Tsukuba Space Center

After botanical garden, we visited the Tsukuba Space Center at Japan Space Agency (JAXA). Had the opportunity to see life size Japanese rocket HIIB which was used to transport many satelits to the space. The exhibition includes life size rocket engine and life size space laboratory – Japanese module for ISS, which was sent to ISS last February. Had the opportunity to get into the module… minus the zero gravity… Many life size satelits were also exhibited… Japanese astronouts pictures… and space station test building. That is where all those ISS space station labs built by Japanese being assembled and tested… before actually transported to the space.. and.. there was one corner where full scale mock up model of Russian Soyuz was exhibited together with the real re-entry Soyuz bion capsule… looked charred… and burnt.. on the outside surface (picture)… remember the controversial proposal of buying the re-entry capsule of Soyuz TMA-10 ? the re-entry capsule of Sheikh Muzaffar… Japanese keep theirs in this space center… they apparently sent their astronout using Soyuz… paid the full expenses and had the right to keep the capsule…

Tsukuba Botanical Garden

Last Sunday, we joined the Tokai International Association trip to Tsukuba… visited the botanical garden. The garden had a few glasses houses… growing many species of flowers and plants from all around the world.. including banana tree – pisang kapas… heh.. heh.. and around the garden… there were many plants and flowers species of Japanese origin including the famous cheery blossom… bunga sakura

Tokai Annual Fireworks Show

Last weekend.. had the opportunity to watch the Tokai fireworks show near a bridge in Tokai Village.. had to take 100 yen bus to the location. It was very crowded… and festival like… Japanese and foriegners mingled around in cold autumn night. One local said this year was slightly a bigger show compared to last few years.. and Tokai village had the privillage to have such event.. since the local authority had the enough fund to do so… much of the money come from all the power companies… coal power plants or nuclear power plants surrounding the village.. the show lasted in 1 whole hour..

What a big… fish..

Found this big blue shark beside Tokyo National Science Museum… on my way to Tokyo National Museum… Across the street was a big park, where we found a group of Japanese youth having some kind of Elvis dance… a man practicing kung-fu or was it Tai-chi… and a couple… putting a show… their dogs showing a few tricks.. . Oh.. the National Museum… well… you can see… many things… from the evolution of Buddha… to the great earthquakes… samurai’s… clothings and weapons…old Japanese arts… and all kind of scrolls… and also Japanese batik… they call it batik too…!

Tokyo - meat festival

When I was touring Tokyo last week… met a few weird “cows” around the city. Most of the “cows” were decorated with colorful painting.. like the one in the picture. They were having some kind of “meat festival”… that was what I could understand… from the tags on those cows. May be a period when…Japanese like to eat cow meat…

Muramatsu Kokuzouson

When we were on our way to the Tokai beach, we stopped by a place having old Japanese style buildings as shown in the photo.. Saw a few couples bringing their babies to a couple of the buildings and doing some kind of rituals. Well, we could guest that it must be a ritual or worshipping place. But why bringing babies ???

Later, when we met a local acquaintance and asked him about this, he told us that the Temple – Muramatsu Kokuzouson is famous for bringing good health. So, those couples were praying for good healthy life of their children.. I guess.. while we were admiring the beauty of the craftmanship of those buildings… And we also had a chance helping a family taking their photo after they finished performing their rituals… must be from out of town…

Tokai-mura

Friday.. first weekend in Japan... Tokaimura, Ibaraki.

Went to the nearest beach .. met a few locals fishing... wait for a while... & tried to have conversation... they don't speak english.. i don't know much Japanese.. so we end up smiling to each other... on the way back.. went around to see surrounding village... The foto is one of the nice house... Then cycled back to lodging... stopped by Ibaraki wildlife reserve... didn't see any animal, just heard birds ... a lot of birds... singing...

Tokai-mura September 2008

Arrived once again in Japan Tokai for the 3rd time. Was here last on Sept 2005. Didn't live in the dormitory though cause it was just a 2 weeks training. Living in MITO hotel. Now I have to live in the Masago International Lodging. It is OK. The coordinator brought us to the JUSCO for groceries. We could cook in the dormitory. That's a good news because i don't have to put up with Japanese food all the time. Well, it is not that i am not familiar with Japanese food, apart from the cost, for 2 month duration in Japan, I need to taste my own cooking.

Today, the second day, used an old bicycle to ride to NuTec, the training place. Although it is not far, I sweat quite a bit, may be ... not used to it yet. Okay that's it for the morning blog....

Kabuntei

As mentioned in the previous entry.. when i was in japan, during sightseeing around shenba lake, came across this old castle..named kabuntei.. or something as i remembered it. It was built during shogun era. Consists of many rooms for the shogun or dignitaries and the maids or geisha? Have different rooms for different functions. The rooms have sliding doors with paper screen. This was good to notice any would be intruder as the shadow will be reflected on the screen. The way the rooms were arranged in such a way that an intruder will find as if entering a maze... the intruder will easily lost and giving time for the shoguns to take actions. There is also a 2nd floor rooms.. to get upstairs, have to scale up an almost 90 degree stairs. There is also a shaft with pulley mechanism to bring food or other things up and down. There is a big room where the shogun chose the maid he would spend the night with. The garden was very nice like typical japanese garden.

Shenba Lake

The swanlike boat is for Shenba Lake sightseeing. I did'nt have the chance to try it since it is already late, I had to walk back to my hotel before dark. I had the oppurtunity to enjoy the scenery around the lake during 2 weeks training in Japan. The lake is very big as I could see the buildings and trees were so far away across. However, I managed to went around it and able to visit a few parks around it. I also visited an old castle... will talk about it in other entry. The hotel i stayed was in mito. There are several web pages about mito you could surf... i will put the address once i found it. Mito is a nice small town. Have a few shopping malls where i bought my ration, tuna , rice, bread & biscuit. No McD no KFC, have a fastfood restaurant much like McD. All the cashiers and salesperson did not speak english. Even if you try to converse in english they will reply in Japanese. You just have to guess and use signage - have to be creative... to survive. But there are a few shops selling clothing from US and the salesperson was black, i am not sure from where... but they could speak Japanese quite well.

Pantai Balok, Kuantan, Malaysia

Pantai balok is in Kuantan on the way to Terengganu just a few kilometers after Swiss Garden Hotel. Went there during school holiday and we didn't book earlier and guess what... the Swiss Garden was full. We managed to rent a motel called Cwaci, located a few kilometers after Swiss. Quite nice since we have direct access to the beach. The beach scenery was very tranquill and we could go far out to the sea beach during small tide. But watch out you might get occupied exploring the beach and get trap in high tide.

Introduction

Hi ! Welcome to BALALAH page. Hope you will enjoy all the entries. I will fill it with my thought, encounter and most of all when I go Balalah. Balalah may means roaming... Thus when I go balalah and found something interesting I would put it here to share with the world..The word is from etnic Malay especially from Johor, Selangor & Perak. Enjoy... my ramblings..