Gion Matsuri
I went to Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe last weekend for the Gion Matsuri. It was a lot of fun!! I'm too lazy to type the trip up all over again, so I'm just gonna cut and paste it from an email I sent to a friend... here goes:
On friday night I went on the night bus and set out to Osaka.. my bus ride was probably one of the worst I've been on. First of all I didn't realize that the seats were assigned seats so I just picked wherever in the beginning.. then obviously I got kicked out of my seat, and I realized that my seat is at the very left of the very back row. No problem, so I got there and realized that the light is not strong enuf for me to read Angels and Demons, so I decided to lie back and sleep but NO! The seat was wedged in front of this bar so I couldn't lean my seat back at all. So basically the whole night I was trying to sleep with my back straight... and the girl beside me kept on sleeping on my shoulder, altho I didn't mind it that much I'm surely glad it was not a guy. Anyway, after the torturing 9 hour ride I finally arrived at Osaka and met up with Kelvin. We went to this "Floating Garden Observatory" place which looked reeally nice from outside.. but inside... it sucks. >< It's not even as nice as Macau tower!! Anyways, after that we went to some other temples... Osaka City I believe that's wat its called... it used to be a castle, but it turned out to be a museum inside the castle... I was a bit disappointed. Then we went to a temple called Shitennoshi (4 kings temple).. and THAT was impressive.. it was a whole city of temples and heritage buildings. All the buildings were very very pretty... After that we headed to Kyoto to meet up with Anton and them. They were at the Gion Matsuri.. and basically it's like a HUGE japanese style Richmond night market. hehee.. there were stalls on both sides of the street selling okonomiyaki, sausages, waffles, etc etc. There were also stalls selling stuff like candies, goldfish, etc.. it was pretty cool! Most ppl there were wearing Yukata's (including my friends) but Kelvin and I didn't wear ours cuz we didn't have time to get changed. After the festival, everyone was so tired from wearing their geta's (the japanese shoes like mook kek). On the way back to Anton's it suddenly started POURING!! Neil was still in his geta's so he took them off and ran... heh we were all soaked by the time we got to the station. We finally arrived at Anton's.. and it turns out I'm the only girl there staying with 10 other guys. Hahaha... it was.. interesting. =P Actually there was no problem at all cuz everyone there was cool. =)
The next day we all woke up for breakfast and did some shopping. Then we split into two groups, and Kelvin, Victor, Clement and I went to Kinkakuji (Golden temple). When we got to the train station, it was pouring once again but we still decided to go check out the temple. Luckily by the time we bussed there, the rain stopped. It was very pretty on the outside... I doubt that it's entirely made of gold though. We're not allowed to go in, so the 400yen admission fee seems like a rip off. After that we went back to join the other group and also another group from Osaka for dinner. After dinner, the Osaka group + me and a few other ppl changed into our Yukatas and went to the Matsuri again. This time we went a different direction but there wasn't too much to see. After that we went back to Anton's and crashed once again.
On Monday morning we all woke up early to watch the parade of the festival. Unfortunately it was raining.. but we still went in yukata's (and everyone was staring at us weird... a bunch of gaijins wearing yukata on a rainy day haha). The parade was interesting.. i'm sure each of those huge "carts" had their own meaning and I'm sure all that decoration, music and colors have some kinda meaning too, but too bad I don't know any locals to explain to me. After the parade we met up with the Osaka group one last time to take a group pic of all of us in Yukata. Then we had lunch, and Kelvin and I set out to kobe cuz that's where our night bus leaves. When we got to Kobe there wasn't too much time left, so we just wandered around the station. We went to this "shopping street" and there were so much to see! haha if I didn't run out of money, I would've bought so much. We had a Kobe steak set menu for 2200 yen! haha I duno how bad the quality of the Kobe steak is compared to other ones, but the ones we had were pretty good. The restaurant was really classy and the service there was excellent. The food was great, especially the desert... there were 2 balls of icecream and also a slice of melon! Melon is considered a luxury in Japan so I was quite surprised they would give out melon for a 2200 yen set meal... maybe that place is used to launder money or something. hahaha... it's too good to be true. Anyhow, after dinner we had to run to catch our bus.. and we got there right on time. The bus ride back this time was way better, the bus was newer and the seats could incline backwards a lot so I had a rather comfy sleep. On monday morning 7:30 we arrived at Yokohama and we had some breakfast then we headed separately to work. @_@ what a long day it has been, but the weekend was so fun!! =D
=================
On a side note, I got 10,000￥ deducted from my salary this month cuz my work term started on July 3rd, not the 1st. Note that July 1st and 2nd is a Saturday and Sunday... and 10,000 yen is equivalent to $100CDN!! >< I can't believe I lost $100 just like that....
On friday night I went on the night bus and set out to Osaka.. my bus ride was probably one of the worst I've been on. First of all I didn't realize that the seats were assigned seats so I just picked wherever in the beginning.. then obviously I got kicked out of my seat, and I realized that my seat is at the very left of the very back row. No problem, so I got there and realized that the light is not strong enuf for me to read Angels and Demons, so I decided to lie back and sleep but NO! The seat was wedged in front of this bar so I couldn't lean my seat back at all. So basically the whole night I was trying to sleep with my back straight... and the girl beside me kept on sleeping on my shoulder, altho I didn't mind it that much I'm surely glad it was not a guy. Anyway, after the torturing 9 hour ride I finally arrived at Osaka and met up with Kelvin. We went to this "Floating Garden Observatory" place which looked reeally nice from outside.. but inside... it sucks. >< It's not even as nice as Macau tower!! Anyways, after that we went to some other temples... Osaka City I believe that's wat its called... it used to be a castle, but it turned out to be a museum inside the castle... I was a bit disappointed. Then we went to a temple called Shitennoshi (4 kings temple).. and THAT was impressive.. it was a whole city of temples and heritage buildings. All the buildings were very very pretty... After that we headed to Kyoto to meet up with Anton and them. They were at the Gion Matsuri.. and basically it's like a HUGE japanese style Richmond night market. hehee.. there were stalls on both sides of the street selling okonomiyaki, sausages, waffles, etc etc. There were also stalls selling stuff like candies, goldfish, etc.. it was pretty cool! Most ppl there were wearing Yukata's (including my friends) but Kelvin and I didn't wear ours cuz we didn't have time to get changed. After the festival, everyone was so tired from wearing their geta's (the japanese shoes like mook kek). On the way back to Anton's it suddenly started POURING!! Neil was still in his geta's so he took them off and ran... heh we were all soaked by the time we got to the station. We finally arrived at Anton's.. and it turns out I'm the only girl there staying with 10 other guys. Hahaha... it was.. interesting. =P Actually there was no problem at all cuz everyone there was cool. =)
The next day we all woke up for breakfast and did some shopping. Then we split into two groups, and Kelvin, Victor, Clement and I went to Kinkakuji (Golden temple). When we got to the train station, it was pouring once again but we still decided to go check out the temple. Luckily by the time we bussed there, the rain stopped. It was very pretty on the outside... I doubt that it's entirely made of gold though. We're not allowed to go in, so the 400yen admission fee seems like a rip off. After that we went back to join the other group and also another group from Osaka for dinner. After dinner, the Osaka group + me and a few other ppl changed into our Yukatas and went to the Matsuri again. This time we went a different direction but there wasn't too much to see. After that we went back to Anton's and crashed once again.
On Monday morning we all woke up early to watch the parade of the festival. Unfortunately it was raining.. but we still went in yukata's (and everyone was staring at us weird... a bunch of gaijins wearing yukata on a rainy day haha). The parade was interesting.. i'm sure each of those huge "carts" had their own meaning and I'm sure all that decoration, music and colors have some kinda meaning too, but too bad I don't know any locals to explain to me. After the parade we met up with the Osaka group one last time to take a group pic of all of us in Yukata. Then we had lunch, and Kelvin and I set out to kobe cuz that's where our night bus leaves. When we got to Kobe there wasn't too much time left, so we just wandered around the station. We went to this "shopping street" and there were so much to see! haha if I didn't run out of money, I would've bought so much. We had a Kobe steak set menu for 2200 yen! haha I duno how bad the quality of the Kobe steak is compared to other ones, but the ones we had were pretty good. The restaurant was really classy and the service there was excellent. The food was great, especially the desert... there were 2 balls of icecream and also a slice of melon! Melon is considered a luxury in Japan so I was quite surprised they would give out melon for a 2200 yen set meal... maybe that place is used to launder money or something. hahaha... it's too good to be true. Anyhow, after dinner we had to run to catch our bus.. and we got there right on time. The bus ride back this time was way better, the bus was newer and the seats could incline backwards a lot so I had a rather comfy sleep. On monday morning 7:30 we arrived at Yokohama and we had some breakfast then we headed separately to work. @_@ what a long day it has been, but the weekend was so fun!! =D
=================
On a side note, I got 10,000￥ deducted from my salary this month cuz my work term started on July 3rd, not the 1st. Note that July 1st and 2nd is a Saturday and Sunday... and 10,000 yen is equivalent to $100CDN!! >< I can't believe I lost $100 just like that....
posted by Unknown at 5:53 PM
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