Japan - Day 01 Part 1 : Kansai International Airport - Nara Todai-ji

After a gruelling 6 hours flight with constant fear of Benjy lapsing into full-fledged airsickness and subsequently a puking frenzy (when he induces his fellow passenger to puke when he pukes), We arrived at Kansai International Airport at around 7:00 am (Japan Time GMT +09:00)

** Fortunately the two pills he took worked and the flight was quite peaceful…

Well, due to the gruelling 6 hours flight, I didn’t really notice much about the airport… Only that the for checking of passports and luggage was quite long…

I couldn’t really tell that Kansai International Airport was built on a man-made island in the middle of Osaka Bay… Mebbe Cos I didn’t had ready access to the window… Its really quite sad… But anyways, Kansai International Airport is really amazing??? Even though, its actually sinking, the man-made island that it is built on can be raised by inserting thick metal plates at its base… It also emerged unscathed from the 1995 Kobe earthquake and survived a typhoon in 1998. Too bad there wasn’t much of a chance to explore the place and take photos to show that its actually a man-made island…. Haix…

We met up with our tour guide, this guy from Macau… (Tour guides that cater to Singaporeans in Japan seem to be foreigners who can speak Mandarin and Japanese fluently…)

After that, we promptly got onto the bus and headed for Nara Todai-ji…

Nara played an important part in Japan history as it has been the location of ancient capitals (A.D.694-784) during the Nara period in Japan history. Even after the move of the capital from Nara, Nara remained important as a religious as well as cultural centre and some of the temples have even been involved one way or another throughout Japan’s history. Of which one famous temple is Todai-ji which houses a huge bronze Buddha statue.

Did I mention the deers outside Todai-ji which are allowed to roam around freely but are not allowed to venture into the toilets?

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Japan - Day 01 Part 2 : Osaka Castle - Universal Studios Osaka

Well that’s Osaka Castle, Destination No. 2 and also the place where we had our lunch of dangos and takoyakis…

Having takoyaki and dangos for lunch was kinda fun… Ya… Tako and dangos can be found quite easily in Singapore… But eating them in Japan is like quite different, especially when we were shivering in the cold…

Ok… Back to Osaka Castle…
Osaka Castle was built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (ya.. the bad guy in Onimusha : Dawn of Dreams) in 1583 and was completed in 1598. It was mirrored after the Azuchi Castle but had additional features to show that it was superior… Sadly the tower we see today is a replical of original tower which was burned down after being struck by lightning in 1665.

After lunch and a lot of photo taking at Osaka Castle, we headed over to Universal Studios : Osaka, which we only reached at about 2:30 pm and had to leave by 5:30pm…

The very limited amount of time we had on our hands meant that we could only take 1 or 2 rides… After walking around the place for awhile we decided on taking “Dream Ride”, which had a really long queue.. We ended queuing for about two hours, leaving us we barely enough time to do anything after the ride.

Dream Ride is this rollercoaster that goes around Universal Studios… Its main feature is actually speakers in the seat that blast music during the ride… Taking the Dream Ride was certainly an exhilirating experience for the three of us as the ride itself is quite fast and has a fair share of sudden drops and fast turns even though it doesnt have any parts that goes upside-down… There was also the cold that we had to endure when we were inching up the slope for the sudden drop… Well at least the adrenaline rush during the drops and turns sort of blocks out the cold during the ride… We only felt the cold after we got off the ride… It had the three of us running into the locker room to collect our belongings and quickly to the toilet where we hid from the cold winds and took turns using the hand dryer…

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Japan - Day 01 Part 3 : Hard Rock Cafe Osaka - Shinsaibashi - Kyoto Holiday Inn
The trip to the toilet which involved running was followed by a trip to Hard Rock Cafe which coindentally also involved running, not because we were feeling cold this time, but because we were running late…Anyways the stay there weren’t that long, just long enough for Benjy to buy a t-shirt for his dear Okasan.. Kinda weird, cos the tour guide didn’t bring us there eventhough it was in the itinery.. But it was only just outside Universal Studios…[No Photos of Hard Rock Cafe Osaka available…]

We proceeded to Shinsaibashi after we boarded the bus at Universal Studios… We walked along Shinsaibashi-suji for about an hour and enjoyed our first Japan shopping experience in a proper shopping district… It felt quite good shopping there, the service was good even though we couldn’t really communicate with the shop people… The packaging of the products were also very nice?? Especially that of a certain shop that sells products with cat imprints on them and also cat-shaped stuff…. Had to fight off the urge to buy more products imprinted with cats many times later while in Japan, even though there was like no reason to buy them other than the packaging being nice…

Forgot to mention that the place was quite crowded… But I guess its ok if compared to Singapore… Just think citylink on a friday night… BTW didn’t go into the Yamaha shop and no, au is in no way related to a character in a certain anime that goes “auuuu~~”…

After that we had this…

at a restaurant with a doll on a swing at its entrance… (Sorry no pictures of that…) unagi isn’t exactly something that everyone can appreciate, especially not vegetarians… Ya so there were some problems… But i guess it turned out ok… At least I have no problems with eating unagi… Actually I quite like it… It tasted less fishy and had a nicer more fish-like texture compared to regular unagi dons we get here in Singapore, which have a slightly rubbery kinda texture… And the chawamushi was really good… It was very smooth and it even had goodies like prawns and scallops in it!!!

After dinner we took a train from Shinsaibashi to Shin-Osaka station from which we took a bullet train to the Kyoto station…

Here are some pictures… (#3 reminds me of Death Note… Lolx…)

Had quite a lot of fun trying to read the Japanese notices in the train cabin… Or at least trying to make out what they say…

The bullet train ride took about 16 minutes for a distance of about 70km or was it 90km I don’t know… All I knew was it went quite fast… But we couldn’t really tell from staring at the scenery outside… But somebody spotted some display thingy in the station displaying the speed of the bullet train to be 180kmph… Hmmm…. For more information on the bullet train line we took click here.

We boarded our tour bus at Kyoto station and Finally reached our hotel… Kyoto Holiday Inn… To find out that the TV does not have TvTokyo Channel… No anime… Ya.. Sad… But somebody got to watch this…

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Japan - Day 02 Part 1 : Kyoto Holiday Inn - Kiyomizu-dera
After a satisfying buffet breakfast at the restaurant Kyoto Holiday Inn, that consist of a mixture of both Western and Japanese food, we boarded the bus and headed for the highlight of the day… Kiyomizu-dera….

To reach Kiyomizu-dera one has to walk up a street that’s bustling with activity, but somehow it still feels kinda serene… The shops that line the two sides of the street offers a variety of souvenirs, from Shinsengumi merchandise and yukatas to tea cups and sake bottles… The street is also a good place to find food… Popular choices include black sesame ice cream and annama (a confectionery which contains flavoured paste)… Do try the restaurants on the street… The tonkatsu (Pork Cutlet) Set we had in one of the restaurants there for lunch after the visit to Kiyomizu-dera is still the best tonkatsu I have ever eaten… (I don’t eat a lot of tonkatsu tho… Maybe occasionally at Warruku)

Inside Kiyomizu-dera, its just as busy… Besides being crowded with tourists, Kiyomizu-dera seems to be a popular choice for school trips and also for people offering prayers or making wishes… The buildings in Kiyomizu-dera are quite grand, not bad for buildings that were built in 1633 I guess…

Kiyomizu-dera also has a famous wooden veranda that is often featured in animes… Apparently it didn’t use a single nail to construct the veranda and its all wood… But for the preservation of the veranda, it has since been reinforced with metal nails and whatnots…

Another feature of Kiyomizu-dera is the Otowa-no-taki, which is actually a “spring” with three channels of water, each channel representing health, success and supposedly longevity (according to wiki.. tour guide says beauty tho… He also said that for it to come true one can only drink from 2 out of 3 of the channels… Guess you can’t have everything…)