Day 19, 20, 21 n 22 --- 漢人, 史上最強的民族

Wednesday is the fire drill day. Reached office at 10am, and realised that almost half the pple in the office were taking morning off. Just hang around for half and hour and with those who came to office in the morning, we went for a coffee break in Starbucks. Chose a good location to sit and see the school girls walking past.

Talk cock and drink coffee and immediately after the coffee break, we went for lunch early to avoid the lunch crowd. Went to eat 焼き肉. Very nice. Just cook the meat and eat the rice, but ya, i think they marinated the meat so it tasted good.

In the afternoon, shifted seat. After shifting, the computer cant connect to the network and basically I cant do anything. So just slack around, buy snack to eat, wait for the IT support guy to settle the computer and so on. Ya, by the time he's done, and I finished up with my work, it's already 1930 and left office. Went to eat some very erxin 担担面. This is the pic. Dinner at 8, can see my fat hand
Thursday, boss took leave for thu and fri cos his brother from Finland is here to visit him. ya. So basically nothing much to do these 2 days. Again, hang around in office, read some guidelines and instructions of the company. Read till super sleepy, but then cannot sleep also. My new position is not as "风水" as the old one. The new position is nearer to the big shots and many pple walking past, cant sleep also.... haiz...

Anyway wait till 6pm and i left office. Really nothing much to do and ate Curry Rice as dinner. It's nice. Compensate for the previous day lousy meal.
Friday, this is the day my sister is reaching Japan. It is also results day. The whole morning cant do anything cos keep worrying for results. Finally gotta check it at 1pm Japan time. ya, it's good. Lucky, just that my Engineering Professionalism screwed things up, stupid Chew Chye Heng....

As for the afternoon, had been planning how to fetch my sister. In case you all dunno, Narita Airport which is the International Airport serving Tokyo is actually damn damn damn far away. Wanted to ask my sis to travel to Tokyo from Narita and I meet her up in Tokyo. But then she's like direction and navigation idiot and insist me to fetch her, so ya, bo bian gotta go... The worse is the last train out of Narita is 2242 and her plane arriving at 2125, any delay would mean we gotta stay a night in Narita, which is some 乡下 la... Damn... My little room is actually very cosy.

Ya, so after work, took train to Narita. Left office at 1925, change trains dunno 2-3 times. In the ride, slept and woke up. Took out psp and play till low batt still haven't reached. Then took a photo in the train.
It's really a very tiring journey. ANywya, reach Narita airport at 2135, my sis's flight is delayed. wah biang.... Lucky she came out of the custom at 2210 like that, so ya, still on course for the last train.

Cos it's the last train, i also cant remember how many trains we changed in order to get back home. Anyway ya, reach Gotanda and then went for dinner and finally reached home at 0230. Very tiring. This is what we ate. i like th meat, quite good food.


And my sister.... So in the end, the fetching my sister process took 7 hours. DAmn xiong la.

Saturday, intended to sleep till wake up without any disturbance as Friday is very tiring. But was waken up by my sis at 10am... So on the computer and search the internet to plan the day's programme.

First stop to 靖国神社. This is the place where the japanese soldiers who died in WW2 were being remembered or wateva shit la. Koizumi used to pay visit to this shrine frequently and angered the China govt a lot. Anyway this is it.

Somehow, when i saw the japanese pple paying respect to all the f***-up soldiers, so sincerely and so respectful, somehow this 无名的怒火 just burst out from inside. I can now understand why 胡锦涛 and 温家宝 they all so angry when Koizumi keeps going there. Really, as a 汉人, I think from the time that 明朝 ended till 1945, it was really a very dark chapter in our history. I am really proud to be 漢人 because we are able to withstand dunno how many massacres from the Manchus and Japs and still, we are now still one of the World Powers as of now. As Chinese, I think we should really try to learn, understand and appreciate our own cultures and values, because i do think that it's the best. There's no need to copy other's such as those blackies, Japs or westerns. Anyway, try to appreciate the Japanese architecture there bah...
This is me at the main entrance. And below is the shrine's main building.
This is the display of the basic equipment of a WW2 jap solider. Real sample. Got mess-tin, water bottle, SBO and so on...
The photo below is the locomotive of the train for the death railway... They called it the thai-burma railway. And also some fighter plane, dunno is it zero-fighter or not.

So ya, finally, it's some very jap style wishes in the shrine.
After Yakusuni shrine, the next stop is Tokyo University. The symbol of Tokyo University is the red gate. And this is it. Somehow, there is no anything to say that it's Tokyo U, so i just took a pic of the road sign in front.
And below is the Red Gate.
Went inside to walk walk and take a look.Every lamp-post there seems to have this TOkyo University stickers.
And ya, below seems to be their main building.
Ok, next stop, went to Tokyo Dome. Seems to have some baseball match in the evening, so the place is really crowded. Anyway there is this amusement park beside Tokyo Dome. Wanted to try the roller coaster there, but it's not running due to the rain. This is the picture of the track. It climbs over the shopping center lor...
And it also go thru the center of the ferris wheel. The ferris wheel is without axis. Don't ask me how it turns, it's just another piece of magnificent engineering.
Last stop, my sis wanna go tokyo tower, so I am there for the second time. Managed to reach there before turning dark. So just another photo from the tower in the day. Over-view of Tokyo.
Stayed there till 8+ in the night. Very very very tiring day. Walked a lot of distance. knee damn pain. Anyway, went to eat curry rice again, cos i think the curry is good.
More walk around tmr!!!

Day 17 n 18

Ya, so 18 days had passed since I left home.

After the Sunday out with Junsheng and friends, these 2 days seems so normal. Like any other working days. Morning wake up, eat breakfast, go work, eat lunch, leave office, eat dinner and go home.

Anyway, monday morning, JS they all came to my place at 7am to retrieved their backpacks and continued their journey to Sapporo in Hokkaido. When they came, they bought Mac breakfast for me as well. So nice of them. haha.

Watched "Last Friends" while having breakfast and then went to work. Lunch ate alone at the canteen again cos got a meeting at 1pm. bla bla bla and left office at 1900, decided to eat 天丼. That means rice with tempuras. I also ordered half-boiled egg to go along with it. So it is it.

The 天丼 tasted quite good. Altogether cost 840yen, which is around S$10.50. After meal, went home, watched the FujiTV drama "CHANGE" by Kimura Takuya at 9pm. After that continued with Smap x Smap and that's my day...

Tuesday is even more plain as there is no Mac breakfast. Again, go office bla bla. Lunch ate together with colleagues at "陳麻家" which is a chinese restaurant and the 小二 inside actually spoke Mandarin.

Afternoon was told by my boss that I need to shift place in the office... Sian... gotta shift computer and everything also. My desk is already so messy. The reason that I need to shift is to accommodate some representative from the China Suppliers. Anyway the new desk had no internet connection yet, so shifting tmr instead....

Talking about tmr, i think morning will be going out for a walk with other colleagues as all of them wanna siam some fire drill tmr.

So, keep on working and then left office at around 1900. Wanted to ate something special. A bit sick of Jap food, so went to eat Wendy's Burger instead. It is quite nice as they played 90s rock in Wendy's, like "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis. So high, one of my favourite songs.

Ya, so below is the burger and the cheese fries. The cheesy fries is so much better than the KFC's. They mixed with the meaty gravy of spaghetti and melted cheese. 美味い.
After dinner, went home and checked letter box. Yay, received the parcel from yh. There are $2 and $10 stamps on it. Rare right?
So i can start self-learning Japanese now.

Day 15 and 16 --- A Good Weekend

This is my 3rd weekend in Tokyo, 1st weekend was more of settling down and getting to know the place. 2nd weekend I was like sick and slept through it, so this is the third and I will be ROAMING around. haha!!

So I was supposed to go to a colleague's place for BBQ. But before that, had been coughing quite badly for a week, feared that it might worsen to something bad, so I went to see doctor in the morning. The way they operate is that you will go for consultation with the doctor, he told you what medicine you would need and you will go to the pharmacy which is another place, to purchase the medicine. Anyway, the doctor is more 細心 here, I told him I'm coughing for a week and he checked everything, saw my nostrils, my ears, clear two big earwax for me, see the throat and scan my lung. Together with the medicine, it cost me S$180+. Very expensive. Don't get sick in Japan. So these are the medicines, just like what you see on TV, Japanese style.
After that, took the train to my colleague's place, which is near Yokohama. Would need to change train 3 times before getting to the station. The interchange is at Shinagawa and Kawasaki. The shinagawa station has 26 platforms, super confusing.

When I reached the station, slowly walked to his place. And saw kids playing baseball. So Japan.
At my colleague's place, his wife prepared Japanese style food for us. really very nice. And we have the 燒肉(BBQ) in japanese style. Anyway it's a very good meal. And for the rest of the day, we were playing Wii at his place cos it had been raining very heavily outside. Played until 2230 and left, reached home was already 2330. washed up sleep.

Sunday morning woke up and went to Tokyo Union Church. Missed service the previous week due to illness so ya, this is my second time there. After that, contacted and met junsheng, they left their luggage at my place, had simple lunch and we head to Harajuku to see the cosplay pple.
So there is this bridge(神宮橋) where all the cosplay pple will hangout on weekend.

ya, so to me these pple are weirdos and nothing better to do. But I think they really put in a lot of effort making up, so decided to take a few photos with them. ya. Anyway I am wearing the same clothes as the one I went to Tokyo Tower, cos it seems like the only casual shirt I have, so since it's sunday and supposed to dress nicer for church, so it's this shirt again. Who cares... Anyway, some photos of the cosplay pple.
Second from the right is Junsheng, he thought the one will silver hair is damn cool, so he took a photo with this gang.
Dunno whether cant zoom the picture or not. I think the girl in black at the center is actually quite chio. Below photo that girl is supposed to be quite cute, but then dunno why appear not so good in the photo.
Like very chubby and swollen like that. Ya, we realised that actually the photo of these cosplay pple without us are better. So a photo of them without us inside.
Can see the effort they put into dressing up. After that, we walked down the Harajuku to Omote-sando. Junsheng's gf is an architecture student and she said that the Prada shop in Harajuku is a very famous building is the architecture world. That's why we were heading there. This is the Prada Glass-house.
After visiting this place, we went back to the Harajuku station and follow the train track to Shibuya which is 1 stop away. Anyway on the way to Shibuya, saw a group of Elvis crazy, all comb the aeroplane hairstyle and jamming in front of a park. They got there by some Harley and stupid cars also. Some photos.
Just don't understand why there are so many such type of funny things in Japan. Their culture. Very soon, we've reached Shibuya. There are really a lot of chiobus in Shibuya, but then dunno how to take picture of them... So, just dream about it. haha. But this is Shibuya.
Look nice right?
Can see the Shibuya 109 building? This definitely look very japanese. I think this place is one of Tokyo's landmark. The 109 building is the one at the center of the photo, red numbers. Inside that building, the girls really wear very short skirts, really alot of pretty girls.

So had a rest at some coffee place and head back to the station.
The dog below is the so-called guardian of Shibuya. Can check the story at wikipedia.
So we took the train to Shinjuku for the night. YEAH! 3 stops away. Went to this place called Omoide-yokochou(memory lane) aka piss alley for dinner. Ate Yakitori again, yaohui's favourite.
So the green signboard above is the kanji for Omoide-yokochou. Below is the food. Junsheng ordered beer which is 600yen, AND IT IS 1 BOTTLE. CHEAP!!

After dinner, just walked around. Went to 歌舞伎町 (kabukichou), which is supposed to be the red-light district. But it is really safe there, can see family walking there as well. Not as erxin as geylang.

It's mainly a normal street with eateries and shops. Of course those dirty one as well, but as long as you don't enter those shops, nothing is going to happen to you. Anyway more photos from Shinjuku, another landmark of Toyko.
And the below photo is the 9 floor kinokuniya that i was talking about previously. Cannot get the angle correct, so ya, just the signboard.
A nice weekend. 3rd week of internship ahead. Ganbatte!!

Day 12, 13, 14 --- Reality of Japan

Yup, so Wednesday, mid-week. Needed smth to recharge so to carry on for the rest of the week. It's also the day for ECC final in Moscow. As I mentioned previously, after work I was going to play badminton. So here's some picture of the gym/court, and my hairy fat leg. A lot of people were playing there, and you need to follow certain unspoken rule there. As 后辈, you cannot play at the court where all the 前辈 played. No matter of skills level. Of course the 前辈 are more skilled and so on, but even you are skilful, you will be stucked with the other 后辈. ya...


Anyway, i think i have not played badminton for ages. Cant even hit the ball properly, so ya, caused my friend to lose a lot of matches. Feel a bit bad. Anyway that's not impt, the impt thing was that my friend (call him foo from now on) actually twisted his knee when landing after a smash. biang, can hear the "pop", and from my experience, I know that's it.... ACL ACL ACL ACL....

Helped him to the courtside, gotten some ice and applied the famous SAF "RICE" technique. In case you all dunno, it's Rest, Ice, Compression/Compact, Elevate. The staff in the gym were very helpful, they keep checking on foo's condition. Get him to the office and then started to contact different hospital. This is the time when the ugly side of Japan surfaced.

I think most of us had read from newspaper that Japanese Hospital are damn notorious for turning away patient in A&E. No matter how bad or urgent the situation is. They would not like to take up responsibility and thus rejecting emergency case, especially pregnant women giving birth. I think like sometime last year, some man died after being rejected by 30+ hospitals in Tokyo. And it caused some uproar but nothing had changed. So the staff at the gym started contacting different hospital to no avail. Only after 1.5 hours of calling, then a hospital was willing to accept foo. ya, it's that bad... Anyway from the time when foo got injured, there was another singaporean whom both of us dunno, but was also playing badminton in the gym, helped us translate to the gym staff. He is kind enough to follow foo to the hospital and I went home after they boarded the taxi. Lucky the doctor diagnosed that nothing was torn and it's just a strain or twist and some wear on meniscus.

Ya, so it left the gym at 2240, and on the way home, ate at some so called "中華料理" and ordered some crab meat fried rice. It is actually not bad. Got the 炒飯's 火候味 and 鍋氣. This is it.
That night was ECC final, and it was aired on FujiTV, a free-to-air channel. Channel 5 should really buck up. Something interesting is that when they showing the team-list, it's in Katagana, macham playing winning eleven like that.
I actually thought Chelsea played better and would deserve to win... But it seems destined to be Man Utd's year. As arseblog said, it's a c**t affair. But still feel Avram Grant deserved something, he had performed very well under that type of pressure. Oh, anyway Japan is not called "Land of the Rising sun" for nothing. During the match, I realised that the outside sky is already damn freaking bright at around 0415. Land of the Rising Sun.

Thursday was another normal working day, finished work ate dinner went home. Slept early that night due to the late night football. This is the pork version of 牛丼. Had it in 松屋, something like 吉野屋(yoshinoya).
Friday, that evening is the welcome party for me. YAY. Company's $$. Sounds good right, vacation intern also got welcome party. Actually not the case, cos on the same day I joined Nokia, some finland guy was transferred to Tokyo as well, so the welcome party is more of for him, but somehow my name was mentioned as well. Ya. haha.

So dinner was at some buffet restaurant which served Indian and vietnamese food. Erm, since when these 2 styles can mixed. Dunno la. Anything the food was not fantastic, so went for 续摊 at some Jap-style shop. Ate sashimi there, and some other jap style fingerfood. Drank those warm sake there also. Totally dun like it. very bad. Anyway, tt meal was treated by the working pple again. haiz... feels bad, everytime go out with them, they'll treat me....

Anyway tmr is weekend again. Yay, going to 1 of the colleagues' place for BBQ and some wii session. Sunday, one of my uni friend, junsheng, will be in tokyo for holiday. should be meeting him. So ya, that's it for these 3 days.