May 2020

All too soon, it's already June, and it's time for me to record down my scheduler for the month of May. Almost half a year gone, and what have I achieved in life? So many things had to be put on hold as I can't travel. Hopefully the world will go back to normal soon. I really want to go back to Penang to settle some housing situation!

The month of May is also a restricted movement month. Mostly I spend it at home or at work, and cooking lots of food to eat. It seems I mainly cook either pasta, or Japanese food, or simple chinese dishes. A lot of planning is required since I can't just casually go out to get ingredient for the food. So besides food, what else could be part of the highlight of my life in May?

Well, for the very first time, I ordered a book from Amazon Japan! And it wasn't like a planned purchased either. It was more of an impulsive buy because the content of the book was just too hard to resist. So above was the book I bought, and it's about how to turn your house into a cafe, which I am already half way there anyway. It actually came with an offer to purchase two books at a price of one, but unfortunately the other book order was cancelled. So I only got one. I am trying to read it slowly, and enjoying every page of it because it's just such a beautiful book. Because of it, I have been picking up on my Japanese vocabulary and I hope to continuously improve it through out my life. If ever there is a country I wish I could live in, it has got to be Japan. 

For some weird reason, or perhaps because I can't dine out any more, and thus not able to eat my monthly steak, my husband decided that it was no longer taboo to cook beef at home. So every time I drop by to do my groceries, I would buy a nice piece of beef for myself. The above was a ribeye that I got from NTUC at only 6SGD. I had craving for beef cube, so I cut it up before air frying them. 

Here's the feast I prepared. I paired the ribeye with a Japanese Steak House sauce I got from Don Don Donki, and it just taste so wonderful together! The steak house was a place I dined at when we where having a blizzard winter in Hokkaido, so it tasted extra special! And those beautiful egg rolls, well, I finally got a tamagoyaki pan for like 13SGD? So now I make these delightful eggs whenever I can. 

Lastly, the JanBeBe detective ladies were at it again, but having our first online escape room gaming night! Hahahaha. We had it on a Saturday from 8pm onwards, using Google meeting to share the screen to play. One week before, there were some testing conducted to ensure everything would be smooth, and evaluating on the conferencing tools to use. On the day itself, setting up the terminal and screen share also took some time. But by 730pm, to my surprise when I announced that the room was opened for connection testing, all the ladies joint and we started to play. I initially planned for 3 games, starting from the easier first, but the lowest level took us 2 hours to complete! And we used one clue just to proceed in the game after getting stuck at the very beginning! Tough game! But it was fun!

So there you have it, the highlight of my May. Since I don't really journal much, my physical scheduler book has become a kind of a scrapbook for momentos. Above are the packaging of some Taiwanese Hello Kitty cookies which are so cute! And a drip coffee letter from my friend Pei Shi. She send it from Kao Siong, and I just thought the packaging was just so wonderful! 

That's all for now. Most probably June would look just about the same. I'm writing this actually on 5th June, and it doesn't seems that much would be different from the past few months! Haha. Stay safe everyone!

Kyoto Sept 2019 : Kiyomizudera Temple (Inside)

I know it's not a lot of money to pay for a ticket to go into this UNESCO place, but even then, it took me quite a long time before deciding to purchase a ticket to enter. I think it cost around 400Yen? or maybe 500Yen? I have totally forgotten. But since I have already come all the way there, and I don't know when I would be here again.... I initially hesitated because the temple was actually under renovation, so I thought it might not be worth going in. But in the end, I decided to forgo my lunch money and got myself a ticket to go in.  Hahahaha. I know, I am quite a miser. I purposely took a photo of the ticket, as proof of the money spend! 

The moment you enter, everything is dark. I am not sure if it's usually like this, or because the place was under renovation and the scaffolding blocks the sun from coming in? But what I notice the first thing I walked in are these beautiful lanterns inside the temple.

To me the lantern it self was like national treasure! They look so luxurious and so beautiful in design. The entrance building was being renovated, so it was kinda crowded and stuffy. 

Outside is more of a wooden and metal structure feel. At the famous platform of the temple, it was under renovation, but many people stood around to look out into the view.

Here is me again with the school excursion kids. I like how their red cap match the red pagoda in the far out greens. 

Walking around the temple since, it can be divided into a few section, which I will slowly blog in different post. But this is just a over view post, so I'll just show some of the things you can see inside. there are of course buildings with Jizo and different Buddha's and Gods inside. Above is more stone Jizo all dressed up in red. I also love those paper lanterns they hang around certain part of the temple.

Here is one of the main hall with a golden Buddha inside. It has a Vesak Day color on it. 

The temple ground is really huge, and there are park like feel to it, even when you exit the main temple and made your way down the hill. You can still see Jizo all along the path. And all these still doesn't really cover the main attraction of Kiyomisuzera, which is the three waterfall. Don't worry, I will have a post on that too!

But first, a selfie of me, with the view of Kyoto City far away. You can tell it's Kyoto City cause you can see Kyoto Tower right there! And Yes, I walked all the way from there to here where I took this photo of myself! I love travelling, cause I exercise so much more than if I were to just be at home working......I miss travelling. 

Kyoto Sept 2019 : Kiyiomizudera Temple (Outside)

After my breakfast at tatami Starbuck, I made my way to Kiyiomizudera Temple. It was easy to find, cause the moment I reach the main road I can see the road, and all I had to do was follow the crowd direction to reach the temple. Above is the entrance when you know you have reach it.

This is the view from the temple entrance looking down. You can see many people are already there. I like this view too cause it shows the shops at ground level and the stairs going up to the temple. 

There were many school kids around, and you can spot them in group wearing the same cap, and usually a teacher accompanying them. For the most part of the way, I tag along behind of them as it kinda helped me clear the crowd in front of me, and I kinda blend in so that I don't look like I'm too touristy. This was especially useful when I was walking up the temple with them, cause the shop owner were a lot more friendlier to the kids then to people they can't communicate so easily with. So I get to see a different view of this place.

There are more senior student group and their teacher. 

At this point in time, I haven't really decided to go into the main temple as you need to purchase a ticket for it. So I decided to take a walk outside the temple ground first. There were some old temple around the ground, and I went exploring around. I like wooden structure like the one above. There is just something very soothing about dark wooden things, and walking through them into another dimension of greeneries. 

There were some beautiful ponds around too. Too bad it wasn't full autumn yet. There were maple leaves around, but they were still pretty green when I was there. 

Beautiful Japanese garden can be found here and there. With stone carving of wisdom words on them that I can't quite read, but I can make out that they were wisdom words from the Chinese characters that I do recognise. 

I found a corner of all these little stone jizo around.

The stones and the glass and the bright flowers really make these scene so surreal. 

After exploring the ground around, I made my way back to the main entrance area.

Still undecided where to spend my money on an entrance ticket, I linger outside and watch people in Japanese traditional clothes taking photos all around the place. The tourist were also taking photos of them cause it really goes well with the scene there.

You can see beautiful stone pagoda, as well as bright red pagoda as contrast here.

Here are the beautiful bright red pagoda that really look great on all photos.

The red pagoda roof is really pretty. But these aren't my favourite picture of the pagoda. I think I have some more iconic photo of these pagoda coming up in maybe a few post from now. Do look out for them. I promise they will be iconic!

Lastly, here is a memory shot of me and the temple behind me. 

Kyoto Sept 2019 : Tatami Starbucks

Continue on my journey from my last post, I was looking for the one of a kind tatami Starbuck in Kyoto. Above is actually the front of the store. You would never have guess, would you?

Here is another view of the shop front. So can you tell which shop is Starbuck? Yeah. Me neither. I must have walked up and down the same road three times with my GPS trying to locate this shop. The reason I couldn't find it was because it has blend so well into the Japanese traditional shops that it's kinda hard to shot!

This is the entrance to the store. It looked just like any other Japanese store there! No bight green giant green mermaid sign at all. Everything is just natural wood in color, with a small sign that says "Starbuck Coffee". I like it so much. It's so minimalist design and so typical Japanese!

One of the tell tale sign to finding this place is to look for the high concentration of the caucasian hanging outside the store. They like taking photo of this Starbuck, cause it's so different from any other Starbucks in the world! I even helped some ladies took their photo, and they were really embarrassed when they ask to have their photo taken with the store, haha! I told them I was also there for Starbucks. 

After my photo duty is done, I made my way inside to the store. Interestingly the pathway lead you all the way to the back of the store and made a u-turn back into the front where the order counter is. So in away, you get to enjoy the view of the whole shop. Inside is just as beautiful and minimalistic in design. Dark wood and natural light shining in. The ground floor was concrete, so the reflection of the natural light coming in reflected on the floor making it such a elegant ambiance. 

There are some Japanese decorating along the long pathway too, so you really get a feel of coming into another area, a very Japanese zen kinda feel to it. The place just instantly make you feel relax. I don't know if the wooden surrounding absorb the sound, or it was too early in the morning to have many customers in the store, but it was quite peaceful and quiet.

Here are some seating area on the ground floor. Interestingly, there weren't any one on the ground floor. The store has 2 stories, and seeing how empty it is made me hopeful that I would get a nice seat upstairs as well! HA! How wrong I was. 

One the ground floor, there is also a small garden beautifully decorated at the back of the store. The glass door  is transparent, so you can view out to the garden as the photo above. Very zen like. 

As you make you u-turn, you finally see a very big but unassuming Starbuck mermaid gently printed on the wall. That's when you finally feel like, yeah, you are in the right place after all. Haha. Else your brain is like going "is this really Starbucks?", "it doesn't feel like Starbucks", "Are you sure this is Starbucks?" on and on. Finally you reach the order counter, and that is where I placed my order, sweet potato frappe again! Woohoo! SGD7 breakfast was all I could afford until lunch time.

After I got my drink, I made my way upstairs. My goal was to get a seat by the front window so that I can look down into the streets below. The flooring upstairs are made of wood, and there are seats here and there, as well as room partition. It feels quiet, but almost every corner I went was filled with people, either alone or with a small group, sipping on their coffee, and not making much noise as would a normal Starbuck in any other part of the world. 

Disappointed I couldn't get a nice window seat up front, I made my way to the back of the floor, and found a window seat in one of the private room. But there was already a table occupied with some gaijin and a korean lady. I assume they were American's from their English ascent. I made my way in and sat down at one of the solo corner looking out of the second floor back window. Above is what the room look like when they left. It's super comfortable and very quiet too. I think in general, people don't talk loudly in Japan.

I have to take off my shoes to go into this tatami room, and yes, you do have to sit on the floor. It was ok for me. So I sat down and enjoy my drink. I try not to look at my phone too much, and instead look out of the window. There were some greenery outside, and it was really relaxing to just be there. 

As I start to drink my frappe, I saw the drawing and message on the cup, and it was so cute. Below it says "Welcome to Kyoto". I was there for around 1 hour, cause even though I wanted to spend the whole day there, I still need to go to the temple before it gets too crowded. 

Yes, I would definitely recommend you come visit this Starbuck if you are in Kyoto. It is a very different feeling from any other Starbucks in the world. 

Kyoto Sept 2019 : Sannen Ninen Zaka

On the first day I had to myself, I decided to go visit Koyomizu on my own. My husband was not interested to visit this place as it involves a lot of walking and also climbing up stairs and hill. But I was super psych to go here for a few reason: one was to visit the only Starbuck in the world in a matchaya traditional tea house with tatami seat, and two to visit the UNESCO site, one of the most beautiful and famous temples in Kyoto. So I decided to set off really early one morning to walk there. The plan was to have a nice breakfast at the Starbuck when it first open, and quickly go to the temple before the rest of the tourist reach there. At that point, I wasn't sure if I wanted to visit the temple, I was more interested in just visiting the old streets and shops around it. 

It's a 30 - 40 mins walk from where we stayed, and yes, I walked all the way there, in the early morning! It was a morning walk, and since the weather was quite cool, it was a lovely walk. I finally walked pass the Kamo River and above was the view on my way to the temple. It was kinda cloudy, but still beautiful in my view.

I got a bit lost on the way there after exiting the main road and headed towards the mountains as the roads become smaller and less organised. I mean, there were alley ways here and there and I wasn't sure if I was headed in the right directions.

But I guess I was nearby cause from time to time I spotted pagodas along the way, or old stones and monument. The experience of walking through the old streets was also an experience by itself. I guess it wasn't something most tourist get to experience as this was kinda the opposite direction to the temple. At the sign of the Kiyomisu road junction, the correct path was to turn right and head straight to the temple. But I headed left towards the residential area as it was a shorter way to reach Starbucks.

Finally I saw some sign that seems to say I was now in the old area of Sannen and Ninen Zaka. And slowly old traditional shops become visible. 

The walkways and alley were cobble-like and look so beautiful, especially since it was still early morning and there wasn't many people around. Actually there were a few what looked like Taiwanese or Chinese wedding photography going around taking in the scenes for their wedding album. I kinda spoil their beautiful view of the empty streets I guess, haha. 

Most of the shops were not opened yet, so I can really take a slow walk around. 

Here's one selling ceramic, and look at all the cute ceramic their just put all over the floor outside! I couldn't help taking a snap of this. Most of the shops have a no photography sign on it. But not this one! haha. I love ceramics. I love pretty potteries.

The whole area was like a maze. And there were also steps going up or down cutting through the neighbourhood, or act as a shortcut. Along the way, you could see signs like the above, that gives you a glimpse of all the hidden cafe and accommodation available all around. 

The above is the old shop streets headed to the main temple entrance. As you can see, it was already kinda crowded when I finally reached there. This was after I connected back into the main path and the shops started to open. It was a narrow street, and I didn't mind the crowd as I could browse the things being offered for sale at a slower pace. Mainly I try to find a school excision group and walk along with them at the back. They helped clear the way for me, and the shop owner assume I was part of the group as their teacher or something.  But all that is in another post. First I have to achieve my first objective of being here, Tatami Starbucks!

Actually I got kinda lost and confused looking for it. First, I walked up and down the same road like three times! I was following my GPS, and it kept telling me the shop was on the same road, but I have walked pass it. It didn't matter whether I walk up or down, I kept missing it. Perhaps in my mind I was expecting to see a Starbuck sign to show where the shop was. But this was a traditional heritage road, so in a way, they have certain guidelines here I guess. So Starbuck was actually along this road. And if you take a look of the photos here and above, it's kinda hard to spot it, right? Hahaha. I will show you where Starbuck is in the next post.

But first, here's a selfie of me along the beautiful traditional streets with nobody behind me. I look so cute with my lost hat too! Yes. I lost my hat. Not in Japan, but in Bangkok after this trip. And up to this day, I am sad about it. Hahaha. But never mind, that is another story. First, let's go to Tatami Starbuck in the next post!