Thursday, May 29, 2008
happyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappy~On 27th May 2008, Fariha Amin wished me a Happy Birthday at approximately 8.40am in the morning.
I told her immediately after that that my birthday was the next day.
The face change was interesting to watch.
That day, I had a really nice surprise waiting for me, as she had prepared a cake! along with my other friends and they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me and another guy, Wen Ping, who was having his birthday 2 days after mine.
And now I demand pictures from all of them because I forgot that I was currently holding my mum’s phone and it had Bluetooth.
I thank God above that I have friends like Fariha.
-/-
The next day was much more interesting. Birthday wishes streamed in the whole day – they made me feel loved and wonderful and pretty and kind and brilliant. Then Terry Liew had to ruin everything by messaging me and finally letting me know her number.
I got mocha from my colleagues! Along with a pretty TANGS voucher. I felt loved again.
Then during lunch we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Swenson’s as they had the Swenson’s 1-for-1 voucher and since it was my birthday, I get to have the Firehouse Happy Birthday Ice Cream Thing for free. So yes.
In a precisely condensed post, we had lots of fun and there were various mutations of Joans and Farihas and Yuanhan and Kesleen remained calm in the storm of it all and we all had ice cream.
I feel the love.
Thank you everyone, for making me feel all nice and warm and fuzzy again.
In other news, the AJC Alumni has a very cool and fun looking Night Cycling event on 6th June, which is the last day of work for me. Please try to make time for it because I will be there and I will make sure you stay up throughout the night as well as give you much entertainment in the process.
Please poke/spam/email/bang my door down for more details if you are interested.
Also, my doll-doll has leveled up! MR FISH LIVES.
Posted by norbert at 5/29/2008 01:06:00 AM
Thursday, May 08, 2008
(Thanks to Marcus for the pictures~)
IRONMAN PWN.
Watchitwatchitwatchit.
If you don't, I'll send... *tries to find something evil associated with her and fails* something... after you.
Yeah. Something. Like flying monkeys. Or, well, monkeys in general. Or that doll-doll there. Whatever.
'I'm sorry. This is the fun-vee. The hum-drum-vee is back there.' ~Tony Stark, Ironman (2008)
Posted by norbert at 5/08/2008 11:43:00 PM
Sunday, May 04, 2008
… I decided that blogging about Japan out won doodling Bleach! BakxFou.Anyway, the trip starts outright on the 1st of April because our plane took off at 2355hrs in the night. I remember spending a bit of time on the internet at the UVERforum, doing my travel insurance, sending out emails and packing my stuff before having dinner and going to the airport.
I had arranged with XL, Liew and Adeline (the sweet dears) who wanted to meet me before the trip
… Hey I just realised that I’m talking about 2 XLs here. Okay, Xinli will have the small ‘l’ in Xl because her name’s together while Xian Ling gets the big ‘L’ in XL because her name’s apart.
Eventually the others arrived: Gwee Xinli, Petrina Lee, and Toh Anqi (this is what filling in hostel reservation forms online does to you) ready to go for the trip. Xl had bought her entire family along because she and Pet were related (I shall refer Petrina as Pet from henceforth) and we soon checked in our luggage after settling some monetary matters. I had to pack my Nalgene bottle and pencil case into my luggage because my mum was saying that only 100ml water was allowed on planes and my pencil case had sharp pointy bits so the plane would be pissed if we bought them on board.
… Ah. Yihui came somewhere around here. The poor dear couldn’t make it along with us but I think I made it up to her pretty nicely. 8D
Strangely enough, when we checked in our luggage, everyone else’s luggage bag was bigger than mine. I think mine was like 12kg only? (Or was it 8kg…) while the rest were like 14kg etc. Xl was talking about shopping and when the person checking in our luggage saw the weight of my luggage, he even commented ‘Wow, this one’s serious about shopping in Japan eh?’
… Very funny. I was the least enthusiastic about shopping there.
We eventually bid everyone farewells because the airport closed the convenient gates before 11.15pm I think while the gates further down closed later. So we said goodbye to everyone and onward to Japan! I remember calling my younger sister somewhere here because she had been complaining about the accuracy of her watch and where else can you get more accurate clocks than at the airport?
The only feeling that I really, strongly remember at this time was a sense of surrealism. Like this was completely not happening. My parents did not just let me go to Japan alone with a few girls and all of which were barely grasping the language. And of course there was that overbearing sense of fear and paranoia, what if something went wrong? Thus while waiting for our plane, I badgered Xl repeatedly about plans and ideas and what to do when we reach KIX (that’s Kansai International Airport’s IATA code). Pet, Xl and I stuck to our maps for a while before the airline told us to board the plane.
Getting onto the plane was easy. Staying in your seat was the hard thing.
I tell you, sleeping on a plane is extremely uncomfortable. I don’t care if they provide you with blankets or whatever, even fluffy pillows, it’s hard to sleep in your plane seat. We were still rechecking plans of how to get to the ryokans we had reserved and had stuck to it for a while until the Airline’s entertainment system wrecked their toll and distracted us for good. I was sitting next to Anqi who was recovering from a cold while the related family sat in front. I had pounced upon the entertainment guide and was happily pointing out that they would be airing ‘Sky of Love’ or ‘Koizora’ and ‘I Am Legend’ on the flight and wasted no time in watching the movies.
‘I Am Legend’ is rather interesting. I read up on the book online, and the ending’s completely different from the movie, though I liked how the director/writer/producer tied in the ‘legend’ part, though it was for a completely different reason. Watching this sort of reminded me of reading Stephen King’s Danse Macabre as he was talking about the horror genre and ‘I Am Legend’ clearly belongs to it when you know what the book is about – and though the movie toned down the horror bit very much so, I was still very glad that the screen was very small and that it didn’t illuminate the dark parts properly. And yes, I agree with Life!’s review of the movie: that the best parts of the movie had been when Will Smith was alone. Such a nice man.
… Ah I watched ‘I Am Legend’ on the way back. Sorry.
Watching ‘Sky of Love’ made me scoff a little and while it waxed lyrical about love and was so terribly cliché, it still made me completely break down and cry like a baby at 2plus in the morning when Sakurai Hiro (main lead) died near the end of the movie. He died of cancer and the best thing was that they didn’t even say what sort of cancer it had been (hah for cliché-ness) though they had hinted at it: Hiro developed a very serious cough after running around at night in winter. (Lesson(s) learnt: Never run around wearing minimals in winter at night/Wear a breathing mask)
Miura Haruma’s hair was fantastic throughout the movie. Thumbs up to his stylist!
And I think the ending song had been ‘You Are My Sunshine’ by E-XILE, which I had seen the PV for, and I thought it was rather weird but at the same time fitting for such a movie.
After that I listened to the inflight radio for a while and got my first taste of ‘Heart Station’ by Utada Hikaru (and definitely not my last) and tried to sleep on the chair but I didn’t dare lean it down because there were people behind me and focused on remembering how I sneaked naps at work. I remember drifting in and out of sleep… Oh yes, Japan’s one hour ahead of Singapore time, so technically they woke us up at Singapore time 5am, which was Japan’s 6am and served us breakfast. Our flight took about 6 hours either way so we effectively spent the night flying.
They served us a pretty meal! Too bad I hadn’t gotten bitten by the shutterbug yet else I would have taken a picture. Anyway my camera’s been totalled now. I am depressed.
Soon we landed at KIX (I gave the pilot 3/10 for giving us such a hard landing – his takeoff was very smooth – 8/10) and were politely shoved off the plane and onto The Land of the Rising Sun.
The feeling of surrealism was still there – I mean ZOMG WE’RE REALLY IN JAPAN NOW – and we were alone but were feeling quite okay because Japan’s a pretty secure place and we knew what to do if anything went wrong. We took their automated shuttles between the terminals and were dismayed by their toilets (their handicapped toilet doors are operated by buttons!) as Japan only had squatting toilets and very rarely had sitting ones.
Then we breezed through KIX and out into the cool and crisp Osaka air – I still remember wailing in dismay when I saw bare trees outside the airport (I thought we had just missed the sakura season) before going straight to the Japan Railway station located at the airport and purchasing our first Product of Japan – a One Day West JR Pass!
Japan has a very extensive set of rails. It was very confusing for a while but we eventually got used to travelling everywhere on trains. They’re really nice and clean too; we can eat on them!
Our plan had been to go straight to Kyoto where our ryokan (Ryokan Yamazaki) was located, put our luggage down because they’re such dears to let us store our luggage with them before we check and then run around Nara a bit before going back to Kyoto for the night.
We then went to the station to wait for our train. It was already there but they were cleaning it so we had to wait. I think the shutterbug bit me here so I took random pictures of the sign saying that they were cleaning the train, vending machines which pretty pictures of ice cream and teas, the train itself, which had chairs which could turn~
Eventually we got onto the train and I amused myself here more with more random pictures of Osaka the city and of cherry blossoms blooming beside the railway track.
It was here we discovered something. The little victory sign we use when we take pictures appears to be some sort of national symbol for picture taking in Japan. Everyone does it. Seriously. A train conductor came onboard to check our tickets and we asked for a picture because Pet wanted one so he very happily obliged and he’s a fully grown man, and he does the little twist sign! I swear it made him look ten years younger.
We then chatted as he knew abit of English and he was telling us the usual stuff, like enjoy our stay here and etc. Japanese people are very nice to travellers! Made us feel all warm and fuzzy and loved.
We spent the rest of the train ride dozing off and staring into space because we were really tired from the plane ride. I took more pictures of Osaka before succumbing to sleep.
Eventually we reached JR Kyoto Station, wrapped up warmly in scarves and jackets because the weather was rather blustery. Stopping outside the station, we consulted our map again as we wanted to see where to take our bus from. There was a huge crowd around the station but we didn’t pay attention to that because well, aren’t train stations always crowded? So while Xl looked at the map, I scanned around the station, noting the many people around with their handphones out. I caught a glimpse of a TV camera and was nudging Xl to get out of the way but she wasn’t paying attention.
Then it happened.
‘Hello~ Do you need help?’
This man had come over and Xl finally looked up from her map. I realised with much horror that he was the cause of the entire people jam at the station – him coming over had brought his friend and eeeek, the camera followed!
I swear, at this moment, Anqi and Petrina vanished. Vanished, I tell you, leaving me and Xl to grapple with… whoever he was.
Xl told me later that she really, seriously thought he was a kind-hearted man (okay, he is) who wanted to help us, which he did… before like, I don’t know… how many people watching behind the camera…
We asked him for directions and he pointed the way to the bus stop which we were supposed to go to. Because the bus took an extremely long time to come (half an hour! Like wth), he chatted with us a bit more with his friend. He asked the usual questions like where we were from, how long we were staying etc… all the while making jokes in Japanese with his friend. It was very depressing as Xl and I did not understand much Japanese and he was saying much Japanese and all the while, everything was recorded down in that horrid camera poking in our faces and people were taking pictures…
He eventually left after talking to us for what felt like an eternity and since I was pretty much going crazy with the question ‘Who the hell are you????’, I asked for a picture and he happily obliged, giving that little victory sign. A grown man! Argh.
There were other people waiting for the bus with us and I asked two girls who the men were and only got the names ‘Ryuuzan’ or something, and ‘konto’. After researching up wikipedia when I came back, I found out that konto was a genre of Japanese variety shows and had absolutely no leads on Ryuuzan.
Okay after that we got onto our bus and rode for like 40 minutes until the stop. On the bus we met an Australian man who had been living in Kyoto for at least 10 years and the two girls which I spoke to had helped us ask the bus driver to tell us when to stop. He was saying that one can actually survive in Japan without knowing the language but he learnt to read some kanji like ‘in’ or ‘out’…
Ooh, a how-to-take-buses-in-Japan guide.
Basically, you enter from the back and there’s this machine beside the door which would issue you a piece of paper. It’s nothing much, with just one number. That number tells you what stop you got up on and when you get off from the front, there’s a meter there that tells you how much the bus fare is. CASH IS KING IN JAPAN. If you’ve only got notes, there’s no worry because the bus driver has a yen small change machine in which you insert your notes and it’ll give you coins in exchange for you to pay for your bus ride.
End how-to-take-buses-in-Japan guide.
We eventually reached our ryokan and dumped our luggage in our rooms. The ryokan had a very homely feel and we had our rooms separated from the main building which made it especially quiet and tranquil. I think our room had a kotatsu but we weren’t sure how to use it so in the end we didn’t.
Dumping our luggage there, we took off back to the train station where we took the JR train to Nara and visited the Nara Deer Park. Xl had initially wanted to go to this ninja house somewhere near Nara but it was rather hard to get to hence we didn’t manage to get to go there.
We reached the park eventually where it was crawling with tourists, deer and… vendors. We walked around abit, taking pictures of the deer
We had those red bean buns here that were really good. There were souvenir shops all over and we spent some time at them, buying back mostly food because the other things were too expensive. Inside the temple was filled with Buddhist statues and pretty things which would be much better appreciated if you would just go and download my first day’s worth of pictures so yes, you get my point.
Here, Xl and I started picking sakura blossoms to press into flatness. I picked those pretty ones that were on the floor only because well, I don’t know what the Japanese would think if we plucked them off the trees. (We’d probably never make it out of Japan alive.) I have some in my book – they’re all flat now and quite crumpled because the flowers refused to be flattened properly. I can’t remember if they have a certain scent but if you want and if I meet you sometime soon, I can give some to you~
So we overdosed on sakura blossoms at the temple and walked around some more. There was this other temple that we wanted to go to but couldn’t because temples close rather early in Japan, 5pm if I remember correctly. So we made our way back to our ryokan back in Kyoto and the train ride took forever.
I remember calling the ryokan because we had informed them that we would be coming at around 7pm but the train ride was insanely long and quite boring so we told them 8pm. We eventually reached the ryokan at 9pm.
They had locked the front entrance but the people were really nice about us being late. We banged on the door for a few long moments before they opened it and we apologised madly for coming in so late. The owners just laughed and asked us teasingly what time we really ended playing before they served dinner out for us.
And their dinner was like… amazing. I’m sorry I don’t have a presentation picture of their dinner as I was still not camera smart enough but they really prepared a lot and everything tasted just wonderful – maybe because we were hungry but still it was wonderfully done. They had those lovely natto beans I think? And had konnayaku jelly and many other lovely dishes like fish and other seafood.
We filled ourselves happily before retiring to our room. Here we watched a bit of TV. I was going on about anime since I know that they tend to start quite late but we didn’t manage to catch any while we were in Japan. *depressed*
Ah yes here we freshened up with a bath and finalised plans for the next day. And Xinli and I knew that Smee was in Japan as well so we decided to call her. Xinli was very happy about this and grabbed the phone, wailing ‘Mee-meeeeeep’ into the phone when she answered. I have no idea what Smee’s response was – I think I remember her telling me it was an ‘Oh my god!’ – when she and I continued talking for a while. She told me what and where to go and stuff before we hung up and each individually called our own families. 3G phones are the only devices which work in Japan – they’re in the triband and moving towards quartband already while Singapore is still stuck in dualband and just moving into the triband – which the 3G system phones are part of.
We slept early that night; we were too exhausted to actually stay up to talk and about our trip.
So ends my first post of my Japan trip. (A month late I know, shut up Smee.)
Links for my photos:
Because mediafire only allows a max of 100mb (like every other file hosting site out there) I've split up my Japan Trip photos into parts.
Part 1: Click ME!
Part 2: Click ME!
Each is around 90++MB. You have been warned.