April 14th, 2007
We were surpised to see such a huge amount of food for breakfast. This time we cooked the slightly strange squid sashimi with the boiling miso soup — I know this isn’t right, but it did taste better.
Our hiking plan was disturbed by the frequent rain showers during the day. We spent most of the day in and around Kinugawa Onsen’s centre instead and stumbled across a local festival with residents performaning Japanese dancing and singing. Since we were the only foreigners there, the locals welcomed us with some food and gave Brad a cotton scarf as a souvenir.
Travel Tip: When in doubt, always bow to express apology or appreciation.
Suggested schedules drafted by a friend who knows Japan really well (times are approximate):
- 9:00 - Train from Kinugawa Onsen Station to Ryuokyo Station (hiking along the waterfall and river, about 40 mins)
- 13:00 - Train from Kinugawa Onsen station to Asakusa Station on the Tobu line (2 hours)
- Subway Ginza train from Asakusa to Ginza Station
- Walk to Washinton Hotel in Ginza (5 mins)
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April 13th, 2007
A good night sleep was followed by a simple Japanese, starch-heavy breakfast and an early start up to the mountain. The bus journey was quite long and windy and mum wasn’t feeling great on the way back. But the view on the top was magnificent; with impressive landscape such as Lake Chuzenji and Kegon Falls.
Toshogu Temple is worth seeing if you haven’t already seen thousands of other temples in Japan, and we couldn’t be bothered to pay to get on to the Sacred Bridge.
It was strange to get on the train again after yesterday’s 15 hour travel. We were all very looking forward to the traditional Japan dinner at the Kinugawa Onsen Hotel and a hot spa afterwards.
Dinner turned out to be a two hour ceremony with over ten interesting but suspicious-looking dishes, served by a lady in a traditional kimono. It was 100 per cent fun, but I wasn’t really that keen on the raw baby squid.
My mum and I enjoyed the hot spa and tried out different pools of varying temperatures. Brad wasn’t pleased to find out that we were not joking about having to be naked in the segregated hot spa but enjoyed it in the end.
Travel Tip: You are required to wash before getting into the hot spa and no clothing is allowed. A night for four at the Kinugawa Onsen Hotel including dinner and breakfast costs ¥55,200 (less than HK$900 per person).
Suggested schedules drafted by a friend who knows Japan really well (times are approximate):
- 8:00 - Tobu Bus from near the hotel to Lake Chuzenji and Kegon Falls
- 11:00 - Tobu bus back to Toshogu Temple and Sacred Bridge
- 15:00 - Pick up luggage from the hotel and go to the station
- Train from Tobu Nikko Station to Kinugawa Onsen station (may need to transfer at Imoimaichi station)
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April 12th, 2007
The long start to our trip commenced at 5am and eventually ended in Nikko at 8pm as we settled in to our first guest house. The fifteen hours of travel consisted of a 45-minute taxi journey to the airport, a five-hour flight to Tokyo Narita Airport, Airport Express into the city centre, a slow two-hour train journey to Nikko, and lastly a 30-minute taxi ride to our guest house for the night.
Travel Tip: Buy a travel pass for Nikko at Asakusa Station. We bought All Nikko Passes for ¥4,400 per person that can be used on all trains and buses (including the winding bus journey up the mountain) for four days.
Suggested schedules drafted by a friend who knows Japan really well (times are approximate):
- 15:00 - From airport to Ueno by Keisei line (51 mins)
- Transfer Subway Ginza Line in Ueno to Asakusa
- 16:30 - Arrive at Asakusa
- Buy a 2-day pass and take Tobu Nikko Line from Asakusa to Nikko (2 hours)
- 19:00 - Arrive at Tobu Nikko station and then take a taxi to the hotel
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April 8th, 2007
Hong Kong has a total area of 1,104 sq km. Surprisingly, about 70 per cent of the totally area still remains remote and rural. Po Toi is one of the 235 outlying islands.
To make the most out of these beautiful rural areas, we had a health day out in Po Toi. Maggie, Ming and Inni met us in Causeway Bay at 8am and we took the dangerously fast mini-bus to Stanley, then a 30 minute ferry ride to Po Toi. It was a bit of a trek, but it’s well worth the effort.
People usually go to Po Toi for rock spotting; the famous rocks include the Buddha’s Hand, the Turtle and the Monk. It’s also a popular place for bird watchers.
A health day out ended with a couple of pints (for the boys) in an English pub and a posh Chinese meal with the rest of the group who couldn’t make it during the day. It was definitely a fun day!
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March 31st, 2007
My second set of Moo Cards arrived Thursday!
Inspired by epmd’s project, I’ll be leaving these around London, Hong Kong and probably Tokyo. If you find them, I’d like to hear from you via the e-mail address printed at the back.
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March 20th, 2007
My Moo Cards arrived over the weekend! It’s such a brilliant idea to print out the mini stylized version of your photos from Flickr, so that you can use them as business cards, gift cards, invitations, etc.
The Moo printing service is pretty straight-forward and easy to use - if you have a Flickr account, you can simply import the photos from your account to Moo, before you select the ones you want to print. 100 pieces for £9.99 (excluding postage) in any combination of up to 100 different photos of your choosing.
Next, you are ready for the most time-consuming step - cropping. Not only will you have to make a decision on how to crop your beautifully composed photos, but the cropping tool on Moo isn’t very accurate (probably the only negative aspect I’ve experienced so far). It certainly took me a while to crop my selection of 50 photos!
Apart from Flickr, you can also make mini cards from Bebo, Second Life and Habbo.
I ordered my second set of Moo Cards today - can’t wait to see them in about a week’s time.
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March 15th, 2007
I am admittedly a huge Spaced fan and have watched both series many times. Although I felt a little let down by Shaun of the Dead, I still have faith in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.
Hot Fuzz turned out to be a fantastic comedy with lots of interesting (and sometimes subtle) film references. The most obvious ones include The Wicker Man, Bad Boys II and El Mariachi.
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are as funny as always. There are also plenty of familiar faces among the supporting characters, including Edward Woodward (the original Wicker man), Timothy Dalton, Jim Broadbent, and not to mention Steve Coogan, Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman and Adam Buxton (the Adam & Joe Show). I couldn’t help but expectt Jessica Steveson (Daisy in Spaced) and Mark Heap (Brain in Spaced) to have cameos in Hot Fuzz.
It’s great to see Hot Fuzz doing well at the box office. Hopefully, it is helping to promote British comedies, which are very often much funnier than their US counterparts. Most people in the US and Hong Kong should have now heard of The Office, but there are so much more to be discovered by the international audience, such as Spaced, Green Wings, Peep Show and Black Books, only to name a few.
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March 11th, 2007
I haven’t enjoyed reading a novel so much for a little while. Donna Tartt’s story of a group of twenty-somethings’ dark past is clevely plotted and beautifully written. It was an amazing experience with plenty of suspense, getting to know the characters and trying to get into their minds. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next, but at the end of the book, I slowed down hoping to prolong the enjoyment.
The biggest attration for me was that I felt for most of the characters, even Bunny; I couldn’t help but have a sense of loss when he was gone. It was disheartening to see an innocent experiment somehow turn into a monstrous act, and even worse, turned a group of friends against each other. The ugliness of distrust was remarkably described; sharp and unmistaken. Like Richard, I was hoping that the series of incidents would only strengthen the bond between the group. That’s why it was even more painful to see them drift apart. The indifference and isolation was almost unbearable.
The Secret History remined me of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. It was shocking to see innocent kids group together to kill, but the emotion was much stronger when I was absorbed into the pyschology of the quiet, manupulative Herny and the nervous, desperate Charles in The Secret History.
4.5 of 5 stars
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March 4th, 2007
I had a relatively quiet weekend after the dim sum fest and lots of Vodka shots with Tony and Albane. We somehow managed to spent over £100 pounds on 32 dishes of dim sum between four of us at Ping Pong! The food was very nice but by the end of that meal, we couldn’t even think about food an hour later.
Next, it was Tony’s mission for the day to try the fizzy Vodka drink at Revolution. Unfortunately or fortunately, they had stopped serving it, so we switched to the Vodka sticks. After two rounds of those, we had come to a conclusion: my favourite was chocolate orange; Brad’s was raspberry; and Tony’s was probably not the chilli one, which was crazily hot and was not recommended unless you are super drunk or a masochist.
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February 26th, 2007
I walked past Gerry’s Off Licence over the weekend and saw this girlie looking bottle in the window - chocolate orange cream liqueur for sophisticats - sounded interesting, but £2.75 per bottle was not cheap. It was like an orange flavour Baileys™, but even sweeter - not sure if I would buy it again unless it’s for a girlie night in.
Gerry’s Off Licence is one of the most interesting shops in Soho. They don’t open on Sundays and don’t open late, but when they are open, it’s always busy with people browsing and pointing at a random, strange bottles. I can’t think of anything alcoholic that they don’t stock. It’s handy for turning up at parties with the most peculiar spirits.
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