Bintan, Indonesia

Went to Bintan, Indonesia, for a company trip last wk. Bintan is not very pretty as Indonesian islands go, but it's pretty enough for Singaporeans who seek a nearby getaway for nice beaches, a wide variety of resorts and cheapish seafood. As such, the place is crowded w/ Singaporeans and expats from Singapore. But it is still miles better than Batam, another nearby Indonesian island also popular w/ Singaporeans, but for altogether seedier reasons. We stayed at the Nirwana Gardens and had a blast playing team games like Pleasure Hunt (Items to find: red bra, male & female g-strings, 6 toenail cuttings etc), frisbee, Striptionary and fancy dress competition. My team lost at everything (including Striptionary! how cld we lose at Striptionary?!!) except fancy dress. We came as High School for the Dysfunctional. We were an odd bunch - perverted headmaster, pregnant teen slut, 2 idiots, school bully, wannabe cheerleader and I was underage genius w/ my underage and equally nerdy boyfriend (actually Carmen, a female colleague). Later into the night, I dumped my nerdy boyfriend and his Thomas The Steam Engine water bottle and morphed into an Ah Lian. Also tried the Britney circa Baby Hit Me One More Time look.


Beach idyll
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Our hotel
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Nice sea-facing pool area
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We all wore this T-shirt for games. The thickest T-shirt this side of the equator. Almost died of heat-stroke.
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An Educational Tour in Kyoto & Nara

There are many awesome and justifiably famous sights in Japan, so lots of people wanna see them. This naturally means it's rather unlikely that you find yourself alone in a well-known site of historical interest or a much-photographed shrine. However, you might still be surprised by just how crowded it can get. Some places are simply swamped with school excursions. When we hit the Kyoto and Nara leg of our trip, it often felt like every Japanese school kid was headed to where we were going.

Kyoto Station
We saw a couple of trains that were entirely reserved for schools. Where do they bring these kids?! What happened to trips to the local zoo?!

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Kinkaku Ji, Kyoto
The famous Golden Pavilion. The original medieval structure was burned down by an arsonist in 1950. This is the exact replica in all its glimmering beauty.

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Ready for the calendar close-up.
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If you wanted to see calendar pictures, you didn't have to leave your desk. There are many photographers for hire to take just the perfect picture for your group. Oh, this was the quiet side.
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Japanese school group photo 101: girls on one side, boys on the other. Boys look bored & cool. Girls do the V-sign and flash a kawaii smile. Hai, chiii-zu!
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A crowd buying omamori (amulets) from a booth.
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Nijo-jo, Kyoto
Nijo Castle is a medieval castle in Kyoto famous for its nightingale floors. The floorboards were built such that every step will make them 'sing', making detection of the most stealthy intruder easy. I didn't take any pictures there. All the hallways were packed w/ noisy, boisterous school kids jostling around in socks. A narrow corridor with 200 pairs of socks and recorded commentary playing loudly and repeatedly for every damn painted wall and gilded screen can make even a Zen monk hyperventilate.

Todai Ji, Nara
The Todai Ji complex is a place of superlatives. The Great Buddha Hall, completed in the early 1700s, is still the biggest wooden building in the world. The seated Buddha inside is the world's largest bronze image of the Buddha.

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Begging for the caption: Deer me!
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All the easier to run around.
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The hole in this pillar is the same size as the bronze Buddha's nostril and it is said that those who can crawl through will be blessed with eternal wisdom. There are many kids queueing up to squeeze through the hole. It does beat cramming for exams.
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An entire row of souvenir shops outside the complex.
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Kokufuji Temple, Nara
The chika senbei (deer cracker) sellers in Nara Park do a brisk business selling to kids who want to feed the tame deer. Howie bought around 10 bundles because he enjoys feeding them too. Outside Todai Ji, along the row of souvenir shops, there were about 10 kids to a deer. Does Bambi get indigestion?

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Ryokan Resting

We stayed in ryokans throughout our trip. These ryokans were usually budget places that welcome foreigners. Loos were all clean but outside the bedroom, futon were comfy and I watched lots of fascinating ads on the little TVs.

Andon Ryokan, Tokyo

We stayed in Andon Ryokan in Tokyo. The staff are most helpful and friendly, especially Yuki-san who speaks some Indonesian! It's a budget modern ryokan but it's stylish, impeccably clean and even has a very fine jacuzzi on the 4th floor that you can book for your own use. It was designed by a professor of architecture from Waseda University. It's a 10-minute walk from Minowa Station, and not in the bright lights of Tokyo but it's 2 stops away from Ueno station so it rather convenient for train travel, and the neighbourhood has shitamachi atmosphere aplenty. There are some good restaurants nearby - Iseya, a restaurant widely recommended by many, including Rick Kennedy in his Little Adventures in Tokyo, for its Edomae-style tempura, a horse sashimi restaurant (Isaac gasps!) and Owariya sobaya.

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Osenkaku, Takaragawa Onsen

Great ryokan experience. Awesome food, excellent service and what a view!

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Murakamiya Ryokan, Kyoto

Convenient location near the station. Guests have to leave the ryokan from 10am-3pm every day for cleaning. When we got to the front door of the ryokan, Howie realised that it was the same place he stayed in his backpacking trip in 2001. He clearly remembers sitting on the step, putting on his shoes, when an American couple asked him whether he knew if there was a McDonald's nearby. At night, I took one of the many Lonely Planets jettisoned by previous guests and saw that Murakamiya Ryokan is on the recommended list. So, if you're seeking a true traditional ryokan experience, you might wanna check out Tawaraya or some other place. We bought loads of food from a supermarket and had a take-out feast in our room on the first night. I particularly remember the sweetness and aroma of the steamed kabocha (small Japanese pumpkin) and the tiny Nara strawberries that perfumed the whole room and tasted like summer on my tongue. Their strawberryness surprised me. They were not watery and insipid like the giant strawberries you often get air-flown to this part of the world. Howie bought a slab of karashi mentaiko (a spicy roe of some fish) to eat w/ rice. I do realise that my accommodation review is actually becoming a food review in disguise.

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Seikan-so Ryokan, Nara

I'd specifcally requested for a garden-facing room when I made the reservation because I had read that this ryokan has the prettiest garden. It did. And the room was large and comfy. The ryokan is located in the pretty Naramichi district, the old quarter with many merchant homes (now converted into craft shops and galleries). But the large inn is old and the corridors and hallways are very dark. Throw in the red carpets, yellowed chandeliers, empty rooms and sad, quiet air, and you've a combi that made me rather uneasy at night, especially when I had to walk to the bathroom. But I am also not your paragon of courage so you might find it just perfect and cosy.

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Sanja Matsuri

We arrived on the morning of May 21, the 2nd day of the Sanja Matsuri, one of Tokyo's three grandest festivals. Our ryokan was near Asakusa, so in the evening, we walked to the Senso-ji Temple, venue of the Sanja Matsuri and one of Tokyo's most sacred and most popular temples. On the way there, we passed by many neighbourhoods that were busy in the midst of preparing for the event. Lanterns and festive decorations were hung everywhere, people were dressed in happi, kids were having much fun playing around and sometimes on the mikoshi (portable shrines). The atmosphere was very festive and cheery.

You can see 1 big mikoshi and 2 smaller ones in the picture
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Fun before the festival
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Built in 1618, Nitenmon Gate is the oldest structure on the site of Asakusa Kannon
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Mikoshi processions. The ornate mikoshi, almost all sporting gold lacquer, are vehicles of the temple's deities and the purpose of parading them through the neighbourhood is to spread prosperity and good fortune. The bearers make the journey a rough one because the more the deity is shaken and thrown about, the more widely spread the good fortune.

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The grounds of the temple are packed with game and snack stalls during the 3-day festival.


Game stalls. I never quite figured out how many of them worked. The floating Pooh bears (bottom right) baffle me most.
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Food stalls

Agemanjyu - fried cakes with a filling of red bean paste. .

Lollies from Pooh to Pikachu
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Takoyaki
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Okonomiyaki - overstuffed crepes. 500Y each, as you can clearly see.
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The ubiquitous choco banana.
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The five-storey was built in the 1970s and is a replica of the original structure
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Lovely Shrines

After a few days in Japan, you might get all shrined out. The graceful grandeur of a torii or the serenity of a temple garden no longer evoke the original sense of wonder. Out of the shrines and temples that I visited in my trip, the Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto and the Kasuga Taisha in Nara Park stand out in my memory as shining examples of serenity and beauty.


Fushimi Inari Taisha

Fushimi Inari Taisha is located just outside of JR Inari station in south Kyoto. It is the head shrine of all the thousands of Inari shrines all over Japan. Inari is a Shinto deity of rice. There are countless torii donated by companies and other well-wishers on the grounds of the shrine.


The torii are set in a wooded area and because I saw very few people while walking in the avenues of vivid vermilion, it felt emphatically surreal - almost as if I was in Miyazaki Hayao's Spirited Away.
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If we go down the wrong tunnel, will we enter another realm?
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Higgledy-piggledy
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A shrine of mini torii
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Rows of ema boards and bundles of pretty origami left by students prayers for good school results.
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Kasuga Taisha

Kasuga Grand Shrine was the family shrine of the Fujiwaras, a clan of political movers and shakers of the Nara and Heian periods in Japanese history. It's a very important shrine and like the Great Shrine of Ise, it used to be rebuilt ever 20 years according to Shinto practice of purification but that is no longer practiced.


The Kasuga Grand Shrine is famous for the thousands of ishidori (stone lanterns) that line its paths. They are lit twice a year - in early February and Obon in August.
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Howie feeds one of the many tame deer w/ a chika senbei (deer cracker). 150Y for a little bundle. Honor system.
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Holy boobies!
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More boobie boards a few steps away.
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No-Sweat Beauty: Hot Steamy Soaks in Heaven

I've had the good fortune of having done a reasonable bit of travelling. I've walked in places of awe-inspring beauty and seen sceneries of majesty that have almost made me felt spiritual.

But sometimes, beauty can be well, quite difficult. It can be a monotonous, red-eye bus ride, a 12-hour journey in a contorted position in a packed train carriage with colourful but smelly passengers and their smellier livestock, a scorching hike or an endless butt-breaking donkey trek away. But yes, the joy of travel lies not just in the destination but in the journey too. Hence we try to experience the new sights, smells and sounds as best as we can. We try to leave behind hygiene and comfort expectations of our usual lives; we are after all, guests in a beautiful country we wanted to visit. And when you end the joyous travel in that cattle class train carriage w/ a busted bladder, the scenery that you are rewarded with might be marvelous (more so if you got lost for an hr after leaving the train station), with a choir of angels singing in the background and all, BUT it could also be crowded w/ fellow travellers holding the German version of your guidebook, kitschy souvenir or Pepsi-hawking touts, package tourists and their chirpy guides w/ loudspeakers. Or worse, poverty.

You know what I am talking about. The pre-teen beggar girls carrying thin babies with wild hair, holding out their dirt-streaked, empty palms and asking you, with empty eyes, for "Dollar! Dollar!". The natives in their glorious 'traditional native dress' performing a ceremonial dance while their native relatives wear raggedy T-shirts. The realisation that your The North Face down sleeping bag cost more than your dinner host's house.

Some people find poverty to be rather picturesque because there are usually no ugly cables, neon fire escape signs, no golden arches. It's all so untouched, so wonderfully primitive, so rustic, they say. Then there are some who feel guilty or uncomfortable at the sight of poverty, especially poverty in the midst of grand beauty. They don't feel so uncomfortable that they are compelled to abandon their backpacks and save the world so they photograph just the pretty sights and snap a few pictures of the grubby but grinning and picturesque kids and try to leave w/ just pretty memories.

It can all still be very beautiful, but it can get difficult. Sometimes, I want beauty unadulterated by guilt and garbage, pukey ferry rides, the masses, tiresome haggling, loo and landmine horrors, conmen etc. I just want pure beauty, straight up. And I want it all the easy way. I got what I want, and more, at the stupendously spectacular Takaragawa Onsen, Gunma Prefecture.

Takaragawa Onsen
The building on the left bank of the river is where we stayed. A glimpse of one of the hot springs on the right.
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Osenkaku Ryokan
This is the First Annex (Dai-ichi Bekkan) of Osenkaku Ryokan. Our room is the one in the middle.
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A Room With A River View
We slept to the sound of the rushing river and woke up to the ravishing view.
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Ko Dakara no Yu
One of the 4 outdoor hot springs and the only one on this side of the river.
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Ko Dakara no Yu
Picture taken from the bridge. This hot spring has the best view of the river because the surrounding rocks are lower.
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Ma Ka no Yu
We took many pictures in the onsen because there were no other bathers that Tuesday morning. And very few the previous day too, actually.
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Ma Ka no Yu
It has a lukewarm shower from a suspended hollowed log.
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Ma Ya no Yu
A women-only bath. That lone bather is me.
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It was an awesome stay and the kaiseki dinner and Japanese breakfast served at the ryokan were delicious too, unless you are squeamish about bear. And, my skin was smooth as a baby's after soaking in all that good water. A girl couldn't ask for more. Except, maybe, a wish for beauty and eternal youth.