35th Bon Odori 2011 Arigatou Malaysia

Last Saturday (not the yesterday Saturday), my housemate invited me to go Bon Odori Festival with her and her friends. Eventually, I ever heard of this festival before as my friend ever uploaded her photos of attending this event in facebook. But when I saw it was 35th celebration of Bon Odori festival in Malaysia, I was kinda shocked because when I was college student back in few years ago in KL, none of my friends ever told me or discuss about this event before. I wonder why.

Anyway, I was kinda excited and can't wait to tag along my baby (my Canon Ixus 130) to this event.

Basically, Bon Odori is a Japanese traditional dance and this traditional comes from Buddhism in China. It is celebrated as a reminder of the gratefulness one should feel toward one’s ancestors.

This event held at Panasonic Sports Complex, Shah Alam and seriously speaking, my housemate and I never been to Shah Alam before. But she attempted the risk of driving all along from Wangsa Maju to Shah Alam and all she can ever rely on was the direction printed from Google maps. Luckily the direction given is accurate, or else I can't think the worst part.

The event start at 7pm but by 5pm, the parking space is full and we had to park extremely far away. Once we enter, directly we hunt for foods instead of searching for seats. Guess all of us were too hungry that moment.

Variety of foods and drinks especially most are served in Japanese cuisine. Yummy yummy~

The crowd at 5.30 pm

The stage where the traditional dance is going to perform.

As we saw there are still more seats available, we went back to hunt for more foods. Looks like our motives on that evening was focus on foods, rather than the festival itself.

I had two ice-creams on that evening but I damn love the one on the left hand-side. It costs RM6 and it is very similar to the fish shaped ice-cream which sell in Sushi Tei, Suria Sabah that cost RM13. It is extremely expensive, right? I ever search for this kind of ice-cream in Kota Kinabalu but too bad, I unable to hunt any of them. Have any of you any idea where can I can this ice-cream in KL?

The crowd at 6.45 pm and immediately we try to find the best spot so that we able to watch the performance.

And there it begins...

Honestly to tell you that I am using a normal Canon compact camera, not those high and professional DSLR camera. So, this is what I able to capture during the performance.

Even the audience were dancing along

They are real Japanese little girls wearing yukata. Kawaii neh~

All I can said that this KL version of Bon Odori is not much happening compare to the one which I bumped into one of the blogger who post of this event too but it happens at Penang. However, if you got the chance, you should go at least once to expose the Japanese culture, art, dance and not forgeting the foods too. =P

Small Note: This week is my third week of study but tons of mock test and homework given. Sometimes, it makes me miss my previos working life. Done with this post and now I am going to do revision for my upcoming test. Have a great day everyone!

[Credit to: Japan-101.com, mp3japan.org]

Window on China Theme Park, Taiwan - Part II: Doreamon Park

Date of Visited: 21 December 2010

Like what I mentioned before in my previous post (click here), this theme park is totally unique from the others as it is not only display various of famous international landmarks miniature, it also features many different rides including the tallest and wildest water flume ride in Asia.

But due to most of the rides will make us wet and because we did not bring any extra cloth, so we didn't take any ride on them. What we more interested was the Doraemon Park. Although Doraemon is not my favourite comic character but I love to read its comic books since I was in primary school and I almost had the full collection of it. My late grandfather even purposely made a bookshelf just for me to put all my comic books collection.

Would you buy this Doraemon car if really made for sale?

Time to shop for Doraemon stuff

Taking Doraemon train heading back to the main park for lunch

Sayonara Doraemon and friends. I was eating Doriyaki ice-cream by the way

End our tour of visiting Window of China by having lunch at one of their restaurant, Hakka Cuisine

Overall, I would say that this place is worth visiting if you are going with family and the miniature are well maintain, unlike the Splendid China Miniature Park which I visited in Shenzen, China. But a reminder to you is that if you like to take a ride on the tallest water flume ride, please do bring extra cloth.

So, that's how our second half day of tour ends. Will continue with the other half day tour in next post but it sounds a bit unfavourable.

[For more info, please do visit the main homepage: Window on China Theme Park]

Window on China Theme Park, Taiwan - Part I: Miniature World

Date of Visited: 21 December 2010

On the second day of our trip, we went to the Window on China Theme Park or in Chinese known as 小人國 (I skipped the boring part of visiting one of the old streets) which is located in the area of northern Taoyuan area, right just next to the Taoyuan International Airport.

Window on China Theme Park is one of Taiwan's amusement park and the main attraction is where they display miniature of historical buildings and famous international landmarks around the world. Window on China Theme Park is more similar to the one located in Shenzen but these 133 miniature landmarks are all perfectly presented on a 1 to 25 scale to the original building whereas the one in Shenzen showcases in a human-size scale models.

One of Window on China mascot - Lucky

Xiao Ren Guo direct translate means "small people country"

Miniature of Taichung port and harbour

Using my Canon Ixus 130 miniature effect

Airport and airplane

The miniature world is divided into 3 main sections;

1. Mini Taiwan / Mini China - Displays the all well-chosen famous buildings from Taiwan and China where you can experience the Taiwanese and Chinese culture based on the style and feature from the past and the present.

One of Taiwan's famous monument, Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall


There even display other miniature such as zoo. Can you spot the monkey hanging on the line?



And even kungfu panda was here too.

Loves this model of amusement park

2. Mini Europe / America - Display the beauty of European buildings and the amazement of American sights.

Can you identify any one of these landmarks?

3. Mini Asia - Features the vivid buildings and landscape of Japan, Korea, India and the Middle East.

I put this as my profile pic in facebook and my friend thought I went India. (==")

My dearest family - mom and 2 lil bros


Did you spot coaster rail behind?

Besides miniature, there are many different exciting rides and adventures either on land or in water in this amusement park such as roller coaster, riverboat, bumper car and lots more. In addition, the popular cartoon and comic character, Doreamon Park was also features here too which just being opened in two years ago. But I will share all of these in the next post or else my this post will be bulky with overload photos. So stay tune!

Ended my post with this. Wore this shirt which I bought from Wufenpu on the night before for NT$200

[Credit to: Window on China Theme park homepage & brochure]