amazing, no termites yáll..


This is the shrine that has the most number of stone lanterns..


Cute horh.

And everywhere you turn, there are these little winding paths flanked by trees. Standing at the beginning and letting my eyes wander down, I go back to the tales of Hansel & Gratel and all the little Japanese warrior children living in magical farawaylands...

I forget who I am and I wonder, if I walk down these paths - will they lead me to my castle, my lake, my prince?



But such thoughts were fleeting. The lull of reason and sobering weight of time beckons. I dont want to miss the bus back to my (I would discover.. HAUNTED) hotel. So the let's-have-fun-in-whatever-way-manner-it-chooses-to-descend-upon-us jasmine resurfaces and i thought it would be farnee to take a picure with the spitting deer..


And this picture was taken from my table at the haunted hotel.



Arguably the best meal that I had in Japan but I was too spooked!

I chose to stay in Gion, Kyoto because I was hoping to see a gei-sha. Come to think of it, it may have been a good that i didnt see one I would probably have freaked out..


This is the exterior of the hotel that I went to.

To cut the long story short, the TV in the place switched itself off in the middle of the night. The aircon blew hot and cold. It sounds like mere electrical glitches now but it really wasnt then. I was so spooked, I chose to walk down the dark alleyway from the haunted room into the familiarity of mere darkness at 4 a.m. because I was convinced if I stayed in the room any longer something was going to happen. There were NO LIGHTS.. and after figuring my way to the front desk (which was not manned) and communicating with great pain and patience to the care taker that spoke no English, the reality gripped my heart that nobody sympathized with a foreign woman who claims that her hotel room was haunted. It was either I sit in the equally haunting looking lobby (i dont know for sure if it was haunted like the room) with its no windows, dim lights and scary statutes, or roam the streets of Kyoto in stoic solitude until I reach the solace of an internet cafe.

I chose the latter.
My recluse from the haunted house.

I do myself no justice in this clinical summary of my haunted hotel. But I write because I am obliged. And in the security of my HDB room and warm cup of milk, it is easier to do injustice to myself.


Anyhows, here are pictures of the surroundings I took whilst wandering the streets at 5 ish in the morning. I had refused to return to the hotel until it was fully lit.

Looks lovely in the day. Try to imagine it at night. Take away all the lights and you have it about right.

Quaint. (and scary)

I had not dared to look into these walkways at night.

Next to the hotel.



I apologize. You can tell that I lost steam. I was my usual ranting self at the beginning of this post (which was religiously begun two weeks ago. I uploaded all the photos guys, promise. Just requires alot of stamina to finish what we begin) and somewhere in between (i.e. the 14 days) it struck me again that I write best when I write for nobody.

Hence, therefore, henceforth, perhaps, just maybe, I shall resume to my old melancholic ways here again.

Maybe it's all the books I have been back into reading. We remember how I used to read so ferociously. (actually no, i forgot) Maybe it is my HFM speaking. I have little bumps on my arms and legs. I think it might be HFM (which I know is not lethal on adults and the little bumps should appear on soles and palms and shouldnt itch but mine do) that is speaking through me.


I forgot how to write folks. Good night.