千五百四十七： Praises

Had a 1-1 meeting with my boss today and she said my performance exceeded expectations for the past 10 months and i would definitely be getting a raise!! ;D so happy!! but of cos, dun wan to expect too high in case i get disappointed, but its still nice to receive some recognition! i thought that things were abit sour btw us after June, but I think it has become better because I learnt to shut up and bear things. and also finally will get to go on workshop trip to Seattle! :D its more or less confirmed, but still waiting for ok to get air tix. maybe finally i'll get to stop over in San Francisco as well? *prays hard*

the new mattress arrived early yesterday and it's harder than the showroom's one!! abit sianz, i was expecting some really soft mattress that i can sink into.. but never mind, think I have to sleep in it alot longer b4 it will soften up.

Went to do eyebrow threading and eyelash curl to prepare myself for saturday's show (dun wan the makeup artist to say i'm a gorilla) now i look abit like a doll. but i dunno why so many zits nowadays. old age?? hmmmm.

千五百四十六： The Arts House

Met 9 of the girls tonite, and had fitting session. At first i thought my clothes were plain, but then I saw the other girls wearing really strange clothes and revealing in strange places and I feel like "phew!!" since I am not really one for wearing strange stuff. I love the skirt that i was supposed to wear though, but it would be nicer if it was shorter though. the baggy clothes (cos the starsign that i represent is earth based and wears simple stuff??) makes me look abit lost in the clothes. hmm. but looking forward to the hairdo session, wonder what kind of hairstyle i will get from Shunji Matsuo-san himself (we met him today and he took a look at us to decide what kind of hairstyle to give us..), they mentioned something about giving me some green hair extensions while curling some other parts of my hair. heehee..

ok i haven had dinner yet, and very cool, its raining cats and dogs now so i wanna tuck in early and enjoy the rainy nite. good nite!!

千五百四十五： ドキドキ

Tomorrow got a rehearsal and a fitting for the show, I'm abit worried about what I should wear to the show, whether all the rest of the people will look super pretty etc. :s esp since i got a few zits on my face now, hopefully the make up will cover everything.

I can't really remember what I did at work today, just that time went by pretty fast. before I know it, it'll probably be the weekend again.

千五百四十四： Lazy weekend

I'm on a very disciplined stance to save money this month so didn't go anywhere this weekend. Instead stayed home this weekend to study for the JLPT exam coming up in dec, and had a Heroes marathon from the dvd I borrowed from Shinji.

We bought my dad a new shaver and a new mattress for me from Courts after dinner on Saturday. We tested out mattresses there by sitting on them (to check the bounce), then checking if they sink in w/o coming back up again, then lying on them in all sorts of positions (a little embarrassing in the store) and then also whether i can feel the springs when I lie on them. I realised the thickness of the top cover of the mattress matters alot to me. Alot of the mattresses had an ok softness/firmness level but they just felt uncomfortable and I didn't know why until I realised I could feel the springs because the top layer of cloth of the mattress covering the springs was too thin. then the salesman intro-ed this bed that felt so soft (cos of an extra layer of cushioning sewn in on the top of the mattress) and in the end we decided on that cos it was so comfy. :D it's going to be delivered on wednesday! so exciting, I've slept on the current mattress for >13 years liao, and its been stepped on so much b4 i had bedframes that now the springs are just poking at me from everywhere on the bed & my back will ache everywhere when i wake up.

Today was another marathon and I finally finished the first round (at least 1 time) of going through the grammar book and i better get started on the vocabulary so that i can go thru the grammar again. Watching Stepford wives on tv now, watched Desperate housewives on PC as well. I think i'm turning into a minor tv addict.

千五百四十三： 決定

Decisions. I decided that I would try to ask for higher pay based on my performance this year and to build up on my year of experience would be more beneficial for me than to give this up for a slightly higher paid job that turned out to be another contract job. its a long story. i don't know whether I was stupid to give up the money, (which is not a lot more than now actually) but it really is not the only factor that I care about. I realised I care about my colleagues now, my environment now and I enjoy what I'm doing now quite alot cos i'm good at it most of the time. and there are still times when I learn new stuff, so its still not stale yet. Came to the decision from talking to friends and family and Ryo (& some trusted people from my office now..).

today I was creating alot of agreements and teaching some girls how to use the new system. I enjoyed teaching/training her and time passed really quickly while training her on the new system. But one thing that irked me was that I noticed she wasnt taking down any notes at all (a whole 1 hour i spent on going thru the system with her and she can remember everything??) and I particularly feel abit pissed at such people who dun bother to learn or take down notes during training and then during work time when it really comes down to using it, ask around instead of referring to notes that she could hv taken during training. This wastes everyone's time doesn't it (to have to teach her stuff that has already been gone through before AGaIN). It might sound a bit harsh but this is work, not school and other people have no time to baby you and keep holding your hand at work. If you do take down notes, refer to it and try to solve and try to remember what people have reminded you about before, else making the same mistake again and again irks others too.

well, great that it's the weekend again, and also payday after the weekend. :D

千五百四十二： Dilemma

Having abit of a work dilemma now. Sort of work related? hmm.

Yesterday went to get the leather straps for the leather choker Ryo wanted, and got myself some tools for earrings also. The bead shop is cheaper in sg, but the colours are really too limited. I also couldn't find the glass beads. maybe i'll use up what i have and buy online wholesale le.

Boss on leave today til Friday. I finished my tests very early and helped Imai-san to create alot of agreements on the system. Brainless work, I could have created double the number but I was abit distracted with phone calls and getting updates for my PC. There's something wrong with the java on my mozilla browser on Vista. It used to work fine, suddenly its just not working and I can't do my internet banking. grrr.

千五百四十一： Earrings

whew.

I finally completed my first pair of earrings. & i bloody well finally understand why the people charge the amount they charge at accessories stores. cos it is so much effort!! my neck was aching by the end of it, the earrings were abit lopsided (but not bad for a first time effort la...) and fingers aching from gripping the wire, or trying to bend the wires into hooks.. i was actually perspiring after an hour of this activity. very good arm and eye exercise, trying to poke the wire through the tiniest hole through the small beads.

okie here's what it looks like :

dangly beaded earrings

much room for improvement, but at least i did it all by myself!

tomorrow i better remember to go shop for my dad's birthday present. hmm.
ok nitez!!

千五百四十： Osaka Photos

hmm I didn't realise I didn't share the link to my osaka photos here at all, so here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexxis/sets/72157602289812523/

Paiseh!!

btw, this is the cup ramen we designed ourselves:

I don't know what happened, but yesterday I just slept and slept. I went to bed early on friday nite, woke up at about 11am on saturday, had lunch, and had a bit of a cold so I popped a flu tablet, felt drowsy at about 2pm so I went for a nap until 6pm. woke up very groggy, but went for dinner with my parents and supermarket for grocery shopping, then came home, skyped with Ryo for about an hour b4 I went to bed at about 12plus midnite again. :S then i woke up at about 11am again today, not feeling that rested still, probably i need quite a bit of sleep still?? argh, I wonder when this sleepy phase will end. I think its due to the lack of food, no food = no energy. Can't really eat due to the pain in the gums and the ulcers, so probably that contributes to the lack of energy also. sighz.

千五百三十九； Fire Drill

We had an emergency fire drill evacuation exercise this morning (my first time to try that here) and it was quite messy , in my opinion.

The only instruction they gave was to go to the nearest staircase and not use the elevator. When we got downstairs, it was a big mess. We didn't know where to go, we didn't know if anyone was supposed to take our attendance, we just miled around and chit chatted with other people. No one was giving out instructions at level 1 with any loudspeakers, no one really knew what was going on. I think some people in each level was assigned to be the fire warden but it was like 1 person to take attendance of > 300 people w/o really knowing who was in the office already this morning. didn't make much sense to me.

Hmm. hopefully the next drill will be conducted in a better manner.

千五百三十八： 痛み

Pain everywhere.

my mouth, my tummy and abit of my head/fingers.

ulcers in the inner left cheek due to braces and potato chips, i can barely move my mouth now and it hurts to sneeze or yawn. of cos to eat is hell. i can only try to open wide and just shove in food and swallow. the rest of the pain is really quite inconsequential compared to the pain in the mouth.

the pain got to me so much that i couldnt really focus on my work. made a few silly mistakes but i think the rest of the team could see me really being tortured especially at lunch and they cut me some slack. and it hurts to talk also. :(

Ryo gave me some L'occitane stuff he bought for me on his NY bizness trip. so sweet!! :D I've never used the brand b4 cos it seems very expensive.. but now i can try it out. some limited edition mini hand cream:

there was a sort of solid perfume, rose lip gloss, and some body cream. xoxo I can't wait to see him in december .. (T.T)

千五百三十七： Back to Singapore

I arrived safely in Sg on monday night after a harrowing 1 hour flight from KL.

The airplane had a power failure after we boarded it, and it was >5 minutes later before they could get the plane to power up again and all of us passengers just sat there in the dark wondering what was going on. Finally the plane roared to life again, but I was feeling abit spooked. There was also a very spoilt kid whining and crying and he was driving me nuts.

After the power came on, they began screening the safety video, BUT the video was cut off halfway, and all of us sat there in silence. not really daring to breathe. so the whole 1 hour journey frm KL - SG was basically a whole 1 hour thinking if we were going to crash, especially with every strange shake of the plane.

When we reached Changi, we were delayed cos of the power problem again, the plane's engine couldn't be powered off w/o the help of an external generator. (X.X)

reached home and unpacked at about 10pm, ate some instant mee and managed to sleep at about 12. my mouth was hurting like mad from the ulcer. (T.T)

Work again today, came back to a very busy UAT period, but as usual, due to various UAT conditions and bad environment, managed to clear most of my cases asap.

千五百三十六： Instant Ramen Museum

I'm now at KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) waiting for the
connection flight back to Singapore having just landed from the flight
from Osaka. I parted ways with Ryo this morning at Imazu station so
that I could take the Hankyu train to Nishinomiya to ride the Limo bus
and I'm glad i took the bus from there. The bus was nearly full at my
boarding point, The wireless internet service sucks here by the way.
Its so slow and I can't log into msn on my own PC etc.

Anyway, we went to the Ramen museum on Sunday morning after we dragged
ourselves out of bed and its so cool there!! best of all is that its
free entry, so we spent the money creating our own cup noodles. ;D
After that, we headed to the Midosuji parade, one of the best
performances I saw was the Primary school students' unicycle
performance. and the cheerleaders. they were so brave lor!! doing the
jumps and the pyramids for the 2km parade.

I can't link to the photos right now, (blogging from gmail) so here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexxis/1569804436/

so i'm now waiting for my flight to sg in another hour half.. so
boring to fly alone.

千五百三十五： Midori 電器

Today we overslept and instead of going to the Nissin Cup Ramen Museum as planned, we woke up only late enuff to have a very very late lunch at Jolly Pasta and then hung out abit at Ryo's place while he prepared for his class.

Yesterday, we woke up abit the late again, hehe, and then left the house for a late lunch/dinner at umeda again. Went to his fav お好み焼き shop, after that we went to the Namco game centre opposite the restaurant. We went around the medal machines until about 10pm, then went for supper (2nd dinner for me) at a Japanese styled pasta restaurant at 三番街 and had pasta/japanese desserts. It's been quite a while since we had a fun date which ended late on a friday nite, very happy :D

So while Ryo went for his class in the evening, I went to the nearby Midori Electronics store nearby to help him get ink for his printer and and wandered around the store looking at their bargains. Found a cute gadget for my ipod, but think i'll connect it to my work pc instead cos its a little bulky. After that went to the supermarket to get coffee for Imai-san since she requested. :D and some tidbits too.

Tomorrow we are finally making an effort (my last day here .. (T.T) .. so sad..) to wake up early for breakfast, then head to the museum, then to the Midosuji Parade. I don't want to go home yet!!!

千五百三十四： More of the handsome guy

Due to the screening of the movie Hero in Japan this month, it's really heaven for Kimura Takuya's fans here with all his pictures everywhere in the magazines and posters everywhere. Abit late to blog tonite, so i'll leave u a pic of his new ad for chewing gum:

Xylish gum

Pity that my braces dun allow me to chew any gum else I would be a big supporter. :X

千五百三十三： 高野山

Picture of the day:

Ryo the rabbit

hehehehe. took this picture with my mobile's frames functions, he looks so cute la! (albeit looking a little constipated..)

Today had to wake up at 6.30am so that we were ready to catch the 7.48am train to Mount Koya, and we had to squeeze with the peak hour crowd. :s 久しぶり・・・ The ride took about 3 hours, and we reached 高野山 at nearly 11am, and it was raining quite heavily. I very unluckily broke a nail (ripped it actually) and it started to bleed and hurts like mad. After that, was moving some rock for luck, and it crashed down onto another finger in my right hand which is like bruised and swollen now. :(

We visited about 3 temples the whole afternoon, (the places were huge which was why we took so much time) but pretty impressed by the gravestones of some of the famous Japanese people (as in historians) at Okunoin. （奥の院）高野山 is one of the holiest places in Japan and so I guess it is considered an honour to be buried there. There were also signs of some of the trees turning yellow/red as well. It was super cold up there, I was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt, a sweater and another jacket on the outside. brrrr. we were 900m above sea-level by the way.

Apparently, the train line we had to use had a suicide case this afternoon and all trains were super delayed. :s it was quite scary, they were clearing the body or something in the late afternoon and when we took the express train back in the evening, the train kept stopping still due to this reason. so weird.

千五百三十二： Hero

Today me & Ryo watched a movie together. (first time this year..)

Wednesday is 1000yen for ladies but usual price for guys at 1800 yen.

Hero starring Kimura was in the theatres (which was the reason why we would even go to the cinema in Japan where movie watching is considered highly exhorbitant). As usual, he was drool-worthy, (Kimura, not Ryo) and this episode of Hero was definitely better with the original cast rather than the Yamaguchi prefecture episode on tv last year.

an autographed poster at the cinema by Kimura Takuya

It was a good show, but the plot of some political scandal in Hero is getting kind of boring. They should put the 古畑 detective series in the theatres too.

& I finally found cheaper leggings. at EST, sort of like 109 in shibuya for the younger group, the prices of cos have to cater to the younger group also. :D After that, we had korean food at one of the restaurants above Yodobashi, (the movie we watched had a lot of scenes of them eating korean food)

Going to 高野山 tomorrow. gotta wake up at 6am i think..zzz nitez!!

千五百三十一： Books

Today I bought alot of books.. Beads books -4, jLPT books - 3. expensive!! about 9009yen on all the books (>S$100) (#^-^#) replenished my finishing concealer, bought what other people asked me to bring back, some souvenirs as well. ooh and my japanese keyboard. :D spent alot of money but most are books for myself i guess. :s i wanted to buy some leggings, but all were like >$30. so ex!!

it was raining quite a bit today, since last nite, and the winds were quite chilly. Had ちらし丼 for lunch (love all the seafood), then we headed to diamaru for him to get an exchange on a t-shirt he got from nike before.

oh & bought the lucky charms from the temple le.

ate microwaved pasta for dinner, it was quite good actually. but now i'm hungry le.

千五百三十： Kimura Takuya!!

Ryo wanted to start building up his stamina again, so we went to get running wear today at Sunshine Wharf at Kobe, where there was a sports outlet. it was a huge place, and I got myself a black and gold Nike little bag too. :D

& also a very cool carabiner with a very small LED light from Kissmark (a ski/snowboard accessories brand).

After that, we went to Yamada Electronics. Took a quick look around, wanted to buy a japanese keyboard but turns out that I am going to Yodobashi tomorrow anyway so I decided just to check out prices.

then we cooked ourselves a very delicious (and very very very filling) kimchi steamboat dinner. Today i managed to catch a SMAPXSMAP special and there was Kimura Takuya going to a high school in Aomori imitating Cyril Takayama. ahhhhh!!! i wished I was one of the kids there oso.
anyway, his imitation is pretty good. the episode is super funny. in the meantime, here's an episode where the Magician cyril Takayama meets Kimura on SmapXSmap in August.

千五百二十九： 買い物

We tried to wake up earlier to go shopping this morning, as we woke up really late yesterday.

Yesterday :
Visited 井上さん's place and her babies. the baby was really very chubby, but very quiet, smiled and laughed alot but didnt really cry. me, Kana-san and ryo went to her place together. It was quite far from the station and we barely made it to the station at the agreed time of 2pm. so w/o any food in our tummy since the day's sushi, we saw a たこ焼き store at the station and bought Yakisoba / okonomiya / takoyaki and ate that in the car while waiting for Kana-san. Inoue-san's place was pretty cool, spacious and bright. spent the few hours gossiping about what has been happening in the office so far, so many changes and she was oso out of touch since she had been on maternity leave for nearly a year.

Left her place at about 5.30pm, me & ryo went for a quick dinner at Jolly Pasta b4 he sent me to the station to pass mooncake to kent at Umeda while he went for his karate class. :p kent treated me to marron tarte at Harbs, very sinful but very delicious dessert, and then went to shop for 2008 organisers at Kiddy Land. I got my Miffy organiser again, & got my sis a smaller version of it as well.

Miffy pointing to some place unknown...

after that rushed back to meet ryo to go back and then i just Ko-ed, still suffering from lack of sleep from the plane ride i think.

today,
we woke up (or tried to) wake up at 9am, but ended up only sorta woke up at 10am, showered and went out for brunch. Didnt know where to go eat, in the end ryo chose to go to the dimsum buffet place at Yodobashi.

Ate until very full, then i found that ABC mart was having autumn sales so i bought a pair of puma sneakers while waiting for Ryo (who went to the toilet). later i discovered a gigantic beads shop (new shop) and it was selling beads (very exorbitant price for the crystal beads) and books. I got some stuff to make hp straps, some books, and some japanese beads (very cheap) then Ryo got bored of waiting for me so he went back to ABC mart to look for trainers. while he looked at sports shoes, i saw another pair of sneakers that looked better than the ones i bought earlier, so decided to exchange for that pair instead. keke. abit bad, but I dun need 2 pairs and the ones I chose as an afterthought was really much nicer from adidas instead.

after that rushed to Ryo's fren's place, ate 鍋料理 for dinner, chit chat over tea and alot of snacks, and then the kids all sat around quietly playing Nintendo DS and i drank beer and wine and now feeling abit woozy. tummy been feeling abit weird..

tomorrow should be shopping again (for Ryo not me :D ) nitez!

千五百二十八： 今津

Reached Kansai Airport at about 7.10am yesterday, it was a good flight with me having the whole centre aisle to myself (5 seats!!) hoho. the plane was quite empty so it was great. managed to watch 3 movies, Mr Bean's holiday, License to Wed, Evan Almighty. Fell asleep in the midst of Evan Almighty, think they were at the scene where they were building the ark and the crowd were gathering and he already was looking like Noah. Immigration officer at the Kansai airport was really affable, she asked me whose address I wrote on the card and then she asked me about Ryo. keke. so weird. but having the trainee stamp in my passport is really useful, the customs officer also just asked me did i used to be a trainee, what is my purpose here, etc and just smiled and let me passed when i said i was here to visit friends and tour.

Ryo was waiting to pick me up, then we headed to Imazu to stay at the weekly mansion. its about 2500 yen per day, thats about $30? very cheap, fully furnished but the only grouse is t6hat this room was really super small (with a very small TV...) I guess its ok for 1 person since its near the train station, but definitely would at least have at least a wardrobe around.

Took a nap in the morning until about 2pm, went to check work emails and realised some issues occurred when I wasn't there (isn't it always like that!?) and had to try to remotely solve their problems off my head. its hard to delegate to people because they will almost never get your instructions and do exactly what you want them to do. argh. here I am now at 5am (ryo suddenly woke up) and remembering I haven't sent yesterday's report.

so this part of the to-do list

• ask her to send Friday's Status report(?)

has become

• send Friday's Status report by 5pm (PST) (about 8am SG time)

it's really alot easier doing things myself.

Anyway, finally was able to shut off the laptop and go for our brunner (breakfast/lunch/dinner) at about 5pm. We went to くら寿司, conveyor sushi, and won some small souvenir. (every 5 plates you eat you get a chance at the wheel of fortune game) Kept thinking why the store was so empty at 6pm when I realised it wasn't saturday. keke. so blur. main problem we had was with no parking (or expensive parking) so we were trying to look for the cheapest parking area.

Will be visiting inoue-san today, and passing mooncake to kent i think. また！

千五百二十七： Flying off

Heading off to the airport from office in a few minutes.

prepare list of work to follow up for teammates

train Imai-san on the tool.

ask her to send Friday's Status report(?) - changed.

get the test case review out to the lead

keep all my things in the drawer for some big shot's visit

mail out bills

print out Akane-s list of things to buy

update my monetary records

anyhow, got most of the things done. photocopied my passport and the copy of the travel insurance for my parents too.

well done.

VERY VERY looking forward to seeing ryo tomorrow morning. Muakz people!

千五百二十六： Last Minute Packing

I hate packing/unpacking luggages. Now I know that.

Barely been back about a month and I have to repack my luggage again. I take about 1 wk plus to unpack .. so its like pointless to unpack if I was going to fly off in 3 wks. So here I am trying to pack all the gifts and presents that I can remember to bring, not really bringing a lot of clothes.. dunno what shoes to bring also. so many decisions to make!! argh.

I better remember to do these things tomorrow:

• prepare list of work to follow up for teammates
• train Imai-san on the tool.
  
• ask her to send Friday's Status report(?)
  
• get the test case review out to the lead
• keep all my things in the drawer for some big shot's visit
• mail out bills
  
• print out Akane-s list of things to buy
• update my monetary records
• ...zzz dunno what else le. so tired.
  

i thnk thats about all? hmm gotta shut down the laptop and keep it oso le
nitezz

千五百二十五： White Dog Cafe

Met up with XH for a post bday dinner at Vivo's White Dog Cafe. Very good to catch up and just tell her every single thing that's been happening so far.

Anyway, found out this is the show: http://www.amenebeauty.com/fashionshow.html I'm very excited about the part where i get to have my hair done. hehe..

ok i actually have still a 844g pile of test case reviews to work on so I'll stop blogging now. (we were in the candy shop and I decided to weigh the documents for fun. ... didn't realise it was that heavy. sighz.)

Edit- Forgot to say a mad dog forced me onto the road last nite. It was a hard choice to make; whether i wanted to get bitten to death by a rabid dog or be knocked down by a bus.