Osaka - Kyoto 5 : Kyoto & Places You Should Go :D

I looooooove Kyoto. 

So much more than Osaka or Nara. We went to Kyoto 3 times during our 2-weeks stay. That means we specifically bought extra passes just so that we can spend more time in that beautiful old city.

Places we went to in Kyoto :

• Gion 
• Yasaka Shrine
• Maruyama Park
• Hokanji
• Arashiyama (Bamboo Forest)
• Nishiki Market
• Fushimi Inari Shrine
• Inari Mountain Top
• Shimogamo Shrine 
• Kyoto Imperial Palace
• Kyoto Manga Museum

I'm sure Kyoto will be much nicer in spring and autumn, because the changes of colours. But we went during the transition from winter to spring so there's not as much colours. The moods were mostly grey and blue. Our third trip to Kyoto when we planned to walk as much as we want, it rained almost the whole day =.= We spent time in kombini for random lunch because we were stranded. 

Places you definitely should visit in Kyoto :

• Fushimi Inari Shrine & Inari Mountain : There are so many shrines and temples in Kyoto so we can't compare - but Fushimi Inari is one of the famous one in Kyoto, the one with red tower-like gate (torii) as long as it can reach the mountain top. We did hiked until the top of the mountain and got back down before the storm. We took around 3 hours, Ma and Aja waited in the main shrine at the waiting house because I didn't want her to walk so far up. There are a lot of sleek looking kitsune statues as well. Not many people hike up until the top of the mountain on that day, so it was easy for us to take the empty path photos :

• Nishiki Market : Of course, the old market in downtown of Kyoto. Where pasar can be seen as clean as market in the mall. The market is beautiful, all in colours, varieties of fresh seafoods, and things we didn't even recognize. You can even eat some fresh food right-away, like the small octopus' leg for 200 yen on stick (see this image below). I think my little sister and brother went on buying weird stuffs on the market just to try it out, they are a bit daring =.= The octopus smelt like blergh, and even the after-smell is eurgh. But hey, that's how the Japanese eat it :F Other than fresh tuna and some other raw fishes, I don't really eat stuffs like octopus or squid, tried several times, didn't like it. 

• Gion : One of the oldest district in Japan where you can see old buildings turned into nice artisan shops and rent kimono (if you like those stuffs). There are a lot of teahouses and cafes, mini and huge temples, private garden and all those beautiful camera-worthy place T^T It was extraordinary. We had our lunch at Maruyama Park, supposedly famous for cherry trees and sakura but during our visit it was nothing but branches of hibernated trees. We also saw the 5-storey pagoda on Higashiyama Hills, huge and magnificent! No real maiko was seen on that day. 

• Arashiyama Town : Should spend half of a day in this small town to visit all the places they can offer. You need to do a lot of walking, from the train station towards the Bamboo Forest, walk through the famous main bridge called Togetsu-Kyo (fullmoon bridge) passes the Katsuragawa River. If you are with an elderly or your parents, I think you should take the bus - because ma had a hard time walking too much on that day. Oh, there are 2 train stations in Arashiyama, you can see a kimono forest with 600 poles of colourful yuzen in Randen Arashiyama and even try out their 200 yen foot spa or the classic Sagano Romantic Train Ride. There's also Iwatayama monkey park in the area (it was closed when we arrived). We only spent around 3 hours before night fall, so most of the places were almost close - and we were dead tired for walking the whole day (it was our 2nd day in Japan). So I personally feel like we should have spend more time in the area.

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Kyoto is a nice city, I wish to spend more time here - seeing we already spent a lot of times in Osaka and tried almost everything they can offer from the travel passes tour :D Maybe we will be back in different season in the future ! 

Work Related : Japanese Foods & Drinks Sticker Packs Version 2

Read previous post here.

I'm glad I managed to finish up the second version of the Japanese food series last week, I sent out to print and spent the weekend cutting 20 packs of this sticker series (to send the stock to Salt x Paper, KK and put it up in my Etsy shop). We watched a lot of The Office series on iFlix (our current obsession) over the weekend. It's like the first proper weekend rest since almost 2 months ago T^T

I am so happy I made this. These foods and drinks are mostly things that I consumed on my Japan trip or just foods in kombinis that I really like (because their packaging are all cute and colourful). Illustrating them makes me happy, even cutting all these stickers are now a therapy (when I don't want to illustrate things but I still want to work) :F My next illustrations will mainly be the halal foods I ate in this Osaka trip (because this time, we spent a lot on proper Japanese foods as well - compared to the Tokiyo trip). So I have a bunch of things to illustrate ❤

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The sticker packs in group :

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Note : Oh, and on the Melaka travelogue, it is already reaching the 70/100 draft phase T^T

I am really considering going full-time freelancing again.

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.

Run : 50km Rimba Alam Relay Run (not)

In February I registered for a 52.5km relay run in Putrajaya (with Af). 

The main reason I felt like 52.5km relay run is possible : we had to take turn to run in the laps, passing baton, every lap is 3.75km run mainly flats unused roads in Taman Rimba Alam and 2 up-hills (one long uphill run when we just started and one climbing path before we ended each lap). That looked reasonable kan? 

But it wasn't - if you didn't train for the running and climbing :F

The whole 4 laps over 7 laps that I did was simply awful - for the first time in my running experience, everything felt wrong. Each of us ran :

• 4/7 laps
• 15/25 km 
• in 5 hours 
• Total : 30/52.5 km per team  

Here's my excuses :

1. Since we moved back to my old apartment and started living with my family - we hardly have time to work-out. I think I stopped in January (it started well, I was running every week - and then we just stopped for 3 months).
2. February was fast and March was even faster. The Japan trip, the booths, the restocking items at Salt x Paper, the freelance works, everything was too fast to catchup. So I didn't run.
3. We didn't trained for it, let just say that for the past 3 months, I've been slacking off. No training at all even though I registered for the 50km relay run.
4. On the running day, I wasn't feeling well. Even after the first laps - I already knew that the run felt different. My stomach was aching, I felt nauseous throughout the whole run (which was an insane feeling - I assure you). I never felt like this ever before in any of my runs. 
5. So because I wasn't feeling good inside. I didn't eat - I just drank (water+Revive). No breakfast, no short snacks. Just empty stomach for 16 hours, since we had dinner the night before.
6. It was really hot day (before the heavy rain) - my eyes aren't so good with the sun's glare (it gives me a really bad headache like a strong pounding in the back of my eyes). If you been following my blog for years, you must have noticed this constant sun's headache of mine. THIS will take over my whole day, so I've decided that from now on I will only enter night run.
7. I can't, I just can't.

So, after the 4th laps - I decided to quit. It was already 5 hours and Af was continuing his 4th laps, so I texted him and said that I can't continue. I felt awful, nauseous and my body wasn't cooperating. I was having shivers because of my stomach ache and imagining I had to run another 3 more laps.. O.O Af said okay, I searched for the organizer and told him about my condition, and we quit the run.

We returned the baton and ankle bib, drank a gallon, and went back home. 

After a big lunch, we slept for the whole afternoon. When I woke us just before 7pm, my head was pounding so loud I couldn't stand. I felt like throwing up because everything turned around crazily in my head, but we had to go out for Af's birthday dinner with the family. I didn't even ordered any foods because I didn't feel well - just ate bits of everyone's food :D

Aftermath :

The next day, on Sunday was still awful. It was the aftermath of a trail run, so our body ached. But, my family was moving out and the lorry came - it was the day to help them move out! :F We had to help, nothing felt good. All the muscles in the body sores - sneezing was awful (because of the muscle along my stomach sore), bending down (my back), moving items (my shoulder & hands), walking up & down the stairs (my thigh, knee, ankles). That took the whole Sunday off, and by night I had to clean the apartment a bit (just the hall and the kitchen). We arrived home back after sending my little sister, at 11pm. Our weekend ended with exhaustion and muscle sores all over.

Monday - We both took a day off from work =.=

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Extra :

I never quit a run, so this felt like a little failure. But having to push myself to run for 4 laps, in heat and unwell body as much as I could - did feel like a little achievement. It wasn't a great running experience for me, but at least I tried. There are around 10 teams that didn't finished the 50km run including us, while all 100km Ultra runners finished their course :F  

Anyway, I already registered for a half marathon night marathon in Cyberjaya (next 5 months) and still waiting for another night marathon in Putrajaya (maybe in the next 7 months). So I need to start my training when I recover from this run :F

Things I learned from this event :

• Go training every single week
• Train for uphill run (please)
• Don't do endurance run without any food intake
• No more long run under sun

Event : AfG - 50 Shades of Green

Event :

Art for Grabs - The School Jaya One - 25 & 26 Mar 2017 (weekend)

Fifty Shades of Green.

Event application :

I forgot when did I applied for the event, I think it was several weeks before our Japan trip. I saw the vendor application on Facebook and sent my details like always. I even got nothing related to the theme : 50 Shades of Green, I was just trying my luck. The reason I wanted to join them this time is because I think it's already the time for me to open a booth ! I feel very motivated this year.

Result :

During our second week in Japan, I received an email from the organizer saying that I was chosen ! - I've been rejected 2-3 times by event organizers so I know the feeling of wanting to join but not chosen, you see. I can't make the payment to book for the booth so I replied to the organizer rightaway to inform him about having to pay for the booth a bit late. I'm glad he said 'okay-'. 

Preparation :

The time wasn't right. I was trying to catch up with things at the office after the 2 weeks of long holiday - our company received complains and fitna, so the banks called us and tried to shut us down. The whole 2 weeks drama ended with us giving up to the 'powerful' people's decision. 

I also opened my Etsy shop right-away, soon after I received orders and had to prepare for the packages and stuffs. Also to update the Melaka travelogue draft that I promised to the publisher. Plus the blog, and the Patreon page. It was hectic.

So I did just little preparation this time : repacking stickers, cutting more sticker packs and finishing off old stocks. I managed to do it just 2 days before the event date.

Event day :

Like all the events I've been to, I started off the event by being super awkward in front of my booth and had sweaty armpits whenever I see familiar faces. Even when I met an old colleague of mine from Damansara Heights - I asked her to stop by and she did. She is one of my favorite people when I worked at Legion so meeting her back gave me so many awkward nudges (I miscalculated the price of her stuffs and I talked in gibberish mumbles). I also met one of my Patron, also my online friend - that I come to like, because she reminds me so much of me (without the two kids of course). Plus one of the boy from the previous event - he told me about being introvert but wanting to share more to the community, so he asked the organizer if he could read one of his poem on the stage for the open mic session - and he did ! (I'm so proud of him, so inspiring). I met an old senior of mine from school, Af's friend whom just came back from Osaka too (so we exchanged stories) and also saw my ex and exchange awkward smiles (cringe - sweaty armpits all over). 

After-thought :

The event was a success - any events with sales over RM 500 in 2 days are a success to me.
I'm definitely going to apply for their future events (now I know the crowd) :

Sales : RM 540

- Booth Rent : RM 200 (strictly no sharing)

- Lunches & Dinners : +- RM50

Little Stories 223 : My Awan kena sawan 2

Read previous post here.

Yeap, my cat knows how to be all dramatic.

When we went to Japan several weeks ago we sent Awan (my now old cat) to a pet's boarding in Ampang.

This time, we were ready. I asked Aja to borrow a portable cage for Awan so it should be easier to bring her into the car (there were several complicated incidents before). It wasn't that hard to put her into a cage because she trusted me, but once she was inside - she started to give her deep-throat-weird miaows. We got ready, Af drove the car, Aja lead the way, while my little sister and I sat at the back to keep her calm.

After Af put the cage inside the dark car in the parking lot and we sat next to the cage, her cage suddenly shook so hard. I thought she was trying to find ways to escape and when I saw her through the cage's door, I saw Awan was having a seizure. I forgot what I did, I think I shouted saying "Awan is having a seizure!", everyone in the car saw that and waited. Until her body stopped contracting and she slowly regained consciousness again; drowsy eyes, weak legs, drooling saliva, and she accidentally peed in the cage this time. Oh, poor Awan, she must be feeling awful and ashamed. 

She was silent afterwards, all through the 40 minutes car rides. I kept talking with her because she knew my voice - I FELT AWFUL FOR HAVING TO DO THIS. She just kept silent, stared at me in her now wet cage and didn't even cleaned herself up (not even her drooling saliva). It was like I betrayed her T^T

When we arrived at the pet's boarding and put her inside one of the cage, she just stared and sat down silently. She almost never see any cats most of her life and suddenly she was in a room filled with all the cats in their own cage. I think she was shocked and scared. But we had to leave her.

Fast forward to weeks later, Aja took her out from the pet's boarding and brought her home.
No sign of third seizure this time. Aja said she was calmer.

Note : She had 2 seizures in her life under my care and both times when we had to take her out. I don't think there's any medical conditions that I should worry about her. She's just too afraid of going out to see the real world, sometimes she can't control it. Just terrified, thus the seizure =.=

Osaka - Kyoto 3 : The Days, the Activities, and the Places

So like I mentioned in the previous post, we went to Japan for 14 - days : many days spent in Osaka, 3 days in Kyoto and 1 day in Nara. How did we planned out the days? We actually planned the night before, every night after dinner we'll have a small gathering to discuss the plan for the next day. It's a bit hard to schedule it properly because we don't know how long we will take on each places, or how far each places were located, so we just have a rough idea of what we are going to do. That way it won't be like a rush tour, we were trying not to do the tour hopping thing, instead, we waited for the right moment to let everyone finish up what they wanted to do (or tried to-lah, at least).

Susah betul jadi planner and trying to make everyone happy =.='

Here's our rough schedule :

• Day 1 : Arrival, check-in at Namba near Dotonbori
• Day 2 : Kyoto ( Day 1 Kansai Thru Pass ) 
• Gion-Shijo
• Arashiyama
• Day 3 : Osaka
• Tennoji Zoo (supposed to be our resting day after the extreme 12 km one-shot, Kyoto exploration the day before so I suggested we spend the day at the zoo) 
• Shiseiki Alley
• Day 4 : Exploring Osaka ( Day 1 Osaka Amazing Pass )
• Osaka Castle, 
• Museum of History
• Museum of Housing & Living
• Ferris wheel ride at HEP5
• Joypolice ride *not recommended
• The top of Tsutenkaku Tower for a sunset view
• Day 5 : Exploring Osaka ( Day 2 Osaka Amazing Pass ) 
• Osaka Science Museum
• Kaiyukan Aquarium
• Tempozan Pier and Marketplace
• Tempozan Ferris Wheel ride
• Day 6 : A whole day with Ishijima Sensei in Namba
• Day 7 : Resting day, but we explored Dotonbori at night, we found Mithilia restaurant at Dotonbori for dinner
• Day 8 : Kyoto ( Day 2 Kansai Thru Pass) 
• Nishiki Market
• Fushimi Inari + hiked to the top of Mount Inari
• Day 9 : Check out day, we spent the day waiting for our other Airbnb check-in time because the bag was super heavy - we found the Honolu Ramen near Namba City - highly recommended
• Day 10 : Nara 
• Deer Park,
• Kohfukuji Temple
• Yoshikien Garden 
• we found Naramichi Jinnayah halal ramen *not recommended
• Day 11 : Expo' 70, Bampaku-kinen Koen & Expo' City (Osaka Unlimited Pass)- we found Soba Dining - recommended
• Day 12 : Exploring Kyoto one final time (Osaka-Kyoto Keihan Pass) 
• Shimogamo Shrine
• Kyoto Imperial Castle
• Kyoto Manga Museum
• Day 13 : Check-out day, exploring Namba and slept at the airport - dinner at U-don, KIX - highly recommended :D
• Day 14 : Flight home

Images were shared in my Instagram multiple images by days during my stay. I don't really feel happy sharing images in this blog anymore, knowing the ugly auto-compression Blogger uses that I don't like. 

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So as you can see, our days were packed with activities and each place wasn't near to one another. We had to do a lot of walking. 123km in 14-days means we walked around 8-10km per days, almost every day. By evening, our feet usually ached/sprained so we had to soak our feet in an icy-cold water bucket to let it heal faster for the next day activity. It was that tough, I soaked at least 3-4 times in those 2 weeks. We usually walked for the whole day, with a short rest for lite lunch and tea-time and train rides. Kesian ma :D I already told her, we are a bit hard-core in exploring but she insisted in following so sometimes she complained - we let her rest in several resting spots (like cafes with wifi) so she'll get the heat and wifi and she'll be happy (lol).

The reason I tried to put all activities as much as we can is because honestly, I have a lot of places in mind that I want to go to in this world and I'm not sure when I'll reach this part of Japan again. So I really wanted to cram every single things inside, plus this was a family trip so I hardly got my silent moments where I can reach out to the solidarity of new places. The feeling was different than all my previous trips, but the experience was still nice :)

Movie : Logan vs Last of Us

We watched Logan right after we were back from Japan (of course). Af has been waiting to watch it because the trailer was nice and he loves Logan - a bit farther off than normal superhero movies, while I love older men = Logan is an older man = watching Logan means watching a cool older man (hah-hah-hah). But I don't really like a super-heroes movie, except as dark as this one.

My thoughts after we watched the movie :

• The movie is almost exactly like the Last of Us, a game Af played for several weeks, almost 2 years ago - I sat watching the whole gameplay because it was that engaging T^T
• So I can't stop to compare the similarities, it reminds me back to the game because I loved the game. I cried twice watching the game, and I cried twice watching the movie T^T Old men and children's tears are my weakness. 
• If I can't stop comparing with Last of Us, that means I already put a standard, and if I already put a standard that means I will decide on which movie/game was the better one. Last of Us WON - even though Af said it is not a contest :D 
• Laura looked a lot like Kendall Jenner when she was young.
• Still loving Joel more than Logan. The character development in Last of Us was super strong because the game took longer to finish :

This was a trailer for the first Last of Us in 2013 and for the second Last of Us trailer in 2016, so exciting! I can't wait for another good game to watch. The latest trailer threw audiences in a lot of speculations (!) but I didn't want to read any of those write-ups because I want to watch Af play it like watching a movie again :

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I think the whole gaming community agrees with this similarity (especially the father figure x child relationship), so I found a lot of memes, fanart, and comparison photos online (I copied from their shared link, so you can get the sources by clicking it on the images ) :

Osaka - Kyoto 2 : The Tourist Passes

In this trip, we played tourist - I wanted my family to experience everything Osaka & Kyoto got to offer without thinking too much about the money - because Japan can be a bit expensive if you don't plan it properly. So by the time we reached the airport that morning, I searched for a tourist information center to choose which passes we might need in our trip. It was a long discussion in a long queue, and my siblings gave me the power to decide on which passes to buy. So we bought this passes in the first week when we arrived :

Osaka Amazing Pass ( 2 days - 3,000 yen ) Where to buy ? *****

The pass to go to all the visitor's attraction in Osaka and the train/subway rides. It was a value for money, thank God we bought it because we didn't have to pay most of the ticket fees afterwards. By the second day pass usage, we already almost finish up all the listed places, we tried everything they offered because we already paid the super-discounted price. I urge you to buy this if you are exploring Osaka. We went to the castle, to the Tsutenkaku Tower, twice on different ferris wheel ride, awesome museums, discounted huge Kaiyukan aquarium, the zoo, etc. Too bad we didn't have more time for a cruise ride - I think that's the only thing we missed from the guide book. 

Kansai Thru Pass ( 2 days - 4,000 yen )  Where to buy ? **

A pass to use all the train, subways and buses in Kansai (Osaka - Kyoto - Nara - Hyogo - Wakayama - Shiga ). You'll get a guide book, map and coupons. But we just went to Kyoto twice, because we didn't cover most of the Kyoto parts we wanted on the first day. If I knew we didn't have time to explore the other part of Kansai, I would have bought the Keihan 2-days Osaka-Kyoto pass for only 1,000yen.

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After my family went back to Malaysia, we went to Nara without any passes and I spent over 1,600 for return train ticket (which was too expensive - almost 3 times more without any passes). So the day after, we searched for a tourist information center to buy more passes for our remaining days. We still wanted to go to Bampaku-koen, outskirt of Osaka and another one-time exploration in Kyoto. So we bought :

Osaka-Kyoto Sightseeing Pass ( 1 day - 700 yen ) ****

When you buy the pass, you'll get a book of coupons you can use. So you still need to pay to enter certain places but with discounted prices and free gifts. It is way cheaper than buying without any passes that might reach at least twice the price. We went to Kyoto again for the third time and it rained (ha-ha).

Osaka Unlimited Pass ( 1 day - 500 yen ) ***

We bought it because we wanted to visit our final spot and that is Bampakukinen-Koen where Expo' 70 is located. It was quite a long ride as well and without passes, it might be a bit pricy, so after we discussed with the lady at the tourist counter, we just bought the Osaka Unlimited Pass. But we had to add more fees afterwards because to go to Bampakukinen-koen, we need to change to a monorail that was not listed in the pass. This pass is useful if you want to travel in main parts in Osaka - not including any free passes, just discounted coupons.

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So plan properly! They have a looooot of passes to offer, almost every major train line got their own passes that you can buy from. If you are planning on a 1-week trip, for example : maybe you can allocate 2 days for Osaka, 2 days for Kyoto, 1 day for USJ and 1 day for Nara. So for every day you want to explore on certain area, you can buy the passes to get a great discounted price. What you can do is allocate at least 10,000 yen for all the passes to buy at the airport when you arrive there - make an initial plan beforehand and show to the tourist center people, ask for their opinion and choose wisely :D

Note : We didn't go to USJ as my brother and Aja wanted because I'm not so much of a theme-park person. So they probably sulking over it because I managed to drag them along to the huge Kaiyukan Aquarium and Tennoji Zoo, but not USJ :D But I tried soooo much to keep everything under budget and tried not to make any of the family members feel like they are on a tight money budgeting because some of them only brought RM 500 to spend in Japan la weyy =.= How to survive that. 

Osaka - Kyoto 1 : Post-Japan in Words

The reason I was unavailable for the past 2 weeks was because I went to Japan (again), this time to Osaka - Kyoto - Nara. This can be counted as my third Japan trip, if I exclude the time when I was growing up in the country : I grew up in Hokkaido, I visited Fukuoka for a student exchange program in 2000, I visited Tokyo with Af in 2015.

Why Japan, again?

I actually went to Singapore and Indonesia last year, the feeling wasn't as much exciting as we hoped it would be. We are already in love with Japan since our previous escapism so going to a place that I know we'll surely love is fair for both of us. We did gave a chance to travel to other countries during the gap between Tokyo and this trip.

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Pre-planning :
We planned since early 2016 - after a discussion with my family, and we booked the flight ticket on July 2016, so it was a long-awaited trip for all of us =.=' I gave such a long gap so everyone can collect money for the family trip. Airbnb apartment were booked in early 2017, around 3 months before our flight date.

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Differences between this trip and the Tokiyo trip :

• This was a semi-family trip, because Ma was complaining about our trip to Tokyo - that I didn't let her tag along. So this time I did asked everyone to follow us on our Japan trip, but they had a 9-days trip with us while we extended to 14-days. Family trip is different than our usual travel escapisms.
• We went to Tokyo during a transition to Autumn, so it was a bit rainy and the weather was breezy nice - *the big flood in different prefecture was alarmingly scary though. In this trip, it was a transition from winter to spring, so it was cold. Most days was below 10ºc , some places were icy-windy. I don't like winter, never did.
• I brought more money in this trip because we were staying longer than before. In the Tokyo trip, I spent around RM 1,000 during our stay - each day was recorded. In this trip, it's hard to keep track money especially if you are bringing your family members along and 'belanja2'ing others. So I spent around RM 1,500 in this trip but I can't really put in detail like I did before.  
• I doodled in my book almost every day : on things we did, places we went and foods we ate. Compared to my previous trip in which I didn't do the drawing straight away, this time I followed my Bromo & Beijing trip. It is way easier to make a travelogue when you already have something fresh doodled in your book as a record.

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How much we walked?

If you are an iPhone user, there's a feature in Health that you can use to track your steps automatically without turning on any app. It is just there, tracking your steps and that's my favorite free embedded feature in iPhone :D By clicking on the app : Health > Activity, you can see how much we walk + run for the day, and how many steps we took. So that's how I keep track of my walking distance in Japan.

• 27/2 : 6.5 km ( Arrival day )
• 28/2 : 12.4 km ( to Kyoto )
• 1/3 : 8.3 km ( to Tennoji Zoo & Shiseiki Alley )
• 2/3 : 11.7 km ( Exploring Osaka )
• 3/3 : 8.8 km ( Exploring Osaka )
• 4/3 : 10.2 km ( A day with Ishijima Sensei & Dotonbori )
• 5/3 : 5.3 km ( Rest-day & Dotonbori Street )
• 6/3 : 11 km ( to Nishiki Market & Fushimi Inari, Kyoto )
• 7/3 : 7.7 km ( Check-out, Namba Walk, and check-in )
• 8/3 : 10.4 km ( to Nara )
• 9/3 : 11.1 km ( to Expo City, Bampaku-Koen )
• 10/3 : 11.1 km ( to Kyoto )
• 11/3 : 8.7 km ( Check-out day & Namba )
• 12/3 : 3.9 km ( Departure day )
• Total : 123 km, not counting the last day.

Many days in Osaka, 3 days in Kyoto and 1 day in Nara. 

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Return flight ticket :

Like I mentioned above, we bought the ticket over half a year before during Airasia promotion including chosen seat and insurance. The flight was over 7 hours and I didn't bring books - can you imagine that?

Money : RM 794 each person

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Accommodation :

We booked for 2 apartments - 1 with the whole family, and another 1 after the whole family went back home to Malaysia, so we searched for a smaller place to stay.

Airbnb 1 : Namba apartment (wifi) : RM 272 per person, total was RM 1908 for 8 nights

Airbnb 2 : Sembayashi Loft (wifi + bicycle) : RM 229 per person, total was RM 457 for 4 nights

Total : RM 500 per person for 14-days trip (last day were spent sleeping at the airport)

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Camera :

Oh, I finally upgraded. Remember I used to use the iPhone 4S since 2011 and it was slowly dying - I suffered the phone's weak battery, frequent blackouts and so many issues. Before the trip, I went to the bank and took out my savings to buy a new iPhone SE. I did consider to buy other than Apple product though, for so many months, it was almost become a joke between us. But a love is still a love, I'm an Apple user, I'll know I won't feel the same as before if I change to other devices. So I bought it and I'm super happy with my decision now (as I look back to the moment when I was deciding). This is the only device I used to take photos, nice ones, if you agree with my Instagram posts :D I brought along my Lumix but didn't even use it. 

So, one device it is : iPhone SE.

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Useful stuffs :

• Learn about their tourist passes offer because they are super convenient and a super value for money. There are so many passes to buy from the Tourist Information Center at the airport (be ready for a long queue) or in Shinsaibashi if you are already in the city. Read here for the passes we bought.
• Know your budget. My budget was RM 1,500 but I brought RM 2,000 for emergency usage. We activated the debit card use outside of the country (just in case). 
• Halal foods 101 : take the pamphlet at the airport (with all reachable listed restaurant in Kansai area), OkashiChecker to check ingredients in kombini foods (especially snacks and chocolates - hope they will add more into their database when I visit Japan again), Citymaps to download offline maps of the cities I wanted to travel to (and they have Halal food spots!).
• I always use Airbnb to book apartments online - never tried hotels or backpackers hostel, just affordable small apartment to live in a house like a local, cook, and free bicycle (+pocket wifi).

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People :

We are just a bit too reserved to mingle around with other travelers or even locals, can't seem to grab the idea of being friendly whenever I travel just because I was travelling - we are both introverts and aren't good with new people. So I don't mind being quiet because we are quiet-beings whenever we are with strangers. Not like unfriendly-kind-of-way, just quiet and won't simply chat with random people without any strong reason. Just pure introverts by heart. So not chatting with people all through our travels doesn't seem odd, because we just don't do it here, ditto anywhere else.

Japan is a great place to feel isolated and we can get the quietness we longed for because they are as reserved as most introverts. Plus, all introverts love other introverts - they give the right amount of space :D 

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Note :
It will going to be a super long series like my previous Tokiyo Trip - because I'm detailed as that :D But I will also post other stuffs as well alongside of the escapism stories. Hopefully this written travelogue will help any first-timers/planners that are planning on going to Japan soon.