(Asakusa Temple main entrance)
 
Once again, the cousin surprised us with this fact. This Asakusa Temple has no major significant history attached to it except it is built for tourists, meant for tourists (what the…). You can safely bet that 80% of visitors are not locals. He said not many Japanese would attend for prayers here since [...]

The next morning, my mate’s cousin drove us to our first tourist spot, Asakusa Temple. We stopped somewhere around the temple area, when I noticed this:
 

(Asahi Beer Headquarters)
  
The cousin said it’s the Asahi Beer’s headquarters in Japan and that funny looking structure is the froth of their beer(?!). If he didn’t tell me that, I [...]

And so, I’m on the way back to Tokyo via Shinkansen again. This time, I picked a Hikari train which has lesser stops and quicker I get to Tokyo unlike last trip I went via a Kodoma train.
During the last ride, I noticed many of the passengers bought these bento boxes from the train stations and had their [...]

Here are some some unsorted, random stuff I took in Kyoto.

(A restaurant in Gion. Argghh, leggo!)
 
 

From left:
1. A theatre in Gion. Bad camera, sorry
2. Raijin
3. Fujin
4. Nightlife along Kawaramachi Street
 

From left:
1. One of the junctions in Kawaramachi Street
2. A happy mutated crab bathing in a pot of Shabu shabu. One of the claws moves.
3. Every cab has [...]

Since I’ve missed the Nijo Castle, once again I aimlessly walked around the surrounding area, looking for something to satisfy my hunger. I do not recall where I ended up but I remembered there was a train station (not sure if it’s JR or some private lines) next to the building I went it.
 

(Doraemon is still alive [...]

What a bummer. I wasted my precious time and money travelling to the Nijo Castle and found out  it was closed for maintenance. The only thing I could do was taking some snap shots of the castle walls and rows of cherry bushes.
 

(The walls are protecting the castle against the tourist hordes)
 
 

From left:
1. Another challenge to get you inside.
2. [...]

The main attraction besides the temples in Kyoto is the Kyoto Imperial Palace. To visit it, you can’t simply stroll into the palace grounds any time and I found this out about a month before I left for Japan. You need to book in advance either calling them up or via the internet. The website was [...]

While organising my photos one day, I came across this hanky panky shot and I honestly swear that it was not me behind the camera.

(Hanky panky act caught)
 
I can’t recall where and when this was taken so I confronted my mate and demanded if he did it. After all it was either him or me who held the camera [...]

(Snapped this scene when we were walking aimlessly)
This was a random stop. We decided take a long walk instead of catching a train to the centre of the city. As we walked along the streets, the keyword manga caught my attention when we passed by the Kyoto International Manga Museum. The museum is primarily meant for 5-9 year [...]

(Source)
Spiderman 3 and 300, what do they have in common? Nothing. But they both sure traumatised me after the Japan trip.
I stayed at the Toyoko-Inn both in Kyoto and Japan (they have dozens of branches spreaded out around Japan) and during the period of my stay, they offered these complimentary movies to the guests  and the hotel screened [...]

(Entrance to the Toji Temple)
 
I just don’t get tired of temples, do I? Guess it’s not your cup of tea if you don’t enjoy the pleasure of historical and holy places. It’s a wonder I remember most of these temples though they almost look the same.
 
Toji Temple

From left:
1. Inside the temple
2. One of many buildings in [...]

Another whacky Flash from IOSYS. Usa..usa…usa…usa!

 
Lyrics
USA x28)(USA USA)
(USA x27) (USA~)
“Hey, why don’t we have a PoFV match, PoFV?”
“Oh all right.”
“I’ll tell you that I’m really strong though.”
“Really strong I am.”
“Since I have a sempai who’s
number 5 in Japan.”
“I have a sempai who’s number 5 at PoFV.”
“All right let’s play.”
“So what are we [...]

Personally, I think Kiyomizu-dera Temple is my favourite stop: I actually went there twice. The first time we got there was late afternoon. Most shops were about to close and my digital camera can’t take night scenes well. I decided to go there one more time on the eve of departure to Tokyo. It was [...]

(The ‘hand’. I randomly walked around and found this but I forgot where I was that time.)
 
Kyoto is known as the city of temples so for every block I passed by, you will not miss a small shrine or temple. It is said there are thousands of them scattering around this centuries old city and during the period of my visit, I barely [...]

I love Revoltech toys and has been eyeing this Rei for some time now. Only recently released on to the shelf (1st January 2008), I guess I’m the one of the few to bring it back to the Australian shores. Muahaha. I bought this from the only anime shop that I noticed in Teramachi Street and from [...]