July 22-24 --- Life after chris, mingyang n qiuling left

So ya, back to office after all my friends had left... Lost count of how many day I have been in Japan and dun bother to count back... so ya

Nothing much happened on tuesday, another normal day in office. Doing my usual stuff of tearing down mobile phones and writing reports. Somehow these few days had lost all my appetites. Dun have the feeling of eating... So I tried to walk home from office after work, hopefully will feel hungry but it did not help.

Wednesday, my boss asked me to go to some WIRELESS JAPAN 2008 show in Odaiba.... My boss want me to go there, observe the new trend of mobile and wireless communication, then come back write a report. Everything there is in Japanese and nobody bothered to explain to me in english as I am just a small fry. Felt so miserable there... one of the random picture of the fair.

And I forced myself to listen to a talk by some engineer in NTTDocomo. NTTDocomo is the largest mobile operator in Japan, there were developing some Super 3G service. The whole presentation is in Japanese, but i think i can catch around 20-30% of wat he said. haha...

Thursday is my boss last day in office. He is taking 2 weeks of summer vacation so I wont be seeing him again as he will only return after i come back... so ya, he said farewell to me then i thank him for the opportunity also. But i will still keep contact with him since i working for them for my FYP.

After work, it's football. First time i got invited to it. First time playing with Finns, Japanese, Koreans, Spanish and English also... Heard that the spanish is good. A photo before we start with the Korean posing.
The europeans are so big size and their legs so long, it makes it a bit easy to lobang them. HAHA. It's also rather easy to thru-pass them, but they are rather physical. But ya, ENJOYABLE GAME. so happy that can play football in Japan...

Day 59-64 --- Christopher & Mingyang is here...

Monday was supposed to play basketball after work... It was canceled cos not enough pple. Went to have dinner at some 居酒屋 with a few of the colleagues because one of them is having his last day on friday.

Tuesday, chris and mingyang reached tokyo. went to pick them up and both of them staying with me. This is how they squeezed at night.

They brought a bottle of bailey to my place and finished it in 2 days. 死酒鬼.
Anyway the both of them went to 秋葉原 for 3 days in a row. siao man... So basically they will walk around on their own in the morning and I'll meet them for dinner at night. ya..

Friday as mentioned earlier, is one of the koreans' last day in Nokia Japan, so there is this farewell dinner. Everyone was so crazy and drunk in the party. Took a few photos of the havoc...
A very happy boss and the korean, Yang-san, who is leaving.
Another Korean presenting a gift to Yang-san.
Saturday woke up, let chris and mingyang go out on their own so that i can prepare for some interview on Monday. When i was done with the preparation and went out to meet them, there was this heavy downpour. Never see such heavy rain in tokyo yet man... scary... And together with the wind, the rain fall at every direction. Even you have an umbrella, u will still get all wet. Was trapped inside a carpark by the roadside and took these photos.

And also a video of the rain...



So no choice, wait for rain to stop then went back home... Didn't meet up with chris they all outside. Never mind... Going kyoto and osaka tonight. yay!

Day 52-58 --- Yokohama

So it's dunno my how many days in Japan sia... The working week was again very routine. Nothing interesting really happening. There were a few highlights in the weekday, just briefly go thru them.

1) Got my Alien Registration Card, something to prove the identity of foreigners staying in Japan.
2) Bought a 8GB microSDHC card for only 4150yen, around S$55. Now my N82 can serve as a MP3 player. YAY.
3) Follow a colleague to buy a LV bag as birthday gift for his wife. My passport was used so the duty fee can be waved. First time really entering such branded shop and getting stuff from there...

Ok, so on friday, had dinner with the Taiwanese supplier and sg colleague in Shibuya. After dinner, on the way home, saw this watermelon in cube shape. I saw this on tv before, it's to save space when packing and transporting. But it is the first time seeing it "live". haha.

Saturday we decide to go to Yokohama to walk. Yokohama is the 3rd largest city in Japan, after Tokyo and Osaka. It is 30min away from Tokyo only, serving as a port to Tokyo as well. So to go to Yokohama, needa take a train from Shinagawa Station. This shinagawa is really big, just a photo of the station.
Reach Yokohama station after like 20minutes train ride and had lunch at a fast-food restaurant. The Taiwanese supplier just snap a shot of the waitress when i was ordering my food. Quite cute right...
After that, we took another train to the Chinatown of Yokohama. This is the largest Chinatown in Japan. Before that, the taiwanese snapped another shot when me and the sg senior walked out from Mac.
The entrance gate to Chinatown.
This Chinatown is pretty big. As the Taiwanese's hobby is to take photo of anything, these are 2 random shots of a chiobu crossing the road.
You know you are in Chinatown when you see this.... It cant be Japan, must be china...
And to the Japanese, China is just Panda and Bruce Lee. So everywhere in Chinatown, you'll see bruce lee stuff and panda.
And Hello-Kitty in panda outfit, which i think is quite cute.
I think any chinatown in the world is about FOOD. Whenever you see this 4 words in Japan, 食べ放題, it means buffet. All you can eat. And this particular restaurant is endorsed by 長澤まさみ. Think yaohui will like to eat this man...
And this restaurant remind me of 李南星 in 黃金路.
I dunno whether anyone know this or not. As long as u rub the side of this basin of water, when it reach resonance, the water will really vibrate vigorously and gave out some special sound...

Another thing is that in Japan, you always see young pretty girl dating ugly old ojisan. Seems like they cannot resist the temptation of $$ sia... 2 shots taken by the Taiwanese again.

So, as we walk and walk, we've left Chinatown and reached the seaside.
Yokohama is quite western style because the westerners used to stay here in the 19th century to trade and so on. It's the gateway of Japan and the Western countries in the Meiji Era. And it's me!!!
Another random shot of chiobu eating 肉包. Even eating bun also so gracious... But the bf like quite ugly....


Just a few pictures of the seaside. Can see windmill, an alternative source of energy and also suspension bridge. Very engineering related stuff.
This is me, having a photo in front of the map of how olden Yokohama's layout is like. By the way, Yokohama is 横浜.
Me and the Taiwanese supplier.
On this particular bridge, there is this grass slope where pple will slide on it. Very fun to play with. It's a very relaxing place, can let out of the stress you suffered in Tokyo for the week. Me and the sg senior lying on the grass slope.

An attempt to act cute by me.
Another random shot of chiobu at the same place.
So we just spent the day there and at night, we slowly walked and proceed to the place where the ferris wheel is. This is the place where there are quite a few thrill rides. We took this roller coaster.
And I also enter a room where the temperature is -30deg. Can only stay there for around 5min... Then we have dinner there as well. Dun really know the name of the food, only know that it's some 関西, Kansai region, food. After the meal, saw some street performance. The man were juggling fire torch and blowing them and eating the fire. Paid him some $$ for his effort after his performance.

Sunday, woke up pretty late. Attend the 1330 church service at Tokyo Baptist church which is in Daikan-yama, 代官山. After which, went to have a haircut at QB house, which was located in some subway station and saw these.

The special thing about these drawings is that they were drawn using Solidworks. Solidwork is the 3D-drawing software that we learnt in NUS. Pretty impressive. They have a collection of it and displaying at the station.

And took a photo using my N82 while waiting for lift. This is how Japanese apartment looks like. Can also see a reflection of me, HAHA.
Anyway, Christopher and Mingyang are coming on Tuesday. YAY!

Day 45 to 51

Monday is another normal day at the office. After work, went for basketball with the pple in nokia. The court was being booked weeks ago, but sue to many reasons, the response was really poor. Only 4 pple, including me, went. Reached there, had shoot-around for 1.5 hours. That was the most boring 1.5 hours i ever had man. Come on, playing a sport that I dun particularly liked with 3 other pple that i dunno well. Finally, we were so bored that we decided to ask the pple in the next court whether they wanna play together. And yes, we played a 5 v 5 full-court with them which was quite interesting.

Tuesday nothing much happen. Wednesday is the FYP list being released. Check the list of projects available, all seems quite boring like that. Nothing much happening.

Thursday went to the gym at 3rd floor of the office building. As nokia employee, you become member of that gym by some corporate plan. that gym is supposed to be very high class, with monthly membership fee around S$150 at least and another 1000+yen per entrance. So ya, went there with a sg colleague and did some workout. The good thing about the gym there is that there is a meter in front of every machine indication the speed and range that u shld be lifting the weights. ya, lifting at the right speed and range make you exceptionally tired and ache. Oh, the running and cycling machines all have a tv attached, so u can watch it when exercising.

Friday after work went to Shinjuku to walk around again. Ate this rice wrapped in egg and gyoza set. Whenever i was in shinjuku, I can hear a lot of HK pple speaking cantonese there. seems like a lot of hk pple like to tour japan. Then when i was eating the gyoza and rice set in this eating place, there were this family of hk pple came in. They sat down and look at the menu. Then the mother said smth like this "tt jap young man's gyoza like not bad." Feel like turning around and tell them I same birthplace as them one... Sianzz... Anyway the dinner is quite nice.

Saturday morning met a sg colleague, lee, and the taiwan supplier to go to Tsukiji Fish MArket together. We met at 9am which is pretty late, so cannot see any interesting action and pple preparing and processing fish in the market. Anyway, this is the famous Tsukiji Fish Market that handled 2000tonnes of seafood daily...

The plant used to make wasabi.
One of the guy processing the head of a Tuna. Tuna is huge.
This is the liver of dunno wat fish.
General view of Tsukiji Market. There are many many lanes like these.
This is some fish sperm, look like liver right? who would eat that....

anyway inside the market, it's damn busy. Folk-lift, trailers, cart, wateva... all sort of mini motor vehicles are driving thru those small lanes to transport the seafood. Tourists like us really very hard to walk around, like blocking and interfering with their job like that. No wonder they banned tourists from visiting the Tuna Auction... sian...

Anyway walked a round inside the market and then went to one of the many sushi stores just outside to have sushi... This is the set that I ordered. YAY

After the meal, it's still only 11am and damn early, so decided to go to Odaiba together. This odaiba is a reclaimed island. Got quite a few attractions there, but mainly shopping places. This is me and lee at Odaiba.
Me inside some shop trying some funny specs.
There are a lot of museums and shops showcasing their newest technology. There is this sony gallery with all their latest released and conceptual ideas. no photo allowed. There is also this very big Toyota showroom where you can do a lot of things inside. THey have this theatre to simulate actual racing condition, and several other games based on driving. A photo with a toyota concept car.
A random photo of Fuji TV station. Didn't manage to see Kimura Takuya there. haha.
Anyway japan really like to copy everything man. This is the statue of liberty in Odaiba.
After that, we spent quite some time in Toysrus. There are a lot of amazing toys that singapore doesn't have. But what is more interesting about the TOyrus trip is that i can see a lot of cute japanese kids around. so funny. They are damn short and chubby. Have some snack in the afternoon.

Me eating ice-cream.
Went to this place to have fries also. The hot dog angle very weird right, make the hot dog look like something else....
Anyway, Odaiba is quite interesting. Stayed there all the way till dinner time and we had this western buffet for dinner. The scenes from the restaurant is very nice. As Odaiba is a reclaimed island off Tokyo, it's connected by this suspension bridge called "Rainbow bridge". The night scene from Odaiba.

And when the sky is even darker.
Just when we finished our meal and about to leave at around 10pm, say this wedding nearby. Just snapped a pic cos the bride seems quite chio. too bad cant see clearly in the photo.
Had a fun saturday, so sunday is normal. Went church, go home do household chores and rest and so on... Tonight is the Euro 2008 final, let's hope for a good match man.