...land of the rising sun...

...japan :: 19 aug 2007 - 25 aug 2007...

...i didn’t want to go japan. denphong forced me there! denphong forced me to get a ticket. he forced me to go all the way to japan embassy to get my visa and he forced me to get my butt in the plane and fly to japan. indeed i never regretted being forced by den to go japan. i am glad i heeded den’s persuasion to go japan. it all happened too fast that i did not plan for anything at all to go japan. and its here i come japan.

kansai international airport is like wow. i have always dreamt of landing on the worlds biggest manmade island airport and here i am in kansai international airport – kix. i am so happy. being lost in my dream i wandered around the airport aimlessly; looking at people and things that i got lost and nearly miss the bus. but of course how could den leave me behind.

i still cant believe that i am in japan. my trip covers himeji, kobe, osaka and nara. and denphong forced me to go japan.
stayed in engyo-ji temple up in the hills of mt shosha in himeji. how wonderful of den to give us 3 hours of pure shopping and free time wandering in himeji. had a wonderful time shopping around himeji under the scorching hot sun and walking around town; equipped with my 400d. 3 hours of wandering in himeji, and its time to finally go up the hills of engyo-ji temple. engyoji's temple buildings are spread over a spacious, densely forested area on the mountain top. from the ropeway station it takes a 10-15 minute walk uphill to reach niomon gate, and another 10-15 minutes to reach the maniden, a beautiful wooden temple hall, constructed on pillars on a steep slope. another 5 minute walk along forest trails brings us to the three massive wooden temple halls, known as mitsunodo: the daikodo (main hall), jikido (lodging and dining hall, now exhibiting temple treasures) and jogyodo (gymnasium). in recent years, mount shosha has gained some fame overseas by having served as a film location for the hollywood tom cruise’s movie "the last samurai”. beautiful temple. view is fantastic. arrived at the temple and was greeted by the gorgeous sunset.

temple stay comes with japanese style bath. how in the world is this shy malaysian going to survive in the japanese style bath? yes i did. and there is actually nothing to it when everyone does the same. so i did. showered with my japanese and korean buddies. but my other malaysian friends were too shy to join in except for daniel. just strip and shower and soak in the hot bath and chit chat. that was easy. so, that was something unexpected. started off complaining about it but ended up feeling nothing about it. fyi, japanese style bath means communal shower. there were stools in the bathroom where we have to sit and shower and after that we should jump into the hot water pool to relax our body. and in the hot hot hot summer, it does feel wonderful soaking in the hot water.

food of course japanese style food. not that we have sushi all day long. there are more to japanese food than sushi you know. itadakimasu. that’s what everyone gotta say just before the meal. at night we have cup noodles party. cup noodles party is where all of us have to bring cup noodles from our own country. guess which country’s cup noodles was the popular ones? and malaysian cup noodles were the ones remaining at the end of the few days.

after 3 days stay in engyo-ji, we moved to osaka. first stop was kobe the fashionable city of japan according to mamiko-san. indeed the buildings, the bridge the entire architecture were rather fashionable. after a short stopover at kobe we were off to dainenbutsu-ji temple. here they have the world’s biggest chanting beads. humongous beads. and it took the whole group of us to hold the beads while we chanted in japanese. suddenly i can speak japanese. dinner at dainenbutsu-ji was very filling and had a fun time wandering the huge beads temple ground shooting sunset and silhouettes of the temples.

off we went to shintenno-ji temple in osaka for our night rest. i so wanted to experience the night life of osaka but duh to the rain. ruin all the plans. thus we were stuck in the temple ground eating cup noodles and having tones of fun learning japanese and korean. shintenno-ji temple is beautiful when all the lights are litted up and the entire pagoda shines in the darkness of the night.

next morning we have our shopping spree in osaka. finally i get to contribute to japan economy. nothing much i could buy except went round searching for the perfect gift for wt, searching high and low for a shuriken and snippering at japanese models with the telephoto zoom. my legs were hurting and i was limping all the way after hurting myself in angkor wat the week before. poor daniel has to accompany me in the slow walk. what the heck, we had so much fun targeting at japanese models in osaka. hei, its osaka man. what you expect me to do when i have a telephoto zoom lens?

shopping was good. snippering with daniel was more fun. and anake taught us how to shoot nice pictures of the japanese model. now, that is what i call having a fun time with the camera. anake is the photographer for the whole event and he takes nice pictures. he taught me how to use my camera and how to make changes to the settings to make the color nicer. i was told to change the settings to faithful if i want to take pictures of landscape and sceneries but change back to normal when taking pictures of portraits.

next stop was nara. we were invited to stay in tonan-in temple way up in mt yoshino. the temple is under the world heritage. our bus have to park at the foot of the hill and we had to walk all the way up; which covers more than 1km away. though very tiring and exhaustive, the walk was fabulous where we witness the sunset at tonan-in temple. magnificent!!!

my japan trip has been exceptional. we got to visit places and do things the japanese way and we were not tourist. we get to stay in the world heritage temple, travel to last samurai shooting place and had fun interacting with japanese, korean, indonesian, thai and bangladeshis friends. the trip has shown me the values of friendship beyond frontiers. though not much of tourist sight seeing time in japan, but having the opportunity to visit places and stay in temples up the hills of japan is something spectacular that not many can have the chance. and having so many japanese friends, korean friends, indonesian friends and thai friends does make a big difference. heck, i can visit bali next and call up wandra to bring me around. and that is friendship beyond frontiers. i am indeed happy that denphong forced me to go japan. yes, i still have a lot of yen and i will be back!!!...