Osaka - Kyoto 4 : Osaka & Places You Should Go :D

I've been wondering on how to write in detail about things that happened in my latest Japan trips, the places I went to, and the foods we ate. Compared to all my previous travel posts, this trip was the longest - so I wouldn't want to write day-per-day stories (14 posts only for the days, not including all other extra posts around it are a bit too much). I decided to write it by places : Osaka - Kyoto and Nara. This way I can focus on the stuffs that worth mention on each places. So people who are planning on their own trip can use these posts as reference as well :D

Images are usually auto-compressed in blogger, so I don't quite like it. You can check out my Japan photos from my Ig or Flickr album here.  I'm not much of a person who keeps my own portraits these days so I hardly have pictures of myself anywhere lah :p Who wants to see my faces in all my travel pictures (like what's the point?) So this is an album of my Japan trip, the things that I found interesting and were nice to my eyes.

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On Osaka & its places, using the Osaka Amazing Pass (3,000 yen). All ticket passes accumulated were supposed to be around 4,200 yen and the train rides for those 2-days supposed to be several thousand yen more. But we used the Osaka Amazing Pass, so we only spent 3,000 yen for those 2 days full of activities, places and train rides !

There are a lot more places listed that we can go for free, but there wasn't much time to cover all.

• Osaka Castle (600 yen)
• Museum of History (600 yen)
• Museum of Housing & Living (600 yen)
• Ferris wheel ride at HEP5 (500 yen)
• Osaka Science Museum (400 yen)
• Tempozan Pier and Marketplace (free)
• Tempozan Ferris Wheel ride (800 yen)
• Tsutenkaku Tower (700 yen

Not using Osaka Amazing Pass :

• Kaiyukan Aquarium (2,200 yen) - (discounted : 2,100 yen)
• Tennoji Zoo (500 yen)
• Shiseiki Alley (free)
• Dotonbori Street (free)
• Joypolice ride at Hep5 (800 yen) - (discounted : 600 yen)
• Namba City (free)
• Expo' 70 (250 yen)
• Expo City (free)

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If you buy the pass, make sure you use it fully in those 2 straight days. 

Among all the places I went my favorites were :

• Kaiyukan Aquarium

• Tennoji Zoo

• Expo' 70

• Tsutenkaku Tower

• Museum of Housing & Living

I didn't like most of the ferris wheel rides because it was a bit too scary - too high and it moved when people in the cart stood up or changed sits :F All the museums are nice as well, it's more interactive and we can do a lot of things as well : especially Museum of Housing and Living where you can experience the real-size old Japanese town and 4-level Osaka Science Museum where you can play around like kids :D

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Extra note :

Kaiyukan Aquarium and Tennoji Zoo were my idea - because I really wanted to see their zoo and aquariums, the last time I went in Tokyo, it was super fun! Although the aquarium ticket was a bit expensive, it was worth all the money spent. I saw a lot of new sea animals that I could never think of, and most of the animals were just a glass away. Kaiyukan Aquarium was so big, we spent almost half of the day inside. It was nothing like all the aquariums that I went to before. You'll be walking around the biggest tank with so many sea creatures swimming inside. It is one of the biggest public aquarium in the world - so it is a must go spot. I collected almost all the stamps here - they have stamp stations at so many corners with different animal design.

Tennoji Zoo - even thinking about it makes me smile. Maybe some people are against the idea of locking animals in the cage when they are supposed to be wild and free. But without zoo, I can't imagine seeing wild animals in real life and without actually seeing things in front of my eyes, it's hard for me to feel connected. I'm the kind of person who needs to experience and see things in front of my eyes to 'feel'. So zoo and aquarium are my happy places, I love animals, I love looking at them. The difference between these zoos and the local ones we have here is how they made the barrier between human and those animal as small as possible. We were only separated by thick glass so you can look the animals as near as you want. One of my favorite was floating hippopotamus' butt - we went down to the tank separator down to the fake pond that you can also see from above, and the hippo was showing its huge butt to us. But even how hugeee and heavy it is, the hippo's body keep on floating in the water not reaching the floor. Those big feet with tiny high-heel like feet were hopping and I felt so happy.

Expo' 70 - I don't think people travel to Osaka and have extra time to visit this place. It is located at the Bampaku-Kinen Koen station, you have to take the monorail to reach here. It was quite far from the city. The reason we visited the place was because Af wanted to see the Tower of the Sun. For me, the statue looked a bit odd. The statue is located inside the Expo '70 Park so you can buy an entrance ticket before heading inside. We were of course greeted by the huge statue, it was around 70m high so you can see it lurking from all over the park. We walked all over the park - to the blooming plum garden (I thought it was sakura) so we finally experience the blooming season before we went back home, to the Camelia garden, looked over the budding tiny tulips on the ground and some bamboo tree mini forest. There are many garden without green leaves and flowers as well - because it is still considered cold and too early for spring.

So that's what I felt about Osaka.
Sure, Osaka is a busy city, with buildings and huge crowd of people compared to Kyoto & Nara. But Osaka got a lot of commercialized attraction spots worth visit.

Anyway, Af compiled his take on the Osaka x Kyoto part 1 video :D

ESCAPISM #12 Osaka x Kyoto - PART 1 from Farikarim on Vimeo.

Mini Escapism : Rimba & Rusa

A little splurge on fancy food and place. 

We went to Rimba & Rusa after we wrapped things up at Etsy Made Local, because the sales was good I wanted to treat AF with a nice dinner. He helped me so much these past 2 weekends.

I knew about the place because of Wondermilk & Hello Dear. As a designer, I am a big fan of their designing team : be it from the marketing point of view, or interior design or branding itself. Every single things from them are inspiring and worth Pinned ! You can stalk them IG or even facebook account, worth every likes. They are really good in designing :

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Location :

The place is located just 11 minutes from Battery Acid Club, it was really close by, if not because of the traffic. We used Waze to go there, here is the map :

From their IG :

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The food :

I ordered Ciao Carbonara (RM27) & Af ordered Pulled Beef Mac & Cheese (RM22), we shared a pressed juice of Pink Power (RM14) and mineral water (RM2.50), it totalled around RM 70 after GST. Expensive? Of course it was, I would be lying if I say it was all affordable - because I cook fresh foods everyday, I can say this totalled up to 10 days of home-made cooking for two. But I wanted to spend it on the place, because of my appreciation towards the obvious hard-work they did on the restaurant and because we worked hard these past 2 weeks :D 

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The interior

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Things I took home :

Along all the inspiring photos of the place and the designs, I took the paper coaster before the drips of water fell on it and also the golden sticker of Rimba & Rusa on the bottled water we ordered. All added in my journal.

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Tokiyo Trip : Post-Tokiyo Videos

Af finally-finally finished editing the 1st video compilation for our Tokiyo trip last September. I've been waiting for months. Ha.

The song taken from The Album Leaf - Window. I remember I found this song and immediate thought of our next escapism video T^T The song is really beautiful, kan? 

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ESCAPISM #6 Tokiyo from Farikarim on Vimeo.

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Here's the second video from our Tokiyo trip that Af just finished editing last night *so random?. There are quite a number of slots with my face in it =.= I'm a bit uncomfortable, but Af said because he's the one recording and editing so he can make the choice. In future trips, I'll make sure I'll record him as well !

ESCAPISM #6 TOKIYO Pt 2 from Farikarim on Vimeo.

Note : Watching this makes me miss Japan more, and it's the start of Cherry Blossom season! :F

For the next 3 Tokiyo Guide borrowers, hope they will have a lot of fun in Japan.

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Mini Escapism : Raub + Tanjung Sepat, Selangor

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First mini road-trip : Raub, Pahang

Well, it wasn't entirely a mini escapism because we actually went back to AF's hometown. But it was definitely our first official road-trip because we finally bought a car and we are both married ! :D I guess no more public transport to go back to his kampung for now, and we'll do road-trips all over Semenanjung.

We planned early that week because we haven't went back for almost 3 months - if I'm not mistaken, and no one in his family knew about the car. It was supposed to be a surprise. 

So on that Friday, Selangor was having a public holiday - AF spent his off day at home while I went to work because I work in KL, boohoo. He waited for me until I finished my work. Our start-off point was in Wangsa Maju where we had our dinner. 

AF brought my mini blanket and pillow, we bought some biscuits and everything was ready. I guess we were both too excited. It was almost 9pm when we started our journey. It rained hard on and off the whole way. I was also too nervous to sleep so I chatted with AF the whole way. We arrived several hours later around 11pm-ish.

It was such a short eskapi, so we managed to stopped by at both Raub's towns, the newly built Uitm Raub, and Sungai Chekas. I was so excited to visit the place I went for my home-stay program with Tourism Pahang several years back - *in this post, I haven't even know Af personally :D Interesting to see how comments from my blogs lead to our friendships and marriage. If I didn't go to the home-stay, we might not even know about each other today.

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We actually planned to have a picnic and mandi2 at the river. But Af's parents mentioned about how the place wasn't really suitable for swimming during current rainy season. Even the water looked reddish and muddy from all the rain for the whole month :

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Second mini road-trip : Tanjung Sepat, Selangor

We took that half day from the extra long weekend due to Christmas & Maulidurasul's public holiday to go to Tanjung Sepat, again :D

We both love the place so we just decided to make a second visit, this time only both of us. On second visit, we will usually notice all those things we missed in the first visit : just this time I noticed how dirty the beach was :( Plastics, bottles, dirty foams, everything you don't want to see in such a beautiful place. It is too dirty to even dip your feet in, in case there will be unwanted rashes.

But indah khabar dari rupa, I did take nice photos out of it - the place isn't as clean as it looks in these pictures. I hid it from the eye of my lens :

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We waited for 2 hours for the sunset.

There weren't as many people as in Pantai Morib and I am so glad for that. I think this spot is not commercialized yet, maybe in another year seeing how they are building concrete paths alongside of the beach yesterday. There were several little hand-made wooden chairs and tables so we can just pick a place and rest. Not so many places to eat though. I hope they will do something to clean up the beach.  

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I'm hoping for more random mini road-trips in the future.

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Places : Istanbul 2

On our 5th day:

At Taksim, we went exploring on foot. We found so many beautiful pathways and alleys, welcoming our exploration. The day was hot and sunny but we were hidden by shadows from old buildings and soothing cold sea's wind. We found a beautiful small bookshop and I asked the owner if he sells any map. With little English understanding, he nodded and passed his last copy of Istanbul's map in English version.

Beautiful place, ain' it?

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We used the map to know our rough location, but we were mostly lost in the maze of beautiful buildings and only aimed to go to the sea. It was enjoyable though, walking on random street, finding beautiful roads and shops, meeting local people. 

So we walked from Taksim Park to the sea port in Karakoy and towards Kabatas. And after half of the day spent walking, we decided to take a train ride to Sultanahmet. All decided randomly without any specific plans. The arguments over which way to go were endless, and we asked people several times to guide us. I don't know how my mom can actually go through it the whole day, but it was super fun. 

We were lost several times, but they were the good ones.

:)

I am pretty good with remembering roads and pathways, and quite good with navigating, so this, THIS experience, having to make use of my super-skill, felt totally awesome :D I need more of this, please.

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Event : Art for Grab Dec 2013

Hello,

I had a lot of fun joining Art for Grabs in October and decided to join them again for this 14 & 15 Dec Art for Grabs ! Wihu ! Same place, same time, great environment, friendly crowds and hopefully more things to share ❤ 

Short vid from previous event :

Art for Grabs Event from Farikarim on Vimeo.

There are lot of new items, that's for sure :)

PS : Thanks to all the people in the video shots, you are super awesome for coming and supporting our local art. Please come again, friendly familiar faces.

PS2 : and thanks FariKarim for the video ! :D 

Mini Escapism : KL City

If the story of an old tree ever leave me at all, 

I'll be exactly the person I am not today. 

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Pictures were taken by using :

iPhone 4s

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Thank you for feeding my hunger 

with what the world has to offer.

Event : Art Expo Malaysia 2013

Yesterday I woke up early to go to Art Expo Malaysia, in Matrade Kuala Lumpur. I checked their website for the shuttle bus schedule and aimed for the 10 or 1130 am bus from KL Sentral. After missed the bus and train, I arrived at KL Sentral 1/2 hour late than what I planned. 

Hurriedly bought something to eat for late breakfast in the bus *which is pau kacang and went to the bus stop at one of the entrance. After several minutes of bus ride, we arrived and excitedly went into the exhibition area :F 

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I actually came especially for Fadilah Karim - whom I adore so much these couple of years and missed several of her exhibited works. I was hoping to at least buy her postcard to add onto my wall :

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The best part about going to an art expo is having a glimpse of a lot of people's soul through their artwork. I adore quite a lot of artworks displayed while I was there. These works came from all over the world and even though I am not much of an art lover, all these works surely inspire me a lot. 

I want to know they thoughts and what they felt while creating it, or how they chose the colours or if there were any stories behind it.

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It was so much fun and inspiring :D

PS : I bought Fadilah Karim's postcard !

Mini Escapism : Junk Book Store, KL

I was searching for a second hand bookshop in Kuala Lumpur when I came across Junk Book Store in Google. The first time I went there was on the Malaysia Day several days earlier - I was hoping it opens on public holiday but it was not, and the second attempt was after several hours spending my time at the Art Expo event yesterday. 

The old shop reminded me of so many stories in novels I read about old bookshop. It reminded me of Mo in Inkheart trilogy, spending his time in such bookshop to find old books to mend. It reminded me of Daniel Sampere in the Shadow of the Wind when he found the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It reminded me of Paris and England, where old bookstores scattered all over the city. 

There's nothing more exciting then finding an old bookshop in the busy city of Kuala Lumpur. 

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I opened the wooden door and greeted the old lady in the shop, being excited gives me a cheerful mood and make me somewhat chatty to strangers, plus I always imagine people who work in bookshop are all friendly and nice. Phew. 

She asked me about the book I was searching for. I got nothing in my list at that time, because I love finding something to buy instead of searching for a specific book. The search itself is exciting enough. I tried 'Haruki Murakami', 'John Green', 'Paulo Coelho' and 'Susan Sontag'. All were 'not available', 'sold out', 'I already read' or 'never heard of the author'. I was a bit disappointed but continued with the searching.

There were thousands of old books, with musty smell and yellowish paper. I found children books I read when I was in my teenage years, I found old books published when I was not even existed, I even found several Moravia's books ! When I was about 16 or 17, I read one of his book called The Woman of Rome, I didn't know it was a book meant for grown-ups, which I preferred to call - soft porn aka romance genre. The book was in my dad's library and it was a long school holiday so I gave the book a shot. Later the book changed me a tiny bit because :

1) I never read any romance book at that age so I was a bit shocked learning about the-grownups world

2) the book was beautifully written, I loved it ! 

I never found any of Moravia's books in any book stores ever, so finding several of it in Junk Book Store was a bit exciting ! 

Excerpt from the Woman of Rome :

If the hurt changes me at all, I do not show it in my conduct and outward appearance but far more deeply in my soul which closes in more down and upon itself like healthy flesh attempting as soon as possible to heal a wound but scars remain and there. These unconscious wounds in the soul are always permanent. 

I gave up the unequal struggle against what appeared to be in my fate, indeed, I welcomed it with more affection. As one embraces a foe one can't defeat and I felt liberated.

- it's not even available if you Google it , I just added the quotes in Goodreads ! 

So do you know the rarity level of such books? 

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I was in the book shop for awhile. By 5 pm , the old lady said the shop was closing soon, I didn't found what I wanted and went out with empty hands.

Maybe someday soon, I'll come again and find something.

Details :

Website

Facebook

Google Map

PS : I am famished.

Exhibition : Seni Asli, Matic KL

I went here unplanned and found a great exhibition currently held : Seni Asli - An Orang Asli Contemporary Art Exhibition and Sales, at MaTiC Kuala Lumpur. 

There were a lot of beautiful wood-carved sculpture and masks, several art sketches, a lot of photographs and the Mah Meri's crafts. Nothing as I imagined Orang Asli's product would be, because the design was a bit modernized and influenced by several other subjects : gargoyles, Chinese dragons, etc. I personally love the combination.

Too bad there weren't any visitors much. Except for me and another two foreigners that only spent 3 minutes in the gallery. 

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Sumpit

These wooden sculptures were made by the Meh Meri people to house the spirit :

Moyang Pacat

Moyang Puting Beliong

Moyang Katak

Moyang Harimau Berantai

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