7-day Japan exploration -Osaka

25th April 2014


We started our day very early. One of us has to start rising from bed as early as 3 in the morning, local time (which is one hour ahead of Malaysia time) to catch Fajr prayer and taking turn to the one and only bathroom in the house.

Our next destination started from hopping onto subway at Gojo Station,heading to JR station to catch train to Osaka city.

So at 5 o'clock we have already on the road.Oh man, even at this early hour, the city and the people were no less busy. Pfftt!~~

The day was still early when we arrived in Osaka. The men in suits were seen everywhere rushing to work, I guess.

We wasted no time and headed to first destination of the day, Sumiyoshi-taisha shrine. It was a looonng walk in the sunny yet chilled day. But at the end of the search for this place, we were thrilled upon seeing the spectacular view inside the area.

The following destination was Shittenoji temple. By this time, Kak Gee already gave up from resuming the tour and returned to Kyoto instead due to the pain at her ankle. So we continued with the remaining 4 of us walking to the next attractions. We dropped by at 100 yen shop and I was so glad that finally I found the dried seaweed, one of items that I was looking for eating in Japan! Munching them throughout the walk, I forgot the hot day instantly.

The next attraction in list was to go to Shinsekai. There was nothing interesting here.Since we have reached here, so we took picture featuring the Osaka Tokyo as the background.

We then proceeded to Shinotteji Temple, and saw the locals were crowding some sort of  flea market selling pre-loved books.

 

Quietly, I eyed for any interesting English books that might be sold, but no luck. And one thing I amused most about this market, it was very quiet, despite so many buyers were coming in! Truly, I have never seen the situation of its kind at so many countries that I have visited!

 

Spontaneously we toned down our voices, excitement to pose and laughter to fit in the quiet crowd. Kih kih kih.

We were ready to proceed to Shinsaibashi. We were told that we can buy the souvenirs here, as there were available at this place.The idea of having some shopping after exhausting walks has really uplifted our mood meter which were already half red.Grrr..

However, in order to reach Shinsaibashi, we need to walk across Namba Walk, at almost 30-45minutes. Thankfully it was under roof and there were shops here and there to stop.

Zaira and Fiza had shown vital sign of exhaustion. Seriously we never walked this far in our lives, except for marathon or walkathon. That is an exception, as we were not really mentally prepared that our tour would be this farrrrrr away to reach by foot. *gasp*

Out of the spirit to find for the said souvenirs shops, we toured round and round Shinsaibaishi, but at the end of many hours navigating the area, the efforts were fruitless. I didnt know where it went wrong, but somehow we felt like we were at lost in the crowd with map in our hands.

So we returned to the bus station to hop on the bus to our final destination of the day, Osaka mosque. It was the right bus, all of us were alert. But again, the bus  kept moving on and on and on for almost an hour, until we saw the signage "Kobe". O.M.G!

I started to feel goose bump on my skin, as the day was getting dark and our journey in the bus did not show any good sign that we were heading to the right destination as we left Osaka further and further away. We tried to communicate in English with the local teenagers next to us, but they seemed having difficulties to understand us.

We do not want to be dragged further in the bus, so we hopped off the bus in the middle of nowhere.

I was started thinking that we might ended up sleeping over at the roadside if the bus was not available to return at the hour.

The information board was written in Japanese, so I have no other option but to hail for the passing cyclists, a few times being ignored until a teenager who was willing to stop and help us. The bus was still available, but we have to wait until its arrival time, 20 minutes or so, he said in chicken and duck way of communication. pffttt....

At last, the bus arrived, punctually and we returned to the bus station where we started this haywire journey. Not so much of a good day today in Osaka. Bye.

7-day Japan exploration (Narita-Kyoto city)

22-24th April 2014

So, we kicked off our so-called vacation campaign 2014 with Japan that covered a few cities for seven days. The journey from Kuala Lumpur took about 7 hours and we arrived at destination early morning to see big round sunrise at the horizon.

First thing to do before we started our thousands of steps in Japan was to change the Japan Rail (JR) Pass voucher at the JR counter. The voucher MUST be purchased prior to our departure, and certainly it has to be outside Japan. It costs RM900+ for 7-day pass,(as of this post is written). Super saving way of enjoying one of the most expensive living cost  countries at its best, without having to crack our head everytime we need to hop on trains to go around and about.

 One good initiative by Japan government to attract more tourists to their country.

And the JR pass is also applicable to ride their fastest bullet train, or they call it as shinkansen. Yippi!

We moved from Narita airport via Narita Express for one and half hours to reach Tokyo city, for interchange to Kyoto city for another one and half hours. The train are separated by both reserve and non-reserved cabins. Nothing much of differences to both cabins, however, for a long haul trip, it is advisable to get reserved seat from the JR counter, so that we can all sit at one place as well as to avoid from standing throughout the journey.

Finding the location of our lodging was not as easy as it is mapped. Thankfully the locals were kind enough to give us their helping hands until we reached the door step of the guest house.

 

Upon refreshing ourselves, the day  was getting dark, but that didn't stop our excitement to explore Kyoto city and its attractions.

We went to Geisha town, at least that was what we been told, even though we hardly saw any of them around but just posters of geisha for us to pose with . *pathetic*

On day 2, we went to a few places such as Kyoto Tower, even though not to that close , but visible enough for us to pose with. Haha.

                                                                         Kyoto Tower

There are also many temples around, but we have to be selective to ensure we could cover as many as possible unique attractions within limited time.

The cherry blossom season was almost over, thus,  we immediately hopped off the bus as soon as we spotted the tree  by the road. Excited tak hengat.

Exhausted from series of jumps, then we proceeded to our next attractions.

Enjoying home-made ice cream with various flavours, they even have it in sakura flavor! How cool is that.

Sanjusangendo Temple and excitement seeing cherry blossom! Hihi..

We also went to Fushimi Inari Shrine that was built by Japan to honor Inari, their god of rice.Whatever. All I care was that striking orange color really uplifted our mood, after hours of walking in bright and hot sunny day. Fuh!

And having sweet potato as our lunch felt so divine meal on earth.!

Our next target was to find Kyoto Mosque. It was a loonggg walks before we were certain that we were heading to the right path according to the map.

 

Every opportunity to get nice overview of Japan was not missed, not a bit. At this moment, we were at lost looking for the mosque, but seeing the rocks lined up across the river, we were intrigued to pose! Of course you won't see it in Malaysia, I bet.hahah

Alhamdulillah, at last we found it! It is not a mosque as what we have in mind actually.  It is attached to Islamic center with no signage or whatsoever.

And afterwards, we went to the first halal restaurant found, located just nearby to the Kyoto Mosque.

The last attraction for the day was Nijo Castle. And it wrapped up our day 2 in Kyoto city.Need to return home early to catch up good night sleep for continuing another thousands of steps in Japan on day 3,4,...5...zzzz.

Hitting first day of 30s in Japan

We arrived in Tokyo on 23rd April, err.. in other way to express it , on my birthday *wink*.

I didn't bother much on the celebration of my new age,because for me, being in the busiest metropolitan city when I plotted the completion of three decades of my life, that`s priceless.

We walked and toured in chilled air of Kyoto on our first night on Japan soil, when one of us triggered for a pit stop at Starbucks.

I've got myself a tall size of chocolate cream chip ice blend, when Kak Gee and others bought theirs with a slice of cake. Seriously it didn't ring any bell to my conscious , not in the slightest.

Out of nowhere, Kak Gee popped out the straw and all of them wished me  birthday  in a rythm, I was overwhelmed. Awww~ cripes. That was the most beautiful surprise ever thrown to  me. Thanks ladies.xoxo. : ))

Somehow, it has caught me by surprise that during 7 days trip, there was not a single thing tht I came across has triggered my excitement to shop for myself. Not until the last gate before boarding to Kuala Lumpur, I spotted this super cute pinky black barbie version pouch of LeSportSac. Coincidentally, I was happened to look for a new pouch to store my  new traveling prayer dress. And just by having this , I just couldn't be more grateful for a birthday purchase. hihi.

Ikoi-no-Ie,Kyoto and Hotel Empire, Shinjuku,Tokyo

When we were in the planning and charting process for our trip to Japan , finding a nice but cheap accommodation felt like the hardest challenge. It took my  whole day on weekend to ensure that the place I decided won't be a hassle to get there with us lugging the big luggage from the train stations.

During this trip, we stayed at two different lodgings, one in Kyoto and one in Tokyo. Yes , it was a bit tedious arrangement considering both cities are separated by almost three hours trip by the Japan fastest bullet train,namely shinkansen.

In Kyoto, the cheapest yet convenient accommodation that I found and chose was this modern Japanese-style , Ikoi-No-Ie

The route from the train station to the premise was a bit tricky, that we have no option but to ask around the local(read: with a great effort of body language communication). We were ushered by a nice local fella until we reached the reception door.All our sweats and exhaustion were instantly forgotten upon greeted by the receptionists who are pretty in the kimono.

Gosh, her skin is so flawless and soft, I hate that I envy her. haha!

 

I dont know why, but my biggest fear about staying in Japan was my imagination with their small space to live in. I was right, when our room for 5 was under the roof of the premise, that we have to climb the ladder to get up in our room.

But with foldable mattress, the room was just adequate to the five of us for eating, praying and spreading our long fatigue foot across the room, and most importantly , to laugh out loud :p.

The sun rise very early, at 5 am but the day is bright like 7 am in Malaysia.

 

So we have to forget to laze around but to get up and explore Kyoto and Osaka while the day was early.

We stayed here for three nights, just err... just enough to cover Kyoto, Osaka and approaching Kobe with fastest pace that we could keep up with.

In Tokyo I selected Hotel Empire Shinjuku which is just a few minutes walk away from Shin-Okubo JR train station.

We arrived quite early at this hotel. Early as in before the allowable check-in time of 3 pm. Apparently Japanese is too rigid and in a positive way, punctual about time, even the reception guy didn't budge when we chat him up into allowing us to get the access to our room earlier. Gah~!

Thankfully the cafe is just next door, so we have had our quick,simple lunch  before we checked- in and resumed the tour to the next attractions in Tokyo.