Thursday, December 16, 2010

Land of the Rising Sun.

Dear readers I’m delighted to announce my return from Japan safely…LOL

A couple of things to say before I continue.

1. I don’t want to carry my camera for some time. My neck is hurting, can’t imagine those guys with the 70-200mm the whole day.

2. To not step on to another aircraft for the next few months or years whatever…the long hours on a plane IS CRAZY!!!

3. lastly, 百闻不如一见. There are a lot of things that I can’t describe exactly neither with words nor pictures. The atmosphere is just something indescribable…WTH

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So here goes:

Japan 日本…

is a crazy place.

Thanks to its awesomely disciplined well mannered, well behaved Japanese residents. As I go along my itinerary I’d tell you why is it exactly so. I’d probably be going day by day in separate posts.

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Japan is probably one of the cleanest place I’ve ever visited. Pollution is at its minimum therefore the skies are always that blue, well unless it’s not raining.

Day one: Arrival at Kansai International Airport.

Japan: Country of vending machines. Everything can be traded using vending machines.

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If you wish to watch movies, you’d have to get to a vending machine outside your rooms to get a ticket or card and place them in the decoders or whatever to watch movies. Here I mean MOVIES not normal TV dramas and news those kind. But of course it costs around 1000 yen that is around RM40 for a day’s worth of movies.

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And then there’s vending machines for drinks. This is the most common form of vending machines providing residents with ample supply of drinks anywhere they go. I myself find it very convenient as well. There are so many vending machines along the streets, in the hotels, next to shops, parking spaces. So many until it is better off counting your hair rather than to count how many of these vending machines are in Japan.

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The first hotel we stayed in Japan.

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Some stuff we got from Family Mart, it seems to be as popular as 7-11 in Japan.

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Damn aren’t they clean or what.

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The first morning in Japan gave me a very good impression of Japan. It is so damn clean and relaxing. Very few cars on the road but of course this place was kind of out of the way, away from the big city.

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This time was the end of autumn and the beginning of winter so it was quite cold.

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That day was at first quite cloudy and started to rain later in the morning. But fortunately it rained for just a little while.

Then we visited one of Japan’s oldest and most important piece of history, Osaka palace.

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Things are very expensive in Japan.

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其中三个就是:食,住和行都很贵。

Only clothing is relatively cheaper. It’s very expensive to travel in Japan. Driving license is also expensive to get in Japan, around 300000Yen to get one stupid driving license, you do the math.

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As you can see, we travelled using the highway across Osaka and the highways were actually high/tall indeed as shown in the pictures below. It’s not one small stretch of highway…it is practically the whole highway surrounding the city a.k.a outer ring road, I think.

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Here is the Osaka Palace or also it works as a fortress something bla bla bla. If you REALLY WANT to know more you’d have to Google it because it involves 3 main Japanese generals and almost 2 thousand years of history.

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Ooops over exposure.

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LOL let you guys see it from different angles

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This is the Time Capsule in Osaka. The Time Capsule is Japan’s site for keeping things that were exhibited during EXPO 1970. It was last opened in year 2000 and is scheduled to be reopened in year 2100(I hope I’m still alive to witness this) and to see the things that were used during the 20th century. Then after that, it will again be opened every hundred years for the next 5000 years from 1970 that is until the year 6970 to, again let the future people on Earth look at what the people of the past have used 5000 years ago. But of course Earth has to survive that 5000 years.

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A 200 over years old tree.

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This is the museum or something I forgot what was it. I was so crazily cold and my hands were freezing until I can’t concentrate on doing anything.

Here some pictures of the scenery, nothing much.

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After the, at around 10 a.m. we reached UNIVERSAL STUDIOS…YAY!

The last time I went to Universal Studios was 3 years old =O wow that was like 15 years ago.

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Welcome to Universal Studios a.k.a Universal City, depends on what you like to call it, I like to call it Studios.

There are a couple of ‘must sees’ in this park I’d show you later. Wait, basically all are must sees…HAHAHA Anyway there are a few that most people come here for.

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Universal Studios is set in a kind of 50’s oldies, retroish and Hollywoodish setting with lots of themed buildings. One of them is this studio like building just like those you’d see in Hollywood.

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Actually there is a huge Christmas tree at the end.

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See, another retro building.

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American like architecture.

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Yes, one of the best rides you can ever get. If you come here(please do come on a weekday), you MUST try this ride even though it says waiting time 60minutes…

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Japanese REAAALLLYYYYYYYY know how to wait. They are always so patient. Almost half an hour before the parade they’d be waiting there, sitting on mats.

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And AT LAST…After enduring the excruciating cold weather…the parade ahs come

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Snoopy

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This was one of the greatest real life shows I’ve ever seen. Universal Studios has a thing for creating such presentations. Even though we didn’t sit in the splash zone, we too managed to get wet. LOL

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Because of the sun light, I couldn’t get much nice shots. Instead of taking yucky pictures, I just enjoyed the show.

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Tell me your first impression of the sky…real or fake.

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You see the sky…It’s so beautiful you might think its fake!

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These two…they just came out from somewhere…as we were also just walking out from the toilet. So…we bumped into them and started taking pictures.

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Land of wizard of Oz.

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Jaws, we went on this ride in the last minute. It was awesome. Another thing about Japanese employees is that they are always so energetic and passionate about their jobs. Even the ‘captain’ of the boat ride in Jaws is so good it made us felt the “kinzhiong” atmosphere although none of us can understand Japanese.

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Mom and dad didn’t ride this. Something about Universal Studios is that everything is themed properly. The robot dinosaurs and the sounds made the ride very interesting, you can’t compare them to Genting Highland at all. The animatronics were done so nicely and realistically that it created a lot of suspense until suddenly you see the light at the end of the tunnel…suddenly a WOOSH and an AHHHHH comes gushing through the tense air….and SPLASH! You had got to sit this ride on your own to know what it felt like.

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Back To The Future ride is also another MUST ride attraction. Can’t tell you much here, it might spoil the fun. Yes, again on a weekday you still have to queue for an hour.

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Everyday at around 4.30pm local time, the sky darkens like that…and by 5pm it’s already like 7pm in M’sia.

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More vending machines.

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That night we had sushi and sashimi…a.k.a raw fish sushi and also udon.

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After dinner we headed down to Shin Sai Bashi for shopping…

P.S Japanese shops close very early at around 8pm. WOW we close at 11pm…

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Uniqlo…really unique lor…the building walls are really one of a kind. It changes pattern every now and then.

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After that we went back to the hotel. We stayed in 6 different hotels altogether, each one different from the previous night.

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And that is the end of day 1.

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