Japan To and Fro III

Mood

I really can't remember what and where.......
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This is what happens when you left too late to blog, you start forgetting things. Forget order of things. Can't really remember what comes next after what, so in light of my absent mindedness, it's prudent to put down things while I can still remember like this. Anyway it's funny how things are jumbled up in my mind. So in no particular order I will try to finish the Japan blog....

This should be around Chitose, not very sure though. I just remembered these buildings being here since the WW II era. Used be food storage place-now turned into shopping center. Didn't manage to enter shopping center. Along the canal, yes it's a canal not a river, you can see artists trying to sell their creation. They are good too, but I am a poor tourist, so I just snap their pictures.. ha ha ha...


My pride and joy, the best surprise in the entire trip! They were doing Naruto 10th annivesary exhibition in Odaiba. Admission free. Wanna take photo? Pay.. Then you wonder how come I got this photo geh? Cause I take before I read the sign lor... hahaha.. and also this giant size poster is at the entrance, most of the staff are inside mah... Luckily too it's free and easy, so after sneaking glances a few time, I detached from the group and went in for a quick look.. 10mins or so...

I would have stayed here for the day if they let me....

Had this 6 flavor ice cream in Otaru. It was so tall it was on the verge of collapsing. So how do we maintain this longer than my hand ice cream ( read: hand not arm..)? By licking it as fast as we can lor. Lucky weather was cooling too. Did I mentioned this giant ice cream was shared by 4 of us. Thinking about it..... hm... better not think about it. There is another thing I love about Otaru is this biscuit that we bought in Rokkatei. Only valid for 1 week. sigh.

Only in Otaru...

This is the wife waterfall, well the bottom of the waterfall anyway. The rest of the waterfall is just... water falling lor... so crop it up. There is another husband waterfall, which is not that appealing either. We took a group photo here.

Ryu sei No taki (shooting star waterfall).. nice name eh..

The highlight of the trip, sunflower and lavender farm. Below is sunflower. We actually went to 2 farm, 1 legal the other one is roadside empty patch of land that was used by neighbours to earn some quick bucks. Didn't show the other picture cause weather was gloomy so, the sunflowers looked gloomy too.

Follow the sun...

This is the famous and notorious Shinjuku. Jackie Chan filmed a movie about yakuza vs immigrants here. Suppose to be on free and easy too but tour guide said too notorious wor, so in the end he bring us around on a quick journey. It started drizzling. Tour guide also pointed out gigolo bars. I must said they look like Japanese actors, the girlly type. Apparently gigolo earned more than prostitutes nowadays. Now that is a shocker.

Shinjuku without incident....

The famous lavender scenery that was once used as JR (Japan Railway) advertisement. This picture boast the Hokkaido tourism industry like how Winter Sonato make Korea the number 1 honeymoon choice. But I will let you know 60% of Japan tourist are Japanese. Talk about cuti cuti Japan. They really support their country. And apparently, only about 20%-30% Japanese ever went overseas.

Tomita Farm..

The Shiroi Koibito's Garden. Supposedly a garden made by the famous White Lover chocolate brand. This chocolate is the chocolate to buy in Hokkaido. It's white chocolate between 2 thin slices of crispy biscuit. My colleague was so fanatic about it, she gave me 7000 yen and ask me to buy as many possible. I ate it but don't understand it's allure. Beats me why everyone like it soo much. Some of it is still sitting in my fridge so as I write. But this farm is fun though, got auto trigger mechanism that do funny things like pretend to hit you when you get up and small life size houses for little kids to play with. Yes I played with it too and lucky my butt didn't get stuck at the entrance...

Don't hit me.....I am too young to die.

Odaiba is the most expensive shopping place in Japan as in branded stuff are all here including the Burberry and the LV Blue label. According to tour guide, the only people that buy blue label are tourists. Japanese don't buy blue label one. I totally agree after seeing the aunties in my tour group carrying bags of blue label. When I told my sister that, she also get very excited. Huh must be like the taugeh chicken in hometown. I don't eat taugeh chicken but many friends from other states love it so much. Probably the Japanese are having a good laugh.

This bus is soo cute.. It's a beer bus. You hop in, drink beer and hop off. But remember to pay for the beer lar before you hop off.

This is an aborigine of Hokkaido called the Ainu. Apparently until this very day, they are still being discriminated. Just goes without saying prejudice is everywhere, especially if you look different. The picture below is an Ainu girl. YES GIRL.. female. Apparently beauty is really in the eye of the beholder. From young, Ainu girl must be tattooed around the hands and mouth. They are also born with frizzy hair. However I heard in order to reduce the discrimination, this tradition was discontinued. The last Ainu lady with a tattooed face died some years ago. With the introduction of rebonding, nowadays you really can't differentiate Ainu from a Japanese, not me anyway.

In the Ainu cultural village museum.

And there you have it, random this and that... Last blog on Jap will be on food...