Day Eight - Kyoto

Well the sun is finally out today! Man, it was so chilly yesterday... it was raining even! My mom really couldn't stand it, so we had to cut bits and pieces of our trip yesterday. But it's ok. It's all about compromise while travelling with someone else... don't wanna be like those partners in Amazing Race...



Yesterday, we took a bus to Ohara, a small rural Japanese village, which is around an hour's bus ride away. Ohara is represented by the two Kanji characters on the display.



Well this is our bus driver, so we'll be leaving it to him for our safe journey. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!



You can either put in your coins (just like Intrakota) or swipe your card. The cool thing is that the coins for the bus fare are inserted in the red box that you see here...



...into this coin change box just below the red box. Here you can break your change by inserting your yen note (or even a big yen coin), which will then have coins spilling out into the bottom bowl. After that, you can give the bus the exact change for your fare.



That's my mom, all cozy and warm, away from the cold weather outside.



And that's me, acting cute and all.



It was very jammed on the way to Ohara. Pictured here is the shopping arcade that we went on Day 7 - Kyoto.



The sakura petals are still on the trees, despite all this rain. Wow, looked like the traffic cleared up.



This is a very cute small bench, surrounded by sakura petals on the floor. Lovely.



Oh crap, the traffic built up again!



The system of the bus fare is actually very simple. Once you enter the bus, you get a ticket bearing a certain number. Once you reach your destination, all you need to do is to refer to the number on your ticket and match it with the bus fare above (e.g. if the number is 1, you must pay 430 yen). So the number changes as the bus arrives at a new set of bus stops.

We didn't need to take the ticket because we rode the bus all the way from the start till the end, so it'll be the most expensive fare.



Once we have reached Ohara, we pressed this button to tell the bus driver to stop at the next bus stop.

When the door opened, the cold wind started to blow. My mom couldn't stand it, and my stomach was grumbling too, so we proceeded to the nearest cafe.



It's a normal cafe that serves a decent array of dishes. More importantly, it's warm and cozy inside.



This is what my mom had: pancakes with butter and maple syrup. How... uh... Japanese. At least there's Japanese green tea!



I had the staple fast Japanese food: Japanese curry beef rice. It's so weird that although in Japan curry rice is normally served with beef, in Malaysia they always serve it with chicken! Maybe chicken is cheaper?



Oh no, Zoya is here. Didn't know (if ) needed me THAT much!

After we were done, we walked into the rain and gusty cold wind. Since we're already here, might as well go through with it, right, Mama?



And here's the reward: a beautiful Japanese countryside beside the mountain lines.



This is my daily cool pose, of course. Too bad I chose the wrong spot for this pose. Basically I didn't want to impose on my mom to take this picture, since she's already suffering in the cold.



Funny how the picture seemed like it was a clear day despite how heavy the rain was (not as heavy as Malaysian rain of course)



Here we have some spring onion plantations. Wish I could just pluck some from the ground and eat them straight away.



Here's a bamboo fence that helps to guide the plants to crawl upwards.... i think :P



Regardless of whether the residential area is urban or rural, I just love taking pictures of them!



A river flowing through the plantations. So beautiful.



In a few spots, you can see beautiful flowers growing.



Check out the tree trunks! So upwardly straight! How did it manage to grow like that?





Thank god for the Kyoto Walk Guide Map, or else we could get lost in this area! There weren't so many tourists around, as they could be looking at the shrines and temples in other popular areas.



Rural or not rural, the Japanese still need their electricity.



Isn't this view so beautiful? The flowers... the Japanese house... the mountains... I just feel like throwing myself on the ground and sleep, but the rain stopped me (and also my fat would suffocate the flowers).



There were wooden crafts like these hanging out in front of a person's house. They don't seem to be for sale though. Maybe they're customized for certain customers.



Even a tree as big as this could be as pretty as a bonsai.



More and more pretty flowers.



Looks like a photo for a car advertisement huh? That car looks like the advanced version of the Kenari (it is made by Daihatsu, after all). Hope it will arrive in Malaysia soon.



Ah, another beautiful horizontal tree. The Japanese here really know how to do their gardening.



Oh man, I wish I could own a house like this and in this area. I wanna retire young :D



This bottle seems to spin towards the direction of the wind. As you can see, the wind was very strong.



This is my favourite shot of the day! With the mountains and the plantations at the background, and the speed limit sign on the electric pole in front. This photo can represent two things: One, there's still development (the road and electric pole) despite this place being rural, and two, the max speed that you can drive here is just as slow as the movement of life here.



I could walk for ages with a view like this!

We took the bus back to our hotel and retired early, as my mom couldn't tahan the weather anymore. I heard there was a wireless network in McDonalds, which was near the guest house. I was hungry anyway, so off I went.



The ambience here is very different from any McDonalds I've ever seen. This McDonalds is more custom-made for people who wanna chill out or do work, open their laptops, listen to music via iPod, etc. How do I know? Coz there are power points available on each table!



I had a burger unique to Japan's McDonalds, the ebi (prawn) burger. Ah, screw my gout, I gotta eat this! Mmm-mmm I'm loving it! It was delicious! and that's not Pepsi in that cup, it's Maccha Nadeshiko (Green Tea Milkshake). It was quite good, but not as satisfying as the ebi burger!



Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to BB Mobile Point in order to use the wireless here. So here I am now in Seattle's Best Coffee again to update my blog.

Alright, that's all! Wanted to go to the hot springs last night but I just found out that it closes early, so tonite only go lah. It's sunny out there, so I dowanna waste any more time online. See ya!