千八百十一： Randomness

ok I found the Polaroid two camera as my sis was mentioning:
http://www.redferret.net/?p=14130

I wonder if too high a picture quality spoils the fun of polaroid? after all it's because the polaroid is not that high quality such that a little bit of "warmth" remains in the picture, the old school feel of the pictures, and pimples, eyebags, dark circles & other flaws are not exposed in all the >10MP glory of digital cameras.

I drank too much caffeine in the form of coke & milk tea yesterday and was unable to sleep until about 5am. then had a 9am meeting, i was half dozing with the call on mute, luckily I didn't have to speak. after that got irritated with an idiot who wasted our whole week due to a system issue that wasn't working and he didn't even bother to send an email to inform. really really bad attitude on his part.

looking at scrapbook.com 's clearance sale section. I'm always so fascinated by tools/ die cutters etc. & this assorted box of ribbons is so pretty!

American Crafts - Ribbon Box Assortment - Winter 2008 - Christmas, CLEARANCE
Scrapbook.com

Maybe I'll be able to come up with reasons for buying some items :P

千八百十： LIPFES

Trying to win myself some stuff by drinking my fav milk tea (hence the name LIPFES - Lipton Festa?).. as u can see, been drinking alot of milk tea.. but .. all 「残念でした」！

went to the gym yesterday for yoga, it was the kind of stuff Ayaka & I had been doing for hot yoga before so I was quite comfortable with the class' pace. besides touching my toes, which i just can't do, I was able to keep up with the rest of the class, leaving me quite surprised :) still have problems with the tree pose, there's just something wrong with my balancing. partly due to being bow-legged i think, as I can clearly see my legs are not straight in the mirror. (curved...) looking forward to the next class on Saturday!

woke up at 5.30am to cook breakfast this morning, have quite a lot of work so decided to just stay up after Ryo left for Tokyo at 6.30am to finish up work. Ryo's going to be away for 2 days .. at least i can sleep in comfortably tomorrow :)

ok. getting to work..

千八百零九： Kitchen Talk

I was looking around for a container to place rice in, for the kitchen and this is what's used in Japan apparently :

There are 10kg containers as well.. but there's only 2 of us. 5Kg of rice lasts about 1 month + for 2 of us.

Cooked mentaiko pasta with squid for him this morning:

明太子とイカパスタ

I realised he would only complain if there is a lack of taste & never when the taste is stronger (which is understandable because i've seen the amt of sugar his mom added into a simple omelette...) I tried the pasta myself this morning & thought it was a little salty but he said it was delicious so i'll take his word for it.

went to the gym yesterday to run because i missed the yoga class by getting some last minute work just when i was about to leave the house. I perspire alot, I don't see other girls perspiring much?? a 20 min run drenches me but everyone else seems so cool & composed.. :S how embarrassing.

千八百零八： 悪夢

I've been having many strange dreams lately. It only occurs when I go back to sleep in the morning after Ryo leaves the house.

This morning, I had a nightmare, about this old auntie who was pretending to be a sales lady, in my room, trying to put on a necklace from behind me. She instead started to hold me in a grip lock by pulling at my hair and refusing to let go, and i was trying hard as hell to reach behind me and pull her hair instead but couldn't. So I was trying my best to open my eyes, to wake up to escape the nightmare, and only managed to with huge effort. woke up with relief, but with a huge headache as well, wondered why such a weird dream came about.

Last week, I dreamt about a train crash, from an eagle's view, where the train e-braked suddenly and the carriages behind the first one crashed into the first one. The train started moving again but at a super crazy speed and finally derailed a short distance away. very spooky, it was the kind of video image you would see in the news.

I also had a weird dream that Ryo was kissing some fat lady in a chalet we went together behind my back and when i tried to punch the lady, she barely took the punch w/o much effect and laughed at me in my face, while Ryo just ignored my confrontations and my screaming at him "WHY?!" .....

hope this is not a sign of mental illness. :P

went to the gym yesterday, tried their yoga class, was pretty ok, nothing hard (maybe cos there were alot of aunties) but i had become unable to touch my toes after the long period of no exercise. :( then went to body combat after that because Ryo didn't want to join himself, and turns out its same as sg. :D good work out, but body aching all over now. must go exercise at least 3 times a week from now on..

The weather is pretty clear today .. oh damn its time to take out the laundry..

view of kobe bridge

P.S. I would love to add like a personalized tag to all my photos, but always wonder how people have the time to do that for every single photo, isn't it time consuming?

千八百零七： Status Change

I got my visa change approval postcard in the mail today :D that's pretty fast, I only went to the immigration bureau on May 7, today's 23rd. was expecting a few months! going to collect on June 1, with multiple reentry permit, then go to the city hall to get my alien card updated. their processes are really complicated ... very troublesome.


today i went to return the ipod radio alarm clock, or actually for repair, dunno why it just wouldn't power on. and only after a month! at yodobashi, the store assistant tried it himself, couldn't figure out why it wasn't working as well, just no questions asked said, "sorry, we'll replace it." just like that. got a new one, checked that it was working on the spot :)

went to look at cameras, as mine was losing the camera function. Although the switch was set to camera mode, it stayed in video mode, which means I couldn't take pictures until it changed randomly to shoot mode again.

was looking at Canon again, thought the Ixy 210is a pretty good buy.

I like the gold one, and since it uses the same battery as my current camera, I have 3 batteries so no worries about running out of battery. kinda thinking if I should get a camera with wide angle lens though...

千八百零六： Alien card

just collected my alien registration card this morning, apparently I have to go back to the 市役所 again after having gotten my visa.

wandered out this morning, feeling pretty worried about the flu. I tried putting on the mask Ryo had received from his office, but it was too big, and there were spaces all over which totally didn't protect me. after a while, having adjusted the mask for the 10th time in the sweltering heat, i gave up and just took it off. after all, if everyone else was wearing a mask, that would make me pretty safe from their bacteria right?

watching gossip girl season 2, i think I liked this season better than 1, last season was a little too much drama for me with so much drugs & betrayal for 17 year olds??!

influenza infection count up to 200 people. this is like a game of resident evil coming to life except not that serious yet hehe and no one becoming zombies.

千八百零五： 自殺

I saw from the news last night, that >30000 people killed themselves in 2008 in Japan.
almost 20% were people in their 50s. most of the people who committed suicide because of depression (うつ病）followed by unemployment（失業）, then failed businesses.

that's a large number of people... 　

Yesterday my mother in law called me to ask if she could come over for lunch as she thought I was alone at home the whole week. I told her I was in tokyo and she was quite shocked. haha. oops. but actually I think I mentioned to her, or Ryo did say, but they didn't really hear. I don't think I want her to come for lunch during the day, dinner is fine, cos I'm working, then I have to help her solve her PC problems during work time?? abit weird right... In the end I told her we're coming back on Saturday, maybe weekend then go over. hmm. i'm not ready for visitors! my house is a mess... and don't really know what to talk about with her. and she might comment on the mess and try to clean up my house. after cleaning up the place abit more then see how bah ...

dinner with Maya on tuesday, she brought me to a really great italian place at shibuya with cute waiters. the food was good, service was good, we had counter seats with the window to the kitchen so I could look in which was quite interesting. had dinner with MS pple on wednesday, had a lot of drinks & funny conversations and we planned a holiday to Akita in summer. :) probably going to drive up in a 7-seater.

went shopping with Manami yesterday and bought some dresses but in the end Zara suited me the most. :)

today dinner with capcom people again.. tmr singapore food at Ginza!

千八百零四： Coldstone Creamery

Dinner with Capcom pple today.

so happy to have met them! esp my previous team manager who always gets teased by me about his age and all. we had some good memories of him bringing me to fujitv then after that I brought them to the Singapore restaurant for dinner in tokyo. with Fukushima-san too. we had okinawan food at Lumine (very near the office) and before that Manami walked me to the dept store & waited with me. I finally managed to try the ice cream from Coldstone creamery! there was a new franchise at Lumine, when every where else had long queue, this was the only place where there was no queue! In Japan, maybe they go nuts over all things american, like Krispy Kreme, ColdStone is something I was happy to eat but not really to queue hours for.

hopefully some time to shop tomorrow. Maybe some Korean food for lunch and then Italian food for dinner with Maya at Shibuya. :D:D

I think I'm still living in the Singapore timezone. and I sleep late while Ryo lives in the JP timezone so he wakes up up earlier and my waking hours in the day are especially long... (T.T) so tiring..

千八百零三： Visa

went to change my visa to a long stay visa (currently holding temporary visitor 90 days social pass) this morning. the immigration office is in Kobe Sannomiya, (三宮）

japan visas are so complicated.
http://forum.gaijinpot.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15

there are visas, there are certificates of landing, certificate of eligibility etc etc. Super confusing. I almost applied for the certificate of eligibility when the lady at the counter said since I already entered on a tourist visa, i can just apply for a change of status. (time length shortened from 2-3 months wait to maybe a month.) great!!! was so worried about having to leave JP & restarting the application process ALL OVER AGAIN. I wished I had found the above site earlier though..

have to work thru the weekend again & going to be in Tokyo whole of next week :D pretty excited to be able to work in an office & see pple and go out to lunch again. hahaha

千八百零二： Breather

UAT began this week & haven't had time to breathe with all the housework + work.

the good thing about being at home is that I can do work wearing whatever I want and I can cook whatever I want to eat for lunch/dinner. the bad thing is I can't walk around to my colleagues to chat when I want to stretch my legs a little. :(

joining the gym soon, not these 2 weeks cos I'm up to my neck with work anyway.

been waking up at 6.30am every morning with Ryo because
1. the alarm clock is beside me
2. I have to cook him breakfast . consisting of rice / soup and something.

this morning i woke up at 5.30am in fact. cos he had to catch a flight to tokyo. its super tiring. and I'm wondering why he can't just take a sandwich for breakfast.

Met Maya on tues evening for dinner at Oyster Bar Chayamachi , went to Loft to walk around. reminded me of the last time i was there it was with Ayaka. :(
met onigiri for lunch this afternoon, maybe dinner also.

ok back to work

千八百零一： Settling In

Marriage isn't easy at all, especially if you are alone here.

Shopping for all the new stuff was fun, but when it came to the daily mundane living stuff, disagreements came up. (or should i say he showed his black face when I asked him to fix up the clothes rack ...) do I have to do everything?! then, it was hard to ask him to give me money to get the groceries even though he asked me to cook dinner... :(

but everything smoothed over last night. went to get more groceries, went to the bookstore after work a little to browse.. almost couldn't pay cos I had so little cash with me. he enjoyed dinner, he saw that I had done the laundry & vacuumed the house, guess he realised that i was putting in quite alot of effort. I can't wait for friends to visit though. There is such as thing as seeing too much of only each other .. more so for me since I'm in the house most of the time. I now kinda understand why my mom makes such a fuss about cleaning the kitchen, if it isn't yours you don't feel it, but i do get irritated when I have to step on sticky floor in the kitchen.

Really happy at all the people who pinged me on msn to keep me company throughout the day... else time crawls by.

my next door neighbour is an old auntie who is a little unfriendly.. another house sounds like they have 4 dogs. but the dogs are really quiet in the daytime though.

Photos of life in the new home here or in facebook if you're connected to me..

千八百： 新生活

Reached Japan this morning, thanks for coming down to the airport to send me off. the present touched me to tears, will flip through it every time I miss you guys. I want to post up pics of the polaroids but I haven't digitized them yet so maybe later. Shinji & Hiroki spent a final evening after work yesterday tmr with me to get a handcarry luggage at vivo, & I'm glad they did. i thought I had a lot of things to say when I hugged everyone goodbye, to just speak in their ear but in the end i just said "bye bye" .. I wont' forget the advice about kids though.

I think I was missing everyone already, because I had a dream about everyone in the office on the plane. I realised people in business class don't watch tv, no one else was watching the krisworld entertainment and the level of quiet & privacy is super super shiok. (besides having no kids on the plane) I think this is the first time i have felt like I didn't lack entertainment and time actually passed by too fast on the plane.

I reached here, didn't have any trouble with customs that I had thought I would, & I'm now in the new place. we went electronics shopping today, for the essentials first, and bought the fridge, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, ipod speaker alarm clock i've always always wanted, lights for the house, router.. we had to forfeit the tv for later since we had the 15" one and we had spent like >270000yen today already. after that went furniture shopping, bought the basic small table, clothes rack & other toiletries etc.


the night view


super tired now, tmr all the new appliances will come!

千七百九十九： thank you

thank you to all the people & friends who arranged the farewell meals, the surprise events, the presents & the luggage.

had a good dinner & time to myself the night before and finally completed the 3rd book. I actually quite liked book 3, but would have been happier with a more vivid description of how the evil vampire was killed. the killing scenes in the book is sorta non-descriptive (the line would always be like the person describing it thought it was too gory for the listener, ie Bella, so he just skipped the parts) and I would get a little irritated at that.

finally I've sent my office 荷物 by singpost today, 50kg in all by ship, maybe have to pay myself since the recipient is my home address. Thanks to my boss & Julius who very patiently helped me carry the boxes to the post office & then wrapped, taped & address the boxes..

finally I've checked in my luggage for my flight a day early as well, 63.7kg, 13.7kg in excess of the allowed 50kg. Luckily they only made me pay for 5kg (at $30 per kg it totally wasn't cheap but considering i had 14kg excess it was a good deal) and last minute, Shinji & Hiroki offered to come help me at about 7+ pm when I seemed to be panicking. It was a good thing they came over, I had 5 boxes & 1 suitcase in all, & dad didn't bring the trolley back so he wouldnt have been able to carry everything down by himself or just with me & mom helping. quite touched actually, they stayed until nearly midnite with me at the airport when I had to negotiate for them to waive the excess charges & to collect my boarding pass. (T.T) I think they are going to miss me as much as I miss them . almost burst into tears when we were eating dinner & they were poking fun at me about whether I would cry at the airport tomorrow.

I need to get a handcarry luggage tmr after work.
(T.T)
i don't want to leave.
really don't want to.

千七百九十八： Paintball

time been taken up for the past few days by
1. packing
2. reading the twilight series
3. farewells
4. making farewell gifts
5. gym (to work off the farewell dinners)

chongqing hotpot on friday night, 11 pple turned up, quite happy about it :)

went to paintball today, surprisingly about 18 pple turned up after all the cancellations last min by other pple. not bad! had quite a bit of fun, only time i really got hit was on the back of my head, caused me to keel over and could not move for a minute, cos it was like some one had thrown a glass marble at your head.

still procrastinating about packing... argh.

千七百九十七： break

feeling all weepy.

X said before I shouldn't record unhappy incidents here. cos it will then be remembered forever. so I won't write it, by the time I read this I would have forgotten what I was unhappy about before.

I think i need a long break from work. didn't have any honeymoon, so its like work . wedding, work. and moving. and then work.

千七百九十六： dreams

been busy with packing over the weekend.

weekdays I don't really know what I was doing.

monday - 妖怪村同窓会
tuesday - gym ..
wednesday - dinner with Jackie, ruixian, junli at marutama
thursday - gym with 吉岡さん at cathay
friday - surprise ktv farewell party by jimmy, kelly, julius, marini, christine & hiroki. really touched by the gesture and really was not expecting it.
saturday - packing (finally getting started) and then watching shopaholics with my cousin after dinner at Ichiban sushi.

finally got a little stuff completed .. think i'm about 80% packed.

how come the weekend went by so fast.

had a very strange dream last night, about a fren just drawing a toy dagger against my arm for fun but it ended up in a real deep cut. in his panic, he cut me a little more on the fingers and the blood just kept flowing. I felt faint in the dream and had to sit down and he was holding me in his arms saying "are u ok are u ok"i just kinda nodded weakly but the blood didn't show any sign of stopping. woke up feeling very breathless & eyes hurting. wonder what this all means..

千七百九十五： Repercussions

I thought I was ok but I am not.

the weekend left me with a heavier heart than before.

I finally broke down while trying to do up farewell cards for my friends.

Can someone please help me end this misery.

千七百九十四： Tired

this is a really tiring weekend.

I am glad we could help to settle the administrative matters for Ayaka though.

I really feel very sorry for her family. How they manage to do all these in grief. i will never understand. :(

千七百九十三： Packing

I just hate to pack.

& then having to unpack.

was trying to pack most of my desk today, and I realise in my attempt to be environment frenly, ie, using rough papers both sides from printouts that were unwanted, saving paper bags, etc, I have hoarded a lot of stuff on my desk and to decide what to throw away is so difficult.

how i miss the days akane was around to share half the rough paper usage with me.

she'll be back this saturday, I've offered her my couch to stay if she needed a place for about a week.

I have to start making time to meet friends and their farewell gifts as well.
so many things to do and I have zero mood to do...

千七百九十二： Marley & Me

I wonder.

I watched the movie with H today. The movie today was funny, but not a tear came to my eyes when the girl & the guy beside me started sniffing. I sat through it dry-eyed, but i enjoyed the movie alot. the dog (marley) was so so so cute, and the movie put me off both having a dog & kids. haha.

Saw trailers for so many other shows, Handsome Suit (ハンサムスーツ) etc. Don't know if I have enough time to watch them all?

Trying to organise a paintball session after the original organiser got mad at me. but getting a pretty good response so far. :)

procrastinating about packing. & I haven't cancelled my FF gym membership yet. only about.. 24 days left in sg.