VACATIONING IN JAPAN

My First Vacation in Japan

I've only lived there

Osaka-jo

It's mid school year break in Malaysia and I had almost 3 weeks off from work.  I decided that I would go back to Japan for a week and visit a few people and see a couple of things.

Taking off from Senai airport in Johor Bahru.  7:00 departure.  It was a small airport but I kind of like that cuz its real easy to find your way around.

Here's the new KLIA2 airport.  Or should I say here is the Air Asia airport.  I think they are the only airline that flies out of this airport.

Plane taking off

This is actually a very nice airport.  Lots of shopping and restaurants to entertain yourself with while waiting for your next flight.  After waiting 7 hours for my next ride I was quite relieved to be moving on.  7 hours is too long in any airport, at least any airport I have been in.

I landed in Japan about 30mins behind schedule, which had me a little worried as I was coming in at the end of the operating day.  I managed to get on the last bus into the city and met my friend who was letting me sleep at his place while I was in Japan.

I have to be honest here.  I was fully expecting this visit to tell me that I was finished with Japan.  I did live here for about eight and a half years.  As I was flying in I realized very quickly that I really miss Japan and I hope that one day I can go back permanently.

While my friend was working on day one I decided to go out and just wander around.  My intention with this trip was to meet a few of my friends.   I wasn't overly interested in sightseeing as I have seem most of the things I want to see.  Following are a couple of pictures I took while out and about in Osaka city.

small shrine in downtown Osaka

river cruises.  I love these.

on the way to Osaka-jo

On another day I decided to go back to Osaka castle.  I have been there a couple of times but I figured, I have nothing else to do while my buddy was working and I love castles, so why not?

The moat surrounding the castle.

Castle wall and lookout tower.

Plum Garden, an area of the castle grounds.

I've never approached the castle from this side so I got to see something new here.

One entrance to the castle area

 So nice I had to take two pictures

 The elevator always ruins this view for me, but I guess its good that everyone can go inside.

 Rainy season started just a couple of days ago.  Looks kinda like its needed.

 Castles and Shrines are pretty much the only places you can find greenery in Japan.

The next place I went to check out was the Sky building.  From the first time I saw this building I have wanted to see it.  It took me leaving to finally find the time to go there.

Model of the Sky building

I couldn't find a good place to take a picture of the whole building so I took one of the model that was inside.  And this next one that I got on the way to the building.

This building is 173 meters tall.       (I think)

One of the longest escalators I have seen.

view of the city from the top of  the sky building

View down the middle of the roof.









That was all the sightseeing I did in Osaka.  The rest of the time I was just absorbing the ambiance of Japan/Osaka.  I really love the feel of Japan.  Its very different from other places in the world I've been.

For the final part of my trip I went to Tsuyama city to visit some of the people I used to work with.  We went out for Indian food and some good conversation.

Noriko, Satomi, Nikki and Logan

Satomi, Logan, Nikki, Noriko and myself

Some of my favorite people in Japan.  I just wish all the others in Tsuyama could have come.  Hopefully I will get another chance to see them in the future.

The next morning I toured around the town a little and took some pictures so everyone could see small city life in Japan.

Tsuyama station

Small roads, small cars.  Very typical Japanese towns scenes

Covered shopping arcades are very popular in Japan.  Tsuyama is not any different having 3 of them within a 10 minute walk from the station.

Nic Nac's for your home

Folk art

Here is the entrance to the lone department store in Tsuyama

another shopping arcade 

Not terribly busy on a monday morning.

A river runs through it

 After taking these pictures I returned to Osaka and then a day later went back to Malaysia.  I had a nice trip back, but when I arrived at Senai airport my car wouldn't start.  I called the car rental company and a tow truck arrived fairly quickly, which is unusual in Malaysia.  After trying to boost it we decided that it wasn't going to start.  I called the rental company again and arranged a loaner car to use while they were fixing mine.  Lucky for me they didn't have any basic models so I got a really nice car.

Its a pretty nice car, but I just have to get used to the much bigger size.  I think my car would fit inside the cab of this one.
I was only about three and a half hours late to get home. Made for a long day.

Well, that is how my holidays went.  I think I will try to get to Pulau Tioman next.  Hopefully in July, if not then in September.

A lot of pictures today but I hope it was enjoyable.  I know I had fun living it!

Singapore in Two Days

 Singapore in Two Days

Three buildings with a boat on top

This past weekend was the Labour day long weekend in Malaysia.  Combined with this event is the fact that my visa is close to expiring so a few friends and myself decided to take a trip to Singapore, which is only about an hour away from my place.  One of the reasons I chose to live in this area is the close proximity of Singapore.  I know a few people who have gone there and one who was born there.  Everyone seems to have only good things to say about it, so I figured I would take a trip there when a good opportunity presented itself.

Margie and Linda from South Africa

We all gathered at Margie's place and took a taxi to our hotel in Singapore.  I was a little surprised at how cheap it was to do this.  The only thing was I really wanted to ride the ferry which is an alternate route. I really like ferries.  Oh well, next time.

We arrived in Singapore around 10:30am which gave us an entire day to explore the city/country.  After checking into our hotel we started out to see what we could find.  

 We found a hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city.  You could get off and on all you wanted in a 24hr time period.

Also, you get a beautiful view with the open top concept of these busses.  As you can see, Singapore is a very green city.  One of the greenest I have ever seen.  It is also a very clean city, so I believe the stories I've heard about happens to people littering there.

A very beautiful city

 There is also some nice architecture 

and plenty of skyscrapers around too.

We found the Botanical Gardens and they were a nice relaxing place to visit.  Lots of greenery as you would expect and it was very quiet.  Many people come here to have picnics and walk their dogs.  Entry is free so its also a cheap afternoon out for the family.

                          Look, there is something up there!

Here are a few pretty flowers.

After a nice long day of walking/riding the bus I really wanted to get some shots of this building

so we found a place close to them and took some pictures.

 Next time I am in Singapore I will be going up there to see the high view.

The next day we all split up to do our own thing, so I went to the Singapore Zoo

It's hot in Singapore and the previous day was no exception, so when I got here in the morning of the second day I was already tired but I really like zoo's so I was gung-ho to go.  Something sort of exceptional happened when I was there.  This has never happened before.

One of the Tigers were active.  I think this is the first time I've seen a big cat moving around.

Beautiful animal!

There were a lot of things to see here and I managed to get some pictures but my nice camera's battery died shortly after this point.  I still had my phone so I was OK, but at this point I decided to just enjoy the sites instead of taking pictures of everything and not really seeing it.  All in all I would say the zoo is worth going to see.  

The final part of the day was a river cruise that came with a 2 day Hop-on Hop-off bus pass.

Here's our boat

  We were advised that the night cruise was the best time to go.  I would have done that anyway but it was nice that the sales guy told us that.  I got a new battery for my camera and got some nice pictures here too.

It was going home day and while we were waiting for the taxi to come and pick us up we decided to go for a walk to Arab st.  There are lots of little shops with some nice things to buy.  I got a hat finally, only two days to late!

I thoroughly enjoyed my two and a half days in Singapore and I am sure I will be going back again.  Next time I will make sure that I have a hat on day one and drink lots of water to deal with the heat.

Until next time enjoy your life and let people know about it!