Norwegians, Yokohama & Curry Party =)

Today was a busy but fulfilling day - spent alternatively with both internationals and Japanese.

Sissel - my norwegian friend from floorball - came back to Tokyo last Friday, and 5 more of her Norwegian teammates tagged along for a holiday! They all turned up for the recent Monday's practice, and it was seriously the best that I've ever had in floorball memory. Each may not have seemed individually dazzling, but just having their presence and inclusion in the line up, made a huge difference across the board amongst our own players!

Today, woke up a tad late but made it to Yokohama's Minato Mirai to spend time with them + Yui. Had Krispy Kreme, then made it to Chinatown (Chukagai) for a lunch buffet, which turned out to be just so-so. Have to say the best I've had is still the one near dorm/school. Really really glad to have spent the time with this group of very friendly Norwegians though! Would love to visit them in Norway one day! Hopefully =)

Here are some pictures of them!:

(Ivonne, Rebecca, Yui, Bea (spelling?), Sissel)

(At lunch, L-R: Ivonne, Lotte (sp?), Rebecca, Bea (sp?), Ello/Elizabeth, Yui!)

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Time for Curry - Curry Party!

Since I still had that few packets of curry gravy that Nobu so kindly brought/bought from KL on his last business trip, I decided to whip up some curry and invite Japanese friends over to try what curries in Singapore might taste like. Japanese curry is really quite different - thick, chockful of curry-powder taste, mildly spicy and sweet.

What began with just 3 of us Singaporeans (Isabel, Rachel & me) + 4 Japanese, somehow grew to 16 people in total! Some joined in the morning, others just in the last hour of meeting, and even some just in the dorm. Included 3 Thais, 1 HKer too. So the menu was:

- normal (red) chicken curry with potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, onions

- beef + chicken rendang

- lemak (coconut milk) chicken curry with potatoes and carrots.

- rice

- baguettes

- simple zucchini salad

- plus roomie Rach added a chicken curry of her own as well.

Seemed like a pretty good success on the whole I think! Ate, talked, had icecream/desserts/cheesecake (thanks to Hiro!) and ended up playing Murderer game (that Isabel and I taught some of them the last time at the recent Paddy camp). Decided to move on to the more complex game of Polar Bears, and it was pretty fun! Things rounded up at 10.30pm~ish since some had to catch last train, plus Manager-san started to make an appearance/hint for us to finish up.

Such fun! Really wanted to take some photos but completely forgot amidst the rush to cook 3 curries at one go, and serve and try to be a good hostess and teach/play the games!

Really glad that everybody seemed to have enjoyed it though! First ever time for me to 1) organise a large party 2) cook most of the food 3) cooked for THIS many people 4) cook curry. =P

Happy dappy! =)

May

These days have been filled up with many things, and filling up with many more to come:

Had camp with my English Conversation Circle over the past weekend - one of the best short trips ever! Now I actually see the lure in doing a roadtrip in Japan, no matter how short. Hmm.

Today I showed a couple of visiting Singaporean friends around Tokyo - hopefully wasn't too bad. I'm not a very good tour guide - kept getting lost myself. =P

Upcoming events/activities:

- Floorball league matches are finally starting soon!

- Meeting Shungo with Isabel --> he's learning Chinese so we can all sing Chinese songs

- Meeting Hanako for lunch + Karaoke --> just because she heard from someone else that Isabel and I like to sing Lady Gaga songs in karaoke and that we're funny hehe

- Meeting the Singaporean tourist friends once more tomorrow night --> best of what I can spare aside from full-day school on Thurs and Friday.

- Cooking curry for a group of 6~ people next Wed! --> hope it turns out okay gosh, but it's instant anyway haha!

- My norwegian girl friend is coming back to Tokyo this friday! with a bunch of norwegian floorball mates --> interesting! probably will be catching up

- Still wanting to send the house-warming gift to jon&noriko in norway

- And so many many things!

And these are of course all on top of my usual weekly...

... meetups with Shungo to help him with Chinese.

... meetups with Yui to help her with TOEFL English.

... part-time job of 'teaching' English

... floorball practices every Monday!

... school circle's activities every Tues and Fri

... and of course classes. =) --> ultimately still a student after all eh.

Friends, Ping Pong and Food!

Last Tuesday, went to eat a Yakiniku Buffet (焼肉食べ放題）with 4 other Singaporeans on one of their recommendations. It was 1280yen (~18sgd; seems expensive but really quite 'cheap' by Tokyo standards) for 90 mins, including drink bar! No wonder reservations are usually required wow. Honestly, everything was pretty good - but a few dishes like the thinly sliced pork, and the squid were quite outstanding. Yum! Hopefully will be visiting the place again at least once more before going back to Singapore.

Good food (and great company of course) was followed by a leisurely stroll in the cool breezy night (~17deg) around Shinjuku and we went up to the Metropolitan Government Building to check out the city view. Not bad.

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2 days ago, on Saturday, went out with Isabel and 2 Japanese friends with the idea of playing... badminton! Shock shock! Especially since I don't have my badminton rackets here. But anyhow, this plan was born from the time when we played a little bit of badminton in the small garden in one of the Japanese friend's house, and he ended up wanting to play seriously/challenging me. Of course I said bring it on heh. But yeah, turns out, unfortunately, that the courts were seriously full that day. The system in that sports centre is kind of weird - you simply buy a voucher from the machine and go up to use the courts if any are empty. So disorganised no?! I like the system back home much better.

But anyway, not much loss, we ended up finding a place to play table tennis instead! And after some leisurely play between all 4 of us, the 'badminton challenger' became the table tennis challenger and well, since I've actually had 2-3 months of training before (looooooooong time ago), I guess there's really no point in delivering the results of this match-up. Then two people had other matters on, so we called another 2 to join us for dinner - Hiroshima-okonomiyaki! I'm sure I've mentioned this dish before - it's full of cabbage and soba noodles rather than the Osaka version that is heavy on flour batter. Really so yummy!! Turns out one of the girls that joined us later - a really cute and lovable Thai! - likes the place so much she's actually been there 4 times just this week! 0.0 Talk about staunch supporter huh.

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And recently, the weather's been okay - or honestly, quite fine. Ranges from 12deg (at night) to about 22 deg in the day time. Perfect spring weather I would say. Except that... I think I miss the cold. Being so used to feeling chilly and cold during trainings, I'm now really NOT used to perspiring at all! In fact it really feels quite uncomfortable. I'm sure I'll be re-adjusting soon though, especially since it seems like the start of summer is not too far off.

Oh humidity and sunlight, for good or for worse, welcome back to my life.

Short sleeves!

Last night was the first night that I've been able to just wear a short-sleeved t-shirt and walk in Tokyo at night! Spring! Spring!! SPRING!! It was about 18 degrees I think - and still very cooling thanks to the characteristic windiness of Tokyo.

And since last week, I've started perspiring during trainings. Somewhat odd and uncomfortable feeling but I'm sure I'll be used to it soon. Have to be =/. I almost miss winter already. Sigh. Hehe.

Golden Week Happenings

Am now in the middle of Golden Week - Japan's most expensive and most crowded travel period. Seeing how much more prices are in this week, you wouldn't be blamed if you thought this might be Japan's only holiday period. It's that bad. Prices jump by 2.5 to 3 times - and travel in Japan was never cheap to begin with. That aside, what is Golden Week anyway?

It's actually a few national holidays grouped together - namely 29th Apr, 3rd, 4th and 5th May. As to what each of the days actually are, have gone through several changes since day of inception, but as of this year, 29th Apr is the Showa Day, 3rd May is Constitution Memorial Day, 4th May is Greenery Day, whilst 5th May is Children's Day or Boy's Day. Of these few, I think Children's Day is quite an interesting one, because even though Singapore also celebrates a Children's Day, the actual practices and notions are quite different. In Singapore, Children's Day is literally a day that celebrates being a child - so the best thing is to give you a holiday of course! =P But here in Japan, Children's Day is actually more like Boy's Day, and koi-shaped banner flags are flown. The equivalent for girls, Hinamatsuri, is actually on a separate day - March 3 - and ornamental dolls in the Heian period style are displayed in the house.

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Aside from all these, some updates on recent events.

Thursday was spent with the floorball members - jointly in a celebration of our girls' team getting Champions for this league season as well as a farewell gathering for Jon, who will be moving back to Norway (with his lovely Japanese wife!) for good this coming Saturday. Sad but this is not the end and I'm sure we'll meet again some day soon! Since being so fortunate as to have met him and Sissel at floorball, I now have a reason to go visit Norway! =D So I'm sure I'll meet him again someday! He's really been a great player, mentor and most importantly, friend.

Friday was a visit to Masa's house! Because Bel and I were saying that we were really curious about how a Japanese person's house is like and so Masa very very generously invited us (and a few others) over! One of the most fun I've had in Japan! We basically chilled out at his house - played badminton, guitar, card games, Uno, Jenga, and even ate yummy curry rice that his mother kindly cooked! And met his cute sister too! =)

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And recently, I've been watching Xing Guang Da Dao (5th season) on Youtube, since chancing upon one of the episodes recently. And I've realised that I like 咪咪小眼睛的男生！^.^ Haha Lin Jie Yu and Luo Zi You are both very cute! Because of their eyes haha =P

Titbits from Japan: Condensed Milk

For me, condensed milk - as long as I have known it - is something which goes in something like this:

But having been here in Tokyo for the past 7-going-on-8 months, I have hardly come into contact with this sweet sinfulness until... until my friend mentioned it to me in passing just last week. And pointed at tubes - yes you heard me, a TUBE - of condensed milk that I had actually always seen displayed near the strawberries, but never taken the time to actually look and see what they are. Turns out it's quite common for them to have strawberries with condensed milk! Sounded really yum! Up till now, I've always only dredged my strawberries in (mounds and mounds) of sugar but never thought of condensed milk. So yesterday I conceded defeat and bought a tube. Heh, did I mention that now the whole packet of strawberries and half the tube was already gone in the same day? =P

Mmmm. =)

Icy Rain and School

Today concludes the 2nd week of the new school semester, so my courses for this semester are more or less fixed by now. Taking a human biology class (by the same professor who taught the mindset-changing biological anthropology class last semester), a class on international war and peace, culture and society of Southeast Asia, contemporary pacific islander perspectives on USA and Japan and finally, of course Japanese language classes.

My timetable turned out to be 3.1 days every week - 3.1 because 3 very full days (Tues and Fri: 9am to 6pm, Thurs: 1pm to 6pm) followed by one measly ONE, FIRST period (9am to 10.30am) Japanese language class on SATURDAY morning. I've always had to wake up early on Saturday mornings for trainings and such, but NEVER for class. For the unaware, schools are allowed to hold classes on Saturdays in Japan. Last semester I was lucky to not have any, but this semester, since they changed the system for the Japanese language classes, most of us have one period on Saturdays. Can't say I'm enjoying my 'new' class though - really wished that they allowed our old class to move up together. Not really looking forward to Japanese classes these days, especially when I have to brave the 3deg cold like this morning.

Speaking of 3deg weather, it actually snowed/iced/rained last night, to the extent that patches of ice and melting snow was visible along the sidewalks this morning. Coooooold! Thankfully I did not pack my black winter coat into the small luggage I passed to Heng to bring back to Singapore. Brr.

Oh my sunny sun sun, where art thou?!

Oh, and Golden Week is coming up in about 2 weeks' time - should I go somewhere maybe? Probably a day trip if anything - if not 1 week lazing about Tokyo is a little too uncomfortable for my already restless person. Checking out Sendai. Best thing would be that I'll be working the week through though =P.

Anyway, I'm off! Off to my arubaito (Japanese word for part-time-job; of German origin) of hosting a Mandarin chat table! -gasp-. Wonder if my Mandarin can sustain 2 hours of talking. I don't think it's the talking that's difficult, just the part where you are NOT allowed to run out of topics. Go brain go!