busy

Sorry for the lack of update. My friend just came to visit me from singapore and he is staying at my place. My current training phase is just over and I am going into another new one. Been to many places within this week and came home late and tired. Will fill you guys in maybe later during this week. sorry for the wait.

new friends.

How I met my new friend goes a long way back to taking a flight back to singapore from the usa. As the transit country of the flight is Japan, there are many Japanese taking the same flight back from the U.S.A. As me and my father were boarding the flight, I chatted up with the Japanese woman and told her that I am going to Japan to work. After that, we exchanged contacts and said that we will meet in Japan. From the time from I reach Japan till this week, we had never been able to meet up. This weekend is the first time when I actually met up with her and had a nice chat. She is a Japanese woman about 60 years of age with an adopted son who is a dj of a radio station. Also for those of you who know, he is also the voice over for one of the parts of "Iron Chef" show, which is pretty interesting. So it has been interesting. My friend from Singapore, James, visted me and I am bringing him around Japan. So it will be a busy week for me. heee

white hair

Yesterday pulled out the 2nd white hair I had for about 5 years. I'm not sure if I had more or not and I'm not sure if it is a good sign or not but I'll still continue to take care of my hair and health. Maybe I'm not studying hard enough. hee.

End of phase update

As the beginning phase of my training is about to come to an end, a comprehensive exam is coming up also. Thought that I should give an update about my own targets and goals and which I had met or not.

Japanese: Aimed to reach level 2 by end of this year. At the rate it goes seems like I might not be able to make it. Chinese characters i'm at about 300 words still and I need to reach about 1000. Grammer still less than halfway through, still far on vocabulary words. I will need to work double on it.

Money: Not earning althought trying to control my spending. Spending alot more every weekend due to hanging out with friends which I think is alright. Going to get a job when I get my visa so this will have to wait.

Friends: I think I am pretty satisfied with the amount as I have almost no time for anything else during weekends. Will want to make more only Japanese speaking friends then I will be forced to speak only Japanese to them.

Life: life is pretty settled now that I have bought most of the things i need. There are still many other things I want but those will have to wait till I earn enough money.

In general, the next steps are: Get my visa--> get a parttime job --> get the things i want-->happy.
At the same time study Japanese.

Autumn

With the coming of autumn, the weather becomes colder and the heater is turned on in many buildings and offices. I'm still like in the summer wearing short sleeves to work and all only to realise that I am the only one. Everyone around me were like in long sleeves. Not that I wasn't cold but I wasn't that cold to need to wear long sleeves. I guess I had built up a defense mechanism for cold somehow during my four years in USA. For those who had been talking with me knows my "One with the weather" technique. Haven't had the need to use it yet but I got to start wearing long sleeves soon or else I will stand out too much in the crowd or freeze.

disneyland update

Pumpkin scarecrow: Reason it's there-- Halloween is coming.


Pooh's Hunny hunt. The setup is really interesting and it's a a story based with well thought out planning and nice effects. Enjoyable and relaxing ride. Wanted to take more pictures but not allowed to.

Main castle at night.

The main castle in Disneyland. Because it's halloween, many black and orange designs can be seen.

Picture before buzz lightyear's ride. The ride is interesting and the first time I take it. It's like there is a joystick on every cart which you can control which direction to turn. At the same time, each person sitting there has a lazer gun where they can point at certain spots to shoot to earn points. The gathered points will be shown on the cart which you can compare to the chart later for skill level.

for more pictures goto:http://www.flickr.com/photos/35478544@N00/

drinking

Sorry about the change in website. There has been a problem with my previous one and I moved here temporary. I just went to a drinking party with people from my company. I guess when you start to pick up a new language, there are days when you were unable to speak no matter how much you try. It just happened that today was one of those days and I couldnt' mingle well with the crowd at all, although my money is well spent as not talking means eating and drinking more. Well, there are definitely more chances to meet them so I'm not really worried about it. Weather is becoming cold. Got to get ready.

Disneyland

Monday is a public holiday. Me and a group of friends went to Tokyo Disneyland. After waking up at about 6.00am, I took about 1 hour and 45 mins to reach the place and we entered Disneyland at about 9.30. Firstly, we got the fast pass for space mountain and went to queue for splash mountain. After both of the rides, we got the fast pass for big thunder mountain which is due at 5.00pm. In the meantime, we went for riverboat ride and another snow white adventure(which is a waste of time). Then we rested at a resturant till the time and we went for the big thunder ride. After that, some of us left early and the remainder of us went for pool's hunny hunt ride and the buzzlightyear ride followed by some shopping.

Can say that this trip is much more interesting than the trip to LA disneyland. Although it's a rainy day, there is still lots of people around. It's kinda weird also as usually when I go to LA disneyland, it's always like in the middle of the holiday and this time round, it feels like a holiday when i'm in the place but I know that it's not. Also, hearing the words all in Japanese gives a weird feeling. Kinda hard to explain. I guess I need to do more planning before I go there again so that I can make full use of the place and money spent in the place.

From Tuesday's onwards, the lectures in my work place will all be conducted in Japanese. The reason is because the lecturer from another department will be teaching us and he gives lectures in Japanese. So far, I can still understand what he is saying although there are words that are very specific to engineering which I still need to work on.

Study day

Today, I tried to study in the library but the whole place was packed since early in the morning. Totally didn't expect that especially it is a rainy day. Went instead to KFC and bought myself a meal and stayed there for a couple of hours. Managed to stuff lots of Japanese words into my head, hopefully they stay there. That is the highlight of my totaly uneventful day.

thoughts

As I said earlier, the offer ended on friday and I managed to eat the same beef bowl for six days in a row. Guess I wouldn't be eating much beef anytime soon?

Chinese was never really my favorite subject and when I was young and forced to learn it, the Chinese characters never really sinked in. I know that one day something from there will come back to haunt me. It feels like I have commited a crime and never served my sentence.. Nowadays, I'm writing Chinese characters whenever I have the time to, learning the sounds of each character in Japanese. Feels like I am relearning Chinese characters again. Feels nostalgic seeing all the characters again in a different form. At least I am serving my sentence.. and I don't dread it as much as I did in the past.

Japanese Lessons

Today , I went for my first free Japanese class. The class is conducted by volunteers from the city of Shibuya for foreigners who want to learn Japanese of all levels. When me and my friend Leo reached there, one of the teachers greeted us and started talking to us. Before we knew it, she put us right to the highest level class available. Leo was like telling her that maybe our level is not there, but all she say was that it was okay and ask us to follow the class. The class of my level have about 10 people including us. Most of the people are from China but they stayed in Japan for many years. It turns out that the class was not as hard as we expected. Mostly, we were taught common conversation's grammer and certain words that are close in meaning. The class is actually just perfect for me as the level that they teach is about just above where I am. It is a pretty good deal, given that the lesson is free. The transport back and forth cost about 240Yen which is all we have to pay for 1 lesson.

Cheap beef bowl

As autumn approaches, matsu ya, a chain store specializes in cheap rice bowls reduced their prices down even more from 420 to 380 yen for the big size and 320 to 280 yen for the small size. Since the day I found out about the deal, I had been eating in that store once everyday. These stores have machines where you buy tickets for the food that you want to eat and present them to the store keepers. At this moment in time, I have ticket stubs for 3 days consecutive and the deal last till friday. I will post the collection when I have completed them all.

Last few trains of the day

Boarding the last few trains of the day is so different from boarding the train at other times. In the morning, almost everyone is going to work and there is a solemn atmosphere and people are quietly squeezed in the trains. In the afternoon, the trains are not so squeezy and it is a little rowdy as there are small groups of teenagers chatting in the trains. At night especially the last few trains, the whole train is like a fish market. Almost everyone in the trains is drunk and with the loud conversations they have with their friends, it is totally unexpected from a 12 am train from what I had experienced. Other than trains, it's a common sight to see people lying face down drunk in the train stations, something definitely cannot be seen in Singapore. Today met up with my friend from Singapore together with 4 other of her friends. It's an interesting break as I have not spoken Singlish for one whole day in a while. It is the first time I had pretty decent Chinese food too.