We went to Kyoto early in the morning. Kyoto is a city where it has kept most of its traditional value. You will see people riding bicycle and wearing kimono significantly more in Kyoto. We arrived at Kyoto station around 10.30 in the morning. Upon arriving, I noticed that the station is significantly larger than the one in Osaka. The station is connected to a hotel, movie theatre, and two shopping mall: iSetan and The CUBE. In Kyoto we will be staying in a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese style accommodation. We checked in to Ryokan Shimizu and had a meal in Ramen Alley before exploring Kyoto.

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Our first destination in Kyoto is the Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion). It was first built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, which then converted into a Zen temple by his son. The temple was burnt down twice by warfare, and once by a fanatic monk in 1950.

Kinkakuji, as per name says, is mostly covered with 24c Gold. It has a shape of a Japanese pavilion with a phoenix statue on the roof top. It looks so bright and majestic under the sun light. The pavilion is the main attraction to see, but there are couple of pedestal and statues to see on the site as well. In front of the statues there is a bowl in which you can throw in some coins from a meter or two distance. If your coin goes into the bowl, it will bring you some luck. Even though I don’t believe in it, it is a fun thing to try and helps you to dish out those small yen coins.

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After Kinkakuji we went to visit Kiyomizu-Dera Temple. The temple lies on top of a hill. The road to the temple is filled in with many shops. You can buy a variety of things on the shops, such as: Kimono, Japanese sweets, mochi cakes, and some other Japanese traditional goodies. The temple is big and crowded. Its a very good place to take photo shots. The admission is free, but there is one temple which costs you 300 Yen to get in. Inside the temple you can find or pray to some of the Japanese god statues. The statues look cool and eerie, you definitely do not want to kid around in there.

A brief information about the temple taken from Kyoto Official Guide website.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple is perhaps the most beloved of Kyoto's temples, and is a fixture in the minds of the Japanese people. The temple's platform juts out of the side of a mountain supported by 13-meter-high wooden columns. The main hall with its distinctive hip-shaped roof of cypress bark rests on the platform, and houses within it a priceless statue of Kannon Bodhisattva, the goddess of mercy. From the platform, one can appreciate fine views facing west over the city of Kyoto. This is an auspicious place to watch the sun set, which may also explain the romantic associations accorded to the temple.

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Finally our last destination for the day is the Gion Centre, which is Kyoto’s most famous Geisha district. We were scheduled to see a geisha show, but due to fatigue we cancel that and visit a shrine near the Gion Centre. Nothing special to say about the shrine, but it has a night market in it. Luckily, while walking on the market, we saw a geisha. Her outfit and looks look similar to the ones you see in the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha”, but she’s a lot more graceful and beautiful. Seeing the Geisha made me regret not going to the Geisha show. After the shrine, we tried to find something to eat in the Gion Centre and were not able to find anything good. Thus we decided to go back and had our dinner in the iSetan shopping mall.

RWendi

Saw @MarkHNeedham tweet this link. It contains many good principles that will help you write better quality code. You may already know many of them, but its good to have someone list and briefly summarize them.

Clean Code Cheat Sheet. [link]

RWendi

Today is our last day in Osaka, tomorrow we will be leaving Osaka for Kyoto. In the morning we went to Himeji city to see the Himeji Castle. It is one of the most famous and most visited castle in Japan. It was built in year 1333, and had been used by many Japanese rulers, such as the Tokugawa shogun family. The castle has never been destroyed by warfare, but it has gone through a few refurbishment works, which is why the Himeji castle has kept its form intact for more than 400 years.

We went to Himeji by train from Osaka, and it took us around 1 hour to arrive at Himeji. The Himeji Castle is located 800m from the train station, which takes us 10/15 minutes to get there by walk. When we got there we were greeted by a marching band and a couple of well dressed Japanese women. The Himeji Castle is huge and beautiful. It is indeed a very good place to take photo shoots.

The castle is very big and filled with many high stairs. It can be quite an exercise for unfit people. My backpack was moderately heavy, and it feels like doing lunges exercise when climbing those stairs. At night I felt sore on my thighs, and I had to rub some oil to ease the soreness. I highly recommend you to have a light backpack when you go there.

The castle is planted with plenty of Sakura trees, which had not blossomed yet when I was there. Without the blossomed Sakura, the castle is already magnificent, I wander how it looks like during spring. Sakura trees start to blossom early spring in Japan which is mid April, really made me wished I was there one month late.

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After Himeji Castle, we took the train and went to Kobe. Kobe is famous for its Kobe beef steak, which is the reason why we went there. We decided to have Kobe beef Tepanyaki instead of a western style steak. We tried the highest grade of Kobe beef (grade A-5) and a cheaper mid-level grade (grade A-3). I have to say it was THE BEST beef I have ever tasted in my life. I can feel the juice coming out of the beef in each bite. This really makes Wagyu beef feels like nothing. After the meal we walked around to explore the city before heading back to Osaka to spend our last night shopping in Osaka’s Dotonbori district.

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RWendi

I spent most of my first day in Japan to visit Osaka’s Universal Studio. In the morning we went to Tempozan Harbor Village to ride the Tempozan Ferris Wheel. It is a very massive ferris wheel, and it’s claimed to be one of the biggest ferris wheel in the world. The ride costs us 700 Yen per person, and it lasts around 5-10 minutes. The ride was nothing special, it’s just a ferris wheel, but the view was magnificent. After riding the ferris wheel, we went to WTC Cosmo Tower for a couple of photo shots, before going to the Universal Studio.

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We arrived at Universal Studio roughly around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. We were very excited when we got there, we went straight to the souvenir shops and was totally forgotten that there’re a couple of attractions worth seeing in Universal Studio. Due to tight timing, we only managed to see 4 attractions, which are: Rocky Horror Show, Waterworld, Wicked, and Terminator 2 3D. I like the Terminator show the most, it’s one of the best 3D effect I have ever seen, especially the part where Arnold blows T-1000 terminator’s head off, the liquid particles look so darn real. We spent roughly about four and a half hours in the Universal Studio. Since we did not play any rides, its more than enough time to experience Universal Studio. We had an awesome time.

Universal Studio Osaka is not my first Universal Studio experience. I have been to Universal Studio America when I was a kid. I have to say that Osaka’s Universal Studio is very similar to the one in America. There are a couple of rides and attractions that can be found in both Universal Studios, such as: Waterworld, Jurassic Park, E.T. and few others. One complaint that I have for Osaka’s Universal Studio is that, all of the attractions are done in Japanese Language, and it does not have English subtitle at all. There are plenty of non Japanese visitors in the Universal Studio, there’s no reason not to have English subtitle in their attraction shows.

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After Universal Studio, we squeezed in a little bit of time to see Osaka’s floating garden before having dinner. The floating garden is located on top of a very tall building. From the name, we thought that there’s actually a real physical garden on the top of the building, but when we get there we were kinda surprised that there was No garden at all. We later found out that the garden is actually the full view of the Osaka city. Yep, you can see the whole Osaka city from the top of the building, and it is very beautiful. Definitely worth seeing.

RWendi

My first destination in Japan is Osaka. I flew to Japan with my girlfriend and my sister. As I’ve mentioned here, I fly with Jet Star for my trip. I didn’t get any meal in the flight, as expected, but I’ve loaded my backpack with breads and instant ramen to keep my hunger away. The flight was long and tiring. Due to my overwhelming excitement, I did not realize it until I reached the airport.

It took us 12 hours of journey in total to arrive at the Kansai International Airport, Osaka. Surprisingly, I had the best plane landing experience in this flight. I did not feel any bumps at all when the plane touches the ground. Never expected to get that from a budget airline like Jet Star.

In the airport I noticed that the Japanese custom is more strict than Australian custom. Every foreign passport holder is required to be photo and finger-printed by the custom officer. It’s a bit too much in my opinion, but they say that its a new measure to prevent terrorism act. Another thing that I noticed in the airport is that the conveyor belt is not as hectic as other airports I have been. It has got this red line where all the trolleys must not pass, allowing more people to wait in front of the conveyor belt. It makes it pretty well organized.

Before we went to the hotel, we had to wait for my parents and my grandmother. We’re planned to meet my parents and my grandmother at the airport. Their plane’s due to arrive one and a half hours after my flight, allowing me to wander around the airport to grab some meal and take a couple of shots of the Kansai airport, Osaka.

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RWendi

My Japan trip is just few days away. I’m so excited and can’t wait any longer to see Japan. The last few weeks I’ve been pretty busy preparing for my Japan trip. In this post I want to outline the important things that I’ve done to prepare for my trip.

Ticket

I’m flying with Jet Star. They are the cheapest option to go to Japan. You can get a return ticket for just $600 when they are on sale. One caveat of flying with Jet Star is that you’re not going to get any meal, unless if you’re willing to pay $30 more. I opted not to pay the $30, going to stock up on instant ramen. :)

Visa

If you have Australian passport, you should not worry about visa, as you are allowed to enter Japan for holiday/business purpose without it. If you are not holding Australian passport, like me, you need to obtain it from Consulate-General of Japan [location]. To apply for a visa, you need to bring your passport, a recent photo of yourself, your ticket itinerary, your hotel bookings, bank statement and $30 for the application fee. It takes around 3 days for the application to complete.

Transportation

If you are going to different cities in Japan, I highly recommend you to get the JR Pass. The JR Pass is a pass ticket that is valid on most trains on the nationwide Japan Railways network, which includes urban train lines and bullet trains. It is also valid on JR bus lines and the JR Miyajima ferry. It is a very cost effective way to travel around Japan. You can purchase JR-Pass on most Japanese travel agency in Sydney. I got mine from Nipon Travel Agency [link] for $490. You need to provide your passport to buy the pass.

Accommodation

In Osaka I’ll be staying in Swissotel Nankai [link], which costs me around $290 per night. Just like everyone who’s visiting Japan, I’ll have the opportunity to experience Ryokan. Ryokan is a Japanese traditional style accommodation. I’ll be staying in Shimizu Ryokan – Kyoto [link], which costs me around $86 per night. Lastly, For Tokyo I’ll be staying in SunRoute Plaza Hotel – Sinjuku [link], which costs me around $225 per night. All of the hotels I booked online from expedia.com.au and hotel.com.au.

Currency

Im bringing roughly around 60,000 Yen to Japan. I find it best to exchange the money online through Travelex [link]. Submit your exchange online, pay them by BPay, and collect the money at the airport. It does not get any easier than that and the rates they offer is better than rates you find on the street.

Gadget

I will bring my trustworthy Canon Ixus 960 IS and my MSI Wind U100 to Japan. I’m so glad that I bought MSI Wind before the Japan trip. I’ve saved most of the tour guides to the MSI Wind, so that I can open them up again later and print them if necessary.  It will also serve to back up all the photos I’ll be taking in Japan. I can just go crazy in taking pictures without having to worry of running out of space in the SD card. I have also saved many podCasts, screenCasts, and movies to my Wind, just in case I get bored while in the train. Lastly, I’ll be able to blog my Japan trip, that is of course if I have the time to. :)

RWendi

I finally got my MSI Wind on Thursday. Since then, I have been busy setting it up and installing all the necessary software. I’m not going to do a full review on this, as it has been done before by millions of other MSI Wind users. But I’m going to share some fun facts of the MSI Wind:

• MSI Wind is very light. Much lighter than any notebooks.
• It runs cool and quiet.
• The LCD screen is very bright, brighter than my old Sony Vaio laptop.
• Screen size is adequate for watching videos, browsing the internet, photos editing, and doing some work.
• It is not as underpowered as many has claimed.
• It runs Visual Studio 2008 express and SQL Server 2008 Express with no performance issue.
• 1 GB of ram it comes with is sufficient. You can upgrade to 2 GB, but upgrading will void your warranty.
• The keyboard size (92% of the standard size) is good. Have no problem typing with the keyboard.
• One complain with the keyboard, they shouldn’t have switched the left Ctrl key with the Fn key, it’s annoying.
• Track pad area is too small, and the button feels cheap.
• The speakers suck. Get yourself a good pair of earphones. 
• Battery will last around 3 hours and 30 minutes on full brightness. On acceptable brightness it will run for 4 hours 30 minutes.
• Last fun fact: This little thing is AWESOME. :)

RWendi

I finally decided to get MSI Wind U100. I wanted to get Dell Insipiron Mini 10 (as mentioned here), but after seeing the initial specs of the netbook, I have to say “No, Thank You!”. Yes, the initial spec is really that bad. Most of the cool promised features, such as: 720p resolution, built-in GPS and built in TV tuner, are not in the initial specs. Lets compare the specs between MSI Wind U100 and Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (NOTE: red color denotes better spec):

The Mini 10 only has few advantages, which are: a more efficient CPU, and bigger Hard Disk. Even though it comes with a more efficient CPU, it only comes with 3 cells battery, which means nothing in comparison to the MSI Wind 6 cells battery. As a general rule of thumb when it comes to Netbook batteries, 1 cell = 45 minutes – 1 hour of usage time. Thus, the Mini 10 will probably give 2-3 hours of usage time, on the other hand the MSI Wind will give 4.5-6 hours of usage time. Moreover with MSI wind, you can actually purchase an after-market 9 cells battery, which is rumored to give MSI Wind a massive 7.5-10 hours of usage.

The lacks of Wireless N support really hurt Dell Mini 10, but the biggest bummer of the Mini 10 would be the RAM. It comes with the same 1GB of RAM, but its not upgradeable. The RAM is fixed, soldered to the motherboard (WTF!). This does not make sense at all, Dell should really fire the idiot who made that decision.

With much cheaper price and a lot better specs, MSI Wind is a clear winner. I wanted to wait for the new Asus EEE PC 1000HE, which comes with the new Intel N280 CPU and the new HD Capable Intel GN40 chipset, but Im running out of time. Im going to Japan next week and I want to bring a Netbook with me. Im going to get the MSI Wind this week, it’s gonna be Awesome!

RWendi