千九百六十五：Hurtful Words

at the tennis court

Woke up especially early today because I'm going to collect my race pack at the Osaka Marathon Expo later. The place looks huge, with almost all the major sports brands in Japan setting up booths. I'm so excited!  By the way, if you want to just check out how I'm doing during the marathon on Sunday, you can just go to this page: http://www.osaka-marathon.com/2011/ and search for my tag number L 43374. I'm not exactly sure if there is an exact page that allows for the search or just this page directly, will try to update this page on Saturday night. Having alot of jitters for this, because I didn't train much, & am having abit of a sore throat now. But I am going to finish this by hook or crook (hopefully just able to finish this normally can le.. )

This has been an uneventful week, just work work work. Last minute deadlines almost killed me, had to work until 4am trying to complete some data creation on Monday. But partly my own fault, met up with Yusuke for dinner but it was good hearing about people from the office. At least he lives so near me I don't have to spend much time travelling to meet up with him. I did see something that I sorta feel like buying, a fish eyes lens for the iphone, it's just so cute! but so bulky in the bag, how am I going to stick that case into the bag with the lens sticking out? hmm..

The hubby was so horrible last night. We were going to visit his parents on Saturday morning, because it was his mum's birthday & he said something about visiting his parents means eating free meals so isn't it a good thing? and it just sounded wrong saying it like that even though it might be true. Shouldn't we visit them because we want to see them and not because we go there to eat free meals? & I said that, & he got pissed off saying I always seem so reluctant to visit them blah blah (apparently he missed the point I was trying to make again) and I said huh? since when? I might complain about having to wash the dishes, but who doesn't? I would rather bring the parents out for dinner because I feel bad that they have to take so much trouble to cook so much food (always end up having leftovers which they don't mind but I mind) & after that I have to help clean up (this is a given but I've always done it willingly because they are so old) but when he said that it really made me mad. Did I not volunteer to cook dinner & bring over? Did I not jog all the way to the hospital to visit his dad when he wasn't around? I mean, I always go over when he wants to, help out like a normal if not above average daughter in law & he can just say out such hurtful things w/o even thinking. How about changing his position to him being in Singapore & if I want to go my parents' place & if he always has to make small talk how will he feel? The point is not really cleaning up or what, it's more of the feeling that i have - similar to visiting relatives that I hardly visit in CNY (which is why I don't really like CNY)? You go there, greet people, sit down & eat and then after that just watch TV. You don't really have anything to say to them, except the direct concerns like how are you feeling etc. I don't know how to make small talk. Getting married to the son doesn't make me family any immediately than they adopting me as a child. They might make an effort to be friendly & treat me like family, but I will still be a stranger because they are not my parents and it takes time. I am not the type of person who can just become chummy or warm up to other people in a short time, especially not the elderly or authority figures, but I will at least be civil and do the duties or responsibilities expected of me. Is that so hard to understand?

千九百六十四：ごちそうさまでした！

the 2nd Osaka GoChiSo Marathon on 23-Oct-2011

I joined the Osaka GoChiSo marathon yesterday with 2 friends from the run club! It was quite a fun run, basically along the run, we will pass through 商店街 (streets with shops) & they will offer us food & we can eat / drink & then continue running. The food is usually those representative type of foods from the shops around that area, like sushi, udon, snacks, fruits, bbq squid etc. & also we passed through some niche places of interests in Osaka that I didn't know about, like Diamond point (best view of sunset from Osaka harbour area) & the lowest mountain in Japan (天保山 see the word 山？！） hahaha!　& the best part is actually the ferry ride across from the harbour to Universal Studios Japan's perimeter, I don't think any one has actually ran in a race that involves a boat ride! Good chance for us to take a breather; the weather was so warm yesterday. We went to get registered at 8am, and waited until 11am for the run to start :x then unluckily, they started people off in groups, so there are like around 20+ groups and we are group 19! :( so we only finally flagged off at 11.40am. By then, we were all famished, & the first food stop around 1.6km away was very very welcome with warabi mochi (chilled & super delicious!) and some tea. Although after that it got harder & harder to continue running cos of the food being digested & I just kept feeling the urge to burp.  I used the 4S to take photos, but the camera just sucked all the battery life out of the phone! I think I took only around 50  pictures, switched off wifi, all other apps, but the battery life was down to 50% at around 2pm from 100% in the morning, & around 80% when the race started. :(

Pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexxis/sets/72157627963020060/
& the best thing about using iPhone to take pictures is that all the pictures are Geotagged already! (see the little map beside each picture)

I had to abort the race at the halfway point, because I had a househunting meeting with the salesman at 3pm. (took us 2hours for 13km including all the eating) so when we reached a point where I could get to the train station, I made my escape. :X all the good food actually only came in after this point. Which kinda makes sense because near the end le, can eat more, can't possibly be eating udon at the start of the race. Sighz...

Anyway, we kinda made a decision on the apartment at Sannomiya!! yay! See the double standard of guys - he complains I want to get the first place I saw (which actually i think is really nice) but actually he just illogically wanted this place w/o checking much other places because he really likes it. (>.<) humph! I'm not super in love with this place, but I'm ok to live here (because it's new & we can still save up for the payment next year & we can still customize it) and I'm just very relieved we don't have to go around looking anymore. I don't like shopping around much for anything, seriously, if I see it & I like it, then I just get it, instead of giving myself reasons why I should shop around more.

So we are waiting for the housing loan initial review by the bank to go through then we can officially sign the contract for the house. woohoo!

千九百六十三：Too Much Alone Time

ok I'm blogging so much recently because I've had alot of alone time.

I've watched finished all the episodes of CSI & CSI:NY recorded on my TV, 3 movies (recorded too) & all the episodes of Tin Tin & the last episode of the Amazing Race as well. All thanks to Ryo coming back home so late every day for the past week (around 1 am)  & being away in Tokyo today until tomorrow.

I mean I feel irritated when he's around hogging the TV  & I can't watch the shows I've recorded but there is such a thing as too much alone time. I haven't been out of the house in 4 days. (because i'm lazy to dress up & due to PMS, having headaches & tummy aches so didn't feel all that well to want to relieve boredom by going out).

I've been having quite a bit of disturbing dreams lately. They feel so real & I wake up feeling half sad and very tired.

I'm not looking forward to clearing the huge hurdle of the marathon next weekend. I have zero confidence, & zero motivation to train. but I hope that this time will be better than the previous attempt. What in the world was I thinking when I signed up for this?! (><)

& then after that will be Tokyo, and there will be the Seoul trip to look forward to & then to SG for 2 whole months.  yay!!!

千九百六十二： Gold Coast

my first time eating Churros! (spanish donuts) in Brisbane / with condensed milk

anyway, here's the very very late blog post about the Gold Coast trip - was in Gold Coast for the Gold Coast Airport Marathon from 2011-6-26 to 2011-7-5 - although I only joined the half marathon- and here it is :

amazed and happy with my results - only walked 2 water stops around 100 - 200 m each time. Had targetted around 2h30min, but i guess this is definitely much better! Actual results 2hr04min btw :)

Ok for some elaboration of the trip, here is the short & long of it. Long if you have the time to read, here's the short of it.

Sunday Day 1 - Brisbane day trip via Airtrain
Monday Day 2 - Car rental -> Mt Tamborine & Cedar Creek Wineries & Cedar Creek Falls, Mariner's Cove/Mariner's mirage
Tuesday Day 3 - Car rental -> Coolangotta, Point Danger lookout, Little Nerang Dam, Springbrook National Park - Best Ever Lookout, Cav's steakhouse
Wednesday Day 4 - Day of relaxation - Mini run/walk after waking up at Surfer's paradise along the beach, then just shopping at surfer's paradise, went for dinner at Fisherman's wharf
Thursday Day 5 - Movie world
Friday Day 6 - Paradise Country Farmland , then headed to the GC Expo hall to collect our bibs for the marathon, then checked out Broadbeach
Saturday Day 7 - GC Expo to shop for sports stuff, then Harbourtown for some outlet shopping & went back to some self cooked pasta dinner for carbo & slept at 10pm.
Sunday Day 8 - Marathon in the morning (woke up at 3.30am), lunched at Australia Fair, reached back with aching legs, showered & conked out until 8pm, dapao-ed dinner & slept at 10pm again.
Monday Day 9 - Sea World Whale watch it was fantastic to watch the whales dive in and out of the sea. Sea World in the afternoon, went to Marina's Mirage in the evening, Chinese food for dinner at Surfer's Paradise.
Tuesday Day 10 - Checked out at 5am and had to board the flight home at 10am.

Pictures have finally been uploaded to flickr too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexxis/sets/72157627137341024

& now for the long of it..

General thoughts about the trip instead of a day by day rundown - it's too long - both for the person reading it & the person writing it.

Before the marathon, we went sightseeing & some of the highlights were Brisbane, glow worms, Nerang Dam, Springbrook National Park & the Paradise Country Farm. Not saying the other places weren't fun, but these were the places　I liked alot :)

I was having sorethroat/cough/flu throughout so generally kinda slept through alot of the transport and was heavy headed during the walks and was quite a grumpy / listless travelmate i think.

We went to Brisbane for a day trip on Sunday when I reached, that's where i had churros, and since it was a Sunday, it was a very peaceful day in the CBD area. We wandered around taking pictures of the historical buildings, there was the winter festival going on so there were crowds and fun stuff going on. We wandered to Southbank and it was great there, with the park and the ferris wheel and I just did what everyone else did, laid back on the grass and enjoyed the view of the sky. :D

my view from my place lying down on the grass

an artist spraypainted over old records

There are Nando's everywhere in Australia - i guess it's probably like fast food for them. Didn't have a chance to try it anywhere yet, so took the chance to have. was coming down with flu/and sore throat as well, and it was a torture eating western food which was mostly xxx with chips which is French fries.

Food was a problem, because of my sore throat, everything western seemed less than appetizing. We wandered around alot looking for Asian food although we did try eat the local food for the first few days. Their steaks were pretty good, oysters too :)

We saw glow worms at Cedar Creek wineries, it was a man-made cave, but no pictures there because it was too dark and glow worms are just too small anyway. Lunch was pretty good, I had steak with some of Cedar Creek's dessert wine. We also tried steak & oysters at Cav's steakhouse at Frank St (Labrador) which was pretty good, but quite a big slice of steak so it's better to share so that you can try other food as well. Cedar Creek Falls was nearby, but not super majestic, it's just a mini waterfall. There were some quaint little shops at Mt Tamborine, before we reached Cedar Creek, and apparently fudge is their specialty. We got large chunks of fudge to try, but after a few bites they were too sweet for us

We took a drive to Little Nerang Dam (cos we all haven't seen a real dam before) and it was in so deep into the woods that we thought we were lost. When we finally reached it, we saw a campsite and we were like thinking "people would drive all the way here just to have a picnic?!" Most of the parks have a picnic /campsite so it was quite common to see kids/families even in the most difficult places to get to. We did get lost a little here and there as we were driving based on the street directory, not GPS, but that kind of added the fun to the trip because we hit unexpected places, like a lookout spot for a beautiful sunset was also a sorta gravestone for a pet.. :(

Back in GC, the weather was cold and rainy after our 2 days of driving around, and I guess I had underestimated the cold. There was winter sales ongoing though, & managed to get 2 sweaters from the surf brands at very good prices. We spent quite abit of time wandering around surfer's paradise, made a trip to the outlet malls (Harbourtown). The remaining time we tried to make trips to Movie World, Sea World, whale watch & also to the Paradise country farm. The wet weather almost ruined our chance to whale watch. We had planned to whale watch the first few days we were there, but due to stormy seas, the trips in the first week was cancelled and the very next trip was our last day in GC which was quite lucky for us that we didn't get a flight back the day after the marathon. it was just so majestic! to see the whales for real first time in my life in the wild. The whales were moving up north and GC waters happen to be in their route every year. This was probably the best part of the wildlife I experienced in Australia.

a whale making a dive

All too soon, the trip was at an end and we reluctantly parted ways at the airport. It was a fruitful trip, gave me back confidence for 21km, and of course a relaxing vacation does wonders for the mental health (makes me want to have a longer vacation at least haha)

& I guess i can now finally start sorting through photos from Taipei & Italy!

千九百六十一：New Purchases

new iPhone!

I got my new phone last Friday! Even though we pre-ordered it, and were told we could go to the shop from 8am onwards to collect, the Softbank server was down all the way till noon before we were able to get our phone. Japan has a very ineffective & un-environmentally friendly system of using SIM cards - new SIM cards are issued everytime you change a new phone (which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of for such an efficient country). Luckily they don't charge us for SIM cards! Which caused the whole lag time in the system. Most people actually reached the shop around 8am (I was first in the queue) but it turns out it was a country wide system failure & while I had quite a bit of time to wait in the store, the people behind me were working adults who had to reach the office probably around 9+am. They were quite shocked (& I think very sad) that they couldn't get the phones to bring to the office & that their phone lines will be cut off in the middle of the day once the new phone's SIM card got activated, and all of them left reluctantly. I decided to just sit in the shop until the service resumed, because I had no other ways to be contacted by the shop, and since there were a ton of people who were waiting at the Apple stores, I was quite sure the service had to be fixed shortly.

I'm actually glad that I waited. Around 11.30am, a guy came in to collect his phone & the system registration went through for him smoothly! I was like thinking " oi....... what about mine? I waited for so long already!!" & pointedly looked at the staff who handled that successful registration. The lady who had handled my order came over after that to say , sorry but she doesn't know when system will be resumed & I was like erh..?! The other guy just left with his new iphone! what are you talking about!? & I said, "I think  the system seems to be up, can you try first? since i'm here anyway" & she reluctantly agreed. Luckily she did that, because after that a whole bunch of people came in (it was lunchtime) to try to collect their phones, and if I was the staff, I would definitely be handling those people in the store first instead of the morning cases who already went home. & the system finally activated my SIM card and she allowed me to take the phones home. (-.-!) what a waste of time... 4 hours.

I'm still trying to get used to the phone; it has the tendency to slip through my hand because it's a little too thin. But I guess gamewise it's alot faster than the old phone & of course the camera I have no complaints :)

Another major purchase we were trying to make over the weekend was the house. (apartment I guess?) We went to see a few, some work in progress, some already built, but i guess what we agreed on is that we prefer Kobe to Osaka. So Saturday, we went to see one in Sannomiya (三宮） which is a residence block that will be 54 storeys. Being in the city centre of Kobe, of course there was no amenities issues; it's like living in Orchard Road I suppose. Surprisingly, prices are cheaper for the apartments here than at Sumiyoshi (住吉） , near our current aparment which we are renting. But, cheaper in the relative sense - 85sqm costs around S$10k/sqm in  Sannomiya while in Sumiyoshi, it was S$11k/sqm. ouch ouch ouch. 85sqm is only around a 3-4rm flat in Singapore. How sad :( But of course, the demerits being that there was always all sorts of people hanging around, it's never quiet, and there are like pachinko parlours all over the place.

Yesterday, we went to see an apartment near the Kobe colonial area, near the Meriken Park which was built in March this year. & being around 10minutes away from the station, of course this is cheaper (& depreciating everyday since it was already completed). The salesman was trying to talk us into buying this - http://www.b-kobe.com/plan/type_r/index.html which had only 1 unit left, on the 26th Floor. And the price was even less than both apartments above. S$880k for 101sqm corner apartment!? I was pretty keen on it (just the space and the price alone was amazing, let alone it's super high floor and can sort of see the sea). All cabinets & downlights were inbuilt already, & bathroom toilets & walk-in closets & it actually had a real kitchen!! so far all the places have only those kitchen that's open concept with the living room which is so impractical -  all the oil & smells will reach the living room furniture right?! & already in built kitchen counters & cupboards! (other places have to add prices to have those built -.- )But obviously, no one talks prices on the first meeting & he set up a next meeting for us next week. & I excitedly went home and showed my parents and asked for their opinions and got them all excited. Guess what. The salesman called last night and said that the house had been sold (another couple who had been looking at the house had made their decision to buy last night) WTF!? I was super disappointed... sighz...

I guess this finally convinced Ryo that if you snooze you lose. After dinner,  I was trying to swallow the disappointment by looking at the brochures for the same completed block for other available apartments, but seriously what was remaining was either high floor but small units or low floor but ok spacious units (the view is of the expressway and not the sea if below 15th floor) In the end we decided to stick to the Sannomiya work in progress block. It will be completed in March 2013, so we have another year to save up alot more for the final payment (to reduce the amount of bank loan because this will lead to a hugeass bank charge that is dependent on the amount you loan). At least this is on the 44th floor, and will be all new and we can still request for some customizations like colours & cupboards we need. We haven't confirmed the purchase, but we already asked the salesperson to just flag it as in progress so that no one else takes it (grrrrr...). But I hope by next week we will be 80% confirmed. Househunting is a horribly tiring process!!

the Sannomiya place is at its 20th floor

千九百六十：The End of Summer

the end of my sunflower

Not long ago, I was complaining how crazy hot it is here, & suddenly after I come back from Italy, it's almost cold. I'm still happily wearing shorts out in the daytime but at least it's like long fleece pants for pajamas at night. Although it's not super chilly yet,  because I still actually switch on my fan at night sometimes and freeze the husband to death - he is using 2 blankets (?!) while I'm still using a normal very thin one.

I've just upgraded the OS on my iphone to iOS5 (kinda pointless since i'm probably getting the new phone tomorrow)  but just wanted to have the pleasure of saying I'm upgraded the OS in probably the faster time so far w/o any issues on my first try! all thanks to the fact that I had only 3.6GB of apps in my phone. (Refer to my article on how to get rid of apps a few days ago.) & unchecking all music & podcasts & removing all pics before upgrading helped I guess.

After 3 days of disagreements & bickering, we finally pinpointed the reasons why I was so disagreeable & pissed off.
1. There was no birthday celebration or present for me. (from the husband or anyone else actually, my mum did pass me an angbao through my sis)
2. He didn't seem to have plans at all for our future.
3. Accumulated frustrations that I was just here to be his maid & feeling very under-appreciated (since he didn't even bother to make me feel appreciated on my birthday)

He finally understood how important the house buying was to me because i said the D word if nothing is going to change,  (I came up with this new slogan so that he can remember it - No House = No BB = D!) it might sound funny but it really is quite frustrating to see friends going forward in their lives while i'm still going nowhere. :(

Work is quite slow these few days, but maybe i'm still in the vacation mode, (which is why you see so many blog updates) although I should actually do more constructive stuff like ... tidy the house. which I'm not really feeling up to it cos of all the quarrelling (I keep thinking why should I be the one to do everything??). But I hope things are getting better, he made some plans for us to go see more places this Saturday, so good luck to us!

千九百五十九： The Meaning of Social

the anti-social bug on my clothesline

Social tools being twitter, facebook, instagram & other apps or programs where you share stuff with people.

I believe there are many many many people who don't understand the purpose of using such tools.

Take for example the below situation:
Instagram is a tool you use to share photographs with other people on the Instagram community. A public account shares your photographs with all users in the community, a private account shares your photos with only your followers. I think the keyword is "share". If you are looking for a photo repository, taking photos for yourself, then don't share. Instagram is not a photo repository system. it's like twitter, when you spam posts with crap, you push other people's (maybe) better posts down the line. If you purposely go to other apps to edit the photos before uploading them, that's sharing, that's totally out of line with taking the pictures for yourself. If you don't have the intention to share, edit the pictures & just keep them in your folder, & NOT SHARE them, instead of sharing them & having people comment about the photos and giving the lamest self defense in the world of, i took them for myself,  who cares about the number of likes, etc etc. If you took them for your self, you wouldn't bother re-editing the picts in another app to make them look better before re-going to instagram to share them again. & then also sharing the pictures on Twitter & facebook which means the same friends get spammed with the photo feed in 3 places. You want approval, you want people to take a look at what you did, that's why we share stuff - you don't share stuff because they were for yourself. If I had a cake I bought for myself, I sure wouldn't be sharing the information with my neighbours: "hey i bought a cake!" & leave the neighbours thinking "you want me to eat is it, that's why you tell me?"

I guess what I'm frustrated or irritated by, is such people saying 1 thing and doing totally another. Their actions clearly contradict their words; do they think we are idiots to not notice? This greatly discounts my trust in such people: they don't like to hear advice, they keep defending their own actions as right instead of learning something new when they get feedback etc. Will they ever be successful in life? I doubt so, because in this world they keep living for themselves (in their very flimsy self-defense) instead of really understanding what social means.

All the social tools have a different purpose to start with, that's why they are not the same tool. To start using all in the same way makes no sense & frustrates other people who are in your social circle.

on a happier note, 2 more days to the new phone!! (=^-^=)

千九百五十八： Shitloads of Stupid Conditions

I'm not happy!! Not happy to be in this house that's not mine, that I can't stick anything on the walls, I can't put up shelves, where the kitchen is so dark & dingy & windowless and I have no space on the counter to cut up ingredients except with a tiny 100yen chopping  board. I want a sunny kitchen, I want to have space on the counter & cupboards to keep more pots & pans, & even to put a recipe book! (Now I have to keep going back & forth from the dining table to the kitchen when reading the recipe book. which is damn stupid .... i want to sleep on a bed, I want a house with enough space in the room for a bed!

What does the stupid guy want? Near to a station, near to his parents, but cheap enough, but not on the side of the station nearer to the expressway (because it's noisy & air is polluted), but spacious, but have resale value because he might be reassigned to Tokyo. & how often is he actually at home? An average of 59 hours per week & out of which, 42 hours sleeping. Which means only 10% of a week he is actually awake & enjoying his time at home. Whereas I am at home 85% of the time (144/168 hours). Shouldn't it be me who decides what kind of house we should live in?? 

& he gets unhappy when I return to Singapore for a longer period. Why should I want to be here when I still feel that Singapore is still my home more? Family, food, friends. Everyone & everything is still in Singapore for me. 

千九百五十七：About Cleaning up your Iphone

One of the artists' works outside the Uffizi Museum, Firenze

I was reading this article about clearing apps & "cleaning up the apps" on the iPhones. The blogger said using folders made your Iphone is able to contain 12x more apps & after cleaning up (by moving them into folders & deleting: he only deleted around 120 apps), he still had 12 pages in the menu. How is that clearing the phone? From an IT standpoint, clearing means removing, & opening up more memory/storage in the phone. what's the use of having 16folders of 12 apps in maybe 11 pages? that is 11x16x12 = 2112 apps?  Do any of us use that many apps? If you log your app use for maybe a month, you will find that really all the apps you need and use are probably already in the first 2-4 pages already. While for the pages behind are games that I actually play like at least once a week. If you have 11pages of 16 folders, do you really know what's in where? Do you remember the app name to be able to search for them in the search screen? Even after clearing, he has 12pages left, 5 of which contain folders (5x16x12=960) which comes up to 960 apps still. Really? He uses 960 apps still? I think more cleaning up should be done (on the basis that he was writing a how to clean up article)

I have only 8 half-full folders in 9 pages & 5 pages of the menu are less than half covered (I like having the space for new downloads) - most apps I delete after 1-2 uses if I find that they are uninteresting or un-userfriendly. If I need to use them again, I can always download again- what's downloaded before stays in your Itunes account and you are not charged twice for the same app anyway. Everything is also backed up in your PC too. The only reason you might keep the app is there might have been data in the app, but again, if you haven't used the app in ages, you probably don't need the data anyway. Or copy them out somewhere before deleting.

Having only 16GB in my iPhone, storage space is a luxury. I also listen to podcasts & music & take lots of photographs, so removing unused apps is really dictated by necessity. But I guess if you do have 32GB, you should have the right to have more stuff in your phone, even though it is super messy for yourself. So although I don't really agree with the article's end results, the "clear everything not used in a month" is a good rule.

Anyway, I put in a preorder for the 64GB Iphone 4S.. I hope it comes on 14 Oct! I don't think I'll be increasing the number of apps though, I would be putting in more podcasts & taking lots of photos & videos :) Countdown to the new phone, 5 more days!

On a separate note, this is totally irking me. I wish people would stop linking the Iphone 4S = Iphone for Steve. It's named 4S because it was not changed from 4 in terms of looks (only an improvement functionality wise) as 3G became 3GS. Not because they knew Steve was going to die. Rumours about 4S came up far earlier in the year, not like it happened a day before / after Steve die, eg. - this article in July.  5 would be something that's radically different, as when 3GS became 4. So please stop saying this is for Steve & that is for Steve; Steve probably decided on the name himself - & being the demi-god of cool things, he probably wouldn't people to keep saying this lame line "for Steve" when it's just 4S.

千九百五十六：Buon Giorno!

One of the many funny signboard vandalism in Firenze

Back from Italy, took another 2 days off so I'll be back at work next Tuesday since Monday is a Japan holiday.

Reached home last night around 8pm, after around 18+ hours of flying from Venice - Munich - Tokyo - Osaka, it would have been worse if we hadn't travelled business class (thanks to all the mileage from Ryo's work trips). 12 hours on the plane was surprisingly easy to get through this time, with dinner for the 2nd hour of the flight, then 2 short movies (with lots of fast forwarding). Started to feel drowsy around the end of the 2nd movie, (thats about 4hours gone) reclined to sleep mode & actually fell asleep for around 4 hours. woke up to the 2nd meal, ate another hour, did crocheting for the last 3 hours & then we reached Tokyo around 3pm in the afternoon.

Our cash of 1.5k Euros was enough surprisingly, we had abit of a scare when we had only like 500Euros left for the last 6 days of the trip but my sister joined us and became the cash source while we paid for all places that accepted credit cards. Everything is so expensive! (after Taiwan) Prices are equivalent to Japan, or more, especially in Rome & Venice. Florence was slightly cheaper than Japan prices; it was actually my favourite city as well since it was the safest. no suspicious people lurking about, quiet streets with joggers/dinner goers, tourists wandering around, it's almost the perfect place to live if only it has more international restaurants. I was craving for some light Japanese / Asian food towards the last day in Florence, we were kinda eating only breakfast & 1 other meal per day since the 2nd meal is usually so heavy we didn't need to eat 1 more.

Claiming back our VAT refunds was a nightmare. There was a big group of Malaysians in front of us, around 7 pple who had probably done a round Europe trip & they were claiming VAT refunds for stuff bought all over Europe. We waited in queue for >1 hr to realise that we couldn't claim because we didn't have the customs stamp which was outside airport security (& almost screamed at the VAT refund person here) & we had to run out to get the refund papers stamped & come back through security & queue up AGAIN! The VAT refund was also the Travelex money exchange service and the people serving the counter were super slow. The lady in front of us wanted to change money, & the person took 15 min to conduct the transaction, including taking checking the passport detail by detail, photocopying the passport, counting the notes slowly to the customer 2 times (& losing count halfway through so had to start over again). Everyone in the queue was seething mad & many people actually had to give up their claims and leave when their flight made the last call announcement.

Generally the Italians we met were friendly & helpful; however, it was embarrassing the way some Asians behaved overseas. These people behaved like they were shopping at the market!! In the brand boutiques & outlet malls, the people from mainland China & Taiwan shoved and pushed people, spoke in super loud voices and were quite rude to the sales people. A youngish woman was like asking to see wallets in LV & she slammed the product she was holding on to the glass counter when told that the design she wanted wasn't available and the LV saleslady actually reprimanded her. "I don't like..." she whined. duh.. don't like can just leave the store right? not like this is the only LV in the world.

Overall I quite enjoyed the trip but wished there was more relaxation time in between. There isn't a single starbucks, (for non-coffee drinks) & all the bars are standing - sitting means u pay a 15% service charge, and i don't drink coffee! Gelatos are usually eaten standing outside the shop too and all the sitting was only done during meals & transportation rides. My legs & feet are still aching now actually. All the soft drinks are jacked up like 300% (water is 80cents in the supermarket for 1liter but 500ml is 3 euros in the shops)

Today I was supposed to clean up my study room which is becoming very much like a store room but fell asleep from 11am to 3pm (><) I guess i'll just relax and do everything tomorrow instead. Ciao!