The best of~*

the previous post is actually a very lengthy preface to an activity we did with the JHS 3rd years yesterday – my very last class with the loveliest bunch of students. they asked me a variety of questions using superlatives and got me thinking a little about some things i just wanna note down or share:

1. What food did you eat the most in Japan? – It has to be tuna mayo onigiri, perfect for a snack or when you’re in a rush. i prefer the ebi mayo (prawn) version but it’s not as common. Next will have to be kare raisu (Japanese curry rice) and omurice I think.

2. What was the most delicious food in Japan? – The students are actually only referring to Japanese food, which is hard because i like most Japanese food and what i choose to eat depends only on what i’m in the mood for. I’ve really enjoyed the food i had at previous school enkais (at a hotel near USJ and another at the Imperial), the meal that a Japanese teacher’s Kyoto-wife prepared for us, kani cream pasta and this amazing Italian restaurant near Momodani station on the JR loop line.

3. Which place did you visit the most in Japan? – It’s probably the Umeda Sky Building, which is also my favourite place in Osaka. For non-tourist attractions, it’s a fight between the Toho Cinema in Umeda, the izakaya Za-watami at Nodahanshin and another izakaya behind El Panchos. actually, El Panchos (Mexican restaurant) and the Dutch restaurant on Nakanoshima might be in the running too, although i havent been to either in the longest time.

4. Which was the most beautiful place in Japan? – I don’t know the answer to this, but i recall being really fascinated by the mist that formed in the valley below the highway while travelling back from Takayama. i’m only thinking about the places i’ve been to while on JET, otherwise i’m sure Hokkaido will make this list – i will soon find out if my first impressions are correct! *excited* I also think everywhere in autumn is gorgeous when the leaves change colour.

5. Where in Japan do you want to return to the most? – Since i’m going back to Hokkaido it’ll have to be Okinawa. i want to spend more time driving (i.e. being driven) along the coast and to visit Iriomote too. I think Yakushima is considered part of Kyushu, but i’d like to go there too. Okinawa food is amazing!

6. What was the most interesting/surprising thing about Japan? – The most interesting thing I think has to be the host boys along the Dotonbori bridge. As for most surprising, perhaps that people queue to get on the trains, or that women use Otohime** in the toilets. However, many of the female students don’t know what Otohime is (the boys definitely dont know cos male toilets arent equipped with them), which i find even more surprising.

 

and here are a few which i thought of:

7. What are some of the best places to visit? – I love Nara Park; now that I think of it, it’s most probably the place i’ve been to the most. Asuka in Nara Prefecture is great too, especially nearing autumn. I also especially recommend Taketomi island in Okinawa and Kamakura in spring. other nice places to visit would be Miyajima, Koya-san (wakayama), Arashiyama in Kyoto and Hida-no-Sato in Takayama.

8. What are some of the most overrated places/events in Japan? – oooh. Yoshino for sakura wins hands down; others include Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama (too crowded) and Matsushima Bay near Sendai (pretty but definitely not top 3 most scenic material). I’d include Harajuku too, though perhaps not for the first timer to Japan. As for events, Kyoto’s Daimonji is rubbish, and there’s this other fire festival in Nara (a side of the mountain is set alight) that i heard was a huge letdown too. i’m personally not a fan of festivals at all – too crowded, too hot and generally not all that enjoyable. Go once or twice and that’s enough!

9. What are the best things to do in Japan? – Go around the temples in autumn! it’s the most beautiful season in Japan, and temples often open till late for night illuminations. That said, go to all the illumination events there are: Kobe’s Illuminarie, Kyoto’s Higashimaya Hanatouro, Osaka’s Nakanoshima Christmas Light up, Nara-to-kae, etc. Try also to spend a night in a proper Japanese ryokan with a full kaiseki meal – you won’t regret the cost one bit. Sakura viewing is a must too, of course.

10. What will you miss the most about Japan? – The four seasons with their accompanying hype (eg crabs in winter, mango and pineapples in summer), seasonal Kit Kat, omurice, bukkake udon, delicious fried tofu, cheap and fresh sushi and widely available cocktails. For non-food related aspects (i’m making an effort here!) – buses and trains that’re usually on time, buses telling you what stop is coming up next and the convenience of combinis/vending machines.  Maybe also the presence of strange/interesting people on the street.

 

What are some of your best ofs~?

 

*: i dont watch TV, but if I did, the show “The Best House, 1,2,3” would be top on my list of must-watch shows. each week, about 4 tv personalities present the Best (or most amazing, unbelievable, beautiful, etc) 3 things in a theme of their choice. Past themes include mosaics, transvestites, weight loss stories and inventions.

**: Otohime translates to ‘sound princess’. For some reason women in japan are uncomfortable having their toilet sounds overheard by other toilet users, and used to flush in order to cover those sounds. it was declared a waste of water and all toilets (except those in schools, train stations and Osaka City Hall) are now equipped with Otohime – you press a button (sometimes it’s automatic and hence really annoying) and a loud flushing sound will be played for about 25seconds.

spring and sakura in kansai

although winter officially ended when march began, the weather only turned warmer from the start of this month. unfortunately, spring has sort of abruptly disappeared into early summer - day temperatures have reached 25 degrees but feels far hotter because of the sun blazing down on you. i'm currently down to dressing the way i would if i were back in singapore, with a cardigan in my bag for if i'm out when the sun has set.

the very weird thing about osaka weather - not sure if it's something that occurs in other parts of japan or not - is that seasons arrive very suddenly. in autumn, it gradually got cooler up till a point, and after that temperatures took a sharp dip overnight. same for spring; it remained cold up till end march and gradually got warmer by a few degrees, and suddenly temperatures shot up about 5 degrees over a day. it's crazy!! thankfully the weather is forecast to cool down a wee bit from tomorrow, and i'm really looking forward to that.

spring in japan is of course all about cherry blossoms, and i've gone hanami - sakura blossoms viewing - 4 times in the past week. sakura are rather useless trees though (to quote a friend), as they're pretty for literally only a week when the blossoms are out in full bloom. after that, the leaves start sprouting - at a rapid rate, mind you - and mar the sea of pink with green. it's when the leaves start growing that the petals begin to fall too, which means that you see green leaves, brown branches and the reddish remnants of the blossoms after the petals are gone.

booo.

i think i've had my share of hanami though. i went to arashiyama with my parents, sakuranomiya in osaka on my own, another part of kyoto with the boy and yoshino with a few friends. with my parents, we sat on the Sagano-Arashiyama "Romantic Train" that runs from JR Umahori station down to JR Sagano station, and cost 600yen.

the train ride is anything but romantic unfortunately, and it's certainly not because i was there with my parents! the view is only on one side of the train for half of the ride and on the other side for the other half, so you dont really get to see that much. plus people can stand in the aisle - that's the best thing to do actually, cos you get a far better view standing than seated - so you cant really see over to the other side of the train if you're sitting down. furthermore, the seats are arranged in 4s with 2 seats facing another 2, so unless you're sitting facing the direction in which the train is moving, you dont get a very good view at all!

as the train passes through a mountain range - it's roughly the same path of the Hozu River Cruise I went on a bit more than a month ago - it passes through about 6 or 7 tunnels, one of which lasts close to a minute! so part of the short 15 to 20min train ride is spent in darkness. the train also screeches AND is somewhat rickety rackety, so the noise is not very pleasant at all.

the flowers in the meadow next to the train station were gorgeous though:

the sakura were kinda pretty as well:

arashiyama has pretty sakura too:

 

the prettiest temple there, tenryu-ji, had gorgeous sakura too, especially this one that bloomed in two different colours:

with dual coloured light pink blossoms:

there're even row boats on the river, which is really nice:

more pictures of arashiyama can be found on facebook HERE.

 

i went to sakuranomiya, a fairly popular spot for hanami in osaka city, just 2 or 3 days after arashiyama, and already the leaves were fairly large. i also very stupidly forgot to bring my camera; luckily i didnt really intend to take many photos!

the petals had all fallen, and the most beautiful part, i think, was seeing the petals fall like snow when the wind blew:

my shadow amongst the petals

i walked all the way from there to the outskirts of Osaka-jo park, where i saw these two kitties:

i visited the path of philosophy and heian jingu in kyoto on saturday, and it wasnt that pretty anymore.. the shrine's garden was so super packed though.

the entrance:

after going through that huge structure:

inside the garden:

my camera doesnt take very good pictures unfortunately.. the same scene looks so much better using a dslr! sigh.

check out the crowd, and imagine the ENTIRE garden - that was pretty big - like that!

the philosopher's path is meant to be super famous for sakura, but we went a bit late and the blossoms werent so pretty anymore:

more pictures from that trip can be found HERE on facebook too.

 

yesterday was spent in Yoshino in nara, which is supposed to be one of the best spots japan for hanami in japan. it has 3 layers of sakura that bloom at different times, so the blossoms in general are meant to last over a period of about 1 month.

the thing about yoshino, however, is that it's SO far from osaka. it took an hour and a half from Tennoji station (which is more than 30min from my house) to Yoshino station, and add that to the fact that it's hanami season and the japanese are crazy over it, which means that EVERYONE is heading there, and you get one HUGE, tremendously stressful crowd. we had to queue to get on the bus that took us from the station to midway up the mountain range, and that took a while too.

thanks to my friend's friends who were, to tell the truth, rather disgustingly late, we reached there in the afternoon and only spent about 2 to 2.5 hours chilling and enjoying the view before having to catch the last bus down the mountain at 5.30pm - and 2 hours seems rather long, but time passes quickly when you're relaxing!

i dont really have nice pictures of the place cos i was too busy relaxing, and the journey home was so super stressful that all of us were EXHAUSTED when we were finally back in osaka. i dont think we'll ever go to yoshino again, but would stay in osaka - like sakuranomiya - instead!

here are the few pictures of yoshino that i have:

already you can see that there are lots of leaves out, and that they've turned brown!

arashiyama river cruise and some sightseeing

today was a crazy day. one of the Japanese teachers whom the Brit and I met at an enkai really likes speaking english, and invited both of us, the ALT working in his school and the JTE in my school to his house.

we met at 9am at kyoto station on a sunday morning :S

(i had to wake up before 7am!)

his plan was to take us on the Hozu River cruise which starts up north down to Arashiyama. it's famous for its beautiful view, but i think it's currently not a good time as all the trees are still bare. so i ended up spending a crazy 1110yen from JR Osaka Station to Kameoka Station!

the river cruise is a bit expensive at 3900yen. what's interesting is that there are 3 people steering the boat - 2 in front, and 1 behind. one of those in front provides the forward movement, while the other determines the direction and gives a bit more push. the latter would be the younger guy in the pictures below - note how he moves from the bow (?) of the boat towards the passengers in the pictures. he basically continues doing this throughout his time as steerer.

i think the young guy's job is the hardest, so it was interesting to see the 3 rowers rotate positions every time they completed another third of the route. that's because they apparently split the money equally among them, and can make a trip down the river from 1 to 3 times a day. the boat can sit up to 27 paying passengers, and the old man facing the camera in the above pictures told us that they get 60000yen if they make 2 trips, and 100000yen if they make 3 trips. i'm not sure if he meant that HE alone gets that much, or that they as a group get that amount. if it's the former, it seems like rather good money, even though it's tough work!

the trip takes from 1 to 2 hours, depending on how rapidly the river is flowing. it was a rather peaceful and uneventful ride, with the best parts perhaps being the chance to see ducks fly and birds perch calmly on the rocks on the water's edge. we came across a solo canoeist along the way:

along the way were several rapids and drops, which meant water splashing into the boat. there were also rocks that were 'attractions' of sorts, due to them resembling some kind of animal - like a frog or lion - or an object like a mirror, or something else i didnt quite get.

saw a few bridges along the way too, some with trains passing through them.

i like the above bridge as i thought that the thing that it is attached to on the bank looked rather nice. it didnt come out too well in the picture though.

here are the 5 of us in the boat. the lady is my teacher, while the guy is the teacher who invited us to his house. the brit is the one next to me, while the other is one of the american ALTs on JET here too.

alighting from the boat:

where we landed:

saw some pretty plum blossoms:

strolled through the bamboo grove again - this is my 3rd time in arashiyama!

visited nonomiya shrine, which is famous for being in Tales of the Genji:

the teacher said that it's a good place for people to pray for romance and love, so of course i did too. i also drew a lot, and got another one which says that i'll have good luck! :) i havent drawn one which says i have bad luck since coming to japan :)

we also went into Jojakko Temple, which seemed rather unimpressive despite apparently being a rather famous temple in this area. perhaps it looks a lot better in spring or autumn.. all we saw were some plum bonsai:

and a flight of rather steep looking steps (in the background beyond the gate):

i dont know what this is all about, but i love it:

the highlight of the day had to be the meal at the teacher's house though. his wife loves to cook and is an EXCELLENT cook! she also baked bread and made some sandwiches that he brought along in the morning to tide us over till lunch. her presentation is exquisite too; here's the starter:

it was a fish fillet rolled up with some herbs, baby squid - called firefly squid in japanese - with spring onion, and a kind of fish that's delicious in winter with a pretty stalk of flowers.

the next was great too: sushi! didnt take a picture of the individual portions, but she made extra sushi and placed it on a large platter. there was tuna, scallop - my favourite - and what i think is sea bream with shredded egg yolk on the top:

besides that, she also cooked mushrooms with tau kee (picture above) - the latter is not that easy to find in japan and it was a real treat to be eating it after such a long time - bamboo shoots with bonito flakes, vinegared cucumber and radish, and fried tau gua skin (so delicious!), grilled shiitake mushrooms (these were amazing). she also fried up the remainder of a fish (sea bream i think) and served us grilled mochi with seaweed.

all these were also topped off with our drink of choice and some fruits with yummy yoghurt. was such a great meal!! :)