Day 2 - 28 Oct (Thur)

Took the 8.17am Shinkansen to Kyoto and met up with yuj @ Kyoto Station! :) She looked great in her new Tatsurou-inspired hairstyle!! :).. We deliberated about where we should explore for the day and finally decided on 嵯峨野トロッコ列車, which is this old-fashioned train ride that would bring us past the surrounds of the Sagano-Arashiyama area, along the Hoza River.


We boarded the train at Torokko Kameoka Station~


The romantic train~ turned out less old-fashioned than I thought it would be. Looking at the picture, I think it was because of those bright colours!


..& I quite like the parts when we entered the mountain tunnels :P


Some view-shots. We were lucky~ weather that day was good!


Another view of the Hoza River~ some people were also doing rafting along the rapids.


When you reserve your tickets for the Romantic Train, choose Car 5 if possible because it's the only car that has glass overhead panes.

We dropped off at Torokko Arashiyama Station so that we could take a walk through the Bamboo forest there.


Yuj's pal peers out hesitantly from her h.Naoto bag :D


Halloween's coming!


Look, the station's even made a cut-out of a Halloween figure right at the entrance ;D

These decorations, the station's friendly stationmaster and an enthusiastic black-bean-sweet seller gave the station an unexpected cheerful atmosphere.


The walk through the Bamboo grove was quite peaceful. Thankfully there weren't droves of tourists to disrupt the tranquility.

We then decided to explore Tenryuji Temple 天龍寺, a world cultural heritage site that was built in 1339 on the direction of Ashikaga Takauji, the first Shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate, to console the spirit of the late Emperor Godaigo.


The temple grounds are quite vast. Besides the various halls like the one above, there are also well-kept landscape gardens and greenery.


In fact, the landscape garden created by Muso Soseki, the temple's founding abbot and famous garden designer, managed to survive the many fires throughout history, unlike some of the temple's buildings, and is considered one of the oldest of its kind.


Beautiful autumn leaves~


"The sounds of the streams splash out the Buddha' s sermon,
Don' t say that the deepest meaning comes only from one's mouth,
Day and night, 80,000 poems arise one after the other,
And in fact, not a single word has ever been spoken."
- Muso Soseki

We then walked Arashiyama, crossed Togetsukyo bridge and had dinner at an udon place across the river.


The sky drew dark quite early. The moon was round and bright that night, casting its image over the river and creating a picture-perfect scene.

We arrived back in Toyoko Inn Osaka Namba at around 8pm, but we were still toying with the idea of visiting SpaWorld. :) :) :) It's 3 hrs per entry, and yuj had printed out the online discount coupon of 700Yen per person. That makes it just 1700Yen per person per 3 hrs, quite an acceptable price for a mega-spa place like this that's smack in the middle of the city. After midnight the charges are higher, so if we get there by 9pm, we have more than enough time to soak in the baths!

So in the end...we went! :) *succumbs*

It was.. an experience in itself~ we were quite lucky.. see, they alternate the Asia and Europe 'Worlds' between the sexes. We wanted to try out the Asia World, and it just so happened that it was the womens' turn at the Asia World that month. Yippee~

I enjoyed the Japanese style baths the most~☆ It's the only one that is 露天, so I liked the feeling of immersing myself in hot waters while staring up at the full moon in the deep blue sky (all the time in my head it was playing mucc of course :D)~~~mmmmmm~~~heaven~~~
(*dismisses any thought that someone could be peeping from the floors above*)


The India massage baths were good too. Had a good chat with yuj there~


The Turkish baths had these 'power-shots' that hit you on your back and shoulders. I could only 'tahan' it for a short period of time, but I gotta admit, that and the India massage baths really helped to relax my shoulders.. they haven't felt so loose since .. gosh, I don't know when! In fact, we were just thinking that this would definitely be a good place for band members and audience alike to go to after a live...especially a mucc live! ;) Hey I wouldn't mind then if they mixed the mens' and womens' floors together :)....

There was a little incident where I realized I forgot to bring back my watch from the shower room. Luckily this kind old lady who was manning the locker area helped direct me back to retrieve it. She was really nice to us.. even told us about this new attraction that they were going to push out soon.. where you can find fishes swimming just beneath you in the spa! Think it's supposed to be ready by Dec.. looks like there will certainly be reasons to return to the place in future *grins*

Upon check-out, you slot into one of the machines this rather bulky wrist-watch they give you upon entry. The wrist-watch is used to clock in all the spa services that you use (if any), so the machine is able to detect that and spits out the bill to you. We were amazed at how the machine could swallow that entire wrist-watch, cos the wrist-watch was really quite huge! Scary! Imagine if a child's hand was to accidentally find itself at the machine slot - would the machine swallow it whole too?? heehee..

On the way back we stopped by a combini, and apparently some hiphoppish guys were staring at the mucc sweater I was wearing. They must think the sweater is cool!! =) (okay this is like a minor thing to write in a travel journal, but..but..it's just another mucc-related thing I want to remember, so there! =/)


Rabu-rabu hotel that we always pass by on the way back to where we stayed~ NO it's not where we stayed okay~~

And so ends the 2nd day~~~

Wait!! We weren't finished yet!! :D Heehee... not before we finished doing our nails Tatsurou-style back in our hotel room! ;D

Tomorrow...mucc live! ☆