Blue Screen and Black Days

I hate my laptop.

Recently it's been crashing so much and refusing to start up. 2 nights ago it refused to start up for 2.5 hours - only the blue error screen and black "Windows has failed to start up" screen kept mocking me. Was such bad timing then too. Thank god for friends and their laptops.

Since then I didn't dare turn off my laptop or even let it sleep, because this is such a crucial time for me to stay in contact - not just for course registration, module mapping, but even floorball back home. But last night I stupidly had a moment of belief in the laptop and turned it off to let it rest. This morning I wake up to another 2.5 hours of futile waiting and fervent prayers for the laptop/Windows to just start up - and nothing. Seems like Waseda doesn't have a computer repair centre unlike NUS so I will have to check up on Fujitsu instead. Doesn't look good though - the Fujitsu Japan website was all in Japanese only, and it didn't seem like they have a physical repair centre; more like they send people to repair it. And I'm not so keen on getting a repair either, since I think my warranty is already over (laptop going on 2.5 to 3 years now) and I don't think I brought my recovery disks and what nots over. Hope it won't be expensive. Such lousy timing. I guess I should just be glad that it's not in the middle of when I was doing a term paper or something.

I hate my laptop now. Ugh.

Back from HK

Arrived back from HK 2 days ago. It was... okay on the whole. Felt like I went there to do grocery shopping lol. List of what I bought in HK - supposed shopping paradise:

- 1 jacket
- 1 long sleeve top
- Body soap
- Shampoo
- Contact Lens Solution
- Pimple cream
- Bourjois silver eyeliner
- Lip Balm

Grocery shopping huh? =P


Well but there are a few highlights of the trip:

1)The Aviary in HK Park



2)The expensive Sunday dimsum lunch at Hoi King Heen, Intercontinental


Hmm but honestly, I don't think the food in HK is anything special. Maybe I didn't get to try the bestest of the best, but I guess I've been having really good Cantonese food, Hakka food in Singapore,Penang,Ipoh since young so this was really nothing mind-blowing.

3)A slight, comfortable familiarity with back home; but yet very much a sense of I'm-glad-I-stay-in-Singapore-slash-Tokyo-and-not-HK

I've always thought Cantonese to be such a pretty dialect - singsong, tonal and refined. HKers obviously showed me how wrong I was. Not just about the language, but the people too. I've never seen a kid 'fight' to race to an empty seat in front of an old woman before. Amazing really...

I'm sure HKers themselves don't think too highly of mainlanders; but for me right now, I don't see much difference between HKers and the stereotypical image of the uncultured, civic-mindedless mainlander. And perhaps even if there might be any subtleties, I don't think I'm interested enough to uncover any further.

A Quick Note

Just a quick Hello to say I'm still here!

Updates for Korea Trip, Paddy Ski/Snowboarding Camp and Ming's visit to Tokyo will be up soon. Highlights include eating still-wriggling octopus tentacles sashimi, falling at least 121 times in 2 days, and visiting the Beatles Cover Pub + John Lennon Museum!

In other news, my laptop's been crashing alot the past 2 days - the blue error screen keeps popping up. So worrying ugh. Wonder what hit it. Been trying to fix it or find the cause but to no avail - evidently me is no techie genius raa. So I've been backing up important data instead oh well.


Good night, world =)

Day 1 and Day 2 - Seoul

Day 1

Arrived in Seoul last night - cold, cold, cold. -2deg to -6deg I think.

Dinner with Ingle, a Dutch girl that I coincidentally met at the bus stop whilst we were both feeling lost and finding the same hostel. Dinner was good - grilled korean bbq with lettuce and kimchi, and a sweet sukiyaki-like beef stew with tanghoon.

Korean Air stewardesses are pretty - very much the idea of the Korean beauty - and their uniforms are a very smart beige formal blazer skirt type. Nice.


Day 2

Ming arrives. Nandaemun window shopping (everything is really so cheap! and nice!) and tried alot of food. Fried chewy dough balls in sugar, roadside kimchi soup noodles, meat patty with tteok in the middle, then bimbimbap for lunch and got canned sikkhae and seujeounghwa from the supermarket to try as well. Interesting!

Will be watching Nanta - a nonverbal comic performance with kitchen tools - with Ming and Ingle soon! Then probably dinner/supper. I like Seoul =)

Spring spring -boing!-

Just a short post to say I'm doing okay - more than okay actually... I'm doing great for some reason! Every day has been a pretty good day so far with many great moments and surprisingly quite abit of interaction with Japanese, Koreans and Norwegians.

Last Friday went to the Studio Ghibli Museum with Seunghee and co, then got called in last minute for my first ever part-time-job.
Saturday was floorball training in the morning then cooked phad thai for a few friends that night.
Sunday was Chofu Recreational League in the evening and a quick curry dinner with Sissel - floorball goalkeeper from Norway who used to be on exchange here at Waseda just up till last August before I came!
Monday was Karaoke with Seunghee and Paddy members (as a sort of farewell since she was leaving on 10th), followed by floorball training which turned out to be one of the best I've had since starting last October. Timely too - the last training before our first Japan Cup match this Sunday 14th Feb. Came back that night and managed to book my ticket to Korea for the cheapest price and the perfect flight timings! How lucky am I really...
Tuesday was spent sleeping late and weather was so good at 20deg that I dragged Isabel out to go randomly walk around for 3-4 hours with me. Exploring is fun - just grab a friend, a random direction and a Mister Donut (popular donut chain here)!
Wednesday was spent meeting Donna (a Singaporean friend studying at Monash, who came here to travel with her cousins) and Donna's Japanese friends and my friends. The "party" grew to be pretty big towards the afternoon, with 2 Japanese, 3 Singaporeans and 1 Canadian. Went to Ueno for a stroll, then to a calligraphy exhibition and a small art exhibition, followed by a walk to Akihabara (electronics place), then went to see the Imperial Palace and even visited the "entrance examination" deity shrine en route. Finished up with warm cuppa cocoa at Starbucks at Tokyo Station. Really comfortable company for some reason. Rushed back to near the dorm to meet my Norwegian floorball friend Sissel. Took her to try the new Chanpon (a Nagasaki Chinese-origin dish reminiscent of Hokkien Mee!!) place near the dorm, then she took me to a bar where she used to frequent and we got a drink called Sugar and Spice. Pretty name and delicious drink. Dropped by Picasso for a while for her to reminisce about staying at Hoshien just last year.
Today was spent with 6 Japanese friends from Paddy (my english conversation circle at Waseda) and Isabel - and the 8 of us went to Yokohama to play the arcade (cuz it just HAD to rain ugh) then did 2 rides in the cold, feathery rain; took purikura (neoprint) and found out how well Sou knew how to use those machines; then went down to Chinatown - biggest one in Japan - for dinner to 'celebrate' an early CNY.

A spring break travel report: I'll be going to Korea next Tuesday 16th Feb till following Monday 22nd since one of my friends from hall was free to travel too!
At this rate, I just know I'm going to have to work hard and find a stable part-time-job (not like now) once school semester 2 starts again in April >.< May not actually be bad at all - just the searching part is so tiresome.

But till then life is great =) Good night world.

Spring break and... Snow!

Last final today! A 5-minute oral presentation of your answer to a question that everyone gets - Was/Has Japan (been) a victim? So nerve-wrecking to present in front of the class and with a time limit too. Need to work on my public-speaking huh. But oh well. Last exam = Spring break is here! Funny how the 3rd of Feb is supposed to mark the start of spring, yet February is supposedly the coldest coldest month. Speaking of which...


...雪が降ってるよ！= It's snowing!! In Tokyo! And not the half snow half rain type but actual snow that piles up white on sidewalks and falls magically like white fluff from the sky! Supposed to have 5cm by tomorrow but probably will all melt by morning. SO pretty! Didn't think I'd see any snow in Tokyo actually, since they predicted a warm winter this season. Yet it's been surprisingly warm at times too this winter. What a see-saw. Only thing about snow is the difficulty to walk on the pavements when everyone else has walked the same way and turned the white magical fluff into dirty, ice-water that is so slippery!

Pictures!
(On the way back: it's not rain; it's snow!)

(And nope, not flowers but snow!)

Noodles Yum!

Today was a pretty tiring day - full day of class + make up class and a final exam. Hence the excuse to treat myself a little and I ended up eating out for both lunch and dinner - but I'm so glad!

Lunch was a great recommendation by ZQ - Japanese class classmate - to a tiny little shop selling Abura Soba (油そば). About 10-15 min walking distance from the main gates of school. And when I said tiny, I meant TINY. The shop had counter space for maybe 10? And enough standing space for 2 to cook behind the counter. The shop opens till 4am and apparently it is not uncommon to see a long queue outside at 1am. Abura Soba is actually more like ramen, with no soup and just a little bit of some kinda soy-based sauce, topped with bamboo shoots and a slice of grilled pork. On the table, there's some kinda of dried chilli paste, vinegar and (not spicy) chilli oil which you can add at your own preference. 600 yen for 1 regular-sized bowl may not seem very cheap, but the serving is SO filling. And YUMMY!

(Our shop looked pretty much like this one - though the picture is not taken by me. Too busy eating! >.<)

Dinner was a spontaneous decision to try Champon(ちゃんぽん)! There's a shop nearby the dorm that opened about 2-3 months ago by the same people at Ippudou and so finally got to try it today. Especially hooked when Jf mentioned that it's something like hokkien mee - which I loveee. And it certainly almost felt like it. It had a variety of ingredients from long cabbage to squid, egg, pork and fish cake (gosh! first time!) and was cooked in a flavourful gravy with ramen-like noodles. Again very yummy and very filling! Came back to find out that this was actually a dish that a Chinese created in Nagasaki - and apparently has Fujian origins hence the similarity to Singapore's hokkien mee huh. I like Champon! So much so that it helped me decide that I shall certainly go to Nagasaki/Kyushuu region this summer - whether on homestay or some other way.

Food =) yayyy.