HOKKAIDO 北海道

DAY 0

FERRY

12,13 August

 

 

and the  trip to hokkaido starts~!

We decided to take ferry because the plane tickets were too expensive.Our ferry tickets costed 12500 yen (rm500). Usually for that price we could have gotten pretty decent rooms but as it was peak season....                     

We picked the cheapest! We picked the lowest class of all class that existed! And....

 

.... this is what we got for rm500. An empty room enough for 12 strangers to cramp together. No beds btw! Can you imagine?? All we got was some stiff green blankets. But the room's quite wide and while its definitely not luxurious, it was clean and comfortable enough to spend the night.

You have to admire the sense of safety Japan has to offer. Though we had to stay with strangers, we totally had no fear or whatsoever of having our belongings stolen.

  

Some of the stuff we did while we left our luggage, money, cameras out in the room in the open as we roamed around the ship.

yes we are very 'xien kong' ppl... with 20 hours on a ferry/ship, what else can one do besides polishing one's take-pic-in-front-of-mirror skills

ah yes... we can go check out the sea... we are on a cruise after all...

hmmm oh... bo-ringg... You've seen one sea, you've seen them all. Within 10 minutes we got tired of the sea and resume our photo taking session.

The ship had a sailor's outfit hung at the receptionist for 'xien kong' ppl like us to try on.

How my 20th birthday was like:

About 15 mins after we got on the ship, 12am came along and.. its my birthday!

Pui San brought out the cake she baked for me in suprise. Really happy she waza2 baked it for me.

Its really such a pity that the knife she brought over to cut the cake was later confisticated during security check when we flew back by plane though =). 

Spending my whole birthday day on the ferry was kind of similar to how I spent my 19th birthday in Singapore. Without internet and sms thus without receiving wishes and bday congratulations, you sort of lose awareness that it's your birthday.

and tada~~~

 

this is one of the first view we laid our eyes on WHEN we finally reached Sapporo札幌 AFTER an hour of bus ride from  Otaru 小樽port WHICH our ferry finally reached on 13 august, 8.25pm.

How Jia Jie's 20th birthday was like:

Jia Jie's bday 14th August, so we stayed up till 12am and sort of celebrated his birthday.

haha Look at his half dead face. A mama's boy having to eat potato chips (which he refered to as rubbish) for his bday... how sadddd.... nvm.. at least you get to spend the rest of your bday with everyone from ppktj later in the afternoon...

なし狩り (nashi gari)

21 Sept, Tues

muahahaha finally get to go to my 1st fruit picking~  *pear picking* (shines, shines)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Personally, i would prefer to

1. pick grapes or anything else besides pears... Mum owes made me eat pears whenever i got sick back when i was young.. so i kinda associated pear = sick

2. go with friends of my own batch or other foreign students in my college... it would have been ten times as rowdy and fun...but i get the feeling that it's gonna be a long long long time i do any fruit picking if i wait for them so....       

I joined a nearby's chapel pear picking event ~                         

 (yumi, zhong ing, me!, laurel)

Yumi and Laurel are part of the pastor's family. To be exact, Laurel's the 2nd son's wife. They met back in america when the son went to further his study there. AND she's ONLY 23. I was kinda shocked when Laurel told me that ppl back at the states usually marry around her age 21~23.  Can you imagine me getting married next year?? According to Laurel, she wouldn't want to wait till she get "old and boring" before getting married so they generally get married right after graduating from college.  hmm... I guess that explains the difference of passionate-ness (excuse my english, please) between ours and theirs' married couples. Age huh...

      

I'm not sure how it is for you guys, but it was a bit of a culture shock for me. Like WHAT?? Getting married to some guy 

1. who doesn't even have a job yet?

2. whose present income is obviously unknown (refer to 1)

3. who you might never know, will never be able to buy you diamond rings *gasps* o_o (nay just exaggerating)

I thought the whole point of getting married for us women is to settle down, to attain a sense of security (money, home.. bla bla). But NO! Apparently American women marry for LOVE. hahaha

Ok I'm really exaggerating too much.

Well, basically i just wanted to point out that whereas we would at least make sure the guy we are supposedly going to spend the rest of our life with are capable to at least provide the minimum level of security (before we actually agree to spend the rest of our life with them =) ), there's some civilization out there who doesn't even bat an eye at the guy's income. Yea, yea if its with the guy I love i wouldn't really care how much he brings back home either, BUT i would still want to make sure he's able to bring back SOMETHING... 

 Plus i think for us Asians we have this impression that those who marry young are either 1. uneducated 2. pregnant.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

But all i can say is Laurel's got guts. She can't speak any Japanese and believe me, Japan is not a country one can survive long in without being able to speak some level of Japanese. She has just recently, (after coming to Japan for like.. 2 months?) managed to say ohayou, arigatou, kutsushita.. 

I wonder how long a couple can last with the girl having to depend on her hubby to translate anything and everything, a girl who practically.. can't go anywhere without her husband since she obviously has no friends (aside from her hubby's family, luckily church ppl are very friendly ppl) yet, and a girl whose husband's not even bothering to teach his wife any Japanese because he expects her to pick it up naturally since that's how he picked up English during his five years in America. Japanese and English.. are on a different level of difficultiness...I sincerely wish all the best to her. Really...

Ok... wait wait...I've steered too far away from the pear-story. Let us once again return to 神戸観光園.

Note the green basket of pears in my hand. 

A shopaholic mustn't forget to do what one must do even if she's at a fruit farm XD.

In the end, i only managed to eat 4 pears. 4 super humongous pears to be exact. I didn't bother to pick any pears that doesn't meet that minimum standard. The 1st one tasted so sweet ahh... the rest.. well.. tasted like pears..

I KNEW from the start that grape-picking would have been so much better. We only stayed there for like .. 2 hours? though we could have spend the whole day there.. which i would, without a doubt, definitely have done to get my money's worth had i been with my friends.

When we reached the chapel around 2, everyone headed to the toilet including yours truly... to.... excuse my manglish... laosai

haha さすがに even if its just four pears.. it IS four pears. Eating that much fruit in one go guarantees a trip to the restroom.

cost:

• 
  
  1000 yen (rm40) for admission fee
  
  
  
• 
  
   400 yen (rm 16) for transportation fee    <----- this is actually one of the reasons that made me decide to tag along. Its counted as cheap cause it usually takes around 1000yen for return densha tickets.
  
  
  
• 
  
   XXXX yen for the pears in the green basket
  
  
  

and...

just for your information:

Laurel just got a job as an english teacher at a nursery, her dear husband is currently working as a delivery boy so he can concentrate his 'real' work at the church, and they have yet to have their honeymoon since they were, frankly, moneyless when they tied the knot last year.

what i have been up to this few days

* VISUAL DECEPTION*

  だまし絵
17 September Thursday

(joyce, mei ching, me!)

okay guys.. take a guess at who we went out with again today... Aww...come on.. its not that hard! we're all eating expensive-looking-like food (haha sorry.. the food in the second pic actually looks a lot better than that. but by the time i've satisfy my hunger enough to pause a few seconds to take the pic....well it somehow looked like that already hohoho). And the answer is.......

YES! We went out with our host family 'okaasan' again~! This time there's 2 of them (usually there's owes more than one okaasan at any one outing... i guess they're shy to be alone too), mine and joyce's .

(zhong ing, my okaasan, me) (mei ching, joyce's okaasan, joyce)

The main point of the outing is actually to come to this art exhibition called visual deception or in japanese, だまし絵 held at 兵庫県立美術館.

This fellow here is drawn with all sorts of fruits. Can u tell that his right cheek is peach and his left cheek is actually an apple? haha i thought the cheeks were of the same fruits until i took a look at the explanation. Bah~ anyway for someone who doesn't really have a clue what art's about, it was quite interesting.

You're supposed to look at this pic from the right side and voila~.. a guy's face. But i think its pretty obvious its a guy from the medieval era 's face without having to look from the right side or whatever.


This one's a bit trickier. You're supposed to look at it from the left side. And you're supposed to get to see an old man 'bercangkung'.
There's a couple of really impressive bits like one on a view of a port with ships docked there that seems to moving as you're walking pass it.

cost: 電車tickets: 570x2 =1140 yen =rm45.. not cheap also right the transportation fee though we get free lunch (okaasan) and free entrance (we foreign students have a card that lets us go in places at our prefecture, in my case hyougo-ken兵庫県 for free!)

幸せ にゃんこ
~shiawase nyanko~
erm... english translation would be... happy cat...??
14, 16 Sept Mon, Wed

basically you sew up a cat's shape, insert the peg (for the legs and hands), some cotton and tadaa~ When you squish the legs, the hands open up and u can peg it at the curtain or anywhere you like i guess.

lookie~ I didn't think i would get to use a sewing machine again. i even know how to set the thread up now hohoho. the one on top of the cotton is mine.. the rest are mostly joyce's and some, zhong ing's. haha i keep on procrastinating and still have 2 or 3 more unfinished ones which i will, hopefully, complete within this few days.

At first i was totally helpless in turning the cloth as the needle fire away and couldn't get the machine to sew the shape i want AND gave up several times before i finally master a wee bit.

(zhong ing, joyce, 寮母ryoubou, me!) <---- yes i intend to insert names until u guys can look at any pics i put on and go 'Oh look, this is XXX'

oya.. that 寮母 is the aunty i mentioned last time who 'ask' --> order me to clean up the corridor a bit cause some vips are coming over. Her job... i think is probably to look after the girls' dorm and its inhibitants' (us) well-being. She's the one who ask the school for a sewing machine (its brand new~ we're the first to use it) to be put in the girl's dorm and thought up this 'shiawase nyanko' project for the 3 of us .

MEI CHING'S STAY-OVER

(mei ching, me!)

usually i'd refrain putting unphotogenic photos of me but this photo of mei ching is just so... wild that i can't help it =).
Mei ching's my akashi college senpai who's just graduated this year and entered Kyoto University (2nd best in japan). I'm currently using her ex-room and her bicycle btw. She stayed here a couple of nights before she left with Joyce for a raya party held at 四国, shikoku(not that you guys would know where it is but ah well ...) yesterday. so now there's only me and zhong ing at the girls' dorm. Luckily its a tiny dorm so it's not creepy at all.

小学校
15, 18 September Tuesday, Friday
I'm not really sure what this program is called... foreign exchange program?.. Anyway this elementary school wanted their primary 2 students to be exposed to foreigners by having a class where the kids have fun, play games sing songs for 45 minutes with foreigners (us). And so the International Relation, Cultural & Arts Affairs Dept asked if we wanna go or not and since we were kinda free so... They divided the kids into groups of 5 and assigned one foreigners to each group. Its quite easy actually, the kids have already prepared board games and trump cards to play with us. At first i was kinda scared that i'd have to think of something to entertain them. plus they're just 8 years old so they were quite hyper and willing to do watever i say =). o.. they took back the crown btw... stingy..

(linh, zhong ing) okay pls remember this photo.. someday in the very future i have an intuition that i'll be writing a blog on loneliness because zhong ing is busy off somewhere...

(joyce, zhong ing, linh, me!)

the four of us akashi 留学生 went to the planetarium together after entertaining the kids. This photo is taken in front a mirror-like door which i very soon find out is the type of mirror door where the ones inside can see through... and behind the mirror-doors we have... the ticket booths.... #^^# paiseh... i bet the workers were laughing their heads off... this is just one of the very many, many photos we took in our effort to take a decent one.

The planetarium... wasn't as interesting or impressive as i hoped it would be. Maybe its because the exhibition's written in japanese and i can't enjoy as much as i could have had it been written in english... but they had a section where you sit on a laid-back seat, stare at the sphere-shaped ceiling where they show stars, zodiac and explain. That was very nice.

2nd trip to elementary school

We're still assigned to the same group as last time. Its a lot more fun this time round cause the kids and us know each other already. This time i made them play our malaysian game..(the finger thingy) cause i was quite bored with their memory cards game. the kids were really cute tho.. usually when you play memory cards you would first line the cards up right? in the kids' case, they just mix the cards up, leave them in the messed up state and just started the game. So it was a game of luck more than memory.


i had them fight each other hohohoho

(china, russia, zhong ing, china, china, thai, me, mei ching)

originally i thought they came to japan because of work relation or study but it turns out most of them moved to Japan because they're married to japanese. some of them still can't speak jap yet.. o well.. all the best to them

*btw this is strictly a volunteer program. I didn't get a single cent! souvenirs also no-no.. i mean they would usually give some food or something but..

well at least the school had the decency to pay our transportation fees.

AND!!! their treatment for the first time we came and the 2nd time is totally different! They had cups of tea and snack (a small one but it's still something) and our name cards lined up properly at the coffee table for the first time. For the second time, there was a pile of name cards on the table with zero snacks =(... ah well.. it IS volunteer work...

9/9/09 : pool at baaba's place

hey guys i ish back~!!
it took me quite a while, (4 months actually) but i finally realised something... and that is if i wait till i'm free to write my blog, i'll end up never writing it. so here i am, at 2.23am, drinking ipoh white coffee, listening to hitz fm, typing away... with tons of undone tasks tat must be finished somehow b4 the sun rises... and believe me, the damn sun rises pretty early lately in japan -.-


kimchi gyoza~
joyce, me and zhong ing made it to take to baaba's house (one of the okaasan in the host family programme) cos they figured it would be too uncivilised to go baaba's house empty-handed. it was unexpectedly easy to make: cut kimchi and cabbage into eety biity pieces, mix with pork, wrap it, fry-voila~! it tasted fine... really!

While we were weathering away in the kitchen, our dorm's 寮母 (ryoubou) aka some aunty who take care of us gals in the girl's dorm, strolled in

" こんにちは、テンさん元気ですか”　（good afternoon, how you doing teng-san)...

　"。。。はい、元気です。” (... yea i'm good)

"あのね。。。悪いけど、OOさんが来ますから、廊下 掃除して。”
(i know it's bad of me, but OO san is coming over for an inspection, can u please clean up the corridor etc etc)

Japanese somehow have this thought tat ppl will feel better if they cushion what harsh things or requests they are about to say if they ask about the weather or your health 1st. hehe



We reached baaba's house around 1230, 30 minutes malaysian style late, of course =P ( we were suppposed to be there at 12 ), but you know me, i never forget my duty as a foreign student to introduce malaysian culture

anyway, we reached there washed hands (cos of the influenza), sit down, eat

and eat and eat and eat and talk until 630pm when we head to the pool in the gym baaba goes. hehe my 4th time in the pool (i've been sneaking into our sch's pool at nite to learn how to swim this past week). the swimming intructor at the gym's pool was really good. really learned a lot more compared to malaysian's intructor according to zhong ing, who took a week of swimming lessons in sibu b4 coming to japan.

around 10 we finally head out to
eat and eat and eat



and when we finally reach the dorm it was already past 12...

and tat's a day in my life... kk i seriously need to take care of my other tasks ady. ciaoz

25 apriil, saturday KYOTO.. i repeat KYOTO

lookie~ my 1st sighting of geisha...

its a street with restaurants where geishas work.

we got lucky cause apparently it happened to be around the time they got off from work so can see them walking from the restaurants to the taxi stands.

we onli got to lay our eyes on one tho..

there was a row of ang mohs lining up the street with cameras waiting for geishas to come out...swt

ok.. time to rewind... mei ching who's just graduated from akashi kousen and entered kyoto daigaku invited us over for a housewarming party. so on friday nite we ended up baking cakes again. er.. to be more precise.. i 'helped' in baking the cakes.. or something like tat..watever..

the cakes joyce made were successful and tasted a lot better than the banana cakes which also tasted fine btw

mei ching's.. michael went home by the time we took group photo

a photo taken somewhere near mei ching's house in case me n zi can't remember our way back

kawaramachi.. the shopping district in kyoto

according to joyce.. there's a temple for the geishas to pray to become prettier. wanted to go in but joyce said its dark ady so better not go in?

kfc old man in samurai outfit

BAABA'S HOME 3rd saturday in japan

morning - joyce bring us jogging to nearby umi (sea)... around 15 minutes to reach there. forgot to bring camera so didn't take photo.. nvm.. next time go pasti take photo.. the sun was out.. its quite 'sai' but not heaty..
lucky... never tot akashi kousen would be soo... erm how to say.. 'well-rounded'?..its less than a 5 minute run from kousen to the eki... there's yakiniku, udon shop.. bank.. supermarket nearby within walking distance or even better.. less than 10 minutes by bicyle.. can go shopping at kobe..... well...not tat i've shopped there yet. so far still no time to go..but according to senpai kobe is better than osaka

today we went to nishinomiya (about 90mins by train) where tuan's host family lives. his host family invited him for lunch.. me and zi tagged along =P

plan: bertolak from hostel 10am.. reach nishinomiya eki by 1130 to meet up with michael senpai (who happens to share the same host family as tuan) who's supposed to bring us to tat house as we hav no idea how to get there..

so how did we end up taking taxi?

we reached nishinomiya eki by 1130 alright. nishinomiya JRline eki to be exact... michael was waiting for us at nishinomiya hankyuu line eki...poor us..how were we supposed to noe tat JR and hankyuu train stations are so far apart..

osaka trains lines are confusing.. i repeat... confusing.. there's a total of 3 train companies(at least so far i noe there's 3) : JR which we usually take, Hanshin and Hankyuu. beh tahan.. my brain is too used to kl's simple lines...

oya the taxi costed 1140yen..rm42.18.

when we finally reached...

from left to right: michael, dulguun, yours truly, tuan, zi

...

tuan's host mum who's known as baaba is like the 'ring leader' of all the host mums. if i'm not mistaken, she's the one who hooked us new foreign students with host mums. i'm not sure her exact age but she's over 80 years old and she's more hyperactive than me.

she gave us some pots and aprons..

sorry.. onli got photos of zhong ing in apron. u'd hav to cross over my dead body b4 i wear something of tat kind and take photos of it..

o.. there's a photo of me with the dessert tho..

baaba and other host mums treated us to dinner near the eki..

conclusion: host family SAIKOU!! all u hav to do is eat eat AND eat! for free! the onli price (if it even counts as a price) is u hav to talk with them... haha wat a weird and wonderful world we're in.

oya it seems tat when the senpais' family came over to japan, baaba let them stay at her house wor.. hehe =w=i'll ganbatte!