Last Weekend - Disneyland + Isabel's 21st

I feel so old - whilst my friend just turned 21 last weekend, I am going to be 22 in about 2 weeks! Oh well, age is but a number!

So last Saturday, we went to Disneyland for Isabel's 21st birthday celebration! 21 is big in USA and Singapore and a few other places, but in Japan, they celebrate 20 years old as the 'special' one - because it's the age when they can legally drink alcohol!

Some photos from Disneyland - went with Rachel, Isabel and Dhani from Canada!



Part of her birthday celebration 'criteria' was for everyone to wear 'ears' in Disneyland! In the 10million or so souvenir shops they have in Disneyland, they sell a variety of hairbands, clips, hairties etc with cartoon character ears on them! Like Dumbo, Shrek, Aliens, Minnie Mouse, Stitch etc etc. So Isabel got her Minnie Mouse ears, Rachel got Marie from the Aristocats and I got a huge pink, leopard-spotted Minnie Mouse ribbon hair tie. Felt like such kids lol. Didn't help that the park was full of toddlers and families.



Well, I honestly never ever ever thought I'd actually step foot into Disneyland (wasn't interested last year in LA either) but I guess since it was a special occasion, I had no objections either. Nonetheless, no offence to all the hundreds or thousands of visitors at Disneyland that day, but I doubt I would ever want to go back of my own volition. I've heard that DisneySea is better, because it is targeted at the adults after all so the rides are apparently more thrilling, but like I've said before, theme parks are never my thing. I can think of too many things to buy/do/experience with the money that's needed for the expense needed for a day trip to such theme parks. And the waiting time too. So no more Disneys and the likes - unless another special occasion comes along I guess.

Sunday, her real birthday, was a more relaxed day of karaoke in the evening - filled with songs by her favouritest favouritest artist Jay Chou - and dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant Tapas Tapas. The food was so-so, but honestly the service pissed me off for a bit. Firstly they didn't allow us to consume or bring out the cake there, unless we all bought a drink each. Ice water took a while to be served as well, and was never automatically refilled. And then, after all that initial fuss, the waiter blithely ignorantly spoiled the surprise by asking at the table if we would like the cake to be served now?! Sheesh, don't they understand the concept of service?! Coming from a nation who actually have a term coined out for this "saa-bi-su" (サービス) usually to mean that they throw in a freebie for buying alot though. Pshaw. Nevermind. Can't always have too high standards I guess, unlike at Italian restaurants in Singapore. Anyway, after the pretty birthday cake and dinner, made our way down to the Hub - an English pub where I just found out screens EPL matches!! - for a drink before calling it a night.



Certainly hope Isabel had a great time and a wonderful first few days of her 21st!

Mochi Tsuki 餅つき

餅つき (read: mochi tsuki) literally means mochi pounding, refering to the traditional Japanese festival where people pound the glutinous rice in a big wooden mortar with large wooden hammers/mallets. Last Tuesday, Japanese class ended 30 mins early especially for this school-organised mochitsuki event held at the beautiful Okuma Garden, and they even specially invited several sumo wrestlers down to perform the mochitsuki. 2 people pound the rice with a rhythmic step and shouts, and the rice soon becomes the sticky mass the eventually becomes mochi in various forms. Mochi is traditionally eaten in Japan all-year-round, but especially during New Year's.


(Rashaaa! Trying my hand out at pounding the glutinous rice into mochi!)


Besides allowing the students to try their hands at the pounding, they also gave out the freshly pounded mochi in a variety of ways - with red bean paste, with finely grounded peanut, with nori and shoyu or in soup. I loved the peanut and red bean one best! I ended up taking 3 plates' of these. =P

Mochi with (left) peanut, (right) nori seaweed and shoyu..

Mochi with (left) peanut, (right) red bean paste.

December Blabber

Went to Disneyland yesterday. Not a place of my choice but since it's Isabel's birthday today and she wanted to go Disneyland, so there we were. I can't say much about it except that there's ALOT of people and it's quite expensive and you wait alot for the rides, which end up being just all of 1/10th of your waiting time. Spent alot on food as well, because well, difficult to be there from 8am to 10pm and not eat/drink anything.

Will post pictures up soon.

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December is only halfway through but it's been and will be a busy one. Not to mention pocket-breaking too.

Assignments, quizzes, dinners, etc.

Disneyland, karaoke x 3, floorball, birthdays x 2, and of course the winter-break trip to Osaka/Nara/Kobe for 4 days.

And for floorball, I have to pay for the floorball club transfer (150ch = ~220sgd) and miscellaneous registration fees, club fees and uniform etc which is another 11610yen (~190sgd) and maybe a bit more next year/season. Sometimes I wonder why I go to such lengths to keep at it - travelling at least one hour each way each time I go for training, and paying the expensive accumulated transport costs, and now these. But it'd be such a waste to give it up now wouldn't it? Having brought my stick all the way here, going through all means to contact them and join the club, and faithfully going for every week even though it was difficult and awkward to make conversation... Such a pity if I let it all go because of money. So I'll keep at it. It'll be so sad if I trained with them but didn't get to play any matches with them.

$-wise, I'm definitely set back by quite a bit, but I guess will just have to cut back next month, alot. Guess that means no (too) expensive places for my birthday lol.

Winter Break: Osaka/Nara/Kobe Trip Confirmed!

Was planning and settling our rough itinerary with Isabel earlier just now - and so now winter break trip is confirmed!

We will be going to Osaka for 4 days 3 nights, of which one will be a day trip to Nara, then on to Kobe for 1 more day before coming back to Tokyo. Tried to get the cheapest hostels available and transport as well, so we're staying in dorms and taking night buses (8-9hours) rather than the Shinkansen which would take a mere 2.5 hours but cost about 2-3 times more. Nevertheless, this 'cheap' accommodation and transport still cost about 20100yen (~350sgd) so I'll be leaving myself about 200sgd more for food, admission fees, subway tickets, souvenirs and miscellaneous expenses.

This is so exciting! Will be my first ever trip in Japan - yay!

Upcoming Plans!

Today was a good day in all - pretty yummy curry with rice set lunch at Khana (Nepali, Pakistani Restaurant near school) with Japanese class classmates, and a comfortable izakaya dinner with WF, JF and Isabel. Food always tastes so much better with laughter and good company.

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Winter break will be coming up soon - from 23 Dec to 5 Jan - and plans are in the making for a trip to Osaka & Kyoto! Have yet to finalise transport and accommodation but hopefully soon! Can't wait!

The Japanese have a saying that goes:

“京の着倒れ、大阪の食い倒れ。”

Basically translates to "Shop till you drop in Kyoto (on Kimonos), Eat till you drop in Osaka."

Wonder if that is indeed the case - will find out soon!

Winter Sale Expo + Odaiba Muscle Park

Today, met up with Nobu since he had tickets to some trading company's winter sale at the Big Sight. Rachel came along too, and Nobu brought Reda - a Swiss exchange student who had exchange at NUS before too. The Big Sight is a very interesting looking building indeed - pretty much a convention centre that hosts several large fairs and events throughout the year - and it's located on the Odaiba island. As mentioned before, Odaiba is a man-made island that used to be a military base, but is now a recreational and entertainment area.

The expo sale covered quite a large area, and the sale ranged from 10% to 70%. Mostly bought food though - some konbu 'sweet' look-alike, another konbu 'sweet' with yuzu (lime) flavour and some St. Dalfour jams! Also got 2 packets of phad thai noodles so that I can make good on my promise to try cooking Phad Thai for a few of my friends.

Post-expo-sale, Nobu and Reda had initially wanted to go to the Oedo Onsen Monogatari at Odaiba, but facing some reluctance from R, so we ended up trying out the Muscle Park in the Decks Shopping Centre instead. I've been there once before to just take a look-see, and since then, I have always wanted to try it out once; and today I did!



(Ranking Park - One of the games that the 4 of us tried. This has 3 parts, each testing your balance, agility and coordination. I scored the lowest (apparently the equivalent of a 65-year old) and ended up having to treat Nobu to a Monster Burger dinner haha.)

They had games there that tested your agility, response, coordination and balance, and maybe even just plain luck. There was even a section - Sasuke Park - for the males the flex their masculinity (and arm strength). Basically it was pretty much like Ninja Warrior except that every single activity required only the muscles of the arms (not just biceps/triceps but the fingers, wrist and forearms too).

On the whole, this is really interesting concept for a themepark of sorts. If I ever set up a themepark, I would surely base it upon this: games that test your physical abilities, brain muscles, speed and yet are simple enough for everyone in the family or couples or groups of friends to do together? A winning concept I'd say.

Singapore Year-End Reception + Karaoke

Sorry for the radio silence this past week; it's been abuzz with projects, assignments and deadlines. And after such a busy school week, one can't help but want to enjoy life a little right?

Yesterday was the Year-end Reception hosted by the Singapore Embassy at Prince Hotel and the food was great. Steak teppanyaki,scallop, broccoli with crab meat sauce, etc etc. It was like "幸福的感觉＂. They had local food as well (chicken rice, satay, prawn mee, laksa etc) but they never taste as good as back home. Oh well.

After the reception, Isabel, Rachel and I decided to go for Karaoke! Karaoke is another big Japanese social activity - in fact, I might think that you can probably find a karaoke near almost every train station in Central Tokyo area. They have offers like 1500yen (20sgd) for the hours of 2300 to 0500 for people who missed their last train, so apparently that will be cheaper than taking a taxi or checking into a hotel/motel for the night. So we initially wanted to sing for just 2 hours, but booked up so many songs and couldn't bear to not finish them that we eventually extended by another hour. The price was surprisingly reasonable though - about 16sgd per person with one drink each that we ordered - so perhaps Karaoke might be one of the more affordable leisure activities here in Tokyo. Might be back again!