Hijab Traveller- Osaka, Japan

ヒジャビトラヴェルー大阪

Osaka is Japan's second largest metropolitan area after Tokyo. It has been the economic powerhouse of the Kansai region. Osaka is nicknamed "Japan's kitchen" and is known amongst the Japanese people as the city of gastronomy. For us, as a muslim, is it safe enough for us to eat everything in "Japan's kitchen"? Or we better to keep off from food we don't really know well about the ingredients, etc. Unfortunately, it might be true because I can say most of the famous foods are contained pork,lard, mirin in the soup usually, or even the animals (beef or chicken) slaughtered without mentioning the Name of Allah upon them. 

But, don't worry! There are so many HALAL restaurant in Osaka. Furthermore Japan now has become more Muslim friendly country. There're so many ways to enjoy Osaka.. Let's check it out....

1. Osaka Castle　大阪城

You probably can find a brief history about Osaka Castle and every single detail about it from wikipedia or other site. So instead of explaining about that,  I'll tak about Osaka Castle just from my perspective  at the first place.

Osaka Castle is very crowded especially in the weekend. Sometimes even it's on weekdays, still there are so many tourists there. Osaka Castle is very easy to reach by train and if you just want to stroll around, take a picture with the big Castle just like what I did, you don't need to pay for anything. You're lucky if you go to Osaka Castle when there is a summer, new year, or any other festival. There will be so many stalls who sell traditional Japanese food, people do some attractions, beautiful fireworks and illumitation in the night, etc. However, once again...it's so much crowded...

The picture below was took around 7 a.m in the morning (Not so much people, right!). In addition, Osaka Castle area is a very big and nice park to do morning jog or excercise.

Osaka Castle is so beautiful (October 2016)

Osaka Castle on the early morning (October 2016)

REVISIT? Yes! Yes! Yes!

2. Tempozan Ferris Wheel 観覧車

The Tempozan Ferris Wheel is the Osaka's largest. It offers far-reaching, panoramic views of the bay area and the city's skyscrapers beyond from a height of 112.5 meters. It takes approximately 15 mins to finish one rotation inside the car. Basically there're 2 types of cars, the first is a transparant glass door car and the other just a normal car. Even though I rode the ferris wheel twice yet I never tried the glass-door once due to its high number of queue (I don't like waiting on the line).

First time going to Tempozan Ferris Wheel in the night (Dec, 2014)

The view of Osaka. 2nd time going to Tempozan Ferris Wheel (Sep, 2016)

REVISIT? Yes! Yes! Yes! I really love to ride the giant ferris wheel

3. Get on Santa Maria Cruise Ship

One of the most exciting trips I took in Osaka is on the Bay Cruise Osaka Santa Maria, which is a replica of the sailing ship in which Columbus discovered.  It is 45 minutes excursion cruise around the bay of Osaka, starting from Tempozan Harbour Village. The pirate style ship houses indoors restaurant and also an exhibition below.

The Cruise Ship

I remember the pirate ship in "One Piece" 

You can also enjoy the beautiful twilight from the top of the cruise ship

REVISIT? Yes! But it's little bit costly for one ride so it's better you have an Osaka's sightseeing One Day Pass Card (it will cost you no charge for both entering inside some designated tourism objects or riding trains/subways around Osaka. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

[To Be Continued]

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Yummy Foods in Italia #Eurotrip2015

Duomo Cathedral, Milano, IT

“NOT I – NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.” – Walt Whitman

I'd never imagined that I was be able to go to another continent of this world. It was like a dream but sure was so beautiful. So, I participated on a conference located in Milano Italy. The conference itself already blew me away. Thank you Microsoft for the support and funding :)
Yeah, I was there during EXPO MILANO 2015. It was totally amazingly stunning place, event, and everything!!!!

Milano, Italy

Hotel's buffet menu, party at the bar, and GELATO(check until the last, you'll find my gelato)!

Halal marked Beef :)

Milan is famous of their heritage and of course their world class football team (AC Milan and Inter Milan). I spent almost 10 days here. At the first time it was not that easy to settle in different country from yours (especially different continent and type of person). I was living in japan before, so I was used to interact with people who says "Thank you" , "I am so sorry" , and "excuse me" all the time. While in europe, people are so blunt. The shop keeper didn't smile to the customer, The cashier in supermarket only said "Grazie" without smiling, Maybe I was too sensitive but It was quite different with anything I got from Japan. Yeah, they had their own way to express and interact with people, I just need to learn more about different kind of people.

For the first 4 days I stayed in 4 Stars Hotel (of course, thanks to microsoft's support and assistance) and ate buffet hotel menu all the time (feels like in paradiseee :D ). After that I moved to my friend's apartment in Milan.

“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” — Rosalia de Castro

Food
Ok, let's first talk about the food. I didn't eat any rice on the first  days. Beef, Chicken, pasta, croissant, and a lot of cakes were my daily menu. First time I was so excited knowing I was granted to eat "all you can eat" food in the hotel, but as the day counts I missed rice so much...

PIZZA

You know what amazing to be in italia? You could eat pizza, yeah very original pizza, where they originally came from. I couldnt find any tomato sauce or mayonnaise on it. Yeah, actually original italian pizzas were never using any sauce or any other thing that could tear the original taste of pizza itself. So my pizza was soooo cheessyyy but it was so delicious. I LOVE IT!

 

This pizza was.......Sooo delicious

Mozzarella and the Pasta

About to eat those mozzarellas

Ultra weird kind of pasta

My kind of dinner on GALA DINNER with amazing people (mostly president of department) from Microsoft, Aviva, ITU, etc.

The salmons

beefs

lets sit and eat as a lady

(just) a little part

Summary, it was a great night. Especially because of the gala dinner was held on the skyscraper building. Looking Milano city from above was something.

Besides, at that dinner, it was first time on my life, I was granted to eat as many salmon as I want, totally so good. I could drink wine (of course) so I just drank mineral water.

Best dinner menu ever!!!

My last night staying at the hotel probably was the best dinner menu ever. Vegetables and very delicious fruit everywhere. The pastas were so good too! I am sure I gained weight that night.

the cake I could eat as much as I want

My everyday breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel San Donato Milanese (all you can eat!)

GELATO!!!

I love gelato! I could get 2 scopes of gelato with only 2.5-3 euros. Check my next post to know more about my gelato! Catch you soon :)

Claudia

Sendai, JP 

2015

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Cherry Blossom in Tokyo

On the beginning of April, I and some friends were going to Tokyo

for seeing the first cherry blossom in Tokyo
here's some picts:

Cherry blossom (Sakura)

Roughly speaking, that was my one of crazy adventure in Japan. Why?

1. It was started when we chose to ride the night bus

We chose the night bus because it was obviously cheapest way to go to Tokyo. Around 23.45 our bus departed from Sendai station to Tokyo. I didn't sleep at all during our 6 hours riding a bus. I didn't know why, I just couldn't.
Finally, at 6 am we arrived safely in bus parking close to Shinjuku Station, Tokyo. Our first destination was Takao-yama (Mount Takao). Yeah, we would like to do a "little hiking".

2. Hiking 

On the way going to the site, we passed through thousands of sakura (cherry blossoms) which was my first time to see at the entire my life.
After about 1 hour riding train, we arrived on the desired site. However, we wanted to hike a mountain from 3/4 height to up (hahaha not 100%).
That's why we would ride a cable car to go up first.

This is the elevated cable car

some calligraphy on my way to go upper

with some friends

ignore it

with sisters

finally we made it on top

2. We reached the top but it didn't mean we "finished" here

On that height, it was impossible for us to go down normally (without any cable car or lift). So we managed to look for the way going to those facilities.
Unfortunately we were lost in direction, It caused us to walk up and down hill so many times just because we realized the wrong path after miles away we went down hill.
After about 1 hour we burned fat by hiked the wrong path, finally we found the way. We decided to ride a "lift" on the way go down. The lift was so scary at the first time, but I pretty enjoyed my time after some minutes being on that lift.

The lift has no holder in front of our body, only a hand holder on the right and left side

Actually it was dangerous to hold or even take a picture while on the lift :p

3. I'm hungry! Let's hunt for a halal meat restaurant.

It was obvious for us to get so hungry after hiked and even got lost on the route. We decided to hunt a halal restaurant in Roponggi Area. We chose restaurant named "Sumiyakiya" (if I'm not mistaken, kind of forget the name). As always we went by direction from Master Google Maps. Maybe it took time 20 minutes for us to find that certain restaurant. But we didn't care, as long as finally we found that, we could eat!!!

We were too hungry, sorry for not taking a picture for the food
But trust me it was amazingly superb goooood

In this reataurant we can as "okawari" (unlimited refill) of rice and kimchi (korean vegetable food). That's why I gave 9.5 to this restaurant. It took almost 15 minutes for our main menu to come, but we already eat rice and kimchi until half full. We ask "okawari" for the rice 5 times!!! hahahahaa~
The owner is guy from Srilanka, he is not a Moslem but he let us to pray inside his restaurant after the restaurant was closed at around 4 pm. He is so nice guy, we took a picture with his daughter too.

Nice restaurant, nice owner, with nice people from Sendai

4. Cherry blossom in the park

Tokyo was surrounded by millions cherry blossoms at that time. It was so lucky chance for us to be able to see them. It was just too beautiful...

under the cherry blossom

it was nice^^

5. Ueno Park

One of the most beautiful place I visited in Japan. Sakura view was super amazing here.
But sooo many people were there~

And we tried to get some picts there....

We're reaching the end!

Those are my report of trip to Tokyo during Spring vacation.

Thanks for reading!

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