Recently in SEP in Hyogo Category

Nagasaki Paato Two

| | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
I hate nights where I'm kept awake because of stomachaches...it sucks. =(.

Nagasaki trip part 2.

In the previous entry, I mentioned this youth hostel that we stayed in and how convenient that place is. Spectacles Bridge(Megane-bashi), one of the tourist spots in Nagasaki, is just right outside our youth hostel. Convenient right! Also, Chinatown, Dejima Museum and basically everything else are within walking distance. =D


In the Dejima Museum. The houses there were seriously so pretty!


While walking past this place, this guy stopped fishing and started talking to us in English. It was seriously the only time that I encountered a Japanese who spoke English to me on the first conversation. Then again, I was with two ang-mohs and he was probably trying to talk to them and not me. -____-. 90% of the Japanese I've met think that I'm Japanese and the reason why the other 10% do not think that I'm Japanese is because they either know that already or I tell them right at the start of the conversation. While we were at the travel agency booking tickets to Nagasaki, I made Trevor do the job of conversing with the saleslady and all I did was to discuss in ENGLISH with Trevor about the prices. When the saleslady asked where Trevor was from, he introduced himself and me as well. When the saleslady heard that I wasnt Japanese, she was freaking shocked and commented that "Oh, I thought that you were a Japanese who can speak English very well!" Erm...-_________-.
I think most Japanese have the if-you-are-Asian-you-must-be-Japanese concept. As well as the if-you-are-not-Japanese-then-why-do-you-know-how-to-use- chopsticks/why-can-you-eat-red-beans/why-can-you-eat-rice? concept. Seriously, it's not only the Japanese who do all these stuff okay!


Visited the Confucian Temple there and they were practising for Chinese New Year's celebration. There were so many Chinese there that I thought that I was in China or something. Damn cool though.


Castella Shrine...wtf but really cute. Talking about Castella, I recommend Fukusaya's Castella if you are planning to buy them back as souveniers. I initially bought from there because Trevor's host-mum instructed him to do so and since we were there already, I just bought some for my host-family. Turned out that my host-father really likes the Castella there and only eats Castella from that shop. The texture of the Castella from that shop is different from those sold in other shops, bit crunchy because of the sugar.


Oura Catholic Church, the oldest Christian church in Japan. Neil and I didnt really want to pay and climb all the way up the stairs so we decided to wait for Trevor at the bottom of the church. Then Trevor just had to give us this description of the church that made it sound damn interesting so we paid and went into the church. -___-.


Glover Park.


I want to stay in this house!!!! Then again, it's freaking big and I will die if I have to clean the house by myself. Also, I will probably get burglared if I stayed here. wtf.


It's shaped like a heart! =D And yea, my photography skills suck.


Took a ropeway up to see the night scenery of Nagasaki. Once again, I made Trevor do all the talking in the taxi but the taxi driver couldnt seem to understand him so I repeated what Trevor said, WORD-FOR-WORD and guess what? The taxi driver went "Oh, why didnt you say so earlier!" -_-. He thought that I was the local tour guide bringing two ang-mohs around Nagasaki and kept wondering why I was silent about giving directions...but seriously, what I said was what Trevor said in the first place lo!!! Also, I got scolded by the train master because we took the wrong train according to Trevor's directions but yea, I got scolded because the train master thought that I was Japanese. Oi! One disadvantage of being mistaken for a Japanese is that you get scolded easily because the Japanese expects you to know all the rules...but I dont because I'm not Japanese!


Pull or push?


Shrines at night are seriously scary.


In Nagasaki dayo~

| | TrackBacks (0)
Went to Orchard the day before with hy to purchase some magazines for school and we took neoprints while we were there. =D What's with the cigarette and the 18-kin(prohibited for those under 18) sign?!


Have been really tired for some reason these few days and all I feel like doing these days is to sleep. Gah, I shouldnt be so lazy...damnit. So anyway, I'm taking a break from sleeping and am going to blog about my Nagasaki trip that took place in erm...January. In er...Japan (aberthen?!).

On the day I was supposed to go to Nagasaki, I went to Wakayama with 3 other friends(which I will blog about some other day) and walked for like the whole day so by the time I met up with Trevor and Neil to take the night bus, I was already half-dead.


The bus ride took like around 8~9 hours and at around 7 plus in the morning, we arrived in Nagasaki! So apparently, Nagasaki is one of the places in Japan that celebrates Chinese New Year, or rather Lantern Festival, as they call it. One uncle there told me that they didnt use to celebrate it but one year the Nagasaki prefecture officials organised this lantern festival event and it became so popular so they decided to continue doing it.


Instead of a hotel, we stayed at this youth hostel called Akari because we wanted to save money. Initially I was apprehensive about staying at a youth hostel because I've never done it before and I dont have a good impression of youth hostels but I was pleasantly surprised by Akari. I will seriously recommend it if you're looking for a cheap and good accomodation. The staff there are really friendly and helpful, the room was really comfortable, free internet and television and the location's also pretty good.
After putting our stuff down and taking a quick shower, we went to visit the Nagasaki Peace Park. Unlike the Hiroshima Peace Park, the Nagasaki one had more statues and I was surprised by the size of it. I always thought that the Nagasaki Peace Park was small but on the contrary, it was freaking big.


Next, we went to the Urakami Cathedral where there is a small chapel that enshrines the statue of Virgin Mary that was destroyed by the atomic bombing. They were having a funeral in the cathedral when we arrived and it was totally weird standing in the main chapel hall while they were saying prayers.


While on the way to the Atomic Bomb Museum, we stopped by this shop to get something called "Rainbow Yokan" which is basically yokan made up of different colored vegetables.


Paper cranes.


A memorial for the Korean A-bomb victims in Nagasaki.


A torii that was destroyed during the bombing. It is still standing but only on one pillar now.


After walking for like a few hours, we decided to have lunch at some random restaurant because we were really hungry. Apart from taking the tram twice, we basically WALKED the whole time while we were in Nagasaki. Everything's situated such so that you can walk from one point to another. We even took a half-an-hour walk back to the station on our last day whilst carrying our heavy backpacks!
Had champon and it was so freaking good.


Also ordered sara-udon and shared it amongst the three of us. We liked this dish so much that we ate it the next day as well...wtf.


Went to a park after lunch where Neil decided to climb over a fence and while coming down, he jumped, slipped and fell. -______-. Was taking a video of him climbing and when he fell down, Trevor and I just started laughing hysterically. Not very nice but it was really hilarious. :D He got really conscious of his wet jeans for the next hour or so.


Visited so many temples and shrines in Nagasaki that I lost track but this is one really old temple and the view from the top of the temple was really good.


The number of animals I touched on this trip is more than the number of animals I've touched in my whole life.


Went to the Art Museum or something and tired Neil decided to take a quick nap while Trevor and I watched this short clip. wtf. Haha.


Had Sasebo burger for dinner and the burger was so fucking big and good. For this trip, I ate so many burgers that I thought that I would never want to see a burger again in my whole life. We had Sasebo burger, Lotteria burger, Macdonalds burger, KFC burger, MOS burger and Wendy's burger for this 6-days trip!!!


Went drinking after dinner and we went to this little pub where I saw this uncle who was trying too hard to get this auntie to sleep with him. Like seriously trying too hard. He kept telling her that he was "lonely" and he kept touching himself down under...eew...wtf...but seriously damn entertaining though because the auntie was not interested in him but was focusing her attention on his friend. =D We changed pubs and a bunch of salarymans at the second pub treated Trevor to one shot of vodka while chanting "Yes we can" or something...-____-.

More photos are on my facebook so yup, till the next entry~

Updates on my life

| | TrackBacks (0)
What I've been up to...

Wednesday: Came back from Nagasaki and Fukuoka at 6am.
Went to the police station in Nishinomiya to pick up my cellphone.
Played video games at Lasse's house...or rather, I slept through half of the event.

Thursday: Karaoke and dinner at Nishinomiya.

Friday: Met up with Robyn to go to the bank.
Last Sado class.
Celebrated my host-dad's birthday.

I am freaking tired. Yawns...even more stuff to do before I return to Singapore...

Saturday: Meet up with Yu, who's coming from Hiroshima to meet me!
Korean party at the dormitory.

Sunday: Farewell party with Sanda students.

Monday: Exam...bah.

Tuesday: Elementary school visit.
Tour Osaka.

Wednesday: USJ...yes, again.

Thursday: Party at Kimura-san's house.

Argh, I dont wanna go home!!! Okay, totally pointless entry...too tired to upload pictures so just watch this video of Kana, Robyn and me drawing on Trevor's and Neil's faces. =D

A crazy night

| | TrackBacks (0)
Went to the Nishinomiya Shrine on Friday night with 5 other friends. There were lots of stalls selling all kinds of food like Hiroshima okonomiyaki, ika-yaki, castella, takoyaki, sweet potatoes, taiyaki, fries etc. Wanted to buy food but I was too bloated from eating sukiyaki at Kanami's house an hour before I went to the shrine. Dont know why but Neil gave me a can of beer for free so I drank it while walking around in the shrine...wtf. In fact, everyone was drinking in the shrine. Erm...are we even allowed to do so?
Trevor tied his omikuji to the stick but after he realised that he is allowed to bring the omikuji home if it's good he went to retrieve it...but ending up taking someone else's instead. Hahaha.


After the visit to the shrine, we went to Kana's house where we spent the night there drinking, talking and doing crazy stuff, which you will see later on in this entry. Ayaka fell asleep pretty quick into the night.=D


Trevor with Kana's muffler wrapped around his head, trying to look Russian.


Trevor and Neil...obviously drunk.


Kana biting on a piece of lemon after downing vodka.


Looking damn happy with a bottle of vodka.


I KO-ed after 2 cans of 500ml of beer. I seriously cant drink...wtf. Halfway through my second can of beer, my face was flushed and I had to visit the toilet quite a few times. =(


Slept for around 30minutes and woke up to camwhore with Robyn. I forgot to bring my camera that day so we used Neil's camera instead =D. He's going to be so wtf-ed when he looks through the pictures on his camera.


Neil doing his impersonation of Daigo's Wish~. The Daigo-Wish pose is seriously popular among the exchange students but nobody seems to be able to remember Daigo's name though. Haha.


Trevor got so drunk and was so sound asleep that he didnt even move an inch while we were drawing pictures on his face. Kana, Robyn, Neil and me did the drawing~ Kana wrote "Niku" on Trevor's forehead, a-la Kinnikuman.


We even drew on his foot...haha.


Neil, Kana and Robyn with Trevor, who's looking beautiful~.


Kana, Robyn and Me.


Neil went to sleep after drawing on Trevor so yea, he became out next target. This time, we made him into an Anpanman.


We also drew on his stomach, writing words that we learnt that day. Words that are quite wtf. Haha. Unlike Trevor, Neil kept moving while we were drawing on him so we couldnt exactly draw on his eyelids. He also started mumbling in his sleep, in some language unknown and we thought he woke up so we all pretended to be asleep. =D


Me and Robyn.


When Trevor woke up, we were so afraid that he'll notice his face so we pretended to sleep but he didnt. Instead, he starting asking Kana questions and he looked so hilarious with that face that we burst out laughing and he was like "All of you are so noisy!!!". That made us laugh even more. =D He and Neil only realised what happened to them after they woke up and they are planning to take revenge...Shit...I seriously dont want to wake up with a colorful face during the Nagasaki trip!!!

After staying up for the whole night on Friday, I had to go to school on Saturday for my graduation ceremony and give a speech somemore. Almost died. After the whole thing, I went for a dessert buffet with Eri and Yuuka at Sweets Paradise. I'm seriously eating too much sweet stuff in Japan. Will I die of diabetes?!! Although it was a dessert buffet, there were lots of other kinds of food. I had spaghetti, cream stew, curry rice, bread, sandwiches and of course, for dessert, I had cakes, ice-cream and some chocolate from the chocolate fountain. How not to get diabetes?! Hehe~ Wanted to take neoprints but I forgot how to go to the neoprints place...=(. I have such a bad sense of direction!!!


I hate stupid people like myself

| | TrackBacks (0)
I'm in the school's computer lab on a Friday even though I dont have lessons today...wtf. My purpose of coming to school today was to go submit my JASSO report but on my way to school, I realised something...

I COULD HAVE HAD SENT THE REPORT IN BY SOMETHING CALLED EMAIL...

Why did I come all the way to school for?! Arrh...I feel so stupid right now...-_-

New Year's Eve 2008

| | TrackBacks (0)
One thing I like about New Year in Japan is that you get to eat lots of delicious food. Hehe. My New Year's Eve dinner included lots of ebi-fry, kakiage, spaghetti, salad and kuromame(black beans).


Of course, there was the must-eat food for the New Year, Toshikoshi soba. Apparently you have to finish up everything, right down to the soup.


After the New Year's Eve dinner, I went to Umeda to do countdown with some exchange students. First time I did countdown and I had to do it in Japan...haha. Never did countdown before so I'm not very sure but I found it really hilarious that they started counting down when it was erm...80seconds to the new year. What?! I thought that the norm is to start counting down when there's like only 10seconds left?!


After the countdown, the people in front of me starting shouting "nisenkyuu nisenkyuu", which basically means 2009. I guess it's normal to shout out the year after countdown but the strange thing was that they started shouting "Obama Obama" next. Erm...wtf?! There was this laser show after the countdown but it was pretty lame and lousy. Fireworks were blah too.


The laser show...


Most of the people who went to the countdown at Umeda. Let's see if I can name all of them...heh. Okay, scrap that, I cant name some of the people in this picture so ya, just look at the picture. =D


Didnt want to go back straight after the countdown because...I took like 1 freaking hour to go to Umeda and I wasnt about to go home after spending like 15minutes there. Must at least make my train fare worth it! Most of us went to Shirokiya to have a drink but realised that it's freaking expensive there. They charge you 300yen for just sitting down...wtf?! It's not like their seats are made out of gold or anything lo!


Lasse and his Bruce Lee shirt~


It was like drink, eat, talk, drink, eat, talk. The bill came out to be close to 20,000yen or something I think. wtf...It's all because of the stupid 300yen extra charge.


After Shirokiya, Neil, Aaron, Mariko and me went to the HUB to drink more...-___-. There were lots of ang mohs there that day and they were so freaking noisy. Then again, everyone was noisy that day...haha.


The girls had to finish drinking the beer left in the pitcher because the guys didnt want to finish it up even though they bought it. Whatever...free beer =D I like freebies!!! So Singaporean...hehe.


Originally planned to go for a short drink and go home at 2am but in the end, we left Umeda at like 6am...wtf. Reached home at like 7+, had a short nap before waking up at 10 for New Year's breakfast and the visit to the temple, which I will blog about in the next entry. Have to go write my report...damnit. It has been exam, report, report for the past few days. Arrgh, someone please help me do my report!!!

USJ Part 3

| | TrackBacks (0)
Part 3 of USJ~

Went to this Snoopy place to kill time because we had to wait for the others who decided to take the rollercoaster for the second time.


Me with the constipated look. :P


Totally act cute that it's disgusting.


Me and Eri. I really love my pink panther hat! I wore the hat the whole day that day even when I was out of USJ. While on the train back home, this little toddler kept looking at me, or rather, my hat. I guess that he/she really wanted it. Haha. Also, there was this salaryman who kept giving me weird looks on the train...eee.


I like USJ at night. The buildings are so colourful and pretty~


Me trying to give Dear Daniel a kiss~


Me trying to hantam Hello Kitty because she's my rival in love...:P


My favourite Christmas tree in USJ, the one in Hello Kitty Land~


The tree in USJ that changes colour.


Neil wore my hat on the train back home...so cute =D


Yup, end of USJ trip~

USJ Part 2

| | TrackBacks (0)
Part 2 of USJ~

8 of us had a death wish and went to take the rollercoaster ride right after lunch. The remaining 2 who chickened-out went shopping instead. Guess which category I belonged to?


Yea, I was one of the two who chickened-out...What?! Cannot ar! I have no guts okay! Since I did not go on the rollercoaster, I helped a few of those who did carry their stuff. Me acting as if the stuff were really heavy.


Eri and Me in the Pink Panther shop trying on different kinds of hats. I succumbed to temptation and bought the pink version of the hat I'm wearing in this photo. Lalala~ Got a discount anyway thanks to Eri again. =D


Posing with hats~ Yup, that's the hat that I bought. I'm so going to wear it on normal days even if I look like some weirdo. I dont care, I paid for it so I'm going to make full use of it. Haha.


The people who went on the Jurassic Park ride. Not really visible in this picture but I was freaking scared at this point of time. I bent my head down the whole time during the ride and in the end, nobody could see my face in the picture taken...wtf. Haha. The guy who was in charge of allocating seats probably overheard that I was scared or something and tried to make us sit right in the front...wtf. I was like "Nooooooooooo, dont make me sit in Row 1, I want to sit in the middle!!!!!!"


While in the queue, Mika tried to mimic Neil, who looks funny with his ears sticking out of his hat.


People with big ears~


Robyn the dinosaur, trying to eat Mika up.


Posing with the dinosaur head. Used the I-dont-understand-Japanese trick when the staff tried to ask us to purchase the photo. Seriously, why purchase when you can get it for free since they take the photos with your digicam too?!


Back to the Future~ The guy who took this photo spoke really weird English and it was hilarious.


The little girl who refused to show her face. Haha, so cute!!


Me and Kenichi. How come the both of us are looking at different cameras?!


Eri and Me on the erm, Merry-Go-Round. Hehe, it was fun okay!


USJ Part 1

| | TrackBacks (0)
Did all-night Karaoke last night and I'm about to die now...seriously.

Anyway, I went to USJ last Saturday~ Instead of paying the usual price of 5,800yen for our tickets, we bought it at only 4,600yen because Eri had lots of discount tickets~ Thanks Eri!!!


The last time I went to USJ back in 2006, I went with my cousin, i.e., only the two of us. This time round, I went with nine other people...so ya, there were ten of us in total. Haha~ There were 4 Japanese, 3 Singaporeans, 2 Canadians and 1 German. wtf~


Saw Betty Boop at the entrance and Robyn and Mika wanted to take photos with her. Neil, who was supposed to be the cameraman, got forced into taking photos with Betty Boop. She was feeling how much muscles a guy had before she decided if she wanted to take photos with him or not...wtf! Haha.


Wanted to go take the E.T. ride but the waiting time was fucking 90minutes so we decided to go for Spiderman instead.


I'm way taller than the height restriction for the Spiderman ride!!! Hehe. There was this cute Japanese kid in the queue behind me and I really wanted to steal him back to Singapore. He was really scared of Neil though...probably because Neil is an ang-moh. wtf. Most Japanese are like really afraid of ang-mohs or something. Once, I was with a few other white people in a train and there's no seats available so we stood and starting talking. The people seated down started to look really horrified and most of them literally ran away to the next carriage...WHY?! I dont understand their fear but whatever la, we got to sit down because they ran away. Haha.


Alvin bought the Spiderman photo~


Us looking at the photo in the middle of the restaurant walkway and hence, blocking all the people who wanted to get cutlery and stuff. Interestingly, nobody had the courage to chase us away but just stood there, holding their trays in their hands, hoping in silence that we would go away or something, so that they can go get cutlery...wtf.


Had pizza for lunch~ The pizzas were really good~


(Left) Alvin, Zhongwei, Mika, Neil
(Right) Tomoko, Robyn


Me posing with the plate...erm...yeah, I dont know why I did that.


Me and Robyn posing with the plates...erm...yeah, wtf.


Me, Tomoko, Mika, Robyn


Us acting stupid in front of the mirror in the toilet, because that's what you are supposed to do in toilets...hehe.


Zhongwei and Alvin who are touring Japan right now came to visit me on Friday and Saturday~. Since Zhongwei wanted to take a look at Kwangaku, for reasons I dont know why, we brought them there. One thing good about visiting Kwangaku during the school holidays is that there's no one there, except for some random uncles, so you can basically walk around the school in peace. The bad thing? Everything's freaking closed so you cant enter the buildings.


After the tour of my school, we went to Nishinomiya Gardens, the biggest shopping mall in West Japan. On the way there, it started to snow!!! The first time I ever saw snow in my life was during the Geography fieldtrip to Hikone and Sekigahara. The snow I saw that time was a little watery and it lasted for a short time. Nevertheless, I was really enthralled by it. This time round, the snow was a little more solid and it's really exciting to see the snow just melt away in your hands. Walking in the snow was also pretty fun~ although the stuff inside my bag got a little wet :P.


Nishinomiya Gardens~


The elevators in the mall. I think that they change the designs every month or something because when I went there last month, the designs were different.


Ate Oyster Okonomiyaki at this restaurant called Botenju. Apparently, they have Botenju back in Singapore as well..wtf.


Sky Garden on the fourth storey of the mall. One of my friends told me that it was a very romantic place but erm, I dont feel it. Probably it's because he went in the night and I went in the day?


There's this cooking class in Gardens as well. Tiffany and Connie made Gateau Chocolate when they went there on the opening day, which was on the 26th of November. They didnt have to make reservations at that point of time but now you have to make reservations if you are planning to go there. =(


Went to sing Karaoke in Umeda after shopping and we could see HEP Five's ferris wheel from the room we were in. Cool~ I like looking at ferris wheels but I dont like riding them because the nightview of every place looks similar to me...Haha.


Zhongwei belting out a tune.


Takaaki and his interesting way of singing songs with a high voice.


Zhongwei going crazy. Haha, he was trying to make Alvin sing with him and Alvin refused so this was what happened. :P


Had dinner at the karaoke place as well. Pretty cheap dinner I guess.


Zhongwei, Alvin, Takaaki, Me.


Went to take neoprints after karaoke but there was a queue to take neoprints...wtf?! So to kill time, they started playing Taiko no Tatsujin. Why does everyone like to play Taiko no Tatsujin?! Haha.


Neoprint 01


Neoprint 02


About this Archive

This page is a archive of recent entries in the SEP in Hyogo category.

Searching for my blog is the previous category.

Standard Chartered Bank sucks is the next category.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Ads



Powered by Movable Type 4.1