Woke up slightly earlier today, so we decided to explore the 30-sumthing storey of the hotel before heading down for breakfast. A view from above..

Sshhhhh....Cam-whoring in progress!! =P

Buffet breakfast again! Wl and I decided that we should make full use of time while waitin for the other 3 pigsies....so ended up indulging in en's... errr no i mean OUR, favourite pastime:


Set off for Kiyomizu temple (Qian Shui Si) after breakfast. Danny Zai in action... giving a mini lecture based on a map of japan.. hmm cant really remember what he was talkin about though.. history/geography is sooo not my cup of tea... YAWNssss. Then he told us more about the temple we were about to visit. Apparently there are 2 rocks there and if u manage to walk from one rock to the other with your eyes closed you'll have luck in your love life or something to that extent! haha.. oh wells, too many ppl lah.. so we all didnt go try haha. All of us bought some charms from the temple (longevity, health, happiness, studies etc)as souvenirs for our loved ones back home.

There are 3 channels of water that flow into a pond down a flight of stairs from the main area. Called the Otowa no taki, these 3 channels of water symbolizes Wisdom, Health and Wealth (something like that ). Legend goes that you should choose only 2 of the 3. Taking all 3 will bring about misfortune.


The queue was super long though, so we decided to skip this and proceeded to the streets leading back to our bus. Bought quite abit of japanese goodies and sweet stuffs along the way.

The next stop was Heian Shrine. Quite disappointing actually, there werent much to see.. saw kids sitting along the roads, making sketches and paintings of the shrine.





Oohh.. and i like the pic below!! very innocent and very classic eh, agree?

Was almost 12 plus by the time we left the place.. LUNCHTIME!!!yumss.. the food was pretty good ( altho the family of indos in our grp did not like it.. left alot untouched)

Our hotel that night was Shoji Hotel, and both our rooms had a pretty good view of Mt Fuji at times! can be pretty misty and foggy.. and its times like that that the mountain could not be seen at all. Anws, the pic below has Mt Fuji in the distance. Can ya spot it?



Dinner was at the hotel. Sashimi again! wheee~

Take a closer look at this... looks familiar?haha

the portions were really huge, udon, rice, soup with a lot of stuff in it, tempura, dessert and the list continuesssss. There was this cheese fish thingy that I didnt take a fancy to, so yea.. once AGAIN, danny took my share -_-"

Went opposite the hotel to take some pictures ( was really dark by then)

And a pic of the hotel

And then it was time for some table tennis! yes, you read right, we played table tennis with some of the tour members ( mainly the indonesian family) in the table tennis room of the hotel. hrm.. at first it was game of 1 playing against 1 den 2 against 2 den it became 3against3. ok.. my skills sucked, havent played that in like errr... years?

one against one

two against two

three against three...

(lookin at my expression, you'll know how unwilling a player i was...zzz)

Ru joined in too!

had a mini "party" at our room (again) wahaha... this bottle below is called "dan zhu" soda (i think) cuz there's a marble at the neck of the bottle.. haha.. interesting nehhh...hmm actually our rooms are pretty spacious.. not like what the tour guide said. in his words(hanyu pinyin): "bu ke yi gun (roll) tai duo,ying wei ni yi gun (roll), jiu hui gun dao lobby qu le" (translated into english): you better not roll too much in your room, cuz if you attempt to roll even a bit, will end up in the (hotel)lobby.

-_-"""""

wadeva~

xoxo

~qi~

After a night of trying to sleep with the endless murmur and vibration of the ferry's engine beneath our THIN mattresses, it was rise and shine at about 5am. ok.. realised tt was a MISTAKE. Cuz we went for breakfast at 550am ard there, BUT then! breakfast starts only at 630 lahhh. DOTX. need nt have woken up that early! hmm, anyway, we left the ferry at around 7 plus am and boarded this terribly squeesy squashy minivan ( ok lah, thats why its called a MINIvan). Our next destination? where else but Universal Studios Japan (USJ)!!! our bus reached there really early, about 8 plus am. The gates open only at 9 plus tho.. so had to wait for an hour plus before vehicles were allowed to enter. Just look at the snaking queue behind our bus!



Another round of waiting awaited us at the main entrance. Cuz the gates to the rides and all opened at ard 1030am or so only.

Look at wl and ernie! elmo's cousins reincarnate..teehee

Excited Shany wif the tix...

We were in for another surprise when the gates eventually opened. GUESS WAD? everyone (ok.. almost) started RUNNING/SPRINTING. ermmms...one might be mistaken that there was a million yen prize somewhere. Then it struck us, they were running to be the FIRST for the rides!! Being the true blue Sporeans we are, we did not want to lose out rite? but also, dun want malu ourselves by running cuz even if we ran we wont know where we running to also.. so.. we just walked FASTER FASTER lo.

First ride= ET ride!! Did not havta wait long for this ride.. but the next one that we went to was SPIDERMAN ride!! 40 mins wait lehhh~~ (poor shany hada wait outside for us.. as for most of the other rides too... =( )wahha so fun! alot of 3D effects there.


Next up was JAWS ride followed by Jurassic Park ride!!! walalala.. got SO darn wet from these 2 can! actually got this feeling tht will get wet when we were in the queue for jurassic, cuz alot of ppl in the queue were wearing ponchos! hrm.. anws, while we were queing for 55 mins approx, shany went to buy the huge TURKEY LEG for our lunch.. oosh.. reminds me of the time i went to USA's themeparks!! always see ppl eating those colossal turkey legs there too haha.

Looks so calm and harmless eh?

But then! Just look at how drenched we were! (esp me and wl.. haha.. rusy n ernie stil look quite dry hhaha)

Waiting in line for the JAWS ride...

And here's our lunch!

All this while, we were contemplating taking the Hollywood Dream. Finally got the guts to go for it wif RU (shes the bravest lahhhh). Sounds like a Dream ride eh? holy COWs.. i think they should consider renaming it Hollywood SCREAM. Everyone were like screaming like mad! Its a super uber scaryyyy rollercoaster ride! the very FIRST time I took this kind of ride ( i think same for wl too? haha) thankfully they had music blasting from the seats.. kinda distracted us from all those plunges. Felt like i could CONQUER the world after the ride.. felt soo brave.. after all, if i could conquer that ride, the world is NOTHING.( ok.. im exaggerating abit.. =X)

Popped by the Hollywood shops selling all kinds of souvenirs too. A mini slide show plus some other miscellaneous pics...

Left USJ at about 3pm for Shinsaibashi Street for shopping~! ok lah..i din really manage to get anything there.. spent only abt an hour there. But ru and en managed to buy some er-hrm stuff there tho hehe! Then it was off for a buffet dinner ( got spread of italian, chinese and Japanese food).

Miss ru's creation...

and some desserts~

Cute?? (Doesnt come wif the buffet tho.. spotted it outside another restaurent heh )

There were after dinner activities too! It was off to the Bullet train station for a 10 min plus ride. Saw this "coffin" type hotels, its usually for ppl like drunkards to sleep for the night. its just a bed, but its like rows and rows of them stacked like drawers in a cupboard.. so interesting!

Happy girls wif their Bullet Train tix!

With the head of the train in the background..

yawnss.. train ride wasnt very interesting.. it was already qt dark and couldnt really see the scenery outside.. so ended up tking some pics! heh

Finally could head back to our hotel! Prince hotel.. overlooking the Lake Biwa ( a lake that's even larger than Singapore... according to our tourguide). Whewww.. what a hectic hectic but funnn day!


sign off,
~qi~