Weekend in Kansai!

This past weekend was an absolutely lovely 3 day weekend! (And the last one I'll likely have for a while, so I definitely had to take advantage of it!)

On Friday night, we had a staff New Year's party and went out to a Korean restaurant about a minute walk away from our school.  It was quite fun and there was lots of yummy food (plus it made me remember a few things from Korea...if I ever crave Korean food -- I know where to find it! :P)

Saturday I just spent doing a few things I had to catch up on, and then Sunday morning I headed off to Kobe for the rest of the weekend.  Actually, on Saturday night I found out that the musician I enjoy was doing a street live Sunday afternoon in addition to a live on the Monday night, so yay, bonus for me!  When I got into Kobe, I dropped off my things then wandered around for a while looking at various things.  In the afternoon I found my way to the location where he and another musician were doing their joint street live.  They were both quite good, but the one drawback was the wind made it rather chilly to be standing out there.  After the 3rd set it started to rain a little bit and a policeman showed up to shut them down saying they were a little too loud and blocking an entrance (even though there were some of those announcement cars that went by that were about 10x louder than they were and they weren't actually in front of an entrance to anything...) But anyway....it all turned out alright as after a long discussion with each other and a couple other people who showed up, they decided to move the location of the live to a café a little ways away from where we were.  So, we headed off that way (there were about 6 of us...2 being the musicians) and found ourselves in a tiny little café which was thankfully nice and cozy and warm and the two of them continued their live.  It was awesome!  Actually after the live, I talked with the other musician for a while as well, and it turned out that he had studied in the US, spoke excellent English and actually had certification to teach English to middle and high-schoolers although he's working at a company in another city here in Shikoku of all places.  Major coincidences!  There was also another funny little thing that happened (well actually twice). While at the street live and they were just changing musicians an old man asked me if I was going to sing. Nope! And then a similar thing at the cafe--- when we all walked in and were getting comfortable, the lady behind the counter asked about me as the "female member" of the group and if I was going to perform too, and so they had to explain that I was just there to watch. Funny though, that the same thing happened twice. Apparently I must look like a musician?! ^_^

After the little live, I headed off to Osaka as I really wanted to go to the 3D light show at Osaka Castle.  It was actually pretty awesome.  The first section was just going through a lit up archway path and looking at lights through the archway.

After that, you arrive at the 'pyramid tree' which cycles through an interesting 3D display (and it's loud!). 

If you can't view this video, click here.

Right next to that was what I'm going to call the light ocean.  The lights were all set up in a cycle and positions so that they looked like waves coming in and going out. Pretty cool.  And as you walked past that, you actually walked over some of those lights on a glass pathway, so the feeling was like you were walking on top of the ocean...

If you can't view this video, click here.

Next, you arrived at what is probably the main attraction of this event.  The area where you can watch the 3D display that's projected onto the castle.  It was about a 10 minute long display and it was AMAZING!!!  It also had sound too and I'm really glad I took a little video, because it's kind of hard to explain...not that the video really does justice to seeing it live though...

If you can't view this video, click here.

The final display at this event was a musical fountain/light show.  They timed the fountain and lights to various classical music and it was pretty cool, although it was a little hard to see from the position that I was in.  Nonetheless, a pretty sweet event altogether.

If you can't view this video, click here.

Monday morning, I decided to go check out Mount Rokko, as I'd heard it was a fairly nice place and had an awesome view.  It didn't take too long to get out there, but once I got to the top, it felt COLD!  And, guess what?! There was snow up there! Not a lot, but it was the first snow I've seen this winter (and quite possibly the only...)  There was indeed a very nice view, but the wind was BRUTAL!  So after spending a few hours up there, I headed back down into Kobe and cozied up with a nice warm drink in a café.

By the time I got myself warmed up again, it was time to head out to Monday night's live (lucky for me it started rather early in the evening).  This live was a combination of three different singers: ヨシダヒロキ, FASE (the two I'd seen Sunday afternoon), and Tyotti. They each had their own unique style of singing -- I won't say to much about ヨシダヒロキ as you've heard lots about him from me already, but FASE (he got made fun of a lot because he wants his name pronounced as 'face' but the way he has it spelled it's not really like that in English and in Japanese they'd pronounce differently as well) has kind of a mellow, relaxing style and Tyotti's style is kind of energetic and he does some really cool things with a LOOP machine.  And of course they all sang a song together at the end.  I really enjoyed all of the music that night.  After they were finished singing I actually saw literally all of the other people that had been at the café the previous afternoon, talked with a couple and talked with the musicians for a little before I had to head off to catch the last bus of the evening back to Takamatsu.

Tyotti, ヨシダヒロキ, and FASE

Not too bad of a weekend at all.  I may be having way too much fun, but there's no way that could be a negative thing at all! ^_^

For more pictures from this long weekend, click here.

Winter Vacation in Okinawa

My winter vacation started out from the evening of Christmas day.  After spending the day at work, I headed out to catch a bus to go to Osaka where I was going to stay the night before catching my plane the next morning.  The bus ride was very quiet as there was maybe only 3 or so other people riding it, but after arriving in Osaka, there were people EVERYWHERE!! Who knew so many people would be out and about on Christmas night?!

On the morning of Boxing Day, I caught my flight to Naha, Okinawa.  I flew via PeachAir, as it is relatively inexpensive, however I was very surprised by a couple things -- such as they didn't check my id at all and they didn't start boarding people until the time the flight was supposed to be leaving -- so as a result, we ended up arriving slightly later than anticipated.  After arriving, I got myself to my hotel, and then tried to get myself orientated a bit about where exactly I was and what things were around -- you know, all those usual things that you end up doing when you go to a new place. Although I have to say, somehow Naha wasn't quite what I was expecting (although I can't really say what exactly I was expecting)

Beach in Naha a relatively short walk from my hotel

The next day, I met up with Narumi, who I work together with and was coincidentally also in Okinawa some of the same days I was.  After meeting up, we took a stroll down Kokusai-dori, a main shopping/eating area in Naha.  While we were there, we ate some Okinawan doughnuts and Narumi challenged me to try drinking Goya juice (Goya is a Japanese bitter melon).  It wasn't so bad, until after you stopped drinking!  We ended up doing it together!  The two of us also got ambushed by a lady trying to convince people to buy things from the shop that she works at.  She had a LOT to say!  I was kind of amused because she was talking so quickly and really trying to be convincing, and so every so often, she'd lightly smack me with the papers she was holding and tell me not to laugh.  She also told Narumi to talk to me about what she was saying -- in "Canada-go" -- which would mean Canada language.  That definitely got a laugh out of us.  But it seemed like she honestly didn't know that Canadians speak English, not our own unique language.

After spending some time in Kokusai-dori, we decided to go and check out Shuri-jo (Shuri castle).  Once we got out of the station, we were ambushed yet again!  This time by a man working for a taxi company, and he was telling us about a nice beach where we could go on a glass bottom boat, and then the driver would bring us back to Shuri-jo afterwards.  Narumi wanted to go, and so I figured, why not? It's not like I would've done it on my own, so it was nice to do it together with someone.  The ride out there was quite nice -- we went through this rural area where they were growing all kinds of sugarcane and we also passed by some banana groves as well.  Our driver was quite talkative and told us many things about the area and what foods are good to eat in Okinawa -- things like that.  When we arrived at the beach, it was indeed beautiful! 

We got our tickets to go on the boat and took a nice ride to a few different locations where we saw many colorful and different fish.  I have to say, it was also one of the nicest glass bottom boats that I've been on as they had both sides of the glass SUPER clean so it was really easy to see into the water (often times the outside is scummy making it difficult to see...but not this time!) 

Afterwards we took a few pictures of the beach and then our driver took us to a local restaurant that served the Okinawan soba that Narumi wanted to try.  It was good! 

After that, our driver took us back to Shuri-jo, and we wandered around through there for a while.  After going through the castle, it was already starting to get dark and Narumi's boyfriend had finished work for the day, so we headed back to where we started so she could meet up with her boyfriend, and I could head back to my hotel for the night.  All in all, it was a really fun day, and so nice to spend time together with someone else too!!

Shuri-jo

The next day, I hopped onto a ferry and went to Zamami Island -- which had a really nice beach, but I didn't get to spend so much time there because the ferry was about 2 hours to get there, and then I had about 2 hours for the beach and then had to get back on the last ferry to go back.  That small amount of time was a little disappointing, but because it was actually raining on either side of my time on the beach, I'd say it actually worked out not too bad.

View from the ferry

The beach on Zamami Island where I hung out

Following that, I wanted to take a little bus tour to go out to an aquarium, the pineapple park and a couple of pretty viewpoints, but unfortunately, there was no space.  Well, no problem, I'd just do it on my own instead.  Except....I didn't realize quite how far away it was.  It took about 3 hours just to get to the bus terminal, and then the local bus that was supposed to take me to the next place I wanted to go was very rare and wouldn't show up for another hour after I arrived.  So, I opted to walk 30 minutes out to the pineapple park on my own.  At the pineapple park, you get to ride in these pineapple cars (which are fully automated) and have commentary as you go through the area.  It was interesting, but I really wanted to get out and walk through on my own and have a closer look at some of the plants.  No such luck though. 

Pineapples, pineapples, everywhere

The pineapple car

After that quick little tour, you get to go through a shell museum, which had thousands of different shells inside, big and small, and every color and shape you could think of.  That led into the pineapple product shop where you got to sample all kinds of yummy things!! Pineapple wines, juices, cookies, chocolates, pineapple itself, cakes and more!  I have to say, that part was pretty awesome! I may have even picked up a few products to take back with me!

After the pineapple park I thought about going out to some of the other areas that would've been hit on the bus tour, but because they were at least another 30 minutes away (by bus, not guaranteeing the bus would be there when I was too) and I'd have to walk back to the bus terminal as well, I decided I'd probably be better off to just have enjoyed what I did, so I made a little late afternoon snack stop at a fruit café and then headed back to Naha, arriving mid-evening.

The next day, which was my final full day in Okinawa, had absolutely beautiful weather, so I decided I'd head out for a day to spend on the beach.  I went back to Zamami island, but this time I was smarter about it -- I took the high speed boat, which not only took half the time of the normal ferry, but also it left earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon, giving me much more time out there.  Not to mention, it was a much more fun ride -- more up and down jumps rather than the boring straight motion of the ferry.  So, that day when I arrived, I took a little hike out to the viewpoint on the island, and then spent the rest of my time relaxing on the beach.  That evening, after getting back to Okinawa, I took another stroll down Kokusai-dori, checking out all of the pretty things in the various silver shops along the way.

View from Zamami Island

Pretty view from the boat

Sunset at Naha ferry terminal

The day that I was leaving Okinawa, had (of course) the nicest weather since I'd been there.  Since I didn't leave til after lunch, I took a quick little trip to a Chinese garden that was kind of near my hotel (and had free admission!) and spent some time strolling around in there.  I followed that up with a quick trip into a silver shop to buy a pretty little ring that I'd had my eye on.  Then it was back to Osaka (when I got there it felt really cold! It was windy and a little rainy, so I cancelled my plans to try out the non-ice skating rink and just headed into Kobe after eating supper).

New Year's morning was spent wandering around in Kobe and taking a nice stroll down "Flower Road" which amazingly had all kinds of pretty annual type flowers growing! I had to check to make sure that it was in fact January! 

And that, was my winter vacation this year.

For more pictures from this vacation, click here.