Sunday, March 9, 2014

Osaka Travel: 7 days!

My last week in Japan, after went back from Hokkaido, me and friends (especially ASEAN forever besties._.) planned our trip in Osaka. We stayed in Osaka almost 6 months, but we haven’t discover Osaka that much Sad smile But really, I need more time! I didn’t ready to go back home!

1st day 16/03/2014
Shrines, Temple, and Tea Ceremony Experience in Kyoto (Ok, I know its not Osaka, but ‘same banana’-lah)

From Suita, Minamisenri station, Osaka, I need 390Y 45mins to go to Kawaramachi station, Kyoto, by Hankyu Line. There, we met our lovely tourguide, Taku-san (たくさん re: takusan means a lot/many). Takusan isn’t a tour guide, he is our nice friend who (maybe) possessed to be a tour guide for 外人(Gaijin/Foreign).  
Taku-san brought us to lunch first, after that we just walk around Kawaramachi station, and we can easily finds many shrines/temple there.

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After that, we bought a kyoto-bus-one day-pass ticket which is cost only 500Y and you can go everywhere in Kyoto by bus. Honestly, because we have takusan, I didn’t pay any attention which bus we use, and which station we depart to go to our main activity that day, Tea Ceremony!

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If you come to Japan, to Kyoto especially you shouldn’t miss this! Its only take 1 hour for everything. There is one lady wearing kimono, teaching us how to eat japanese お菓子(okashi means sweet) mochi. And then after that she taught us how to prepare and drink 抹茶(Matcha means greentea). The one that I visited only cost 300Y (also got discounted cos im student) for the museum and tea ceremony. Maybe you can find another place that offer tea ceremony while wearing kimono and so on, cos there is a lot of place in Kyoto Smile for reference you can ask Google.
After that, we still want to go around Kyoto because we have 1-day-pass for bus, so we decided to go to Kyomizu-dera, that temple will close at 6pm, so we only have 1 hour to discover that temple.

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Kyomizu-dera is one of big temple inside the city. You can go there by walk from Kawaramachi or Higashiyama station. And walking in surrounding of this temple  you will be so amazed with the atmosphere of Higashiyama district, the area where you can find many shop and restaurant that selling local specialties. You can also ride traditional rickshaw or rental kimono for whole day.

After Kyomizu-dera closed, I and 2 friends separated. We went to Fushimi-Inari shrine. Its located a lil bit far from city-center but its worth to see! Because that shrine doesn’t have closing time, you can go there anytime. But people got shock when they know 3 pretty awesome ladies like us were going to that shrine on the night. Yeah, but they were make sense, cos after we arrived there, Fushimi-Inari shrine more like trekking place with awesome path in the middle of forest. Little bit creepy, but the good side to go there on the night are you can feel you owned the place cos not so many people there and you can feel the very pretty and romantic atmosphere from the gate lighting.

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Fushimi-Inari, you can check what’s the meaning in Google, but I just called it shrines with 1000gates. So pretty.

2nd day 17/03/2014
Mamofuku Ando Ramen Museum, Ikeda, Osaka.

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the exterior building of the museum is so cool!
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this is the human-size replica of the place where noodle first time made in Japan.

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300Y for the cup from the vending machine, you can draw/design your own cup noodle and then you can pick your own flavors and topping for your cup noodle!

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just saying, that museum was so cool and its free entrance! :D

3rd day 19/03/2014
Housing Museum, Osaka. Science Museum. NMAO.

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In this museum, you can experiencing walking around while wearing Yukata in Edo-era housing area. The museum is all area that we can walk through, means its human-size museum. We had so much fun taking picture and act as wife of Japanese poor soldier, haha Open-mouthed smile

The location of this museum is in city-center of Osaka, near Tenjimbashi-suji station, walk from there about 5mins. For us we can got free entrance because we are student, (actually the entrance fee is 600Y) but we still need pay 300Y for Yukata rental for 1 hour. Still, so cheap cheap! Winking smile In other exhibition, you can learn from 3d modeling about housing phase in Japan, from Edo-era until now. For architecture student like me, this museum is the place-you-must-go! 

And after that we walked a bit to Osaka-Umeda station direction, passed Umeda, went further to Osaka Science Museum (needs 40 min from Housing Museum to walk). But my eye was never stop looking at NMAO, National Museum of Art Osaka. That museum already closed plus the entrance fee little bit expensive, so we went to Science museum, which will closed at 6pm plus we have student coupon for free entrance (400Y entrance fee).

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I’m falling in love with this sexy building, NMAO

Beside talking about science museum (although;this museum was also so so fun!) ill give you links related to that building.
Architect by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects http://pcparch.com/project/national-museum-of-art

Sure I should come back to Osaka, cos I never been there XD

Friday, March 7, 2014

Say Goodbye, Say Hello, and Say Goodbye, and Say Hello.

I know I’m such a bad blogger, I haven’t update my blog since like thousand years ago. Feel bad cus you know I’m so busy and famous there in Japan (hahaha just kidding), but I try to payback all now since I have too many spare time now until my “jail period” in April-July. Say Hello again to my Blog.

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Say Goodbye to my tiny tidy room in OU Tsukumodai International Dormitory, Osaka. 163 nights, almost every night I stayed there.

 

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(Okamoto-san, my dad, and tsukumodai’s friend)

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(last selfie)

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And say Goodbye to all my dearest friends from all over the worlds. They are not friends for me anymore, more than best friends, they are already my family.Don’t cry don’t cry, because I was leaving with big smile and laugh. (Even though I cried a lot on the plane)