Japan - Nagoya, Gifu Prefecture trip 2015 Autumn - Photo Summary

Haa, another lazy trip summary. Thanks for the Google Photos Story function.

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Japan Kansai Trip 2013 Photo summary

Thanks for Google's new photo feature. I can create a nicely presented photo story.
When have time, I will keep writing on this journey's itinerary.
But please take a look to all the photos first.
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Japan - Kansai Trip 2013 Sep - Day 2

Second day, to me, it was the most exciting event that I expected for many years. It was: to watch a baseball game in Koshien (甲子園). This is really a dream come true for a boy who was fancying when he was a kid and read so many amazing Japanese comics/manga. You may have heard about those comics: Touch, H2, Cross Game...etc, from Mitsuru Adachi (安達充). High school baseball league's final stage is Koshien. Like the Holy Temple of Jedi.

On this day, we got up around 9. And ready for the trip to Koshien. The game would be started at 1400. But, as the location from the place that we were staying is quite far. We had to take train to Nanba station. Basically, it is a huge central station for passengers to transit to different trains and lines. So, at Nanba station, we took train to Sakuragawa station. When reached there, we took another train to Koshien station. Yes, quite a difficult trip but it is really worthy.

Koshien nowadays is not only the holy temple of high school baseball league, but it is also the home of the team, Hanshin Tigers, which is one of the teams in the professional Japanese baseball league. Thus, in the stadium, there is a museum of high school baseball league, two souvenir shops which sells souvenirs of the Tigers.

As the game started at 1400, we grabbed some lunch like fired noodles and some snacks outside the stadium. Out side the stadium, there were a lot Tigers fans gathering. There were families, friends and fans organisations. All people were wearing Tigers jerseys, caps, with towels, hoodies. I doubted why previously, but now I understand and will tell you later.

 When the time came, we queued up and rolling into the stadium. Our seats were at the third base side, in the range between third base and out field. Quite far actually, but can have a better view of the whole court. Before the game began, there were some events to drive all audiences moods to a higher level. A person which was costumed as a tiger played with some children. Did some dancing steps, baseball catching drills, looks interesting and all those kids were very excited.

When the game was almost started, there was an engaging event of the two teams' coaches. Exchanged gifts and flowers with hand shaking. Showing the friendliness from both sides before the game. By the way, the opponent is Tokyo Yault.

The game started on time. As my first time watching a baseball game, I really had no idea what the run down it would be. And, I realized that there were many 'time out' discussion in the game. Especially, when risk was coming. That means the pitcher was not performing well or some how out of control. The main idea of those 'time out' discussion is to calm down the pitcher in order to try to make the pitcher to a steady performance. The formula seems like this, when 4 'ball' or two bases loaded, 'time out' discussion would be triggered by the coach.

 After 9 innings, it was almost sun set. But the result was tied. Thus, extended innings were needed. 

Finally, the game finished at around 1930 and the result was, still a draw game. Lucky the Tigers was not lost.

During the game, I realized that all fans are quite obsessed. When it was the turn a player walking into the batting box, there was a particular song which would be sung by the fans. This really drove up the entire environment with fans' high moods. In the 7 inning, it was called as lucky seven, and all fans in the stadium would prepare long balloons and released. That moment is really amazing. I was very impressed.

p.s. hoodies and towels are needed because it was too sunny. You will probably sweat a lot especially if you are not sitting under shade.

Japan - Kansai Trip 2013 Sep - Day 1

Second time to Japan. This trip was targeted to Kansai region of Japan. Usually, when people talk about Kansai region, they are talking about the areas include Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe and even further west. In this trip, we were mainly hanging around Osaka and Kyoto. A very different experience than that in Tokyo.

Day 1, we flew from Hong Kong and landed on Kansai International Airport (KIX). Literally, there are 2 international airports in Kansai region. But now, only KIX serve as a real international airport. The other one, Osaka International Airport, is now serving mainly for domestic flights. All right, KIX, it is a top class international airport and is sitting on a separate island. I think it should be an artificial island, similar idea as that of Hong Kong International Airport. Anyway, we landed there. Took Namkai Electric train (南電), headed to our first accommodation that was booked.

We took a fast train of the Nankai main line (南海線), which should be heading to Nambo in Osaka. But we got down at the station Sakai (堺), which our booked accommodation is located.

Sakai is a small and peaceful town which is sitting at a harbour. First thing, checked in the booked hotel. We put down our bags in our room and decided to have a walk nearby. As Sakai is a harbour, we went to the sea side and walk along a promenade. It was a very relaxing walk. There is a statue, light house and some factories. 

It was almost sun set, there were may people having evening walk. We met an uncle, who seems love photographing. As I was taking a camera, he approached us and start talking. We apologized to him that we did not know Japanese well with our limited Japanese. He seems understand, but keep talking to me. I could get the general idea from him, which should be related to which angle, what exactly the time, and what season would give me a magnificent photo. And, he shown me his tablet with photos that he took, also some in printed paper as well. He is such a nice old man and he gave one of his printed masterpiece to me as a present. Really, thanks him so much. This really makes me like this country. And this also makes me love travelling so much.

After sun set, we left the sea side. And walked around to search restaurant for dinner. We ate BBQ and that was very good. Then walked around to help digesting. And we found a small BBQ shop which has 4 seats. Interesting, a very small shop at the ground floor of a small house. Cannot imagine that could be happened in Hong Kong under the current economy environment. Though the picture was not taken in a nice way, do have a look and admire it. :)

Italy Trip 2011 - Day 8 and 9 (End)

This was our last morning in Florence of our Italy trip. We woke up early, had our breakfast. With our luggage packed. We took a walk nearby. Actually, our B&B is near to the food market building. But we missed the opening time previously. We talked with a Chinese shop keeper, a day before, in the market which sells clothes, bags and other souvenirs, knew that the food market would be opened in the morning till 4:00 pm. Thus, this morning would be our last chance to visit there.

Visiting food market is a very interesting experience. You could know the life styles and habits of the people in that place. Inside the market, there were many people buying meat and vegetables. There are some shops that sell herbs and ingredients. You could find many kinds of pasta with different colors there. We bought some, of course, as you could not find it easily in Hong Kong.

We took train at noon and reached Milan around 2:00 pm. Our return flight would be took off from Milan. Thus, we decided to stay in Milan for one night so that we could catch up the morning flight.

Got off the train, we walked to our hotel and checked in. It was not far from the station. We dropped down our luggage in the room and went for a walk nearby.

Milan is also an old city. But obviously, it is more modern than Florence. In the main street, we could see a lot of branded name shops and lots of people were hanging around. I could not remember the name of the street but it is a long one. I think 1-2 km long. Buildings are old, transportation is old, but shops are grand and stylish. A very interesting contrast, indeed.

We had our afternoon coffee there and rest a bit as the long street made us very exhausted, really. Just windows shopping would tired you, definitely.

Afterwards, walked for a longer while. Dinned in a quite nice restaurant. Went back to our hotel and took a good rest. 

The other morning, we checked out the hotel and went to train station for the train to bring us to airport.  We ended our Italy trip at the airport with beautiful memories, and returned to our real world.