This year we had some CME assignment in which we had to write about our grandparents or some other given topic on the list. I remember I decided to write about my grandmother and wrote that "sometimes it felt like she was more of my mother than my real mother".
If my grandmother turns out to have cancer, it will be as if my own mother has gotten cancer.
When I started to think about all the times I had with my grandma, and how much she has done for me, I started to cry.
1) Years ago my parents used to just dump me at my grandparents place for them to take of me when I was younger
2) When I was about 3, when I refused to let go of my grandparents at the airport, they ended up bringing me along to Ipoh, buying a ticket on the spot and buying clothes for me there.
3) When I was 7 they brought me to New Zealand in June. When I was 10 it was South Korea and 11, Yunnan in China, not to mention countless other trips to Malaysia
4) My grandmother was the one who accompanied me to school on my first day when I was P1 for recess and the trip back home
5) When I was about 7 and we moved out to the new house (the one we're staying at now), I used to call my grandmother and cry for her to come every night
6) My grandmother would prepare milo for me to drink every night and morning when I was in Pri school and she'd also prepare breakfast
7) Even as I got older, before I went off to study in school during the O level period, she always fried an omelette for me to eat
8) Everytime I was sick, she was the person who came to pick me up and send me to the doctor's 75% of the time
9) She gave me my school allowance from Pri 1 all the way to Sec 4
10) She bought me the laptop I'm using now
11) At night in bed, I kick about. She used to wake up in the middle of the night to cover me up again to make sure I didn't catch a cold
12) When I was in Pri school, sometimes at night I'd get hungry and wouldn't be able to sleep. She would get up and bring me downstairs to make food
13) From P1 to P6, I used to sleep together in the same room with her and my grandpa. That's how I got used to sleeping despite a noisy environment (the tv)
14) She was the one who hired the first tuition teacher for me for math in P5 and paid her
15) Ever since the day I came back from K2 (Nanyang Kindergarten) crying because my teacher had scolded me for not knowing how to write my name in Chinese, she took over my Chinese education trying to drill the language into me till P6 when my mother finally hired a Chinese tuition teacher for me
16) When I was about P3, my grandmother sent me for art classes at nearby Coronation Plaza and Chinese composition classes
17) This year, my grandmother taught me how to knit and she even knit a dark green scarf for me which I brought to Japan
18) She was usually the one who'd pick me up from school when I called home after school
19) My grandmother tried to (most unsuccessfully) teach me Chinese calligraphy when I was about P3
20) My grandmother used to go away to KL for day business trips. Whenever that happened, I'd cry and kick up a big fuss and say that my lucky charm was gone. Those days I usually had a very bad day in school
21) Even till about a month ago, she was trying to make me read more Chinese to improve my language skills so that I'd have a better future
22) When I used to sleep with her, I had no bed so I'd sleep on the floor so she bought an extra bed for me. Now my wardrobe's falling apart and so's my desk, so she ordered a new desk and wardrobe for me
23) In Sec 3 when I was supposed to go on the History trip with Stephanie, she was the one who offered to pay for me when she saw that I really wanted to go
24) When I was sick when I was younger, she'd wake up and wake me up to take my medicine
25) In P5 when I was very sick and wouldn't eat bread, she would cook rice for me to eat with soy sauce
26) She would always nag me on my sleeping habits, lack of exercise, eating unhealthy food and so on
27) From P2 onwards, she always brought me to buy my school books and would pay for them and school uniforms too when I needed them
28) In P2 I used to go for sleepovers at Hannah Lim (Hui Ning)'s house. I'd never make it through the night because around 10 o'clock I'd start to miss my grandmother and would start crying. Once I brought a picture of her around - didn't work too
29) She was the one who taught me the difference between using "I" and "me" even though English is her 3rd language
30) On the first day I started my job, she noticed it was raining and specially got out of bed to drive me all the way to the office so I wouldn't get sick.
I know I'm really rambling now and not exactly making much sense, but I feel really sad now :/
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Today I attended an AGM (Annual General Meeting) for one of the firm's clients. I had been binding the affidavits for this case for some times, and damn, it's file is thicker than my upper arm - what a pain to bind. But that's besides the point. Anyway the Management of this building was suing one of it's tenants for using up more parking lots than it was allotted to, and damaging the other lots at the same time despite many warnings.
Fun fun fun.
Anyway the AGM was filled full of blue collar workers, basically your average Singaporean speaking in those horrid mixtures of Mandarin, Hokkien and English. ARGHHH I hate it when people speak like that. Anyway the first thing they ended up voting during the AGM was whether to kick us, the lawyers, out amidst much shouting. OMG WTF??? O.O I felt like people were going to start jumping on us and strangling us and I was all prepared to stab someone with my cheap blue ball point pen, ala Red Eye style (actually funny as it sounds, the brand of the pen was Red Leaf).
The vote counting took 40 mins, during which I was so bored I almost fell asleep (since adrenalin can only last you so long), and we stayed with 204 votes against 97. When Mr Tan, one of the partners in the firm went up to the front with the rest of the committee, I was left behind with Li Chin, an associate. She's around her mid twenties, I think. Anyway there was this super obnoxious man sitting behind us who was fat and brown. His handphone kept ringing and he kept answering it really loudly, I even wrote "I feel like smashing his handphone into his skull" on the notepad which I was supposed to be taking down highlights of the meeting.
Later when I turned around, I saw the other firm's letters sitting in a file on a seat next to him. Hi Mr Defendant. You are fat and rude. I dislike you. Anyway he was also damn annoying, Li Chin has the misfortune to sit in front of him and he kept coughing with out closing his mouth and he kept draping his arm over the seat in front, encroaching in MORE space.
The Chairperson's speech was so dull that I fell asleep listening to it. The fun started again when the accounts from this year were brought up with people accusing last year's committee of corruption, some stuff about light bulbs and electricity usage, a lot of shouting. In the end only 1 guy, some tenant who was attending the AGM for the first time, since the matter was quite big, spoke with enough wisdom and fairness to really impress me. "A clear eyed hope for the future" was what came to mind when I thought of him.
I had to leave early because the meeting, which was supposed to end at 4pm was dragged till 6:30pm, clashed with my grandma's birthday dinner. When I left they were doing voting for the '07 committee with the guy who impressed me being nominated. I hope he got a role!
The trial will be next week and I'll be going to court. Should be interesting.
Yesterday I was taking MRT to work when my train (towards town) arrived at the station. There was this woman in front on me, also half running up the escalator. Around the top of the escalator, she suddenly slipped and fell.
Somehow my first thought was to not let her fingers just stuck between the grooves of the escalator and my body just moved to grab her as she fell, and I ended up giving her this weird sort of bear hug for like 5 seconds as she stood up properly. I was also carrying my wallet in my hand which I dropped as I went to grab the woman and the guy behind me, some middle aged man, helped me pick it up. It was literally like everything was in slow motion, ala Baywatch.
Today I also went to withdraw from YJC. It was weird. The General Office was located on the 2nd level and there was this nice Indian old woman there. She said my name was nice and the Indian equivalent was Sangeetha and it meant harmony. I told her the Sangeetha I knew didn't seem very harmonious, that is, peaceful.
That got her started on this entire speech, a little on her own adolescent years where I think she hung out with bad company. She also said she had many friends who committed suicide from 16 - 19 because they had no guidance and how it was important to have guidance. She really looked like she was going to start crying at all moment and I was all O.O inside, but I really did listen. She didn't babble incoherently either, I could tell she really felt for the subject and was able to articulate herself well. She also said that YJC was a bad environment for character building and that the environment pulled people down. LOL. Afterwards she wished me all the best for my O levels and said she hoped that my heart and mind were at harmony with each other.
It was very weird, yet made sense in a way.
Fun fun fun.
Anyway the AGM was filled full of blue collar workers, basically your average Singaporean speaking in those horrid mixtures of Mandarin, Hokkien and English. ARGHHH I hate it when people speak like that. Anyway the first thing they ended up voting during the AGM was whether to kick us, the lawyers, out amidst much shouting. OMG WTF??? O.O I felt like people were going to start jumping on us and strangling us and I was all prepared to stab someone with my cheap blue ball point pen, ala Red Eye style (actually funny as it sounds, the brand of the pen was Red Leaf).
The vote counting took 40 mins, during which I was so bored I almost fell asleep (since adrenalin can only last you so long), and we stayed with 204 votes against 97. When Mr Tan, one of the partners in the firm went up to the front with the rest of the committee, I was left behind with Li Chin, an associate. She's around her mid twenties, I think. Anyway there was this super obnoxious man sitting behind us who was fat and brown. His handphone kept ringing and he kept answering it really loudly, I even wrote "I feel like smashing his handphone into his skull" on the notepad which I was supposed to be taking down highlights of the meeting.
Later when I turned around, I saw the other firm's letters sitting in a file on a seat next to him. Hi Mr Defendant. You are fat and rude. I dislike you. Anyway he was also damn annoying, Li Chin has the misfortune to sit in front of him and he kept coughing with out closing his mouth and he kept draping his arm over the seat in front, encroaching in MORE space.
The Chairperson's speech was so dull that I fell asleep listening to it. The fun started again when the accounts from this year were brought up with people accusing last year's committee of corruption, some stuff about light bulbs and electricity usage, a lot of shouting. In the end only 1 guy, some tenant who was attending the AGM for the first time, since the matter was quite big, spoke with enough wisdom and fairness to really impress me. "A clear eyed hope for the future" was what came to mind when I thought of him.
I had to leave early because the meeting, which was supposed to end at 4pm was dragged till 6:30pm, clashed with my grandma's birthday dinner. When I left they were doing voting for the '07 committee with the guy who impressed me being nominated. I hope he got a role!
The trial will be next week and I'll be going to court. Should be interesting.
Yesterday I was taking MRT to work when my train (towards town) arrived at the station. There was this woman in front on me, also half running up the escalator. Around the top of the escalator, she suddenly slipped and fell.
Somehow my first thought was to not let her fingers just stuck between the grooves of the escalator and my body just moved to grab her as she fell, and I ended up giving her this weird sort of bear hug for like 5 seconds as she stood up properly. I was also carrying my wallet in my hand which I dropped as I went to grab the woman and the guy behind me, some middle aged man, helped me pick it up. It was literally like everything was in slow motion, ala Baywatch.
Today I also went to withdraw from YJC. It was weird. The General Office was located on the 2nd level and there was this nice Indian old woman there. She said my name was nice and the Indian equivalent was Sangeetha and it meant harmony. I told her the Sangeetha I knew didn't seem very harmonious, that is, peaceful.
That got her started on this entire speech, a little on her own adolescent years where I think she hung out with bad company. She also said she had many friends who committed suicide from 16 - 19 because they had no guidance and how it was important to have guidance. She really looked like she was going to start crying at all moment and I was all O.O inside, but I really did listen. She didn't babble incoherently either, I could tell she really felt for the subject and was able to articulate herself well. She also said that YJC was a bad environment for character building and that the environment pulled people down. LOL. Afterwards she wished me all the best for my O levels and said she hoped that my heart and mind were at harmony with each other.
It was very weird, yet made sense in a way.
Trip to Japan; part 3
21st December
Ise-Toba-Ise-Osaka
In the morning I went to bathe again. This time I washed my upper body and face. So technically I did get a full shower. Was still very very cold :/ Breakfast was also at the ryokan, had last night's fish and some other stuff. We then walked to Ujiyamada station to catch the tourist 'Can' bus to Toba, which brought us to all the attractions in Ise, the next town and Toba. We got off at one of the shrine stops, Geku Shrine I think. It was more like a park and was really big. It was across a river and this huge bridge had been built over it (lol, lower course of the river). It turned out that this shrine was very impotant and once a year the Emperor of Japan goes to pray there during this really massive festival. There was this forest of old trees there too with huge trunks, with tops that couldn't be seen because they were so tall.
Our next stop was Toba because we didn't really have enough time to see all the attractions along the way :/ At Toba we headed straight for the Mikimoto Pearl Island, which is an island privately owned by the Mikimoto Corporation. It's a museam, depicting the cultivation of pearls which I found really interesting. There was also this show which the Ama, women pearl divers, put up for us. They're divers who basically harvest pearls and they do it in all sorts of weather. The water temperature was about 12 degrees on that day and the wind was blowing, so cold! Yet they still dived into the water to 'harvest' pearls.
The museam and really interesting and they also taught us how to distinguish artifical pearls from real ones (when rubbed together, real pearls feel gritty while artificial ones are smooth). Unfortunately we had to leave early because we had to catch the bus back to Ise :(
We had a quick lunch at this eatery nearby run by those two excitable old women, again it was the point to order routine. I had some preserved fish over rice, which I really enjoyed (: The price was a little steep though, for the simple fare I ate. My parents had seafood and soba instead. After lunch we ended up running all the way back to the bus station to catch the bus -.- Then while on the bus, we realised that it actually ran in a loop, meaning to say it went to another stop, then returned to the place where we had just boarded the bus about 5 minutes later -.-
Anyway we went back to the ryokan, took some pictures and checked out and went to catch the Kintetsu Ltd. Express train to Uehommachi Station in Osaka(WEE-ho-ma-chi), we didn't know how to pronounce it then, so my dad just kept pointing at the map. On the train I started to do the 100 yen sodoku book I had bought in Nara. At Uehommachi station, we met my mother's family who had booked the room for us at the Miyako Osaka Hotel, which turned out to be right above the station and owned by Kintetsu Co.
The first room we had was too small for an extra bed, so we ended up changing rooms. Afterwards we went to Namba with my Aunt's family to eat dinner and look at the shopping district. I went to some food theme park place with my dad and my aunt's friend to look around after dinner. Then we did a little shopping then returned back to the hotel.
22nd December
Osaka
We woke up pretty early, around 7am to go to this market, the direct translation was "Black Market" (I baulked when my aunt said the directs trans to!) and was located 1 train stop away from Uehommachi, however we decided to walk there instead.
By the time we walked there, we were really hungry and the market itself was half opened, with no eateries in sight, so we left the market area and ate at yet another machine food place. After that my dad got impatient waiting for my mother + we were going to be late for the desginated meeting time with her sister, so he left. Then I took the subway back with my mother and we met up with my aunt's family. Together we all took the subway to Osaka Castle, afterwards my dad and I went to see Peace Osaka, which I really liked.
Peace Osaka essentially is on WWII with some other later wars, an education centre of sorts. The stand of Peace Osaka is that they accept the blame for triggering the war in the pacific and seek to educate the future generations. I really enjoyed it there and wished I could have spend more time there :/ I felt myself tearing a little while looking at the many exhibits. I wanted to go to Liberty Osaka too, but it was closed for the day.
Afterwards, since my mother wanted to shop, we took a subway to this factory outlet called 'Blossom' which was on the outskirts of the city. I bought a bag there and this blouse, both for 1000 Yen each ($13.40). Then it was onto Umeda for dinner and more shopping. We ended up eating at some simple stand-up-to-eat noodle store because my uncle didn't want to spend a lot of money on food. I had this simple Udon and Beancurd dish. Umeda was really packed and filled with people. All throughout I tried hard to look out for a store that sold magazines to buy Ianthe's requested HAIR BOOK, but to no avail! Like when I went into the Lawsons and the convenience stores, I couldn't find it at all. At the Umeda shopping centre, I couldn't find any bookshops either! After a while I got fed up and bought her something else instead, while still looking out for any bookstores.
It wasn't till we had taken the subway back to the hotel that I saw this bookshop! WOOO. Anyway I went inside with my parents and we tried to look out for it, (I asked them to look out for anything that said "HAPPY HAIR BOOK" like the one I saw in kino before) but we couldn't find anything. So I went to ask the shop assistant if she knew how to speak English, all the while prepared to point manically at my head and make a flipping motion like a book. To my relief, she did and while she looked a little puzzled when I asked her where the 'hair magazines' were (I almost said hair book), she brought me to a corner of the store and pulled out a few magazines, so I happily bought one. Mission accomplished!
Then later in the hotel we packed up out stuff in preperation for our departure the next day. I also ate two buns that we had bought while out earlier.
23rd December
Osaka-Kansai Airport-Bangkok (transit)-Singapore
I woke up really early, around 6:45am with my dad so we could go out and eat a proper breakfast rather then bread. Almost everywhere was closed and we ended up at this small eatery, which we though was a machine type place, but instead turned out to be a proper eatry. Ohhh, DIE. My dad asked the girl there if she spoke English and to our surprise she asked us if we spoke Mandarin. Woooo, hooray, saved!
So in the end we did our ordering in Chinese, hahaha. She turned out to be a Chinese woman, like one other waitress we met in Namba, Osaka. I had a beef udon and shared a grilled salmon with my dad. All in all, we had pretty simple meals in Japan, almost all under 1000 Yen. Then we returned back to the hotel and bought tickets for the shuttle to Kansai Airport.
At the airport, the security check was a nightmare, the lines were so long :( My mother and I wandered around the duty free stores and she decided to buy a shawl there, of all the places to buy a shawl -.- Halfway while reading my overdue devotions in the airport, I suddenly remembered I had forgot to buy my maid a christmas present, plus she requested something from Japan O.O So I ended up running around and bought this Geisha keychain which said 'Nagoya', which is of course really ironic on so many levels. On the plane ride back, they were showing Step Up -.- and The Illusionist, I decided to sleep during Step Up and watched The Illusionist, which was so-so.
At Bangkok Airport our departure and arrival gates were in the same wing, so we didn't have to make the great trek across the vast materialism of the duty free wing. Instead we ended up looking at random stuff in the duty free stores. People who buy stuff from duty free and think they're cheap (well minus alcohol, possibly make-up) are the stupidest people to ever walk the world. Like they deserve to be darwinised the moment they pay for their purchases.
Anyway when we checked in at the gate, the first sign that I had of home was Singaporeans cutting the queue at the security check. $U*(#@). As if I wasn't in a bad mood enough, induced by my wonderful fellow countrymen, the toilet was completely disgusting with water all over the damn floor, flicked there by more really great people. It's like after I got back from Japan I couldn't stand such rubbish like that anymore because everyone in Japan seemed so well behaved, not to mention they really public facilites well, unlike Singaporeans. The airplane ride back too was rubbish with people making a lot of noise, complete with lots of singlish, lah. The airplane ride to Bangkok was 60% filled with non-Japanese, yet they were so much more better behaved than the rowdy Singaporeans. Times like these, I really understand why Stephanie hates Singapore so much.
-----
One thing I noticed in Japan was the crazy lack of dustbins! Like seriously, dustbins were a rare commodity there. What's amazing however was that it was so clean! There was literally no litter on the streets at all, even when there's a glaring lack of dustbins.
There were also some people who thought we were Japanese. There was this old man at the Kyoto Karasuma-Oike Station who tried to ask me for help, but all I could reply was a broken message of "Wakaranai Nihongo", since I was flustered and said the first rubbish that came to mind.
Also I noticed a lot of students walking the streets, taking transport, at ALL TIMES OF THE DAY! It was so weird, like they didn't have school at all and decided to randomly put on their uniforms.
Anyway I really enjoyed my trip - I want to go back!
Ise-Toba-Ise-Osaka
In the morning I went to bathe again. This time I washed my upper body and face. So technically I did get a full shower. Was still very very cold :/ Breakfast was also at the ryokan, had last night's fish and some other stuff. We then walked to Ujiyamada station to catch the tourist 'Can' bus to Toba, which brought us to all the attractions in Ise, the next town and Toba. We got off at one of the shrine stops, Geku Shrine I think. It was more like a park and was really big. It was across a river and this huge bridge had been built over it (lol, lower course of the river). It turned out that this shrine was very impotant and once a year the Emperor of Japan goes to pray there during this really massive festival. There was this forest of old trees there too with huge trunks, with tops that couldn't be seen because they were so tall.
Our next stop was Toba because we didn't really have enough time to see all the attractions along the way :/ At Toba we headed straight for the Mikimoto Pearl Island, which is an island privately owned by the Mikimoto Corporation. It's a museam, depicting the cultivation of pearls which I found really interesting. There was also this show which the Ama, women pearl divers, put up for us. They're divers who basically harvest pearls and they do it in all sorts of weather. The water temperature was about 12 degrees on that day and the wind was blowing, so cold! Yet they still dived into the water to 'harvest' pearls.
The museam and really interesting and they also taught us how to distinguish artifical pearls from real ones (when rubbed together, real pearls feel gritty while artificial ones are smooth). Unfortunately we had to leave early because we had to catch the bus back to Ise :(
We had a quick lunch at this eatery nearby run by those two excitable old women, again it was the point to order routine. I had some preserved fish over rice, which I really enjoyed (: The price was a little steep though, for the simple fare I ate. My parents had seafood and soba instead. After lunch we ended up running all the way back to the bus station to catch the bus -.- Then while on the bus, we realised that it actually ran in a loop, meaning to say it went to another stop, then returned to the place where we had just boarded the bus about 5 minutes later -.-
Anyway we went back to the ryokan, took some pictures and checked out and went to catch the Kintetsu Ltd. Express train to Uehommachi Station in Osaka(WEE-ho-ma-chi), we didn't know how to pronounce it then, so my dad just kept pointing at the map. On the train I started to do the 100 yen sodoku book I had bought in Nara. At Uehommachi station, we met my mother's family who had booked the room for us at the Miyako Osaka Hotel, which turned out to be right above the station and owned by Kintetsu Co.
The first room we had was too small for an extra bed, so we ended up changing rooms. Afterwards we went to Namba with my Aunt's family to eat dinner and look at the shopping district. I went to some food theme park place with my dad and my aunt's friend to look around after dinner. Then we did a little shopping then returned back to the hotel.
22nd December
Osaka
We woke up pretty early, around 7am to go to this market, the direct translation was "Black Market" (I baulked when my aunt said the directs trans to!) and was located 1 train stop away from Uehommachi, however we decided to walk there instead.
By the time we walked there, we were really hungry and the market itself was half opened, with no eateries in sight, so we left the market area and ate at yet another machine food place. After that my dad got impatient waiting for my mother + we were going to be late for the desginated meeting time with her sister, so he left. Then I took the subway back with my mother and we met up with my aunt's family. Together we all took the subway to Osaka Castle, afterwards my dad and I went to see Peace Osaka, which I really liked.
Peace Osaka essentially is on WWII with some other later wars, an education centre of sorts. The stand of Peace Osaka is that they accept the blame for triggering the war in the pacific and seek to educate the future generations. I really enjoyed it there and wished I could have spend more time there :/ I felt myself tearing a little while looking at the many exhibits. I wanted to go to Liberty Osaka too, but it was closed for the day.
Afterwards, since my mother wanted to shop, we took a subway to this factory outlet called 'Blossom' which was on the outskirts of the city. I bought a bag there and this blouse, both for 1000 Yen each ($13.40). Then it was onto Umeda for dinner and more shopping. We ended up eating at some simple stand-up-to-eat noodle store because my uncle didn't want to spend a lot of money on food. I had this simple Udon and Beancurd dish. Umeda was really packed and filled with people. All throughout I tried hard to look out for a store that sold magazines to buy Ianthe's requested HAIR BOOK, but to no avail! Like when I went into the Lawsons and the convenience stores, I couldn't find it at all. At the Umeda shopping centre, I couldn't find any bookshops either! After a while I got fed up and bought her something else instead, while still looking out for any bookstores.
It wasn't till we had taken the subway back to the hotel that I saw this bookshop! WOOO. Anyway I went inside with my parents and we tried to look out for it, (I asked them to look out for anything that said "HAPPY HAIR BOOK" like the one I saw in kino before) but we couldn't find anything. So I went to ask the shop assistant if she knew how to speak English, all the while prepared to point manically at my head and make a flipping motion like a book. To my relief, she did and while she looked a little puzzled when I asked her where the 'hair magazines' were (I almost said hair book), she brought me to a corner of the store and pulled out a few magazines, so I happily bought one. Mission accomplished!
Then later in the hotel we packed up out stuff in preperation for our departure the next day. I also ate two buns that we had bought while out earlier.
23rd December
Osaka-Kansai Airport-Bangkok (transit)-Singapore
I woke up really early, around 6:45am with my dad so we could go out and eat a proper breakfast rather then bread. Almost everywhere was closed and we ended up at this small eatery, which we though was a machine type place, but instead turned out to be a proper eatry. Ohhh, DIE. My dad asked the girl there if she spoke English and to our surprise she asked us if we spoke Mandarin. Woooo, hooray, saved!
So in the end we did our ordering in Chinese, hahaha. She turned out to be a Chinese woman, like one other waitress we met in Namba, Osaka. I had a beef udon and shared a grilled salmon with my dad. All in all, we had pretty simple meals in Japan, almost all under 1000 Yen. Then we returned back to the hotel and bought tickets for the shuttle to Kansai Airport.
At the airport, the security check was a nightmare, the lines were so long :( My mother and I wandered around the duty free stores and she decided to buy a shawl there, of all the places to buy a shawl -.- Halfway while reading my overdue devotions in the airport, I suddenly remembered I had forgot to buy my maid a christmas present, plus she requested something from Japan O.O So I ended up running around and bought this Geisha keychain which said 'Nagoya', which is of course really ironic on so many levels. On the plane ride back, they were showing Step Up -.- and The Illusionist, I decided to sleep during Step Up and watched The Illusionist, which was so-so.
At Bangkok Airport our departure and arrival gates were in the same wing, so we didn't have to make the great trek across the vast materialism of the duty free wing. Instead we ended up looking at random stuff in the duty free stores. People who buy stuff from duty free and think they're cheap (well minus alcohol, possibly make-up) are the stupidest people to ever walk the world. Like they deserve to be darwinised the moment they pay for their purchases.
Anyway when we checked in at the gate, the first sign that I had of home was Singaporeans cutting the queue at the security check. $U*(#@). As if I wasn't in a bad mood enough, induced by my wonderful fellow countrymen, the toilet was completely disgusting with water all over the damn floor, flicked there by more really great people. It's like after I got back from Japan I couldn't stand such rubbish like that anymore because everyone in Japan seemed so well behaved, not to mention they really public facilites well, unlike Singaporeans. The airplane ride back too was rubbish with people making a lot of noise, complete with lots of singlish, lah. The airplane ride to Bangkok was 60% filled with non-Japanese, yet they were so much more better behaved than the rowdy Singaporeans. Times like these, I really understand why Stephanie hates Singapore so much.
-----
One thing I noticed in Japan was the crazy lack of dustbins! Like seriously, dustbins were a rare commodity there. What's amazing however was that it was so clean! There was literally no litter on the streets at all, even when there's a glaring lack of dustbins.
There were also some people who thought we were Japanese. There was this old man at the Kyoto Karasuma-Oike Station who tried to ask me for help, but all I could reply was a broken message of "Wakaranai Nihongo", since I was flustered and said the first rubbish that came to mind.
Also I noticed a lot of students walking the streets, taking transport, at ALL TIMES OF THE DAY! It was so weird, like they didn't have school at all and decided to randomly put on their uniforms.
Anyway I really enjoyed my trip - I want to go back!
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Today was my first day of work!
Argh I really really really HATE the bloody binding machine. It's so cumbersome and hard to use. I swear, it's like the devil's incarnate.
Today my grandma sent me to work because it was raining in the morning so I ended up there 1 hour early, so I hid in the stairwell for 30 mins, half eating my breakfast, half trying to learn stuff from my guide book.
For lunch my uncle brought me to lao par sat and we had tim sum for dinner. Then after work I went with him to Vivo City to get the watch he gave me for Christmas fixed (wasn't working properly). There, we met up with my aunt and cousin. He is such a terror! In one of his bouts of terrorism, he managed to excise about a o.5cm x 0.7cm patch of skin from my left index finger. Wa lao so painful!
Argh I really really really HATE the bloody binding machine. It's so cumbersome and hard to use. I swear, it's like the devil's incarnate.
Today my grandma sent me to work because it was raining in the morning so I ended up there 1 hour early, so I hid in the stairwell for 30 mins, half eating my breakfast, half trying to learn stuff from my guide book.
For lunch my uncle brought me to lao par sat and we had tim sum for dinner. Then after work I went with him to Vivo City to get the watch he gave me for Christmas fixed (wasn't working properly). There, we met up with my aunt and cousin. He is such a terror! In one of his bouts of terrorism, he managed to excise about a o.5cm x 0.7cm patch of skin from my left index finger. Wa lao so painful!
Monday, December 25, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Trip to Japan; part 2
19th December
Kyoto
For breakfast, we ended up eating more machine food, which was the cheapest and most convienient form of food there or something. My dad had this reslly weird beans thing which was really sticky and tasted horrid, with a little aftertaste like that of coffee. Weirdness.
My mother had been obsessing over this shrine from the previous night before, as in her colleagues and sister had told her about it and she wanted to go there, only problem: she didn't know the name in Japanese. In the end she managed to sucessfully piss both my father and I off with her constant rubbish about a "Clear Water Shrine (direct translation)" or "Qing Shui Jie (reading the kanji name as Chinese, both from her sister)". In the end her sister gave her directions and we ended up going back to the Kyoto Station where my mother kept repeating the above two names to the very confused non-English speaking information counter people. In the end I went to search my guide book and came up with "mizu" as water, but still the people didn't understand. In the end my dad got fed up and wrote it in Chinese and the people instantly knew what the hell my mother wanted, Kiyomizu Shrine.
So we hopped on a bus there and went to visit it. My dad was a little fed up and kept saying he'd been cheated because we didn't actually see any 'clear water' there. Instead we made jokes about the only clear water we saw there being yellow coloured and found in the toilet. However it was much later till we were actually leaving the shrine that we saw the 'clear water' part, where you're supposed to drink water from this stream or something, so all of us gave it a try.
We wandered about the area, looking at more shrines and gardens around the area, which was a little South from where we were the previous day. At this park I saw two Japanese girls taking pictures of this magnificently huge puff ball of dog. The owner was nearby and he gestured that he allowed me to pet it and take a picture with it. Lol. I also saw these few guys feeding pigeons with them landing on their arms and whatnot, taking pictures. The guys offered some extra feed to me but I declined because pigeons are dirty, filthy birds. Lunch was more machine food and I had this Japanese beef curry with rice. After lunch we decided to take another cab to the shrine that we missed yesterday which was really big and we visted a zen garden inside.
Then we walked to the subway to take a train to this shopping attractions, which was something like a market which sold a lot of food, even fugu (puffer fish), but we didn't try it. We bought more junk food there and I ate some weird fried tofu balls. As we walked, we discovered that the 'street' we were walking down actually connected to the shopping area we were in last night. Lol. Anyway in this shop which sold some second hand stuff, my dad found me this really cool and nice looking pseudo trenchcoat in black which cost 1990 Yen ($26.67) which was second hand. It fit really well and he bought it for my since my old jacket was spoiled.
Then we went to look for a toilet (LOL) and we ended up at this department store like place. The ladies had only 2 toilet stalls and moments before us, this lady rushed in. My mum went to use the other cubicle so I waited outside. What was most curious about it was this I kept hearing this weird as shit sound coming from the other ladies' cubicle. It sounded like a handphone ringtone, beaten up and strangled. The sound carried on for a long time, making me very puzzled. Then this other middle aged woman came in with her daugther, who looked a little older than me. I could tell the older woman really 'needed to go', so when my mum finished I let her go first. That made me the next candidate for lady weird sounds' cubicle. When lady weird sound came out, I entered the cubicle and as the smell hit my nose, I knew why she took so long. The next mystery was the weird sound. I looked around the cubicle and found this weird machine, then I remembered that I had heard all about those machines which mask the 'unsightly' sound one makes when releasing metabolic waste. I would have pressed it, but the other girl and her mother were still in the toilet.
I can't really remember what we ate for dinner. After that we headed for the hotel and I watched some retarded Japanese show, like those talk shows. This one featured these two guys, the hosts I think, trying out synchronised swimming with a bunch of grade school kids.
20th December
Kyoto-Ise-Kashikojima-Ise
In the morning we headed straight for the Kyoto train station because we didn't know what time the trains would depart. Ise-shii is a small fishing town on the Eastern coast of Southern Honshu. In other words it's like Osaka being Harbourfront, Kyoto being Orchad Road, Nara being The CBD and Ise being Changi (and I mean all of this in relative distance). Have fun visualising that. In other words, it was far away from the more populated areas of the Kinki Plain and few people went there so there'd be quite few trains there. When we bought the tickets, we found out that the next train was a mere 5 minutes away, so we ended up rushing there and skipping breakfast. Instead we ate junk food for breakfast.
The ride was about 2 hours long on the Kintetsu Ltd. Express Line, which was the fastest train there. When we got off at the station, we spent some time further confusing the station master with our questions on trains to Kashikojima/Toba, which was right at the tip of the mini peninsular, then we set off for our ryokan, Hoshideken, which turned out to be this really rustic 200 year old Inn. It was really cool inside, in more ways than one. There was even this little garden in the middle of the ryokan. The baths turned out to be those traditional ones too, argh so cold.
We were really hungry by that time and walked into the first eating place we saw, which turned out to be this Italian restaurant. There were no pictures or anything so we just pointed at stuff and made our order, hoping for the best. The waitress spoke a little English too. It turned out in the entire nicely done up restaurant, there were only 2 staff: her and the chef. Sometimes the chef had to go out of the kitchen to deliver the food himself. The place was really popular too and was packed and the waitress was really busy. The food we ordered turned out to be some mushroom stew over rice, clam spaghetti and this seafood cheese pasta. I ended up having the latter because my mum didn't want the cheese sauce. It was really really salty, too much cheese or something :/
We caught the train to Kashikojima which turned out to be the local train and stopped at every station along the way, it took about 30 mins to get to Kashikojima, the last stop on the line. At Kashikojima, we bought tickets for this boat ride which would bring us around the coast and the smaller islands. The main selling point of Kashikojima and Toba was that they were the areas where pearl farming first started. On the boat ride, we saw the pearl farms floating off the coast. It was really cold on the deck with the wind blowing and all, so I went to hide below deck. The boat made a stop at this pearl shop and we saw how they implanted the 'irritant' into the oyster to form the pearl. My mum also bought this necklace and earrings there.
The boat ride took about 30 mins I think and back on the mainland my mum and I went to look at some pearls for sale and I bought this nice pearl necklace for 2000 Yen. I had exchanged some of the money I had saved over the exam period and my grandma also gave me some extra yen for me to spend (:
We ended up taking another local train back to Ise, it was completely empty so we sat all over the place. When we went back it was around 6pm and the sun had completely set. Dinner, which we had ordered at the ryokan, wouldn't be ready till 7pm. My mother was tired so she went back to rest at the ryokan first while my dad and I went to walk around town. We went to the next station in the town, Ujiyamada which turned out to be much larger than our own station -.-
Dinner was this traditional Japanese meal which consisted of hot soba, some radish thing, fried rice, some fishcake thing, grilled sabah, grilled 10cm long ikan bili, and some other stuff :/ Didn't really enjoy it that much. Then after dinner we went to bathe. When I had heard the baths were the traditional type, I didn't want to bathe, so instead I washed my legs and face, which was still torture because there was no hot water, ARGHHH. SO... COLD!
That night was the only night that I wore socks to bed, because it was so friggin cold :/ The beds were in the usual tradtional Japanese style, like that of the first night's rooms. The heating didn't really seem to work either.
-----
Actually if you're wondering why I'm being so long winded, this is more for my own remembrance more than anything else, and yes, it is VERY long :/ Spent about 1 1/2 hours on this part so far, and still writing more!
Kyoto
For breakfast, we ended up eating more machine food, which was the cheapest and most convienient form of food there or something. My dad had this reslly weird beans thing which was really sticky and tasted horrid, with a little aftertaste like that of coffee. Weirdness.
My mother had been obsessing over this shrine from the previous night before, as in her colleagues and sister had told her about it and she wanted to go there, only problem: she didn't know the name in Japanese. In the end she managed to sucessfully piss both my father and I off with her constant rubbish about a "Clear Water Shrine (direct translation)" or "Qing Shui Jie (reading the kanji name as Chinese, both from her sister)". In the end her sister gave her directions and we ended up going back to the Kyoto Station where my mother kept repeating the above two names to the very confused non-English speaking information counter people. In the end I went to search my guide book and came up with "mizu" as water, but still the people didn't understand. In the end my dad got fed up and wrote it in Chinese and the people instantly knew what the hell my mother wanted, Kiyomizu Shrine.
So we hopped on a bus there and went to visit it. My dad was a little fed up and kept saying he'd been cheated because we didn't actually see any 'clear water' there. Instead we made jokes about the only clear water we saw there being yellow coloured and found in the toilet. However it was much later till we were actually leaving the shrine that we saw the 'clear water' part, where you're supposed to drink water from this stream or something, so all of us gave it a try.
We wandered about the area, looking at more shrines and gardens around the area, which was a little South from where we were the previous day. At this park I saw two Japanese girls taking pictures of this magnificently huge puff ball of dog. The owner was nearby and he gestured that he allowed me to pet it and take a picture with it. Lol. I also saw these few guys feeding pigeons with them landing on their arms and whatnot, taking pictures. The guys offered some extra feed to me but I declined because pigeons are dirty, filthy birds. Lunch was more machine food and I had this Japanese beef curry with rice. After lunch we decided to take another cab to the shrine that we missed yesterday which was really big and we visted a zen garden inside.
Then we walked to the subway to take a train to this shopping attractions, which was something like a market which sold a lot of food, even fugu (puffer fish), but we didn't try it. We bought more junk food there and I ate some weird fried tofu balls. As we walked, we discovered that the 'street' we were walking down actually connected to the shopping area we were in last night. Lol. Anyway in this shop which sold some second hand stuff, my dad found me this really cool and nice looking pseudo trenchcoat in black which cost 1990 Yen ($26.67) which was second hand. It fit really well and he bought it for my since my old jacket was spoiled.
Then we went to look for a toilet (LOL) and we ended up at this department store like place. The ladies had only 2 toilet stalls and moments before us, this lady rushed in. My mum went to use the other cubicle so I waited outside. What was most curious about it was this I kept hearing this weird as shit sound coming from the other ladies' cubicle. It sounded like a handphone ringtone, beaten up and strangled. The sound carried on for a long time, making me very puzzled. Then this other middle aged woman came in with her daugther, who looked a little older than me. I could tell the older woman really 'needed to go', so when my mum finished I let her go first. That made me the next candidate for lady weird sounds' cubicle. When lady weird sound came out, I entered the cubicle and as the smell hit my nose, I knew why she took so long. The next mystery was the weird sound. I looked around the cubicle and found this weird machine, then I remembered that I had heard all about those machines which mask the 'unsightly' sound one makes when releasing metabolic waste. I would have pressed it, but the other girl and her mother were still in the toilet.
I can't really remember what we ate for dinner. After that we headed for the hotel and I watched some retarded Japanese show, like those talk shows. This one featured these two guys, the hosts I think, trying out synchronised swimming with a bunch of grade school kids.
20th December
Kyoto-Ise-Kashikojima-Ise
In the morning we headed straight for the Kyoto train station because we didn't know what time the trains would depart. Ise-shii is a small fishing town on the Eastern coast of Southern Honshu. In other words it's like Osaka being Harbourfront, Kyoto being Orchad Road, Nara being The CBD and Ise being Changi (and I mean all of this in relative distance). Have fun visualising that. In other words, it was far away from the more populated areas of the Kinki Plain and few people went there so there'd be quite few trains there. When we bought the tickets, we found out that the next train was a mere 5 minutes away, so we ended up rushing there and skipping breakfast. Instead we ate junk food for breakfast.
The ride was about 2 hours long on the Kintetsu Ltd. Express Line, which was the fastest train there. When we got off at the station, we spent some time further confusing the station master with our questions on trains to Kashikojima/Toba, which was right at the tip of the mini peninsular, then we set off for our ryokan, Hoshideken, which turned out to be this really rustic 200 year old Inn. It was really cool inside, in more ways than one. There was even this little garden in the middle of the ryokan. The baths turned out to be those traditional ones too, argh so cold.
We were really hungry by that time and walked into the first eating place we saw, which turned out to be this Italian restaurant. There were no pictures or anything so we just pointed at stuff and made our order, hoping for the best. The waitress spoke a little English too. It turned out in the entire nicely done up restaurant, there were only 2 staff: her and the chef. Sometimes the chef had to go out of the kitchen to deliver the food himself. The place was really popular too and was packed and the waitress was really busy. The food we ordered turned out to be some mushroom stew over rice, clam spaghetti and this seafood cheese pasta. I ended up having the latter because my mum didn't want the cheese sauce. It was really really salty, too much cheese or something :/
We caught the train to Kashikojima which turned out to be the local train and stopped at every station along the way, it took about 30 mins to get to Kashikojima, the last stop on the line. At Kashikojima, we bought tickets for this boat ride which would bring us around the coast and the smaller islands. The main selling point of Kashikojima and Toba was that they were the areas where pearl farming first started. On the boat ride, we saw the pearl farms floating off the coast. It was really cold on the deck with the wind blowing and all, so I went to hide below deck. The boat made a stop at this pearl shop and we saw how they implanted the 'irritant' into the oyster to form the pearl. My mum also bought this necklace and earrings there.
The boat ride took about 30 mins I think and back on the mainland my mum and I went to look at some pearls for sale and I bought this nice pearl necklace for 2000 Yen. I had exchanged some of the money I had saved over the exam period and my grandma also gave me some extra yen for me to spend (:
We ended up taking another local train back to Ise, it was completely empty so we sat all over the place. When we went back it was around 6pm and the sun had completely set. Dinner, which we had ordered at the ryokan, wouldn't be ready till 7pm. My mother was tired so she went back to rest at the ryokan first while my dad and I went to walk around town. We went to the next station in the town, Ujiyamada which turned out to be much larger than our own station -.-
Dinner was this traditional Japanese meal which consisted of hot soba, some radish thing, fried rice, some fishcake thing, grilled sabah, grilled 10cm long ikan bili, and some other stuff :/ Didn't really enjoy it that much. Then after dinner we went to bathe. When I had heard the baths were the traditional type, I didn't want to bathe, so instead I washed my legs and face, which was still torture because there was no hot water, ARGHHH. SO... COLD!
That night was the only night that I wore socks to bed, because it was so friggin cold :/ The beds were in the usual tradtional Japanese style, like that of the first night's rooms. The heating didn't really seem to work either.
-----
Actually if you're wondering why I'm being so long winded, this is more for my own remembrance more than anything else, and yes, it is VERY long :/ Spent about 1 1/2 hours on this part so far, and still writing more!
Trip to Japan; part 1
Okay this post is really long, and the only reason I decided to post this in parts is because it's really very long and one huge post will make everyone's eyes pop, so here goes!
-----
16th December
Singapore-Bangkok (transit)
The flight was around 9pm, so we ended up leaving the house around 7pm. My grandparents sent us off, and Ryan went along in the car for a ride and they dropped us off at the Departure Hall and then left. After we checked in, we headed straight for immigration. We ended up walking around looking for a shop that sold batteries because we ran out of AA batteries for the camera. Then we went to the gate, which was right at the end of the terminal. On the way to the gate my mother and I must have visited every single female toilet along the way because they were so bloody crowded -.- and we didn't want to queue up. In the end we used the toilet right at the end of the terminal which was empty and had no people, finally!
Opposite our gate, there was some free Oto 'big foot' massage thing, so all of us had a go at it, it was kinda ticklish (okay as I am typing this, this entry seems really inane and boring. But I promised myself I'd do this so I'll have some record of this trip. Bla). We waited outside the gate till 15 mins before the plane was due to depart before going in, watching all the other people queuing up for the security checks and whatnot, as usual. In the end the plane ended up leaving Singapore late because the backlog of people stuck at the security was too much.
Our plane tickets were really cheap, about $450 per person from Singapore to Kansai Intl. Airport on Thai Airways, of course the catch was that we had to transfer at Bangkok's new airport. The transit time was around 1 1/2 hours from est. landing time to take off time. A little background info here, it was opened in early 2006 by ex-Prime Minister Thaksin, even though it wasn't really complete. This was an airport that was supposed to have been completed many years ago, but the completion date kept getting pushed back. In the end Thaksin got fed up, hopped on a plane and landed at the airport which has some un-pronouncable name and declared it open. Well, according to my dad anyway. The airport is shaped like a 'H' and has wings A, B, C and D at opposite ends of the 'I' part of the 'H' with the shopping part in the '--' part.
We had a fairly routine landing at the airport, nothing out of the ordinary. Then came the great journey around the vast planes (very punny) of a bloody, unfinished airport. We started off at A and ended up going around the entire airport, went past D and ended up in some area about 500m from the airport terminal because like durrrr, the airport wasn't fully completed. So not only was the flight late, we wasted time taxi-ing about the entire airport, but we had to wait and take a bus to the terminal. Me not in good mood.
Then when the bus came, it drove all over the damn place till 'A' wing or something, ANOTHER ROUND AROUND THE AIRPORT, and then it suddenly doubled back, like the driver forgot where to drop us off. ARGHHHH. The terminal looked like shit too. Seriously. The walls were bare, as in nekkid concrete, no paint or anything and we could see the pipes running through the terminal. It wasn't some avant garde deconstructed look either, it simply was NOT complete. Along the way pieces of masking take covered up the departure/arrival sign board, lights didn't work and the tiles looked like crap. Joy. Along the way we passed this caucasian man who said really loudly that "this is the ugliest f**king airport I have ever seen".
Of course the kicker came when we found out our gate was at the other end of the '--' shopping part. The worse part of the shopping part was that it was smack in the middle of the opposing gates of A/B and C/D. That part was seriously long, seemed like it was at least 500m long, filled with shops and it had no travellators. We ended up having to rush through everything or else risk missing our connection to Kansai. Thank you Suvarnabhumi (googled it) Airport. It wasn't till we had reached our gates that my mum and I decided to go to use the toilet. There, the signs were wrong, the toilet was placed in the most ulu location ever and the stylish looking taps with those sensors were ungainly to use.
I hate Suvarnabhumi Airport.
17th December
Bangkok-Kansai Airport-Nara
After I woke up from my sleep, I felt kinda sick and my throat was a little dry and I kept sneezing :/ so during the quarentine check at the airport I had to told my breath multiple times to stop sneezing, lol. They were checking for H5N1 bird flu. We made it through immigration fairly fast and didn't have to stop to wait for the baggage to come out because we carried everything as hand carry (backpacking), which was just as well since due to our tight transit, the bags would not have made it to Japan and would have ended up in Bangkok -.-
We headed straight for the tourist information end bought tickets for the bus ride to Nara which left around 8:50am or something, leaving us with about 40mins to wander around the airport and the area next to it. We all switched on our handphones, but they didn't work. We later found out it was because the entire Japan has switched to a 3G network while our phones were still on 2G. It was really nice and cold as we walked around the outside of the airport, about 12 degrees. The wind was so strong that it blew my dad's cap off and he ran about chasing it, lol.
The bus was really empty so we each had 2 seats to ourselves. We all ended up sleeping on the way too. The bus ride was about an hour I think. At Nara we got off at the last stop and walked through this little lane called Sanjo Street to Nakata Bed and Breakfast, a little cute house in the middle of the town, which was pretty small anyway. There we met Jun Nakata who spoke some English. I later learned he was learning English. The main reason I had arranged for Nara to be the first stop was that I had read from some guide book that on the 17th of Dec, there was some annual street parade featuring traditional costumes and so on. The room that Jun gave us was Japanese style, with tatami mats and so on (: There my mother and I changed into our long johns and I went to use the toilet (it seems like toilets play a huge part in my trip to Japan...). The toilet bowl was so awesome! It was HEATED. LOL. It was really comfortable to sit on and had all sorts of options like a bidet, a female bidet, even adjusting the seat temp. If I ever move to a temperate country - I want one of those!
Anyway toilets aside, we left the Bed and Breakfast shortly after and walked to the main street where we found the tourist info. At the tourist info there was this woman who spoke English and she helped us. The main street itself was quite crowded with a small town, almost everyone was out and about the town because of the festival. Street stalls selling candied apples, takoyaki, games and so on lined the area where the parade was due to go through. My mum wanted to eat this grilled squid thing, but there was no price written out. I asked the old lady in Japanese I had learned from a guide book.
Me: Ikura deska? (What's the price)
Old Lady: Rokunihyaku (600 Yen)
Of course there's a reason I didn't leave a space between her words, because she said it in rapid fire speak. All I could catch was the 'hya ku' which means 100 -_____________- So anyway my dad gave her a 1000 Yen note and she just gave us change. Lol. Failed.
We walked to the main shine where the fesitval was due to start and poked about, taking some pictures. We watched some of the performers getting their act ready and then walked out of the shrine to a street where the parade would be headed for later. After standing about and buying some other stuff, the parade started so we found a spot and stood there to watch. Because there was no muscle movement on our part, we soon grew really cold. The parade also started to seem a little boring, for the pure reason that we didn't understand the history behind it, nor the shinto culture. After about 30 mins we left and watched the parade in other stops and visited some shrines along the way too.
Then we walked till we ended up in the Deer Park and watched the end of the festival where these boys seated on horses, fully dressed in some ancient garb shot these arrows, then proceeded into the grand shrine where lots of devotees swarmed about. Of course to us it just looked kind of cool, but we really gained nothing cultural from it whatsoever because we didn't understand anything. Bla.
Afterwards we left the shrine area after all the performers had went into the shrine and I fed some deer. One tried to eat my bag I think. Lol.
Then we walked to some other shrine and went into this garden, which was nice and probably had some huge significance that we weren't aware of. ARGHHH. The thing about Japan is that it's 90% shrines with it's own unique religion, Shinto. None of us understood anything about it, not to mention that Japan is not exactly gaijin friendly. I felt like such an ignorant fool there, my dad too. The sky had been overcast for some time, and just as we were about to start leaving the garden, it started to rain. Of course the rain in Japan is considered a drizzle back home, but still it was miserable because clothes get wet and you feel colder. We ended up running back from the garden to the main street where my dad bought me this mini candied strawberry and we went shopping -.- since there was nothing else to do. We went to the 100 yen store, daiso, lol! and I bought this sodoku book. We also bought some chocolates and my mum went off on her obsessive search to find charcoal toothpaste for her boss, of all things.
We walked till we found this little eatery where we just pointed at the stuff we wanted since we couldn't speak the lingo, hahaha. Weirdness. I had this zaru soba with fried rice and some other weird thing. When we left the eatery, I started to get really really cold. In addition to the rain, it was about 7 degrees out and I really started to shiver. Brrrrr. Like I could FEEL my spine shaking or something. I didn't really feel it was that cold, but I was seriously shaking.
I had a nice hot shower back at the Bed and Breakfast, but oh my gosh, changing clothes was such a torture! It was so cold and the wind slipped through the cracks of the door, nipping at my ankles. Wa lao. I started to shiver again while trying to put on my clothes -.-
Jun had set up the beds for us, complete with electric blanket. I had a really nice sleep and it was so comfy sleeping there (:
18th December
Nara-Kyoto
The check out time for the B&B was 10am. We all thought we'd be awake by 8am, and we ended up sleeping till 9am instead. Hahaha! Anyway we packed up our stuff and left the B&B, taking pictures and waving goodbye to Jun.
We walked into some small eatery along the main street, the first of many machine type eateries! I took a picture of the machine but I have yet to install the photo editing software, so no pictures as of yet. Anyway it was really cool, you insert money and punch in your order, then this ticket comes out and you give it to the staff. So anyway we compared the little pics and prices on the machine to the plastic food displayed outside, then placed our orders. It was really fun to use, though it makes you wonder how much labour they actually save with a set up like that since you still have to give the tickets to the staff personally anyway.
At the JR Station, we bought tickets from this 20-ish young guy who spoke pidgin English, I can't remember if he was hot or not. Lol. Anyway after my dad bought the tickets, he had the prescence of mind to ask when it was coming, then the guy replied "10:35", then my dad checked his watch. It was 10:33am. O.O So we ended up running across the station to the platform. Bla. I was completely winded when we reached the train, not that the station was mega huge or anything - but I really haven't had any exercise in a long time :/
The train ride was about 1 hr so from Nara to Kyoto and I listened to music on my totally falling apart mp3 player while watching the land zip by. At Kyoto station, we ended up a little lost in the huge mass of people walking in all directions, seperate lines for the Shinkansen, JR and Kintetsu lines while looking for the subway to take to our hotel. In the end we went to some Kintetsu office to ask for directions to the subway which turned out to be in a seperate area, but in the same building -.-
Our hotel turned out to be 3 stops away from Kyoto Station at Karasuma-Oike Station. We bought the tickets for the station, 250 Yen I think and then wandered about trying to find more information about how to go to our next destination: Ise, a little sea side town. In the same area, next to the subway, there was this underground shopping mall. My mom did a little browsing before my dad got a little angry and we hopped onto the subway.
Karasuma-Oike turned out to be the CBD of Kyoto. LOL. Our hotel was about a block or two away from the subway station and about 5 blocks away from the main attractions of Kyoto like the Imperial Palace and some other palace belong to a minor feudal lord. After we checked in and left our bags at the airport, we headed straight for the two attractions, stopping for lunch at some weird pseudo-Chinese food place when it started to rain. Again we did the point at pictures thing to order our food. En route to the first attaction, I somehow managed to spoil the zip on my jacket, so it wouldn't zip up anymore :/
The minor feudal lord's palace was very Japanese, that is minimalist. Like there was nothing to look at. Just as the Chinese are King of Gaudy and Opulence, the Japanese are King of Simplicity and Minimalism. Seriously, there was nothing to see. The Imperial Palace turned out to be closed for the day or something for some sort of event, so we couldn't go in. Bla. Anyway we took a cab to the Philosoper's Walk at the Eastern side of Kyoto, near the mountains where practically 90% of the shrines are located. That was around 3pm? I guess. Anyway we went to some shrines (I sound like such an uncultured fool :( ), took pictures, went to some gardens and walked along the 'Philosopher's Path' which was this stone path next to the old canal. Along the way the sun started to set (Sun down was at 5pm) and we ended up at this shrine, which we wanted to go in and see since it was really big, but it was too dark and seemed closed for the day. There were a few cabs still hanging around the area and we were all tired from the walking, so we hopped onto this cab. The driver gave us sweets (:
Then it was my turn to lead. I had found this night time walk for Kyoto which was in the Gion/main shopping district. The first stop was this brightly lit shrine, the name of which again, I can't remember and I ended up repeating it over and over again to the amused taxi driver. Rahhhh. After the shrine we walked and ended up missing the main area of the expensive japanese restaurants where all the Geishas we usually to be seen, because we were on the wrong side of the road and I couldn't see the landmark which was Gion Hotel -.- Anyway we backtracked and walked through the area and we saw this geisha seated in a taxi, refusing to come out because there were like 15 gaijins gathered around the taxi like some mob, taking pictures. We stared for a while before moving on. Walking along the restaurant row, we saw another geisha walking really fast. It was around this time that the stupidness came out. First my mother thought we were in the red light district and that geishas were prostituites -.- Then she confused them with gays (like WTF? GAYsha?). ARGH. I can't even remember the entire convo. It was too weird for words.
We went to the other places on the walk and we ended up at some shopping centre because we saw some winter jackets on sale there, but I didn't like them. Then I saw that there was a HMV at the same place and asked to go there to look for the HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR CD I planned to buy in Japan. There, it took me a while to find because I didn't exactly understand how they arranged the entire section. Anyway I now have the Enrai Tooku Ni Aru Akari CD, YAY! I also have this weird pin up of Athrun Zala that came with the CD. Go figure.
After that we went to look for food and we found this place that sells sashimi on rice. I had tuna, salmon and in retrospect, minced tuna sashimi on rice. It was so good! Argh, I feel hungry again :/ Then after we got out, my dad discovered that we had actually walked so far that we were a few blocks away from our hotel so we walked back. I was shivering again :/
At the hotel, my mum went to make some calls to her sister in Osaka and I used the com for about 10 mins to talk to some people online (:
-----
Will try to accomplish more tomorrow! This has taken me close to 2+ hours to do. I am such a grandma.
-----
16th December
Singapore-Bangkok (transit)
The flight was around 9pm, so we ended up leaving the house around 7pm. My grandparents sent us off, and Ryan went along in the car for a ride and they dropped us off at the Departure Hall and then left. After we checked in, we headed straight for immigration. We ended up walking around looking for a shop that sold batteries because we ran out of AA batteries for the camera. Then we went to the gate, which was right at the end of the terminal. On the way to the gate my mother and I must have visited every single female toilet along the way because they were so bloody crowded -.- and we didn't want to queue up. In the end we used the toilet right at the end of the terminal which was empty and had no people, finally!
Opposite our gate, there was some free Oto 'big foot' massage thing, so all of us had a go at it, it was kinda ticklish (okay as I am typing this, this entry seems really inane and boring. But I promised myself I'd do this so I'll have some record of this trip. Bla). We waited outside the gate till 15 mins before the plane was due to depart before going in, watching all the other people queuing up for the security checks and whatnot, as usual. In the end the plane ended up leaving Singapore late because the backlog of people stuck at the security was too much.
Our plane tickets were really cheap, about $450 per person from Singapore to Kansai Intl. Airport on Thai Airways, of course the catch was that we had to transfer at Bangkok's new airport. The transit time was around 1 1/2 hours from est. landing time to take off time. A little background info here, it was opened in early 2006 by ex-Prime Minister Thaksin, even though it wasn't really complete. This was an airport that was supposed to have been completed many years ago, but the completion date kept getting pushed back. In the end Thaksin got fed up, hopped on a plane and landed at the airport which has some un-pronouncable name and declared it open. Well, according to my dad anyway. The airport is shaped like a 'H' and has wings A, B, C and D at opposite ends of the 'I' part of the 'H' with the shopping part in the '--' part.
We had a fairly routine landing at the airport, nothing out of the ordinary. Then came the great journey around the vast planes (very punny) of a bloody, unfinished airport. We started off at A and ended up going around the entire airport, went past D and ended up in some area about 500m from the airport terminal because like durrrr, the airport wasn't fully completed. So not only was the flight late, we wasted time taxi-ing about the entire airport, but we had to wait and take a bus to the terminal. Me not in good mood.
Then when the bus came, it drove all over the damn place till 'A' wing or something, ANOTHER ROUND AROUND THE AIRPORT, and then it suddenly doubled back, like the driver forgot where to drop us off. ARGHHHH. The terminal looked like shit too. Seriously. The walls were bare, as in nekkid concrete, no paint or anything and we could see the pipes running through the terminal. It wasn't some avant garde deconstructed look either, it simply was NOT complete. Along the way pieces of masking take covered up the departure/arrival sign board, lights didn't work and the tiles looked like crap. Joy. Along the way we passed this caucasian man who said really loudly that "this is the ugliest f**king airport I have ever seen".
Of course the kicker came when we found out our gate was at the other end of the '--' shopping part. The worse part of the shopping part was that it was smack in the middle of the opposing gates of A/B and C/D. That part was seriously long, seemed like it was at least 500m long, filled with shops and it had no travellators. We ended up having to rush through everything or else risk missing our connection to Kansai. Thank you Suvarnabhumi (googled it) Airport. It wasn't till we had reached our gates that my mum and I decided to go to use the toilet. There, the signs were wrong, the toilet was placed in the most ulu location ever and the stylish looking taps with those sensors were ungainly to use.
I hate Suvarnabhumi Airport.
17th December
Bangkok-Kansai Airport-Nara
After I woke up from my sleep, I felt kinda sick and my throat was a little dry and I kept sneezing :/ so during the quarentine check at the airport I had to told my breath multiple times to stop sneezing, lol. They were checking for H5N1 bird flu. We made it through immigration fairly fast and didn't have to stop to wait for the baggage to come out because we carried everything as hand carry (backpacking), which was just as well since due to our tight transit, the bags would not have made it to Japan and would have ended up in Bangkok -.-
We headed straight for the tourist information end bought tickets for the bus ride to Nara which left around 8:50am or something, leaving us with about 40mins to wander around the airport and the area next to it. We all switched on our handphones, but they didn't work. We later found out it was because the entire Japan has switched to a 3G network while our phones were still on 2G. It was really nice and cold as we walked around the outside of the airport, about 12 degrees. The wind was so strong that it blew my dad's cap off and he ran about chasing it, lol.
The bus was really empty so we each had 2 seats to ourselves. We all ended up sleeping on the way too. The bus ride was about an hour I think. At Nara we got off at the last stop and walked through this little lane called Sanjo Street to Nakata Bed and Breakfast, a little cute house in the middle of the town, which was pretty small anyway. There we met Jun Nakata who spoke some English. I later learned he was learning English. The main reason I had arranged for Nara to be the first stop was that I had read from some guide book that on the 17th of Dec, there was some annual street parade featuring traditional costumes and so on. The room that Jun gave us was Japanese style, with tatami mats and so on (: There my mother and I changed into our long johns and I went to use the toilet (it seems like toilets play a huge part in my trip to Japan...). The toilet bowl was so awesome! It was HEATED. LOL. It was really comfortable to sit on and had all sorts of options like a bidet, a female bidet, even adjusting the seat temp. If I ever move to a temperate country - I want one of those!
Anyway toilets aside, we left the Bed and Breakfast shortly after and walked to the main street where we found the tourist info. At the tourist info there was this woman who spoke English and she helped us. The main street itself was quite crowded with a small town, almost everyone was out and about the town because of the festival. Street stalls selling candied apples, takoyaki, games and so on lined the area where the parade was due to go through. My mum wanted to eat this grilled squid thing, but there was no price written out. I asked the old lady in Japanese I had learned from a guide book.
Me: Ikura deska? (What's the price)
Old Lady: Rokunihyaku (600 Yen)
Of course there's a reason I didn't leave a space between her words, because she said it in rapid fire speak. All I could catch was the 'hya ku' which means 100 -_____________- So anyway my dad gave her a 1000 Yen note and she just gave us change. Lol. Failed.
We walked to the main shine where the fesitval was due to start and poked about, taking some pictures. We watched some of the performers getting their act ready and then walked out of the shrine to a street where the parade would be headed for later. After standing about and buying some other stuff, the parade started so we found a spot and stood there to watch. Because there was no muscle movement on our part, we soon grew really cold. The parade also started to seem a little boring, for the pure reason that we didn't understand the history behind it, nor the shinto culture. After about 30 mins we left and watched the parade in other stops and visited some shrines along the way too.
Then we walked till we ended up in the Deer Park and watched the end of the festival where these boys seated on horses, fully dressed in some ancient garb shot these arrows, then proceeded into the grand shrine where lots of devotees swarmed about. Of course to us it just looked kind of cool, but we really gained nothing cultural from it whatsoever because we didn't understand anything. Bla.
Afterwards we left the shrine area after all the performers had went into the shrine and I fed some deer. One tried to eat my bag I think. Lol.
Then we walked to some other shrine and went into this garden, which was nice and probably had some huge significance that we weren't aware of. ARGHHH. The thing about Japan is that it's 90% shrines with it's own unique religion, Shinto. None of us understood anything about it, not to mention that Japan is not exactly gaijin friendly. I felt like such an ignorant fool there, my dad too. The sky had been overcast for some time, and just as we were about to start leaving the garden, it started to rain. Of course the rain in Japan is considered a drizzle back home, but still it was miserable because clothes get wet and you feel colder. We ended up running back from the garden to the main street where my dad bought me this mini candied strawberry and we went shopping -.- since there was nothing else to do. We went to the 100 yen store, daiso, lol! and I bought this sodoku book. We also bought some chocolates and my mum went off on her obsessive search to find charcoal toothpaste for her boss, of all things.
We walked till we found this little eatery where we just pointed at the stuff we wanted since we couldn't speak the lingo, hahaha. Weirdness. I had this zaru soba with fried rice and some other weird thing. When we left the eatery, I started to get really really cold. In addition to the rain, it was about 7 degrees out and I really started to shiver. Brrrrr. Like I could FEEL my spine shaking or something. I didn't really feel it was that cold, but I was seriously shaking.
I had a nice hot shower back at the Bed and Breakfast, but oh my gosh, changing clothes was such a torture! It was so cold and the wind slipped through the cracks of the door, nipping at my ankles. Wa lao. I started to shiver again while trying to put on my clothes -.-
Jun had set up the beds for us, complete with electric blanket. I had a really nice sleep and it was so comfy sleeping there (:
18th December
Nara-Kyoto
The check out time for the B&B was 10am. We all thought we'd be awake by 8am, and we ended up sleeping till 9am instead. Hahaha! Anyway we packed up our stuff and left the B&B, taking pictures and waving goodbye to Jun.
We walked into some small eatery along the main street, the first of many machine type eateries! I took a picture of the machine but I have yet to install the photo editing software, so no pictures as of yet. Anyway it was really cool, you insert money and punch in your order, then this ticket comes out and you give it to the staff. So anyway we compared the little pics and prices on the machine to the plastic food displayed outside, then placed our orders. It was really fun to use, though it makes you wonder how much labour they actually save with a set up like that since you still have to give the tickets to the staff personally anyway.
At the JR Station, we bought tickets from this 20-ish young guy who spoke pidgin English, I can't remember if he was hot or not. Lol. Anyway after my dad bought the tickets, he had the prescence of mind to ask when it was coming, then the guy replied "10:35", then my dad checked his watch. It was 10:33am. O.O So we ended up running across the station to the platform. Bla. I was completely winded when we reached the train, not that the station was mega huge or anything - but I really haven't had any exercise in a long time :/
The train ride was about 1 hr so from Nara to Kyoto and I listened to music on my totally falling apart mp3 player while watching the land zip by. At Kyoto station, we ended up a little lost in the huge mass of people walking in all directions, seperate lines for the Shinkansen, JR and Kintetsu lines while looking for the subway to take to our hotel. In the end we went to some Kintetsu office to ask for directions to the subway which turned out to be in a seperate area, but in the same building -.-
Our hotel turned out to be 3 stops away from Kyoto Station at Karasuma-Oike Station. We bought the tickets for the station, 250 Yen I think and then wandered about trying to find more information about how to go to our next destination: Ise, a little sea side town. In the same area, next to the subway, there was this underground shopping mall. My mom did a little browsing before my dad got a little angry and we hopped onto the subway.
Karasuma-Oike turned out to be the CBD of Kyoto. LOL. Our hotel was about a block or two away from the subway station and about 5 blocks away from the main attractions of Kyoto like the Imperial Palace and some other palace belong to a minor feudal lord. After we checked in and left our bags at the airport, we headed straight for the two attractions, stopping for lunch at some weird pseudo-Chinese food place when it started to rain. Again we did the point at pictures thing to order our food. En route to the first attaction, I somehow managed to spoil the zip on my jacket, so it wouldn't zip up anymore :/
The minor feudal lord's palace was very Japanese, that is minimalist. Like there was nothing to look at. Just as the Chinese are King of Gaudy and Opulence, the Japanese are King of Simplicity and Minimalism. Seriously, there was nothing to see. The Imperial Palace turned out to be closed for the day or something for some sort of event, so we couldn't go in. Bla. Anyway we took a cab to the Philosoper's Walk at the Eastern side of Kyoto, near the mountains where practically 90% of the shrines are located. That was around 3pm? I guess. Anyway we went to some shrines (I sound like such an uncultured fool :( ), took pictures, went to some gardens and walked along the 'Philosopher's Path' which was this stone path next to the old canal. Along the way the sun started to set (Sun down was at 5pm) and we ended up at this shrine, which we wanted to go in and see since it was really big, but it was too dark and seemed closed for the day. There were a few cabs still hanging around the area and we were all tired from the walking, so we hopped onto this cab. The driver gave us sweets (:
Then it was my turn to lead. I had found this night time walk for Kyoto which was in the Gion/main shopping district. The first stop was this brightly lit shrine, the name of which again, I can't remember and I ended up repeating it over and over again to the amused taxi driver. Rahhhh. After the shrine we walked and ended up missing the main area of the expensive japanese restaurants where all the Geishas we usually to be seen, because we were on the wrong side of the road and I couldn't see the landmark which was Gion Hotel -.- Anyway we backtracked and walked through the area and we saw this geisha seated in a taxi, refusing to come out because there were like 15 gaijins gathered around the taxi like some mob, taking pictures. We stared for a while before moving on. Walking along the restaurant row, we saw another geisha walking really fast. It was around this time that the stupidness came out. First my mother thought we were in the red light district and that geishas were prostituites -.- Then she confused them with gays (like WTF? GAYsha?). ARGH. I can't even remember the entire convo. It was too weird for words.
We went to the other places on the walk and we ended up at some shopping centre because we saw some winter jackets on sale there, but I didn't like them. Then I saw that there was a HMV at the same place and asked to go there to look for the HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR CD I planned to buy in Japan. There, it took me a while to find because I didn't exactly understand how they arranged the entire section. Anyway I now have the Enrai Tooku Ni Aru Akari CD, YAY! I also have this weird pin up of Athrun Zala that came with the CD. Go figure.
After that we went to look for food and we found this place that sells sashimi on rice. I had tuna, salmon and in retrospect, minced tuna sashimi on rice. It was so good! Argh, I feel hungry again :/ Then after we got out, my dad discovered that we had actually walked so far that we were a few blocks away from our hotel so we walked back. I was shivering again :/
At the hotel, my mum went to make some calls to her sister in Osaka and I used the com for about 10 mins to talk to some people online (:
-----
Will try to accomplish more tomorrow! This has taken me close to 2+ hours to do. I am such a grandma.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Today I went to Liselle's house for the Christmas party. The last time I had been to her house was when I was Sec 1, for her birthday party. Anyway she gave me the directions for the buses to take to her house.
I left the house around 2 PM and boarded 156, which would take me to Macritchie, where I would change buses. The thing about the Macritichie bus stop is that there are 2 of them - very confusing! I forgot that she had told me earlier to go to the inner bus stop and instead I was at the outer bus stop, reading the bus directory. When a bus that I could take came, I stupidly went to try and flag it down -.- Then when it went to the inner bus stop I realised my mistake. Ugh, i bet everyone thought I was a real loser -.-
Then when 165 came, I boarded the bus. When I boarded the bus, I immediately recalled that I had forgotten to count the number of bus stops on the directory. Argh. Instead I had to look out of the bus windows intently. However even that could not prevent me from missing my stop, in fact I missed many stops! I completely did not see Thomson Plaza at all, or else I would have gotten off at the next stop. So anyway, onwards I rode on the bus, till I kind of felt that the bus was way too far from where I remembered Thomson Plaza to be - and it was turning out from Thomson Road!
I guess the reason that I mainly stayed on the bus was that I kept hoping that I hadn't missed it yet. Argh. Anyway I ended up dropping off at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1. I crossed the road, but by then I was quite fed up with buses since I had obviously missed the place the first time even though I did remember my directions, just not by bus. Fed up and feeling stubborn, I decided to walk there instead.
Now looking at StreetDirectory.com, it turns out I walked 2.5km within 25 mins, and I arrived at Liselle's place around 3:08. Towards the end of the trip, maybe the last 700m or so? it started to RAIN. ARGHHHHH. Then when I had to cross a huge intersection, I went to press the 'cross road' button thing - then I realised it was for the other direction, not the one I wanted. Then it was red light for the direction I didn't want and all the motorists were staring at me. I remember hitting myself on the head with Stephanie's present around that time out of frustation. GAH.
When I reached the place, I was at the lobby when Stephanie came and we both went up together. To our surprise only one other visitor was there - Hui Ming. We both thought that there'd be more people there, but most people arrived only around 3:30PM. MGS girls, always late!
Anyway I had a lot of fun there, especially on the com. Her computer is located in the middle of the living room on the coffee table - what a weird place :/ Anyway it made mass viewing possible. At first Anthea went to some infamous people's blogs, that was very entertaining. Then Liselle's friend started talking to 'her' so Stephanie and I replied weird stuff to her which ranged from super high person to weirdo cult mormon girl who increases her fertility by watching About A Boy (the movie that was showing then). Very fun, hahaha!
Then I decided to log onto the Anna account and started talking to our dear AZN Freak (will post more under the Anna section) which also provided a lot of entertainment for everyone + I got him enable webcam. The group of us was mainly Steph, Jia Hui, Anthea, Shu Wen, Liz, Amanda (the one called Fei Mao) and this ex-MGS girl whose name I keep forgetting.
There was the present game, which was basically like a gift exchange. The gift I gave was this body shop Bergamot lotion and shower foam thing. I picked Amanda's Hello Kitty bag because it looked so insanely weird, not like I like Hello Kitty or anything. I half expected the thing inside to be some weird Hello Kitty thing but it was this green letter writing set. LOL.
Anyway I left together with Steph, ex-MGS girl, Sharyl, Ashikyn (sp?) and Anthea. My dad came to pick Steph, ex-MGS girl and me up. Then Steph's father came to my house to pick both of them up since they live nearby each other. I feel kinda tired now though, especially after my 'great' adventure getting lost today. The last time I got lost was when I was 11, at Bukit Batok Interchange with Phua Ai Lin. Hahaha. Good old less resourceful and street smart times - we ended up taking a taxi back to school.
I left the house around 2 PM and boarded 156, which would take me to Macritchie, where I would change buses. The thing about the Macritichie bus stop is that there are 2 of them - very confusing! I forgot that she had told me earlier to go to the inner bus stop and instead I was at the outer bus stop, reading the bus directory. When a bus that I could take came, I stupidly went to try and flag it down -.- Then when it went to the inner bus stop I realised my mistake. Ugh, i bet everyone thought I was a real loser -.-
Then when 165 came, I boarded the bus. When I boarded the bus, I immediately recalled that I had forgotten to count the number of bus stops on the directory. Argh. Instead I had to look out of the bus windows intently. However even that could not prevent me from missing my stop, in fact I missed many stops! I completely did not see Thomson Plaza at all, or else I would have gotten off at the next stop. So anyway, onwards I rode on the bus, till I kind of felt that the bus was way too far from where I remembered Thomson Plaza to be - and it was turning out from Thomson Road!
I guess the reason that I mainly stayed on the bus was that I kept hoping that I hadn't missed it yet. Argh. Anyway I ended up dropping off at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1. I crossed the road, but by then I was quite fed up with buses since I had obviously missed the place the first time even though I did remember my directions, just not by bus. Fed up and feeling stubborn, I decided to walk there instead.
Now looking at StreetDirectory.com, it turns out I walked 2.5km within 25 mins, and I arrived at Liselle's place around 3:08. Towards the end of the trip, maybe the last 700m or so? it started to RAIN. ARGHHHHH. Then when I had to cross a huge intersection, I went to press the 'cross road' button thing - then I realised it was for the other direction, not the one I wanted. Then it was red light for the direction I didn't want and all the motorists were staring at me. I remember hitting myself on the head with Stephanie's present around that time out of frustation. GAH.
When I reached the place, I was at the lobby when Stephanie came and we both went up together. To our surprise only one other visitor was there - Hui Ming. We both thought that there'd be more people there, but most people arrived only around 3:30PM. MGS girls, always late!
Anyway I had a lot of fun there, especially on the com. Her computer is located in the middle of the living room on the coffee table - what a weird place :/ Anyway it made mass viewing possible. At first Anthea went to some infamous people's blogs, that was very entertaining. Then Liselle's friend started talking to 'her' so Stephanie and I replied weird stuff to her which ranged from super high person to weirdo cult mormon girl who increases her fertility by watching About A Boy (the movie that was showing then). Very fun, hahaha!
Then I decided to log onto the Anna account and started talking to our dear AZN Freak (will post more under the Anna section) which also provided a lot of entertainment for everyone + I got him enable webcam. The group of us was mainly Steph, Jia Hui, Anthea, Shu Wen, Liz, Amanda (the one called Fei Mao) and this ex-MGS girl whose name I keep forgetting.
There was the present game, which was basically like a gift exchange. The gift I gave was this body shop Bergamot lotion and shower foam thing. I picked Amanda's Hello Kitty bag because it looked so insanely weird, not like I like Hello Kitty or anything. I half expected the thing inside to be some weird Hello Kitty thing but it was this green letter writing set. LOL.
Anyway I left together with Steph, ex-MGS girl, Sharyl, Ashikyn (sp?) and Anthea. My dad came to pick Steph, ex-MGS girl and me up. Then Steph's father came to my house to pick both of them up since they live nearby each other. I feel kinda tired now though, especially after my 'great' adventure getting lost today. The last time I got lost was when I was 11, at Bukit Batok Interchange with Phua Ai Lin. Hahaha. Good old less resourceful and street smart times - we ended up taking a taxi back to school.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Hai, I have just finished all 26 episodes of Ouran High School Host Club!
Ahhhh I loved it (: I started on Tuesday night and finally finished tonight. The ending was really nice, yet so sad. Ahhhhh.
Now I feel all empty again, just like when The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Gundam Seed/Destiny finished :/
I shall buy the manga now to read!
Ahhhh I loved it (: I started on Tuesday night and finally finished tonight. The ending was really nice, yet so sad. Ahhhhh.
Now I feel all empty again, just like when The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Gundam Seed/Destiny finished :/
I shall buy the manga now to read!
Today I went out with my grandparents and my brother for lunch at Turf City. Afterwards, we went to Giant to do some grocery shopping.
We had a lot of stuff to buy, so most people chose not to queue up behind us (long wait) and instead went to other queues. Then these two men came and stood behind us, waiting to pay for their purchases, the thing that struck me most about the two men was that if there ever was a stereotypical look which screamed 'I am a criminal!', they had it.
After a while they too tired of waiting behind us. One of them asked the next counter if it was open. I didn't really hear the answer since I wasn't paying them much attention. Then the man who had asked the other counter walked from the queue behind us and walked past the entire row of cashiers to somewhere I couldn't see him anymore.
Then the other guy looked around his surroundings and then did the same thing as his friend. He was carrying two jars of what looked like Strawberry jam. O.O At that time I was holding on to a squirming Ryan (being super hyper as usual) so I had to shift him along with myself so I could get a better look at the situation as a pillar and obscuring my view, all the while my my mind screaming "Thief, thief, thief!!!". Then I saw that the first guy and the second guy were paying for their purchases at the information counter, set behind the cashiers, which was blocked from my view because of the pillar.
I was instantly relieved, yet I felt kind of guilty inside. I had unconsciously stereotyped and judged those two men. They weren't the criminals I had thought them out to be. Similarly the other day when Marina and I were out and about to part, we were approached by this guy, about 17? at Orchard MRT. He looked and dressed like a typical school boy, nothing suspicious about him at all.
He asked for a donation, $2, supposedly to support the re-hiring of ex-cons (Ohh, irony!). Marina and I obliged and both gave him $2, since the sum was much smaller compared to the $5 we had each given to another charity. Then after we left him, I saw the pen and the flyer inside the packet he had 'given' us in exchange for the $2. The flyer merrily said "This is not a non-profit organisation... supporting young entrepreneurs... direct sales... contact XXX company".
What. The. FUCK? Excuse me? Anyway I wanted to get home so Marina and I both decided to forget the entire thing since anyway, the good intention on our part was there, plus even though we were defrauded out of our money, Someone up there knows what that guy did (Oh man, I sound like McSmiley).
Anyway please do not buy 'pens' for a $2 donation to any group operating in Orchard Road. I have reason to believe that they make up their stories in anyway possible (entrepreneurs what!) to get money in a most unscrupulous way, preying on the kindness of people. I should call the NewPaper or something, hahaha!
We had a lot of stuff to buy, so most people chose not to queue up behind us (long wait) and instead went to other queues. Then these two men came and stood behind us, waiting to pay for their purchases, the thing that struck me most about the two men was that if there ever was a stereotypical look which screamed 'I am a criminal!', they had it.
After a while they too tired of waiting behind us. One of them asked the next counter if it was open. I didn't really hear the answer since I wasn't paying them much attention. Then the man who had asked the other counter walked from the queue behind us and walked past the entire row of cashiers to somewhere I couldn't see him anymore.
Then the other guy looked around his surroundings and then did the same thing as his friend. He was carrying two jars of what looked like Strawberry jam. O.O At that time I was holding on to a squirming Ryan (being super hyper as usual) so I had to shift him along with myself so I could get a better look at the situation as a pillar and obscuring my view, all the while my my mind screaming "Thief, thief, thief!!!". Then I saw that the first guy and the second guy were paying for their purchases at the information counter, set behind the cashiers, which was blocked from my view because of the pillar.
I was instantly relieved, yet I felt kind of guilty inside. I had unconsciously stereotyped and judged those two men. They weren't the criminals I had thought them out to be. Similarly the other day when Marina and I were out and about to part, we were approached by this guy, about 17? at Orchard MRT. He looked and dressed like a typical school boy, nothing suspicious about him at all.
He asked for a donation, $2, supposedly to support the re-hiring of ex-cons (Ohh, irony!). Marina and I obliged and both gave him $2, since the sum was much smaller compared to the $5 we had each given to another charity. Then after we left him, I saw the pen and the flyer inside the packet he had 'given' us in exchange for the $2. The flyer merrily said "This is not a non-profit organisation... supporting young entrepreneurs... direct sales... contact XXX company".
What. The. FUCK? Excuse me? Anyway I wanted to get home so Marina and I both decided to forget the entire thing since anyway, the good intention on our part was there, plus even though we were defrauded out of our money, Someone up there knows what that guy did (Oh man, I sound like McSmiley).
Anyway please do not buy 'pens' for a $2 donation to any group operating in Orchard Road. I have reason to believe that they make up their stories in anyway possible (entrepreneurs what!) to get money in a most unscrupulous way, preying on the kindness of people. I should call the NewPaper or something, hahaha!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Today I went out with my Dad to watch Flags of our Fathers, directed my Clint Eastwood. I think it was quite good, probably worth an oscar nomination or two.
I also tried to change my S$ into Yen, but the money changer only had Y10,000 notes -.- Same for the other one my dad went to, so no go for me. I'll try again somewhere else I guess, though my dad said someone probably shipped the notes over and flooded the market with them (?)
This post is quite dumb and pointless.
Oh and the Anna posts have ceased because there is nothing to write about either, only 1 other guy has tried to contact Anna and he isn't very interesting nor particularly disturbing/creepy/'amusing' either.
I also tried to change my S$ into Yen, but the money changer only had Y10,000 notes -.- Same for the other one my dad went to, so no go for me. I'll try again somewhere else I guess, though my dad said someone probably shipped the notes over and flooded the market with them (?)
This post is quite dumb and pointless.
Oh and the Anna posts have ceased because there is nothing to write about either, only 1 other guy has tried to contact Anna and he isn't very interesting nor particularly disturbing/creepy/'amusing' either.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Today I went out with Jacinth and Denise to go Christmas shopping!
I used the $50 takashimaya voucher my dad gave me to buy 3.5 gifts. My mum's earrings were the most expensive, Denise and Jacinth helped me pick it out.
Tonight is also the first night that I'm using the wireless on my laptop to blog!
And today, I finally ended up watching Casino Royale because Denise and Jacinth wanted to watch it, partially because I had a free movie ticket voucher (from dad) for it, so I figured I wasn't actually paying to watch Daniel Craig.
I still dislike Daniel Craig, but I have to admit, the parkour stunts were pretty cool (I also ended up spending 50% of the movie's length trying to remember the term for that 'genre' of stunts). The opening sequence was really cool too and I like the song by Chris Cornell, You Know My Name. As for the rest of the movie, I liked the script with so many twists and turns, which ended up making me think the movie ended 2 times before the actual ending. Also I was mildly thrilled to watch the poker game and be able to recognise the terms like 'full house' and so on, thanks to MSN 7 hand poker, hahaha.
*spoiler ahead*
Also towards the end, when James Bond went back to try and rescue Vesper Lynd who had betrayed him, Denise and Jacinth were making a lot of noise about how stupid he was. Somehow I felt like I could really understand his position and his choice for going back to try and save her, even as she didn't want to be rescued and tried to stop him from rescuing her because she couldn't face him.
*spoiler end*
I guess that's why the critics said this was probably the best bond movie, it wasn't all action, there were 'slow' parts which really filled out the plot and made it more than a simple "crash, bang, f**k" movie".
I still dislike Daniel Craig as Bond though. I think Alexander Litvinenko is the best spy though, of course he's dead. I also think what's happening now with the investigations into his death would make a really good movie. It's like the 2nd Cold War now or something. Litvinenko PWNS Craig. So there.
I used the $50 takashimaya voucher my dad gave me to buy 3.5 gifts. My mum's earrings were the most expensive, Denise and Jacinth helped me pick it out.
Tonight is also the first night that I'm using the wireless on my laptop to blog!
And today, I finally ended up watching Casino Royale because Denise and Jacinth wanted to watch it, partially because I had a free movie ticket voucher (from dad) for it, so I figured I wasn't actually paying to watch Daniel Craig.
I still dislike Daniel Craig, but I have to admit, the parkour stunts were pretty cool (I also ended up spending 50% of the movie's length trying to remember the term for that 'genre' of stunts). The opening sequence was really cool too and I like the song by Chris Cornell, You Know My Name. As for the rest of the movie, I liked the script with so many twists and turns, which ended up making me think the movie ended 2 times before the actual ending. Also I was mildly thrilled to watch the poker game and be able to recognise the terms like 'full house' and so on, thanks to MSN 7 hand poker, hahaha.
*spoiler ahead*
Also towards the end, when James Bond went back to try and rescue Vesper Lynd who had betrayed him, Denise and Jacinth were making a lot of noise about how stupid he was. Somehow I felt like I could really understand his position and his choice for going back to try and save her, even as she didn't want to be rescued and tried to stop him from rescuing her because she couldn't face him.
*spoiler end*
I guess that's why the critics said this was probably the best bond movie, it wasn't all action, there were 'slow' parts which really filled out the plot and made it more than a simple "crash, bang, f**k" movie".
I still dislike Daniel Craig as Bond though. I think Alexander Litvinenko is the best spy though, of course he's dead. I also think what's happening now with the investigations into his death would make a really good movie. It's like the 2nd Cold War now or something. Litvinenko PWNS Craig. So there.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Okay I am seriously furious now! Someone deleted all my documents and I was on the verge of tears just now when Suat's friend recommended getting a File Recovery Programme.
In the end I managed to retrieve all my more important files, but some are irreplacably lost, like my subject notes. Thank goodness I already sent them all the Vicky and Yen Fern long ago.
I'm going back to try and determine a time of deletion. I think my mother, who is absolutely inept at computers, did it this afternoon when I was out with my dad.
In the end I managed to retrieve all my more important files, but some are irreplacably lost, like my subject notes. Thank goodness I already sent them all the Vicky and Yen Fern long ago.
I'm going back to try and determine a time of deletion. I think my mother, who is absolutely inept at computers, did it this afternoon when I was out with my dad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)