me under the jap sign, getting into the mood :)

19 Dec '06

A 6-hour flight, of which I watched You, Me and Dupree. Which, in my opinion, was a lousy, trashy show that you should watch if you're feeling for something trashy. Oh wait, there are better trashy shows out there. Don't waste your time on this one. Anyway, to get on with it, we cam-whored more on the plane (haha)

trying to do the cute IVAN thing! but failing miserably :(

Can't remember what was for breakfast. But the JAL snack (jap peanuts and crackers) were good. On the other hand, their apple juice was far too sweet for my liking. Anyway, over with the food. I had icky static-ey hair on the plane and for the first time of my years of taking aircrafts, my ears succumbed to the pressure when landing! Ow, it hurt :( When we landed, Osaka airport was unnaturally clean and again, we took a picture of "Welcome" this time, in the different languages. Joined the queue for the long line of argh-i-forgot-what-it-was-called. Basically, checking out lah, and making sure you're not a wanted illegal criminal. And this !*(@#&$! lady kept cutting our queue. I swear, she's an expert queue-jumper man. She can cut the queue damn pro-ly and end up in front of you all of a sudden. Too bad karma bit her in the ass and she had to go out of the queue because she forgot to fill in some parts of her form. After all that was done, we had to check in for our transit flight. But before that, we explored the airport. They're damn high-tech. Their christmas tree is electronic, so it's like automated decoration. Hahaha. And they have everything in vending machines! Even cigarettes, which I must say are rather cheap. 300 yen for a box. That's about, let me see, 4 dollars. And then I was wondering, how do they know if you're above 18? Oh and they have a neoprint machine in the airport! How cute. And their Smoking Area is a box! Literally. A cubicle, with glass walls. Hahaha. Checked-in and then we went to eat JAPANESE CURRY RICE. I LOVEEEEEE LOVEEEE LOVEEEEE LOVEEE ABSOLUTELY LOVEEEE! :D Their curry has no meat. Just curry, and an extra egg, but it tastes uber delicious! And oh yeah, to order your food, you do it with a vending machine! See! I told you. Anyway, your receipt comes out, and you hand it over to the man. Helps with language barriers though, although their raw egg is spelt "Law egg", cookie and drink is "Cokie and drink", Mini salad is "Mini Sarad" and so on... You get the idea. After that hearty breakfast, I played sudoku while waiting to board. :) Getting into the jap mood once again. Skip the transit flight (of which I slept through the entire flight) and go to the part where I landed. Ahhh, time for my exciting adventures! :) Got our baggage and everything, and went out. Met up with the local (international, in our case) tour guide and then waited for the bus outside. FREEZING! it was snowing lightly, and temperatures were down to about 0.7 degrees celsius? The bus FINALLY came and we set off for our first location: The White Swan Lake! Saw a few white swans, and MANY ugly ducklings (no offence, haaha) and the clouds and sky were pretty! Sun was just rising. Even the bare trees were pretty, and so was the mini wheat field. (Pictures up on Shutterfly SOON!) okay, I THINK after that we went for lunch. Some mini pot thing (of which we ate a lot through out the whole trip! >:( I could have done with more tempura!) Bleh, can't remember where we went after that :( I shall ask my sister when she gets back from her sleepover, being that she kept a journal. BUT I THINK we went to check in to the hotel, which was unnaturally clean too! And so cute! We slept on mattresses on Tatami mats. Cool :) They also had an Onsen (or so I think it's spelt like that. a.k.a wen quan (in chinese) a.k.a hot springs!) And it was natural, with all the sulphur and all. BUTTT, there's a catch. You have to go in there naked, with only a small tiny piece of towel WHICH IS TO BE USED NOT TO COVER YOURSELF, but to wipe your face and body. Our tour guide told us this hilarious past experience when this tourist, not knowing whether to cover her boobs or her privates, covered her face and walked all the way. Anyway, errr being the conservative me, I decided to pass up the chance. So only my parents went for it. Oh by the way, it's separated. Female and Male. So two different onsens.

Before - Look at the neatness of everything

After - Haha, I know I'm a bringer of d-e-s-t-r-u-c-t-i-o-n!

After we put down all our stuff, it was time to EXPLORE the district! FREEZING AGAIN. Seriously, my mouth and nose were numb, till I had to do THIS:

terrorist ALERT!

Anyway, here I found JAPANESE versions of PUMA, ADIDAS AND NIKE (well, I could find them everywhere actually) and 7-eleven!

After that, it was another freezing trip back to the hotel where I took MORE pictures of the frozen pathway. Dinner was BUFFET :) I LOVE. OH MY, THEIR HAMBURG STEAKS ARE HEAVENLY AND SO ARE THEIR CURRY RICE :) :) :D Then it was experimenting with the television back in our rooms while my parents were having an enjoyable albeit embarrassing (not to them though) time at the onsen. Then sweet sleep :)

More next time! I'm quite tired of blogging. I shall take this one day at a time I guess? And now you all know how we managed to take close to 700 pictures. :)