I don't wanna be the DID (Damsel In Distress). I prefer to be Hercules.

English presentation over~ yes!!
Personally I don't give a heck whether I do well on in or not.. but this time it's group presentation. I'd rather die than to be the one that drag my group down. Funny that the reason I lost my confidence in English is that I'm scared that I might speak too fluent at it and no one gets what I'm trying to say. But that's how things go here. I really wish I could be of more use to them. I don't like the me that's weak and useless. I'm happier helping people than to be at the receiving end.

I think I only realised that after I come here and, for the first time in my life, felt so insignificant. I don't like the fact that whether I'm in class or not doesn't even affect a single person. Maybe I got too used to ppktj's classes where there's only 20 people per class and almost everyone affects someone.

I never realised that language barrier was such a big problem... or maybe this isn't a language barrier problem and its just my personality problem.. I'm trying so desperately to be of some use to them.

Anyway lately many good things seemed to have happened. Firstly on Sunday, my english group (Ootani, Miwa, Shigeru, Maeda) finally got together for the first time to prepare for the news presentation today. At the end of the day, we went to Coco Ichi Curry House where Ootani chia us 4000yen  rm160(originally 8000yen but Miwa works there so its half-priced) worth of food. To me its such a big deal to just have a normal meal with them cause the gals and guys in my school don't normally mix. I have yet to see a gang that has a mix of both guys and gals in it at my school.

And then yesterday after class we got together again for practise one last time. This time only me, Ootani and Shigeru went to a ramen shop for dinner where Ootani treated me again. (Yes, all the good things are food related). Maybe its because there's like only 2 gals in the class, most of the guys are really kind to me. This english group presentation is one damn good example. When we were to form groups, Ootani them automatically asked me if I'd like to join theirs or not while I was worried sick which group to join cause sad but true, I still don't have a gang I can go naturally to. Oya.. both Shigeru and Ootani are very sweet in that they often ask me stuff  that begins with 'In Malaysia is there....?' in an attempt to include me in their conversation. I can't help it that I have no common topics to talk with guys. With jap gals, I can still gossip with them at ease... but guys... I really dunno wat to say.

Haha.. this is turning out to be a funny blog but seriously, if I was to keep a diary, the whole book would consist of 'today i've spoken to hashimoto' or 'lately it seems that i haven't talked much with shirasawa'. My classmates mean that much to me.

And I got invited to my second 飲み会 (sort of like Malaysia's version of yamcha except its much much much more expensive because they drink beer here). It would be five people including me. Worried -____-. I have total confidence in my conversation skills when i'm talking one-on-one. But with more than 2 people, i'll feel like its a burden for them all to listen to my slow and broken japanese.

Come to think of it, I do think its my personality problem after all. I mean I don't talk much in Japanese cause I know its mostly weird and wrong and I guess for me I prefer to have the 'the-girl-who-don't-talk-much' rather than 'the-girl-that's-bright-but-uncool'. I care too much about my image. I hate to appear trying too hard for something.

Aah well. That's it for today.

KIMONO and some 明石外国人新年会

11 JAN
Today's 成人式, the Japanese's coming-of-age celebration day and therefore  HOLIDAY~. All girls who have turn 20years old in 2009 can go to the celebration thingy. I didn't go. 
We're having a physics and maths exam this coming wed btw. Its an exam all 3rd year students studying in technology colleges have to take. They use this exam's result to rank the technology colleges in Japan. And I finally found out why Akashi always had a high rank - our maths and physics teacher are treating this exam as semester exam. G,O,D i just found out about it today |||. Spent the whole day in my classroom with 3 other guys 'studying'.. more like just talking >< (all 通生- students who don't live in dorm and travel back and forth to sch from their home).
I'm so glad there's finally a couple of them that got used to me and who I can feel at total ease with. and anyway....

10 JANUARY 2010

okay! Story time. Let's see...this kimono is actually Yumi's one. Yumi's the nearby chapel's priest's daughter. I sometimes hang out there when I have free time on my hands. They borrowed us kimono to wear for the coming-of-age prayer thingy.

And FYI, I did try my best to smile in my kimono but then I was told that I looked better off not smiling so.... まあ．．．I was getting bored of seeing myself smiling in photos anyway. I wonder who's the one that started the idea that we are to smile when we take pictures anyway.

Oya, its not easy to wear kimono. Most Japanese can't wear it by themselves and they usually go to the saloon where the saloon people would help them wear the kimono, do their make and hair which, by the way, takes about 3 hours... or so they say. Since we weren't going to a formal function, this two aunties help us wore ours. They don't really have much experience in wearing kimono either but they're so cute ^^! When I arrived in the changing room, there's like 5 pieces of paper with handwritten instructions on how to wear kimono stuck on the wall! haha, they really did their homework.

I really have to applaud them. They just read the instructions and managed to tie this obi thingy. I have my own kimono outfit plus hair done within like... less than 30 ninutes? By the time we got to the hair, we were pressed for time already cause the it was time for the sermon already so the hair part was done under 5 minutes by another er... aunty? (not really that old till call aunty... but not young enough to call her a lady... er.. errr... ahhh! middle-aged woman!).. Okay!.. Aother middle-aged lady who frequent the church did my hair for me. Mind you she's an amateur but she did a good job. I just had my hair tied into a high bun then had a small brunch of curly wig pinned there and add the flower -voila~!

The flower is mine to keep. The church gave me and zi each one that matches the kimono we were going to wear as a gift ^^. ,,though I'm not really sure there's gonna be any occasion where it would come to use again.

Personally I like this pic of me. The stomach part looks slightly weird at first but once you look long enough XD and get used to it, this pic kinda looks like a doll (*^^*)

Really love the kimono colour... oya.. it costed 50万円 = rm20 000. Crazy right? Its counted as typical for a kimono though . Of course, there's cheaper ones than this and there's much more expensive ones.

The kimono underwear. I didn't have the chance to take photos while we changing into them earlier cause we didn't have much time so this is taken when I was changing out of it. I would have preferred to stay a wee bit longer and take more photos but then we already promised to go to the akashi foreigners new year party thingy so....

Foreigners and japanese (mostly housewives btw) living in akashi area are invited to join.

me with the food chitto (laos guy) cooked

some of the snacks... The party was a lot more interesting than I expected it to be and I won a octopus (akashi's famous for octopus) hp strap thing in the lottery game thingy, which I'll take photo of and post next time.
The party... really had the foreigners feel. The clothes the people wear are just different from the Japanese. Hmm.. don't really have much stuff I wanna say about this party thingy so.... till next time!

MINI-BELATED-WITH-OKAASAN- NEW YEAR PARTY

9 JANUARY 2010
MEMBER: teng, joyce, my host family (okaasan, and her hubby)

salmon salad^^

I managed to reach 明石駅, where my host family house is, at 11am on the dot. Yesss!!! After a whole year in Japan I have finally IMPROVED man! Now all I have to do is to be 5 minutes earlier (Japanese standard).

FYI: though my college's called 明石高専, the nearest station to my place isn't  明石駅, its 魚住駅.

My okaasan let us make 生キャラメル(caramel candies) ^^ while she do the final preparations for lunch. Her daughter won the pot to make caramel candies the other day in a nearby mall.

looks nice but didn't tasted that nice =(

radish salad, spring roll thingy, pumpkin soup, SALMON salad, KUSHI age

The 串揚げ is  a bit like steamboat, except its a pot of oil instead of soup and you put stuff simliar to ayam mas (but taste a lot better) in and fry them. Its really fun. They actually got write how many seconds you should fry it like 60 or 120 seconds and what type of shouyu (western style shoyu, japanese style shoyu,  strong shoyu) it goes with on the sticks. Specific. Exactly what you can expect from Japan!

Having something to do besides eating and talking is really a lot more fun =)

After lunch, the four of us talk talk again, then my okaasan shown me wedding photos of her former host son. I'm the third 'child' she hosted by the way. Her first one was a Vietnamese and the second one was a Laos guy. She loves them to bits. Or so i think cause she's always talking about them.

After a short while...

tea time~ Life is wonderful.

desserts: disney halloween cookies, strawberries, BEARD PAPA (*sigh* heaven)

They all laughing happily cause I knocked down a vase while hurrying over after i pressed the timer button  -_______-

joyce, me, my okaasan, and her hubby

hehe i made them all move around the house just for this photo. The height of the camera was ok but i wanted to tilt the camera a bit down so that the food would be captured as well. In the end the okaasan and otousan went hunting around their house for a canon camera stand. hohoho~ But it was worth it.  I mean, just look at the strawberries! Don't they look huge and delicous (which they are by the way) thanks to the angle of the tilted camera?

I think my okaasan is beginning to like me a little. I can 'feel' it from the difference of amount of food she prepared.   

And the reason is probably.....

Once upon a time...

Actually Joyce and I were supposed to go to her home at January 2. There was another okaasan called Kasama who throws a new year party where all the akashi foreign students go to every year and this year, it happened to be on January 2 too. But Joyce and I decided to go to my okaasan's place anyway and reconfirmed it with my okaasan. Then one night Joyce received a phone call from Baaba, who's in charge of all the okaasans, saying that after they discussed, we're to go to Kasama's place. And that my okaasan is also in understanding of the current situation but that I should still send her a msg to thank her for inviting us over just for manners anyway. I felt a bit weird but didn't want to question, cause I thought my okaasan might be having a hard time to tell me she wants to spend the new year alone with just her family , therefore, asked baaba to tell me so.

But in the end, it turns out that they didn't have any sort of discussion after all and that my okaasan never heard anything about it. And that she was quite hurt after I sent a mail saying 'thank you blabla but i'm not going blabla' cause she was really looking forward to it. After we cleared the misunderstanding she asked me to go to over to Kasama's place anyway cause things would be complicated if i was to go to hers.

I chose to go to my okaasan's place over Kasama's cause its a lot nearer (and therefore cheaper) plus i get to meet her children which would be a lot more fun than to go Kasama's place and see the same foreign students i would be seeing everyday during school days.

Anyway.. in the end i skipped Kasama's party cause 1) super tired from shopping at nanba  2) it feels sort of betraying my okaasan if i was to go to Kasama place after the way baaba backstabbed her  3) say goodbye to a good blouse (Kasama's place is somewhere in Kobe) just to eat myself fat? no way!!

In Japan, its not really possible to cancel last minute, but I cooked up a accepable excuse and wiggle myself out of it.

A few nights later, I received a phone call from my okaasan asking me to come over to her house cause she already bought the kushi age sets for us. AND that she heard from Kasama that i didn't go in the end and asked if that was true  ...with a hint of acknowledgemnet and glee in her voice XD.

And so off we go to her house today and live happily every after.

~the end~

WINTER HOLIDAYS part four OSAKA

OSAKA
31 DECEMBER, 1 JANUARY


31 DECEMBER 2010
Chia Sik, Lee Hua and Kah Wei came over to kansai area to play so we, Kansai people who are known for being warm, kind and caring went all the way over to Osaka (goodbye my precious decent one piece =
(~ .. no i must stop thinking this way!) and greeted them graciously. 

kah wei, lee hua, zi, chia sik, teng

Since I went to Nanba just the other day,  I suggested (persuaded, coerced.. call it what you want) we go the north part cause they can go nanba another day (ﾉ´∀｀)ﾉ. Umeda turns out to don't really have much places to go. The underground shopping place was closed for 31st. HEP was too expensive for us (which later when i returned to the dorm and asked a jap gal about it, there's actually cheap places in HEP.. i can't believe i missed out. will definitely give another try). Then we proceeded to our last stop - umeda sky buillding, took enough photos to prove that we've been there, and went to Nanba to meet up with PS and JJ.

a 850yen = rm34 purin (pudding) parfait chia sik bought me for birthday present ＼(^o^)／. Girls just love sweet things.

lee hua, chia sik, kah wei, teng, jj, ps, jet

We all went separate ways around 9 and i went off to join Joyce for countdown.

joyce,(joyce's batch's guys), teng

time: around 3am in the morning? The train between nanba and shin imamiya where Joyce's hotel was still working. Note that it's Joyce's hotel. haha we booked only one room and i sneaked into it. We didn't dare to book Hotel Zipangu where we stayed the other day  even though its slightly cheaper cause scare the owner would still remember us.

1st January 2010

Another whole day spent shopping at nanba~

ps n jj teman me a few hours, then i shopped by myself for another few hours then finally around 6pm met up with joyce and her batch. The five of us went to this cafe with wifi so the guys-with-no-life can surf facebook =.=

It was sort of my 1st  'real' conversation with the guys. And it reminded me all over agian if only my japanese was  more fluent I really don't have trouble talking with people i met for the first time.

hehe let's give the guys names: chan, sii lee, mior, teng, joyce
another photo taken before joyce and i went back.

Finally reached the dorm around 1230am, climbed the window and at last~ sweet sweet room.


woohoo~ I'm finally done with winter holidays events! All thats left is nara and summer holiday stories which includes hokkaido trip, ecoran, okinawa, kansai trip......
Really.. I shouldn't have slacked off.

WINTER HOLIDAYS part one JiNgLe bEllS~

~~winter holidays~~

23December2009-6 January 2010

AroUnD ChRistmaS

20 DECEMBER 2009

SUNDAY

mmm.. now who would have thought I would be celebrating christmas at a chapel. Not christmas day though, Just the 'pre'-celebrations.

Laurel made the cakes. Which were red! 1st time I saw cakes with that colour.

Actually I wasn't going to go to the mini 'christmas party' which was held in the evening cause I felt it was kinda meaningless to just go there and eat and pay 500yen. But then, Joyce and I got invited by Yumi to go over to her house to help make cookies. So....

. We just used the Morinaga brand dough to make the cookies so it was easy peasy.

the 'feel' of the place

the first turkey i ever eaten! laurel made it

24 DECEMBER 2009 THURSDAY

Second day of holidays and I went over to Laurel's new place. I'm kinda happy for her that she managed to moved out from her in-laws place though they were good people. And though her new place is less than a five minute walk from the in-laws place. But still... its her own place ^^ so yay!! We shared a takoyaki machine for her home-warming party. And made more than 40 takoyakis... With Joyce around, the food is always more than the demand... and not to mention prettier (costly).

laurel, me, joyce

In return, Laurel taught us how to make mexican tortillas...which i don't have much recollection on. But still, I'm sure it'll come to me sooner or later ww

Why am i writing?

I can understand why I'm writing my blog. Its so that my family and friends can know what i'm up to.
But I can't understand why i'm trying so hard to keep a diary.


Lately if feels like really lots of good things happened.
And i'm anxious to write down everything.
every detail.
To remind me I had fun.
I'm so afraid that I'd forget the fun things I've had.
why am i writing?
so that i can read back when i'm down?
isn't it good enough just to have fun
and let the memory be stored somewhere in the head(heart... whereverwhatever)?
i guess i just don't have enough confidence in my own memory

WINTER HOLIDAYS part three SKI TRIP

SKI TRIP AT NOZAWA ONSEN
27~29 DECEMBER 2009
MEMBERS: many many ppl... 

day one

Reached the place around 6am. I probably would have enjoyed my first white snow scene if I had better sleep. There's just a limit to how well i can sleep in a bus. 
Because us kansai batch reached there the earliest, we had to go hunt where the hotel is ourselves.




here's a pic to give u guys an idea of how many people joined the trip this time. every year PPKTJ chinese will arrange this ski trip and those who wanna go can just go. Its my batch's first ski trip so most of us joined.

For someone who held a snowboard for the 1st time in their life, i didn't do too bad posing with it right =) ? (めっちゃ頑張ったで）

the seniors were really great and they immediately taught us all we have to know to start snowboarding

My thoughts on snowboard?

- it wasn't as cold as i thought it would be.
personally i think akashi is colder cause the wind's pretty strong though it
doesn't snow here
- the ski place looks EXACTLY like the ski game i used to play in computer
^^. the one where will suddenly got a snowman monster come out eat the
human one. i never watched ski programs on tv before so i thought it was gonna be something artificial like ice skating. i was so glad when i found out everyone can play at the same place.
- ski/snowboard should really really be done with a huge gang of friends ^^. Its so nice to slide down together and see someone you know in front of you or when you fall down and look back its someone you know again

this is how the gondola looks like when the weight is distributed unevenly ;). hong yao too heavy.

and this! note how the gondola is different. this one is more like cable car cause it goes much much more higher. me and around four other guys got cheated by hong yao to go up there. and when reached up there super shock o.O . the way down was like mountain road (Canada Hill - miri ppl will understand =) )plus there was no netting or fence by the side. 'i was like okay.. what do i do now?' hong yao slided down first to 'see if its ok'. i went next and stopped after the 1st corner to wait for others.

5 minutes

10 minutes

still no one coming ==. i gave up waiting and slided down to find the others 'walked' down cause it looked too scary...They just don't make guys like they used to. 

i guess this is how far a guy's yi qi goes. tsk tsk.

day 2

the eight of us went to challenge high high hills~ only me and pui san gals though cos other gals got tired from the first day and decided to build snowman instead.

saw my first 'snow powder'. i was wondering what the difference between snow and 'snow powder' was. let's see it was... wasn't as icy as snow. it sticks to the clothes. it's .. different. i love it  (*^-^*)

this time don't dare to fall down like first day cause butt hurt already.

day 3

Last day in Nozawa.

DEC 29

"Checkout is 10am.
Luggage will stay at Hotel while we go sightseeing around the village.
There are few historical sites, a swimming arena and a ski museum.
Bus back to Tokyo is at 1650(pm).
Bus back to Osaka is at 1940."


 I quote from the email about our schedule. So when King Ying,who's in charge of the this ski trip,opened up the map given by the hotel people and said

 ' ok guys, where do you wanna go?'

'.......'

'.............'

It was more like finding stuff to do to keep ourselves occupied while waiting for the night bus.
But i was glad the few of us later got to sit together and talked. long time don't have the 'gang' feel ady.

1000yen zaru soba which tasted normal....

and its not even as much as it looks. the net got 'bongkok' out in the middle making it looks a lot!

WINTER HOLIDAYS part two OSAKA

OSAKA

25, 26 DECEMBER 2009

MEMBERS: ME, JOYCE, ZI

25 DECEMBER 2009 FRIDAY

woohoo~ this is gonna be super lengthy

Because we have to take the night bus the next night to go the ski trip, i thought like might as well just kaikai at osaka before going.
 
Our first destination: namba parks!
In Osaka, there's just 3 parts you have to go to: Nanba(south part), Umeda(north part) and USJ (the theme park). If you've been to this 3 parts u can proudly say "I've been to Osaka" =). nanba parks is at the south part.
here's some photos of the views we passed by from our hotel to nanba parks.
Ok. I lied.
here's some photos of the views we passed by as i made the three of us walk from our hotel to nanba parks. Which is a couple of stations away. Its not that far. Really. According to google map its just a mere 23 minutes away! I'm positive it wouldn't n't have taken an hour if we didn't get lost (｡〇_〇).

 

personally I don't like to post too many scenery shots but mum loves photos of botak trees so....

 This building is actually a lot more gorgeous than it looks in the photo. I just couldn't get the feel of it in the shot. I think its some place especially for weddings to be held at. If i ever do get married, IF, and only IF, i'd like it to be at someplace dreamy like here =)

 
 
 
いよいよ、
  Nanba parks~!

If i'm not wrong, its designed to look like a canyon. It's geng and...cool. sorry i don't have much words in my vocabulary to describe buildings. but it really was very unique. i never saw an interior with curves like this one. i was like 'wow!!' when i first saw if from afar.

so sorry ling, i know how much u love stuff like this. if i knew about this place earlier i definitely would have recommended u to go when u came.

to take this shot we had to walked all the way to the opposite expensive looking hotel and ride the elevetor to 20+ floor. it doesn't look good at all when taken from the ground.

since i've already took the trouble to go all the way up, took some photos of osaka from up high too.. not really tat pretty huh.

yay~! finally photos with me in it~~~

 

hohoho.. legs look long here. will definitely remember this pose (ﾉ´∀｀)ﾉ

joyce was with us too but it just so happened i looked better in these shots.. apparently she's the better cameraman.

.

..

...

damn i sounded so vain..

this is the shopping area in nanba.  and thats a refection of the glico man.

okay.. this is 1500yen room (rm60). its considered very very VERY cheap in japan. because japan hotel system is to count money per head not per room, we each paid 1500yen for 3 single rooms.

and i wake up at 5am to find ...this......=.=

a bit zadao..  in the end we all slept in one room haha

26 DECEMBER 2009 SATURDAY

this is tsutenkaku tower and the area is called shinsekai／ 新世界／new world..  its one of the poorest area in japan and i was really shocked to see the condition there.

and this is kushikatsu.. it's a famous delicacy in this area. but its really just some fried stuff that tasted slightly better than normal ones. we only spent a little time here before we went nanba to shop again =).

and the nite finally arrives and we ride the night bus to go nagano