Giant Rubber Ducky in Osaka

Last Thursday was a day off and it was too sunny to stay inside, so I took a train ride to Nakanoshima (Osaka), to see the giant rubber ducky which was floating on the river in the midst of a big city from Oct.22nd until 30th.

?!???!?! 

Can you see that small yellow thing in this pic?

There it is!

Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages)

Last Sunday my parents and I went to Kyoto to see Jidai Matsuri(Festival of the Ages), one of Kyoto's three biggest traditional festivals which is held annually on October 22nd.  It was my first time to go to see the festival, despite living in the same Kansai area for over 20 years. This festival consists of a large parade from  Kyoto Imperial Palace and Heian shrine, and the participants of the parade are dressed in accurate costumes representing various periods and characters in Japanese federal history.There are approximately more than 2,000 performers and it takes two hours to watch the entire procession pass by.
We left home quite early in the morning trying to get a good seat to watch the parade and we got to the old imperial palace more than 1 hour before the parade, but there were already hundreds of people waiting for it.

At 12 p.m., the costume procession began from the main gate of the old imperial palace, with a lot of performers dressed in historical costumes from almost every period from Heian Period to Meiji Period. In the procession there were many historically famous samurai and military figures, which was quite interesting to me who specialized in Japanese history in high school.

 Here are the photos taken with my new camera (Click each photo for a larger version)
Sorry I took too many so I couldn't put up all of them. Enjoy! >>

Hello Canon EOS Kiss X5!

Today I got something I've really wanted for a long time - Yes, my own DSLR ( Cannon EOS Kiss X5 ) camera! I have put up some photos taken by a DSLR camera on this blog, but actually it was not my own camera, I was using my mother's one. Of course I'll keep using my old digital camera that I have used so far cause I love it, but as I start browsing great & more professional photos on my friends' blogs I got more fascinated by them, and they made me want to get one. Well, I admit it cost me a lot, but since I ordered it online it was actually quite a good deal for the latest one from Cannon. I'm still just a beginner and it has too many functions, so I guess it will take a long time until I get used to it (and I'm already sick of reading the instruction :-p ). Now that I have my own good camera, I'm going outside more and I'll fully enjoy this beautiful season in Japan. And of course, I'll put up more pics on this blog from now on.

Happy fall y'all,
Yuka

Taco addiction

If you are my friend on Facebook, you probably know, but I am so in love with tacos. I've been so addicted to this wonderful foreign food since I first tried it at one of my American friends' house last winter.I introduced it to my family and they love it too. It's healthy and quite easy to cook. 

 My dream is to try out the "real" Mexican tacos.But the problem is, there aren't any "real" taco restaurants in my place. I've been using the seasoning from old el paso , but my American friends say the taste is different from what they have had in America. They also say that here in Japan they can't even find the seasonings they usually use in America. Does anyone know any good restaurants where I can try some real ones in Kansai area? If you know, please do tell me. I am serious. =p

Typhoon, and the trip to Yamaguchi

So the busiest month is almost over, and I finally got time to write about my summer break - It's been already about a few weeks, though.This month started with the coming of the powerful, yet slow-moving typhoon No.12 and it made the first week super super hectic. Almost all the local lines around my area were delayed or cancelled due to the rise of the river as a result of the heavy rainfall, and I was besieged by hundreds of people trying to take a shinkansen instead, the only public transportation which was running on schedule at that time.I can't describe how chaotic my office was - it was just like one scene of battle. I didn't even know that so many people were living in this peaceful town. Some angry people were blaming other staffs for the delay, which even made me wonder why people dared to go out on such a day, in spite of the fact that the weather forecast had been repeatedly warning that the typhoon would shut down many train lines and transportation services.Why can't people just stay at home? Of course, I know I should NEVER say such a thing, though. :-p

 Anyway, I got only 4 days off this summer. It kinda made me sad. I mean, work is okay, but vacation is always better than work for all of you, right? I wish I could go back in my uni days, when the summer break was for almost 2 months!
On the second day of my summer break, my family(except my father - he had a big golf competition on that day and couldn't join us) and I went on a one-day Shinkansen(Japanese limited express) trip to Yamaguchi. Luckily I still had some fare discounts left for my family that is available until the end of the year, so we were able to go there at a low price.
We left home at 6am and took the first train to Himeji station. I was so excited about getting on the new shinkansen Sakura, as well as the road trip in Yamaguchi. Sakura has been so popular since its service started, and a lot of people come to my window, trying to make a reservation for their seats like every day, but it's always already fully reserved even though it's one week before. It was 10 days before the trip when we reserved our seats this time, and we managed to get 3 of the last 8 seats left at that time - we were so lucky!

The new shinkansen Sakura we took, bound for Kagoshima-Chūō

JR 1-day Pass in Kansai : 秋の関西１デイパス Aki- no Kansai One-day Pass

To people who love traveling in Kansai area by train, good news!

Some of you might already know, but we have a seasonal discount ticket for 1 day trip with JR local trains  now available. You can take JR local trains(including local rapid trains), some of Keihan /Nankai/ Ohmi trains as many times as you want.

Fare: ￥2,900 (Child: ￥1,500)
- Valid for only one day
- Available until Nov. 30th, 2011
- Shikansen is not available with this ticket(You need to purchase another fare ticket and a shinkansen ticket to take a shinkansen)
- Available from ticket offices(Midori-no Madoguchi) at any JR stations and Ohmi railway stations within the area shown bellow:

It has been the best selling ticket at my station at the moment. Why don't you go out and enjoy this beautiful autumn season in Kansai? :)

Alexander Gavrylyuk - Wedding March (Piano)

This gave me goosebumps and suddenly made me want to get married. Really amazing.Just watch it.
.

Okayama Korakuen Lightup night 2011

Some photos of this summer that I haven't posted yet on this blog.

Okayama Castle

New people, New place, and New life

Hello friends,

If you have been following my blog I am sorry for the super slow updates. During the past 4 months that I didn't update my blog,  I had so many events and changes that would be a very important step in my life. I graduated from my uni that I went to for 4 years at the end of March, and since April 1st I've been working with JR(West Japan Railway company). If you are living in or have traveled in Japan, especially in the west area of the mainland, you probably have used trains or shinkansen(bullet trains) which belong to my company.

The new Kyusyu Shinkansen which  connects mainland and the southern island

I'm currently working at Midori- no Madoguchi, the ticket reservation office in the station which is about 40 mins away from home by train. My daily work is mostly selling tickets and making seat reservations for shinkansen(since my station is one of the stations where some shinkansens also stop). Making some documents and posters to display in the concourse is also my work. Sometimes we go on a business trip to the branch office and to the headquarter in Osaka, which is quite fun.
 You may think selling tickets is just an easy & simple task (because I had thought so until I started working here), but it's NOT. It's more like a brain work than I expected. Especially when the customer is going to a place which is quite far away or to the places I don't even know whereabouts, I need to be very very careful not to make wrong tickets, referring to the map of all railways in Japan, because those routes and tickets are usually going to be very complicated ones. Also, we have loads of kinds of tickets and I need to know well about each of them. I spend most of the time at the window just sitting in front of the computer, but when I get back home I'm so exhausted I just fall dead into my bed.

Midori - no Madoguchi, the JR ticket office

 (This picture is not from my station )

 But working itself is quite okay for me so far.  My bosses and colleagues are all nice, they still often hold welcome parties for us 5 freshers even though it's been almost 3 months since we were assigned to my current station.
Of course I still sometimes make some mistakes, and there are some customers who love giving complaints to us and claiming unreasonable things, but I'm getting used to handling them (and I'm not a person who gets down by such small things =] ). Except those few customers, I think people in this city are quite nice and I really enjoy meeting lots of people who use our service at the start and the end the day. Though the city is not that big and there's no place for sightseeing, foreigners often come to my window like every day, and I have many chances to speak English.

The remodeled Osaka station, aka Osaka Station City

 Seeing people spreading out to everywhere around Japan (or to the world ) from our station every day is what I love the most at work. It makes me want to travel more all over Japan, as well as overseas. I'm planning to make some railway trips with my friends when we get used to work(maybe next month) using the discount, though I'm still just too busy to make it happen at the moment.
 I'm still on the way of training, and sometimes I feel it's tough to have many things I need to learn, but I'm proud of my work at the station which supports many people's daily lives.Well, I'll just do my best. Wish me luck! ;-)

My trip to Australia - Part 1 -

Hello guys, about 10 days have passed since I got back from my trip to Australia. It was sooooooo great! I was going to update my blog while I was there, but I had so many events that had no time to do that. My stay was short, but I just cannot find any words to describe how much fun I had during those two weeks.Today I'd like to share some pics that I took during my trip.


As I told you before, what made this trip special was the fact that it was my first overseas trip. For this reason, my flight to Sydney was one of the most important parts that I was excited about in my trip. This time I used cheap flights from Jetstar.com , and also I booked window seats so I wouldn't miss the beautiful view from the window. Luckily I got to see the earliest(maybe) sunrise in the world through the window  and it was really amazing.  Although I couldn't sleep at all on the plane(because I was too excited), my 10 hour flight was pretty good - I enjoyed watching some new released movies and listening to music, etc,.


After the transfer in Gold Coast (I changed my cloths at the airport -  cause you know, now it's summer in the southern hemisphere, so it was fricking hot and muggy! I had 2 opposite seasons in just 24 hours...crazy, isn't it?) I flew to Sydney airport, and there I finally met Kara, my friend from Canberra, for the first time in 2 years. She used to be an exchange student at my university in 2009, and I was a tutor of her as a member of a volunteer club for exchange students. She is now still studying education at the University of Canberra to become a P.E. teacher. She is the best friend overseas I have ever met, and since she went back to Canberra I was really looking forward to seeing her again.She came to Sydney airport all the way from Canberra to see me, and was waiting for me in front of the exit. On seeing me she ran to me and gave me a big hug. I was so happy that I felt like I was dreaming. 


Sydney


Sydney was such a big and beautiful city. Not to say it is as big as Tokyo(Of course the scale is much bigger than Tokyo,though), there were a lot of skyscrapers and traditional buildings everywhere. Even though I'm not really used to such a big city since my hometown is kinda country, I came to like this city quickly because it was clean & not as busy as big cities in Japan, such as Tokyo and Osaka.

Queen Victoria building

Sydney tower

The first thing that surprised me when I came to Sydney was that there were a lot of Chinese people on the streets and at first I even felt as if I came to China, not to Australia lol.I guess this is because there is a big China town in the downtown area, but I'm not sure because I don't see so many Chinese people even though we have a big Chinatown in my place as well.

Especially the harbor area was really beautiful and I liked it a lot. After meeting up with Kara at the Sydney airport, we had lunch at a nice restaurant viewing this beautiful harbor, and walked around this area.

My first meal in Australia! 

9 AUD. It was really good, a little too much for me,though.

At the Sydney harbor, there were some Aboliginal people playing live with their traditional instruments. Their music was pretty cool.

Opera House! 

Sydney Harbour Bridge.

There were a lot of people running on the bridge. Not only on the bridge, I saw lots of people running as exercise everywhere in the town. 

 The view of the harbor from this bridge was fantastic.We didn't go bridge climbing tho - because it was too expensive.

This is the hostel called  Westend Backpackers Sydney that we stayed in while we were in Sydney(About 30 AUD per night). Staying in a cheap hostel was a good experience for me, even though we got in a small trouble; Kara booked a female room with 6 beds beforehand for the sake of security, but when we went into the room after check-in, what we saw was 3  British + 1 French guys !!!! It turned out to be a mistake by the staff and we asked them if we could change the room, but it was too late. We ended up staying the first 2 nights in a unisex room with 6 beds, with those 4 guys. At first I was a little worried about getting in troubles since it was the first time I shared a room with people whom I never met. But actually, they were pretty nice people. I gave the French guy a Hachimaki(Japanese headband - like this) with the word 日本(Japan) on it that I brought as a souvenir from Japan, which made him sooooo happy. He thanked me again and again (which even surprised me lol)because he was a huge fan of Japanese anime and movies. On the 2nd evening a new person came to stay in our room, and happily enough, she was Japanese who is currently working as a physical therapist in Kanagawa!! She was on holiday at that time and was sightsee ingSydney just like we were. What a small world!! She, Kara and I hit it off immediately and went out for dinner together in the evening. It was such a good encounter. 

Sydney's night was also amazing.  Especially the night view of the harbor area was breathtaking. Sorry the pics below that I took there are not enough to tell you how beautiful they really were.

  

We had some night explorations in the city of Sydney as well, and it was so much fun! We went to some fancy pubs and bars too, and every time Kara tried to get me drunk(In fact I'm not a strong drinker). At night time, there were a few security guards standing at the entrance of each restaurant and bar, and foreigners including me had to show passports or ID cards to them. Foods were more expensive than those in Japan, but always really good and made me full. I miss them so much right now!!!!

On the 2nd day in Sydney, we took a ferry from the harbor and headed for Taronga Zoo , one of the biggest Zoos in Sydney. The zoo was so huge and there were a lot of unique animals I never saw in zoos in Japan. 

  

Koalas were always sleeping. I think maybe he was hangover.

Giraffes are always able to view the beautiful Sydney harbor from where they are. Jealous.

A Kangaroo! Isn't she cute! 

A different type of Kangaroo.I love the way they are in this pic. 

One thing that I liked about Zoos in Australia is they tried to keep the animals as wild as possible. In most of the zoos that I've visited in Japan, the animals are usually in a small cages or on the concrete floors, so they look a little cramped to me and I don't really like it. This zoo was located on the low mountain and surrounded by trees and bushes, so it made me feel like I was exploring in a deep forest or in a jungle. The animals were playing freely, and thus they even looked happier. 

I had a really good time in Sydney and and I felt I wanted to live there. I highly recommend you to visit this wonderful city if you've never been there, I'm sure you'll like there. Will put up some pics soon of Canberra in the next post.Ciao!

5 days to go!!

Right, quick update, finally I've got only 5 sleeps before I leave for Australia!! The more closer it gets, the more excited I am! Yesterday I received a rental suitcase, and I was so surprised because it was super huuuuge!!I like the color, though.

 






You may not be able to tell how huge it is in this picture, but I could say it's like the one for those who are going to study abroad for one year. Haha! I've already started packing and it will take a few more days until I get everything ready, but I am enjoying it. February 7th, 2011, my dream will finally come true.
I'll update some pics here during my stay, so please check them out.


Peace,
Pookie0712

Happy New Year!!!

Hello world, hi friends, the new year has just begun here in Japan! And yes, this is my first post of 2011!!!! Sorry for being too lazy with updating my blog lately, but I always love to read your blogs!! From what I've read on your blogs, it seems like you all had a great Christmas time. In my case, Christmas didn't really mean anything, since I got to work for 5 hours on Christmas day and got totally exhausted haha. Anyway, this year I'll try to update more often than last year!!! :)


I hope the year 2011 will be the best one to all of you, and bring you loads of happiness!!




Pookie0712