Twilight (Post#8) : Luna Park Sydney
While exploring night photography during my walk around Circular Quay and The Rocks, I tried to capture from a distance the one of the popular theme park available in Australia which is Luna Park Sydney which operational since 1935. The theme park has also a branch in Melbourne which recently celebrated its Centennial last 2012. The photo is part of Sydney Walking Tour April 2014 collection.
I know that it’s been a while since my last post. After being busy in a project at work, I was busy planning my next out of the country adventure this year together with my family.
Traveling in a country with visa is most likely a dream to me because your chances to see that country is whether the visa application is approved. If the visa approved we are really lucky. If not, the hope will probably gone as there’s no way to come to that country in a normal and legal way.
When I heard that Japan loosen a bit of its strictness in processing visa specifically for tourists visa to promote their tourism, I put some thought to visit the country since last year. Then, I waited my chance for cheap airline ticket since I am planning to travel together with my family (with my parents and my youngest sibling). Last February this year, I received alert email from one of the budget airline in my country and I grabbed my chance to book tickets for myself and my family. Honestly, it was difficult to get cheap ticket with combined promo rate both for departure and arrival flight but with perseverance I was able to find combinations of dates for our travel.
Almost 7 months had passed and I’m still not sure if we can really travel to Japan for many reasons. And last August, I processed all our visa applications and submitted it to one of the authorized travel agency of Japan Embassy as their office does not accept anymore applications directly from applicant. I completed all the requirements and prepared for the visa fee. I applied a single entry for all of us. And after 3 days of processing, the agency called me and notified me that the visa were already approved. I was ecstatic when I heard the news, because the major worry of the travel planning if we can push visiting Japan got resolved. When I returned to pickup the passports, I was surprised for one thing. I received a multiple visa for 5 years in Japan while the rest of my family just got single entry. For me and my family, being approved even for single entry in Japan was one of the great things happened because it gave us a chance to see the country even for once. I just thought that if there is a need to re-apply for visa, it will be probably easier because we’ve had a record that we had visited Japan.
Even before visa application processing, I already started searching places to visit in Japan. Since after the booking of our flight, I have hope that I will be able to see Japan. When our visa approved, that’s was the time I made a real itinerary. I planned the places to visit and the accommodation where were going to stay. I aligned all the accommodations that we need to all places we planned to visit. Since I’m always on a budget, I selected hotels walk able to and from the train station, as I learned that taking a cab in Japan is quite pricey. I also bought necessary advance tickets such as train pass and sumo ticket to reserved guaranteed slot for my family.
My family and I traveled the country within 10 days, these includes two flights to and from Japan. In total we spent at least 8.5 days roaming around in Japan.
Here are the following places we’ve got a chance to visit.
1. Tokyo
– Ginza
– Ryogoku
– Ueno
– Asakusa
2. Yokohama
3. Mount Fuji and Kawaguchiko
4. Miyajima and Hiroshima
5. Osaka
6. Kyoto
Our trip was really quick by I tried to see as much as we can since I was with my family. In the next coming post. I will described the experience that myself and my family had in our first visit in Japan.
Until then.
Still Expression (Post#2) : Smile And Wave
I selected the photo above to showcase the expression of smile and hand wave as it describes the emotion at the moment of the people. This photo is in the same collection of the first post for this theme which all came from Disney Adventure in Hong Kong last January 2012 during parade at the height of celebrating the Chinese New Year.
Still Expression (Post #1): Undisclosed Reflection
As I am most interested in taking photos of places and scenery, I am not really that good in taking photos of people, but I cannot avoid to get one. One thing that I am probably interested is taking snapshots of moments where people are in random movement rather than taking post of their selves for a camera shot to really capture the moment of second and its surprising what is the outcome. Photo captured during holiday season in Hong Kong Disneyland last January 2012 where the afternoon parade started in Disneyland.
Chromatic Outlook (Post#20) : Disneyland Hotel
Even sleeping in Disneyland Hotel quite expensive than the normal hotels that I used to booked every time I was out of the country, I reserved an overnight to that hotel. Because I was with my mother for the first time out of the country, I wanted to gave her a lot of memories in our travel together. And one night in Disneyland Hotel in Hong Kong was just one of them. The photo above was a snapshot of the hotel from the sea side area. Photo captured last January 2012.
Chromatic Outlook (Post#19) : First World Hotel
When we visited Genting Highlands in Malaysia, we found a theme park at the top of the mountain. When we set to go to the place, I never expected that too many people were so incline to visit the place. First World Hotel is just one of the hotel to be found in Genting. At first, I thought that this hotel is the same as other hotels which a common hotel near in casino until I checked if there something unique on this building. First World Hotel is the third largest hotel in the world in terms of number of rooms, knowing that information is quite interesting. Photo captured last December 2012.
Based from information from online and some brochure, I got the impression from the name itself that Everland is like a magical world that you wanted to visit and feel like a young child again. With that thoughts in my mind, the three of us probably quite excited. We already visited a lot of theme parks from my country and other countries as well and each theme parks left something in our heart. I was really curious what Everland will offer that time.
We decided to set Everland adventure on Friday, second to the last day of our South Korea trip. Since we already bought ticket prior to the big day, we just checked in the brochure how to go to the theme park. From our hotel, we took Line 7 again as we usually starts our travel going to Bupyeong-gu office, then we got off at Express Bus Terminal to transfer to another line. Then we took Line 3 going to Ogeum and we got off at Seoul National University of Education. Lastly we took Line 3 going to Konkuk station and we dropped off at Gangnam station. This travel that we did, when we returned from Everland, we realized how near the Gangnam station from our hotel, but since we did not knew it before we took the long way.
Outside Gangnam station, we found the bus terminal going directly to Everland theme park, we took Red Bus#5002. We waited for sometime until the bus arrived. We were lucky as we lined-up in the queue and were near at the front of the queue as it seems that there were lots of people planned to go to the theme park that day as it is Friday. We used our T-money card in the bus, in few minutes the bus were full and we’re on our way to the theme park.
On our way to Everland, we passed Carribean Bay which is another theme park near Everland but our ticket does not include it. The public bus dropped us at the bus terminal near at Everland, then we transferred to park shuttle bus that brought us to the main gate of the park.
–Main Gate
We got off at the front of the main gate of Everland. The facade of the gate gives the impression to the visitor that the theme park is a magical land like Disneyland. We spent few minutes to take photos of ourselves at the front of the gate. After taking photos, we walked at the gate and we presented our ticket to enter the park.
–Front of Main Gate
–Main Gate (Way Out)
–Garden at the middle near the main gate
Global Fair
As we entered the park, we felt excited as we already enjoying what we had seen so far. My mom and my sister saw flower garden at the middle after passing the gate and as usual as I am the photographer, I have to take photos of them. The first place to see in the park based on our map is called Global Fair. Here there were two attractions listed, first the “K-Pop Hologram” and “Pororo 3D Adventure”. In the hologram, there was artist displayed but since my sister and I not familiar with the said artist, we never entered in the hologram as we wanted to see much as we can. There are shops with unique and magical style that can be found within the Global Fair area. We passed different Gardens and Flowers. One of the lovely thing we saw was the colorful and huge Magic Tree. There were restaurants as well such as Venizia and Oriental. There is Human Sky terminal which used to transfer from Global Fair to Zootopia.
–Lacium Memorium (One of the shops)
–Lacium Memorium and Vicinity (Way Out)
–Tower Photo (One of the shops)
–Shops
–Vicinity and K-Pop Hologram
–Another garden
–Venizia Restaurant
–Pororo Shop
–Gardens and Flowers
–Magic Tree
–Pororo 3D Adventure
–Flowers
Came from American Adventure
–Global Fair Vicinity
–Oriental Pororo Salad Bar
–Oriental Pororo Salad Bar and Human Sky terminal
Came from European Adventure On Our Way Out
–Global Fair Vicinity
–Between American Adventure and Global Fair
–Flowers and Magic Tree
–8 Seconds shop
American Adventure
After reaching American Adventure area, we stopped for a while and took a break, we bought cold drinks while looking on rides nearby. My sister tried Championship Rodeo rides, we thought that it was simple but after rides we felt crazy and dizzy. We had fun in that ride. Other rides are Hurricane, Rolling X-Train, Columbus Adventure and Let’s Twist. Sky Cruise terminal can be found as well which used to transfer from American Adventure to European Adventure.
–Hurricane
–Championship Rodeo
–Columbus Adventure
–Rolling Ex-Train
–Lets Twist
–Sky Cruise
We went to Sky Cruise to immediately transfer to European Adventure. After reaching the said area as we enjoyed the magical garden because of its colorful and beautiful flowers that spreads in the whole area. We took a lot of time in each area that we did not noticed that time was passing.
–View of European Adventure from Sky Cruise rides
European Adventure
Magic Garden
–With Grand Stage
–Holland Village
Rose Garden
–Royal Jubilee Carousel
Magic Land
–Magic Swing
Other areas in Everland were closed at the time that we arrived such as Zootopia. We came in the place but no more animals and no more shows anymore. We were a bit sad but we understand that the theme park were quite big and after we spent so much time in the beautiful garden in European Adventure, we run out of time to see a lot of the park. But still in total, we enjoyed our visit in Everland.
Name Of The Place (Post#9) : Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
Hong Kong, one of the main reason why we traveled here was because of Disneyland. Disneyland is a magical place in the essence that you witness magical characters and its settings that we only saw in TV and movies. Sometimes dreaming in our life is important to make us happy and inspire to continue our journey. Yes, maybe a lot of things and happenings in Disneyland story are impossible to happen but sometimes our life involves with magic on its own.
Chromatic Outlook (Post#3) : Disneyland Station
When we had a chance to visit Hong Kong last Jan 2012, we did not miss to go to Disneyland. The photo above is Disneyland station in Disneyland Resort Line captured when we were leaving the theme park.
This post has been updated to add the link of and to participate in the following:
Black and White View – April 11, 2016
Black and White Wednesday – April 13, 2016
The Weekend in Black and White – April 15, 2016
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