Blog Travel

Finally, I have come to photos I took in Thailand just before I started working with Primal Fusion.

DSCC Reunion

Fur & Som's Grad Photos

The Pre-convocation of Debsirin Alumni at Chulalongkorn University

Family Reunion

Let's continue the photo story... However, I don't have much time recently. So, I get helps from Google Picasa.

矢田路 (Yada Temple)

Shouji's House

Daibutsu + Nara Machi (Nara Town)

Asakusa + Ueno + Shinjuku + Narita

But one thing I am really surprised is to see how efficient Japanese people make every single square inch of there land useful and productive.

And actually, Shouji's house illustrates the fact that even Japan has this kind of agricultural scenery. But the roads there are really small even for two-way traffic.

After Panote, Shouji and I dropped off our luggage and the souvenirs (お土産) were given to Shouji and his family, we went out for lunch. It was the first time for me to have buffet (バイキング). What I found over there was even impressing me. Who would think that Thai spicy glass-noodle salad and Thai chicken green curry were found in Japanese buffet.

Then, after good lunch, we went to Hōryū-ji (法隆寺 lit. Temple of the Flourishing Law) in Ikagura, Nara. Shouji told me that it is well known mostly to Japanese people but not to foreigners. I found myself that the transportation to Hōryū-ji was not something that foreigners could get here as it was local unless he or she did some research on Hōryū-ji.

Although I was not expecting to sightsee things in Nara, coming here was the first beyond-my-expectation. In my opinion, this place is more like a castle to me and it has the Chinese atmosphere as it is built during the early period of Japanese culture.

As I took too much photos (approximately 188 photos) at Hōryū-ji, I decided to randomly show some of them.

Luckily, on that day, the temple opened the special area consisting the study hall etc.

After my convocation (June 13), I visited to Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa with my family. It was more like a re-visiting trip. There was nothing particularly new except a new house of my dad's friend. But I met some persons whom my family know but i didn't.

In June 18, eleven hours after my family left Canada to Paris for their second stop of the visiting trip, I left to Japan for my own visiting trip. It was almost a re-visiting trip except this is more interesting.

In the first 36 hours, I pretended not to understand a bit of Japanese although I could understand about 70% of the CONTEMPORARY conversation. However, after things became pretty complicated, I decided to speak Japanese again.

My trip in Japan started in June 19. The first place is Machida, Tokyo (町田市、東京) to meet with Panote and Patrick. We had a dinner at Dennis, a family restuarant. One thing interesting is that a half of the items listed in the menu are quite traditional Japanese food.

After dinner, I went to Hotel Vista in Hashimoto, Kanagawa where I made a reservation. Just for fun, although Panote was with me, I asked him not to say a word and letted me ONLY speak with them in English. Amazingly enough, they understood my word but they just couldn't reply me in English. However, After having done the business with the hotel counter and sending Panote to the train station, I went back to my room to take a shower since I couldn't take a shower for 24 hours and I wouldn't be able to take a shower for the next 36 hours. Well, it was the start of the unforgettable trip.

This trip is a kind of De-Ja-Vu. My first breakfast was still a pancake, which I mistakenly thought it as a Dorayaki, Chocolate milk, green tea and Chocolate cake.

Not too long after I checked out; the reception ran after me to ask me to pay for the outgoing telephone service. This is what I am a little bit pissed off about. They were supposed to tell me that earlier. So, I ended up paying 111 yen. Well, it's still cheaper that using my own cell phone.

Then, I went to JR Hashimoto Station to take Yokohama line to Hachiouji Station (八王子). Then I took a train from there to Shinjuku Station (新宿) to take Yamanote line to Akihabara station (秋葉原). I arrived in Akihabara station around 11 AM. I first ran to Yodobashi to get a camera since my lovely Sony DSC P-8 was malfunctioning just not too long before I came to Japan. Before I bought a new camera, I was very hungry so I went to Ramen shop. After having a bowl of Ramen, I ended up with Canon PowerShot SS IS because it was not too expensive and SLR-alike at that time. Actually, there are a couple candidates for my new camera. However, the testing model of one of them was not working as it ran out of battery. The second one didn't have English-UI being sold in Japan at that time. So, I picked Canon instead.

Then, since last time I didn't walk around in Akihabara as I pleased, so I decided to check it out until 3 PM (JST). Well, it's really a waste that Akihabara has nothing interesting except its electronic products, animations, comic books etc.

Then, I walked around Shinjuku with the same reason. It was not really interesting except I could buy 2 volumns of クロスゲー� , one battery for Nikon SLR Camera D80 for my oldest brother.

I did see a monk in the Shinjuku train station. I wondered what he would say if there is no one donate him a yen.

I would say I was not too surprised by the number of people during the daytime in Japan but I was really surprised that there were too many people. Maybe I've lived in Waterloo too long and I was used to life in Canada.

One more thing which is really surprised. I didn't even think that Japaneses would go that far to make their (banks') customers feel comfortable whenever they use ATMs by making a room that only one person can get in.

While I was walking around, I felt hungry so I ended up again in a Soba shop. It was pretty nice and its food was good too. One thing to mention was that there was no seat.

And then, after I met Panote again, we spent two hours to find where to get on a bus to Osaka (大阪). Then, as soon as we arrived in Osaka, we departed from JR Nanba Station (なんば) to Tenouji Station (天応時) and Shin-Osaka station (新大阪). There was a bit confusion about the time table. Shouji was not expecting us to arrive so arrive and so were we. So, he was sleeping soundly in his house in Tenouji. Panote and I then had some times sparing on sightseeing the location around Shin-Osaka Station and had breakfast.

After that, we three went to Shouji's hometown "Ando" (JR Yamato-Koisumi Station -- 大和小泉駅) in Nara. Well, my first impression is the way people here efficiently manage their land and make it as waste-less as possible. Good god. I won't be able to see a very small rice field in front of my own house in Bangkok for sure.

As the result of their efficiency, everything looks so compact and small to me. As Shouji's parent's house in Nara is very old, I am very impressed about the atmosphere of the ancient Japan in this house. We also could see how Shouji was in high school.