Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Just in time
ON DEC 24 11.37PM (FUKUOKA TIME), MELANIE RECEIVED HER GREATEST AND MOST VALUABLE CHRISTMAS PRESENT. SHE WANTED TO SCREAM BUT SHE COULDN'T. NOW SHE'S TOO HAPPY AND EXCITED TO SLEEP.
;D
Santa-san is coming!
Be glad that I left the previous family, if not I wouldn't even blogging now. I'll probably be having the worst christmas ever instead.
That's ゆうすけ
That's mama's family! Mama's in the middle of the front row. And lil bro's wearing the santa hat. Manage to spot them? Haha. Papa's not in the picture cos he's so busy at work. I only saw him for few minutes this morning and that's the first time I saw him. Ok, actually its 2nd time cause Alien/Terrorist Igarashi introduced me to him during the 3rd Lions Club Party.
Anyway, we had christmas dinner there just now. They's all so nice and it's been so long since I met such people. Not exaggerating. Why didn't they just assign me to this family since day 1 in Tokyo?! Then I wouldn't have spent 10 ten days complaining to everyone I can.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Lucky, DANE!
I went to 2 onsen in Tokyo but, no onsen in Tokyo can measure up to the one at Yufuin :(
And no sunset in Tokyo is more beautiful than the one we saw in Oita!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Who really matters
Who never did
Who won't matter anymore
And who always will
So, don't worry about people from your past
There's a reason why they didn't make it to your future
Treasure and love those before you
Seize every moment where you can be happy
and make others feel the same
That’s what truly counts
THATS SO NOT TRUE BECAUSE I REALLY MISS MY FAMILY IN FUKUOKA LIKE HELL AND I SWEAR TO GO BACK THERE NEXT YEAR AFTER THE DAMN A LVLS! IF NOT FOR SCH, I'LL PROBABLY BUY A TICKET AND FLY THERE ON THE 27TH DEC!
btw, i dont think im gonna blog abt tokyo because nth here is worth mentioning about. nothing can compare to my days in fukuoka. anyway i won a pair of tix to disneysea so van and i are hoping that we can go together. thats probably the only thing good that may happen in tokyo.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Familiar faces
At Fukuoka Prefecture. Lions meeting! It was torturous listening to all the welcome speeches cause we were all bursting with stuff to tell each other!
The aquarium is super cool. It's like an illusion. And we're all waiting for the super slow van. She's always late!
On a lunch cruise! More of a camwhore cruise though lol.
Shopping at Tosu Premium Outlets (its like a replica of Rinku Premium Outlets in Osaka). It was so difficult trying to take this photo cause i had to carry my coat and the 2 huge bags and the camera of course.
Ten! And that marks the end of the day =(
Monday, December 8, 2008
No such thing as routine
But I'm not gonna blog about it now cos I wanna off the comp liao. So just 1 picture for the time being!
HEHE ;D Happy waiting.
YUKI!
(I'm really too lazy to blog liao and somemore it's already 11.20pm now. So just pictures and captions)
THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: SNOW! It was 3 degrees I think. Totally FREEZING.
Hikaru's so cute!! He's trying to lick the snow lol! (He's on the left of the picture)
Hikaru's school performance in the morning! Try spotting him. Haha.
Ikebana in the afternoon.
Other people in the class.
That's mine. If you recognise, this is the same room as the sado room. Cause, grandma's also the teacher for ikebana. Haha. I had to carry Hikaru and Haruki's coat (cause they left behind their coats) plus this heavy pot of flower plus my bag home. OMG damn heavy.
It took us so long to make this kusudama origami!!!!!!!! IT REALLY TESTED MY PATIENCE TO THE MAX! Met with like a thousand obstacles before completing it. Argh. But I'm so proud of it, duh :D
Playing with christmas stuff (actually supposed to do homework haha!)
I'm not even halfway done blogging
In the morning, went to DVD rental shop with papa-san. He chose Indiana Jones and I chose this Japanese horror movie. Then went home to watch the horror movie. It's not very scary, just that papa kept scaring me at all the climax and suspense part.
Went to this High School (I can't remember the name off-hand) for lunch and stayed there for 2 - 3 hours. Met some cheena students and this Australian girl (Kimberly) who came to Japan to study for 7 months already. She's gonna leave in a few months time.
By the way, it was SO COLD (like 6 degrees) on Friday that I was freezing in the school. It's so cold cause it's gonna snow the next day.
Feeling lazy to update
In the morning, went to Canal City with mama-san to shop for presents for the kids we're meeting during Friday's dinner. The christmas deco there is kirei!
Ate Macs for lunch cos we were rushing for time. After eating, you supposed to clear the tray and rubbish yourself.
Went to Haruki's school in the afternoon. I forgot if I mentioned before that he's primary 3. Haha. Their lessons are so different! They spent half an hour reading out letters that their friends wrote to them. Oh and the teacher is so biased! That's probably typical of a teacher.
That's outside the school. Oh and the shoes he's holding, that's what they have to wear in school. In Japan, everytime you enter any building or whatever, you have to remove your shoes and change into slippers or just walk in your socks. Kind of mafan huh.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
It must be tough being a Geisha
Sado (tea ceremony) lesson today from 10am to 12pm!
AND I WORE A KIMONO!
It’s really a skill to know how to put on a kimono correctly. There’re like millions of layers and must tie here and there. So you can imagine how uncomfortable and heavy it is to be wearing a kimono.
Grandma and her 2 students. The guy learnt sado for 7 or 9 years (oops I forgot). The girl learnt for 2 years. And this is the sado room. It’s designed by papa-san! He’s an architect by the way. This room is beside his office and this whole building belongs to him.
Snacks for sado. The snacks change with the season. This is for autumn.
Here’s the message of the day: SADO IS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING ON EARTH!
Every single movement and position has to be so precise. You have to do everything at the same slow pace. Basically, you’re supposed to prepare tea for everyone seated there. Making one bowl of tea takes like 10 -15 minutes.
The girl went first, then the guy, and then it was my turn to try! It’s quite fun when you’re the one doing it. But it totally sucks being the one waiting. I don’t know how the Japs can sit in that position (see 1st picture) for so long and their legs not even numb. I almost died!!
**
Lunch at home. Ate champon (noodle soup), which is a main/popular food in
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3.40pm: Pick Hikaru up at school
4.00pm: Send Hikaru to
**
Grocery shopping for dinner at supermarket. Hikaru bought 3 Tamagochi chocolates. Haha so cute.
**
Haruki and I made kusudama origami. We figured out for such a long time because the instructions are so vague! And its in jap so I can’t even read what it says. But we finally got it and we split the work by my favourite – specialisation. Haha! Haruki fold everything, and then I do the last few steps which is the trickiest and hardest. We’re gonna continue and finish up the kusudama tomorrow! Must make 36 of that cone-like thing. Now, we have 23.
**
I’m typing this on MS Word cause it’s 12.15am now and I can’t go online. Im too lazy to anyway. So I’ll just post this online tomorrow maybe, when I’m free. More fang bian this way.
Okay, time to sleep liao. I haven’t lay out the bed yet.
Nato = yucks
In the morning, I helped Hiraku change into his school uniform. I’ll take a photo of him in his cute school uniform one of these days.
11.30am: went to Bookstore Aoi with mama-san. I bought 2 books.
You don’t get such book covers/wrappers in
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Lunch at Genki Sushi. It’s a kaiten sushi shop (conveyor belt sushi).
This is how it works:
1) Order your food using the touch-screen system (see picture below)
2) Wait for your food to arrive on the conveyor belt. There will be a number plate of your table number on the belt. Take your food which is behind the number plate. You can also take food that are not behind any number plates.
3) Eat your sushi in 1 mouthful.
1 yellow plate of sushi = 105 yen
Chawanmushi and anything on red plate = 157 yen
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After lunch (around 1.30pm), we went to Hikaru’s kindergaten. He finishes school at 2.30pm. So while waiting for him, Kanago (a teacher there) and Leo (her husband) brought me around the school. The kids in
Oh, I also watched the kids practise their dance items for their performance on Saturday. I’m going to watch the performance cos Hikaru’s gonna perform too! I can’t wait! :D
The boys dancing some kind of hip-hop.
And the girls with their traditional jap dance.
The girls keep leaning and sticking to me! Hahaha!
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After picking Hikaru up from school, sent him to this private school for lessons. This time, it’s purely the studying type.
In the evening, I stayed at home while mama-san took Hikaru and Haruki to the doctor for Influenza jab. They came home with a sticker on their injection spot on the arm. Haha!
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Okonomiyaki for dinner! Vanessa and I ate it in
Itadakimas!
Kimonos! Cool right?
Try guessing the one below lol.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Second, third.
But there are only pictures from Day 2 onwards because the Day 1 pictures are in the SD Card which somehow cannot be read.
At Dazaifu, visiting Kyushu National Museum. That's Haruki (older) and Hikaru (younger). There's so cute! Haruki is super well behaved but Hikaru's a little spoilt and naughty. Haha. He likes to sa jiao.
That's mama-san Tomoko!
Ohori Park in Fukuoka. I was there from 11.30am to 1pm today by myself. Because the kids went to school, grandma went to doctor cause she got sore throat, papa-san went to work and mama-san went to the bank. Mama-san drove me to the town hall first to get maps of Kyushu and Fukuoka before dropping me off at the park. I walked 1 whole round around the park, which is damn huge!
Students jogging at the park! OMG I will just die if I'm them. Oh wait, I'll just pon PE! Haha.
Ok I need to go bathe liao. It's already 9.45pm!
It's around 10 degrees in the morning and night. In the afternoon, it is around 15-20 degrees. But my hands are always freezing cold. Haha! I hate to bathe because I'll just start shivering after bathing. It's freaking cold.
Made dumplings with mama-san and the boys for dinner. And I helped mama-san cook dinner today. I realised that there are 4 types of miso! Cool.
I sleep at 12am and wake up at 8am everyday. SO TIRED! ZZZ.
Oh before i end this post, here's a glimpse of my room.
The blankets are so freaking heavy I have a hard time tidying the bed every morning and laying out everything at night.
Thats all for today. Oyasuminasai (goodnight)! :D
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Strange feeling
It all started when we were waiting to collect our luggages at the conveyor belt. Then my luggage took very very long to finally appear. AND THEN, THE NEXT THING I REALISED WAS: ONE OF THE LUGGAGE WHEEL CAME OFF! Omg can. So I reported to the airport people there. And they told me to wait for them outside that place. But the moment van and i went out, we were like bombarded with all the Jap Lions! They were so enthusiastic and the only thing they did was to direct us to the lift, telling us to go upstairs. Of course I tried telling one of the Lions that my luggage was damaged and I had to wait for the airport crew to give me a document to sign or something. But he just nodded his head and told me to get into the lift. I was already QUITE kan chiong. Its quite only because this is not the worst yet. So we all got into the lift and went one level up.
They led us to this smoke-filled and strangers-filled room. I mean they told us to leave our trolleys and luggages outside, but haven't go in yet. The moment I parked properly my trolley, this guy (the translator) came to me and asked if I was the leader. Then, he dragged me into the room and introduced me to my host family. Oh wait, let me rewind a bit. Because when we were still downstairs, Van and June and some others already met their host families. But nobody came to look for me! So I was even more kan chiong liao.
Ok back to meeting my host family. After I said hi and everything to them, I went to sit at the place we were supposed to sit. But the moment after I sat down, the translator came again and told me this shocking piece of news: "You are the leader from Singapore? There will be a ceremony (dunno what). You have to make a speech later. A thank you speech. Did you prepare? You're going to say in Japanese or English?" JUST KILL ME. I wasn't even prepared for a speech like that!
Don't forget, there's not only the speech problem. There's also my luggage problem! So before I could even think of how to crap up a short speech, some other person called me out of the room cause the airport crew wanted to speak to me. I can't really remember how many times I walked in and out of the room liao. Because the situation was just so chaotic, at least for me. Luckily van helped me think of a few sentences to say for the speech!
Blah blah blah. The whole ceremony finally ended and when all the YEs were giving their namecards to the Lions and their host families, I was robbed of my time again because the airport crew wanted me to sign a form. They claimed that they will repair my luggage in 2 weeks and I'll get it before I leave for Tokyo. I really hope nothing will go wrong and there'll be no delays whatsoever. I don't have so much courage left for another round of shock.
My host family consists of: the father, mother, grandma, 5 year old boy and a 9 year old boy. The kids are so cute! The grandma is damn nice. And she even showed me photographs of their (elder boy and his grandma) holiday to Singapore in August this year! Of course I cant speak jap and their eng not very good. But luckily, the father have this electronic dictionary. So we just keep typing what we wanna say. Haha! Quite funny.
I ate ramen for lunch, then the rice ball thing for dessert and sushi for dinner! Actually I was so full the whole day that I had to like force myself to finish my food during both meals! But the food was nice, duh!
Oh and they have Wii here!! So I ended up playing every single game of the Wii Sports and also a few others with the 9 year old kid. His name is Haruki btw. The whole family damn on! Esp when i keep striking for the bowling. Haha! Then we also folded origami. My fav is this dog whose head can bob/move up and down. Lol.
Do you realise something is missing? Yes, and I have bad news.
BAD NEWS: There's something wrong with my SD card or the tablet's SD card reader! So i cant even access the photos using my comp. I'm gonna use another SD card tmr and hopefully it'll work. So disappointing right!
It's 10pm here liao. So I have to get offline cos Im using the lan wire and Im in the living room now. I feel kinda paiseh.
It's only the first day and I'm already missing S'pore! Oh no. I think cause it's the first day thats why I'm feeling like that. And somemore so many bad things happened in the morning..Haix.
I hope I can come online everynight! Byebye! :(
Friday, November 28, 2008
Fearless
Somehow, I'm begging for more time. Just 1 more week, just 1 more day.
Somehow, everyone's either envious or saying things like "its just one month" or "just don't think about silly things and have fun".
But somehow, I know God has everything planned for me.
I'll do my part. And he'll do his.