Poochi 12th Birthday

Last month on the 30th April was Poochi my dog’s 12th Birthday. It was an estimate based on the age when we bought him. Since he did not come with any Birth Cert, we just assumed his birthday was around end of April and thus became 30th April. 

For the past few years we did not celebrate for him on his actual day as we were overseas most of the time. However, this year we were around and it was the 12th Birthday, marking 1 complete cycle of his Chinese horoscope. Btw, he was borned in the year of the pig. Perfect animal to describe him. 

Bought a banner and some balloons to decorate his party. Also bought him this birthday cake hair band but he doesn’t seem to like it.

He kept trying to get it off. Luckily I got a spare party hat.

Smiling happily with his yellow party hat and his birthday cake. We bought this strawberry cake from Chateraise as his fave fruit was strawberries.

Need to hold him or else he will surely burnt his forehead with the candles like what he did the last time.

Time to blow out the candles!

Happy Birthday to my dear old Pooch, wishing you a long and healthy life and stay happy always!

Video of Poochi busy gobbling his birthday cake....haha...

Matsue Vogel Park and Matsue Castle

Matsue Vogel Park is a flower and bird paradise and located just outside the Matsue Vogel park station on the Ichibata railway line. 

There was a discounted price for tourist when you showed your passport. Basically, it’s a huge place with a large greenhouse with many variety of birds and flowers. Besides that, they also have several bird shows and a penguin walk parade at certain timings. It also have a few restaurants and eateries, together with a big viewing tower on top of a hill. The place was about 32 hectares big, and on the day we arrived, the park probably have less than 50 visitors as it’s a weekday and off peak season. Woohoo~ felt like we have the whole place to ourselves.

The first show we need to catch is the penguin stroll at 10.30am. 

The penguins were kept in this area inside a greenhouse. Close to 10.30am, the keeper would come in and put a ribbon around their neck and carried each out of the enclosure. 

Thus began their stroll from one end of the greenhouse to the other end. Think the whole stroll took less than 10 mins and the keeper had to use the broom to guide them along. Haha...it’s actually v cute when they walked with the big ribbon with a bell around their neck.

Check out the video I took.

For lunch, it’s soba at a soba restaurant inside the park. Cheap and yummy.

Guess what, we were the only customers around during lunchtime.

After that, we managed to catch 2 more bird show.

One of which was held inside another glass house.

The other bird show was held outdoor.

Noticed that they kept making the birds flew over our heads. Bit scary coz I’m afraid they might pooped over my head.

Bought bird food to feed the duckies and swans in the pond. 

These two owls are a couple.

The owls in this place are cageless. 

 But their legs are tied to the stand they were standing on.

This owl looked v grouchy and seemed to get out of the wrong side of bed...haha...and it makes a ‘arggg’ kind of sound every 30 seconds.

Think we left around noon time and went to our next destination. Like how the seats of the train were facing the shinji lake on the way to Matsue-Shinjiko-Onsen station. Besides that, it was heated and quiet inside the train. 

Matsue Castle was about 20mins walk from Matsue-Shinjiko-Onsen station. It was one of the original 12 castles left in Japan today. Luckily for us, it’s not as crowded as Himeji Castle.

The cherry blossoms were in the falling off stage and the ground were pink from the fallen petals.

Similar as Himeji, we need to take off our shoes and carry them inside a plastic bag inside the castle as the flooring were made of the original wood. 

Haha....souvenir from Matsue Castle.

Shimane-Izumo Taisho Shrine

Early next morning on the 9 April 2019, we departed from Tottori station to Izumoshi Station by Limited Express Super Oki train which took about 109 mins and was included in our JR pass.

After leaving our luggages at Dormy Inn Izumo which was located just outside the south exit of Izumoshi station, we set off for Izumo-Taisho shrine using the Ichibata railway line which was next to the station. Ichibata railway was not under JR so we can’t use the pass and have to purchase tickets from machines.

The pink Ichibata local train decorated with izumoshi mascot which was a cat with a shrine on its head.

It felt like Japan Hour documentary to me as some of the stations were unmanned and instead of machines, there were people checking your tickets when you get off or on the station. Quite a unique experience from the city hustle bustle feel as these places were more rural and so much less crowded.

From Izumoshi station, we took the train and change to another platform at Kawato station before arriving at Izumotaisha-Mae station which was the entrance to the shrine.

Posing with the mascot on the train.

Can even sit with it and ride together on the train. How cute is that!

Love the interior decoration of the train and most importantly, it’s so empty!

There are 4 main tori gates leading to the shrine. First is the white stone gate and the second is the wooden tori gate which leads to the temple ground.

The third gate was the steel tori.

In the center of this steel tori gate was a row of cedar trees believed to be 400 years old. This path was fenced off as it was believed that this was the path that the deties took and humans are supposed to walk along the two paths besides the tori gate.

The cherry blossoms here were still in full bloom.

It was a quiet and peaceful place.

These were many small statues of rabbits all around the place.

The final tori gate was made of bronze and was believed to be the oldest bronze gate in Japan.

It was the smallest among all the tori gates leading here.

The way to pray at this shrine was slightly different. I used this website as my guide 

izumotaisho guide for my visit to this shrine. It’s a v good website.

Izumo Taisha is one of the oldest Shinto shrine in Japan and dates back to the 700s. Wow, that v old to me as the year is in 3 digits instead of 4 digits.

It is said that, if you visit this shrine, you will have great luck in your love/marriage life and personal relationships. Noticed that most of the people here were ladies...haha...well for me, I hope for better personal relationship with people around me as I feel this is something v important and sometimes, it’s not within my control.

The giant woven straw rope was believed to designate a scared space, marking the boundary between the scared world and the real world. The one behind us was the biggest in Japan and weigh more than 3000kg.

Back view of the shrine. V unique architecture which I dun see in other shrines in Japan.

More cute rabbit statues.

Lunch at Soba Takanaya, a small soba shop located outside the main entrance of the shrine. Seems to be v popular due to its many great reviews online.

The way of eating soba here was different. The soba also taste more al dente and had a stronger soba taste as compared to normal soba.

We also ordered the red bean dessert which used soba to make the knot and a heart shaped chewy mochi like thing. Overall, it is interesting and tasted good. We were given iPads with English to help us order when the server realized we arent Japanese. Haha....service was v good too. Highly recommended!

Back at Dormy Inn Izumo, our luggages were already placed in our rooms when we came back and checked in. Think that was one of the good service provided by the hotel as not many did such thing.

JR Izumoshi station. 

Our room for the next 2 nights.

There was complimentary coffee and tea in the hotel lobby 24hrs. Besides that, each guest also get 

a complimentary beer and snack located on the top floor of the hotel with a nice night view. There was outdoor Onsen but I did not go. The thing I like about Dormy Inn was that they have complimentary ramen/soba cooked on the spot for you around 8.30pm.

My free ramen. Taste not bad too.