Month: November 2018

11/19/2018

As always, it’s best to explore a new place on foot. We went for an early morning run towards the Kyoto Imperial Palace.

SKYWALK. Something familiar in Japan is Skywalk, one of the “knowledge transfer” we got. 😂

Around Kyoto Imperial Palace.

Best Attempt at the autumn color just because… 🙂

Strolling through the main road, it’s kinda weird and cool to see people in the same color palette lining up walking towards one direction, to their offices (I guess.).

Then we thought of going to Dotonbori to pay homage to Glico man, that running man billboard.

But we backed out because there were too many people heading to that direction. Instead we ended “holing up” in a coffee place we passed by, Millpour.

I stopped by at 711 before going back to the Inn we’re staying because somehow 711 became a must. I usually bought some food stuff to take in between.

Banana, something I had to turn my head away because I kinda find it too expensive. Sad. 🙁

This structure is a sign that it’s already my street, my hood in Osaka.

Our first dinner in Osaka was Indian food. Our first lunch is Vietnamese food. Apparently, our neighborhood food places are either 711 or this other Asian restos except for Japanese food.

Insert random photos of this day.

Selfie at a shop because it’s my very first time to wear boots ever in my whole life.

We went to Shinshaibasi shopping street. I went to Uniqlo to buy additional heat tech underlayer. Uniqlo is relatively cheaper here. But better not go to this Uniqlo Shinshaibasi branch if you can because too much people.

I wanted to eject myself right away from this place because it’s too crowded. But I have to endure it for Glico man. As a “runner,” I have to pay homage to that Glico man.

Insert random photos.

Dinner, some random finds from the hotel’s resto. I dunno if these were Chinese or Japanese food or both.

11/18/2018

These were the first concerns I had to ask the hotel staff when we arrived in Osaka which made the staff so perplexed like from what planet I was.

“Do you have safety box?”

I mean their whole country is probably one big safety box.

“Where to get drinking water? Should we buy mineral water?”

Yes, the water in the bathroom can be used from drinking to flushing your poops. 🙂

Enough said. 🙂

Day 2 started with a “I woke up like this i. Wakayama” selfie. I went up to the rooftop of Guesthouse Rico without much covering up to “acclimatize” to the coldness.

The breakfast not so #selfie.

I love Wakayama. I’m so happy we had our first days in Wakayama.

Out and about around Wakayama.

First ramen of this trip, and it was in Wakayama.

CAT ECONOMY

Cat is a big thing in Japan. They’re like everywhere.

We rode the Tama Train Cat station. It’s like the Hachiko but cat version. It’s an old train station which was supposed to be stopped but then converted into some sort of tourist attraction with the story that a train staff had a cat who used to ride with him. It’s probably some story made up to make it interesting.

Anyhow, we rode the train for the daughter who likes cats. Also, there’s a coffee shop in one of the train stops, only it was closed when we were there.The most famous car I ever met. People awere

lining up to get a photot with it.

LOCKER ECONOMY

Storage locker is being offered around Japan. It’s where you can store stuff. This is quite helpful for us.

Then off to Osaka City. I think we got on the slowest train which was included in our Kansai train day pass. Not complaining though!

Finally reunited with my luggage which was delivered by a luggage forwarder to our hotel in Osaka.

INDIAN FOOD. The first meal we had in Osaka, Japan. 😂

This na’an cheese was sooo yummyyyy!!!

Hello, Osaka!

11/17/2018

(Long post ahead. Scroll to the bottom for the lesson of the day.😂)

“Open minded ka ba?” is the itinerary.

Japan had been always on the plan for some time but I was not expecting it this year. I mean it’s too expensive, and I felt that I need to study a bit of this and that Japanese culture to truly understand why I would want to be there. Plus the need for visa.

Anyhow, Japan happened kinda unexpectedly, and I won’t be choosy na. 🙂 I mean i’m just so happy to set my foot on The Land of the Rising Sun, and that’s enough of itinerary for me.

So I’ll just get what is there waiting for me.

CHILDHOOD FLASHBACK

The first thing I saw when we got off the plane in KIX airport was a huge Super Mario Brother poster. Instantly, Japan felt familiar. Super Mario was my childhood. Proof is my very bad eyesight courtesy of playing too much Nintendo games.

Japan has this “nostalgic” feels. Like, I know that they’re so modern and high-tech but the aesthetics and the looks of the people kind of the same from the magazine I read back when I was a kid. They have this “anime-ish” look with their sformal coat and tie just like the magazine that I read in the 90s.

BAGGAGE TRANSPORT, TRAIN TIX, SIM CARDS

We stayed for awhile in the airport to do some boring stuff.

There’s the luggage forwarder. It’s a service where you can have your luggage forwarded or stored. I won’t bore you with details.

The train tickets are kind of complicated. We got ICOCA, and those day pass train tickets, and there’s too many train route maps. And I’m too lazy to understand them. My brain can only accommodate EZ Link kind of first-world public transport system.

And, local sim cards are expensive and a bit complicated to get.

SLEEP

After seeing all sorts of map in the airport, I’m so sleepy. The japanese has obsession for drawing maps. There’s train map, bus map, tourist spot map, all sorts of map. And, The cold weather did not help, and the “intentional” long flight.

Mark and I took turn sleeping after having coffee at the airport.

TOILET

Everyone raves about the toilet of Japan. It certainly deserves a whole separate post.

It definitely can do any thing including masturbate you. Just hit the “front” button, and water will spray straight to your clitoris. The Japanese could have just added a “dildo” feature, and their toilet is perfect!

So there. So far, I’m liking what Japan was throwing at me!

JAPANESE EXTREME KIND OF KINDNESS

I thought Filipinos are champions of hospitability but Japanese brings it to the next, extreme, level.

They’re so polite and kind to the point that it can get awkward. It’s hard to think how they did the “comfort women” thing when they’re really such extremely nice people.

Our first day was spent at Wakayama City. It’s quite far from Osaka. It’s a small city. It feels like I was in Biliran. It was that quiet kind of place. Maybe because it’s a weekend that the streets were empty. There was not much people moving around.We stayed at GUESTHOUSE RICO. It was a backpackers’ place.

The dinner experience was kind of an experience. Since it was a small city, almost no one speaks English.

The first resto we went to was empty. Its menu had no English translations, and the lone staff could not speak English too. She instead kindly pointed us to a restaurant across.

The other restaurant’s staff could not speak English too. But thankfully there were other customers so I ended up just pointing to the neighboring table’s order, and asked the staff to give us the same as theirs. And these were what we got. Not bad for our first dinner in Wakayama!

So I guess the itinerary for today is experience Japanese’ kindness. 🙂 It’s

so hard to explain this but the Japanese people we met this day would feel so bad that they could not help us, and I would end up trying to appease them that it’s okay, it’s not your fault.

Everybody loves airport, right? The thrill of going somewhere…

The most exciting thing in Plaza Premium Loungeof Mactan Airport, Humba.They got a better barista; i hope they get a better coffee beans. But then it’s free, i’m not complaining. Anyhow, check your credit card, they provide free passes to airport lounges.HKIA.

…with my SSS ID? These past days i’ve been tracing back our last moments, hoping that i would find you.

I went to rose pharmacy 4 times — it’s the last memory I have of you — but no lack!
I had the palawan pawnshop guard went thru all the IDS he kept.
banks staff were giving me “NO, we don’t have it” as answer.

These all mean that you’re definitely gone.

But i still cannot accept it.

it’s not the first time that i lost you.
My wallet was once snatched, thankfully it was found in some vacant bushy place of reclamation, back in the days when there were no buildings on that area.
I left you in tacloban on a roadtrip, but thankfully, you found your way back to me courtesy of the kind hotel staff.

So I’m still wishing that we will be guided back to each others’.

i so badly miss your face, my face in that ID, and all the snippets of life in it.

That ID was taken a week after i delivered my 1st baby.
I was c-sectioned thus I had to bring my body, still in pain, very early in the morning just so I could get a priority number in SSS lapulapu.
You were a requirement to get my SSS maternity benefit which was around worth 10K.

I don’t know how to explain my feelings remembering what we had to go through just so I could get my 10K maternity benefit.
I felt like we’re so innocent at that time. =)

And so despite how ugly AF I am/was in that ID, it totally means a lot to me.
I felt that my “tokhang” face in that ID captured what it was that moment.
Every time, I looked at it, I thought it was such a horrible moment but then I never felt it was horrible.
Hey, I just want to get my 10K for being sliced open to deliver a baby after nine months of lugging him inside me!

So please, give me back my SSS ID, my innocence!
I guess It’s so hard to move on from some thing that I probably no longer have.