Ramblings

It's one of those days when I think life is crappy and I don't want to do anything except for procrastinating in my room...

- my host family in Minoh is moving away to Tokyo at the end of July;

- I was going to meet them yesterday, but got a message on Saturday saying that the grandfather of the family passed away so yesterday became funeral day. Next meeting now postponed to I don't know when.

- I took a few rolls of film to get it cross-processed at Horiuchi Color in Umeda. Most of the photos turned out to be over-exposed... next time I'll have to under expose everything before cross-processing. Noted.

- Have absolutely no motivation to work right now. I'm 3 weeks behind on the weekly activity sheet, trying to do them all tonight, not wanting to risk getting Shoji sensei angry (life was so much easier with Yamamoto!).

- I failed for the second time running in making the frosting of the Hummingbird Bakery's "Brooklyn Blackout Cake". Something wrong with the cornflour syrup...

- I failed for the second time running (again) in making the Hollandaise sauce. The strange thing is that I nailed it at the first time and it was amazing. Then the second and third time I couldn't do it...ended up with a runny melted butter liquid mess.

- Personal finance is very bad right now. I don't even know where my scholarship money goes to... it just gradually vanishes from my bank account. And I still have plenty of things I want to buy, and I still want to go onto that end-of-year trip to Kyushu in August.

- I'm feeling a little bit under par right now. Been having this annoying throat infection for the last couple of days. Grrr...

End of tonight's ramblings. Back to work (I hope).

P.S. The weather has been quite superb recently. Warm but not hot or humid. Yesterday's blue sky was quite a pleasant surprise amidst all this crappiness.

A Saturday afternoon

Last Saturday, Morgan, her friend Lauren, and I went to 万博記念公園 / Expo '70 Commemorative Park (a.k.a. "banpaku") for the free-entry rose garden. The weather was amazing - sunny and very very warm at 30C. It was hot, but thank goodness it was still bearable. Morgan and Lauren come from Texas and I grew up in Hong Kong - we know what is hot and what isn't.

The park is just a short ride on the monorail from the dormitory. After taking numerous photos of the beautiful and fragrant roses, we decided to walk to Kita-senri station via the Suita campus of Osaka University. Osaka University is divided into three campuses: Minoh (where we live and go to classes), Toyonaka (with the arts, sciences and law faculties - where I go to the law class on Friday), and the main campus in Suita (with the university's medical and dental hospitals and faculty of engineering).

We walked to the student union building and had a quick bite. さすが本部だ！The menu was twice as big as the one we have in Minoh, not to mention they have more than one cafeterias. My katsu-kare was very good, especially the katsu.

Anyway, after lunch we walked through the campus and a nice park to reach Kita-senri station. We weren't actually going to take the Hankyu train though. It was for the showcase gig of the university's 軽音楽部 (literally "light music club"). Daan's and Matthias' band was playing so we went to support them. As expected of Daan, there was shirtlessness and he (very sweetly with a hint of "gayness") dedicated his performance to Seb. Awww...

Seb and I took photos at the event. Mine haven't been developed yet but Seb has some beautiful shots of Daan and Matthias in action (they're not on the web but check out Seb's other photos on his Flickr photostream!). Here's one of Simon and I, taking photos/videos on our cameras with Matthias on the stage in the background -

Spring Exhibition

This week has been the photography club spring exhibition. For this exhibition I submitted three photos:

"One"

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2

1/6 sec, F4.0, ISO400

Kuromon Market, Osaka

24th April, 2010

"Two wings"

Nikon F50, with AF Nikkor 35-80mm F3.5 lens

Fujichrome Provia 100F

Matsushima Bay, Miyagi prefecture

March 2010

"Three of us - model, camera, and I"

Diana+, with 55mm wide-angle lens

Fujichrome Velvia 50, cross-processed

Osaka University Minoh campus

Model: Morgan

April 2010

The exhibition ends tomorrow. Today I was helping out at the welcome desk, and had the chance to read through some of the comments we've received in the past few days. There are many excellent photos by other students (foreign and Japanese). Obviously I tried to look for those who commented on my photos.

Out of the three photos I've submitted, I've received comments for only the first two, most comments were for the seagull shot. People who liked it commented on how it captures the moment. One said that they noticed the person feeding the seagull was virtually out of the picture, which he/she didn't like. A few liked my photo of the man sitting alone in a cafe in Osaka. I took that photo when Andrew and I were sipping coffee/tea at this old-fashion cafe in Kuromon Market.

I did receive a comment on both the man and the seagull photos which particularly caught my attention - it read like this:「選び抜かれた作品だと思う。‘作品’ として価値がある。」

My interpretation of those two sentences is "these are works that have been [carefully] chosen. They deserve to be pieces [on their own merit]".

Obviously it could be interpreted in other ways, but I think this comment is a positive one. When I read it, I swear my pride/confidence started to float out of my body to some higher place. It's nice to receive feedback, whether negative or positive, because they help us to be better photographers. And when we get praises from people we don't know at all, it's such a confidence boost and great motivation to make us wanting to go beyond what we can do.

Morgan's four photos (1. Daan, 2. Seb, 3. Engagement, 4. Leap) have received many positive feedback, too. These aren't the official titles for the photos, they're longer and contain an in-joke about Daan's "homosexuality". Morgan's photos are all available for viewing on her Flickr photostream, please visit 'cause she's very selective about her photos so only the best get uploaded! In constrast to my upload-almost-every-photo-I-like policy...but still, drop by my Flickr photostream too please!

Road Trip - Days 6 & 7

We left the Iya valley and drove towards the eastern coast of Tokushima prefecture. We wanted to see one of the natural phenomenas - whirlpools - at Naruto (鳴門), which is the coastal down facing Awaji-jima (淡路島).

Andrew had been there before with his host family, so he knew where and which boat tour to take. We were lucky to get onto the last boat tour, which took us right around the whirlpools (not into them, obviously).

The whirlpools are almost directly below the 鳴門大橋 (Naruto O-hashi), which links Shikoku with Awaji-jima. After the boat tour we took a stroll on the lower level of the bridge (the upper level being vehicle traffic), where there are glass panels on the floor allowing us to see the whirlpools.



After we left Naruto we drove to Tokushima city, stumbled across an izakaya near JR Tokushima station, which played the Glee soundtrack by the entrance, and assigned us to a private room with karaoke (for no extra charges!)... Quoting Seb: "I have died and gone to heaven". The drinks weren't that cheap (no izakaya beats the everything-at-300yen 鳥貴族 chain of izakaya) but still we had fun. We ended the night at another branch of Funky Time. I can't believe I'm saying this (as this is something we'd imagine Cayley say), but I actually quite like internet cafes! For not much money you can get internet, watch movies, read manga (for those who like manga...), free drinks, read magazines, sleep, shower, sometimes even karaoke and snooker.





The next morning we drove back to Osaka via the Naruto O-hashi and 明石海峡大橋 (the Akashi bridge), which has the world's longest span on a suspension bridge. The journey took less time than we expected, and we got back to campus at around 11. That day also happened to be 29C in Osaka, the hottest day we've had so far (even till now) - summer is just round the corner!

Road Trip - Day 5

On (what would be in the UK) Bank Holiday Monday, we left Kochi prefecture and entered Tokushima prefecture. The objective of the day was to see the Iya valley, especially the pissing boy statue and Kazura vine bridge.

I had never heard of Iya valley until Reinout suggested that we go when we were planning this trip. But as we were driving into the hills, the view was - wow - getting more and more scenic. We eventually stopped at the side of the road and took photos of the beautiful sight.





There were not many cars on the road, but then as we saw more and more, we realised we were close to the pissing boy statue. We parked the car outside an onsen hotel not far away from the statue, walked to the statue and took photos, before returning to the hotel for hot spring.

The hotel has two onsen - one outdoor and one indoor. We were attracted to try the outdoor hot spring, which required a ride on the cable car down the steep valley. The view was amazing, but the hot spring itself wasn't. It was a sulphur bath so it smelled like rotten eggs...and there weren't any showers down the valley. We the girls didn't have enough time to try the indoor bath and showers.

We found a campsite in the valley and loved it very much. It's by the river and very close to the famous Kazura vine bridge. After setting up the tents the guys had fun playing in the river, throwing the frisbee and I had a good time photographing their actions.

At around dinner time we walked to the bridge to look for food. Since the bridge closes at sunset the nearby shops did too, we stumbled across a small shop and the owners offered us some free food 'cause they were closing for the day. After dinner we decided to cross the bridge, despite its being closed. There was only a string acting as a "barrier"... during the day it cost 500 yen per person to cross the bridge, but at night - free! I thought it would be quite fun and easy, but I got really scared, 'cause the gaps between the vine were quite big, and the bridge swayed a lot...thanks to Daan who held my hand (Andrew, on the other hand, "abandoned" me to complete his feat of crossing the bridge without holding onto anything).

Road Trip - Day 4

After some much-needed post-gravel-digging sleep, we woke up to a beautifully sunny Sunday. We decided that we wouldn't stay at the campsite for another night, so packed everything back into the car and off we went to the Kochi city centre.

We're in Kochi just in time for the Sunday market. It's basically a mile long of street stalls, selling fresh fruits, vegetables, hot food and other things.



After lunch (of yaki-tori and tako-yaki etc. at the market), we headed off to 桂浜 (Katsura-hama), a beach in the south of Kochi city.

The beach has amazing views of the Pacific Ocean, the only upset was that the beach wasn't sandy - it was gravel. Again. Plus there was a sign saying we can't swim... anyway we got into the water, sort of.

My right foot got cut on the gravel so I didn't go into the water, while everyone else did. Especially Daan, he fell multiple times as the strong waves hit against the shore.





We spent the night at an internet cafe called "Funky Time". It was my first time at a Japanese internet cafe. It's quite nice and I quite liked it. We each paid 1,500 yen for 9 hours of internet, manga, movies, free drinks, karaoke and a warm place to sleep in.

Road Trip - Day 3

In order to avoid sleeping at a karaoke again, our strategy was to phone up the tourist information to find phone numbers of campsites. So on Friday Reinout phoned the Matsuyama tourist information and we were directed to a campsite in 伊予市/Iyo, 40 minutes away from Matsuyama. By the time we had a not-so-nice hot bath at Dogo onsen and eaten dinner, it was already 2200. So we had to find the campsite in the dark. We were driving along the coast, and then made a sharp left turn and went uphill. The road was windy and we got slightly lost...all we knew the campsite was inside a park.

Anyway, we found the campsite, composed of gravel - this marked our first encounter with gravel... as you might expect it wasn't particularly comfortable. Seb chose to sleep in the car; the guys were in one tent and the girls in the other. Still, the gravel was actually more comfortable than the sofas at Shidax. It got a little cold at around 0300/0400 though, but when we got up the next morning, what we saw outside the tents, was simply breath-taking.

When we were driving at night we knew we were close to the coast, but had no idea what it looked like 'cause it was dark. The next morning when we got out of the tents, I had never seen such an amazing view first thing in the morning! It was a panoramic view of the 瀬戸内海 (Seto inland sea). Just blue and blue and blue everywhere.

Fresh air, green trees, clear blue sky and a deep blue sea - all that was what we saw whilst brushing our teeth!



After a nice late breakfast at a road-side Starbucks (with a drive-thru!), we headed to 松山城 (Matsuyama Castle). Matsuyama, being the location in which Natsume Soseki's (夏目漱石) novel Botchan (『坊ちゃん』） is set, there was a lot of Botchan-related stuff on the way to the castle. There's a Botchan tram/streetcar running in the city; and we happened upon the seven main characters of the novel:



Instead of hiking up to the castle, which is at the top of the hill, we decided to make use of the chair lifts. Andrew and Morgan had been on it and just as their recommendation, the chair lift was really fun and gave us an amazing view of the city.

Matsuyama Castle is smaller than Himeji Castle, but it's still very impressive because of its wooden construction and how everything is virtually the same as ever. Near the entrance there was a taiko drum, with which Andrew and Daan had fun playing.



As we were leaving the castle tower, I spotted a little Japanese kid (maybe about 3-4 years old?), who was walking in front of us with his grandparents. His hair was wavy and long(ish), reminded me greatly of Daan's hair. To us, that Japanese boy is Daan's illegitimate son :P

After a late lunch we left Ehime prefecture and drove to Kochi prefecture (高知県). The road in the mountains was windy but it wasn't so challenging (especially when compared to those we came across in Tokushima prefecture). On the way we saw some beautiful valleys, with a turquoise-green river running through. At one point we couldn't help but park the car on the side of the road, and took photos with the river as a backdrop. And then we took some photos in front of the car, to mark our road trip -



This photo is a homage to the one we took in front of the coach in Wakayama. We're standing in the same order, plus Larisa in the front.

Similar to what we did in Matsuyama, we phoned the tourist information in Kochi and was directed to a campsite 45 minutes away from Kochi. It looked pretty good on the car navigation system (the ka-nabi/カーナビ, which we have come to hate during this road trip for its inaccuracy and tendency of telling us to drive into trees/the sea/buildings etc.); the campsite is located on a river bank, which looked green on the screen. Well, guess what, it was not green, at all. We took a sharp left turn on the road and went down a slope - onto a massive land of gravel.

We were hesitant at first, at whether this was a campsite or not. But then we saw other motorists camping there (some with motorbikes and a group with a four-wheel) so we got it right. Well, almost right. Our car wasn't a four-wheel, and the body was quite low, and there were seven adults (4 guys and 3 girls) plus our luggage on board. So when we were driving on the gravel, very soon the two front wheels got stuck in the gravel.

At first we thought, "haha this is quite amusing". Then we realised it wasn't. We tried to push the car as Seb reversed it, but the sounds were simply horrifying. There was simply too much gravel stuck underneath the car. We had thought about calling AA (or the Japanese equivalent) or the police, but then it was a Saturday evening during Golden Week, it's unlikely that we would get any help soon. The sun had just set so it was getting darker and darker, and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. Had no idea where to eat or shower...

So our solution was, dig - dig out the gravel underneath the car. We realised that digging around the two wheels wasn't enough, 'cause there was gravel stuck between the wheels underneath the car. So Morgan, who happens to have the smallest constitution among the seven of us, volunteered to crawl underneath the car and dig out as much gravel as she could.

It worked! We managed to dig out enough gravel, after 90 minutes, and pushed the car back as Seb reversed it. It was so joyous, the moment the car moved, we yelled "YES!" and hugged each other. As Seb drove the car backwards towards the solid ground of the road, we realised we've created a crater in the gravel.

We were all sweaty and dusty from the road works. So as soon as we got out of the campsite, we searched for a 温泉旅館 (ryokan with onsen) on the car-navi, which was useful for once. The hotel we went to was really nice and although cost us 700 each for a bath, it worth the money, especially after all the hard work we had put in! And the bath was much much better than Dogo onsen. It was about 2300 when we finished bathing, so we drove to a Cafeガスト (a 24-hour "family restaurant" chain) nearby and filled our stomachs.

After a very very late supper, we drove back to the campsite. Yes it did cross our minds "what if the car gets stuck again", but this time we were more sensible, and decided to park the car closer to the road and away from the looser gravel.

Road Trip - Days 1 & 2

So finally, I have a little time to blog about the Golden Week road trip (29th April - 5th May). Since coming back from Shikoku I've been bombarded by the accumulation of assignments (my spectacular skills of procrastination didn't help at all), and my lack of sleep is still going on since the beginning of the road trip (which, I shall explain in detail in the forthcoming blog entries).



About the road trip. It was me who came up with the idea, back in...I can't remember when. All I remember was Daan, Seb and I were walking down to the old couple's restaurant and I suggested it then. I remember I was wearing my big woolly coat so it must have been winter. Anyway, the idea originated from the fact that we love karaoke so much and our lives seemed to revolve around karaoke. Back in autumn/winter, our daily lives were composed of two things: going to karaoke and planning when to go to karaoke. My cousin in Hong Kong saw my photos on facebook and during a skype conversation she commented "is that all you do in Japan? karaoke, karaoke and more karaoke?". So yes we love karaoke. Then I thought, instead of walking 30 minutes to Shidax and sing for 6 hours until 3am, eat McDonald's before dragging our exhausted bodies back to campus, why not just rent a car, play our favourite music in the car and sing as much as we want to (without disturbing anyone else)?

Everyone loved the idea (yay go me), even Seb, who is our sole driver; I guess his fanatical love for karaoke trumps the prospect of driving 6 other people in a car for a whole week.

This takes me to talk about the car. We rented a "seven seater", since there are seven of us. Okay yes we knew that having seven people in a seven seater was going to be crowded, but when we saw the car Mazda gave us - oh my God. We spent a good deal of time trying to find the seventh seat! It turned out that we had to lift one of the middle seats and take out the additional seat. So now we could seat seven people. Then came the problem of the luggage. Each of us brought relatively few bags 'cause we knew there wouldn't be much space. In reality, "space" was virtually non-existent. We ended up putting the bigger bags and the tents in the "trunk space" at the back of the car, and then have the rest all around and over the laps of the two people sitting in the back seats. For the first couple of days - those two people were Morgan and I. At first we were like "we can't move!" and lyrics of Queen's Somebody to Love came into my mind - "I'm gonna break out of this prison cell, someday I'm gonna be free". We kinda got used to it (Daan switched places with me on the third day - thank you!), it's just that it takes efforts to get in and out of the car, and my back and hips ached for a while.

We picked up the car from Shin-Osaka, then drove for about five hours, via the 瀬戸大橋 (Seto Oo-hashi; Great Seto Bridge) and arrived at 高松/Takamatsu (in 香川県/Kagawa prefecture) just in time for dinner.

Since we were in Kagawa prefecture, 讃岐うどん (Sanuki udon) became an obvious choice for dinner (please see my previous post on Kotohira). The shop we went to was empty, just the owner himself. He seemed to be in his 30s, and was very very friendly. He lent us a couple of guides with information of campsites. He even phoned a couple of campsites on behalf of us! But all was in vain, all the surrounding campsites were either fully booked or the reception had closed for the night.

Yes - we hadn't booked anything. Absolutely nothing. Well, except for the car. It was my first time travelling so spontaneously. I usually plan and book everything at least a month in advance, such as transportation and accommodation. It's a little risky, especially it was Golden Week, but then there were seven of us, and we had a car, so nothing could really go wrong, right?

Ha, ironically, we spent our first night at Shidax in Takamatsu. I thought the whole point of the road trip was to sing in the car (thus not having the need to go to Shidax)? Well we only sang for a couple of hours, before squeezing our bodies onto the tiny sofas of the karaoke rooms. Andrew had to sleep on the floor, and even those of us who had the sofa, it was not comfortable. Another problem with sleeping at Shidax is that it closes at 0500. So we were woken up by the staff at around 4 with a "rasuto oda desu". When we left the karaoke at 5am, it was just about dawn. Routinely, we went to the nearest McDonald's for food.

After breakfast, Reinout and a few others wanted to go for a walk in the city, leaving us the Brits taking the opportunity to nap in the car, which was parked in the McDonald's carpark. And it was good.

I was a little hesitant, thinking "how many more nights are we going to do this?". I simply couldn't see how we could sleep in a karaoke for the entire week...thank goodness we did not.

At around 0800 we went to 栗林公園 (Ritsurin-koen). I first knew about the park when I saw a beautiful picture in the Lonely Planet country guide. It was a bright and beautiful morning (felt a little like midday though considering how early we woke up that day) - and we were blessed with warm and glorious sunshine for the entire Golden Week. The park was peaceful and serene, and very very green.



After Ritsurin-koen we drove to Kotohira, which was about an hour away from Takamatsu. The objective was to visit 金刀比羅宮 (Kotohira-gu shrine, or more affectionaly こんぴらさん/Konpira-san). Larisa and I had already been there a couple of weeks ago so we stopped at half way of the 1368 steps, while the rest completed the challenge.



We then left Kagawa prefecture and drove into 愛媛県/Ehime prefecture. We didn't shower the night before so we headed to the famous 道後温泉/Dogo hot spring for a bath. It was a total disappointment. Andrew told us not to get our hopes all high 'cause he and Morgan had already been there in February. Still, I was quite disappointed. It was full of tourists, the bath was tiny and there weren't enough showers for everyone so we had to wait (standing naked next to old ladies). No soap or shampoo or towel so we had to buy/rent. Totally not worth 600 yen. The building looked pretty impressive on the outside though.

That night we slept somewhere other than a karaoke - we decided that karaoke is only for amusement and not for sleeping - which I shall reveal later this week.

"Daan's Crotch"

As a by-product of one of our in-jokes, which originated from our Golden Week road trip to Shikoku (which I shall write about soon), Seb created a fan page for Daan's crotch.

As hilarious as this idea was, I couldn't get myself to "like" this fan page, for it would be highly inappropriate. (Plus half of my extended family are on facebook so I really didn't want them to see "Vivian likes Daan's Crotch" on their newsfeeds.)

Several similar sentences came up on my newsfeed though, which gave me much amusement.