Okay this post is really long, and the only reason I decided to post this in parts is because it's really very long and one huge post will make everyone's eyes pop, so here goes!
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16th December
Singapore-Bangkok (transit)
The flight was around 9pm, so we ended up leaving the house around 7pm. My grandparents sent us off, and Ryan went along in the car for a ride and they dropped us off at the Departure Hall and then left. After we checked in, we headed straight for immigration. We ended up walking around looking for a shop that sold batteries because we ran out of AA batteries for the camera. Then we went to the gate, which was right at the end of the terminal. On the way to the gate my mother and I must have visited every single female toilet along the way because they were so bloody crowded -.- and we didn't want to queue up. In the end we used the toilet right at the end of the terminal which was empty and had no people, finally!
Opposite our gate, there was some free Oto 'big foot' massage thing, so all of us had a go at it, it was kinda ticklish (okay as I am typing this, this entry seems really inane and boring. But I promised myself I'd do this so I'll have some record of this trip. Bla). We waited outside the gate till 15 mins before the plane was due to depart before going in, watching all the other people queuing up for the security checks and whatnot, as usual. In the end the plane ended up leaving Singapore late because the backlog of people stuck at the security was too much.
Our plane tickets were really cheap, about $450 per person from Singapore to Kansai Intl. Airport on Thai Airways, of course the catch was that we had to transfer at Bangkok's new airport. The transit time was around 1 1/2 hours from est. landing time to take off time. A little background info here, it was opened in early 2006 by ex-Prime Minister Thaksin, even though it wasn't really complete. This was an airport that was supposed to have been completed many years ago, but the completion date kept getting pushed back. In the end Thaksin got fed up, hopped on a plane and landed at the airport which has some un-pronouncable name and declared it open. Well, according to my dad anyway. The airport is shaped like a 'H' and has wings A, B, C and D at opposite ends of the 'I' part of the 'H' with the shopping part in the '--' part.
We had a fairly routine landing at the airport, nothing out of the ordinary. Then came the great journey around the vast planes (very punny) of a bloody, unfinished airport. We started off at A and ended up going around the entire airport, went past D and ended up in some area about 500m from the airport terminal because like durrrr, the airport wasn't fully completed. So not only was the flight late, we wasted time taxi-ing about the entire airport, but we had to wait and take a bus to the terminal. Me not in good mood.
Then when the bus came, it drove all over the damn place till 'A' wing or something, ANOTHER ROUND AROUND THE AIRPORT, and then it suddenly doubled back, like the driver forgot where to drop us off. ARGHHHH. The terminal looked like shit too. Seriously. The walls were bare, as in nekkid concrete, no paint or anything and we could see the pipes running through the terminal. It wasn't some avant garde deconstructed look either, it simply was NOT complete. Along the way pieces of masking take covered up the departure/arrival sign board, lights didn't work and the tiles looked like crap. Joy. Along the way we passed this caucasian man who said really loudly that "this is the ugliest f**king airport I have ever seen".
Of course the kicker came when we found out our gate was at the other end of the '--' shopping part. The worse part of the shopping part was that it was smack in the middle of the opposing gates of A/B and C/D. That part was seriously long, seemed like it was at least 500m long, filled with shops and it had no travellators. We ended up having to rush through everything or else risk missing our connection to Kansai. Thank you Suvarnabhumi (googled it) Airport. It wasn't till we had reached our gates that my mum and I decided to go to use the toilet. There, the signs were wrong, the toilet was placed in the most ulu location ever and the stylish looking taps with those sensors were ungainly to use.
I hate Suvarnabhumi Airport.
17th December
Bangkok-Kansai Airport-Nara
After I woke up from my sleep, I felt kinda sick and my throat was a little dry and I kept sneezing :/ so during the quarentine check at the airport I had to told my breath multiple times to stop sneezing, lol. They were checking for H5N1 bird flu. We made it through immigration fairly fast and didn't have to stop to wait for the baggage to come out because we carried everything as hand carry (backpacking), which was just as well since due to our tight transit, the bags would not have made it to Japan and would have ended up in Bangkok -.-
We headed straight for the tourist information end bought tickets for the bus ride to Nara which left around 8:50am or something, leaving us with about 40mins to wander around the airport and the area next to it. We all switched on our handphones, but they didn't work. We later found out it was because the entire Japan has switched to a 3G network while our phones were still on 2G. It was really nice and cold as we walked around the outside of the airport, about 12 degrees. The wind was so strong that it blew my dad's cap off and he ran about chasing it, lol.
The bus was really empty so we each had 2 seats to ourselves. We all ended up sleeping on the way too. The bus ride was about an hour I think. At Nara we got off at the last stop and walked through this little lane called Sanjo Street to Nakata Bed and Breakfast, a little cute house in the middle of the town, which was pretty small anyway. There we met Jun Nakata who spoke some English. I later learned he was learning English. The main reason I had arranged for Nara to be the first stop was that I had read from some guide book that on the 17th of Dec, there was some annual street parade featuring traditional costumes and so on. The room that Jun gave us was Japanese style, with tatami mats and so on (: There my mother and I changed into our long johns and I went to use the toilet (it seems like toilets play a huge part in my trip to Japan...). The toilet bowl was so awesome! It was HEATED. LOL. It was really comfortable to sit on and had all sorts of options like a bidet, a female bidet, even adjusting the seat temp. If I ever move to a temperate country - I want one of those!
Anyway toilets aside, we left the Bed and Breakfast shortly after and walked to the main street where we found the tourist info. At the tourist info there was this woman who spoke English and she helped us. The main street itself was quite crowded with a small town, almost everyone was out and about the town because of the festival. Street stalls selling candied apples, takoyaki, games and so on lined the area where the parade was due to go through. My mum wanted to eat this grilled squid thing, but there was no price written out. I asked the old lady in Japanese I had learned from a guide book.
Me: Ikura deska? (What's the price)
Old Lady: Rokunihyaku (600 Yen)
Of course there's a reason I didn't leave a space between her words, because she said it in rapid fire speak. All I could catch was the 'hya ku' which means 100 -_____________- So anyway my dad gave her a 1000 Yen note and she just gave us change. Lol. Failed.
We walked to the main shine where the fesitval was due to start and poked about, taking some pictures. We watched some of the performers getting their act ready and then walked out of the shrine to a street where the parade would be headed for later. After standing about and buying some other stuff, the parade started so we found a spot and stood there to watch. Because there was no muscle movement on our part, we soon grew really cold. The parade also started to seem a little boring, for the pure reason that we didn't understand the history behind it, nor the shinto culture. After about 30 mins we left and watched the parade in other stops and visited some shrines along the way too.
Then we walked till we ended up in the Deer Park and watched the end of the festival where these boys seated on horses, fully dressed in some ancient garb shot these arrows, then proceeded into the grand shrine where lots of devotees swarmed about. Of course to us it just looked kind of cool, but we really gained nothing cultural from it whatsoever because we didn't understand anything. Bla.
Afterwards we left the shrine area after all the performers had went into the shrine and I fed some deer. One tried to eat my bag I think. Lol.
Then we walked to some other shrine and went into this garden, which was nice and probably had some huge significance that we weren't aware of. ARGHHH. The thing about Japan is that it's 90% shrines with it's own unique religion, Shinto. None of us understood anything about it, not to mention that Japan is not exactly gaijin friendly. I felt like such an ignorant fool there, my dad too. The sky had been overcast for some time, and just as we were about to start leaving the garden, it started to rain. Of course the rain in Japan is considered a drizzle back home, but still it was miserable because clothes get wet and you feel colder. We ended up running back from the garden to the main street where my dad bought me this mini candied strawberry and we went shopping -.- since there was nothing else to do. We went to the 100 yen store, daiso, lol! and I bought this sodoku book. We also bought some chocolates and my mum went off on her obsessive search to find charcoal toothpaste for her boss, of all things.
We walked till we found this little eatery where we just pointed at the stuff we wanted since we couldn't speak the lingo, hahaha. Weirdness. I had this zaru soba with fried rice and some other weird thing. When we left the eatery, I started to get really really cold. In addition to the rain, it was about 7 degrees out and I really started to shiver. Brrrrr. Like I could FEEL my spine shaking or something. I didn't really feel it was that cold, but I was seriously shaking.
I had a nice hot shower back at the Bed and Breakfast, but oh my gosh, changing clothes was such a torture! It was so cold and the wind slipped through the cracks of the door, nipping at my ankles. Wa lao. I started to shiver again while trying to put on my clothes -.-
Jun had set up the beds for us, complete with electric blanket. I had a really nice sleep and it was so comfy sleeping there (:
18th December
Nara-Kyoto
The check out time for the B&B was 10am. We all thought we'd be awake by 8am, and we ended up sleeping till 9am instead. Hahaha! Anyway we packed up our stuff and left the B&B, taking pictures and waving goodbye to Jun.
We walked into some small eatery along the main street, the first of many machine type eateries! I took a picture of the machine but I have yet to install the photo editing software, so no pictures as of yet. Anyway it was really cool, you insert money and punch in your order, then this ticket comes out and you give it to the staff. So anyway we compared the little pics and prices on the machine to the plastic food displayed outside, then placed our orders. It was really fun to use, though it makes you wonder how much labour they actually save with a set up like that since you still have to give the tickets to the staff personally anyway.
At the JR Station, we bought tickets from this 20-ish young guy who spoke pidgin English, I can't remember if he was hot or not. Lol. Anyway after my dad bought the tickets, he had the prescence of mind to ask when it was coming, then the guy replied "10:35", then my dad checked his watch. It was 10:33am. O.O So we ended up running across the station to the platform. Bla. I was completely winded when we reached the train, not that the station was mega huge or anything - but I really haven't had any exercise in a long time :/
The train ride was about 1 hr so from Nara to Kyoto and I listened to music on my totally falling apart mp3 player while watching the land zip by. At Kyoto station, we ended up a little lost in the huge mass of people walking in all directions, seperate lines for the Shinkansen, JR and Kintetsu lines while looking for the subway to take to our hotel. In the end we went to some Kintetsu office to ask for directions to the subway which turned out to be in a seperate area, but in the same building -.-
Our hotel turned out to be 3 stops away from Kyoto Station at Karasuma-Oike Station. We bought the tickets for the station, 250 Yen I think and then wandered about trying to find more information about how to go to our next destination: Ise, a little sea side town. In the same area, next to the subway, there was this underground shopping mall. My mom did a little browsing before my dad got a little angry and we hopped onto the subway.
Karasuma-Oike turned out to be the CBD of Kyoto. LOL. Our hotel was about a block or two away from the subway station and about 5 blocks away from the main attractions of Kyoto like the Imperial Palace and some other palace belong to a minor feudal lord. After we checked in and left our bags at the airport, we headed straight for the two attractions, stopping for lunch at some weird pseudo-Chinese food place when it started to rain. Again we did the point at pictures thing to order our food. En route to the first attaction, I somehow managed to spoil the zip on my jacket, so it wouldn't zip up anymore :/
The minor feudal lord's palace was very Japanese, that is minimalist. Like there was nothing to look at. Just as the Chinese are King of Gaudy and Opulence, the Japanese are King of Simplicity and Minimalism. Seriously, there was nothing to see. The Imperial Palace turned out to be closed for the day or something for some sort of event, so we couldn't go in. Bla. Anyway we took a cab to the Philosoper's Walk at the Eastern side of Kyoto, near the mountains where practically 90% of the shrines are located. That was around 3pm? I guess. Anyway we went to some shrines (I sound like such an uncultured fool :( ), took pictures, went to some gardens and walked along the 'Philosopher's Path' which was this stone path next to the old canal. Along the way the sun started to set (Sun down was at 5pm) and we ended up at this shrine, which we wanted to go in and see since it was really big, but it was too dark and seemed closed for the day. There were a few cabs still hanging around the area and we were all tired from the walking, so we hopped onto this cab. The driver gave us sweets (:
Then it was my turn to lead. I had found this night time walk for Kyoto which was in the Gion/main shopping district. The first stop was this brightly lit shrine, the name of which again, I can't remember and I ended up repeating it over and over again to the amused taxi driver. Rahhhh. After the shrine we walked and ended up missing the main area of the expensive japanese restaurants where all the Geishas we usually to be seen, because we were on the wrong side of the road and I couldn't see the landmark which was Gion Hotel -.- Anyway we backtracked and walked through the area and we saw this geisha seated in a taxi, refusing to come out because there were like 15 gaijins gathered around the taxi like some mob, taking pictures. We stared for a while before moving on. Walking along the restaurant row, we saw another geisha walking really fast. It was around this time that the stupidness came out. First my mother thought we were in the red light district and that geishas were prostituites -.- Then she confused them with gays (like WTF? GAYsha?). ARGH. I can't even remember the entire convo. It was too weird for words.
We went to the other places on the walk and we ended up at some shopping centre because we saw some winter jackets on sale there, but I didn't like them. Then I saw that there was a HMV at the same place and asked to go there to look for the HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR CD I planned to buy in Japan. There, it took me a while to find because I didn't exactly understand how they arranged the entire section. Anyway I now have the Enrai Tooku Ni Aru Akari CD, YAY! I also have this weird pin up of Athrun Zala that came with the CD. Go figure.
After that we went to look for food and we found this place that sells sashimi on rice. I had tuna, salmon and in retrospect, minced tuna sashimi on rice. It was so good! Argh, I feel hungry again :/ Then after we got out, my dad discovered that we had actually walked so far that we were a few blocks away from our hotel so we walked back. I was shivering again :/
At the hotel, my mum went to make some calls to her sister in Osaka and I used the com for about 10 mins to talk to some people online (:
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Will try to accomplish more tomorrow! This has taken me close to 2+ hours to do. I am such a grandma.
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