Saturday, January 28, 2006

train blog:maid cafe

my friend introduced me to a maid cafe today. basically, it is just a cafe except that the waitress are all dressed as maids and they call the customers master. these places are usually found in akihabara and usually frequented by otaku-term that mean people who are crazy over manga and anime. other than that, i was shown shops that sell manga characters and dolls. can say today is quite an eye opener for me.

Friday, January 27, 2006

train blog:new grave design

there is an advertisement about a new grave design that allows the pet to be buried together with the owner. one thing for sure is that there will never be advertisement like this in the trains in singapore.another thing is that i do not know how advance the technology goes for grave designs but i am pretty sure buryin with pets is not really hard to do.not sure if it is a really good point to advertise.lookin forward to 2 days of holidays next week but i will probably go office the whole time.

Ghost in the shell

Today watched an animation movie which I borrowed from a friend which is called "Ghost in the Shell 2:Innocence." The story is pretty interesting and futuristic. Movie's animation is very realistic and the 3D graphics are really well done. Kinda impressed at the level of clarity and how far we have came from animation movies in the past. Been walking past a stationary store which I have never been before and went in to have a look. They sell templates for comic books drawing and have lots of designs and interesting backgrounds. Kinda of wonder how they draw the comic books using the templates. This Saturday there is a gathering for the people staying in my dorm. Also, I might be meeting a friend whom I had met when I went over to San Francisco when I was there looking for a job. It feels like a long time from the time I was in San Francisco till the time I got the job, which makes me feel like blogging what happen when I went over to San Francisco.

Basically, I went to San Francisco just to attend a 2 day Japanese-English Bilingual Career Fair. Bringing only my friend's suit(because I didn't have my own then), and a few daily necessities in a backpack, this is the trip where I travelled with the least luggage. I stayed at a co-ed youth hostel, the cheapest and nearest I could find. The rooms are like army style, double decked with cheap mattress but what is there to complain, the price is cheap. I would expect that the people staying there are there for travel but turned out to be wrong. There are actually people there to take exams(2 japanese in the common rooms), to look out for graduate courses(the lady sleeping across my bed) and looking for places to stay(someone I talked to in the hallway). The Japanese guy that I am going to meet on Saturday was in the common room and had trouble with booking hotel rooms as his English is not really good. He is doing a round america tour with another friend. So I sprang at the chance to practise my Japanese and went to talk to him even till the extend to help him book his hotel rooms.

On the day of the job fair, it is kinda exciting and nerve wrecking. I didn't expect the whole environment to be totally Japanese, all the way from greeting you in Japanese at the door till the presentations all done in Japanese. Basically, it's more of a Japanese Career fair than a bilingual career fair. Walked around first to find some Japanese friends from my school, followed by getting brochures of companies and free goodies. The first booth that I really find out information from is actually the one that I am currently working in now. Sat through their lecture knowing only about 40 percent of what they are saying and talked to their representative in English followed by presenting my resume. They were asking me for interviews and I agreed to go for it after going for toshiba interview which was planned before I reached san francisco. Toshiba intervew was kinda packed with people sitting in about 8 seats behind and 3 interviewers at the booth interviewing us. The whole interview took about 1/2 hour and they told me to check the board to see if I qualify for the second round of interview. My name never appeared on it apprantly. So back to the original company where they lead me to one of the hotel rooms for the first round of interview. It went quite smoothly with a translator to help me on the parts where I did not know how to say it in Japanese. Following that, I went to the next room to have an interview with the President of the company. Kinda shocked that the president actually came down for the job recruitment. It went pretty smoothly and he offered me the job depending on my chances with toshiba. So in the first day by the afternoon I already had a job offer and so kinda relax on my search. Went to a few more letures and looked at a few more companies but didn't really talk to them. Met up with Thiha, my ex-roommate and walked around San Francisco for the rest of the night. For the second day, I had an interview with sandisk and got a free 16MB CF card. Quite cool. Nothing much happen for the rest of the day and so went with my Japanese friends from University to a food court nearby for food.

Anyway, all in all, the trip was indeed an eye opener and alot of first times for me. Just thought of writing it down before I forget about it later. This trip can be counted as a big changing point in my life and so it is quite important to me. I think.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

snow

it begin snowing this morning. wanted to stay at home but have to go for a company meeting.it is not thd first time i see snow but seeing it outside your house is something different. feelin kind of exited. will take more pictures when i reach home.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

testing

please forgive me on the capital letters. it takes too much time to change them on my handphone. waiting for the train now. in today's japanese class, we did alot of cooking. we prepared 3pots of nabe(hotpot)and some other assorted dishes. most of the people that come today are chinese so it is more of a chinese class than a japanese class.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

testing

Hi, i am just testing on sending blog by email. this entry is sent by my phone actually. just want to see how fast it takes. now i am at home. nexttime when i post my blog will be from the train

Monday, January 16, 2006

present myself

arrgghh. Presentation tomorrow. My heart is beating really fast. 今はどきどきしてる。Wish me luck.

new year

A year has passed so fast. Didn't really feel anything this time round. Anyway, everything is still the same. This trip to Singapore wasn't that bad but it wasn't that good also. I fell sick just before I go back to Singapore and was sick all the way till when I go back to Japan. I'm just happy that I am able to meet my gf and hang out with her.

In this new year, I redesigned my room and throw more stuffs into the cupboard, which means my room is neater and nicer. I have extended my table(adding another box) and made space for some of my electronic items on the table. Pictures are in flickr.

Throughout the next few blogs, I will introduce the place i'm staying to you guys so keep a lookout.