I Don't Like Where All This is Going

I will not hesitate to take action if it comes to the point where there is no longer advantage for staying where I am.

Gosh, I really hope I'm wrong...

Operation ORDinary 完了しました!

So now it's all over, and I'm quite happy with the merchandise I got, not to mention the pics, and the really awesome memories. Everything went well, i.e. no major problems, and the weather was great for us except on 3 out of the 19 days. It was colder than usual, which is great for me in terms of moving around, but bad for the Cherry Blossoms, which we only saw 3 trees out of the entire 50-100 trees bloom. Really sad... We were 1 week too early.

Akihabara is a cheap place to eat. More later, when I'm not so tired. 3000 pictures taken. Alot of processing to be done...

The 4th Phase

Wow... We're already almost done with the trip. Feels like we've been here forever. Japanese food everyday (even tried Lotteria), and cold weather all the way.we've not been above 10C yet, and if not including Tokyo, we haven't been above 5C. The 4th phase involves Tokyo as the base, mostly shopping, and basically preparing to go back. We've scouted Akihabara twice already (once more last night. Ok not really scout, but it we couldn't take our time either), and I've gotten my first loot from there. I'm hoping to get the sales prices. Saw a poster or two at 50% off. Considering getting it.... The merchandise there is really awesome. I'll make it a point to get more pics once we go there for the full day of shopping.

Today though, we're gonna see the early blooming Cherry Blosssoms. If the weather for this season's great, we'll be right in the middle of the peak. Thankfully, this particular species has a long blooming period (just slightly over 1 month). This one should give great pics as well. Yay!

Closing of 3rd Phase (contd)

So as I was saying, we recced Akihabara and OMG it was awesome even though the shops were already 60% closed by the time we reached. The food is cheap, and as one of my friends was mentioning, it's likely so because it's a shopping area, and people will just eat there and continue shopping, so they're not willing to pay much for it. Alright, so looks like we're not going to do much in Tokyo except to visit Akihabara.

Our two days at Mt. Fuji was awesome. The weather was kind and we got great pictures this morning at sunrise (pic), and later in the morning of the mountain and the pagoda. Last night, we managed to catch the last weekednd fireworks and it was really well done. They spread it out nicely over 20mins and played around with heights. This allowed the smoke to dissipate and didn't cloud the sky, as well as giving us photographers an opportunity to take each firework in isolation, or in small groups. Much better than the spamming that Singapore does.

Oh well, train's here.

Closing of 3rd Phase

So, now blogging from Mt. Fuji (lake Kawaguchi), our 3rd phase is about to come to a close. It's still been as awesome as ever. Apart from the part that we couldn't climb Mt. Shirane because of the lack of snowshoes and crampons.

There was almost up to waist high snow in non-paths and off-roads. It's probably a crazy decision to take the hike all the way up the mountain. Fortunately we abandoned it and took a trek around the lake which we then discovered was closed to public because of the knee high snow. My jeans were frozen around the ankles area. It was the first time I wore long johns that day, so I was mostly prepared for it. I can say that I'm proud of my snow boots which went through all the ordeal without getting soaked (the it's waterproof). I'm also proud of my camera which has plunged below zero for the dunno how manyeth time and still functioned PERFECTLY. (can't say the same for the wireless triggers which failed even at near zero)

We recced Akihabara last night since we did a stopover on the way from Nikko to Mt. Fuji (contd later, lunch just arrived)

3rd Phase 始めるぞ！

Ok, so we're somewhat done with Kyoto. It was kinda disappointing that we didn't manage to see that many places. One thing to note is that outdoor attractions must be visited asap in the day, leaving all other stuff like shopping and whatnot later to the evening. Kyoto practically doesn't have any nightlife, so after sunset, almost nothing can be done except to shop a little in Kyoto station, which (the mall) closes at 8pm anyway. We've visited far less than I've hoped, but covered most of what I considered high priority. Now the next phase awaits us, and things are going to go really, really, fast from here. We're gonna take the Shinkansen!

First up tomorrow, we'll be moving out of Kyoto and on to Mishima, which is where the awesome place for taking the famous pic of the Shinkansen with Mt. Fuji behind it is. I really hope the weather will be on our side, because we only got around 1hr to take that pic. If the sky is cloudy, that's it. All ruined.

From Mishima, we'll be then going on to visit Kusatsu, Nikko, and finally Lake Kawaguchi, which is around Mt. Fuji. That's why things are gonna move fast. Lots of travelling, lots of places.

But before we actually move out to Mishima, we're gonna go Pok�mon Centre touring. I still can't believe I missed the one in Sapporo! Please tell me this is a bad dream. Anyway, I cannot, I swear, miss out anymore Pok�mon Centres or I wouldn't have seen most of the Pok�mon Centres in the world by the time this trip ends. And of course, the biggest Pok�mon Centre in the world is in Osaka. We're gonna visit both the Osaka and Nagoya one tomorrow, making use of the Shinkansen three times in total! It's gonna be fun indeed!

Kyoto and Ninjas

Wow, I kinda forget to blog each alternate night, so I'll have to make an attempt to cover yesterday's and today's activities. Firstly, the trip is going too fast! We're about 1 week+ in to the trip already! And the first two phases are supposed to be the slowest phases of the trip. Once we hit phase 3, things are kinda going to fly quite fast, and phase 4 is mainly stock up on Anime stuff, and try to bring Japan home.

Yesterday was almost a nice full day of walking out on the eastern side of Kyoto, which we covered one of the temples with a bamboo grove (awesome for pictures), and then headed to the famous Kiyomizudera temple. The one you always see on the side of the hill surrounded by awesome autumn colours. Sadly, it's winter and there are no leaves on the trees. The place is also under maintenance, so while visitors are still allowed, and the main temple is still untouched, the other two "auxillery" buildings are covered in one way or another. Dinner ended off with Okonomiyaki! We always try to get something awesome every meal. Our daily breakfast is still at convenient stores, because it's more awesome that way, and because convenient stores breakfasts taste good. Also, Lawsons is our most favourite visiting location, especially after the discovery of the Madoka series handphone straps (collect all 5!)

Today was "Ninja day" and although it sounds really really awesome, it's just awesome. Not epicly awesome. First, there's the long commute to Iga, then secondly, there really isn't that much to see there apart from the Ninjas which sadly, only took up about 3 hours in total. The house was very nice, with the demonstrations of all the escape routes and devices, along with hidden storage and hidden closets. But what was really awesome was the sunset taken from the back of the local train from Igaueno to Tsuge station. That one was really good. Shots are around 1.5k now, for this trip. Still going a little on the low side, but that will probably spike soon, as I notice once awesome scenes come, I blow around 50-150 shots on it. My friends can do 200+. But storage isn't a problem with 6x 8GB cards. I have capacity for 3000 shots, and plus I have a harddrive of 500GB for backup anyway.

Speaking of which, I really need to get a better camera now that I've shot 8k photos since I bought it. The 450D's limitations is really showing up. Noisy ISO, slow AF, not enough points of AF, slow shutter drive, slow processor, slow write due to SD limitations, and the b******* at SanDisk (did I mention my $24 class microSD bought 5 years ago outperformed my $28 class 6 SD Ultra by TWICE the write speed?)

Anyway, I still haven't gotten over how I could have missed visiting the Pok�mon Centre in Sapporo, and maybe I should have bought the little plushie of Snow Miku x Hello Kitty sold for $29. It's ex, but what the heck! I didn't go all the way there to give up on that opportunity! I need to trust my impulses more...

Second Phase

So we're done with the Sapporo/Hokkaido bit, and now we're on to mainland Honshuu. Everything's going well, but I FORGOT TO VISIT THE POK�MON CENTER IN SAPPORO!!! Fuck!!! I was reaaaalllly hoping to see 5/7 of them! Now I can only do 4. I'm gonna go back there, to see the Pok�mon center.... I swear...

Update from previous, at the Otaru snow light path, the temperature plunged to below -5C. Really, really cold. I've never been that cold before, and with the wind continuously giving a nice breeze through, it was really nice of two of my friends to continue with the other three of us while we were busy taking pictures in that cold. I know it may be amazing that we could endure that kind of cold for 2hrs+ taking pictures, figuring out how to take better ones, as well as trying to get our minds to release their creativity juice for amazing photos. It's kinda hard to think at below -5C. Just to let you know, all I had was a T-shirt, sweater, winter jacket, wool scarf, jeans, army white-grey socks, and winter boots. No long johns, no thermal, no beanie, no earmuffs. (That, I regret. Had to keep my hood up. My ears felt so numb and painful it may have fallen off otherwise.) Underwear was of course, cotton.

Kyoto's pretty nice so far. There's no snow at the moment, but the temperature is pretty close to freezing, so things might change anytime. The cold is still welcome. Although it may push me a little to the edge at some times, I just feel really happy to be cold. Apart from weather, lots of shrines! But we've only just started exploring, so, not much to say yet.

Before this was a rather hectic transit from Sapporo to Kobe first, which landed at around 2200+. If we had decided to reach Kyoto first, we'd be really late, and no where to check in, so we stayed in the capsule hotel in Kobe! It was definitely a unique experience, but basically, that place is not really meant for tourists. It's meant as a quick, simple, relatively cheap accommodation for one night. We were in transit, and therefore were in that criteria, but our luggages were too big for the locker, so we had to leave them in the lobby. But mainly, you mostly see businessmen, and other Japanese males there. We didn't see any foreign tourists.

Oh well, phase 2/4. This trip is still going pretty epicly, and I think, all my estimates and research has paid off. I've not encountered anything unexpected yet that proved really challenging, not that I've expected everything.

Cold

The tempurature has dropped and it's now below 0C the entire day. Really awesome. Didn't blog yesterday because I was too tired. We went round Sapporo the entire day looking at all the snow and ice sculptures at two locations. There are really big ones like 2-3 stories high, and normal sized ones around man height. At night, there projectors that have been lined up nicely to project patterns and colours as a show (with music). It's really just all out! I can't say how much I love just walking around looking at these sculptures. The snow was really bad though, very heavy at one point, which made taking pictures horribly difficult.

I'm really proud of my photog equipment since it managed to plunge to 0C and still function without a hitch. I tried to take special care not to let water in, but as snow was blowing back and forth, and it was really cold, inevitably, the camera did get snowed on. But that thing just carried on taking. Amazing. The same couldn't be said with the Meike triggers though. They refused to function even while at 1C. Lots of problems, sadly.

Food has been good too. There's probably no such thing as bad food here. Both our breakfasts yesterday and today were from convenient stores. At ~120yen per onigiri, you actually get filled, and it's really nice, especially after they warm it up for you at the counter. We could do this the entire trip. Yes! More money for merchandise!

Now we're gonna see the Otaru light path! and I'm blogging from a train haha...

Anime IS Real

I've been to Japan before, but the thing is that well, I didn't do any prep before hand. To me, it was an unknown country at first, just another one I'm trying to discover, one of the countries I've been to.

This time, however, it's different. Getting caught up in anime is one thing, but I've also read the life of one, non-Japanese who found his love for this country (the one I am in right now) and lives his life forevermore promoting it's culture. There's alot more to observe and lookout for.

Rather than be baffled by their customs, style, and living, I've come to understand it with interest, and participate (only while I'm here of course). The thing is, much of it is also displayed in anime. While anime may be just drawings of things that don't happen, the culture shines through, and for slice-of-life types, is accurate. I mean, coming back here, after 3 years slight, I realise that I know what to expect. From the way they depict shower conversations at the onsen areas, to the way staff sell you items, greet you, and accept your payment. Awesome stuff.

We are currently rather tired from all the travelling. Practically 1 whole day to get to Sapporo. We just arrived like around 2000 and we checked in at Changi at like 2300. But it's quite like what I expected. I mean, there are posters of Snow Miku at Haneda airport! Promoting the Snow Fest in Sapporo. How awesome is that? More to come tomorrow onwards! I haven't seen Sapporo in the day, and I'm waiting for snow! Snow's all over on the ground here, but this trip won't be complete if I don't see snow falling from the sky.

This is too damn awesome, considering I've been planning this for many months, it's so nice to see this materialise. I'm trying to make the most of this trip. Brought 2 cameras, one for video, one for photo. We even got together to rent a lens, and our entire group got together to rent a mobile router, which is why I can now get internet access over 3G.