DAY 9 IN OSAKA: CATCHING SAKURA IN HIMEJI

Finally going to finish my Japan posts soon? It's Day 9! Gonna be a short post since today is mostly walking around and shopping~

Day 9:

• Travel to Himeji

1.     Mount Shosha: Engyoji temple (Decided not to travel further)

2.     Himeji Castle

3.     Koukoen Garden (We didn't enter the castle area, there were too many people)

• Walk around streets near Himeji station and shop

• Head to Kuromon Ichiba Market and Dotonbori

Took an hour plus train ride to Himeji! But it was totally worth it to see the sakura petals falling there :D We bought some sushi in case we wanted to snack when walking around Himeji castle..

Salmon!

Drizzling when we arrived! Himeji castle can be seen in the distance!

Look at those cherry blossoms!

We didn't enter the castle grounds as there was a loooong queue to go in! We spent our time at the area outside catching sakura petals! ;P

Happy me surrounded by cherry blossoms! ^^

We had lunch at Tamago-ya (たまごや)! We were there when it opens so we did not need to queue! Their specialty is eggs of course! For directions and store details, click >>here<<

Store front

Our set with free flow of rice and eggs!

Yum yum! We shared a set, adding a bowl of minced beef. It was very filling! It was interesting to eat rice with raw eggs and it was good! The egg omelette was good, though not as good as the one we had during our ryokan stay! 

Next, we walked around the shopping street between Himeji station and Himeji castle!

I can't recall us buying anything much though. We did see a cutely decorated store.

Clearly, we need to take a photo with her! >.<

After wandering around a while more, we head back to Osaka. We went to Kuromon Ichiba Market!

Apple & strawberry ice cream!

We bought the ice cream once we stepped into the market ;P Yummy! Strolled around a bit before buying strawberries back to eat in our apartment. As we are in Dotonbori area again, we have to shop there again! Honestly, we keep going back to Dotonbori to shop! XD Another reason we are there is also to go to Vietnam Airlines office to purchase additional luggage allowance since we are pretty sure the amount of things we have bought exceeds 20kg! Tried to call the office but didn't go through.. not sure if I dialed wrongly or what though...

Well, before we reached the office, we walked past a bakery shop and we bought some croissant too!

After buying our additional 10kg luggage, we explored Dotonbori! We had gyoza along the stretch of street where kani doraku is located!

Store front

Inside the store

Gyoza

The one we had at the ramen place near Fukushima station was nicer though! But this is still better than what we get in Singapore I think!

We tried takoyaki from one of the stalls there too. It seems I forgot to take a picture of the store... We didn't buy from the store with the big octopus signboard though! 

 Not too bad! But I like the takoyaki from Kougaryu better! The one located at Namba! :D Eating piping hot food is shiok when the weather is cold!!

More ice cream

Clearly, we ended the day with more ice cream! >.<

And... that's the end of Day 9!

*Continue to Day 10!~

Japanese Classes at Ikoma Language School

So.. Restarting my Jap classes with Ikoma. Starting from their Japanese Basic I. One term consists of 10 classes, once per week for 3 hours. School fees for a term costs $360 (course fee) + $20 (textbook) + $20 (one time registration fee). I paid a down payment of $120 in cash. The balance will be payable by the first lesson. Note that Ikoma only accepts payment by cash or NETS. No credit cards!

Ikoma is much more expensive as compared to Pyaess, so they better do a good job! >.< The term will start in July!

-After first lesson-

It was a good lesson! The pacing is much slower with a lot of repetition to ensure all students understand what was taught. We were taught 10 hiragana for the first lesson and given homework to write these hiraganas. We will be having a dictation next lesson on these hiragana as well!

The class is not too big; 10plus students. The lesson is 3 hours long, after every hour, we are given a short 10mins break before continuing. The teacher covered a variety of topics. We started with introducing ourselves before moving on to the 10 hiraganas, some greetings like konnichiwa etc and numbers from 1 to 10. The last part of the lesson was use to practice a conservation after listening to the dialogue from a CD and the final review of what we have covered that day.

The textbook translation of the Japanese characters are traditional Chinese words. However, quite a lot of printed notes are provided by school and these are in English.

On some admin matters, if you are unable to attend the class for that day, you can inform Ikoma reception to reschedule your class to another day for the same session. They have provided a class schedule for your reference. You can also choose to opt for a 30min refresher before the start of the next session, subjected to availability of the teacher.

YEAH to me learning Japanese! :D

DAY 8 IN OSAKA: Shinsekai & Osaka Museum!

Sorry, gotten a bit lazy to update my blog as I was busy playing Story of Seasons on weekends! >.< Anyways, on to Day 8 in Japan!

Day 8:

• Travel to Sumiyoshi Taisha (We decided to sleep in instead! >.<)

• Visit Shitennoji Temple @ Tennoji

• Walk around Shinsekai

• Travel to Tenjimbashi

1.     Osaka Museum of Housing & Living 

2.     Tenjinbashi-suji Shopping Street

3.     Kema Sakuranomiya Park

• Head back to Dotonbori

Started the day to Shinsekai after sleeping in today! A new world! Shinsekai is well-known for their kushikatsu, also known as skewered fried food!

To Shinsekai!

Tsutenkaku Tower

Originally planned to eat at Gansokushikatsu Daruma, but the queue a bit long and the shop is small.. So we ate here instead: Kushikatsu-janjan  (串かつじゃんじゃん　新世界本店)! For directions and store details, click >>here<<

Store front

Menu

Melon soda

Fried kushikatsu set

Fried ice cream!

Fried desserts!

It was a satisfying and good meal! We walked and shopped around the stores in Shinsekai before heading to Osaka Museum of Housing & Living (大阪くらしの今昔館) to snap photos! The address 大阪くらしの今昔館, Japan, 〒530-0041 Osaka Prefecture, Osaka, 北区天神橋６丁目４−２０. Alight at Tenjimbashisuji 6-chrome Station Exit 3, the museum is located on the 8th floor! You can rent kimono to take photos at 200yen for 30 minutes. There was a loooong queue for kimono rental when we were there. 

This kimono rental is different from the one we had in Kyoto of course, you can read about it >>here<<. The kimono is of low quality and they just put the kimono over your clothes. Since there were a lot of people that day, the design available for you to choose from is limited as well.

Some pictures of the museum below.

Osaka Musuem!

Tickets

"Sky" in the building

Kimono rental

Finally, it's time for lunch! Had sushi at 春駒. For directions and store details, click >>here<<

Store front

The sushi is fresh but I still prefer Endo Sushi's sushi! They put wasabi in the sushi as well, which I forgot to tell them not to put and nearly died eating one of the sushi *chokes* >.<

After that, we went to Kema Sakuranomiya Park to see more sakura! It had rained and the ground was covered with cherry blossoms!

Is this a patch of grass or cherry blossoms?

 We walked pass a family mart/ 7 eleven and bought ice cream again!

Pineapple & chocolate!

Still had some time before going back to our apartment, so we went to Dotonbori to do some shopping again! And we found a Disney store there! *Waves bye to my money*

The Disney characters riding the train

We saw this store previously which always had a long queue and we decided to buy one to try tonight. Since it's quite late already, the queue doesn't seem as long as when we had seen it previously.

It was literally melt-in-your-mouth good! Worth the hype and queue! We shared one and it was gone in minutes! Yummy! There are 2 stores at Dotonburi: PABLO(パブロ)心斎橋店 & PABLO 道頓堀店. 

And... that's the end of Day 8!

*Continue to Day 9!~