The Country of the Rising Sun - day 3

Day 3 started with another bento box as breakfast...not really used to the cold food these days :$

Afterwhich we proceed to Omicho Market - a busy and colorful market with 200 over shops selling seafood, vegetable, fruits and flowers. Unlike the market that i have in mind....the market here is sooo cleannn and neat. Unique market indeed!






Everything in this market was auctioned to the stores before they were sold to the customers. So items like crab, octopus ikura, or even honeydew has its own prices.



















































One of the best potato croquette that i've ever tried!







At noon..we visited the Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa, acclaimed as one of the Japan's 3 great gardens.










It is famous for the bonsai trees which are supported together by ropes -- so that the weight of the snow wont break the branches.








Our lunch...the typical Japanese lunch box which consisted of many varieties..all in bite-size portion :)





One of our favourite findings during the tour: FURIKAKE! Its the Japanese flavoring condiment made of roasted seaweed, salt, sesame seeds etc, often sprinkled atop rice. Its nice...



Afterwhich...we went to Shirakawa-Go village, a well-preserved Unesco world heritage site - famous for its old farmhouses with steep roofs. We had fun with the thick snow here. Not to mention it has the best scenery!



































We spent the night at Hida. The hotel resembled a resort - famous for its onsen (japanese hot spring) and that also marked the first time we slept on tatami (yey!!).

For once we get a spacious hotel room. It has a living room, a bedroom, a wardrobe space and 2 toilets!














That nite we tried the very culture of japanese who like to shower in the public bath called onsen. The bath was seperated between male's and female's. There one basic rule within the public bath: no clothing allowed! And we were given only a small piece of hand towel. We were suppose to cleanse ourselves in the shower before entering the pool. They have 3 pools inside the bath: indoor pool, outdoor pool and the last one (which was the most interesting one) was the rooftop pool. We liked the rooftop pool the best as we can enjoy the snow and the night view while soaking in the hot pool.

In the bath, they provided all the things women need like soaps, shampoo, conditioner, scrub, hairdryer, disposable comb, lotions etc. Very convenient indeed!


Before onsen:










After onsen:


The bath did make me feel sleepy :) But itss really worth it. Japanese even take the bath before and after dinner (its open from 6am till 12 midnite afterall!)



The sarupopo -- its the traditional character from Hida :

The Country of the Rising Sun - day 2

Our second day started with a bento box breakfast (which apparently will be our breakfast for the next few days!). A bento box consisted of a variety of food (mainly rice, fish, seaweed, pickles, veggies, and miso soup). Looks healthy at a glance! But as they were mass-prepared long before we woke up..everything was cold by the time we had our breakfast. Everything except the miso soup. Not exactly my kind of taste :(











Luckily we had a chance to try out the Japanese Curry for our brunch :) it was niiiceeeeee...simple yet delicious (and WARM!)











For the first itenerary of the day, we were suppose to take the bullet train (Shinkansen) from Osaka to Kyoto, which took only 13 minutes! We happen to be taking the 2nd generation of Japan's bullet train called Nozomi which travel at the speed of 300km/h.



































This is the overview of a bullet train.

The Japanese tend to be very quite and calm whenever they are inside a train, be it a bullet train or the normal 'MRT'. Hence we made quite an 'impression' when the whole group first entered the bullet train hah!




At Kyoto, we first visited the Kyomizu temple. Fyi, Japan has a LOT of temples because their religion, Shinto, taught them to worship as many gods as needed. So in the case when they need wealth, they'll worship the prosperity god..and so on so forth. Oblivious to all their gods and goddesses, we went to take tons of picture of the beautiful surrounding scenery and ....




















...played with water.....

















People queued to drink the water from these 3 small fountain as they believed that each will bring you propserity, health and ... (can't remember wat's the last one heheh)



...and bought their famous mochi!


This is the grilled mochi.







While this is the original mochi which i think is nice! Especially the sweet potato flavour.

In this shop you could sample all their mochi for free till u drop! (plus they'll even serve u tea and u can sit around the heater hah!).

And last but not least.....


........................do stupid things...like these 2 people:




Afterwhich we visited the Biwa Lake, which size is bigger than Singapore! heheh Coz its the biggest fresh water lake in Japan. We didn't take any picture tho since it was merely a lunch at the pit stop which happened to be beside the Biwa lake. Most of the Japanese fast food always use a vending machine where we insert our money and choose our food. Then they'll prepare the food manually and send it to us :)

That day we spent our night at Kanazawa, a small village few hours from Kyoto. We had our dinner at the hotel:

This is called the Japan crab!






















The entire meal revolved around CRAB. Crab meat, steam crab, crab leg soup, mashed potato in crab shell etc etc...






After dinner....we were greeted by SNOW! yey...tat was the first time it snowed since we reached Japan. So..the first thing we did was grabbed our umbrella and ran out in a rush to play with the snow hehehe



Some......even tot that snow = ice kachang!












Then....unstoppable picture-taking frenzy!

























All the way..until the snow stopped falling...


































And late that night...in the privacy of our room:


Let the battle begins!!!!





















And the defeated one is......



*poor little thing *






While the winner:














And the climax for the day:

*Sadako in action* (scroll faster to view)