this is the day of a rather long drive…

then we came across this area where there were many tour buses, so…

we stopped to check it out too~~~

we also stopped by this castle…

then we arrived at niigata n went shopping… guess what we bought! jigsaw puzzles!!

world’s small jigsaw puzzle!! not one… but 2… n more to come later in the trip even!

sorry no pic for that for now… but it’s 1000 piece, making a A3 picture (2 pieces of A4).

From around 2006, the Japanese puzzle manufacturers have been engaged in a battle for the “smallest”. Starting with puzzles of one-and-a-half to two times as many pieces in the standard dimensions, these were merely small (and Japanese puzzles are typically 10% or so larger in area than European or North American puzzles of the same piece count). Then Tenyo produced a “World Smallest 1000-piece” series*, earning a place at Guinness World Records, shortly to be overtaken by Beverly, with 1000-piece puzzles at 300-piece size. These tiny pieces are not for the faint of heart, and you will need patience, delicate fingers, and very good eyesight!

* A3 size: two sheets of A4, or very roughly two sheets of “Letter” size if you’re in the US.

taken from http://www.imaginatorium.org/shop/tiny.htm

here’s one of the museum that i enjoyed v much….

it’s all trick art… n there are various such musuems in japan…

added 10.51pm…

{ trick art = most of the pictures are 2D, juz paintings… like the bed, the shark, and the falling parts… so it’s how creative u can get when u take the photos…

technique for taking such photos… no flash photography! which is quite tough indoors… that’s y some of the pictures are slightly blurred…}

there are several nice churches there at the old street as well…

added 10.52pm…

{added 17/9/2008 11.36pm…

one of the nice shops at karuizawa old street…

a bit like greece hor~~~

other highlights…

check the pink flower… v interesting… look at the petals… 2 red 3 pink in one flower…

but when it blooms as a bunch… then the colours are in rings of red n pink!

n the other flower looks like a lady in a gown!

 

 give me some time to montage the other pics la… u know v busy with radio drama la..

me first time producing the radio drama le… any comments for the radio drama?

let us know la~~

first sightseeing was the ueda castle… this one was a disappointment after visiting matsumoto’s castle lo…

in ueda, there are several old streets like this…

next stop… SHOPPING at factory outlet again!!!! karuizawa prince… here i come…

i bought 2 pairs of adidas here… each for less than 2,000yen! and i bought 2 pieces of clothing from tommy too~~ cheap cheap~~ sorry no pic of factory outlet too~~

once of my best buy from the gotemba factory outlet! from 13,650 slashed til 3990 with tax… n if u buy 2 pairs of shoes, a further disount of 30%.. timberland somemore le~~

by now.. i had to throw away bulky shoe boxes liao cos the boot of the car was almost full~~

the accomodation at karuizawa… karuizawa is suppose to be a holiday-like place for japanese… apparently… the prince of japan met his wife here… so they were back there for honeymoon or something like that la…

the cute alien like plant outside candytuft..

and a glimspe of our bedroom?

at the rate i m going.. my travel post for the july will last til my NEXT holiday? hahahaha
i shall try to speed up a little.. and guess what as i look at the photos.. i could have messed up the order liao! ahahha anyway..

at matsumoto, we went to school too… this is of course a historical site, with exhibits of the class rooms, the textbooks, and the history then as well…

look at these angels carefully… dont they look like sumo angels~~

the design and structure of this school had this western touch to it…

take a close look at the following pictures of their textbook…

tho i dun really understand the words… but can guess a bit la

i think it’s something like… ‘after surrendering world war II,

they made some changes to the textbooks!’

the next stop.. wasabi farm… never know what the green paste for sushi looked like?

after which, we visited the monkeys.. u might have seen on taiwan dongfeng channel that monkeys love hot spring as well?

think again… that’s in winter but in summer july, will the monkeys be enjoying the onsen?

hmmm.. well we were not disappointed… we did see monkeys in the hot pool… but the moments were really brief… cos they were diving into the hot pool for food that the park keeper threw in!!! well i guess the park felt that since they charged an entrance fee, they had to ensure that visitors saw the monkeys in the water la~~~