Adventures of Anette: Park

Showing posts with label Park. Show all posts

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Yangon: A visit to the Royal Lake Kandawgyi and Bogyoke Park

Anette 9:49:00 AM

On our last day in Yangon before leaving by nightbus to Kalaw Yuma and I decided to walk to the Kandawgyi lake from the place we were staying, Lavender Hotel situated by the Shwedagon pagoda. On the way to the lake we passed by another pagoda called the Kyay Thone Pagoda, and we also enjoyed seeing the local people doing their daily routines (not to mention that the street was filled with Pokemon Go players! It was surprising the game was so popular here too..)

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Tokyo

Sightseeing in Tokyo: Ueno Park (上野公園)

Anette 10:01:00 PM

One of the great things about Tokyo is that the green lungs of the metropolis never are too far away. Close to where I live there is a park called Ueno Koen (上野公園 - koen means park btw) where I often (or at least once a month or so..) go jogging in the afternoon after work. Right now the autumn season is coming to an end, but Yuma and I visited the park just in time to snap some photos of the park while the leaves still were red.

Ueno Koen is known among other things for its many museums, but we usually go to the area around the Shinobazu pond (不忍池). As you can see it is quite a romantic spot for couples, and if you're interested you can rent a boat here as well.

The Shinobazu pond (不忍池)

At the center of the pond lies the Bentendo (弁天堂) temple. The temple pagoda is always lit up in the evening, and this makes it a very nice place to pass by if you like to go jogging in the evening!

Bentendo's pagoda

The Shinobazu pond consist of three sections, and it is possible to walk right through the middle of the lake thanks to a bridge built in 1907.

The boat rental service on the Shinobazu pond

Birds on the lotus section of the pond

While we were walking on the bridge we saw an ojiisan feeding the birds with rice corns. When we
stopped to watch he asked me if I wanted to feed the birds too, and gave me a handful of rice.

Feeding the birds

One of the birds chased away almost all the other birds..

The Bentendo temple lies in the middle of the pond on Benten island (弁天島). This temple is devoted to the goddess of eloquence called Benzaiten.

Bentendo

As the temple and the pond attracts many visitors, especially during the weekend, there is also a chance you'll find some small food stalls that sells Japanese food like takoyaki and okonomiyaki (we preferred kebab this time :P)

Japanese food stalls

Ueno Koen is also a nice place if you like doing pull-ups. When Yuma and I go jogging to the park, he always stops up to do some exercise here :)

Ueno Koen is also great for exercising, especially if you like doing pull-ups.

All in all, a nice place to visit for a lazy day..!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Park

Golden Week Update: My new Apartment!

Anette 7:06:00 PM

So it seems that the so-called Golden Week soon is over! Not that it was too different from other weeks though, I'm actually getting more days off in the upcoming week since I'll be going to Tokyo for the weekend leaving from Kyoto by night bus on Thursday.

One thing that happened in the last week though, which I mentioned in my last post, is that I have moved to a new place! My neighbor Jamilah and I got tired of living in the middle of nowhere (Read: Haradani), and decided to move out in a rush because of that (and also somehow because of the huge utility-bill we got for April, which rounded 10.000 yen pr. person..). It was a good deal; the previous place was 30 minutes away from school in a valley north of Kinkakuji, and the place we live now is about 5-10 minutes away from school. Plus, while the previous place didn't have any grocery stores nearby, this one has a store right across the street. Ironically, the store that used to be the closest for us in Haradani is still our closest store. There is just a 30 minutes difference in the distance to it.

Anyway, my point is that if you can avoid living in Haradani, you should. I had some nice experiences there in October with a local festival and a local sports day, but besides that it is really not worth it living there. Hmm.. Perhaps I'm being a bit rash.. But there are plenty of cheaper and more central places to live, so if there are other options then I wouldn't rush into moving to Haradani if I were you;).

Anyhooow, I really like it so far; it is a traditional Japanese house with traditional Japanese garden! And the landlord is so funny too:) She keeps on saying that she is so happy because I understand everything she say^^.. Some of the rules at the dorm are a bit strict, but in comparison with the previous apartment the current place is still a lot better so I don't bother too much. Here are some pictures of the new place!

The house seen from the room. The small house to the left is the one I'm living in.

Japanese style garden!

Pretty!

My new room

The rooms are traditional tatami-mat rooms, and the first couple of nights I didn't have a madrass so I had to sleep directly on the floor. Thanks to my friend Larissa however, I have upgraded my room with a mattress to sleep on! I'm forever thankful!! Haha..

A golden bamboo stick for luck, and the picture I got through the Fuku Musume-contest

I don't have that much stuff to use for decoration of my room, but at least I finally had the chance to put up the picture I got through the Fuku Musume contest in December. Yay!

Besides moving out I must admit I didn't really do that much out of the ordinary. There was a little bit time for partying, mostly time for school work, and the time in between was spent with friends. Yuma came visiting me too, but I guess he is busy even when it is holiday so we didn't have the chance to hang out that much. Yesterday we had a big picknick with some friends in the Expo '70 Commemorative park in Osaka, which I also went to a couple of weeks ago for Hanami.

My friends in front of the Tower of the Sun

It wasn't really the best weather for a picknick, as it was raining a little bit and at times even quite cold. But all in all it wasn't too bad, so it was a good thing we didn't cancel it. I had baked a banana bread and brought some Norwegian snack called lefse, and some of the others had brought Japanese snack and other things too. Our friend Racchan has just started working for Kirin Beer, so she sponsored us with some drinks!

Look what Yuma found in the river!

After some photos we let the little guy back into the river.

We spent most of the day in the park, and after we had eaten all our snack we went out to explore more of the park. Although I had been there one time before, it is quite big so it is better to take your time and not rush through all in one day. Last time I only had the chance to see the east side of the park, so this time we went through the west part.

In search for a four-leafed clover

Posing with Kirin beer.

In the end we found a tower that had quite nice view of the park, where we took some last photos before leaving the park in search for a Japanese izakaya.

The Tower of the Sun seen from the opposite side of the park

And with the end of that day my Golden Week also came to an end. Today I'm back in the research room at school, ready to continue my hard studies. But with that said, I haven't really been a good student at all today anyway. Better get myself together and stop procrastinating!!