my journal

London: Tower of London, Tower Bridge

2011-11-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

The following are pictures I had taken when I went to London during the Remembrance Day holiday weekend while I was still a Canadian salaryman. Taking a holiday during the Remembrance Day holiday = taking 4 vacation days while getting 10 holiday days back in return.

I started posting pictures from my 2009 London trip before I got interrupted by going to the internship in Tokyo so this post continues from the previous two that I did.

London: Remembrance Day Parade

Visiting Windsor Castle

The pictures are all from Nov. 10, 2009 when I went to visit the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Unfortunately as with all paid attractions in the United Kingdom you are not allowed to take any pictures inside the buildings. As with everything in the U.K., everything is bloody expensive, the admission tickets per person were about £20 ~ $32 CDN.

The Tower of London, from the outside, you can see that the moat was filled in long ago and replaced with grass.

The main entrance with my mom in the background.

The good thing is that there are free guided tours offered regularly during the day.

Inside the Tower of London grounds.

There must be some kind of significance for this photo but I completely forgot why I took this photo. Maybe its a lesson for me to post photos as I take them instead of doing nothing and then suddenly deciding to post them 2 years after I took them...

The centre building in the Tower of London complex.

Nice view of Tower Bridge from the Tower of London.

Guards.

The main attraction for going to the Tower of London, seeing the Crown Jewels of the British Royal Family. Actually you aren't allowed to take any pictures inside, but no one said that I couldn't take a picture from the outside! Inside they installed an airport-style horizontal escalator so tourists can easily "glide" past all the crowns on display. All the crowns are the real thing as evidenced by the huge security door.

A better photo?

More pictures of the outer grounds.

The approach to Tower Bridge.

I was surprised to find that real people actually live in apartments inside the Tower of London.

Looking towards "The City", the financial district of London.

Another shot of Tower Bridge.

A rare photo of me in front of the Tower Bridge. It was pretty cold that day.

The Tower Bridge and River Thames.

Walking across the Tower Bridge. There is actually an attraction in the bridge called the "Tower Bridge Experience" but after reading reviews beforehand I decided not to go as everyone said that it was a rip off.

Walking towards the financial district.

Passed by some really nice covered arcades. Much much nicer than those horrible concrete and steel monstrosities that you see in every single Japanese city...

The financial district, I was surprised to see it so empty during the weekday. Maybe its because most of the big firms had moved to newer Canary Wharf/Docklands area?

The Bank of England building, inside there was the Bank of England museum where the admission was free. We spent the rest of the day looking at various exhibits inside. It was mildly interesting and provided ample places for seating to rest our legs after a whole day of walking!

Crazy Food Adventures in Tokyo

2011-10-30T08:00:00.001-07:00

During this summer (August 2011 - October 2011), I stayed in Tokyo because I had an internship with a company called Nikken Sekkei (a.k.a. architectural firm in charge of designing the Tokyo Sky Tree), but I was in the urban planning/town planning division.

After studying in the mountainous suburbs of Hiroshima where there isn't much choice in eating out unless you like "family restaurants", McDonalds or okonomiyaki, I decided to explore what kind of tasty food Tokyo had to offer with total disregard for the price (to certain limits!).

Most of the pictures where taken with Mr. Blurrycam (iPhone 3GS) while a select few were taken with a real camera (Canon Powershot S80).

My meal on the 4.5 hour Shinkansen train ride from Hiroshima to Tokyo.

Stewed pork with some sort of teriyaki sauce. 6 pieces of pork in total!

Cost 1000 yen.

Quite expensive in my opinion.

Initially my plan was to cook something for dinner but after a 1 hour commute by to the apartment and the crazy August heat, I gave up that idea quickly and eat out for 2 out of 3 meals almost every day for 2 months...

Also because Japanese people work crazy late hours and the fact that I was always the first one to leave the office due to my hourly contract and student work visa restrictions, I needed to find some restaurant where eating alone doesn't look weird and the answer comes in the ramen shop!

(Actually in Japan, from my observations, it seems people don't mind eating alone in all sorts of restaurants, unlike in Canada, if you eat alone in some non-fast food restaurant, people will think that you are weird or something...)

Before I came to Tokyo, I almost never ate any ramen, and I was certainly not a fan of ramen (I am a big fan of wonton noodles, but that is only because I grew up eating it), but by the end of my stay in Tokyo, I had become a big fan of ramen! I guess that is what happens when you eat all the "good ramen" at the famous, highly rated shops.

Thanks to my iPhone and the 食べログ (tabelog.com), I was easily able to find highly rated customer reviews of ramen shops.

Also because the office I worked in was near Tokyo station, I could easily go to Tokyo Ramen Street (a collection of famous ramen shops in the Tokyo area) in the basement level, I found myself going there way too often...

The average price of a bowl of ramen was 800-1000 yen, so that did a lot of damage to my wallet.

Miso Crab Ramen

Shop from Tokyo Station's "Ramen Street".

蟹専門　けいすけ "Kani Senmon Keisuke"

Served in a bowl shaped like Hokkaido.

Cost 850 yen.

Karauma (Spicy) Ramen 辛旨らー麺

From "Ikaruga" (斑鳩) in Tokyo Station's Ramen Street. While it looks tasty it was in fact quite bland. There seemed to be no taste at all! Supposed to be spicy, but was not one bit. I "think" it was tonkotsu soup but could not tell because it was so bland! 800 yen.

Red Miso Ramen (赤みそらーめん)

According to their menu, this is the most popular item in their shop which is a branch from this Hokkaido-based ramen shop.

Price 850 yen.

From らーめんむつみ屋 - Ramen Mutsumiya at Tokyo station.

Kitakata Niku Soba (喜多方肉そば)

Kitakata (喜多方) style ramen (after searching, it is a town called Kitakata in Fukushima Prefecture). The specialty of this bowl of ramen was that the noodles were hand made and hand cut and came with ample amounts of pork (I don't know whether you could call it the standard ramen sha-chu or not...)

Price 990 yen.

From 麺や　七彩 (めんやしちさい) "Men-ya Shichi-sai" at Tokyo station's Ramen Street.

つけ麺 Tsukemen (Dipping Style Ramen)

From the shop called 六厘舎 TOKYO (Rokurinsha TOKYO) in Tokyo station. This shop always has long lines every single day no matter what time its open. I passed by it so many times hoping that I could enter without waiting but I decided to bite the bullet and went straight there after work.

The line (compared to the crazy weekend lines) was relatively short (40 mins) and once you sit down they give you a paper bid/apron to wear so you won't splash the dipping soup all over your clothes.

The thing that surprised me was that after you finish eating your noodles and have leftover dipping soup, I saw everyone asking that their bowl be refilled with something. So I followed everyone else and they added hot water and green onions to the thick dipping soup to make the soup more "drinkable". (Interesting style of eating I thought)

Price: 850 yen.

Next because I had to transfer in Akihabara, I also found myself going to a couple of shops near the Kanda/Akihabara area.

Miso Ramen

From some literally hole in the wall shop in Akihabara. The place was located among nondescript low-end office buildings.

Price 750 yen, kind of cheaper than the usual standard price of 1000 yen.

From "粋な一生 (いきないっしょう)"

Shoyu (Soy Sauce) Ramen - One of the best shoyu ramen I have ever eaten!

From a shop with counter seating for roughly 7 people. The iPhone app 食べログ gave it a high score so I decided to check it out. Because of the typhoon and rain there wad no line up at all! It was pretty good as it was not too salty nor too fat. Price 980 yen.

I found this next shop while I was in Shinjuku.

Spicy Shio Ramen

Fish based soup and comes with 2 fish balls instead of the usual sha-chu.

Also came with a grilled rice ball (onigiri) not shown here.

Price 1000 yen.

From "麺屋海神 (めんやかいじん)" in Shinjuku.

I ate this one while I was doing my walk in Yokohama.

Miso Ramen

The taste was quite good and the price was right!

Price: 680 yen

From: 鶴一家 (Tsuru Ikka) near Yokohama Station

This next one was quite unusual, a coworker/friend from the company recommended it to me. One afternoon, having nothing to do, I purposely took the train to Kichijoji 吉祥寺 in western Tokyo from where I was living near Daishi-mae 大師前 in northern Tokyo to try it.

Dry "Oil" Ramen 油ラーメン

"Dry oil shachu" ramen basically soup-less ramen, but mixed in "oil", quite a unique take on the regular ramen.

Price: 1020 yen (including the shashu rice bowl that I ordered, not shown)

From: らーめん専門店ぶぶか吉祥寺 (Ramen Senmon Ten Bubuka Kichijoji) near Kichijoji Station in Tokyo

Another thing that they serve in Japan's ramen shops is the "Shashu Don". I had this while going for a geeky self-guided exploration of the railway oriented developments (for academic research purposes!) along the Tokyu lines between Jiyugaoka 自由が丘 and Den-en Toshi 田園都市. I never realized what an upscale area this was until I got there.

Shashu Don (チャーシュー丼 Japanese style BBQ pork rice bowl)

In Cantonese food, you have something called BBQ Pork Rice (叉燒飯) basically Chinese-style roasted pork cut into slices and put on top of a bowl of rice with some sweet soy sauce. This is the Japanized version which one can usually find at ramen shops. Consists of the shashu (Japanized BBQ pork) that they use for the ramen toppings but cut into pieces and mixed with some mild sweet/spicy sauce and topped with dried seaweed. It tasted good and was cheap, if only the pork was hot, that would have been better.

Price 250 yen and comes with a bowl of soup (not shown) that was saltier than I would have liked it to have been. Its cheaper than a gyudon from a chain fast food restaurant!

From some shop called: 無邪気自由が丘

Another dish that is ubiquitous to ramen shops is the gyoza.

Gyoza

Ordered together with the Shashu Don in the previous photo.

Price 300 yen.

From some shop called: 無邪気自由が丘

After all the ramen, one day I found myself craving some "Chinese style noodles" and I stumbled upon a wonton noodles shop in Iidabashi.

Japan Wonton Noodles

After not eating any wonton noodles in a long long time, I felt the need to try it and I was surprised that it turned out better than expected. Way better than American Chinese food "wonton" but still a little off from the real thing.

Price 650 yen.

From (香港粥麺専家飯田橋ラムラ店)

Another type of food I found myself eating way way too often were bentos (Japanese style boxed meals).

Every lunch time, especially in the office districts, there are tons of bento sellers, either from a shop or selling from a stand, all catering to overworked, over-stressed salarymen so being the fake temporary salaryman that I was, I also went to bought a bento everyday for lunch and quietly returned to my desk to quietly eat my bento in the dark (they turned off all the lights during lunch time for "energy saving purposes" in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster).

Other times because I was lazy to cook dinner, I would buy one of those pricey (overpriced) department store bentos. I was under the mindset that "if I was a tourist I could not even try any of these, because where would I eat them?!" (there are no public seating areas in central Tokyo).

"Ginza 4 Chome Suehiro" Bento

Hamburg (meat patty) with some demi-glace sauce, 2 pieces of potatoes, 1 piece of karage (Japanese-style fried chicken), and beef sukiyaki all on top of rice.

Cost 730 yen.

"Kakiyasu Dining" Salad Bento

Department store food floor bento. Bought from Daimaru Tokyo Station for 50% off because of store closing time.

Original price of 735 yen is just too expensive but at 365 yen, it was pretty good.

Consists of smoked salmon potato salad, chicken with onions, 1 piece of karage (Japanese-style fried chicken) and pasta salad.

"Rosenheim" (ローゼンハイム) Bento

2 pieces of roast chicken, 2 pieces of pork, 2 pieces of chicken rolled with asparagus and 1 half-sized "hamburg" (pork/beef patty) with some potatoes and spaghetti.

I guess its kind of reasonable for 580 yen.

Chuka (Chinese) Bento

Japanized Chinese food bento from a store called "Shodoten". After searching its website, seems they have been in business since 1944 so they must have done something right. Shimp chili sauce (ebi-chili), 2 shumai, 1 shimp dumpling (har-gow), 1 spring roll and some pork stir fry.

Seems like something you would eat in dim sum rather than eating at room temperature (all bentos sold in Japan are cold, warm or room temperature). The shumai tasted weird as they were sweet!

720 yen.

Garlic Chicken Bento

From a department store basement store called "Chicken Farm Deli". 5 pieces of "garlic chicken", square yellow egg thingy, some kind of squash thing and some meatball thingy and "garlic rice".

Better than your standard convenience store bento but not that great when compared to other department store "high end" bentos.

Original price 680 yen but bought for 580 yen because of the closing time was near.

Mabo Tofu Bento

Seems Mabo Tofu is the main representative of Chinese food in Japan as you see it everywhere.

Unlike the Japanized Mabo Tofu, this is the "real" Sichuan version, or so they claim on the packaging. Quite elaborate packaging to separate the rice and sauce but so wasteful as so much plastic is used.

Flavour was good but rice and meat was so stingy.

For the original price of 500 yen, it would be overpriced but for the reduced price of 390 yen, it was reasonable considering that 390 yen could buy a lousy bento from a convenience store.

From a store called "昇龍園" at Kita Senju Lumine.

Nori (Seaweed) Bento

Grilled salmon, egg, 2 pieces of fried squid, 2 types of seaweed on top of rice, pickled vegetables and a pork meatball. 630 yen from food floor of Daimaru department store in Tokyo station.

Chinese Bento

Consists of some seafood stir-fry (2 pieces of squid, 1 piece of shrimp and some round egg thingy with no yoke that seems to be popular with Chinese food in Japan), beef stir-fry, mini Japanized shu-mai (pork dumpling), half sized mini BBQ pork bun, fried rice and Japanese yakisoba (of all things).

Price 630 yen from Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi Main Store.

Karage (Japanese Style Fried Chicken)

From Kakiyasu Dining in the food floor of department stores.

There is still something weird about eating non-fresh fried foods that I will never get used to (common in Japan).

Hamburg Bento

From "Rosenheim"

Price: 500 yen

This next meal was from one of the restaurants operated by Iron Chef Chen Kenichi (of the Iron Chef TV show)

Mapo Tofu from Iron Chef Chen Kenichi (陳健一の麻婆豆腐)

From one of his lower priced restaurant which only serves Mapo Tofu. Much cheaper than at his regular restaurant, only 1050 yen and included unlimited rice and soup refills. So hot and spicy that I had sweat running down my face while eating it!

Had this in Haneda airport because I was forced to go back to Hiroshima for 1 day just to sign my name on a piece of paper in order to receive my next months scholarship stipend...

Cabbage Roll Stew and Pork Saute

Japanese "Yoshoku" (洋食) - Western (European) food first Japanized during late 19th century and early 20th century.

Cabbage roll consists of some minced meatball of some kind of meat (I couldn't tell) wrapped with the cabbage and embedded in some sort of sauce called a "stew".

Pork saute consists of thin slices of pork (with fat) cooked with some kind of soy sauce and oil and put on top of cabbage.

From "Shinjuku Acacia 新宿　アカシア" at Haneda Airport Terminal 2.

Price 1340 yen. Kind of pricey and I figured that I would only try this once since I thought it tasted so-so.

Another type of dish that is ubiquitous in Japan is the omu-rice.

Omu Rice and Hamburg

More Japanized western food. "Omu Rice" is some flavored rice wrapped in a fried egg and usually covered with some sauce. Hamburg is a meat patty formed by ground pork and beef and accompanied with sauce (usually demi glacé) and eaten together with rice. Price 1134 yen.

Curry is also very popular in Japanese food, but not regular curry, but Japanized curry. I had this while I was doing a day trip to Kawagoe.

"European Style" Chicken Curry

What I didn't like about it was that they included the chicken skin as well. From a popular shop in Kawagoe, Japan. Price 1100 yen.

Another popular dish are rice bowls.

Oyako Don (親子丼 Chicken Egg Rice Bowl)

Charcoaled grilled pieces of chicken thigh meat topped with egg on rice. Includes a bowl of chicken soup with pickled vegetables.

Price 1050 yen.

From 新橋鶏繁どんぶり子 (しんばしとりしげどんぶりこ Shinbashi Torishige Donburi-ko) at Tokyo station's Kitchen Street.

I also had the most stereotypical of Japanese food: tempura.

Tempura Lunch

Price: 650 yen

From: Tempura Chain Restaurant Asakusa Tenya 浅草　てんや at an underground mall in Tokyo station

Another very popular type of Western style Japanese food are meat on hot plates.

Hamburg on Hot Plate

A type of Japanized Western food that you see all over the place in Japan. The "hamburg", basically a patty of ground beef and pork that you eat with rice. Usually served on a hot plate.

Price: 1210 yen (they overcharge you on the rice)

From: 肉の万世新宿西口店（ニクノマンセイ）Niku no Mansei Shinjuku West Exit

This next one is from the Pepper Lunch chain "fast food" restaurant. I like this fast food chain because the food is not fried, is quite fresh and is cheap. Too bad the shops are mostly located in the Tokyo area.

"Service Steak" (サービスステーキ)

Chunks of beef (steak beef?) that you grill yourself on a iron hot plate from the fast food chain "Pepper Lunch".

Seems that anything that is served at a discount in restaurants that are time/quantity limited are called "service-"...

Price 580 yen.

Local prefectural food.

Yamagata Prefecture Food

The beef and taro "stew" tasted kind of weird but the grilled fish was quite food but had lots of bones.

The grated squash beside the grilled fish was really good and really fresh.

Price: 1000 yen for lunch set

From: Daedoko in the Marunouchi Building near Tokyo station

Impulse buy bakery goods.

Cream Puffs

I happened to walk through Daimaru after work and while I didn't intend to buy anything, once again I was lured into buying these cream puffs after seeing the display.

The cream filling was incredibly fresh!

From レ・フィーユ仙台 Les Feuilles Sendai

Because the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival occured in September while I was in Yokohama, I got the chance to try some Japanized Moon Cakes.

Japanized Moon Cakes

2 regular ones with green tea and purple sweet potato filling.

2 "unbaked" ones with green tea and milk tea filling.

From 崎陽軒 Kiyoken in Yokohama.

Finally on my last full day in Tokyo, I met with my friend from my student exchange days in Tokyo whom I hadn't seen in years and she asked me what would you like to do, so I thought "hmm, there is one type of Japanese food that I had never tried before, traditional style Japanese food", so I suggested going for kaiseki or Kyoto-style Japanese cuisine, as I thought that it would be better to go with a native Japanese than trying something like this with other foreigners.

I knew it would be expensive but given the amount of care and service put into each dish by the chef, it was well worth the price. I did not expect to be full after the meal given the small sizes of the multi-course meal but I was pleasantly surprised to be quite full, in fact stuffed after the 3 hour meal was over.

懐石料理 Kaiseki Style Japanese Food

Take Home Onigiri from Kaiseki Meal

Epic 3 hour long, multi-course Kyoto-style Japanese cuisine. All counter seating with the food made in front of you by the chef.

From: 凹町 Hokucho, Ebisu, Tokyo

Price: 9,500 yen including the Japanese sake

Conclusion:

I ate too much ramen and therefore became a ramen fan
I ate too many bentos
I ate sushi only once (not shown here)
Japanese food != sushi (does not equal)
Probably almost everything I earned in the internship was blown on food

Yokohama Walks 2011: Nissan Gallery and Global Headquarters

2011-10-16T06:11:00.001-07:00

On Sept. 23, 2011, I walked from Yokohama station to the Motomachi area of Yokohama because I wanted to see what kinds of interesting things I could bump into. Previously, whenever I went to Yokohama, I had always gotten off at Sakuragicho station and had no impression of how the rest of the waterfront area looked like.

My walking route. Once again thanks to Google Maps on my iPhone I did not get lost. I actually walked straight back to Yokohama station from the Motomachi area at the end of the day because I didn't feel like paying the rip-off fare on the Minato-Mirai line. (I did not show the return walking route on this map)

View Yokohama in a larger map

Because I woke up late, I arrived at Yokohama station at 1 pm. Using the "Taberog 食べログ" app on my iPhone I found this ramen shop that was "highly rated" near Yokohama station. Actually it took me a while to find it.

The taste was quite good and the price was right!

Price: 680 yen

From: 鶴一家 (Tsuru Ikka) near Yokohama Station

After eating the ramen I started out from Yokohama station. I actually found out that most of the shops and commercial activity in Yokohama are centred around this station and not in the Sakuragicho area. That would explain why the area between Yokohama station and the Motomachi/Chinatown area feels so run down...

The station is surrounded by expressways.

Following the connecting overhead pedestrian bridges lead me to Nissan's headquarters and gallery.

The headquarters of Nissan and Fuji Xerox's labs.

Nissan Gallery.

The evolution of the Nissan logo.

Lots of scaled models.

Short history of Nissan.

There is a stylish cafe inside the gallery.

The first GT-R.

The latest GT-R.

The rest of the gallery.

Outside terrace.

Looking across the canal to the SOGO department store in the direction of Yokohama station.

The Nissan Leaf electric car.

Walking to the Minato Mirai area.

Fake church (for the purposes of fake church weddings?)

The Minato Mirai area.

The interesting (weird) architecture of the Yokohama Art Gallery.

The Landmark Tower (the tallest building in Japan, soon to be eclipsed by the Tokyo Sky Tree)

The Yokohama ferris wheel.

After leaving the new developments in the Minato Mirai area, I walked through some old sections of the city between Sakuragicho and the Motomachi/Chinatown area. This area was quite seedy even during the daytime.

First adult movie theatre I have seen in Japan. Are they even allowed to show the posters like that?

As I reached the Motomachi/Chinatown area, it was getting dark and I didn't take any pictures because I thought I had enough pictures already from previous visits.

Next I walked up the hilly area to the old foreign settlements area where I found this park with a nice view of the harbour and the Yokohama Bay Bridge.

Nikko: World Heritage Tourist Trap

2011-10-08T02:06:00.001-07:00

On Sept. 25, 2011, I took a day-trip to Nikko, Japan. Although I lived in Tokyo for 10 months when I was on the study abroad program at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 2005-06, I never visited Nikko.

Nikko is designated as a World Heritage Site so I thought it would be as interesting as Kyoto, unfortunately, not only was it nothing like Kyoto, but every attraction there was designed to suck money out of the tourist...(They were selling tourist maps at the Nikko railway station for 100 yen each!)

Because I was in Tokyo for 2 months for an internship this summer from August to October, I decided to take the opportunity to finally visit Nikko.

The location of Nikko relative to the location of Tokyo. After tracing the train line with Google Maps, the distance from the north of Tokyo (Kita-Senju) to Nikko was calculated to be 80 miles (130 kilometres).

View Tokyo to Nikko in a larger map

I bought the Nikko World Heritage Pass which includes a round-trip train ticket from Tokyo to Nikko plus free travel within the Nikko area to Kinugawa Onsen and admission fees to the temples and shrines of Nikko for 3,600 yen. This pass was an "exclusive deal" for foreign tourists.

This is the train that you can take with the pass. If you wanted to travel in a "limited express" train with individual seats, you have to pay an additional 1,050 yen charge, each way!

It took almost 2+ hours to get to Nikko from the north of Tokyo (Kita-Senju) and during that time I had to sit in these seats. These are the most uncomfortable seats I have ever sat on in a train in Japan!

The front of the train.

The train station in Nikko.

The actual tourist attractions at located in a mountainous area 10 minutes away by bus. My pass actually covered the cost of the bus tickets, but since I wanted to see what the town looked like, I decided to walk the 30 minutes required to reach the area with all the attractions. I was massively disappointed with the town.

Near the station area. The town looks so good so far, maybe there are some interesting shops or something leading to the world heritage sites?

What caught my attention were the ads for the "Ice Bucks" and Ice Hockey?! I never knew that hockey is popular here?!

Unfortunately, the attractiveness of the town went downhill quite fast.

I was expecting the town of Nikko to be as attractive as say, Kyoto, but instead, it just looked like any declining small town in Japan...

Portable Shrine for Use in Festivals.

"Japanese Dragon Art"

Entering the world heritage area. The Shinkyo Bridge. The Shinkyo Bridge ("sacred bridge") stands at the entrance to Nikko's shrines and temples, and technically belongs to Futarasan Shrine. The bridge is ranked as one of Japan's three finest bridges together with Iwakuni's Kintaikyo and Saruhashi in Yamanashi Prefecture.

If you want to cross the bridge, you have to pay an admission fee, and at the end of the bridge, you have to walk back across because the end of the bridge is cut off by a busy highway!

Nikko National Park, the mountainous area that contains all of the world heritage shrines and temples of Nikko.

Entering the world heritage site area.

Rinnoji Temple (輪王寺), unfortunately it was under renovation. However if you wanted to see the renovated exterior in advance, you could climb up the scaffolding for a fee of about 500 yen!

Path to Toshogu Shrine, the main attraction of Nikko.

Toshogu Shrine (東照宮). The Toshogu is the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan for over 250 years until 1868.

Famous carving of the "Story of the Three Monkeys"

Sculptures of monkeys are put on the Shinyosha (Sacred Stable). It consists of 8 panels, which express way of life.

The meaning of this panel is: "See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil" in childhood.

Inside the grounds of to Toshogu Shrine.

The extravagance of the shrine.

The famous carving of the "Sleeping Cat". To enter this area, and to see the actual mausoleum, you needed to pay an additional 520 yen fee!

The long path to the mausoleum of the first shogun of Japan.

The mausoleum of the first shogun.

Another shrine or temple which I don't remember. There are too many in Nikko.

Taiyuin (大猷院). The Taiyuinbyo is the mausoleum of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, the grandson of Ieyasu. The Taiyuinbyo resembles the Toshogu in its layout and lavish decorations, but it is intentionally kept more modest than the Toshogu.

The area surrounding the world heritage sites. Needless to say, it was disappointing.

After seeing all the attractions by 2:00 pm, I decided to take the train to the Kinugawa Onsen area to see if there was anything interesting there since the train fare was covered in the pass. This would turn out to be a complete waste of time!

Apparently, this Kinugawa Onsen town was originally developed as a onsen (hot spring) resort town during the booming and economic bubble years of Japan in the 80s and 90s and after the economic bubble popped, the town has been in decline ever since.

The only convenience store close to town, a no-name store.

Full of large hotels and deserted streets.

This thing is like a relic from the 80s!

More of the town.

Abandoned Pachinko parlor.

There were literally almost no cars on the road! Kind of creepy actually...

Finally, arrival back to Tokyo at Asakusa. Whats interesting is how wide the gap between the train and the platform was!

Conclusion: To me, Nikko is not worth the time or money. If you wanted to see some aspects of the "traditional Japan", its better just to go to Kyoto.

Tokyo Walks 2011 - Tokyo Station to Odaiba

2011-10-01T19:17:00.001-07:00

On Sept. 19, 2011, I walked from Tokyo station to Odaiba because:

I enjoy "urban hiking"
I wanted to see how far Odaiba really was by foot, to put the distance on a human scale
I wanted to see if there was anything in between all those man-made islands

My route. If it wasn't for my iPhone, data and Google Maps, I would have gotten lost. I am convinced that Tokyo is one of those places where a smartphone is really necessary for finding directions and not getting lost. Google Maps calculated the time for walking at 1.5 hours, but it actually took me 2 hours and I walk pretty fast...

View Tokyo to Odaiba in a larger map

I actually started from Tokyo station and went along Ginza but I forgot to take pictures so I only started taking pictures from the closed-on-weekends Tsukiji fish market. The area around Tsukiji fish market is just a couple of blocks away from the high-end area of Ginza and the streetscape changes completely!

Docks for the Tsukiji fish market.

New development on the man-made islands between Tokyo and Odaiba.

The ferris wheel of Odaiba from a distance.

Rainbow Bridge. Thank goodness it didn't rain on that day.

Tokyo Sky Tree seen from Odaiba.

Another shot of Rainbow Bridge.

Buildings of Odaiba.

I discovered that in all the man-made islands, there is literally nothing and probably nothing has been developed for over 20 years? What a waste of prime real estate!

A closer shot of Rainbow Bridge.

A closer shot of the ferris wheel.

Since I was in Odaiba, I decided to check out the Toyota Megaweb car showcase. Because I had been there many times in the past, I didn't expect to find anything new but I was surprised to see that there were new things for people to try.

Some upright electric vehicle. Too bad by the time I got there, the demo was closed.

New car models on display.

The Safety Simulator. Apparently when you approach an incoming vehicle this simulator was supposed to apply the brakes for you in order to minimize the damage. Trying a real steering wheel and pedals for a driving simulation for the first time was incredible. How can people play games like Gran Turismo 5 with a controller?!

The Gran Turismo 5 simulator. The line for this was too long so I decided to pass on it.

The Toyota Century, the car for Japanese government VIPs, executives and organized crime. It looks like a relic of the 1990s and yet costs an arm and a leg.

What surprised me was that EVERY door had a ashtray and cigarette lighter, this is obviously designed for the Japanese market.

Back to the 1990s.

Price tag: 12,080,000 yen = $157,000 USD

Other cars:

Archi-neering Design Exhibit 2011 - Tokyo

2011-09-30T07:47:00.002-07:00

I was walking around the Tokyo station/Marunouchi area after work when I stumbled upon this exhibit in the Marunouchi Building.

Apparently, the 24th World Congress of Architecture was being held in Tokyo and for this convention, they decided to put some exhibits for the public to see.

What caught my eye, other than the large "Genki FOR JAPAN" banner" was the Archi-neering Design Exhibit. It was a showcase of unique works in archi-neering (a new concept combining architecture and engineering design) featuring scaled models of real buildings.

The main exhibits were put on display in the "Marucube", the spectacular atrium inside the unspectacular dull looking Marunouchi Building.

Apparently my previous job made me more aware of things like "lighting" and "construction quality" and therefore I had to take some pictures of the ceiling and walls.

You can feel the size of the "Marucube" atrium from the 5th floor.

The scaled models. Salginatobel Bridge in Switzerland.

Birds Nest Stadium in Beijing.

La Esglesia de la Colonia Quell, Barcelona, Spain

Centre Pompidou, Paris

Tokyo International Forum

Sendai Mediatheque

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings

Louvre, Paris

Mode Gakuen Spiral Tower, Nagoya, Japan

Kansai International Airport, Osaka

Eiffel Tower, Paris

Tokyo Sky Tree

Akita International University Library, Akita, Japan

1964 Tokyo Olympics Stadiums

Sydney Opera House

The "tent thingy"

Finally, the nice lobby of the office tower.

Tokyo Walks 2011 - Kawagoe

2011-09-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

On Sept. 10, 2011, I took an afternoon trip to the town of Kawagoe. The town (its more like a suburb of Tokyo now) is about 30 minutes away by train from Ikebukuro station in Tokyo. Its supposed to be famous for its preservation of Edo era (1603 - 1868) buildings.

In my opinion, it wasn't so interesting as all the Edo era buildings were located in a single "preservation zone" that is designed like a tourist trap and everything outside of that zone just looks like your typical Tokyo urban sprawl.

Arrival at Kawagoe station Typical layout of a Tokyo suburban community with the train station and the centre and shopping centres surrounding the station.

As I arrived at 1 pm, I tried to find someplace to eat. Using my iPhone and the Japanese "Tabelog" app, I found this somewhat run-down curry restaurant which had a high rating.

I ordered the "European Style" chicken curry which cost 1100 yen.

Next I went to explore the attractions that made this town "famous".

The non-descript city hall building.

The remaining building of Kawagoe castle. (Not very impressive)

Tokyo Walks 2011 - Monzennaka-cho, Nihonbashi

2011-09-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

On a very hot day on Aug. 17, 2011, I did some "urban walking" from the "shitamachi" (下町) (old traditional) areas of Tokyo to the business centre of Tokyo in Nihonbashi.

I started from the Monzennaka-cho (門前仲町) area.

The entrance to the Tomioka Hachiman Shrine.

The Fukagawa Fudoson Temple that was under renovation.

A view of Tokyo Sky Tree.

Another viewpoint of Tokyo that you rarely see. The Manhattan-like skyline of residential high rise buildings of Tsukishima.

Seems you can see Tokyo Sky Tree from any viewpoint here.

Looking towards the financial and commercial district of Nihonbashi.

The bridge that connects Monzennaka-cho to Nihonbashi.

Canal in Nihonbashi.

Giant flood gates for the canal on the opposite side of the bridge.

The actual Nihonbashi bridge "Japan bridge". This is the starting point for many of the national highway routes. I think it used to be much nicer before the ugly expressway was built over the canal which it crosses.

No matter how many nice decorations there are, you cannot hide the fact that an ugly expressway covers the bridge.

Really skinny building in Nihonbashi.

The ultra elaborate entrance of department store Mitsukoshi's main store in Nihonbashi.

I thought this office building's built quality was quite high (compared to others).

Bank of Japan building.

From the Nihonbashi area, I walked to the Imperial Palace area adjacent to Tokyo station next.

One of the giant moats of the Imperial Palace.

You can really feel the spaciousness of the Imperial Palace from this viewpoint.

Tokyo Station renovation.

Tokyo Walks 2011 - Tokyo Sky Tree

2011-08-17T07:52:00.000-07:00

On August 16, 2011, a very hot and humid day, I ventured out to see the Tokyo Sky Tree site. The Tokyo Sky Tree is the "New" Tokyo Tower and the purpose for its construction is for the digital television broadcasting. It is scheduled to open next year in 2012 with a height of 634 meters. I heard that they were going to charge people 3000 yen per person to visit the tower! (That's insanely expensive)

Tokyo Sky Tree and the Asahi Beer Buildings as seen from Asakusa.

The tower is built on top of an existing railway station, in fact the development is headed by the Tobu Railway Company, the same company whose line runs beneath the tower.

The good thing about Japan is that always welcome visitors to see new developments, unlike some certain countries where anyone taking pictures of construction sites, planes or trains is considered a potential terrorist.

Maybe the construction of this tower will act as a catalyst for more development in the eastern area of Tokyo. Currently the area surrounding the tower is quite old and kind of run-down...

Information about the project. Nikken Sekkei designed the tower, and Obayashi Corporation is building it.

Even the furniture shop is excited about the Tokyo Sky Tree.

From the base of the tower.

Tokyo Sky Tree neighbourhood.

When completed, the entrance will feature a nice canal.

The area directly in front of Tokyo Sky Tree. I expect this area to be completely transformed when the tower opens. The owners of these properties are in for a generous windfall!

After seeing the Tokyo Sky Tree site, I walked to Asakusa. In terms of time sequence, the first picture of this blog is supposed to go here.

Therefore I will repeat the first picture of this post.

Tokyo Sky Tree and the Asahi Beer Buildings as seen from Asakusa.

Once I got to Asakusa, I saw some really old underground shopping street. This must be the first generation of underground shopping streets in Japan. It is not well maintained however but has an "old time" feel.

Visiting Windsor Castle

2011-08-02T23:56:00.001-07:00

On Nov. 9, 2009, after one day in London we took the train from Paddington Station and the whole journey took about 40 minutes. We had to take an intercity train to Slough and then change for a local train to Windsor. Our purpose of coming to Windsor was to visit Windsor Castle.

Intercity train at Slough Station. Whats interesting is that fast intercity trains regularly passed through this station at high speeds, maybe 120+ km/h, which I don't think is quite safe...

Arrival at Windsor Central Station.

Town of Windsor.

Windsor Castle is just adjacent to the town, there is almost no separation between the castle and the town.

On the perimeter of Windsor Castle. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take any pictures inside the castle. In order to get a sense of the spectacular tourist attraction that is Windsor Castle, you have to go there in person to experience it.

Giant courtyard inside Windsor Castle.

Former moat that had been filled in.

Because Windsor Castle is located on a hill, there is a nice view of the town from the castle.

After a long time walking through Windsor Castle and seeing all the State Apartments and etc. (no pictures allowed inside) we end up back outside.

St. George's Chapel. This is where many of the past British monarchs are buried. Also buried here is the present Queen's parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

If memory serves me right, this is the residences of the people who work at the Chapel (clergy, etc.). Other than the Royal Family, I think they are the only other residents of this castle.

Signs of modern life in an ancient castle.

Back to the town of Windsor.

Eton College, which is near Windsor. The exclusive private school for elites and aristocracy.

View of Windsor Castle from the bridge.

Back in London, taking a double decker bus from Paddington Station along Oxford St. towards our hotel.

Since it was still early we went and explored St. Panacras Station which was near out hotel. This is the terminal station for high speed Eurostar trains to Paris and Brussels. It was beautifully restored as the Eurostar station for London but because it was dark I couldn't get any really good photos of the architecture.

London: Remembrance Day Parade

2011-07-30T02:37:00.000-07:00

Almost 2 years after my trip to London, I am finally making a blog post.

On November 2009, while I was still employed at my previous company, I took one week off to visit London with my mom, taking advantage of the Remembrance Day holiday. Because of this, I used 4 vacation days into a 9 day holiday (5 weekdays, 4 days on the weekend). We took a British Airways flight+hotel package and it was quite cheap, around $1500 for one person.

The flight departed from Vancouver on November 6, 2009 at 8:45 pm and arrived at London at 1:55 pm.

The post shows our activities from November 8-9, 2009.

Approaching London's Heathrow airport.

Arrival lobby at Heathrow's Terminal 5. This is the newest terminal at Heathrow airport and used exclusively by British Airways. What surprised me was that there was no tourist information kiosk anywhere where I could pick up some tourist brochures!

We bought and Oyster card for transit and took the London Underground to our hotel near Russell Square in Bloomsbury. The trip on the subway took more than 1 hour because the train was so slow and would randomly stop midway between stations.

By the time we checked into our hotel, it was already nighttime so we decided to explore Chinatown which was close by.

What was really surprising was that all the theatres that showed musicals were all located right beside Chinatown. This ensured that Chinatown had a steady stream of foot traffic and tourists.

Central London is quite compact so afterwards we walked to the Regent Street shopping area. The street was beautifully lit with Christmas decorations.

Piccadilly Circus

The next day on Nov. 8, 2009 we went to the Whitehall area to join in the Remembrance Day parade and services.

The security was quite tight as you had to go through metal detectors before you can enter the designated parade route.

After the parade and services were over, we just walked around the area surrounding the Houses of Parliament.

Big Ben.

London Eye ferris wheel

Westminster Abbey

For Remembrance Day, they set up a "Field of Remembrance" in a lawn near Westminster Abbey. The proportion of solders who died fighting during the two World Wars and other wars from each Commonwealth country, region, etc. are represented by miniature crosses.

The Cenotaph at Whitehall.

Because of the Remembrance Day parade, all the streets at Whitehall were closed off to traffic. This provided a rare one day event for roaming the streets freely on foot.

The Household Calvary.

Trafalgar Square.

View of Big Ben from Trafalgar Square.

The National Gallery which faces Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square as viewed from the National Gallery.

Admiralty Arch, this leads to Buckingham Palace.

The Victoria Memorial, in front Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace at sunset.

Harrods department store at Knightsbridge. After seeing many Japanese department stores, it didn't really impress me that much...

"Aromatic Crispy Duck" dinner at Chinatown. Family members told us that this British-style Peking duck was good, however I found it just so-so, I prefer real Peking duck to this. Unlike the original Peking duck, the duck in this dish is deep fried and you wrap the duck meat in addition to the skin with the pancakes.

Apparently, the "Crispy Duck" is very popular among people here that almost every Chinese restaurant serves it.

Mazda Headquarters and Factory

2010-07-16T20:34:00.002-07:00

Last Friday on July 9, 2010, we went on our last field trip as part of the Intensive Japanese Language Program to the Mazda factory in Hiroshima city. After visiting this factory, I would have visited the factories of every single major automobile manufacturer with the exception of Honda. I previously visited the Toyota factory near Nagoya and the Nissan factory near Tokyo in 2005-2006.

The following map shows how large the complex is. The green marker shows where the head office building is located. The red marker shows the bridge that connects the factory lands on both sides of the river. According to the tour guide, it is the longest privately built and owned bridge in the world. It doesn't even show up on the regular Google maps and only shows up in the satellite view. The blue marker shows where the main assembly line is located.

View Mazda Hiroshima in a larger map

The headquarters of Mazda is located in a pretty quiet and nondescript area of Hiroshima.

We started the tour of the factory by entering the head office building. Inside the reception area where many models of their latest models. Apparently in Japan, they don't use the standard naming convention as their worldwide models such as Mazada3, Mazda6, etc. but use unique names like "Premacy" which is sold as the "Mazda5" outside Japan.

Model of the rotary engine.

They still had the PlayStation 2 version of Gran Turismo 4 installed with the steering wheel. The game is not aged well. Maybe they will update their "driving simulator" when Gran Turismo 5 finally is released this October?

After that we boarded a bus which drove us over the privately owned bridge to the main factory. Beside the main factory was the Mazda Museum. The route of the tour took us through the Mazda Museum and to the main assembly line.

The information board of the Mazda factory lands. I constructed the Google map from this picture.

Information board which shows the timeline of Mazda.

Awards to the founder of Mazda I think.

Some of the first models from Mazda's past.

Evolution of the rotary engine.

Cross section of the rotary engine.

Next was the breakdown of the RX-8.

Results of the crash test of the RX-8.

Displays of the manufacturing process.

Next we enter the actual factory. This is the factory layout.

Even though we were not allowed to take photos inside the factory, I managed to sneak a few. I could have gotten more if there weren't so many people who were in the back of the line.

After the actual factory tour we were taken to the final area of the Mazda Museum which showed their prototype cars of the future.

These are some pictures of the factory grounds (again we were not supposed to take photos of the factory grounds). The large parking garages on both sides of the road store the newly assembled cars from the factory. Once they are ready for shipping, they are driven one by one to Mazda's private port onto a ship for export.

Picture from the privately owned bridge which links the two sides of the factory grounds.

Final thoughts, if one is visiting Hiroshima, visiting the Mazda factory is a nice short side trip and the tour only lasts about 2 hours. It is nice change of mood from visiting the Atomic Bomb Dome or Atomic Bomb Museum in Hiroshima.

However, when compared to the other tours offered by Nissan and Toyota, in my opinion the best factory tour is offered by Nissan of their Oppama plant in Yokosuka near Tokyo. In the Nissan plant tour, you actually walk on the assembly line floor as opposed to looking down from overhead platforms and the Nissan plant tour offers the complete view of the manufacturing process from initial assembly to final testing of the cars.

Iwakuni Base Friendship Day

2010-06-10T07:09:00.007-07:00

On May 5, 2010 I went to the Iwakuni United States Marines Corps Air Station's yearly open house known as "Iwakuni Friendship Day". Iwanuki Friendship Day is held every year on the fifth of May and the main attraction of the open house is the air show that they hold.

The military base is located in Iwakuni, Japan and is one of the many American military bases scattered around the islands of Japan. Incidentally this is the second American base that I have visited in Japan, the first being the Yokosuka Navy base near Tokyo way back in 2005.

Iwanuki is located roughly 1 hour by train from Hiroshima city and 1 hour and 30 minutes from Higashi-Hiroshima (where I live now).

The event was quite popular and all the trains headed to Iwanuki were jam-packed.

The base is located a fair distance from the main train station in Iwanuki so we had to take a bus to get there. This is the lineup for taking the bus to the base.

The offical flyer for the event.

The bus tickets.

Crowds on the road leading the to entrance of the base. Interestingly, for Japanese citizens, no identification is required for entrance to the base, but for all foreigners, they photocopied our passports and made us fill in a declaration form.

Aircraft display inside the base.

I believe the current base was an Imperial Japanese military base before the United States took it over following Japan's defeat in the Second World War. Therefore there was a Japanese "Zero" airplane on display inside the base.

Random pictures from inside the base.

They even have a mini driving range and golf course inside the base!

This is the lineup for food. Even though the only food that they were selling were burgers and hotdogs the line moved really slowly. I lined up for about one hour for one burger and one hot dog. It didn't make any sense why it took them so long to cook something as simple as burgers and hotdogs.

On the tarmac of the base.

Display of lowrider cars.

What better way to introduce "American culture" than to have kids impersonate Michael Jackson.

More pictures from the tarmac.

One of the fighter jets in a demonstration flyover.

The same fighter jet on the ground.

Most of the people reserved a spot near the runway as it offered the best views of the aircraft.

It wouldn't be complete without a beer stand featuring Budweiser.

A fighter jet up close.

There were also many stands which sold typical Japanese "festival-style" food and military clothing and replica guns.

Random pictures.

On the way out of the base, I stumbled upon the base's food court. It seems that every American base has a contract with various fast food chains to open franchises no matter where the bases are located in the world. The only Taco Bells in Japan are located inside the American military bases.

Given the chance of eating American junk food, I order a Steak Burrito box from Taco Bell for 700 yen for the long ride back to the dormitory.

Hiroshima Flower Festival

2010-05-31T06:51:00.006-07:00

On May 3, 2010 during the "Golden Week" holidays in Japan, I went to Hiroshima city to check out the Hiroshima Flower Festival.

I first learned about the festival from the teachers but I also heard that it is not very interesting so I decided to see for myself what the festival was about.

The first float I saw was this one. I have no idea what a wax "Barac Obama" and a Abraham Lincoln float have to do with the so-called "Flower Festival" but this is the float for the "Fukuyama Car and Clock Museum"...

I actually entered the festival staging grounds from where they started the parade and walked towards the end of the parade route.

Like every other Japanese-style festival, there were a lot of stands that sold "festival food" which consists of yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick), yakisoba (pan-fried noodles), karage (Japanese-style fried chicken), takoyaki (octopus pastry balls) and other non-Japanese foods such as french fries.

They also had an area which sold foreign foods such as chicken pita.

There were also stands for festival-style games.

Map of the vicinity.

The Japanese love their beer as much as people in other countries but unlike Vancouver, they have no problems with people getting drunk and rowdy when there is a large gathering of people.

The festival is also heavily commercialized as evidenced by all the corporate sponsors.

Pictures from the parade route as I walk along.

Although it is called the "Flower Festival", there were no flowers to be seen aside from this large cone-like structure which was made up of potted plants.

Some of the parade performers.

At the end of the parade route, each group of parade performers took a commemorative photo.

The parade and festival grounds ended at the Peace Memorial Park. I walked through the park and towards the train station to head back to the dormitory.

Some pictures of the Atomic Bomb Dome.

Downtown Hiroshima.

I decided to check out a large bookstore on the top floor of a department store and to my surprise they had observation windows from which you could see the Hiroshima skyline.

After a whole day of walking I was really tired and hungry so I settled on eating an overpriced tonkatsu (Japanese-style fried pork cutlet) meal at Hiroshima station. The meal cost 1670 yen (~$18) but it came with unlimited refills of rice, salad and miso soup.

Higashi-Hiroshima Walking Tour/Stamp Rally

2010-05-27T07:00:00.003-07:00

On April 28, 2010 I participated in a walking tour of historical sites in Higashi-Hiroshima. That is the town where the university I am attending is located.

Since there is usually nothing to do on the weekends here except studying or biking to some strip mall, I decided to sign up for the tour. Because the sign up information was posted in the dormitory for international students, I thought it would just be a small group. Little did I know how organized the tour was.

The entire tour was organized by the Saijo Rotary club and it seemed like all their club members and their families participated.

All the international students were driven to the starting point in a park via a rented taxi van.

I made a Google map to determine the distance walked that day. It turns out we walked 6 miles or 9.6 kilometers that day

View Higashi-Hiroshima Walking Tour in a larger map

All the people in the orange shirts are the organizers.

After the briefing we just kept walking while stopping at various temples and historical sites of which I do not remember the names of. During each visit to a temple or historical site, we received a stamp.

In Japan, this kind of activity would be called a "stamp rally". I think this is a uniquely Japanese activity. A stamp rally is where one goes round to certain locations to stamp their book with rubber stamps. Each location would have a unique stamp. For this tour, we didn't get a book, they instead gave each of us a wooden commemorative plaque to place the stamps on.

Its interesting that one of the temples where we stopped by had a basketball hoop inside the temple grounds.

Entering some historical farming house to see how the Japanese used to live.

The approach to climbing the stairs to another temple located on the mountain.

Station for receiving the stamp.

The view from the temple. The Higashi-Hiroshima area is very similar to Vancouver in a lot of ways. You can see mountains everywhere and the weather is totally unpredictable. The weather can change from being hot and humid one day to being cloudy, cold and rainy the next.

This is a view from a local cemetery. You can see the "city centre" of Higashi-Hiroshima in the background. As you go further north, there are more high-rise apartments and shops.

After the tour was over the Rotary club members got all the students to gather in their club house where they freely dispensed beer, sake and snacks!

This is the result of a whole days worth of walking. 6 stamps for visiting 6 sites.

Hiroshima City Field Trip

2010-05-09T01:30:00.001-07:00

On April 23, 2010, the all the students of in the Intensive Japanese Language program for Japanese Government Scholarship recipients went on a field trip to Hiroshima city.

Because Hiroshima University is located in Higashi-Hiroshima (literally East Hiroshima), we had to take a 40 minute train ride into the city.

We started by going to the Hiroshima Museum of Traditional Industries but because there wasn't anything interesting to take pictures of, combined with the fact that I was holding a bag containing my lunch, I didn't take any pictures of that museum.

After that we went to the grounds of Hiroshima Castle to have lunch. With my lunch disposed of, my hands were finally free to take some pictures.

Entering Hiroshima Castle, like everything else in the city, the original one was totally destroyed by the atomic bomb so this is a reconstruction. It only looks old from the outside, the inside is totally modern.

The view of Hiroshima city from the top of the castle.

After we finished touring the castle, we walked to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. This is the Atomic Bomb Dome, the symbol of the destruction caused by the atomic bomb. It was originally called the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Hall. I had already been to the Peace Memorial Park in 2004 on my first trip to Japan and not much had changed. The only thing is that all my photos from 2004 were on film. How times have changed!

This is the Memorial Cenotaph which holds all the names of the people who were killed by the bomb.

Looking towards the Hiroshima Peace Museum.

Inside the Hiroshima Peace Museum which displayed all the artifacts that was left over from the aftermath of the atomic bomb.

Here they show what Hiroshima looked like directly after the bomb.

A model of the area that now consists of the Peace Memorial Park. This model shows the area before the bombing.

The model shows the area after the bomb.

The interior of the museum.

This model shows the epicenter of the atomic bomb blast.

Some artifacts on display which shows the effect of the atomic bomb.

Charred clothing.

Hair.

Nails and skin from a student.

Bicycle.

Uniform.

Human shadow etched in stone.

Glass bottle and bowl.

Fused roof tiles.

Finally near the exit, a view of the Peace Memorial Park.

Hiroshima University and Surroundings

2010-05-01T23:13:00.002-07:00

This April I started school again after almost 3 years in the workforce at Hiroshima University in Japan. The school isn't actually in Hiroshima city, but rather in a rural suburb of Hiroshima called Higashi-Hiroshima. It is 30-40 minutes away from Hiroshima city by train.

I received the Japanese Government Monbukagakusho Scholarship for graduate studies in Transport Planning and Engineering after an application process that lasted for one year. All scholarship recipients spend the first 6 months in Japan on Japanese language training. After that we will enter our respective graduate schools. I will be entering the Transportation Planning Lab in the Graduate School of International Development and Cooperation at Hiroshima University because the faculty operates completely in English.

All international students who first come to Hiroshima University stay at the International House, a dormitory for international students. According to the guidelines, international students are only allowed to stay there for a maximum period of 6 months after which time they are required to find another dormitory or private housing. I will probably move to another dormitory as there are 3 other dormitories in the Hiroshima area.

The view from my room. All rooms are one person private rooms. The other building is designated for families of visiting researchers or professors.

More pictures from the balcony of my room.

Inside my 13.3 square meter room.

I moved my desk around since I first took those pictures. This is my current setup.

The ridiculous location of the phone jack. I use this to access the Internet. It uses something called a "VDSL modem". Beside the VDSL modem is the free wireless router I received when I signed up for my iPhone. If I didn't have the wireless router, I would have needed to really long network cable to reach my computer.

The outside of the dormitory.

The 6 speed bike that I bought used for 6000 yen (~$60) from an international student from China. I asked the Japanese people and they all said that it was impossible to buy a used bike from a shop but the international students from China had an Internet buy-and-sell forum and that is where I got my bike from. The original owner bought the bike for 15,000 yen (~$150) in November 2009 and just used it for 1 month before he got a car so its practically new.

Next I walked to the campus of Hiroshima University. The size of the campus reminds me of my alma mater, the University of British Columbia (UBC). It takes about 20-30 minutes to walk from the north end of the campus to the south end just like at UBC. The only difference is that at Hiroshima University, they have the same bland uniform architecture throughout the entire campus, the bathroom tiled buildings that you see all over Japan.

From the south end of the campus.

The view of the International House. The location that the choose is very weird. They built it on the side of a hill.

Next I went to the "Main Street" of the university "town".

The big box store called "you me town" that everyone shops at. Luckily for me there is a McDonalds there as McDonalds Japan is so much better than their stale overpriced counterpart known as McDonalds Canada.

It seems that everyone has a car in this area. Doesn't this shatter your image of Japan? "Japan isn't supposed to have places that look like the United States"

The good thing about the Japanese suburb is that you can also rely on the bicycle to get around if you don't have a car. There are so many bicycles being used that all the shops have designated bike parking areas.

As we get further away from the main shopping strip, it turns more rural.

A nice looking traditional Japanese style house near the main train station. Its weird how it faces the main factory of the "Satake Corporation". Maybe its the president's house?

Note how residential and industrial areas blend seamlessly. In North America, the factory would look all run-down and dirty and would be located in a seedy area.

The bus loop in front of "Saijo Station". The main connection to the Hiroshima city. It is a 20 minute bus ride or 30 minute bike ride away from the International House.

2010 Winter Olympics: Russia Sochi 2014 House

2010-03-06T22:44:00.000-08:00

It is now about one week since the end of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

It's so unusual to see the city calm down after having a party atmosphere for 2 straight weeks. Like almost everyone in Vancouver, I had gotten used to the non-stop Olympics coverage, especially on television. After the Olympics had ended I kind of didn't know what to do with my new found "free time" after work because I had gotten used to coming home and then watch or following the Olympics. For the first few days after the Olympics I kind of felt an "Olympics withdrawal" symptom.

This was the first time that I really gained an in-depth knowledge of the winter games because so many of the events were shown on primetime. Next time if I ever get a chance to buy tickets I will know which events to buy tickets for, Sochi 2014 anyone?

Anyways this post is about my visit on Feb. 24, 2010 to the Russia House (a.k.a. Sochi2014.ru WORLD Russky Dom), the pavilion that the Russians had set up in Science World. They spared no expense at transforming the entire Science World into their own pavilion.

This is the view of Russia House from the lineup. The line moved quite quickly, we only lined up for 15 minutes.

The entrance to the pavilion.

The official countdown clock to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

In addition to your usual (and useless) contracted security guy, they had two stern looking Russians dressed in all black trenchcoats backing up the local security guy.

They even transformed the Science World giftshop into a "Bosco Sport" shop. They are the official suppliers to the Russian team. In my opinion, their designs were really loud and gaudy...

The location of Sochi relative to the geography of the Russian Federation.

There was a variety of entertainment at the main stage, all sponsored by Russian companies and on the day that I went, it was "Megafon Day" and the entire interior was plastered with green Megafon ads.

Some nice displays of the Sochi landscapes on a lighted mural.

This was the thing that really impressed me the most, a scaled model of the developments for Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Unlike Vancouver, everything in Sochi will have to be built for the Olympics, this includes the entire Olympic venues, a railway linking the events in the city to the mountains and brand new skiing facilities.

Some more information about the Sochi region.

Traditional performances from the Sochi area.

Sponsor's exhibit.

Another shop upstairs for Bosco Sport.

Various hockey memorabilia from Soviet/Russian hockey greats loaned from the hockey hall of fame.

Inside Science World where they usually displayed their permanent exhibition, the Russian Team transformed it into a nightclub which a stage for nightly performances which were only accessible by VIPs only.

Inside this nightclub area, there was a large display by Russian Railways to showcase their new railway connecting Sochi to the skiiing venues.

Volkswagen is a major sponsor of the Russian team and they had replicas of the torches from Vancouver and Beijing. The best part about this one was that you didn't have to lineup to hold it!

My mom with the torches.

Volkswagen car with signatures/autographs from "important people".

They also had a corporate display by some Russian petroleum company. No one was interested in it though.

There was a station where you could paint traditional Russian wooden dolls.

The official logo of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Upon leaving the pavilion I stopped by the Bosco Sport shop. The merchandise was really overpriced!

The Russian team used Audis and Volkswagens compared to the GM cars used by the Vancouver Olympics officials because Volkswagen is the official sponsor of the Russian team. There were so many luxury Audi cars parked outside of Science World!

Afterwards we walked downtown to check out Korea House which was bascially one room inside the Hyatt Hotel. We saw a lot of people making their way to the Russia vs. Canada quarterfinals hockey game which Canada ultimately won.

While at the Korea House, we stumbled upon a press conference held for their medal winners. The three people were probably speed skaters.

Interesting Story: While I was at Russia House, I went to the information counter to inquire about tickets to see the "Hockey Hall of Fame" because there was a sign on the counter that said to get tickets there. After I inquired one of the people at the counter gave me a postcard with some sort of scribble at the back. After I asked what it was another person at the information counter told me that it was Russian hockey superstar Alexander Oveckin's autograph and they he gave it to them the day before! Needless to say they asked for it back and in return gave me a blank postcard. I was this close to getting an autograph from Alexander Oveckin!

2010 Winter Olympics: Qualifications Hockey Game, Switzerland vs. Belarus

2010-02-28T22:32:00.001-08:00

On Feb. 23, 2010 during the 2nd week of Olympics competiion I attended the qualifications playoff game at Canada Hockey Place (GM Place) where Switzerland played Belarus. The winning team which was Switzerland would go on to play the United States in the quarterfinals and ultimately lose to United States and the United States would ultimately lose to Canada in the Gold Medal game today.

The game last Tuesday started at 12:00 pm. I was unlucky that I got the 12:00 pm tickets because if I had gotten the tickets to the 4:30 pm qualifications game I could have been the Canada vs. Germany game.

I went with my uncle and we walked from my house and over Cambie Bridge to the security checkpoint for Canada Hockey Place. Near the security checkpoints there were all these "Inukshuks" (logo for the games) built on the side of False Creek.

Inside the arena, which is the home of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks, there was a mural of the 30 Greatest Canucks from 1970 - 2000. My favorite player from that mural is Pavel Bure who was the most exciting player to ever wear the Canucks uniform.

The view from seats that cost $80.00 each. This is was near the start of the game.

I was playing around with my camera settings during the whistle calls.

The game was fairly entertaining given that two weaker teams were playing. There were a sizable number of Swiss fans who kept chanting "La Swiss" during the game countered by a smaller number of Belarus fans who chanted "Be-la-rus" during the game.

The game ended up being tied after 3 periods of play and 10 minutes of overtime couldn't resolve anything and eventually Switzerland won in a shootout. This was my first time watching a shootout live and it was quite entertaining.

Team Switzerland celebrating their shootout win.

Afterwards we went down to the Olympic store where I bought an overpriced $45.00 white longsleeve Nike shirt with the Vancouver 2010 logo and the teams of each of the countries playing in hockey imprinted on the sleeves. I was also surprised at the amount of merchandise some of the Russian fans bought. Some of them bought nearly $320.00 worth of clothing merchandise!

2010 Winter Olympics: 5 Hour Wait to Touch Olympic Medals

2010-02-25T22:31:00.001-08:00

The Royal Canadian Mint set up a pavilion in Downtown Vancouver at a Simon Fraser University conference building during the Olympics where the public had a chance to touch the Olympic medals that were being handed out to victorious athletes.

I had wanted to go during the past weekend but there were too many people so I thought that lining up Monday morning on Feb. 22, 2010 would be a good idea as there would be a shorter line because it was the start of the work week.

I was totally wrong. I went with my mom and I budgeted a wait maximum wait time of two hours but it turned out that we lined up for five hours just to the priviledge to touch, give gloves on, the Olympic medals for ten minutes!

We started lining up at 10:30 am. This was the scene at 10:30 am.

By around 3:00 pm we had almost reached the "official line".

By around 4:30 pm we had reached the inside of the building.

Once inside the building we had to wait another 20-30 minutes because they only let in 10-15 people at a time for a total of 10 minutes to touch and photograph the medals.

A display of a million dollar coin while standing in line.

Before we got inside the "Medal Room" a police officer barked out instructions of what to do and what not to do while inside the room while constantly telling us that this was the first time the International Olympic Committee allowed the public to touch and hold the medals.

The displays of how the medals were designed and manufactured. Because we were only given a total of 10 minutes to touch and photograph the medals, almost no one bothered to look at these displays.

Mayhem as people tried to jockey for positions to take pictures with the medals. The people with the microphones are the engineers who designed and manufactured the medals.

Some pictures of my mom and I.

The front and back of the bronze medal.

After that was over I met up with a friend to take some night photos of the downtown Olympic atmosphere.

This was the lineup to the Offical Olympic Superstore at The Bay department store.

The Lions Gate Bridge and the Olympic Rings from the balcony of the Pan Pacific Hotel.

The sails of Canada Place.

Looking towards Gastown.

Waterfall inside the Pan Pacific Hotel.

The International Broadcast Centre at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The Olympic Caldron which is still fenced off.

Various shots around Robson Square and downtown.

2010 Winter Olympics: Visiting Pavilions on the Weekends

2010-02-23T23:15:00.001-08:00

Last weekend on Feb. 19, 20 and 21, 2010 I went with my family to check out some of the free pavilions that various governments and organizations had set up for the Olympics.

On Friday night we visited the pavilions located near the Concord Pacific lands in Southeast False Creek.

This is Molson Canadian Canada Hockey House sponsored by Molson brewery where for the low price of $99.00 per night, you can enjoy watching "the game" inside a tent with complementary food and beer.

The Quebec pavilion. It is nothing more than a giant box with no roof with a small stage and cafe inside. There is no wonder there was no line up inside.

The following images are from the Concord Pacific condo development sales office. They had a nice model of their future development of the lands near False Creek including a model of how B.C. Place Stadium would look like after the retractable roof is installed.

Concord's developments in Toronto.

Future development near B.C. Place Stadium.

Model of another interesting development.

After that we went to the Vancouver Livecity site. This was where the federal government Canada Pavilion was located. Despite the tent-like building costing $10 million of taxpayers dollars to build, there wasn't much to see inside.

Also at the Vancouver Livecity site was the Manitoba Pavilion. Also there wasn't much to see inside.

Waiting in line for entrance to the Canada Pavilion. The queue time was approximately 15-20 minutes.

This was inside the Canada Pavilion. Nothing much to see except a lot of TV screens, and lines to taking pictures with the Olympic torch and a bobsled.

One of the more interesting items on display inside the pavilion. Gretzky's jersey.

The Canada Cup trophy.

More pictures of the Canada Pavilion from the outside.

The next day on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, we headed out to Granville Island to check out the pavilions there. The House of Switzerland was basically a restaurant and there was nothing to see at Atlantic Canada House so the following where the only pictures I took. I also ate an Olympic priced $8.00 poutine while I was there.

On Sunday, Feb. 22, 2010, I hoped to visit the Royal Canadian Mint pavilion to see and touch the medals but the lines were too long so we ended up just walking around downtown.

Entering downtown with the Woodwards complex in the background.

They opened up a viewing platform for the Olympic caldron, however the wait time was more than one hour long!

This events in town are more about long lineups than anything else. This lineup is just for entering the Official Olympic Superstore inside The Bay department store.

2010 Winter Olympics: Day 3, Victory Ceremony, Downtown Atmosphere

2010-02-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, on Feb. 14, 2010, on the 3rd day of competition of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I went with my family to participate in the Victory Ceremony at B.C. Place Stadium.

The weather that day was more like spring than winter.

We started by walking to downtown because it was about an hour walk from our house and we didn't want to ride the congested transit system.

While walking across Cambie Bridge we passed by the Olympic Village.

More pictures of the Olympic Village. Notice all the flags that were hung on the balcony by the athletes.

As we enter downtown, we see B.C. Place Stadium which was where the Opening Ceremony was held two days before.

Another shot of the Olympic Village from downtown.

All the security checkpoints leading to the stadium.

The festivities in downtown.

Alberta House, which is basically just a bar and restaurant.

They closed off a lot of roads to cars during the Olympics. I had never seen so many people on the streets of Vancouver before.

Walking past Library Square and the "public art".

For those that have been to Japan, doesn't this look like a rip-off of a certain beef bowl chain?

At Robson Square, there was so many people that you could barely move.

Some of the wraps on the buildings.

On the right we see the wrap by Samsung on the TD Bank Building.

The Royal Bank of Canada wrap.

The "Japadog" stand is so popular now that they are opening a storefront near the library.

The convention centre, home to the International Broadcast Centre.

The exterior Olympic Cauldron. All fenced off for some reason.

A view of the North Shore along with the Olympic Rings on the barge from the Pan Pacific Hotel.

Another shot of the convention centre from the Pan Pacific Hotel.

Looking east from the Pan Pacific Hotel.

More pictures of building wraps.

From the Victory Ceremony at B.C. Place Stadium.

The hour started with performances by B.C. artists and groups.

Technical glitch.

Next was the raising of the Olympic flag.

Following was the presentation of the medals. The first medal won by Canada, a silver by Jennifer Heil was presented that night.

The medal presentation switched between the live presentation and a live telecast of the presentations at Whistler.

After the medal presentations were over, there was a one hour concert by Nelly Furtado.

On the same route walking back home at night. The giant golf ball is Science World which is being rented out by the Russian team for the duration of the Olympics for "Russia House".

The Olympic Village at night.

The ticket and the pins collected.

Brunei: Empire Hotel, Tutong

2010-02-07T23:06:00.000-08:00

On May 15, 2008, we went to the Empire Hotel and to the town of Tutong. It was only our third day in Brunei and we were already bored and we still had 4 more days to go because we booked our itenerary for a week in Brunei.

The Empire Hotel is the most luxurious and famous hotel in Brunei. Because Brunei does not really have many tourist attractions, the first question that any Brunei resident asks of the visitor is: "Have you been to the Empire Hotel?"

The official Brunei Tourism website goes so far as to calling it a "7 star hotel".

The hotel itself is really grand and they used a lot of high end materials to build the building. The columns of the main forum are all made with marble and highlighted with gold finishes.

Our purpose for going to the Empire Hotel was to try their lunch time buffet and while it was costly, it was pretty good. It's too bad that I didn't take any pictures of the food. All the cutlery were silver.

My opinion of the Empire Hotel, like almost everything else in Brunei, was that while it was built at a great cost, it hasn't been maintained properly. For example, while the sinks in the washrooms were gold sinks, the washrooms itself were pretty stinky due to their bad maintenance. The same applies to the beach and pool area facing the hotel. The beach which faced the South China Sea was so dirty and the pool didn't really look that clean either. It also didn't help that there wasn't anyone using either the pool or the beach.

After lunch we didn't really have anything to do so we drove to the nearest town of Tutong. After walking around for a bit, we left.

After coming back to Bandar Seri Begawan, we went to the open air market beside the downtown area to look around.

Our last stop of the day was the Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque. This is the largest mosque in the country and was built in 1992 to celebrate the current Sultan's 25 year on the throne.

New Intel Core i5 750 Computer System

2010-01-30T23:12:00.000-08:00

On December 25, 2009, Christmas Day of last year I ordered parts for a new computer system. I bought the parts from a local retailer and because I paid with PayPal (I had money left over in my account from an eBay sale) the parts had to be shipped via the courier service and therefore I only received the parts in the middle of January.

Originally I did not plan to build a new computer system as I was satisfied with my 2006 era Pentium D system with 2 GB of ram and integrated graphics. However because my Pentium D system could not playback high definition video cards without stuttering, I decided to upgrade my Pentium D system with a new external ATI Radeon 4670 PCI Express video card.

This all happened back in September 2009.

However, once I installed the new video card onto my Pentium D system, the performance of the overall system slowed down to a crawl and after formatting my computer THREE times and installing Windows XP twice and Windows 7 once in the hopes of "fixing" the problem, I searched from various forums on the Internet and found out that there was a "fundamental design flaw" with my ASUS motherboard that would not support two sticks of RAM in addition to a PCI Express video card without significant slowdown.

Because I had already opened my ATI Radeon 4670 video card, I could not return it so I decided to either built a new system or to buy a pre-assembled OEM machine (i.e. Dell or HP) with integrated video so that I could use the video card that I could not return. I ended up deciding to build my own system because I was not satisfied with the options the OEM manufacturers were offering.

The total cost of the parts were as follows:

Intel Core i5 750 Quad Core Processor Lynnfield LGA1156 2.66GHZ 8MB Cache Retail Box	$218.99
Western Digital WD1001FALS Caviar Black 1TB SATA2 7200RPM 4.2MS 32MB 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM	$98.99
Gigabyte P55M-UD2 mATX LGA1156 P55 DDR3 2PCI-E 2PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GLAN Motherboard	$106.99
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W ATX 20/24PIN SLI Ready Modular Cables 135mm Fan Active PFC Power Supply	$82.45
G.SKILL F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH Ripjaws PC3-10666 4GB 2X2GB DDR3-1333 CL7-7-7-21 Core I5 1.65V Memory Kit	$104.99
SUBTOTAL:	$612.41
7% PST - BC residents:	$42.87
GST (5%):	$30.62
YOUR TOTAL:	$685.90

I reused the case which previously housed my Pentium D system and moved the Pentium D system into the big beige ATX case which previously housed my 1999 era Penitum III 550 MHz system.

Because I had a micro ATX case, there wasn't a lot of room so I decided to get a modular power supply unit this time.

The modular power supply unit installed into my micro ATX case.

The retail box of the Intel Core i5 processor.

The contents of the retail box which includes the massive heatsink/fan on the left and the processor core on the right.

Next up I have the Gigabyte P55-based micro ATX motherboard. After what happened to me during my attempted video card upgrade of my Pentium D system, I swore never to buy ASUS ever again.

Motherboard with CPU installed in case.

Motherboard with heatsink/fan installed on top of CPU.

The two sticks of DDR3 ram.

The ATI Radeon 4670 video card manufactured by Gigabyte which I bought in September 2009.

Next I installed the video card into the PCI Express slot of the motherboard.

The Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB hard drive.

Everything installed in the case. Because it is a micro ATX case, there is not much room and therefore there is no way to do any wire or cable management.

Ultra old beige coloured ATX case versus semi-old black coloured micro ATX case. My Pentium D system was moved into the beige coloured case.

Back panel of my new system.

A picture of the transplated Pentium D system into the old beige case.

Hardware and Windows Experience Score stats.

Overall it took me one week to configure all the software correctly. One thing I learned about installing Windows 7 is that it DOES NOT like legacy hardware. I had a hard time finding device drivers for old hardware. I could not get one of my older 250 GB external hard drives to work on my new system even though it worked for my laptop which had Windows 7 installed!

Don't you just love computers?

(Maybe I'll switch to a Mac for my next system?)

Brunei: Kampong Ayer (Water Village) and Wild Monkeys

2010-01-09T16:19:00.002-08:00

On May 14, 2008, on our second day in the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan (which everyone just calls "Brunei" as it was just called "Brunei Town" before its name was changed to Bandar Seri Begawan), we went to Kampong Ayer (Water Village) which took up most of the morning and afternoon and then walked around the "downtown" area a bit before returning back to my cousin's house.

My aunt and cousin lives in Brunei and it was fortunate for us that my aunt had a spare Toyota Vios car or else we could not have gone anywhere as there is no public transportation system at all. My sister drove the car (they drive on the left side of the road) and I was the so-called navigator. I had to rely on an old map book that the oil company Shell had produced a number of years ago for their expatriate workers.

Because Brunei is an oil producting country, gas was really cheap, it was around $0.30 per litre in Brunei dollars ($1.00 Brunei = $0.74 Canadian). As a result of all this cheap gas, almost everyone drives an SUV in Brunei and the whole city feels like a transplated American suburb with "Southeast Asian characteristics". Unlike other Asian cities where there is a vibrant downtown area full of energy, the downtown area was completely dead, devoid of people and any sort of energy. We would later find out that most of the people did their shopping in suburban malls and suburban shophouses.

A map of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei for reference.

My cousin's house was located on a hill in a suburban area so each time we drove to town we would have to take this rural road.

On the same road leading to town, we see the embassy of Singapore, called "High Commissions" in the Commonwealth countries.

The first destination that we went to was the Brunei Museum, and there wasn't really anything interesting in there nor could we take any pictures so I didn't even bother to mention it in the introduction to this post.

After that we entered the downtown area in order to rent a boat for the day to explore the Kampong Ayer (Water Village). In the downtown area we see one of the tourist attractions of Brunei, the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque which was built in 1958 during the reign of the current Sultan's father.

Next we walked around and bargained with boat owners for the best price of renting a boat for the day to explore the Kampong Ayer (Water Village). The Kampong Ayer is located directly across from the downtown area and is home to 39,000 people who live on houses built on stilts on top of the Brunei River.

Some pictures of the private water taxies the ply the river. Most of them are just glorified speedboats.

Because of the wealth from the oil, all the houses that are built over the river are all modernized and have amenities like power, water and satellite television!

Our water taxi driver even took us to the house of one of his friends to show us how a typical home in the water village looked like. We see that they have all the conveniences of a modern home, except that their home isn't built on dry land.

A wider picture of the water village community at large.

A floating mosque in the water village.

A school for the children of the water village.

Here we see the children being picked up by their parents with their boats. Because the weather on that day was unstable we had to shelter under the school to wait for the rain to pass before we headed on our way.

We even stopped for gas at the local Shell station for the boat's engine.

After we got gas, our driver proceeded to bring us down to river into the jungles to see wild monkeys.

The current Sultan's Palace as seen from the river.

Going down the river.

Next he brings us to the edge of the river to the jungle to try to spot some wild monkeys.

We see a wild monkey on the tree in the centre of this picture.

The jungles near the river.

More monkeys.

Leaving the jungle area to go back to town.

The downtown area. Because of all the suburban malls, its virtually deserted. Its quite a contrast from my mom's time as she said that it was very busy and crowded way back in the 1960s.

A unique looking monument located on the riverside to something. Because it was so hot I didn't bother to see what it was for.

Being a LEGO fan since I was young, I was suprised to see these pirated China-made LEGO sets at a store.

Happy New Year 2010 and Reflections on 2009

2009-12-31T20:22:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year for 2010!

Once again it is the last day in this year's calendar year and what better way to "celebrate" than to reflect back on the year that was 2009. 2009 was a weird year in that the year started off after the financial meltdown in September 2008. Other than the excitement generated by the inauguration of President Obama in the United States in January, the year was already being written off before it even began! I'll begin by separating my thoughts of 2009 into the following categories.

Technology

Windows 7 was finally released to the public in the fall. At last people can finally retire their tired old copies of the 9 year old operating system known as Windows XP. I installed Windows 7 on my Windows Vista laptop and I was surprised how fast it installed. Because my desktop is still running Windows XP, I am still not totally familiarized with Windows 7.

This was also a year of weird computer troubles with me. I have a legacy Pentium D 2.66 GHz system from 2006 with an integrated video card because of this configuration, I cannot view any high definition video content with out significant stuttering. I thought that by buying a new video card, the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4670 1 GB, I could offload the processing of the HD video to the video card. After installing it I found out about one of the design flaws of my ASUS motherboard. It turns out that it will not support the addition of an external PCI-E video card with over 2 GB of RAM without significant slow down in performance. I tried taking out one stick of RAM and installing the video card and it worked perfectly. After a week in which I flashed the BIOS of the motherboard many times in order to fix this issue, the problem only got worse and what was supposed to be a quick and easy hardware upgrade turned out to be a week long computer problem nightmare in which I wrecked my previous installation of Windows XP and had to reinstall a fresh copy.

Because I had a video card that I couldn't return I decided to get a new modern system and I ordered a Intel Core i5 system with the following parts during the Boxing Day sales in December but the parts haven't arrived yet.

Travel

This year I went to three places, Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton and London, England.

I went to Seattle in early July to see the Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy concert because I thought they would never have a live concert here in Vancouver. Little did I know that once the show started, they announced a concert in Vancouver in October! The concert was pretty good but because I had already heard most of the tracks since the first 2002 Final Fantasy concert in MP3 format, it kind of lost its "freshness" to me.

Right after the concert I drove and arrived back home at 2:00 am and had to catch a 7:00 am flight for Calgary to meet up with my family who drove up the day before in a rented GMC Acadia SUV (while I was at the concert). The purpose of going to Alberta was to visit my mom's 90 year old aunt. Also it gave me a chance to see the "real Canada".

In Calgary I was surprised to see how suburban the city was. It almost looked like a Canadian version of a city in Texas because of it's wide highways, large houses and flat landscape. It also surprised me to see how many Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons and McDonalds strip malls there were in Calgary.

After a couple days in Calgary, we drove up to Edmonton and spent one day there. I had not been to the West Edmonton Mall since I was around 7 or 8 years old and I was disappointed to see how run-down and how poorly maintained the mall was. Other than the mall, there wasn't really anything to see in Edmonton and the whole city looked really depressing to me. While Calgary looked really green, Edmonton just looked really grey and monotone. It also didn't help that large parts of the city looked really unkept and depopulated.

In November, because of Remembrance Day following in the middle of the week on a Wednesday, I decided to go with my mom to London, England for that week. It was the first time that I had been to Europe. In addition to London, we went to Windsor and Cambridge. Because of been educated in Canada, tt was so interested in see in real life the things you only read about in your history books. In addition, by just visiting the tourist attractions in England, I felt like I was getting a real-time history lessons on the different periods of English history.

Gaming

This year I made a number of video game purchases. For the PlayStation 3, I bought Street Fighter 4, Uncharted 2 and Assasin's Creed 2. For the Nintendo DS, I bought Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. For the Nintendo Wii, I bought WiiSportsResort, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

I didn't really play much of Street Figher 4 and I managed to finish Uncharted 2, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Despite all the outstanding reviews of Uncharted 2, I didn't really find it to be outstanding. It was a good game but it wasn't great. While the graphics were very good, the platforming gameplay just wasn't very good. I also found the last boss to be very disappointing and annoying to beat because of the limitations of the controls and game design.

I really enjoyed New Super Mario Bros. Wii as it brought back a lot of nostalgia from my childhood of playing the Mario games. The diffculty level was much much higher than that of the Nintendo DS game of the similar name. The only thing which prevented this game from topping Super Mario World as the best 2D Mario game is that the art style and music was very generic and the overworld maps were not that interesting. A lot fo the maps and levels were very similar to the DS game.

The most disappointing game that I played in 2009 was Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. This is the 3rd game in the Mario & Luigi series that was started way back in 2003 on the Game Boy Advance. While the first Mario & Luigi game was a great game and in my opinion one of the best games on the Game Boy Advance, this game started out fun but quickly went downhill after that. There was no real plot in this game and all the events just seem to be strung together by annoying fetch quests and mandatory stylus/touch based mini-games. Also it didn't help that the battles were really unbalanced in that you could die and get a game over in a normal regular battle if your button reflexes aren't any good and you miss dodging the enemy attacks. I am still debating whether I should sell or keep this game.

Vancouver

A major milestone happened in the city of Vancouver in that the Canada Line rapid transit line finally opened after 4 years of construction and almost 2-3 years of debates.

The Richmond Olympic Oval and the over-budget Olympic Village was completed and the city is gearing up to host the Winter Olympics in 2010.

Let's hope for a peaceful and prosperous 2010 in which Canada takes back the gold in Olympic hockey!

Singapore to Brunei: Flight, Arrival and Royal Regalia Museum

2009-12-30T21:41:00.002-08:00

On May 13, 2008 we flew from Singapore to Brunei after coming back from Kuala Lumpur the day before. Brunei is not exactly a tourism hotspot so the only reason we went to Brunei was because that is where my mom was born and also because she never went back to visit after she immigrated to Canada in the mid-1970s...until now.

Since most people have no idea where Brunei is, I thought that maybe I should include some maps of where it is. The country is located on the island of Borneo. The following map shows the relative locations of Singapore and Brunei with respect to Southeast Asia.

The following map shows the places that I visited in Brunei and East Malaysia.

We started our journey in the morning from Singapore's Changi Airport. It is constantly voted as one of the best airports in the world due to the amount of amenities it offers to travellers.

The following shows the distinctive control tower of Changi Airport.

An interesting design for the Crowne Plaza hotel that is attached to the newest terminal building at Changi Airport, Terminal 3.

Terminal 3 from the outside. We used Terminal 3 from out flight from Vancouver and it is an ultra-modern terminal with an emphasis on lots of sunlight and a garden theme.

For our flight to Brunei, we used the older Terminal 2. While it isn't as new as Terminal 3, it is very well maintanined so that it doesn't actually feel that old.

Checking into our Royal Brunei Airlines flight to Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. All the flights from Singapore depart at around 10 am and arrive in Brunei at 12 pm. Because of a lack of competition, the 2 hour flight was not cheap. It cost $400.00 per person round trip if memory serves me right.

One of the reasons why Changi Airport is consistently voted one of the top airports in the world. There are tons of amenities for travelers including this massage/spa located after security.

Including some small gardens...

And free Xbox 360 game stations...

And free LAN gaming computers...I think Singapore would be a great place to transit on a long flight. Too bad only Australians or New Zealanders could probably take advantage of this on their long flights to Europe.

Some pictures of the rows of Singapore Airlines planes parked at the terminal.

Inside the terminal.

Our in-flight meal. It's surprising that they still served a full meal for a 2 hour flight. Airline service still counts and matters in Asia unlike in North America where you are treated like cattle. By the time we finished eating the plane was almost ready to land. The meal itself was so-so tasting.

Arrival at the airport in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, the capital city of Brunei. Because the country is so small, people just refer to the city and country generically as "Brunei".

It's really odd that a country with so much oil wealth has such a lousy airport! There wasn't any air-conditioning inside or it wasn't turned on!

Notice the Arabic lettering on the signs. Although Brunei and Malaysia both use the Malay language, Brunei still uses the Arabic script adapated for the Malay langage which they call Jawi for formal signage. In regular life people just use the standard Latin script for representing the Malay language.

By the time we arrived at my cousin's house in Brunei and unpacked, it was already mid-afternoon so she suggested that we go see the Royal Regalia Building in downtown. The museum is the home of the Coronation & Silver Jubilee Chariot, Royal Regalia of the coronation of the present Sultan of Brunei and numerous gifts from state dignitaries.

The official website of the museum is here.

Admission was free and we had to take off our shoes inside the museum.

The building has an odd shaped design. I think it looks like an ice cream cone. Because there are no signs telling you the name of the roads in Brunei, thats how my cousin described the building to us in order for us to find the building.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures except for the area in the main atrium which housed the coronation chariot.

This being Brunei, all the gold on the chariot is real!

Kuala Lumpur: Merdeka Square and Departure

2009-12-29T17:54:00.001-08:00

On May 12, 2008 we spent a half-day exploring the Kuala Lumpur city centre before going to the airport at late noon for our evening flight back to Singapore.

We started out at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre area where our hotel was located and took the LRT system to the old downtown area.

The Kuala Lumpur City Centre area is also where the Petronas Twin Towers and Suria shopping mall are located. In front of the twin towers is a massive landscaped park.

Another picture of the twin towers taken from the park.

Also in front of the park, there is a large fountain.

A sign inside the supermarket which I thought was interesting.

Next we move onto the old downtown area of Merdeka Square. This was where the British Union Jack was lowered for the last time in 1957 and the Malaysian flag raised. Merdeka stands for Independence in the Malay language.

On the left of the square is the Sultan Abdul Samad Building. This building housed the former British colonial administration.

Directly in from of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building is the Royal Selangor Club. It was the most exclusive whites-only club in colonial times. The square itself was a former cricket ground for the British colonial administration.

After going to the Merdeka Square area we headed to the airport. There was a nice scaled display of the airport and its future expansion plans.

Currently only one of those cross shaped satellite terminal buildings have been built. Considering how un-busy the airport is, I don't know when the other satellite building will ever be built.

Pictures of the cross-shaped satellite building.

Near the centre of the cross-shaped satellite building.