Aaron's Goodbye Party

Hey Aaron......if you happen to see this before you leave Japan, have a safe trip home! And keep in touch.

Below are the pictures taken during the dinner at the italian restaurant and at The Hub later. Missing are the photos from the A/bar and the karaoke session after that. I didn't take any pictures then. Hmm....I just realised that I don't have any pictures of me!

The ( I-can't-remember-the-name ) Italian restaurant opposite The Hub.


Half of the group. The other half got cut off.


Pear and Aaron having a conversation ( yeah, yeah, I know, I am stating the obvious )


The same half of the group with special effects


I think that this is a nice picture despite Aaron closing his eyes.


Again, a different half of the group, this time divided by which side of the table they were at.


Pear, Not and Aaron.


Aaron again, looking thoughtful


Chan and Puay/Eddie

The Hub, having after dinner drinks.


The group with new faces and missing a few people from dinner


The new faces


The pinball machine in The Hub


Wolfgang and Ton


The photographers setting timers to their digital cameras to take the group photo


Everybody waiting around for the photographers to get ready


The mad dash to the group before the cameras' timers goes off

Nope, I don't have the group picture. Please, to those of you who have them, please forward them to me. Thanks!

What do you get when you combine a phone camera and a torchlight??

Yeah, now is the season for strawberries. I love them, especially with cream or condensed milk. This picture was taken last year by the way and with my phone camera with the help of a torchlight. Haha...I had nothing better to do that night, so I fooled around with the phone camera ( I didn't have my digicam then ) and the torchlight acting as a spotlight. And the strawberries didn't last long.......got hungry after a while.



The phone camera is pretty good actually, 2 megapixels and I have a miniSD memory card to store my photos in the phone. Back home, having a camera option with the phone is a big deal and the phones are quite expensive. Nokia is the biggest name in the handphone business at home. But here, nearly all the phones come equiped with a camera, the more expensive the phone, the better the camera. Even the cheapest phone has a camera. Nokia has no hold here.



The downside is that since handphones in Malaysia uses the SIM card system, I can't use my handphone back home. So thank god it can double as a digicamera.

Mt Aso

The weather was gorgeous the day we went up to Mt. Aso, located in Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu. Mt. Aso's volcanic rim is 128km in circumference, the largest in the world. We visited Mt Aso in the middle of November, during the autumn-winter season. The three people are Ismail, Basak and Prof Nakatsukasa.



This is a picture of Mt Naka (Nakadake) crater which is still active and stands at 1700 meters high. "Tourists at the summit can take a close-range look at the dynamic fumes rising from the crater which extends about l kilometer north and south and about 400 meters east and west and has a perimeter about 4 kilometers long."-Japan National Tourist Organization website-



Since Nakadake crater is still active, shelter dugouts are provided around the crater.



Anyone who had walked to this area will place a stone on top of the pile. From here you have an excellent view of Mt. Aso area.



Here is an image of my own shadow.

Below are more pictures of Mt. Aso....

Kyoto Eki

This building is relatively new, made of steel and glass. A bit out of sync with the traditional architecture of Kyoto, but it serves as a modern hub for Kyotonites and tourists alike. This is the main Kyoto station, connecting trains and buses from all over Japan. This is where you will board the shinkansen aka the bullet train. You can find Isetan departmental store and several food courts, a hotel and the surrounding area is filled with shops, restaurants, pachinko...you name it. Kyoto Tower is just next to it. I have not been there, but the view is suppose to be excellent.



This picture is of the 11th floor aerial skywalk, reflected against one of the glass walls of the bulding.



Here is a picture of the shinkansen....this is the newer model. The older ones do not look quite as sleek, their 'nose' is slightly shorter. I sat on it to go to Tottori prefecture and I guessed I was expecting a bit too much out of it, you know the whole speed of light idea. It was damn comfortable and fast but wasn't as fast as I expected.

When night comes....

One thing I love about Japan is the lanterns. They look so beautiful against the dark of night, emiting a soft, calming glow.
This one is of Basak, taken in her house.



Nearly all, if not all, of the temples and shrines that I had gone to had lanterns of various shapes and colours. I love the red lanterns, I love how it looks in the nightime, although they also signify another R-rated meaning...hehe.

Kampai!

Yeah, lift your glasses up...it is KAMPAI time...!



Almost every meal here is accompanied by beer.....I swear, beer is like water here....coffee is also like water here...hmm...next photo assignment...taking pictures of coffee and such. I had forgotten the exact date of this picture....it was taken last year, maybe sometime in the middle of the year during summer time. We were going to karaoke after this dinner. The people you see here in this photo were in the intensive Japanese language class course in kyoto university.