I think I have the most active spring in Japan this year (not so active in blogging though). My friends came to Japan recently and we went to visit many places in Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima. Just found that I'm actually keeping so many photos but not posting them. So now thinking to categorize them, pick some of it and post it here and see whether it could give you some clues of what to eat and where to go when u visit Japan.
These are some of the spring flower photos that I took at different places. Love spring the most among 4 seasons. Many signs of spring already on their ways.
Having been here (Hiroshima) for more than 4 years, this is the first time I went to Miyajima for Fireworks festival. Most of my friends who went there before said it's to crowded and might not be able to catch the last train to go home etc.
This year I decided to go, at least one time.
So many cameramen already standby in the afternoon, though the fireworks started at night.
We were able to reserve a place in front of the shrine, yay.
It was a very hot and humid day, people were soaking their legs into the water.
The sky was getting dark.
Start of the fireworks display
The fireworks display is divided into 7 scenes, more than 5300 fireworks were set up on the sea. The Itsukushima shrine looks splendid under the spectacular fireworks.
It's too beautiful, but I couldn't catch some nice photos of the fireworks.
you can refer to these blog, the photos taken were marvellous!Miyajima Fireworks Display
I found a video from youtube, they did a very good job in recording the gist of the fireworks festival. I was amazed by the fireworks display from 03.25 and the finale from 06:53.
Okay, the nightmare started right after the fireworks. There were about 30,0000 people rushing to take the ferry ride back to the train station.
After a long queue, we've been able to get on the JR ferry, it was full of the people.
Still need to queue in front of the train station.
The fireworks ended at 21:00, we reached home around 24:00. It took us 3 hours to go home, anyway it's a wonderful night.
Have been doin a marathon experiments for last two weeks, from the sunrise until sunset. Just finished my mid-term presentation for my research ,whew...Before the end of July, I wanna blog something! Something that marks the arrival of summer in Japan, that's fireworks! This is the second time I'd been to Hiroshima port for the Hanabi (fireworks), and probably the last one... Started to count down the date back to Malaysia, my friends said "isn't it a bit early to count down?" No!! I still have things that i haven't done in Japan, I would write it down and accomplish it one by one.
If you're into Miyazaki Hayao's (宮崎駿) animations, I guess you might have watched his "崖の上のポニョ" (Ponyo on the cliff). Miyazaki Hayao got his inspiration for the film during his sojourn in Tomo no ura.
The view from Taichoro.対潮楼(福禅寺)
Tomo no ura is located at Fukuyama city ( 福山市).
The Homeishu (保命酒)，from the name obviously you would know that this is an alcoholic drink which can protect your life...haha..Sounds amusing. Homeishu is the famous product here in Tomo no ura and it tastes pretty good, mellow I would say.
Nunakuma Shrine (沼名前神社）
Old light House (常夜塔)
Uwo no Sato (うをの里）,where we were heading to make the traditional fish cake.
They call it as Tai Chikuwa ,which is tube-shaped fish-paste cake.
Technically, we have to chop the sea bream and make it into fish paste then mixing with flour and seasoning... and put it in shape with the bamboo tube. And grill it. Haha..but practically, we just had to put the fish paste in shape around the tube, that's all !
Before proceeding to putting the fish paste in shape, there's a important procedure to follow. We washed our hands and then dipped our hands into the wood bucket with cold water inside, which lowers the temperature of our hands so that it won't stick with the fish paste.
Oh see, that's mine!
And, this tour was sponsored by Hiroshima International Center, and opened for the foreigner in Japan, we just paid 500 yen for the whole trip.There were english , chinese and japanese speaking tour guides to bring you around and explaining the history of the city.
