Water Water All Around

and not a drop to drink! My journey to Venezia was an amusing one. I had no idea the trains would be so full that I can't get tickets for the time that I needed... So how did I get there and what did I see?

Staying in A/C is Not Ideal for Travelling

Shanghai was hot, scorching hot. What is someone who melts in any sort of heat to do? Shopping, I guess.

Winter Wonderland: Whistler

Whistler does seem to have a longer "winter" than does home. If we got a foot of snow dumped on the ground the day before, we'd be stuck at home for a week. Luckily, that's not the case in Whistler.

Roma, Roma-ma

My flight to Rome from Eindhoven was cancelled courtesy of horrible weather, so I embarked on a 20 hour train ride instead. I don't regret being stubborn and spending a fortune on those train tickets, though. The Roman experience was more than worth it.

Bits of Germany 2

Germany is a large country, but Bavaria is supposed to have the most beautiful scenery of all. Schloss Neuschwanstein and Garmisch-P has more than convinced me. See for yourself!

Showing posts with label kyushu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kyushu. Show all posts

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Hells of Japan

Though unfortunately, the hells of Japan may be further up in the North Eastern region at the moment. Yes, you just heard the sound of heartbreak.


Anyway, so I'm now travelling way back in time to mid August of 2010. For those who don't know, this was my 4th visit to Japan in 5 years, and no, I never seem to get tired of it because each Japanese city presents an entirely different charm to seduce you into returning. That, and delicious food. 


But I've already posted about food extensively here, so I'm not going to repeat myself... too much. 


Probably somewhere in Oita while the train speeds by


I swear, the Japanese countryside has some of the most mesmerising views. I love looking out the window while the fields and "toy houses" pass me by. Rooftops are often adorned by the same type of tiles, I guess that's why they give off that distinctively Japanese feeling. 


Sooooo big


Beppu is an expensive place to stay, and we were too late to try and book a minshuku  (民宿). My English is failing me again, stupid Japanese. We got this place at about $120 a night, which I guess was reasonable considering the gorgeous view and location.


The sea! THE SEA!!!

Look at all those yachts.


I love looking at the sea, I realised, and it always brought it such comfortable breezes at night. I don't have that many photos of this town, but it was littered with hot springs of all kinds. You have the common ones where it's a stone-lined pool of sorts, there was a sand bath where you get buried in sand (you get a special bath robe called yukata for that). Health benefits are probably debatable (the Japanese claim near miraculous things with them), but the sheer comfort isn't. There needs to be more hot springs here.


Just some residential area near one of the springs we visited.

The two of us decided not to visit the 7 Hells of Beppu (little brother insisted that no geysers are going to beat the ones at Yellowstone National Park). So nothing to show there. One day, though, we'll return to this beautiful southern island of Japan and I may insist on going just to try the Hell Eggs (they're supposed to be steamed to perfection).


Toyo tsune.


Remember how I mentioned that Toyo tsune is really busy ? You probably don't because it's been months since I posted about it I just wanted a photo to show for it. 

By fishii with 1 comment

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

kyushu food

I'm back to posting about food. Recently I've been obsessing about food, what am I going to have for dinner? Oh look! A fries shop! A bakery! A chocolate store! What recipe should I try out? So today I'm going to let that keep going and post Only about food.


 
Hakata ramen from a store in Daimyo-ku, Fukuoka (I forgot the name...)

So I've decided that I absolutely love Hakata ramen. I've only been to one place that successfully made me thing it was mediocre, all the other ramen places just blew me away. This one had a soup base so milky it's hard not to just drink it up. Delicious gyoza too! Man... I want gyoza... the skin was so thin, the insides were so good, indescribable!

From this lunch, the bumhead of my little brother and I headed to Beppu for tons of hot spring enjoyment. But that's not the point of this post! So no talk of hot springs, onto the topic of dinner we go. We bought some sushi and okonomiyaki from a supermarket just across a park from our hotel. Luckily we just hit discount time (where they start putting a discount on all ready-made-food that hasn't been sold yet), and dinner was tres cheap =D.


So lunch the next day is going to be the last part of this post, or I'll seriously go buy a ticket and fly back to Fukuoka to eat. There's this amazingly delicious restaurant a block away from our hotel called Toyo Tsune. When I say amazing, I mean it's super famous too. The lines were insane (we got there just before lunch hour rush) and managed to get in within 10 minutes. 


 
toyo tsune set - even the rice looks perfectly cooked.


bumhead's ten-don. i would've ordered it too, if i wasn't coughing up a storm. the store is famous for this dish, and understandably so. The batter is light and the sauce has just enough flavour.

a look at their kitchen - this is where we sat and got served hot off the grill food.

和牛 cabbage wrap.

What is 和牛 in English anyway? That's it for today! Stay tuned for more food photos from fishii!

By fishii with 3 comments

Friday, August 27, 2010

Fukuoka Day 1

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I was too busy sightseeing and having fun in Fukuoka, so I’ve neglected keeping everyone update. Sorry~ m(_  _)m

So as promised, I’ll post more about sightseeing so that not every post is tagged “food”. Anyway, it seems like no visit to Japan would be complete without visiting a temple. We visited a small (but seemingly very famous) temple called Kushida Shrine. I enjoyed it, because though it lay in the centre of town, it had a very peaceful 
atmosphere. I was tempted to stay for a longer time, it was that attractive, and it made me feel really calm (despite the almost unbearable heat).

I’ll maybe upload more photos when I set up a Picasa account or something, since my flickr is over limit…

Then we headed over to a shopping mall called Canal City, named because it has a small flow of water going through the centre of the mall. I love shopping and all, but this mall might be more of a tourist attraction than a shopping centre to me. That or I didn’t want to shop on my first day in Japan. ^^;; Guilt trip anyone? Anyway, there were cool performances happening, I really enjoyed my time there.

I think I’ve already mentioned dinner for that night. I’m just a little tired from the flight to Amsterdam, I’ll continue catching up another day. Maastricht is a nice place, so hopefully I’ll get to post about it soon. I also apologize for the hideous layouts. XD

By fishii with 1 comment

Friday, August 13, 2010

The Fukuoka Menu

Due to a delay in our flight (with bad weather conditions in both HK where the flight departs and Fukuoka where the flight lands), we didn’t get to our hotel until 10:30PM. Made me super tired and susceptible to Arnold’s cold. I’m now coughing.

It seems that I have neglected posting about the delicious shaved ice I had at XiMen before I left for the airport, so I must include a photo in this post. It’s as attractive visually as it is… taste…wise? Wow, my English…

The menus on the table are almost unbelievable.
Anyway, we started yesterday with a quick lunch at Hakata Station. Nothing like Soba to beat the heat (it’s supposed to help lower body temperature, according to my host family mother).
my brother’s lunch, an original at the restaurant
my inaka soba
For our afternoon snack (we always have those), we visited a super market and grabbed some croquette and milk tea. We also decided to “gaijin smash” it, and ate on the side of a shopping street. It’s not really appropriate if you’re Japanese… But it was fun watching people glance at us from time to time. LOL

In Fukuoka, there are food stalls that set up alongside a river that runs through city centre for dinner. They offer a wide variety of foods and tons of people visit these stalls. However, given the heat that I’m not used to, I decided for the two of us that we were going to hit up a restaurant for some famous Hakata ramen…

Which, by the way, turned out to be delicious. Sometimes I find ramen to be too salty, actually, a lot of times, I find ramen to be too salty, but the place I went to (which unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of…) was great! It was flavourful without being overbearing, and all in all very good for only ¥500 – ¥800 for each menu item.
Sightseeing will go in another post so I don’t have the food tag on every bloody post I make. I also apologize for the poor quality of the photos. Too lazy to take out the dSLR all the time...

By fishii with 1 comment