Yes, people, I am in the Land Of The Rising Sun, aka Japan. After having only about 4 hours of sleep for two days, I boarded the plane heading for Japan at 11:55pm on 14
th March. Did I sleep on the plane ? No. I watched Casino
Royale and Happy Feet. Around 4:30am, they came around serving "breakfast".
Hehe. Never had such an early breakfast before.
After having that (eggs and potato, which doesn't taste nice), I looked out the window and saw that the sun was rising, so I took a photo of the horizon from the plane. Those white stuff you see on the window ? They are FROST.
Why did I take this ? Why, to show you that I was actually in a Rolls Royce of course ! As we were landing, I was so scared, coz all I could see was WATER ! Turns out that the airport is out near the sea. Gave me a terrible fright !
Anyway, I finally arrived at 7am
Kansai time (6am in Malaysia). I saw all these fellas wearing their thick jackets and putting on scarves, so I followed suit. It was cold. I made my way to the
immigration counter, and just as it reach my turn, I suddenly heard a loud "bump" ! Guess what happened ! A fella who was also walking towards the
immigration counters (Japanese fella) suddenly fell down flat on his face. I don't know why he fainted so sudden, but there was an older man with him (maybe his dad) who called for help. I only understand "
hayakku,
hayakku", which means "faster, faster".
So I went downstairs to collect my baggage and saw that there were some guys with a stretcher and medication making their way upstairs to help that poor soul. While waiting for it, there were several Golder Retrievers taking turns to check passengers and the luggages for drugs. Wanted to pat them, but they were "working" so I decided against it.
I collected my bag and went in search of the transport counter where my niece already booked a seat for me to her place. When I reach there, they spoke to me in Jap and I spoke to them in English. Chinese say "chicken and duck talk", meaning, useless conversation ! Anyhow, I managed to tell them my name, and they say "Ah ..... soh", then pointed me to some seats nearby.
I waited until they called me, then off we went to a van that had several passengers. Midway, I had to change van. The buildings that I passed by on my journey from the airport to her house were boring. All same same design and colour to me. They are either brown, beige or grey. And also sea everywhere !
I only reached my niece's place around 9:40am. She already told me the night before, the building will be doing lift maintenance at 9:30am. Since I was late arriving there, I had to CARRY the luggage upstairs to her place, which is on the 3rd floor ! Luckily it was cold, otherwise I would have been sweating buckets.
Her apartment overlooks the Kobe Oji Zoo and Park, where they have a Ferris wheel. The zoo is only located 3 minutes walk from her place ! Yet I have not heard of animals whining, etc, nor are there any smells emanating from the zoo.
Since I was already there and didn't want to waste time, she took me to Sannomiya for lunch and to walk around there to shop. First stop after getting out of the train was to a shop nearby for nice, yummy, fresh, mouth-watering sushi. Nice leh.......... How much ? 1000 yen, roughly RM30. But look, the fish covers the sushi rice, unlike those in Malaysia where the rice is bigger than the fish. One word. YUM ! And yes, no wasabi, coz my niece say that if I ask for it, I will be insulting the chef. Touchy fellas.
This is Motomachi, the shopping district in Kobe. See those trees at the back with the blooming white flowers ? Beautiful. I almost thought they were fake trees. Just to confirm, Yes, It was Darn Cold ! When have you ever seen me dressed up with so much clothes, topped with a scarf ? It was C..O..L..D !!! Samui !! The weather was about 9 degrees on that day.
Then we walk past Kobe's Chinatown. There are shops selling Chinese pau and other food. Nice and hot ya.... wanted to go warm my hands, which were freezing. Hehe. But I didn't lar...
Heh... saw this fella outside a shop, and I couldn't resist taking a picture with it. So adorable !
This is Kobe Tower. Nice and tall, something like KL Tower, but red in colour. Yes, also near the port.
We walked around and came back to take a night shot of the tower. Lovely ain't it ?
My niece bought some nice strawberries that day, although they had weird shapes, but they are nice, big and sweet. She also cooked dinner that night. Slept around 1am that day, and we were to go to USJ tomorrow, coz she said that if we go on weekends or public holidays, the place will be packed. Where is USJ ? Read the next article.
It was a nice blue sky. Looked like a fake picture doesn't it ? It was also sunny. I didn't realize that I loved the sun so much. It made me warm. Haha. When I'm back in Malaysia, I'm going to complain about the sun again, but for now, I LOVE the sun.
This is the entrance to Himeji Castle. I was asking, how can all these people in the olden times walk up and up and up and up and up just to go see the king then ! Don't their legs ache ?
Beeeuuutiiifullll leh !
I was told that Himeji is even more beautiful in April, when all the sakuras are blooming. Guess what ? I actually had the luck to see ONE single tree blooming with sakura (cheery blossoms).
Close up of the sakura.
This is the view from the top of Himeji, which had 7 stories that I had to climb up. It nearly killed me ! And the steps were wooden, and steep, and also certain areas I had to bow down coz the beam was just too low.
After Himeji, I was taken to Tarumi, which is where I can take pictures of the strongest hanging steel bridge in the world.
This is the sunset view at Tarumi. We almost froze out there taking the pictures, coz it was SOOOO cold and the wind was blowing HARD. I thought I turned into an icicle.
Another tiring day in Japan, what with the late nites, early rise and all the walking walking walking.
