As promised, more Japan pictures spam! Today we will focus on pictures taken in 碧南市(Hekinan City) in 愛知県(Aichi Prefecture), of which the munipal council had co-organized the homestay program I participated.


This is the Hekinan-shi Highschool, taken from the highest building in town, the 市役所(shiyakusho), Municipal office. They have their own swimming pool leh, everyone one of those highschools, even though they only use it for like 2 months each year, june and september nia, according to the 4 seasons. I do wonder why we don't even have a pool in university, let alone highschools when we having sunny weather all year round over here. *grumbles*


and these are the houses in the town looking all cramped up. Did I mention that the roads in the housing area are super sempit too? It's like only 1 lane and you have to stop at the side letting the opposite way's car to pass barely. That's why car license is so expensive and hard to get in Japan.. I won't even dare to drive there!


The Hekinan city's flower is 花しょうぶ(Hana shoubu) or commonly known as Iris. This is the iris garden with different species of colorful Iris flowers.


Close up on the Iris flowers. it grows on muddy field and shoot up on a green stalk. since the 2nd part of the name "shoubu" sounds the same as the kanji 勝負, meaning victory/defeat match, I was like "flower fighto~" all the while in the garden annoying our homestay organizers lol.


Oh yeah. Here's another manhole in Hekinan city. the pattern is of the city flower, Iris instead if you notice.


After the walk in the iris garden, we went to a traditional teahouse to drink 抹茶(maccha) which is the powdered green tea prepared by the owner. It's abit bitter but has rich green tea flavour. the もち(mochi) at the side is suppose to be eaten before drinking the tea, so that you will savour the maccha's richness fully.


A quarter of Hekinan City is covered by paddy fields and other plantations, so we went to a farm, in which we are standing in the corn field.


We even get to harvest the humongous onions! Not to mention potatoes too! we were struggling to pull and dig them off the ground and rose victorious XD

That's about it for the tour pictures in Hekinan City~
So next up will be random pics!


This is Makudonarudo. If you say Mc Donald there no one will understand you. Anyway most importantly it's the menu!! got Bacon Burger aka Pork! XD in case you din notice it's the 4th from the top left. Besides there's Cheese Katsu too, on the bottom left, aka Pork!! *bliss* btw the Prawn burger is nice too lol. the cashier was nice enuf to hold up the menu for me to take pic *sampat* XD


And do you know they use bullet train to deliver your sushi in 回転寿司 (kaitensushi) shop? very efficient. and not to mention you use touch screen to order too, but that's available in msia so I won't show the pic la.


Oh and this was what my host family fed me for Welcoming party on the first night. XD Seriously very fresh and nice. No more Sushi King for me, ever. oh the gold covered container are 茶碗蒸し(chawanmushi) which was bought from the cold storage department. you can eat it cold too apparently :p


Speaking of train, here's the 普通電車(futsuu-densha)'s track. It's the normal railway for travelling within the city. Speed's like KTM nia lo but unlike KTM, very on time.


While travelling on highway to see mount fuji, I was lucky enough to see the wellknown 鯉幟(koi nobori) or the carp banner/windsock, which is traditionally hung up for the boy's day (5th of May), signifying energy and strength as the carp 'swims' upstream. Each carp represents a boy, with the upper and biggest carp as the eldest son.


And on the way to see Fuji-san, we detoured to this 由比桜えび通り(Yui Sakura Ebi Toori). the Street is famous for prawns which are pink when they're still alive, hence the name sakura ebi XD


And this is me eating the sakura ebi tempura set XDD The restaurant we went to was called 海の庭 (Umi no Niwa), with surrounding glasswalls overlooking the sea and the mountain side by side.

Well erm cos I like food so I apologize if there's too many food pic lol.
Let me know if you got other things you wanna see so i'll upload more of them instead!

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2nd round of Japan homestay picture spam!
Beware of plenty pictures coming through!

Here I'll show some of the infamous tourist spots which you might seen or heard of from anime and manga, in which the main chara go there for school trips and touring XD


No I'm not going to stick this on my forehead like a zombie in Chinese horror movies :p It is in fact the entrance ticket to 金閣寺 (Kinkaku-ji), the Golden Pavilion Temple, located in Kyoto.


Which is this Golden castle, with its wall all tinned with gold foils. Note that the bird there is not an ornament. It's very picturesque right?


Japan is the land of vending machines. so it's not unusual to have ice cream vending machine.


If you can have anything sold using vending machine, it is just logical to be able to get おみくじ (omikuji) or fortune paper from there too.


Next off is the super popular 清水寺 (Kiyomizutera), one of the amazing architectures in japan where the temple is built on wooden scaffolding with no nails or screws.


If the temple is not cool enough, this is the more frenzied spots called 音羽の滝 (Otowa no Taki) meaning otowa's waterfall. It is said that if you drink from the streams you will get either longevity, beauty or success in studies, from left to right respectively. if you drink all it will lead to misfortune due to your greediness lol.


And this is another must go place for young people, called 地主神社 (Jishu-jinja), a love shrine :p this is the place where there's a pair of rocks 60 feet apart and if you managed to walk from one to another blindfolded then you will find your true love. Too bad we din get to go there due to time constraint *cries*

After getting my share of お守り (omamori) or charm amulets for souvenirs, we went ahead to the 東大寺 (Toudai-ji) in Nara, and yes it's where there's alot of deers waiting to chew off any paper material from you.


This is the entrance, with deers among the crowd behind me if you noticed XD.


And we of course would take picture of them like mad, but they had gotten used to it.


Omg it only has one horn nia! and yes it's giving us the "Where's my 100 yen biscuit? go get me my biscuit from the vendor machine dammit!" look.


So after being chased by the deers, we seek refuge in the temple, which is the largest wooden building in the world, and having the worlds biggest great buddha statue in it. *thank buddha*


It seems that in order to get good fortune we have to go through the hole at a pillar behind the buddha which is said to be the same size as the statue's nostril. I din wan't to get stuck inbetween it so I'll pass ^^;

After Nara we went back to Heikinan city and so this is it for the visiting trip around Kyoto. Will upload more pics of homestay in Japan on next post!

For previous homestay picture post click here.

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I've updated a little bit on the blog layout again, swept my room as well as learning up on batch processing my photos using Photoshop. Despite the disrupted internet connection which is driving me nuts, I still have yet to study *kills self*

So I have decided to upload some random photos taken during my homestay trip in Japan last June. Photos spamming ahead!

Dango, which is the very first food eaten after touching down in Japan Chubu Airport, Nagoya.


After licking my fingers clean, i dunno which hole to throw the stick.


The legendary Melon. go figure the price. see the apple beside? it's larger than my fist 0.o


GPS system inbuilt one leh! It's in my host father's proud Lexus car.


Let's spot the mount Fuji. Saw it? that's the best i could see that day nia T.T


Nameko mushrooms. super expensive one. usually used in miso soup and stew.


Yuri XD not being able to see fuji-san, we went to the lily park instead. abundant of beutiful lilies in a wide meadow.


Super Cute White fluffy thingy on the Nagoya Subway train deco.


鯱(shachihoko), The Gold Fish Ornament/gargoyle on the Rooftop of Nagoya Castle.


The Cute version of the gold fish, shachimaru-kun Kyaa~


Even the manhole also more cantik than ours one.


*cute stuff overdosed*


Erm. Ferris wheel on building XD


I swear I would have barged in there if it's not closed T.T it's a manga/anime shop with lots of doujin btw xD


MOS Burger aaa.. I din know about it then, if not I would have eaten there instead of the horrible fast food inside the themepark.


Erm, Yeah. This is the themepark, Universal Studio Japan XD

I guess I better go study first. the Guilt has finally kicked in. Stay tune for more picture spams! If there's any part of the trip you are interested in let me know~ then i'll post more pictures on that. still got tons to go haha.

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Sometime during 2nd trimester i've applied for the japanese homestay program organized by JLS and somehow i managed to get through the interview. I guess they really wanted bubbly and talkative applicant cos my alter ego which takes place during any interviews apparently suited their criteria :p Loo Mun applied too but during that time she was abit cranky and tired (since she came back from KL right after work jz to have this interview) and thus she din managed to get a place.

That day after the interview, i sent loo mun to EP early in the morning to catch the Bus Wira. As we were reaching the bus stop, we were half shocked as the Blue & White bus flew pass in front of us. With half a brain awake, I recklessly accelerated to trail the bus. Loo Mun apparently was still shocked and doesn't really know my intention of doing that. When we arrived at the traffic junction, the red light was on and i zig zag through the long queue of cars, getting nearer and nearer to the bus. And there, right beside the bus, i knocked frantically on the glass pane of the bus's door. Time was running out as the Traffic light timer goes down to 1X seconds. Luckily the driver opened up the door and without ado, i shouted at loomun (she's half dazed) and ushered her to jump off the bike onto the bus. she threw back the helmet at me and at that time the count down is less than 3 seconds. Seeing her on the bus, i was relieved but then the game's not over yet. The green light turned on and at that critical moment, my bike's engine died. the bus started moving forwards and i'm sandwiched between a car and a bus. It was really terrifying as i kept restarting the bike while praying that the cars behind won't bang into me. Well, the sleepiness in me earlier was definitely gone at that time, replaced by icy fear. In the nick of time, the engine roared to life and off i go! Thank god that i din get injured at all. Loo Mun sms me later on and asked if i'm still alive because the bus turned to another road and she lost track of me as i was still stuck at the traffic junction. So moral of the story: never do any stunts when you are half awake :p

back to the homestay program. Well, it is one of the reason why i started working in Coffee Bean, and why i am still working now even if i have 5 subjects this trimester. Besides, During GACC, i'll be setting up a doujin booth to sell Heise's Artbook to earn some extra bucks. For those who are interested, I'll post about it later after i finish writing about the homestay.

So we will be going to stay in hekinan, a small town in aichi prefecture. Apparently we have to cook sth for a welcome party over there as well as doing some performances. well knowing how good my skills in cooking, the best is jz to do some drinks or dessert haha. besides i dun think we can get any necessary ingredient conveniently over there. knowing the ingredient name in japanese will be the biggest challenge haha. As for performances.. we'll come out with something soon i hope. i really don't want to bring my Er Hu over there and embarrass myself with my rusted skills :p

Although we have to do these stuff, what i'm interested in is to visit Toyota's manufacturing site :) really hope we will go to see the partner robot which can play a trumpet using its lips. we will be going to alot of places considerably interesting for engin students, and besides that, we will be going to visit a highschool too. this is the tricky part.. we have to do a study on our own country cos the students there will be asking us about our homeland *gulp* like wat's the population of your hometown etc. so before going to japan i have to brush up not only my japanese, but also general knowledge about Msia orz.

This time we won't be going to Tokyo most probably because it's really far from hekinan and time consuming for us to travel using the cheapest available trasportation, which is bus. so no Akihabara for us *sob* anyway comiket is in August so we won't be able to make it too. Instead, we will be going to osaka and kyoto. so not bad too la. i can take snapshots of beautiful sceneries and traditional building.

Anyway, i'll be bringing a laptop (yes i own one now muahahahha) to japan and then if luck's with me, i might be able to update my blog over there about the trip :p but for now, money money come! XD

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