1059: cafe au lait

did you know cafe au lait is pronounced cafe "ole"? i didnt noe that until ryo kept asking me for a cafe "ole" and i tot he was joking.. and i asked, "are u joking? cafe ole? where got such thing?" he said it was french and i said ole not spanish or mexican meh? until cafe au lait suddenly flashed across my mind and i finally understood. hohoho..

ooh yesterday's dinner was mapo tofu :



looks spicy but it actually wasn't. very easy to cook oso.. (^-^)V

then today i cooked Radish soup with chicken and mushrooms. very delicious!! pics up later haha. maybe i should rename this blog to "food i cook for Ryo" or something liddat. :p

weekend over again. tired. i always get a headache on sundays, i dunno why, and nowadays i take a nap every sunday afternoon and i wake up feeling worse than ever. i dunno why the headache comes about every sunday, not lack of sleep, but just a throbbing that doesn't stop at the top left of my head. maybe cos the weekend is ending and my body is telling me it needs more rest? hehe..

i caught The Punisher today on tv. finally. it was so brutal, the whole show was full of violence and gore. yuck. i tot the punisher was some comic character in a costume? turns out i remembered wrongly but the way the guy got John Howard (travolta) to kill his whole family himself was really smart, the way he planned his revenge. but there were so many times in the show where i just shut my eyes cos i just couldn't take the gore, like when they tortured the guy by pulling on his lip piercings to make him say where the Punisher was hiding etc. YUCK..... but the plot was good. i didn't catch the beginning so i still dunno why travolta killed his whole family at first. hmm..

watched a few other movies today/yesterday, but due to my short term memory, i totally cannot recall what i watched. i think i been watching old jackie chan movies on AXN these few weeks (very good, reminds me of home haha) and old episodes of Charmed. and City Hunter & sLam Dunk animations and Crayon shinchan on animax and asahi tv. hoho..

maybe all the tv watching gave me a headache.

1058: 明太子パスタ

i can't post my chat log up, think my sis would kill me.. heh.. ごめんね！

yay finally the weekend le.. this week is supposed to be golden week if i had taken monday and tuesday off, there would be a one week holiday but i didn't .. so the long holiday starts wednesday til sunday instead.Today is actually a public holiday too but what the hell is the use of a public holiday on a saturday in a 5-day work week society? みどりの日 today is greenery day..the temperature is still less than 20 degrees celsius.. is spring supposed to be this chilly?

i bought 2 new cook books yesterday, cos i was running out of ideas on wat to cook le; instincts and a good sense of mixing wat i have in the fridge only can take me so far.


and


the top one is a bento cook book (i also running out of ideas of lunch menu le..) and the book is damn cute! apparently, cos the book is for moms making lunchboxes for their kids, they also teach u how to create cute food like cat faces rice balls, etc.with also all the calories stated for each food so that u noe how much ur kid is eating to keep them healthy. heh..and the 2nd one is 家庭料理 food u cook at home. so i cooked the beef steak & potato salad from the book for dinner last nite..

beef steak recipe
potato salad

of cos i improvised the recipes a little, to avoid eating stuff like onions. and i to finish the leftovers in the fridge so.. i ended up with


and



tasted great.. but waste time.. the salad especially. with only 1 stove, it was impossible to prepare 2 dishes at a time. and i had to boil the stuff one by one. like egg cannot boil with potato right? .. but it was a gooooood dinner. (^-^)v next on my list to learn is お握り　onigiris .. rice balls!

now i'm oso into a new game by Capcom.. actually by Clover studios, a subsidiary of Capcom:


The game is Okami, and in jap, okami means wolf as well as God.. so its a pun on the name as the main character is a wolf who's a god/guardian of this village of sakura trees, and it has a magic brush that's supposed to aid him (like the story of the magic brush from which drawings come to life as real objects) in his quest to rid the village of an old evil that had been unleashed. its a 2d game, art is like those water colour jap painting style, very different from all the 3d games. which is actually a welcome change actually. i like it alot but the brush is difficult to control with the PS2 controller. hoho..

okie.. nua-ing at home this wkend again.. food festival for ryo & me of cos.. dinner menu for tonite is 麻婆豆腐　＆ Pumpkin fry. tomorrow is tonic chicken soup with radish and mushroom. haha... do u wish that u were here too? (#^-^#)

1057: growing up

haiz.

even more moody today.

guess wat, my youngest sis is attached. inevitable i guess, since she started JC this year.. which means i am officially old liao. :x

boohoooo!!!!

but we had fun last nite doing mass chatting. i decided to force my sis into confession by asking her straight. as the full chat log is at home.. it shall be posted up tonight. it was damn funny as we even forced her to tell us about her ex-bfs (-.-) and her now bf didn't know about some of them either. wahaha.. from a "interrogate the new bf" chat, it became an "interrogate my sister" chat. hohoho...

and there was a huge scare in the evening. i was taking off my contacts and the tap was running. and i didn't block the sink. when i was taking off my left lens, i just blinked and i heard a "click" sound and i realised the contact was not in my hand nor eye and the tap was still running!! AHHHHHH!HH!!H it was a horrible moment as i panicked, turned off the tap and my heart sank when i looked at the black drain hole hopelessly.. the first thought that came to my mind was "AGAIN!?" since i had already lost one lens last june and Ryo had lost his left lens too once. we had named the sink "contact lens eater" after that and i was like thinking this time "so creepy, the name is true?!" and it always always is the left lens lor. i was very mad with myself for having not been paying attention, and for not blocking the sink like i should have. and i was thinking why last time i also dropped my lens the month b4 going back to Sg for holiday!? wah very sad. i looked in vain at the sink for one last time b4 deciding to call my sis to make a new lens to send to me. haiz. so as i waited for my PC to boot up, i decided to put on my specs and go look at the sink again even though it was pretty hopeless. so i resumed the position where i had accidentally blinked off my contacts and shifted my eyes to look at the counter top beneath me. so my eyes scanned the counter: contact lens solution, clinique soap, facial wash, something blue and small.. wait. something blue and small!? it can' be .... but it is!! wahahahahahha!!! i almost went mad with the sudden change in emotions overwhelming me, from horrible emptiness and depression to a mad wave of happiness. wahahahahahah!! heng ah.... dun need to waste another 150 bucks.. to lose 2 lens in less than a year is really too much.. phew.... so very carefully, i BLOCKED the sink (cannot be lazy after the traumatising scare) then washed my lens and kept it. phew phew phew phew..

Photo of the day:
Hello Kitty red bean cake


due to popular demand, the picture of the day is back and it was requested that i put up more weird stuff from Japan that wasn't available in singapore. i think this is a good one? representative of Japan - Hello Kitty! this is a red bean cake actually, very delicious! all the cakes in the box (got 8 in one box) have individual wrap and are meant for people to give out after they come back from tokyo as souvenirs. very cute right?!

1056: Fear

i am afraid of myself.

i realise my character is in fact more like a guy than a girl. i like a conquest, i like challenges. I like to know that i can make people be attracted to me and want me but i often ignore the consequences after that. i get tired of things easily (applies to people and games and objects and books etc) and i need new things constantly to feel un-bored. after the get-together part (which is always a mistake if i was only physically attracted to that person) i'll begin to feel bored when we get awkward making normal conversation and its not fun for me anymore. i know, i am a very bad person.

like now, i find myself developing a crush on another guy. not that i would cheat on Ryo, but its normal to get crushes on other people right? and i actually created a chance for us to go out when ryo is not going to be around. because i would be alone that weekend while Ryo is overseas and i dun want to miss any weekend with him when he is around. is there something wrong with that? i didn't secretly go out, i actually told Ryo liao and he's fine with the whole arrangement. i even asked the person out in front of everyone, asked him since he said weekend was better, would he show me around that weekend? i don't want people to get the wrong idea, i dun want him to get the wrong idea, i just wan to satisfy my own curiosity about whether we click if we are not in a whole group. abit of the "i think i can make u fall in love with me" ambition rearing it's ugly head out again.. is it wrong to even have thought of this whole sightseeing thing with the crush at all??

1055: the day the trains stopped.

today the subway stopped operating.

i didn't think it was a terrorist attack though.

at the usual time this morning, 8.24am, i walked into the subway. one train was just pulling away and i walked to the front of the queue. as usual, the next train came within the next minute. got into the train with the morning crowd and waited for the door to close within 30 seconds. 30 seconds turned to 2 minutes and still nothing happened. the train did not move and the next batch of commuters had come from the other lines to board the subway. we were squashed in even more and i was thinking "why are they not closing the doors yet? i 'm going to die of overcrowding le..!! " and the 2 minutes became 5 and finally there was an announcement.

"There was an incident enroute to Abeno station and we apologise for the delay. We are now investigating and passengers who are in a hurry, please use the other subway lines instead. We do not know the cause yet. "

wow.. so major? unfortunately it was in jap and i didn't really understand anything except that they were apologising for the delay. so i decided to wait maybe 10 more minutes in case the train started moving and i would stiill be on time for work. i looked around the train for capcom people and found my colleague hehe. luckily she was there too. stupid vodafone couldn't get a signal amidst the mass dialing from the crowd, all emailing/calling the office to say they would be late etc etc. when i did manage to get thru to my office, it was when i had already walked out of the office to above-ground. and apparently only one other girl was affected on my level :x and her boarding station was so near to the office that she wasn't late at all so i looked bad when i finally walked in at 9.30am. but i walked from UMEDA! 20-30 min walk away lor.

grr. even the ones who were supposed to be here at 9.30am reached earlier than me cos the train lines resumed part of the service at 9.05 am. yikes. so suay. i started walking at 8.55am lor.

hmm reached the office and apparently the news said that the incident was caused by a "dong! " sound heard by an earlier train on the way to Abeno station and that train made an emergency stop immediately. the poor passengers had to walk along the tunnel to the next station for safety because it turned out that one of the cables of the electric lamps in the tunnel had sagged and had hit the roof of the train and for fear of invoking sparks from the high speed and the contact with the cables which could start a fire, the electricity and ther train service was stopped there and then, until the problem could be rectified. :x apparently 42000 passengers were affected for the incident to have happened during morning peak hour and the train service only fully resumed at 10.10am. .. so late.

but i guess its good that they are nowadays so serious bout every little strange noise they hear etc. i would prefer train stoppages and being late for work than being killed.

today no pictures.. too traumatised by this incident liaoz.

1054: Payday

today is the universal jap payday. don't ask me why, but all japanese working class receive their pay on 25th of every month. and so the ATM usage is free after office hours for 25th/26th of every month. yes, there is a charge if u use the ATM after 5.30pm everyday. they charge u 105 yen per transaction. its disgusting lor. then to counter that i just drew out a bunch of cash and left it at home so that i didn't have to withdraw until i finished those. stupid right? wats a bank for in such a case? so inconvenient.

oh but its not my payday yet. haha.. it was supposed to be on the 10th April but EDiB & Capkom are so inefficient that they cause our pay to be late again. so it will probably be in our account mid may? freaking slow. and i can see my bank acct slowly going to be empty again. although the late pay for the last quarter will give me some savings cos i can't spend the money b4 i return to sg haha.

yesterday i was struck by severe diarrhoea and stomach pains. i thought it was cramps at first, but toward the end of the day it became severe sharp pains on the left side that i had difficulty breathing and walking home. almost fainted when i was bathing but miraculously, i just sat in the tub a little while, until the dizziness passed and i felt much better after that. the pain had settled into a dull ache and i was feeling a lot less nauseous. now what had happened? i still feel really puzzled at how the pain just disappeared liddat. it wasn't that i ate dinner or wat too. kept thinking that it was because i stepped into the protection of my room that watever that was harming had to stop. really lor. eerie.

Picture of the day:
Oysters!

there's this oyster and gumbo bar in NU Chayamachi and i've been there like twice. their oysters are soooo delicious! although abit too exhorbitant pricing. i would actually prefer Kublaikhan in Takashimaya Singapore but beggars can't be choosers and so i usually go this place when i have a super super craving for oysters. okie, its a oyster and gumbo bar so i'm sure no one actually noe wat gumbo is. (except it sounds like dumbo the elephant) Gumbo is a Louisiana dish, with cajun tastes and ingredients. it's a risotto dish, mixed rice dish? tastes not too bad actually, a little spicy, peppery.. hard to put down the taste.. but u should try the dish if u have a chance.. then u will understand what i'm saying.

back to my studies.. tata (^-^)/

1053: Denim Woes

the weekend is over again!! *wails*

why does it go by so fast yet the days in the office during the week goes by so slowly!? *wails*

why isn't there 3 days of weekend and 4 weekdays instead??! *wails again*

boohooooo !! *wails for the last time*

ok .. i've finished wailing & whining to rid myself of the Monday morning blues..

anyway, this is for you Jaclyn.. bought for you this copy and another TV guide with SMAP cover this month liaoz.. :p


ok.. the weekend..

this weekend was like some food festival in my room (for me and him.. heh..) the menu was:

Saturday:
Linner: Inari sushi, Oden

Sunday:
Lunch: Winter melon soup with Chicken & Mushrooms
Dinner: Korean Kimchi Steamboat

so i made inari sushi on saturday, we had oden (from 7-11) ... and it was like 3 plus when we ate so we didn't eat anything for the rest of the day. except ice cream at 10pm? heh..

and sunday i made winter melon soup with chicken and mushrooms for lunch cos ryo was getting heaty.. its weird.. the weather is still so freaking cold but he is getting heaty.. and the rest of my office oso actually. everyone is coughing and sneezing and germs and viruses are flying around, yuck. its like end april already and the temperature is still 13 degrees? haiz.. i dun think there will be like good temperature (20 degrees?) at all this year.. probably this cold will just suddenly become summer and the weather becomes super hot and humid and i can get very tanned just by standing in the sun while going for lunch and when i wait at the traffic lights. yikes. okie.. i digress. the soup was great.. (^-^)v of cos haha.

and dinner actually was just preparing the vegetables/mushrooms/cooking rice. the radish is the most mafan thing to cook. the skinning of it is mafan, then still have to make indents so that the 味　taste will go into the radish from the soup.. then have to boil the radish in the soup for an hour plus first for it to soften.. wah liu... i was like so hungry by then le. grrr..

yah .. but seriously.. i now know wat my mom feels like when she is sick but still have to cook for us. i had a major headache yesterday, and after lunch i took a nap, from 4pm-6plus? then i was like half awake then i think ryo was hungry liao (grrr...!!) so he sorta nudged me awake and told me its 6.30pm liaoz.. i was like.. "huh? u are hungry is it?" then he nodded and i was like "haiz.." woke up with my throbbing headache and had to prepare dinner for us. ouch. but at least seriously, after having had to take care of this big baby for nearly a year, i really much much more appreciate what my mom does for us. .. to think of a menu, to prepare food when you really dun feel up to it, when you just want to sleep yet have to think of others in the family who need u.. very very wei3 da4. but the difference is i dun shout at ryo (unlike my mom who shouts at us) and say stuff to make him feel guilty that he's making me cook for him when i feel sick. wahah! dun you think that the shouting negates the wei3 da4 action? makes the other party think that "wah lau, didn't force you to cook wat. " and resent you instead of appreciating you. wahaha. psycological tricks..

1052: Inari Sushi

I made my first sushi all by myself today!! from scratch hor... :



yup.. i made the rice all by myself following the jap recipe book (which was in jap by the way .. hehe) and it was actually not that difficult to do just that i wasn't sure if i got the taste right and the timing of cooking was abit wrong. hmm yupz but it turned out great and each of us (me/ryo) had 5 each and we didn't have to eat anything else the whole day. ... very filling.. and the wrapping in the beancurd skin was time-consuming. but actually not much taste after like 3 cos its just sweet rice and nothing but rice. the ones on the left actually has mushrooms in them which luckily i added cos i enjoyed those alot more than the plain ones. hoho..and ryo was pretty amazed that i managed to get the taste right without much help :) have more faith in my cooking please!!

and i posted up photos of the company bday party from thursday. there was a bugger at my table who kept taking photos of girls and us .. -.- his photo skills are not good though, he is just triggerhappy, keep snapping at anything female. grr. but at least he had a pic of me that wasnt that bad.


me & hongsing in the photo, obviously one of those times when we weren't aware..


another one of those times.. luckily i wasn't eating .. hmm..


when me & peiling were trying to prevent him from taking pics of us so we tried to cover our faces and look sideways..


& another time! grr.. i dunno wat he was trying to take a picture of in this photo.. me, the cake or the wine.


and the pic of me & the Capcom boss.. :p

going to cook Mapo tofu for lunch tomorrow. maybe winter melon soup for ryo since he's having a sore throat.. and chige pot for dinner. woohoo..

and i just checked my weight today.. i went down to 42kG seriously. yikes.

1051 : headache

woke up with a tinny headache today. which i attributed to the lack of sleep.

the tinny headache became a throbbing headache as i made my way to work.

it feels like i'm having a hangover with a bit of the nauseous feeling too.. but i haven't drank anything in weeks, especially not last night. haiz. headache.

been studying for JLPT1 at work (with my boss' permission) and it is super difficult. i could read the JLPT 2 text with no problems understanding the sentences but i couldn't do that with the JLPT 1 stuff. and my concentration span is super low, i dunno why, keep looking up at the PC every few seconds to check mail or do rubbish. argh!

yesterday i wandered around Yodobashi camera after work cos new games were released every thursday. the queue and the crowd was horrendous. the new games were mainly NDS language games yesterday and i guess Japanese people are truly interested in knowledge/learning related games. the biggest hits so far are brain stimulation games. and the sales are still going strong every week. but i think i'm going to buy something too. there just came out a bunch of games that teaches thai and korean languages and i'm going to get that :) looks very interesting.. i wanna learn korean after i master jap.. is it a good idea? been listening to the learn korean cd on my ipod lately and i realise they speak alot of -yo after every sentence. i dun like the way the women sound so vulgar/crass (maybe its the actions and after watching my sassy girl heh) but i wanna noe how to read the words at least so that i dun get lost if i go free and easy touring in korea.

and i stumbled upon a going away gift for ryo. going to make something.. but not that easy.. have to think of a lot of things and the design for it.. hopefully it will make him so touched that he weeps when he sees it . wahahah! omg i'm so evil i wanna make my bf cry. (^-^)v but i bought some of the materials liaoz and hopefully i dun ruin it cos i'm so out of touch with my creative side.

but i walked around for 2 hours thinking whether i wanted to buy a art tablet for my pc too cos i wanted to play with the handwriting feature on msn so badly. it was too ex here though. the cheapest for a pen stylus and tablet was 3800 yen ($60?) and the most ex was 38000 yen ($700++) . siao! hmm we shall see wat happens..

today's pic to make u hungry:


the chocolate piece from a cake when we had our anniversary brunch at Ritz Carlton. the customised chocolate piece was more eye-candy than delicious. bitter chocs i dun realli like. but overall, the desserts were great... and u can see more of the pics at flickr :)

1050 : 61 memories

did i show this photo here b4?

in 1999:


this was wat i looked like JC year 1. hehe.. young and innocent.. this is just some of us.. no one had a digicam then so i'm still trying to find a full class photo of us.. its in my house in sg though.. this photo was taken on campus in the then Hwa Chong Junior College, with Bukit Timah Road behind us. I miss Hwa Chong!!! (T.T)

we had one of the best bench spots for our class bench. tucked away at the corner nearest to the field and gate of Chinese High, it was easy to come and to leave (sneak out?) hehe.. and it was windy and we had a great view of the field to see the guys playing soccer and to see the chinese high track as well. i have great memories of the place, as we always stayed there until late chatting and scribbling in the class diary, or just zoboing there.. or cramming there together near exam period.. bonding sessions with our seniors too.. (although we didn't realli care much of our juniors, i guess we just wanted to be the ones being pampered haha) how time flies. (T.T) the next photo shown is 4 years later liaoz...

in 2003:


we were at henry's place for Christmas.. when i had just finished uni and starting to look for a job. i think i was 21? although i think i still looked 18 then hehe.. we had regularly meetups every christmas when the whole class would be involved (xcept some who outcast themselves and cos they are the kiam pah kind) and we would usually potluck to someone's place and stay overnite there playing mahjong or chatting, like chalet but no need to pay haha. you would perhaps notice that our class has a small number of girls.. which was great since anything that needed manual work in school (carrying tables, chairs etc) the guys would be gentlemen and since there were so many of them.. we were pretty much redundant in such situations (#^-^#) but yah.. i think the boys finished army and started uni during that photo period, so most of them had hair liao.

even though we met regularly at xmas, the bunch of us who lived near each other, west area mostly would meet up like once a month at least. just to drink coffee (me chocolate) and chat or just to play PS2 at zhiwen's house for the guys. now that zhiwen has gone to australia for his studies.. we dun have a meeting place thats so cosy anymore... (T.T)

and after another 2 years.. we have taken another photo..

in 2005:


after 6 years i don't think we aged much. (most of us still looks the same i think..) and most of the girls have already graduated from uni then. last year july we took this shot i think. xiangqin was missing from the previous photo, junwei is missing from the 2 photos but we see jw almost every year still but xq hasnt been back for like 2years plus and he didn't change much ahha. we used to have his place to use for gatherings too but that has been made impossible too. (T.T)

this photo was taken at qunci's (the girl in green on my left) newly renovated bungalow and her place is another regular hangout for sleepovers. its huge and tucked away in quiet thomson area so it feels like another chalet as well. again.. just the few girls here, all of us working liao.. think jiayan (the girl in black) was still studying at that time her last sem..

the guys are serving their IA now, hailiang & yaohui are in china for IA, in beijing , shilun too but he's not in the photo, he didnt come to the gathering! henry oso didnt come.. guan is doing is FYP i think.. yupz.. the rest doing IA in singapore. i still email/msn/skype/webcam with some of them quite regularly so i guess we dun really feel the distance.

i love these people... think we are going to be friends for life.

sidenote:
Kimura Takuya dances with Mickey!

1049: pasar Malam

yesterday was the bi-monthly bday party at capcom. this time there were many of the fresh grads and i must say, the standards have largely improved. they are so cute!! (#^-^#) but a pity they are too young for me. all are from the year 1985.. my sister's age.. argh..

but after the party, we (the trainees) went to walk around this street market at the mint 造幣局 where there were lots of sakura trees. but it was the last day and it was mainly food stalls. have not been out with almost all the trainees for very long le. so it was a rare op that all of us got together. even though i was kinda unwilling. cos my feet were hurting in my heels. and peiling was drunk from the bday party. so she was speaking alot of rubbish. argh.

but aniway.. not bad in all. it was pretty ok.

Pic of the day (& of yesterday's outing):

Fearsome dog ahead.. beware!!




aniway.. we saw this dog at one of the stalls. ironic and very cute that it had a "beware of fierce dog" sign on him wahahahah!

i didn't see it so far.. but last night i realised how stressed i was about going back to sg. and not being sure bout anything in our relationship after i go back. because he could not or would not tell me his plans, of cos me would feel uneasy. and worried. how we are going to communicate, when he will visit, etc etc etc. all these things run thru my head everyday looking for the best solution. wat will happen to my jap bank acc, my credit cards etc etc?? haiz. then i started crying as i spoke to him and i realised how much i missed sweet romantic gestures and small gifts. he didnt make me feel like a gf much, cos he didnt do such things, maybe jap guys are not so sweet to girls they just think working hard and making money to support the family is more impt but it matters to me.. presents on special days are normal i guess.. but its the small things that show alot more on normal days. hmm dunno whether i'm making any sense.. but its like if i see something in the shops that he has been wanting for a long time (and affordable) i'll get it for him cos i noe he'll be happy.. i wished he would do that for me sometimes too though :x

1048: sPring Cleaning

i did spring cleaning yesterday. literally cos it is now spring"! WAHAHA!

but seriously.. yah i did spring cleaning. i could suddenly see the move home looming ahead of me as a very difficult thing to do since my room here has almost no space to walk recently. how am i suppose to move a room home? i would need a whole empty room in my house to put my stuff. so unless i rent a place of my own or i get my parents to buy a new house with another 2 or 3 rooms, its almost impossible for me to bring back my stuff from Japan.

so i cleared at least 5 of the shopping bags from the ground.. most of them contain food i bought from touring the different places.. and cleared the stacks of leaflets i had accumulated.. gathered all my kimura takuya magazines into a bag to bring back to sg.. i realised i had no box even though i had wanted to gather the text books i needed to bring back to sg. ... i guess i have to go buy.. and also had to harden my heart to decide wat things to dump and wat not to. argh.

but the end result is available walking space, a place to sit and a more spacious room. also managed to vacuum the ground and cleaned up the vacuum cleaner. yuch. and filed my bills, cleaned up my drawers, gathered together some of the souvenirs i had gathered for the last few months. i realised i still haven't bought some of the things my frens had asked me to buy for them yet.. oops .. sorry ah.. i will try my best to bring those things back... :p

and i get irritated when people tell me irrelevant things. last night, this fren i knew from a temp job said hi to me on msn and asked me when i would be going back sg. so the conversation went:

him: you coming back sg soon?


me: in july, when the training ends.


him: oh. its good to take a break <-irrelevant remark #1


me: ?? huh? wat break? training end liao. means go back for good.


him: oh. thats good wat.


me: (getting more irritated) wats so good? i dun want the training to end!


him: why is that so?


me: because come back have to start from zero again? no job?


him: oh. then u stay in japan and work lor.


me: i have to come back serve bond.


him: u can stay in japan after the training end right? <-irrelevant remark #2


me: (i hate repeating myself, btw) no, i MUST come back sg. got bond.


him: oh. you must work in sg ah? why?<-irrelevant remark #3


me: BECAUSE i have to serve BOND!!


him: singapore job market sux. why don't you work somewhere else?<-irrelevant remark #4 (IDIOT!!)


me: (already feels like punching him) If u can give me the money to repay the bond i would gladly look for job elsewhere!


him: oh. i still looking for someone to give me money..


me: ...

wah lau! the kind of conversation u just feel like the other person is either too dumb to understand you or just not paying attention? grrrrrr...

Picture of the day: Baseball


went to my 2nd baseball game with Ryo and his gd fren from Capcom & the gd fren's gf (one of the rare occasions we went out with other couples from the office) .. aniway.. tot i would post up a pic of the game.. the players are doing their warmup swings on the field. the game was between the Hanshin tigers, osaka's home team and the swallows, which i dunno where they are from. hehe. but the game was pretty good overall, although i think we lost (awww...). the atmosphere was fun though with everyone shouting cheers (in jap ) and shouting the players' names to cheer them on.. :p everyone should definitely try to see 1 baseball game in their life at least (^-^)

1047: food

i had a sudden craving for duck rice. while i was washing the dishes last night, i suddenly just thought of ducks and suddenly i could smell the Jurong East duck rice's fragrant rice and herbal broth and the delicious belachan chilli and the tender duck meat covered with thick soy sauce.
YUM!! and i could barely control myself from salivating then. or now. haha. which led me to thinking bout curry fish head and all the other food i miss and b4 i knew it, i was overcome with huge wave of homesickness. away from this rubbish situation of the bond and the inefficient workings of EdiB and Capkom. (T.T)

haiz. i dun really know what i am doing at work anymore.

Picture of the day: Mos Burger


they have a motto here.. "the taste of happiness everyday, Mos Burger ". wow.. big words...
but mos burger here is not cheap at all. Mac's is the cheapest fast food chain here. becos its price is actually about the same as in SG 350yen for a set meal, about $5-6? but the drink is like baby sized. i can't stand the drink sizes here. u finish the drink in like 2 gulps through the straw? ( if u got a big mouth, maybe just 1 gulp for u)

1046 : so fast ...

the weekend is almost over again :( so fast.. (T.T)

did alot to my hair and face this weekend.

becos i had promised wira long ago (with much regrets) that we would go do our hair together, i had to bring her to the salon yesterday. zzz.. spent 5 hours in the salon. its a long story.

coloured back to a orangey red colour cos i been looooking very washed out and ryo agreed that i should go back to brown to look younger again. mm. anyway.. because i had dyed my hair black the previous few times, it was difficult for them to lighten my hair. after the first dye, only the top of my head was orangey/copper brown. the rest of the hair was still very dark.. the stylist seemed quite perplexed but he said we'll do a second round of colouring. if the situation doesnt improve, he would have to bleach my hair to get the colour i want!

i dun want!!!!

so luckily the 2nd round showed some results. so now the bottom is a rich copper rusty reddish colour while the top is more blondish copper. argh. it looked like i had highlights done but i didnt!! oh well.. at least i look quite different now. then shun bian trim my eyebrow at only 500 yen there. heh..

then ryo oso had appt to cut his hair at the same place this morning, i followed him there to perm my eyelashes. yah.. sounds abit hiao, but its not.. cos i'm lazy to use the manual eyelash curler and that thing hurts.. but if the eyelashed are not curled b4 i use mascara, the mascara gets into my eyes and they make me tear and irritate my eyes to hell. if u're thinking "just dun use mascara lor!!" .. i'll tell u to go eat shit. this is JAPAN!! where all the girls forever look very good.. yah .. i am vain and i am very self consious, i dun like to look ugly outside lor. hee.

so this morning it took us only an hour, and then came his place where i tried to study some jap but fell asleep instead. zzz. didn't sleep well last nite.. the bed is really too small. and woke up to help his mom prepare dinner. the main purpose was to learn from her japanese cooking but i am appalled at the way she dumped sugar into the wok. she practically used half a cookie jar's worth of sugar in just one dish. half in cooking the ingredients and half in the sauce. it is ok delicious but i dun really wanna add so much sugar into any food i cook. ..

oh i cooked bak kut teh for dinner yesterday. The prima packet mix is really a godsend for singaporeans overseas. if i'm living in japan in future. i'll make sure i bring like a carton back every time i go back to sg. :)

i dun want monday to come!!!

1045 : Luck

how can a day be like both the luckiest and unluckiest day of my life???

yesterday morning. VERY SUAY!!

i had already reached level 1 of the train station when my shoes broke. you know the type of slippers with ur toes clinging on to the middle? i was wearing that kind of open-toed heels. so if the middle broke, totally cannot walk already right? thats precisely wat happened. ARGH! i just stood there not knowing wat to do, should i run barefoot and catch the train but how was i going to walk to work etc etc? panic sia.. it was a taxi stand i was standing at and i was like thinking i couldn' t possibly survive the days without shoes and i could walk nowhere (it was 10 min walk from the station to my place) and would surely be late for work. in the end, took a cab back home.. duh.. the starting fare was 660 yen (about $11?)and asked the driver to wait for like 2 min while i ran up and changed to shoes (sneakers slip-ons) that totally did not go with my 3-quarter pants. colour was all wrong too but there wasn't time to change since i didn' t want the taxi meter to run and run while i was changing. so anyway, i raced downstairs.. the driver was still waiting for me and i was actually quite surprised. cos i mean, i could just run away without paying wor. so i asked him to take me back to the station and in the end the final fare was still 660 yen . wahah. heng ah.

but it was a bad start to a new day.. and i felt very grouchy cos i looked uncoordinated liao. and i that i had missed my fav spacious train and had to squeeze in the later train. bah! (-.-)

so later in the day, i was reading the game mag Famitsu (ファミ通） and was thinking that i would surprise Ryo with a game he had been saying he wanted. but i was also thinking if i could get him the Nintendo DS Lite for the belated anniversary present it would be better but no chance of that happening since no stock anywhere..

This is a DS Lite by the way:

cool huh?

so i went to Yodobashi after work.. was wandering around the games section when i saw the shop attendants holding up signboards saying "DS LITE set Sale!! 25,400 yen only" and they were shouting that out as well so i was like abit confused.. there had been no ads, no news, no nothing, was this true?? so i spoke to one of them and he said no i couldn't buy the DS lite itself, i had to buy the set and no, i couldn't pick the colour blah blah. but it was a bargain cos 2 games included and i was like thinking hmm just take a number first lor. heng i did. there was no queue cos people didnt quite catch the buzz and but by the time i paid for my purchases. the shop attendants had closed shop for the sale thing. so fast. but i had peered behind the counter and there are apparently stock of other colours too just that they are probably trying to bundle sell with games as well. grr. but YAY! now i cant help thinking (& laughing at) of the idiots who queued up overnite to get their sets while i just sauntered in by luck and bought one in less than 10 min. (^-^)

hoho.. so yah .... both the unluckiest & luckiest day sia..

so ... for the picture of the day:


this was taken beginning of last year.. when bridget Jones was showing in Japan. (very late!!) the pic is of peiling and me but me & her has sorta fallen out or should i say i am trying to avoid cos its very difficult to hold a conversation without being attacked. and she speaks too much bad things of everyone. and critical of everything but she doesnt realise her own actions later on usually contradicts her own words. there was some huge incident last year that realli made me pretty much think that to aviod her would be better for my wellbeing. she drinks too much and cannot stop backstabbing people.. so ... hmm u noe wat i mean.

argh.. sudden onslaught of work... bye bye for now

1044: hmmmm

hmm... i dunno why Blogger suddenly up-ed my post count by 10? its kinda weird .

anyway.. we had a farewell party for Yoshida-san last night.
This is Yoshida-san (guy in the middle):

but this is not a photo of the party. wahahah

i forgot to take any pics last night actually.

we had a farewell party for him cos he was leaving for US, to be part of the management at the Capcom USA office. he's one of the more talkative type, and he loves doing imitations of other people which is damn funny as well. but anyway.. the party last night, it was abit .. not so fun. it was at first, until the topic turned to complaints bout some managers/team leaders in other departments. they had made up nicknames for these people and it wasnt very nice of them. and for like 2 hours, they complained and complained. argh. of cos, as a trainee, i just sat and absorbed the gossip.

but anyway.. the party was supposed to be a welcome party as well for Mizuda-san, a newcomer to the corporate planning side. she is the splitting image of Karen (yes karen hong of 99s61) except abit more chubby? even mannerisms oso like her.. which totally reinforces my theory that every one has a twin somewhere out there in the world. seriously. i mean, u've heard of people saying "i thought i saw u somewhere? " when u actually are like maybe in another part of the world? u will of cos shrug it off as impossible, but is it one-time occurrences? or have more than one person told u that? a little bit creepy .. but i've seen so many people here that look like my frens in SG except differences in Hairstyle and i have to take second look at their actions/hear them speak to realise they are not them.

okok.. but back to the party.. i tot it wasn't too good for everyone to be bad mouthing or complaining while she was there listening.. hmm .. aniway.. the dinner dragged on and on and just Ko-ed when i reached home. had to wake up early to wash my hair again today. :( and had no time to cook lunch of cos grrr... dun care tomorrow i must bring my lunch!

photo of the day:


remember i said b4 that the mascot of Awajishima 淡路島 is an onion? here he is.. 玉ちゃん tamachan his name is. wahah.. short form for tamanegi / 玉葱. very cute but an onion as a mascot?!

1043?

last nite 心血来潮　(xin1 xue4 lai2 chao2) , decided to make lunch box to bring to work today.. cos i had stopped for 2 wks and i just couldn't stand the canteen food anymore. (again) hah. aniway.. it was really cost-savings. i bought groceries of about 2500yen every week and i make lunch mostly for 2 people.. so for this week:

Monday: Dinner
Tuesday: Dinner
Wednesday: Lunch X 2, Dinner
Thursday: Lunch X 2, Dinner
Friday: Lunch x 2 (maybe)

so that's like 10 meals in total and only 250yen per meal? if i eat in the canteen, its at least 300yen everytime for yucky food lor.. wahahha! and the portions for each meal is not miserly or anything.. and alot of variety.. got mushrooms, prawns, sotong, chicken/beed/pork, vegetables/potato/tomato.. not bad huh ? and some more its something different every meal! and i can add as much chilli sauce as i want, which is the most important part of bringing my own food! (^-^)

had enuff of sightseeing last week since i've covered alot more places i've not been to.. have to study for the bizness jap test coming up in June. i've been doing too much blogging/surfing at work liao, which sorta pushed me off the momentum of being able to study the full 8 hours at work. darn. and my boss is on leave today which gives me even more time to do my own things ... (#^-^#) & Ryo has to study for his finance test in June too which gives him no time to accompany me to sightsee at all so its some form of motivation for me to study with him bah. my June is so packed already.. his test ends on June 3, mine is on June 18? i wanna finish study b4 going back to Sg for the holiday.. else sure die.. and have planned to go Hiroshima during one of the wkends in June, treat his frens to dinner for always having me at their gatherings.. pack my stuff.. argh!!! no time le!!!

today's pic:


no, i still am not pro-gay, just that this guy is very popular in japan now. He's known as Hard Guy (HG for short) and he's part of the Yoshimoto comedian troupe from Osaka. he's the kind of flamboyant gay who waves his arms around and makes alot of "Woo!" sounds so i am pretty grossed out by him. whether he's gay or not no one really knows except his gf(if he has one) or him i guess haha. but his super short shorts (hot pants??) pretty much freak me out and he always bend over so all in all, its quite obscene. yux!

ok time to study and zobo (more weightage on the 2nd item i think? :p) tata!

1034: 猿ぼぼ

i have decided to share a photo a day. some random photo in my flickr acct everyday wahah.

this is today's photo: can u guess wat is it?


this is a さるぼぼ (sarubobo)

monkey baby? hehe its the mascot of Takayama in Gifu. i dunno why they choose the monkey to be their mascot but then Awajishima's mascot is an onion -.- so i guess this is not so bad. aniway.. the pic is of a sarubobo coin bank. not bad huh. a little bright thats all.

anyway.. yesterday finally had some work but managed to rush out everything in a day and complete it properly. hoho. reached home, had pasta for dinner, played abit of sims and managed to sleep early. for a change. spring is finally coming.. cos i could sleep comfortably in shorts without freezing again. yay!!

1033: Kyoto & Nara

this is my absolute most favourite sakura pic i have taken this year.

ok but first.. Nara.

Nara has tons of deers roaming around the place and of cos deer shit was littered everywhere. but they were so cute! most of them had their antlers cut off and filed blunt for safety reasons. and they were very docile.



and there were safety signs everywhere to not disturb the deers with growing antlers, usually the baby deers that were growing up.


this deer wanted to emphasise the warning..

we went to most of the world heritage temples in Nara park that morning.. and especially the gigantic Buddha at Todaiji (東大寺）

this is a side shot of the Buddha. notice the people standing at the bottom left corner of the photo. the proportion should give u some idea of how really huge the statue is.

and from the back, notice all the planks supporting the back panel of the statue


we also went to another shrine with minor shrines inside.. there are love shrines where people can write their wishes regarding love and hang it up. look wat this japanese girl wrote -.-


and this other couple:


haha.. abit kpo.. but we couldn't help it..

we went to Arashiyama (嵐山）on saturday in Kyoto and Ryo took a pic for us. no 3 person pic in Nara which was a pity.. the Drooping sakura shidarezakura was one of the main sakura species there.


and this is the most beautiful amazing place i went to:


Fushimi Inari Jinja, home to the 千本鳥居 (senbontorii)

Torii is the name of the red structures, commonly gates to shrines in Japan. 千本　(senbon) means there are a thousand of them!! and we only managed to walk a part of the 1000.. only bout 200+ i think? this map shows the full extent of the toriis..


the red teeth-like things are all the toriis and we only covered the first stretch right at the bottom. !! Ryo's cousin was in kyoto that same day and when we met him for dinner that evening, he said he walked the whole stretch.. it took him 2 hours + .. wow.. if only we had gone there earlier..


a ghostly pic ... its quite scary when it gets dark so we decided not to stay further..

and last but not least.. we also went to Heian Jingu 平安神宮. i love this place, partly cos i really feel the peacefulness but oso cos its free hehe.


but aniway.. the full albums are at Flickr of cos.

1032 : sightseeing

i been out of touch with the world for the past 2 days due to liling & Baoying being here.

been meeting them for dinner everynight since tuesday, and i reach home usually after 12 cos time just seems to have passed so quickly. and when i reach home, i'm so tired (it gets worse the next day and the next next day) and its too late for me to bathe and wash my hair and let my hair dry b4 i sleep so i have to wake up the next morning at 6 to bathe and wash my hair and blowdry it as well for work. very very tired. :x almost dozing off as i type this in the office as well. and i been waking up at 6am and sleeping at 1am for the past 3 days liao. i'm almost dead.

yesterday i took the day off and we went to Nara. 奈良 its a place near osaka, famous for having the biggest buddha statue in the whole Japan. its bigger than the one in Kamakura (yokohama) by at least 2 times. awesome. anyway.. apparently Nara park itself is humongous and has like at least 6 shrines and temples within it. and i dunno why, but of the shrines are World Heritage Sites as designated by UNESCO. we couldn't see anything special with these places except maybe they had more rocks than other places. haha.. or more stone carvings? but some were so nondescript that we had to circle around the same place for 4 times and backtrack etc because we couldn't find the place at all. weird.

but it took us the whole day (until 5pm! ) to just finish 5 heritage sites in the park which had deer roaming everywhere and the place smelt of shit ahha. and we went back to osaka at 6pm and i took them to Yodobashi Camera after we took a rest in their hotel. yesterday was freaking cold (10 degrees in the day! and very very windy). i saw the weather forecast and like almost every other place in the Kansai region was reaching near 20 degrees celsius in temperature but osaka was barely 15. why!!?!?!

the sakura trees are out but osaka still has most of them unbloomed. boring. couldn't take like beautiful sakura pics yesterday at all, the trees were pretty scarce.

departmental dinner tonite. feel like skipping it cos i really really need some good sleep. tomorrow i have to wake up at 6am again. on a saturday. cos have to bring them to kyoto. (T.T)

1031 : the sec school frens

i met Liling and Baoying last night! woohoo!

i wouldn't say i missed them but we haven't met in 5-6 years? but it was good to see them again and catch up on all the news about the 4/10 people. i haven't been in touch with anyone except Yinnah at all these years and we haven't even met for these past 5-6 years also. everyone is attached i think and Liling showed me a photo of her and her bf in her wallet where he wasn't wearing a top and she was wearing a towel. wahahahah .. wonder wat they had been up to huh.. (actually they just had a dive or something or so she says .. hmm.. )

but i think they not really enjoying the food here.. so maybe i'll bring them to eat some western food later. heh. just the shakey's buffet actually, cheap and good. actually not very sure if they are on a budget trip else i would bring them to the taiwan steamboat place liaoz.

oh latest updates regarding the ring..

hehe not this ring.. but the other one. they were able to change it to size 4 but the ring would be elliptical (slightly) but i think its kinda weird. anyway.. asked ryo to ask them to send a copy of the new design for my size to see how elliptical it is over and then we can decide after that whether to still have that ring or to change to other designs. .. but its not my fault that my finger's so thin!

1030: : m(-.-)m

3-April-2006 Monday>>

bored.

just penned a long email to the sixoneders.

having a stomach ache.. hopefully not the result of the brunch yesterday.

having a headache.. dunno wat this is due to.

there's work today but its tedious arranging / editing work again. bleahz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited: 4th April 2006 Tuesday 9am

erm.. i was about to post the above part yesterday when i was suddenly engulfed by work. so i take back all the stuff about being bored.

i chat alot to xQ and yaohui online nowadays. mainly because they are the people who are always online? haha.. like me. and i think they both understand the loneliness of being overseas and the missing chilli & spicy food part alot (ok la thats only yaohui wahah) but xq is the person that likes jap culture (mainly pretty actresses -.-) and i guess he can relate to much of the stuff here that i see or do.

I have been donning the messy hairdo look this week. since my hair curls seems to have softened out a little, not so old colonial british look liao and i actually dun like my hair to feel like a ice stick. i guess its lucky that my hair is such that it will be the super "pong" type when i wake up but i actually much prefer it to be flatter and more manageable. in the end i just spray some Liquid Hair by wella that works both as a styling water and as treatment (i dunno how??) but it works and the ends are still soft while my fringe doesn't flop all over the place. although thats of cos not a gorgeous look, thats how japanese youths look like most of the time, messy. hah. so i actually look pretty stylish if i have messy hair but with nice makeup.

ok .. back to waiting for yaohui to come online..

1029 : the rainy weekend

we celebrated our one year together at a brunch buffet today(^-^)

its actually a day early.. but since tomorrow is a work day.. hmm.. we decided not to give each other presents and we went to an Italian restaurant at Ritz Carlton Osaka called Spendidos.. it was sooo sooo delicious! alot of small stuff (u noe european food la.. quantity will spoil ur taste buds or something) so we had to keep going for portions of stuff.. but i enjoyed the roast beef most of all but it was quite embarrassing to keep going for servines of it. surprisingly, even though the price was so steep and no children rates, there were so many families there. i guess this really shows the affluence of the Japs.. apparently sons of rich families are known as Bons in Japan, so i saw this family with 3 sons (they looked very rich and the kids had blazers on for this sunday brunch) and i kept thinking of the song "shake ur bon bon, shake your bon bon, shake your bon bon .. ♪" hee hee..

after that..
hehe..

we walked around Diamaru and we saw these:


these were engagement rings from a brand Vendome Aoyama..

and so .. with a bit of persuasion.. he bought me one..

hee .. but i shan't say which one yet.. maybe u can guess which ring i picked.
and the price / carat? :p

but haven't got it yet, my finger size is kinda small, so we requested for a made-to-order one with new stones and all and it would take a month or so~ for it to be ready.. (^-^) yay!