Everybody Goes to School

Crazy.  Four posts in 2014.  Three in 2015 and two in 2016.  What a waste of blog space :)

2017 certainly marks a new beginning.  Achik, my youngest little one, starts school.  Now the house is empty and in complete silence as early as 7 a.m.  Oh my.  How I miss those times when they were small and running about the house around the clock.

I know this time will come.  And there will be time when they have all grown up and perhaps leaving the house.  I shouldn't feel sad.  My mum has gone through the cycle.  So will I.  But I do have this feeling of emptiness.  Something that had gone, and will never come back.

Wish you all the best, Along, Angah & Achik.  I love you so much.

Apples of my eyes

Sydney Revisit 2016

I guess the post about our Japan trip will never complete.  It has been superseded by another trip to Sydney which took place between 11th to 17th March this year.  As usual, I had to go there to participate in a conference and brought the whole family with me.  For Achik, this was the first time.  For the rest of us, this was our second time.  Our first visit to Sydney was in 2009 when I had to attend a conference too.

This time, the conference took place for one whole week!  So we had a lot of time to explore Sydney.  We purposely arrived two days earlier so that we could spend the time going places.  We arrived at Sydney on Friday night and went straight to Hyde Park Inn.  It has a room with a stove that can accommodate five people (1 queen bed, 2 single beds and 1 sofa bed), which was just what I was looking for.  I cooked simple dinner with whatever packed food that we brought with us and we had a good rest after that.  Sydney is three hours ahead of Malaysia.  So it took some time before everybody was asleep.

First day - 12th March 2016

Our first destination was Taronga Zoo.  We took a bus from the inn to Circular Quay and took a ferry from the quay to Taronga Zoo.  Moving around was easy.  We relied on Google map and it was really helpful and reliable.  We spent almost one day there.  Unfortunately, by the time this post is written, the photos were already accidentally deleted from the phone :(

The only one left.  In a cable car to the zoo entrance.

Welcoming 2016

Welcome back!  Almost a year without any entry.  It's good enough that I still remember the password.

It's the first Monday of the year.  Life is back to the normal routine.  Along continuing form two, Angah standard four and Achik at the second year of her kindergarten.

Life goes on.  May Allah bless us all, amin.

Japan trip - Day 2: Exploring Hakodate

20 January 2015

I spent the whole of the second day at the conference (of course!).  The kids and their father went to explore Hakodate town, the fish market and the port after they had their breakfast.

Snow 'mountain' near Hakodate port

We met briefly during lunch break, and then the kids went up to pray and rest.  Right after the first day of the conference was over, we rushed to Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse, as it would be closed by 7 pm.  It is basically a shopping mall that sells a lot of items, mainly souvenirs.  Achik taxed us there, as usual.

When the warehouse was closed, we headed to Mount Hakodate.  The night view from Mount Hakodate was rated three stars by The Michelin Green Guide Japan whatever it is.  Again, finding the exact locations of the two places was challenging.  We asked around, communicated like chicken and duck, and finally managed to reach both places :)

Journeys up to and down from Mount Hakodate were via cable cars (they called it ropeway).  Travelling time from the base station (Sanroku station) to the top station (Sancho station) took less than five minutes.  It was freezing cold of course.  We didn't linger there for the sake of the kids.  We had been out for quite a long time already for the night.

At Jujigai trem stop.

View from the top of Mount Hakodate.

At the base station, just before leaving.

Japan trip - Day 1: Travelling north to Hakodate

19 January 2015

We flied Malaysia Airlines MH88 and arrived at Narita Airport (terminal two) at 7.15 am as scheduled.  Achik was fast asleep when we landed.  Everybody was in good mood, despite feeling sleepy.  Right after settling the immigration matters, which didn't take long at all, we went to collect our luggage and then headed straight to the Japan Rail Ticketing office, which was at one level below.  Few things started to seem familiar to me from Nagoya visit in 2009.

 

The first thing to do was to exchange our JR exchange order slips to JR passes.  The exchange order slips were purchased at the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) in Amoda building, right next to the Imbi plaza and opposite Berjaya Times square, before the trip.  The queue at the Japan Rail Ticketing Office was quite long.  Everybody was using JR pass I guessed, as it could save a lot of money on train tickets, depending on your journey.

 

Exchanged.  JR passes for me, Abah, Along and Angah.
Achik travels for free as she was below 6 years old.

Our destination on that day was Hakodate, which is located in the Hokkaido prefecture of Japan.  Upon completing exchange process and obtaining our JR passes, we were given three tickets each for the following journeys:

 

1. Narita Airport terminal 2 station to Tokyo station (approx. 1 hour via Narita Express train)
2. Tokyo station to Shin Aomori station (approx. 1.5 hours via Shinkansen)
3. Shin Aomori station to Hakodate station (approx. 2 hours via local train)

The whole journey, including transit time, took us about eight hours!  We departed from Narita Airport at 8.48 am and arrived Hakodate Station at 5.02 pm.  As the Hayabusa Shinkansen moved towards north from Tokyo to Shin Aomori, we started to see snow right before the Sendai station, which was to the kids delight :)

Amongst the first sights of snow, taken from the fast moving shinkansen

If asked, whether it is easy to get lost in catching the trains, finding the right platforms and et cetera, my answer would be yes.  Because we were not used to the train system, and we had the kids and luggage with us, and we had to catch the exact trains that were reserved for us, which departure times were printed on the tickets.  However, the stations staff were very helpful too.  But language was a barrier.  What we did whenever we were clueless was, showed one of the tickets to the staff and asked for platform number.  They would show the direction to the platform.  They at least knew the basic vocabulary such as one two three and left and right.  Good enough :D

During approx. 1 hour and 20 minutes transit at Shin Aomori station.
The snow was already thick there.

Kikonai, the stop just before Hakodate station.
This train didn't stop at all stations along the route.