June 2008 Archives

Last For One

By
Jhui
on June 30, 2008 11:53 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Went to the hospital today to change the waterproof sticker for my wound. Change one sticker also must fork out $75...why didnt I study medicine?! Anyway, removing the stitches on Friday...finally~ but still no strenuous activities for at least a few weeks. Starting to feel damn fat. Boo.

While at the hospital, Standard Chartered Bank(SCB) called my mum and asked for my number to check if we've won anything. The lady then told us that she'll give us a call back in 15minutes but seeing that she's from SCB, of course she didnt call back la. WTF. So, I rang SCB and talked to this guy who hung the phone up on me. FUCKER. STANDARD CHARTERED BANK TRULY SUCKS. By the way, UOB sucks pretty much too but let's wait for the manager to call me tomorrow before I say anything more about UOB.

Ate at MOF(Bugis) for lunch and ordered an iced matcha latte that tasted like as if I was drinking powder and milk. Totally no matcha taste and the powder made my throat uncomfortable. Complained to the waiter and he told me that that's they way they make the matcha latte. What?! Full of powder?! That just means that they never mix properly lar! Then again, the waiter was nice enough to waive the matcha latte for me and he was freaking polite throughout the whole conversation I had with him. Service=Wonderful. Food=Not too bad. Price=A little pricey. Matcha Latte=Just don't order it.

Just watched Cruel Intentions. Yes, i know it's a 1999 film but so what, I've never watched it before. Quite interesting and how come no one ever told me that Ryan Phillippe's so HOT?! I seriously cried when he died in the show lo. Speaking of hot guys, went to watch this dance musical called Spin Odyssey a couple of weeks ago with Li Ming. It's put up by this Korean b-boy group called Last For One. OMG, the dance was freaking good, storyline interesting and funny, and the guys were omfg cute/hot. Damn unfair lar! How come Singapore have no guys who look like them?!

Here's a video of them anyway. See how cool they are for yourselves~ It's the making video for Spin Odyssey.



Trailer for Spin Odyssey.



Wanted to take photos with the guys after the show but was too shy at first and by the time we mustered up some courage to do so, most of the guys went backstage to rest le. DAMN. Haha.

Read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_For_One
Official site: http://www.lastforone.co.kr/


Shuuchishin

By
Jhui
on June 29, 2008 11:45 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
o(≧∀≦o)(o≧∀≦)o
Shuuchishin's Nakanaide


nokku kawaii~

Night at the hospital

By
Jhui
on June 28, 2008 12:00 AM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
So, I underwent a minor surgery on Wednesday. Had to reach the hospital two hours prior to the surgery to do the necessary check-in procedures. When the lady asked me if I wanted to pay a deposit, I said "Ok, how much?" and was pretty shocked when she told me "Three thousand". Eh, since when was $3000 considered as a deposit? They had to refund me money after I got discharged lo. Anyway, the operating gown was freaking difficult to wear. First, I tried putting it on myself but realised that my butt was showing and then my sister helped me...but I almost got strangled in the process. Finally, we called the nurse in for help.


After waiting for 1 hour, I finally got wheeled into the holding room, where I was asked at least 4 times by 4 different people whether the signatures on the papers were mine. I think that they dont trust me. Hmmmph! No la, kidding. One of the nurses even asked me if I'm still in secondary school. Oiiiiiiiiiii! If I can sign the papers myself, it means that I'm at least 21 already. 21 still in secondary school abit paiseh right!
Anyway, chit-chatted with the nurses in the operating room while waiting for the doctor to arrive. The operating room was damn chio can! The lights looked like half a disco ball and the radio was switched on somemore. As this was my first surgery, I asked one of the nurses how it's like to get anaesthetised. Guess what she told me...."Have you taken ecstasy before? Something like that." Ehhhhhhhhh!
The operation took less than an hour and in an hour's time after getting anaesthetised, I woke up, without feeling drowsy at all. The nurses even commented that I looked damn awake. -_-


The first feeling that I had after surgery wasn't "Ouch" but rather..."I'm freaking hungry". After starving myself from 8pm the previous night, i.e., no food and drinks for like almost 19 hours, I was seriously dying of hunger. The nurse gave me a cup of milo and told me that I might vomit it out due to the anaesthetia but...I finished it up. She then later gave me the dinner menu and said that I could order some soft food if I had no appetite. Look at the choices on the menu!!! Damn good lar~ Got Asian, Western and Japanese food. Actually, before the dinner menu came, my sister and mum came to visit and my sister brought LOTSA food along but my mum refused to let me eat them. =( 


Dinner was alot of food to stomach. Main course, bread, miso soup and longan jelly.


Emince of Chicken in Brown Sauce. Damn fucking good. Got mashed potato somemore.


Felt a little bloated after dinner but couldn't really move around so I just laid on the bed and watch tv. After 2~3 hours, it was tea time~ So I stomached a piece of banana cake and washed it down with tea. Damn sinful can~ At around 11pm, my mum and sister came by again to bring me my facial foam and floss so that I could wash up before going to bed. My sister also brought along her Nintendo DS Lite where I played for a few hours before sleeping. I can never be a fish tycoon. Damn!


It was a little difficult sleeping in the hospital and I woke up every single hour. I had a little fever in the night but by the time I woke up in the morning, the fever had subsided. During the night, there was at least 2 blood pressure and temperature checks by the nurses. Wah...need to check so many times one ar!
Breakfast was served at 8am and I had cornflakes(yuck), a slice of mango, pastries and a cup of milk.


Watched somemore tv lying down after breakfast and pretty soon, the clock struck twelve and it was time for lunch. Lunch included miso soup, tea, fruits and salmon bowl. The salmon bowl was a little bland but hey, it's hospital food after all. Didnt manage to finish because my stomach was seriously bursting by that time.


Took a quick shower after lunch before packing my stuff and waiting to get discharged. So yup, end of hospital stay.

The reason why Standard Charterted Bank sucks

By
Jhui
on June 23, 2008 11:48 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
I fucking hate Standard Chartered Bank, or SCB for short. Let me recount to you why I feel this way.

9th June 2008

There's this GSS thing by SCB where cardmembers who spend $3,000 and above are entitled to win a Sony Bravia LCD TV or ipod Nano. The former is available to the first 50 cardmembers who sms SCB during the redemption period and the latter's available to the next 200 cardmembers. Since I've(or rather my mum) spent more than $3,000 within the time frame stipulated, I decided to participate. Anyway, it's there for us to participate what.


SMSed during the redemption period at 9am sharp and just to be on the safe side, I smsed at least four more times after 9am. Okay, I know that I'm kiasu but hey, my 9am might not be their 9am right! Play safe only. After sms-ing, I was waiting for their confirmation sms but none came in so I called SCB up to enquire. The woman who picked up my call said that I will NOT receive any confirmation but will only know if I've won anything by sms on 18th June. Repeated what she said to confirm and thanked her for her help.

18th June 2008

No sms was received. Decided to wait a little longer because they probably have lots of people to sms. They even have to sms people who are unsuccessful lo. (Click to enlarge picture and read point no. 11)


19th June 2008

Rang up SCB and spoke to this guy called Asaph. Was horrified to learn that I WAS SUPPOSED to receive a confirmation sms on the day I smsed SCB. WTF was wrong with that call centre woman?! He also told me that they did not receive my sms. Feeling pretty pissed off, I told him that I wanted an investigation to be done. Firstly, I wanted to know who that lady was and secondly, check why my sms wasn't received. Asaph then promised to give me a call back on Friday, which was June 20th.

20th June 2008

No call received.

22th June 2008

Called SCB and demanded to speak to Asaph but guess what, so coincidental ar, he left the office le! So, I demanded once again to speak to someone of higher rank than Asaph to firstly, check on my case and secondly, complain Asaph. Spoke to Mr Yap whom listened to me recount the whole incident dating all the way back from 9th June. Told me that probably there were too many calls on the 9th of June, accounting for the mistake that the woman made...............................................................................

...................................That's the fucking worse excuse I've ever heard!

So if SCB is too busy, they are ENTITLED to give us the wrong information?! Hello, SCB is a bank for goodness sake! How can like that?! Can you imagine if you are so suay to deposit $20,000 into your bank account and they only put in $20 for you because they were too busy on that day?! WTF.

Then I asked about why they never receive my SMS and even if they did, no confirmation sms sent to me and no notification that I was unsuccessful (refer to point 11 of the rules and regulations). Oh, guess what he said? He said that they wont sms me if I'm unsuccessful...................I then told him to open his eyes(okay, I didn't say this line) and look at point 11 of their rules and regulations. WTF is wrong with these people? They dont bother to know more about their company's services and keep giving wrong information to customers. Also, I sent in a short written complaint by email by nobody bothered to reply me. GREAT service there huh, dont you agree?

So to cut a long story short(I was on the phone with Mr Yap for around 35 minutes), he promised to check my case, check whether they received my sms on 23rd June(today's another redemption day), and call me back at 9.15am.

23rd June 2008

Anyone wants to guess if I received a call from Mr Yap at 9.15am? Of course not! I waited till 9.25am and called SCB back.

Oh, Mr Yap is working the evening shift today. He'll only come in at 4pm.

What the fuck is wrong with these people seriously?! They promise customers stuff but they dont do it. How do they expect me to trust their bank anymore?! Told the lady who picked up the phone that I wanted to talk to someone higher rank than Mr Yap to firstly, check up on my case and secondly, complain Mr Yap.

Lady: Can I have your name and IC?
Me: No, you wont give it to the next person anyway, like what that guy did yesterday when I called. (I got asked 3 times for my name yesterday. Two times by the guy who picked up the call and once by Mr Yap)
Lady: Hold on please.

Stupid call-waiting music.

Lady: Can I know what are you enquiring about?
Me: Can you just put me through someone of higher authority?!
Lady: Hold on please.

Stupid call-waiting music.

Lady: Hi, my manager is checking your case right now.
Me: How do you even know who I am if I didnt give you my name?
Lady: Erm....we checked the email from Mr Yap.
Me: Can you just put me through someone of higher authority, like right now?!
Lady: Hold on please.

Stupid call-waiting music.

And so finally, she put me through Mac/Max, however his name's spelt. Funny how that guy yesterday put me through to Mr Yap once I asked for it but this woman had to make me wait so long. So Mac/Max's the same rank as Mr Yap and compared to Mr Yap, he's totally unhelpful, lazy and can't be bothered about me. Let me explain why.
Firstly, unhelpful. He said that someone of higher authority will call me back at 10.30am regarding my case but I demanded an earlier call because I've been waiting from 9.15am. He then told me that they are different departments and all that shit but seriously as a customer...I DONT GIVE A FUCKING CARE. I just want what they promised me, which they obviously didnt do. I though he'll go "I'll call them to hurry up" but guess what, he just remained silent until I spoke up. I fucking hate it when people over the phone give me silence because they cant find anything to day. Hello, your job is to talk to people and you cant find anything to say?!
Secondly, lazy. I asked him why I didnt get a call at 9.15am if Mr Yap sent an email out to inform them about my case(I presume, considering they received an email from him). He said that they come in at work at 9am and only checked their email WHEN I CALLED THEM. WTF?! 25minutes to check email?! And, if I didnt call them, I'll probably still be waiting right now. Lazy or not?!
Thirdly, can't be bothered about me. I told him to hurry the people up and give me a reply and said that I do not mind holding the line while he does that. In a very whatever-I-dont-care tone, he said, "Okay, you hold" and took his time to hurry the people, without even playing the stupid call-waiting music...so it was basically dead air for 10+ minutes. Customer service=zero points.

So, Mac/Max finally got back to me and said that someone will be giving me a call at....5PM?! WTF is wrong with this people?! I fucking hate Standard Chartered Bank and I'm going to ask my mother to stop being a cardmember with them. Anyway, they dont care, fucking unhelpful, take their own sweet time, break promises and lastly,dont respect customers.

During the 34minutes call I had with SCB today, I received a SMS notification for the smses I sent in today. Yesterday, Mr Yap told me that the notifications would normally reach me at 12noon but eh, I received it at 9.51am today. WTF?! They obviously do not communicate among departments and have no clue as to what their services are about.

FUCK.

Lalala~

By
Jhui
on June 17, 2008 3:07 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Kakkoii~!

kamijiyusuke.jpg

 

Can I be the teacher? Heh~

nokubonaoki.jpg

24+25/12/07: Day 6/7 - Taipei

By
Jhui
on June 16, 2008 3:19 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Day 6 of Taiwan trip, which fell on Christmas Eve =D

The Mi Le Fo statue which was placed right in the middle of the hotel lobby. Speaking of the hotel, when we were leaving the hotel, there was like 2 big groups of Japanese high-school students there as well. To be a little clearer...Japanese high-school boys. Almost went up the wrong bus. Heh.


Went to the National Palace Museum first thing in the morning. I love going to the museum because there are lots of nice artefacts to look at. Freaking amazing. I used to like going to the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore =D Anyone wants to go with me someday?


Had lunch at this restaurant called Wu Jiao Chuan Ban, which was built in a rather unique manner.


And for some reason, there were lots of statues with saggy boobs...wtf?!


The food there was pretty good, especially the milky muah chee.


My dinner group. We were always the first one to enter the restaurant but always the last one to leave because we erm...talked too much. Heh.


The little girl who sat behind me on the bus. Damn cute right~although I don't really like little girls. I got a feeling that little girls dont like me also. Why like that?!


After lunch, we visited Taipei 101, the freaking high-end shopping mall. Didn't buy anything simply because I couldn't afford any of the branded stuff. Didn't bother to pay money to go up the tower because I didn't see the need to spend money to have a bird's eye view of Taipei since I dont really like Taipei that much...and partly because I was stingy. =D


Made an error in the previous post. Apparently, we went to the Tianlu place on Day 6 instead of Day 5...whatever la, like anyone cares like that. Tra-la-la~


Had dinner at Shilin Night Market and it was fucking dirty okay! Sat down at a stall and ordered Teppanyaki and while waiting for our food to be served, a cockroach ran across the table like no one's business. I admire how the lady next to me could freak out a little and then continue eating her food like the cockroach never existed or something. Then again, I also admire myself for not kicking up a fuss about the hygiene of the place with the chef...who was wearing yellowed clothes by the way. Eew.
Also, I saw one of the stallholders cooking soup over an open fire next to like 5 cans of oil. WTF?! Isn't that like dangerous or something?!


After dinner, shopped around Shilin where we witnessed illegal vendors running away from policemen. So.freaking.cool. I've only seen scenes like those in Hongkong dramas and I didnt know that they existed in real life. Woo~ Next, we took the subway to Ximending. Ximending's like a damn nice place to shop lar! Made actual purchases there but too bad we arrived a little late as many shops were closing by then already.


Returned to Shilin later and ate supper. The ice kacang was nice but the oyster mee sua was blah. Walked around the dirty streets for a while before returning to the hotel to do packing. Arrr...hate doing packing.


Went to the airport the following day to take the plane back to Singapore~And that's how I spend Christmas 2007. wtf...so sad.


And...that's the end of my Taiwan trip~!
Day 6 Pictures: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=114.
Day 7 Pictures: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=115.

23/12/07: Day 5 - Kaohsiung/Taichung

By
Jhui
on June 14, 2008 1:23 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Day 5 of Taiwan.

Went to this place where there were many peacocks first thing in the morning. All the peacocks there must have had been damn sleepy or something because all of them refused to spread their tail feathers to wow at and take photos. Not even one! The tour guide tried to sound his loud-hailer music(which was Für Elise by the way) so as to make them spread their tail feathers(he said that it used to work...-_-) but to no avail.


As the peacocks couldn't be bothered to spread their tail feathers, I couldn't be bothered to look at them too and so...I went to play with the cat which was lurking around the place and it too, ignored me. Wa lau eh.


Next, we went to this smelly hotel that survived the earthquake or something before proceeding to Wen Wu Temple. Apparently, you can have a good view of the Sun Moon Lake from the top of this temple but I was just too lazy to climb all the way up to do so.


Our tour group haolianed to us that his name's engraved on this slab because he donated money to the temple for reconstruction purposes. Erm...okaaaaaay.


For some unknown reason, I did not take a single photo of the food we ate on this day. Must had been quite unappetising I guess. Can't remember what I ate anyway so I shall continue blogging about the places of attractions we went to. Next we went to the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village which was basically an amusement park with a cultural touch.


Being the chicken that I am, I didn't take any of the exciting rides because I didn't want to get myself killed...whether of a heart attack or because I got thrown off the ride or something. My sister on the other hand, tried all the crazy rides. -_- I can't believe that we're actually related...


Heng Ling.


Denise.


This is the tian lu which supposedly protected the smelly hotel I mentioned above during the earthquake. The tour guide was trying to convince us the wonders of tian lu because I guess he gets a fat commission if we buy tian lus from the place that he brought us to next.


On the way to the Feng Jia Night Market, we stopped at a few stores that sold betel nuts...because the tour guide wanted to show us Bin Lang Xi Shi, betel nuts girls, or just simply girls who wear very little to sell betel nuts. Managed to get one to board our bus but she had a cant-be-bothered-dont-waste-my-time attitude the whole time...even though we bought something from her. Service in Taiwan sucks seriously. The only polite/nice salesgirl that I saw in Taiwan was from the Kaohsiung Kinokuniya branch.


Reached Feng Jia Night Market and I totally HATED that place. Too many people, similar stuff being sold and the worst thing was that cars and motorcycles drove behind people as if they wanted to kiss them or something...freaking close can...and they don't bother to horn you but just wait for you to realise their presence with a big shock. Urrgh...bah.

Anyway, end of Day 5. More pictures here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=113

22/12/07: Day 4 - Kaohsiung

By
Jhui
on June 11, 2008 11:50 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
After blogging about my Korea and Hiroshima trips, I guess I'm going to continue blogging about my Taiwan trip...which occured half a year ago. Wtf, my blog is starting to look like a travel blog. Anyway, here's day 4 of the Taiwan trip.

Meals in Taiwan are just like the ones you have during weddings back here. 10 people to one table filled with dishes of fish, meat and vegetables. Oh, and not forgetting rice too. All I remember about the food of Taiwan was that I didn't really like eating them.


As lunch wasn't that wonderful, my sister and I stopped eating after a few mouthfuls and went to a nearby shop to look around. By the way, we were at Fo Guang Shan Temple so the shops there sold mostly religion-related stuff.


Sis bought the salty ice-cream, Babao(Eight Treasures...wtf is this anyway?) flavour. It must have had been sucky because she threw it away after less than 5 licks.


Ventured into the temple and at the place that there was a wishing well, everyone stopped and starting throwing money inside...except me. I couldn't squeeze my way through to do so and anyway, didn't really want to do it also. The temple was really pretty with all the gold/bronze statues in it.


Model of the temple. Wasn't supposed to take photos inside this place but since there's a picture, I guess that whoever took this photo did not follow the rules~Lalala


Why does this picture look so obscene to me?!


Next, we went to this wholesale place to buy all those Taiwan mochi and jelly. The place was packed and it was so not fun trying to squeeze your way in and out of that place. Damn tiring. After purchasing, we went to the Spring and Autumn Pavillions for sight-seeing.


GAH~. (I don't know how dragons sound like so I just wrote "gah" for convenience's sakes.)


Hsuan Tien Shangti temple.


Went to Love River next. Seriously, I didn't feel the love. The river was smelly and there was nothing to see! Okay, maybe the scenery's prettier at night but since I went in the afternoon, it pretty much sucked. In short, the ride was a total waste of time.


The lady who was explaining to us how to put on the lifejackets. Nobody listened to her and she was kind of pissed of by it. I heard hear complaining to the boatman that nobody was paying attention to her in an angry tone. Paiseh lor~ Everyone was damn sleepy already and somemore the boatride wasn't fantastic, can't exactly blame them for ignoring you.


Had lobster for dinner...or rather, around two miserable 3cm slices of lobster.


It was Winter Solstice that day so we also had tang yuan for dessert.


Went to the Liu He Night Market at erm...night? All the night markets in Taiwan look the same to me and they sell about the same thing so it was getting kind of boring to keep visiting night markets. Dirty somemore lor! Anyway, so instead of shopping, I got my fortune told! Whee~ Apparently I will be rich in the future and my future husband will be someone who's a little pudgy~That means...no Domoto Koichi? =( Go put on some weight lar, Koichi!


After the fortune telling session, we walked around shopping centres where I managed to find Kinokuniya and bought a few Japanese books =D wtf, buy Japanese books in Taiwan...-__- Anyway, although it was winter in Taiwan, Kaohsiung was freaking hot! Even hotter than Singapore somemore and I was amazed to see that the Kaohsiung girls were actually wearing winter jackets and high boots. I know it's fashionable and winter' the only period for them to show off these stuff but still, not hot meh?!

Decided to go sing karaoke in the night but firstly, we had to find a karaoke place. We stumbled upon this ktv and the waitress was apologetic because they had no "xiao jie(hostess)" to serve us. We then realised that this wasn't the karaoke place we had in mind so we took a taxi to a nearby Partyworld instead. Sang till 4am and by the time I got back to the hotel, showered, dried my hair...it was almost time to assemble for the next day's tour le. -____-


End of Taiwan Day 4. More pictures here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=112

Hiroshima Internship Programme 20/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 11, 2008 1:00 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Last day in Hiroshima.

As I managed to amass tons of stuff over the month I've been in Hiroshima, I was unable to stuff them all into my luggage. In fact, I left the training centre with one bulging lugage and 5 paper bags of stuff. Everyone was visibly shocked and asked me how was I going to pack all of them into one luggage and not get charged excess baggage weight at the same time. By the time I had to actually pack my luggage to board the plane, the 5 paper bags ballooned into 6 paper bags and one glass bottle of juice. In order to make more space for my purchases, I had to buy bag to put my clothes in and vacumn all the air out. However, even after doing so, I still had lots of unpacked stuff and I had no idea how to bring them back. (In case if you were wondering why I didn't hand carry them, it's because I already had a hand carry that was almost 7kg.)

The only way was to ship those excesses back so Okaasan and me went down to Kuroneko to do so. So cute right, the cats :D


I wanted to take a photo of the cats only but somehow, the saleslady thought that I wanted to take a photo with the cats...so yup, that's how we ended up doing so. Oh, the shitty thing about shipping things from Japan is that it's not cheap. It cost me 10,000yen(~SGD128) to ship back 5kg worth of stuff. Actually it was supposed to be 5,000yen but my box exceeded the allowed dimensions by 2 freaking cm so had to pay double instead. Can you believe it?!


Obaachan dozing off after dinner. So cute! Asked her to go to bed but she refused to because she wanted to send me off at the bus station. When it was finally time to go, she actually put on 3 different cardigans and wanted to know which one was nicer to wear out. =D


While waiting outside the house for Otousan to drive the car out, Obaachan suddenly took my hand and put a ring on my pudgy fingers...and so that's how the ring on my finger came about.


After I boarded the bus, I started tearing...so not glam can...but luckily it was a night bus so no one was going to look at me. Okay, the little kids who boarded the bus were pointing at my red nose and eyes...-_- After 5~6hours on the bus, I reached Namba Station, took the JR to Kansai Airport where I waited for the rest of the girls to take the plane back home together.

Took Thai Airways back and the experience was...erm...let's just say that I don't want to take Thai Airways anymore if I can help it.
Firstly, we had to transit for 5 freaking hours and it wasn't fun at all as the prices of the stuff in the airport was so expensive.
Next, we went to ask the Thai Airways counter guy if dinner would be served or not and he said no...so we went to find a shop to eat dinner before boarding the plane and guess what, dinner was served!
Thirdly, when dinner was served on the plane, the cabin attendant asked one of the girls if she wanted chicken or prawn in which she replied "prawn". (By the way, I kept hearing "prawn" as "pork". wtf is wrong with me?!) However, the cabin attendant then told her that there was no more prawn sets left and chucked the chicken set in front of her. At that same time, some ang moh wanted the prawn set and ta-da, suddenly there was prawn sets left! WTF?! My friend was so pissed off that she demanded the prawn set...which she asked for first. We paid the fucking same amount as the ang moh and I dont see why he should get the prawn set and not us just because he's white. Bah.
Next, at the moment when the cabin attendants were collecting used cups back, I haven't finished my drink yet so one of them stood next to me, coughed out loudly and looked at me with a scary look as if telling me to hurry up and stop wasting her time. Kaoz.
Lastly, the cabin attendants were scary and rude. One passenger accidentally pressed the button to call for assistance and one cabin attendant came out asking in a rude voice, "YOU CALLED?" Considering that I was seated at least 5 rows behind that passenger and I could still hear him, imagine the volume the cabin attendant spoke in. Apparently, the passenger was clueless about it because the cabin attendant went, "BUT YOU PRESSED THE BUTTON!" He then leant over to switch off the button, I presume, and went back to where he came from...but not forgetting to turn back and stare at the passenger with a dont-mess-with-me look. -_____-

I hate Thai Airways...Bah.

In a damn abrupt conclusion, the Hiroshima trip was damn fun~ Whee~

Hiroshima: The Food Post

By
Jhui
on June 10, 2008 2:11 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
The title says it all! I'm going to blog about what I ate from day 24 to day 29 in Hiroshima. A very wtf post that's going to make you feel hungry...so decide if you want to scroll down further or not......................I know you want to. Heh.

Day 24

Lunch
Had homecooked spaghetti with meat sauce for lunch. Actually it was more like 95% mashed tomatoes with 5% minced meat sauce because Okaasan realised that there wasn't any canned minced meat sauce left so she had to make do with whatever that was in the fridge. =D


Dinner
Dinner was rolled cabbage soup with pickled cucumbers as the side dish. I had a part in making the rolled cabbage okay! As you can see in the picture, the rolled cabbage on the left hand side looks like as if it got disfigured or something, as compared to the right hand side one. Yup, I was the one who made the disfigured rolled cabbage. Not bad already okay! At least the minced onions and meat inside didn't fall out. Phew~ The rolled cabbage tasted damn tender because it was boiled for like what...2 hours?


Had boiled sweetcorn as well for dinner.


Day 25

Lunch
 Had lunch at this restaurant called Shouintei, which can be found along Tonomachi. Tonomachi was quite an interesting place because there were canals along the streets. Erm...not interesting enough? Okay, there were like tons of carps swimming in the canals, like an aquarium like that.


One thing I like about Japanese food is that it's damn colourful. So colourful to the extent that I normally can't bear to eat them up...but I always do in the end though.


Didn't notice the dot of wasabi on the top of the soba and mixed it in blindly. Only realised it after I ate one mouthful and almost died of spiciness.


Ochazuke that had a mild wasabi taste even after I removed the wasabi. wtf. Damn delicious still though.


I initially thought that the dessert was made from jelly powder or something but to my pleasant surprise, it was actually a carrot kueh that was mildly sweet. Wanted more but each set was only entitled to one. =(


Dinner
 Had dinner at this restaurant called Seine de Paris, which can be found inside Hotel New Tanaka.
Started dinner with a delightful plate of scallops topped with grapefruits and tomatoes. Japan's seafood is like omg, so damn freaking delicious lo! Big, juicy and fresh...unlike Singapore's.


Next up was the soup which tasted like as if MSG was free or something and look at the quantity! Pitiful.


Luckily, the rest of the dishes were better than the soup. Had Japanese tiger prawns next. Damn big and juicy~ yum~ I'm making myself damn hungry here and it's like what, 2am...-_-


Next up was steak covered in mushroom sauce. Not as fantastic as the Wagyu I had in Malaysia but definitely worth the money. Okay, I didn't exactly pay for it so I don't know how much it cost but I'm sure it wasn't cheap...because it's a restaurant. The boiled carrots and potatoes that came with it tasted wonderful too~


As if I did not have enough food already, here comes the soft shelled crab spaghetti! Luckily I shared this dish with Otousan or I'll probably end up in hospital for overeating or something. Then again, end up in hospital for overeating such good food...I don't mind. Heh.


Bread. I don't know why they suddenly served bread but I still ate them anyway.


Washed down the food with a cup of tea...


...and a glass of red wine. Was supposed to have dessert but the restaurant was out of desserts that day. wtf?!


Day 26

Breakfast
 Hotel breakfast. Usual buffet-style but nevertheless yummy.


Lunch
Had lunch at this little shop near Shuuhoudou/Akiyoshidou. Each of us ordered a Kappa soba set. Why it's called Kappa(literally means "river child") soba I do not know. All I know is that this was damn delicious. Even the onigiri tasted different.(They added salt to it)


Dessert was matcha ice-cream~


Dinner
Had dinner back in Hiroshima where we had gyozas, ika shuumai(squid siew mai, damn tasty and bouncy..wtf) and a side dish that consisted of seaweed and tomatoes. By the way, I made the side dish~ See, I'm a great cook! Placed the chopsticks in the wrong direction though.


Day 27

Lunch
Day 27's lunch was simple because Okaasan was in a rush but even if it's simple, still have to arrange nicely. As you can see, lunch consisted of ika manjuu(squid bau that was as bouncy as the squid siew mai), sushi and a slice of watermelon for dessert.



Dinner
What's this?!!! It's iwashi tempura, or sardine tempura! I almost died whiffing in the fishy smell of the fish when Okaasan was cutting open them. Tasted damn nice though it looks a little scary.


Besides iwashi tempura, we had sashimi too! It included salmon, maguro, sea bream and sea urchin. Didn't really like the sea urchin though as it tasted too creamy. Had tofu, boiled eggplant, miso soup and chu-hi as well~


Day 28

Dinner
 Had prawn and squid tempura for dinner. I helped in making them~except that I chickened out when it came to the frying part. Side dish was raw onion rings topped with bonito flakes. I normally don't eat raw onions because it has a stinging taste and it's spicy but the onion rings here didn't taste spicy at all. The best thing is...I know the secret to making it~ but I won't tell you because I'm selfish. Hahaha. Had chu-hi as well. Alcohol again!!


Day 29

Bento
 Otousan's bento. I never knew that so many ingredients could be placed inside the seemingly small bento box. There was stir-fried squid, konnyaku, egg rolls, broccoli, tomatoes and even one whole slice of salmon inside. All of them were stuffed into the left compartment, leaving the right side for rice and umeboshi. The bentos I've made before never contained so much food before lo.


Lunch
 Lunch was microwaved Hawaiian pizza. Somehow I was so hungry that day that I gobbled up the whole pizza. Yes, I ate one whole pizza by myself. Up till now, I still don't know how I managed to do it.


Dinner
 Dinner was seriously ALOT of food to finish. Had corn soup, avocado with tuna(learnt that from tv that day), steak, vegetables and rice. Normally can get full by eating steak or rice alone and so eating both=a very full me. Washed them down with red wine.


Yup, that's the end of my food post of what I ate in Hiroshima from day 24 to day 29. I'm feeling damn hungry now and it's already 2.30am...What am I going to eat?!

Hiroshima Internship Programme 19/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 9, 2008 6:45 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Nothing happened much on day 27 so I'm moving on to blog about Hiroshima, day 28.

Met up with Ms. Miyoshi for lunch in the erm...afternoon obviously.


Lunch was pretty delicious and look at the amount of food!!! Damn worth it. The main dish was tomato chicken with brown rice and for sides, there was salad, eggplant, tofu, miso soup and more. I initially thought that the yellow thing at the top right corner was egg but it turned out to be chicken. I am so good at identifying food~!


Dessert was cake.


After-meal tea.


After lunch, we made a visit to the place where Ms. Miyoshi works at.


With some guy who speaks really good Chinese.


Me and Ms. Miyoshi outside the office.


Had a cup of nice cold coffee at the cafe which was situated on the first level of the building.


Went home and had a cup of grapefruit jelly. Damn...been eating too much man. The grapefruit jelly was sour but refreshing...I wanna eat one more!


During dinner, we were watching some programme when suddenly, Mr. Tamura came on screen. They were talking about him forming a baseball team to fulfill his dream(and the dream of the other players) of playing at the Koshien.


So cute~.


More pictures at http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=170.

End of Day 28.

Hiroshima Internship Programme 17/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 9, 2008 6:15 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima, Day 26~.

Took a boat tour out into the Sea of Japan to see the stone/rock formations of Omijima. The waves were fairly strong that day and it was quite cool to see the waves splashing against the boat we were on.


Otousan, Okaasan and Obaachan.


Reached some cave and we were asked to come out to the deck to take photos. After that, they started going around asking people if they wanted to purchase the photos that they took. The only bad point was that...you can't preview the photos and they'll mail you the photos in like 2 days or something. So anyway, the Shinkawas bought one photo for me but when the photo arrived, they realised that the photo did not capture me...neither was Okaasan in the picture. Only Obaachan, who was smiling really happily, was shown on the photo. =D


Lots of marine products were sold there. Smelt totally like a fish market...with fresh fish. wtf...I don't know what I'm talking about.


They bought me this t-shirt~ Whee~


Next, we went to this place called Shuuhoudou or Akiyoshidou, depending on how you want to pronounce it. Both pronunciations are used. It's basically a limestone cave with lots of cool limestone formations in it. The temperature in there was a little chilly though. The limestone formations were so cool and luckily I rented the English translator thingy or else I probably would not understand anything.


Entrance of the cave. So scenic!!!


Was pretty dark inside the cave so I wasn't able to take alot of photos inside. This is the golden pillar. So.freaking.cool. Everyone was queueing up to take photos with it lo.


Next, we took a taxi to Akiyoshidai, or Akiyoshi Plateau, the largest karst formation in Japan .


Before returning to Hiroshima, we went to the Kazuki Yasuo Art Museum. His artworks were really cute and I liked them alot. I even bought like postcards that featured his artwork =D


End of Day 26. More pictures here:http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=168

Hiroshima Internship Programme 16/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 9, 2008 4:42 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima, Day 25~.

Today, the Shinkawas brought me to nearby prefectures called Shimane and Yamaguchi. On our way to our first destination, we stopped by the Kintai-kyo(bridge) located in Iwakuni City. Initially I did not want to cross the bridge because first of all, it cost 300yen(~SGD3.90) to take a 5minute walk across the bridge and secondly, the arches scared me. (I'm afraid of slopes remember?)


In the end, however, I managed to muster up the little courage in me to cross the bridge. Surprisingly, the arches weren't as steep as I thought they would be so it was pretty alright.
Wonder how would this place look like in winter? Was supposed to come to this place during Winter 2006 but instead, I went shopping because my legs were aching from wearing boots. In case if you were wondering, shopping can still take place even though one's legs are painful okay!


The Iwakuni Castle? Not very sure but according to Okaasan, you got to take a cable car all the way up to that castle. wtf. Build so high for what anyway?! Staying at higher altitudes probably gives some people a sense of security but eh, what if your enemies surround you? The only way you can escape is to jump down lor!


Went to the Taikodani Inari Jinja/Shrine in Tsuwano next. According to Wikipedia, an Inari Shrine is a Shinto shrine used to worship the god Inari who uses foxes as his/her messengers. Bought aburaage(deep-fried tofu) as an offering as it's believed that foxes like it. When my host family handed me the aburaage, I seriously thought that it was for me to eat okay. Somemore it smelt damn nice. -__- Luckily I didn't ask "Is this for me to eat?". Phew~


Obaachan donating money.


Miko-san(shrine maiden) in the shrine.


What's a Inari Shrine without fox statues?


Next, we went for lunch but I shall not blog about lunch in this entry. Will blog about all the food I ate in a single entry~ =D
After lunch, we went to see an exhibition on Jingdezhen porcelains. Damn cool can~!


We also went to the Anno Museum of Art where there were cool replicas of Anno's atelier and a classroom. Too bad we didn't have enough time to see the planetarium. =(


Instead of returning to Hiroshima today, we stayed at this hotel called Hotel New Tanaka. The cool thing about this hotel's that it has an onsen at the top level and it's open-air~! Went to the onsen twice somemore.


Had dinner before going to the Ichinosaka-gawa(Ichinosaka-river) to look at fireflies. Damn cool lar! I've never seen so many people gathered along a river to look at fireflies before. Everyone got so excited when the fireflies appeared. =D The streets were really dark(I guess you need really dark places for fireflies to appear in bunch or something) but it wasn't scary. :)


Was supposed to return to the hotel to sleep but the over-zealous taxi driver kept introducing us to places to go so yup, we followed him. He first brought us to part of Kouzan Park where echoes could be heard. Next, we went to this temple called Rurikoji, which is famous for its five-storey pagoda.


The taxi driver even provided us with a disposable camera and helped us take photos...without us asking. Wow...either business has been really bad or he's a really nice guy. In the end, I think my host family gave him a 7000yen(~SGD90!!!) tip or something. wtf.

Obaachan and Otousan pulling the bead thingy. If you manage to drop eight of the beads, no more no less, something good will happen to you...or something like that. One year ago okay...can't remember exactly.


Okaasan doing the same thing.


The stone with buddha's footprints. Woah~


After the night tour of Yamaguchi, we went back to the hotel to go to the onsen and sleep~ Whee~

End of Day 25. More pictures at http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=167.

Hiroshima Internship Programme 15/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 9, 2008 1:04 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 24~.

Today's the day where everyone leaves the training centre. Some would be going to Tokyo, some to Osaka and as for me, I would be staying in Hiroshima to find my homestay family.
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During the 3-week internship period, all of us stayed in this traning centre. When the nine of us first arrived, we didn't know each other that well, except for a few. However, at the end of it, we became good friends =D
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Every night, the nine of us would talk in the bathroom while removing our makeup.
day24-kenshu03.jpg

As there was only one large bathroom, everyone had to bathe together or else there won't be enough time for everyone to bathe.(There was a curfew for using the bathroom.) Initially, everyone was shy about taking off one's clothes in front of everybody but in the end, we had so much fun taking baths together.
　

In fact, we loved taking baths together so much that we made a lot of noises during bathtime. I mean, hello, nine girls chit-chatting and splashing water around=LOTS of noise. In fact, we were so noisy once that the neighbours called to complain and Mr. Kajiwara gave us a scolding. =(
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Ofuro~
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The corridor of the 3rd floor. All of us stayed on the 3rd floor of the training centre.
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The toilet.
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The toilet's very quiet and I hate it when I have to make a visit to the toilet in the morning.
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Laundry area. Most of us had no idea how to do laundry so we just anyhow poured in washing powder and hoped that it was the right amount. In fact, there was once that we put in too much washing powder that our clothes were still soapy after 3 washes. wtf.
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The office in the training centre. Never been inside before.
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We did internship once before in this room~
day24-kenshu12.jpg

The computer room. As there was only one computer in the room, we had to wait for our turn to use it. While waiting for it, we would chit-chat and gossip about what happened that day. Although we weren't supposed to eat in the room, we sometimes sneaked snacks in to munch on. Once, we even brought beer to this room and talked while we drank it. We stayed up till 2~3am that night. Damn fun~!
day24-kenshu13.jpg

The popular computer~!
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The room that I saw for the first time while I was taking photos around the training centre.
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Damn big and pretty can.
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I stayed in room 301. Eh? "The Installation Room For Emergency Escape Device"? wtf...haha.
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Is this the emergency escape device? Hmmn. Didn't get to use it though. Heng.
day24-kenshu18.jpg

The 3-week internship period was a great experience and I totally enjoyed myself. The people from the Shinkin Bank were freaking nice to us. Mr. Kajiwara, the caretaker, was nice too! The noisy 9 of us must have had troubled him alot...I think. Haha. Also, I must not forget to thank the organiser of this internship, the Hiroshima-Singapore Association. Without them, I wouldn't have had the chance to participate in this programme.

So yup, this ends my internship in Hiroshima. I shall blog about my 1 week extension with the Shinkawas another day :D

Hiroshima Internship Programme 14/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 9, 2008 12:41 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 23~.

Today was the last day of the internship. Rehearsed in the morning for the presentation which was scheduled to be held in the afternoon.
day23-presentation.jpg

Mr. Nakamura brought us out to lunch today.
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I ordered Japanese-style dolsot bibimbap. Compared to the original Korean one, it wasn't spicy at all. Instead...it was kind of sweet. Very Japanese. -_-
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Pei San and me.
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After-meal coffee.
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Look at how small the cup was! So cute~
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Us before we started our presentation. Our presentation was basically a summary of what we've learnt during the internship period.
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After our presentation, a representative from each department talked about the interaction they had with us. While listening to it, it brought back memories of the past few days and I almost cried but I fought hard to hold back my tears. However, uopn stepping out of the company feeling, the feeling that the whole internship was over set in and my tears started pouring out. Mr. Nuibe was trying to console me to not cry but instead, I cried more. So paiseh okay! Walking to the station with tears flowing down my face was...so paiseh!!!
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As my room was one of the messiest, we returned to the training centre early today to do packing. Below's my dinner for today~ Ohagi~
day23-ohagi.jpg

Fruit jelly drink.
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The number of bottled drinks that I bought during the internship period. Actually there were more but I threw them away already so the actual number's higher.
day23-katazuke.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 13/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 9, 2008 12:22 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 22~.

No internship today but instead, we were supposed to prepare for our presentation which would be held on the following day. Mr. Nakamura's cute mouse :D
day22-mouse.jpg

The last 400yen staff meal in the Shinkin Bank. Delicious beef set.
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The staff canteen.
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Staff canteen picture no. 2.
day22-canteen02.jpg

At night, we had a drinking session(nomikai) back at the training centre with Mr. Tani's department and Mr. Kajiwara, the caretaker of the training centre.
day22-nomikai.jpg

There were like TONS of snacks there that day.
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The freaking big wine bottle. Compare it with the onigiri!
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My mango cocktail.
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My mayonnaise karaage onigiri.
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Vivien, Mr. Kajiwara, Me.
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Ms. Goto and me doing the "Saranghae" pose.
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Mr. Saeki and me.
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Me, Mr. Tani.
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We had a taste of what it's like to be at a Japanese nomikai. Cool~ Can't write out what happened that day though. =D Just know that it was fun~ Whee~

Hiroshima Internship Programme 12/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 11:35 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 21~.

We were assigned to Mr. Tani's department today where we prepared the documents for tonight's general meeting. As we were fast enough, we were allowed to take a break and we browsed through some of the books on Singapore there.
day21-book.jpg

Since when did guava become brown? I always thought that it's green...
day21-guava.jpg

Next, we went out with Mr. Nuibe to get some books before following Mr. Saeki out for lunch at Mister Donut~
day21-donuts-2.jpg

Besides treating us to donuts, Mr. Saeki also bought for us the Mister Donut bag. Whee~
day21-present.jpg

After lunch, we followed Mr. Nuibe to some government building where he had some errands to run.
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Mr. Tani holding the flowers that Pei San presented to him. =D
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Mr. Saeki at work.
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Department photo :D
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Our next task was to go to Rihga Royal Hotel and arrange the nametags which would be used at the general meeting.
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Ms. Nakamoto with her colleague.
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The Singapore and Japan flags.
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Us doing reception work...like real. We were just standing there and greeting the people who arrived.
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The stage.
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Emcee of the day, Mr. Tani.
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Mr. Tamura, the President of HSA.
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Us on stage.
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Liling, presenting the omiyage we bought for Mr. Tamura. She also gave a wonderful speech that day :D
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Students from Singapore Polytechnic.
Don't really like this batch of people. Reason being first of all, you don't wear skinny jeans to a formal event like this. Somemore it was so tight that you can see her...erm...cameltoe. wtf. Next, during the flute performance, one of the guy students made disrespectful remarks in Japanese like "tsumaranai (boring)" and "nemui (sleepy)". He wasn't whispering the remarks but he was saying them out loud. He was seated quite near to the video camera which was used to videotape the performance and that means that whatever he said was probably recorded down. Shithead. Wanted to really turn around and punch that guy. The best thing was that his teacher was seating with them but she made no attempt to tell him to shut up. wtf.
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Some Singaporean who received a tuition grant from HSA to study Japanese.
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The splendid flute performance.
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Something that's never absent at a Japanese function...beer.
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The buffet spread was just too wonderful for words. Lotsa delicious food~! During the buffet, the students from Singapore Polytechnic performed a song but guess what, no one was listening to them. HAHAHA.
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Airi and me. While eating, one Japanese came up to us and started talking to Airi in Chinese because he thought that she was the Singaporean. wtf. All the NUS students were dressed in suits lo. Quite interesting though...when I told him that I'm the Singaporean. He was like "Oh, sumimasen."
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Mr. Tani, Me
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Mr. Saeki, Me
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Me, Mr. Nuibe
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Mr. Guo Chun Gui, a teacher from Hiroshima Shudo University, Me
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Hiroshima Internship Programme 11/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 11:01 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 20~.

Today's internship was held at the Marketing Department. Learnt about international marketing and the management of funds. Tough stuff.
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Although the stuff that we learnt today was difficult, it was quite interesting, thanks to our nice "tutors". =D
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After doing internship at a few different branches with no staff canteens, it was nice to come back to the staff canteen today for lunch. Nothing beats the 400yen lunch. Today's menu was diced beef set. The beef was so tender and smooth while the scrambled eggs were so soft and fluffy~ Loved the pickles too.
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The Electronic Banking Deparment gave us a packet of sweets which we went to share with Mr. Tani and his department. =D
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Sanji no oyatsu~! This Wonda coffee was so sweet and fattening but nice. Heh.
day20-coffee.jpg

While waiting for our "tutors" in the room, Pei San and I started doodling on the board. Both of us were supposed to draw a hippopotamus. The one on the left's by Pei San and the one on the right's by me. Mine looks better right? :P
day20-hippo.jpg

Looking at the stock exchange~
day20-office.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 10/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 7:29 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 19~.

Went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End~ To get to the cinema, we had to ride for about 45 minutes by bicycle. It was my first time riding a bicycle for such a long time and also my first time riding a bicycle across the road. Whoo~ Exhilarating!
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After the movie, Ms. Oogata treated us to icecream~! It was matcha icecream topped with azuki, shiratama and chestnuts. At the bottom's cornflakes. OMG, so freaking delicious~! As Melody doesn't eat shiratama and I don't eat chestnuts, we exchanged her shiratama for my chestnuts so in the end, I got to eat like 6 shiratamas. *happy* Damn fattening but *happy*.
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Me and Airi...and Melody in the background. Haha.
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Me.
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To pick up my luggage from Airi's house, I had to ride the bicycle again for 45 minutes. Actually, the ride could've been faster if not for me. Normally, when people go down slopes, they just ride their bicycles down but as I'm afraid of slopes, I had to push the bicycle all the way down everytime we encountered one. -___-
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Took a train back to Hiroshima City.
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I basically slept throughout the whole train journey. I rock. -_-
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Had dinner at this restaurant located in Yokogawa Station.
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Mine was seafood spaghetti. Although there wasn't alot of noodles, the taste made up for it. It was delicious.
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Kiki-chan(Airi) and Mimi-chan(Ms.Oogata)
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Dessert~
day19-dinner04.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 09/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 7:05 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 18~.

Since it's the weekend, it means that it's homestay time~ Like the first weekend, Mrs. Watanabe brought Melody and I around as our homestay families had something on. Went to Sankeien~
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Sakura-chan and Shota-kun having fun feeding the fish there.
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The ever curious Momo-chan was looking around while her siblings were feeding the fish. Erm...but why is she peering into the rubbish bin? =D So cute~!
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Me and Melody.
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Momo-chan, with her hat covering her face.
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Sankeien was really scenic although it's man-made. The wonderful thing about countries with four seasons is that, each place can have 4 different looks, depending on which season it is at the time of visit.
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Shota-kun.
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The not-very-visible me.
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Me again.
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The children waiting excitedly for their candy floss to be made.
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And they finally got it~!
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Next, we went to the Hiroshima Airport to have lunch. When Momo-chan saw a plane taking off, she kept shouting "Shinkanse~n!". Even after when her mum told her that it's not the Shinkansen but rather a plane, she kept insisting that it's the Shinkansen. So cute!!! Then, when we passed by the taxi stand, she went "Bee Bo Bee Bo", mistaking the taxi for a police car. -_____-
day18-airport01.jpg

Momo-chan helped us carry the omiyage we bought at Sankeien. So strong!
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This was what I had for lunch. Fried oyster set.
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Even though it wasn't autumn yet, the oysters were big and juicy~Unlike the ones sold at Japanese restaurants in Singapore...can't even taste the damn oyster. Thanks to Mrs. Watanabe for the treat!
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After lunch, we returned to Mrs. Watanabe's house where we had sanji no oyatsu. The snack for that day was mochi wrapped with seaweed. My god~ Mochi~!!!
Yukiko-chan with Sakura-chan.
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Sakura-chan.
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Momo-chan attempting to wear her mum's shoes.
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Had a Hippo Club party at night, following which I went home with Airi.
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The Singapore scroll which I gave to Airi =D
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This is where I slept on~To tell the truth, I love sleeping on the floor...because it means that it's unlikely that I'll fall off the bed and die when I'm sleeping. wtf.
day18-room03.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 08/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 6:37 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 17~.

Went to the Koyo Branch today for internship. Unlike the other branches of the Shinkin Bank, the Koyo Branch's situated in a supermarket! Also, one special thing about this branch is that it operates 24/7.
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There, we learnt about investment trusts. Almost died from all the knowledge~
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Had lunch at this restaurant called Bonta. The ambience there was quite good and the food was delicious too. Not to mention cheap as well.
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Even the chopsticks holder's pretty. wtf.
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The salad came first. It had a sweet and tangy taste that I liked alot. =D
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Next up was the breadstick. I can't remember whether mine was the one sprinkled with mentaiko(spicy cod roe) powder or the honey one. Anyway, loved it so much but too bad that there's only one for each person.
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Ordered carbonara which I ate with a fork. The other people ate their spaghetti with chopsticks. Very Japanese indeed. Together with the salad and the breadstick, the whole meal cost us only 800yen, which is around SGD10. Quality+Quantity = Damn worth it.
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Thanks for the treat~!
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Next, we went shopping and we saw this car with an odd shape in the carpark.
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After shopping, we returned to the office where we learnt about electronic banking. Following that, we also created a webpage that introduces who we are for the company~Click here to view: http://www.shinkin.co.jp/hiroshin/local/sing190608.htm
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As I was feeling damn poor that day, we returned to the training centre to eat instant noodles with cucumbers for dinner. Oh, and plus a chu-hi as well. I've drank like more alcohol during this trip than I ever had in my life seriously. -___-
day17-dinner.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 07/6/07 Part II

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 5:28 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 16 Part II~.

After internship at the Ujina Branch, we went back to the training centre where we had a discussion session with the newbies of the Shinkin Bank.
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The theme of the discussion was about the differences between Japanese and Singapore companies. Of course, we were allowed to talk about other stuff as well but as we had to present our findings later, we had to talk about the theme somehow. Learnt lots about the differences and also some non-related stuff =D
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We were either in groups of fours or fives.
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Quite a fun-filled discussion~
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Finally, at around 7:30pm, it was time to present our findings! As everyone was hungry already, we were allowed to eat while we did our presentations. Woo~food galore~!
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My favourite!!!! Mitarashi-dango~...but as I was in Group A, before I could sink my teeth into the dango, I had to finish my presentation first. =(
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My group giving our presentation.
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Grace and Vivien's group.
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Hui En, Liling and Melody's group.
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Wei Ying and Po Ling's group.
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Mr. Hashimoto giving his conclusion.
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Mr. Tani.
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Mr. Saeki.
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My group once again. Pei San, Me, Miss. Harada, Mr. Hayashi.
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Hiroshima Internship Programme 07/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 4:37 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 16~.

Like the previous day, our internship was not held at the main branch but at the Ujina Branch which is located at Kaigan-doori.
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Exterior of the Ujina Branch.
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Interior of the Ujina Branch. After meeting the people who worked there, we were brought to a little room where we were briefed on what we were supposed to do for the day, as well as chit-chat a little.
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Ujina Branch's branch manager Mr. Narasaki, Pei San, Mr. Nakamura
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This time with me :D
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We learnt how to count money with fake money(for practice use) there. Quite difficult to count money the Japanese way but the way they count money is damn cool! Oh, and we got to touch real money too! The stack of money in my hands is REAL lor. My god~! I want!!!
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Pei San with the stack of money~
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The ATM machine there. I got a feeling that the Japanese think that Singapore is a very backward country, or at least the people who were visibly shocked when we told them that we have ATMs/subways/use chopsticks in Singapore. Hello, Japanese are not the only people who use chopsticks can...and somemore, the usage of chopsticks was passed down by the Chinese lor! wtf.
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Us in the Ujina Branch.
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We then went to the harbour where there was a pretty cruise ship docked there. Bring me along~!
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Next, Mr. Narasaki, along with Mr. Teramoto, brought us to the Hiroshima Manga Library...
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...but it was closed!!! Somemore, the best thing was that...
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...they close the library for a certain period of time ONCE a year and we suay suay went during that period. wtf.
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Since we couldn't enter the library, we went to the Modern Art Museum that was situated opposite the library. The museum was nice but...I didn't understand any of it. -____- The exhibit with the living person was quite interesting though.
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Had lunch at Cafe Gourmet where Mr. Narasaki gave us a treat! :D
While walking towards our table, I saw this guy, who's old enough to be my grandfather, reading a porno magazine. -________- In Singapore, I don't think that people are open enough to read porno magazines in public and somemore this is a old guy lor! wtf. In Japan's convenience stores, guys stand in there and read porno mangas/magazines like no one's business like that.
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Anyway, moving on to lunch, we had a beef set meal each. Look at the amount of food!!! Couldn't finish ...damn!
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Rice with pickles.
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And of course, miso soup~! Should've eaten more!!!!
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After lunch, we returned to the office as Mr. Narasaki had to complete some work. Pei San and I then followed Mr. Teramoto and some other guy who looked like Matsuyama Kenichi(no photos, sorry!) to give out tissue papers to customers while saying "Irasshaimase!".

After Mr. Narasaki finished his work, we then set off for the Yamato Museum located in Kure City, which took like at least 1 hour to reach by car!...which means that it took at least 2 hours to go to and fro. The driver for that day was Mr. Teramoto, who was a newbie. He only drove us to and fro but did not enter the museum but just waited in the car the whole time. Xin ku le~! Really sucks to be a newbie sometimes as you get to do all the sai gang(shitty jobs).
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Me with the missiles.
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The kamikaze plane.
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Went to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force(JMSDF) Museum, which was opposite the Yamato Museum.
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Pei San outside the JMSDF Museum.
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This is what toilet bowls look like in submarines. Erm...got difference meh?
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Meal place~! The submarine tour was soooo cool!
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Me and Mr. Narasaki~
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Mr. Teramoto (Doesn't he look a little like Bi? The eyes at least), Me, Pei San, Mr. Narasaki
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Hiroshima Internship Programme 06/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 3:59 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 15~.

Today's internship was not held at the main branch of the Shinkin Bank but was at the Yokogawa Branch. Our first task was to sort out documents and photocopy cheques.
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Next, we got to try out this cool cheque sorter that basically sorts out cheques by Shinkin Bank branches and cheques by other banks. Freaking high tech can! Then again, I've never seen how a Singapore bank operates, or any other bank for that matter.
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Me trying out the machine.
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Next, we used this machine to verify the stamps and cheques used by customers. In an twinkling of an eye, it was time for lunch~! As no lunch was prepared for us, we went to Coco Ichiban Curry House to eat ...curry...again...wtf. The curry was good though and although I ordered the normal level of spiciness...it was too spicy for me. wtf.
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After lunch, we scanned documents into the computer and did data entry before proceeding to sort out the company mail. Damn cool lar! Letters and packages were like flying across the mail table~woo, like in movies like that!
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The place to sort out mail. Can't really see the flying of letters and packages here because this is like the end of the whole process and people are clearing up the mail table.
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Us with the lady who was in charge of taking care of us for the day. :D
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One good thing about working at Yokogawa Branch was that...it was located near to the training centre that we were staying in so yup, didn't have to spend any money on transportation back home :D

Hiroshima Internship Programme 05/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 3:29 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 14~.

Today's internship was also at the secretary department. This time round, I was assigned to the first floor in the morning where I worked with Miss. Matsusawa (or was it Matsuzawa). I almost died of shock when she suddenly passed me the phone she was talking on with the secretaries on the 4th floor. I was like "Eh?!!! Nononono, dont gimme the phone...!"
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Us with the secretaries of the fourth floor...not all of them though.
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For lunch, I had curry. I've been eating like curry over and over again during the whole internship period. wtf.
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After lunch, we had ikebana, or flower arrangement, lessons. Woo~ so cool!
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The most important thing in ikebana....is of course the... flowers. Lalala.
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Our teacher for the day, Ms. Tamura.
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wtf. Doing ikebana also can take time off to take photos. -_____-
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My masterpiece that looks damn ugly compared to the teacher's. I think that I was the lousier one of the two of us. Somehow, I just couldn't stick the flowers and leaves properly onto the needle pad and so the flowers and leaves kept coming out while I was arranging them. In fact, one of the flowers actually dropped out after I took this photo. -____-
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Us with our respective masterpieces. I look positively worn out here. Aberthen! Try kneeling down on the tatami floor throughout the whole process while trying to arrange the flowers properly...damn tiring lor.
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Me, Pei San, Ms. Tamura~
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Next, Ms. Izawa(or something, can't remember her name, sorry!) prepared matcha and Japanese confectionary for us. Loved it!
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Showing us how to make the matcha.
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The tools to make matcha.
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Me trying to make myself a cup of matcha. Didn't go too well as my tea was still lumpy(we used matcha powder) after I was done with it. FAIL!
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I gave my ikebana masterpiece(that was transferred into a vase) to Mr. Nakamura while Pei San gave hers to Mr. Tani.
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Me and the security guard. Wanted to take with the other security guard too but I didn't get the chance. Boo~he was damn cute lar! Cute as in old people kind of cute. :D
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Miss. Utsunomiya with her prize-winning smile~
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Had dinner at Lotteria where I ate some burger that I can't remember.
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Korea's Lotteria has better fries than Japan's Lotteria. :D
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Hiroshima Internship Programme 04/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 2:49 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 13.

Today's internship was held at the secretary department. For the first half of the day, I was assigned to the fourth level while Pei San was assigned to the first level. The fourth level is basically the level where all the important people's(board members) offices are located and the first level is where customers pass by. After lunch, both of us switched places to have a feel of what it's like to work on both levels.
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Schedules of the board members.
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Food vouchers that are used to buy erm, food.
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Order form. Basically, the secretaries will ask the board members what they want to eat, total up the orders and fill up this form.  Then, they'll use the food vouchers to purchase the food and bring them up for the board members to dig in.
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Had lunch at the staff canteen again~ Ordered the always worth it 400yen set meal. This time we had karaage. The karaage was different from any other karaage that I've eaten in my life. It had a unique taste that made it taste like potato chips(yum~) and oh boy, was it crispy!
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Pei San and me at the fourth level counter. Obviously posed-for photo.
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Had to make tea and serve it to the board members. The tea-making process was pretty interesting and I think that I can remember the steps...I think only. There's lots of rules to make one seemingly-simple cup of tea. Knocking on the doors of the board members had rules too, as well as serving them the tea. Damn scary lar! Luckily, nothing went wrong. :D
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Had calligraphy lessons after the tea-making and as you can see from the picture, my calligraphy sucks. Guess I can't make a living from calligraphy in the future~
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Dinner was at Handaya where I had kimchi-don. In Japan, I eat Korean food. In Korea, I eat Japanese food. Wtf is wrong with me?!
day13-kimchi.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 03/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 2:03 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 12.

2nd day of the "free" weekend. Had yaki-udon(fried udon noodles) for lunch and it was so good that I can still remember the taste of it up till now. It was a little spicy because Okaasan added pepper to it but still, damn delicious lar. I don't normally like eating udon but prefer soba more but yaki-udon is so much better than yakisoba. :D
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Had Uirou for Sanji no Oyatsu (literally "3 o'clock snack)~ Uirou might look a little like youkan from the picture but it's quite different from it in reality. Youkan has this agar-agar feeling when you bite into it but Uiro had the mochi feeling. Yes, once again, I can never be a food critic. Lalala.
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The koi-nobori that Obaachan made~
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Was watching NHK while having the Uiro and there was this singing competition on air. Wasn't paying much attention until I heard the starting of "Seishun Amigo" being played. I was like "OMG, don't tell me it's Kamenashi and Yamapi coming on right now!"....And then I looked carefully....wtf. Good effort though, the dancing, but the vocals weren't that good. Then again, who am I to comment? I have pretty bad singing skills.
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As a late birthday celebration for me, we had dinner at Mario Espresso, which was located at Marina Hop.
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Salad with avocado, tomatoes and grapefruit.
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Another salad but this time with prawns and sotongs.
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Moving on to the main course, we had pizza topped with minced meat sauce and cheese. Loved the thin crust, crispy and light~
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Pizza No. 2. This time topped with sliced potatoes and ham slices.
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Otousan's beef steak. Okay, it didn't look as miserable as this but I forgot to take photos of it initially and by the time I remembered, only this was left.
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Seafood spaghetti~ Love seafood!!!
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Ikasumi Spaghetti, or Spaghetti with Squid Ink, or Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia....yar, you get the idea.
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Teeth gets like really black after eating ikasumi spaghetti and as it wasn't a really nice sight, I shall spare you the agony of looking at it :D
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Assorted seafood spaghetti. Yummilicious~
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Dessert was vanilla icecream topped with...wait for it wait for it...hot coffee. wtf, didn't know that you can eat vanilla icecream like that. The combination tasted a little weird to me though.
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Otousan, Obaachan, Okaasan, Me(damn fugly)
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Hiroshima Internship Programme 02/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 1:35 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Day 11~

Unlike the previous weekend, we had this weekend off so we could basically do whatever we wanted for 2 days. The others visited Miyajima while I went to find my homestay family whose house I stayed in in 2006.
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After picking me up from the training centre, we had shabu-shabu for lunch at this little shop called PAN. The exterior of the shop was decorated with so many different kinds of flowers that I thought that it was a flower shop or something. Anyway, first time eating shabu-shabu. Damn delicious~, especially when dipped with the sesame sauce. OMG~
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Mrs. Shinkawa =D
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Me~
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Dessert was sponge cake with vanilla ice-cream, one of the specialities of PAN. Coming from someone who's not a big fan of cakes, the dessert was sooo freaking good.
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Went back after lunch and as you know, many Japanese families require you to wear slippers inside the house so here's my cute bunny slippers~!
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As dinner was going to be gyoza, Okaasan, Obaachan and me started preparing for dinner once we got home. I totally suck at making gyoza. I can't make the nice "fan" shape that gyoza's supposed to have but instead, my gyoza looked more like soon kueh instead. wtf.
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Frying the gyoza~
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Gyoza getting cooked. OMG, can't wait to eat~
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Obaachan, Okaasan.
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Ta-da~ The gyoza's ready! Had a sense of accomplishment although I only wrapped the gyozas into some ugly non-gyoza-like shape. :P
In case if you were wondering, the gyoza was omg, so freaking crunchy and juicy~ Yum!
day11-gyoza05.jpg

Hiroshima Internship Programme 01/6/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 1:45 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Hiroshima Internship Programme Continuation~

Went to watch a Noh play today and that meant that no work for today~ Whee~
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Po Ling, Liling, Hui En. Taking photos while waiting to enter the theatre and while waiting for the rest of the girls to come out of the toilet. =P
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There were like tons of high school students there that day but mostly girls. Oi! Where are the guys?!
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Got to sit in the box seats~ Damn cool can! I mean, how VIP can you get? Somemore it was tatami...I think. Haha.
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Photography was prohibited but looking at the picture below, I guess you can say that I did not obey the rules~ I took pains to take this photo okay. I was constantly looking around to see if there's any usher lurking around to catch people like me. After taking the photo, I looked down(we were seated on the 2nd floor) and saw the caucasian lady blatanly holding up her video camera and taking videos. -___________- wtf By the way, I was only awake for like 10minutes during the Noh play~ Yes, I can't appreciate art.
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Had curry rice for lunch. It was 100% curry rice okay, without any meat or veggies. wtf.
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As there was a matsuri called Toukasan that was held at night, we went down to Kinki Nihon Tourist so that the nice lady there could help us put on our yukatas~
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Vivien, Me, Wei Ying, The nice lady, Hui En, Melody
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@ Hondoori. The guy in the costume posed for my photo. Damn on!
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Candy apples~Not a big fan though.
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Wei Ying and me obviously can't wait to eat the takoyaki balls. Takoyaki in Japan is like damn cheap, unlike Singapore where they sell 3 lousy, not exactly delicious balls for $2.20.
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Smoking Taiyaki. wtf.
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I love taiyaki soooo much man! I think I ate at least 2 pieces that day~
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Liling and her host family. The kids were damn cute~especially the boy but he was so shy!
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At the temple.
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Basically just followed the crowd and walked one round in the temple before leaving.
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Cute right!!!
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Awww~
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Decided to be 'patriotic' and went to take a picture of the lantern by the Shinkin Bank~
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:D
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As nobody else except Liling and myself wanted to enter the haunted house, we each paid 500yen to get ourselves scared. It was damn scary okay. We were screaming at the top of our lungs the whole time and we kept jumping backwards whenever something popped out/almost popped out. I think that the couple behind us was quite irritated because 1st, they had to keep out of our way when we jumped backwards and 2nd, we were screaming so freaking loudly and so I guess that the guy couldn't whisper words of courage to his girlfriend.
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There were sooo many people there that day and the rubbish pile was scary.
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Hiroshima Internship Programme 31/5/07

By
Jhui
on June 8, 2008 1:04 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
As you can see from the title, this is a very outdated entry dating one year back. Whatever la, at least I'm blogging about it~

On the morning of 31st May 2007, the 9 of us went to the Shinkin Bank to meet the important people of the Hiroshima-Singapore Association. Below is a picture of Liling presenting the gift we bought for the Chairman, Mr. Tamura.
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Us with the important people of HSA (not Health Sciences Authority hor!).
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After the short meeting, we took a short break before everyone set out for their respective work destinations.
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Today was quite interesting because we got to go see showhouses with Mr. Furuta. The showhouses were located at Ushita and they were like so freaking pretty. Anyone wants to buy me a new flat? Oh, and you'll have to keep it tidy for me or else it will look like a rubbish dump after 1 month. :P
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Peisan, Mr. Furuta
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Mr. Furuta, Peisan and the cute guy from Sekisui House. Can't see his face very clearly because the cameraman had freaking shaky hands. Damn you, cameraman!.....Oh, in case if you were wondering why I'm not in the picture...that's because...I was the lousy cameraman.
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Went to some hill after visiting the showhouses. Can't remember what hill was it though.
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Returned to the company for lunch. Lunch was diced beef with rice. My god, it was heavenly ok! For only 400yen, it's a real bargain. If I did not remember wrongly, this was the day that we had lunch with Mr. Saeki. It was damn hard to keep up with his eating speed...or with any Japanese in fact. The Japanese eat damn fast till the extent it's kind of scary.
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After lunch, we went out with the Marketing and Sales Promotion Deparment. When we got out of the car, I was like "Eh? Isn't this the training centre that we're staying in?!" -___- As it takes like at least 30 minutes to walk from the train station to the training centre, we thought that it would be nice if they let us off there but nope...had to return to the company after the training there. Boo.
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The training was pretty interesting. We got to use their simulated bank system and played around with the sophisticated equipment. Damn cool lar!
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After we returned to the company, we were given some of the company magazines to browse through and ...I saw my photo inside!!! Taken when I went there in 2006~ :P
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Had dinner at Saizeriya. I had prawn macaroni gratin which was damn creamy, delicious but cheap. Yummlicious. I'm so going to eat it again when I visit Japan!
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Took the Astram Line for the first time to go back to the training centre. Somehow, the Astram Line had this really weird urine-like smell. Oh, and the Astram line resembles Korea's subway ALOT.
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Grace, Liling
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While walking from the station to the training centre, we made a short trip to the supermarket to buy discounted breakfast for the next day. I love Japan's supermarkets because they usually have sale after 8pm or something. At the supermarket, I saw Koike Teppei!!!! OMG~!








Okay, his picture only but whatever la~
day9-suupa.jpg

Gokusen 3/Zettai Kareshi

By
Jhui
on June 5, 2008 1:20 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
As I've practically nothing to do these few days but to watch dramas, I actually stayed up till 7am to watch all 7 episodes of Gokusen 3 two days ago. OMG, I can't believe how fucked up my biological clock is right now. As for today, I finished watching Family Guy Season 6, watched two episodes of Super Rookie 2 and watched Zettai Kareshi up till episode 7. Wtf, I seriously need something to do...someone please ask me out for shopping, go to the gym, go makan...just ask me out to do something before I get stuck to my laptop.

Anyway, talking about Gokusen 3, when Takaki Yuya first appeared on screen, I was like..."wtf, isn't that Akanishi Jin's hairstyle in Gokusen 2?!" The hairstyle totally doesn't suit him as his face is just too small for it. Also, although he's like 18 already, he totally doesn't look like it so it's kind of weird that he's acting as someone who is the "head" of the class.
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Next, I think that Miura Haruma's hairstylist hates him or something. I know he's supposed to be a delinquent but hey, give him nicer hair can or not?! At least, try to blend the colours a little so that at least he doesn't look like as if he got a $1 dye job or something. Hair colour aside, I think that he's a really good actor. I initially thought that he couldn't act after seeing him in "14 Sai no Haha" but after watching this, I realised that hey, he portrayed his role quite well~.
miuraharuma.jpg

Compared to the previous seasons of Gokusen, I must say that the ikemen factor in Gokusen 3 is damn disappointing. Let's compare the cute guys in the 3 Gokusen seasons.
Gokusen 1: Oguri Shun, Matsumoto Jun, Narimiya Hiroki, Kamiji Yusuke and so on.
Gokusen 2: Koike Teppei, Hayami Mokomichi, Kamenashi Kazuya, Akanishi Jin and so on
Gokusen 3: Erm...can't really think of one. Okay, Ishiguro Hideo is kinda cute but not as cute as the guys in 1 & 2. =(
ishiguro.jpg

At least Yankumi's love interest is better looking this time round =D Lalala. Then again, storyline's starting to get a little boring because it's almost the same every season.
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Moving on to Zettai Kareshi, can anyone tell me the procedure of getting a "01" myself? My god, Mokomichi is damn freaking ikemen in the show...the world is not fair okay. How come there's no Mokomichi lookalikes in Singapore?! I wanna go live in Japan. Lalala.
mokomichi.jpg

What a bimbotic post~ Whee~

Day 10 - 10/05/08(Seoul/Singapore)

By
Jhui
on June 4, 2008 6:24 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Last day of the Korea trip. Boohoo =(

For the third day in a row, we had Mcdonald's for breakfast. I'm so going to miss the hash browns from Korea. So crispy and without the oily feeling...although I know that it's probably soaked in oil, like all the Mcdonald's hash browns in the world.


Was down to my last 100won after the crazy last minute shopping we had at COEX the previous night. I was so poor that Li Ming had to buy me breakfast. -_-. Spent it on a shopping bag when Li Ming went to do her crazy last last minute shopping at Hyundai Departmental Store.


Bye bye COEX, the awesome hotel with the pillow menu service :P


Was wondering if it's broken or it's meant to be like that. Sorry for being so ignorant~ lalala. I have zero knowledge in Art.


Took the KAL airport limousine to Incheon International Airport. Tried to sleep but the stupid caucasian guy seated next to me kept tapping his shoe on the metal leg rest and boy, was it irritating! People listening to their ipod can sway their bodies or nod their heads furiously for all I care but do not irritate others by tapping your shoes on metal stuff or blasting your music out loud. I do not want to fucking hear what you are listening to, thank you.

Anyway, reached the airport and I had like a hard time trying to load my big luggage onto the trolley. My luggage weighed a grand total of 30+kg and the check-in guy was trying his best to assure me that my luggage was only over the limit by a little. He kept repeating "Only a little" to assure me although I wasn't worried that it was overweight. In fact, I was already prepared to pay the charge for the excess baggage weight. So, yup, checked in, passed the security check although I had liquids in my bag(how safe~! wtf), saw Bi's posters everywhere and looked around for Lotteria only to realise that there was only one Lotteria and it was located outside. Damnit.


Decided to have Korean food and luckily we did. It was simply fabulous~! Li Ming's ox bone soup.


My soon dubu jigae was so delicious that I finished up everything...even the side dishes.


Last photo together in Korea~ While waiting to board the plane, I saw this cute Korean probably-30-year-old-plus-uncle and Li Ming helped me to take pictures...which I wont be posting up here. Lalala. Reminds me of the paparazzi days we had back in high school. :P


Boarded the plane, watched National Treasure 2 for the second time, slept, woke up because the stupid Korean kid seated behind me kept kicking the chair, ate the not-so-fantastic fish meal and pretty much slept again. After 6 plus hours, we finally reached Changi, passed immigrations, retrieved luggage, had one last look at the cute Korean uncle and went back home...only to find out that my stupid shampoo leaked and spent the rest of the night washing my toiletries bag.


So ta-da~ end of Korea trip~Wanna go back there again.

More pictures here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=150

Korea Day 9 - 09/05/08 (Seoul)

By
Jhui
on June 4, 2008 4:09 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Day 9 of Korea~

Like Day 8, had breakfast at Mcdonald's. Had to be thrifty because we were running low on money =(


Went to Namsan after breakfast. Unlike Rodeo Street, Namsan was so much easier to find because they had road signs directing us all the way there. Okay, it was a little difficult finding our way out of the maze-like train station initially though.


As we were lazy bums and did not want to climb all the way up and walk all the way down later, we decided to take the 7,000won cable car instead. If you've watched My Name is Kim Sam Soon, you'll realise that this is the place where Hyun Bin and Kim Sun Ah took the cable car in episode I-can't-remember. In the show, they had the cable car all to themselves because he lied that he was going to propose to her. I should've done that too because the cable car was freaking packed! OMG, luckily the ventilation was good or else I would've died there. Too bad both of us were girls so we couldn't use Hyun Bin's tactic. Boo~


The smoke-signal station...with "actors" walking down from it. Korea really takes her tourism seriously. They have all these staged performances at like almost every tourist spot. When we were at Insadong, they had people staging a Korean wedding ceremony. -___-


Go lock your partner up, so that he/she will be with you forever and ever~! Heh heh heh. wtf.


Sat down for lunch at one of the cafes there. Had this damn delicious bagel and a cup of orange juice. I look like as if the straw's stuck up my nose in this picture. *&#$*^#$


That's better~lalala.


Parents should really look at the design of the t-shirts before they buy any for their kids. Seriously, I don't think that he knows the meaning of 'fuck' lo. The whole thing read 'DSquared Fucking', with two cuckoo birds printed below the words. wtf.


There were like tons of high school kids that day, boys especially, and it was damn scary. None of them looked like the Korean guys you normally see on tv. =( They were eating cup noodles and the smell of the cup noodles was so good that Li Ming went to buy one too. =D


Cost us another 7,000won to go up to the observatory tower.


In the observatory tower with tons of high school boys who left shortly after we arrived. We were like 'Yay, finally we'll have peace," and then in came the kindergarten/primary school kids.


Waiting to take the cable car down. One of the kids dropped his shoe and kept quiet about it. I picked his shoe up and returned to his teacher, who later asked him why he didn't tell her about it. The sheepish face that he gave her was...priceless =D


Next, we went to Myeong-dong where I went to receive my complimentary coffee from Starbucks because I bought a bottle there. I wanted "Tall" but the guy kept telling me to take "Venti" instead. Eh, I take the smaller size=save Starbucks money lo but whatever la, I took "Venti" in the end.~


Come to think of it, was this some kind of publicity stunt for Kungfu Panda?


wtf. Ikko?!


Moved on to a departmental store. Had to cross the road but there wasn't any traffic lights and in place was a guy to direct the traffic. -_- At least you know that you wont get knocked down by cars if he's there.


On our way to DuChamp (one of the filming locations of My Name is Kim Sam Soon), we passed by Plaza Hotel, the place where the chef who made pastries in the above-mentioned show works at. Eh, this day is turning out to be like a My Name is Kim Sam Soon trail day.


Li Ming's seafood pasta.


My scallop dish.


Cakes that were yummlicious~ The restaurant was damn pretty, even the toilet~ Whee~


Took a taxi back to hotel where we shopped at COEX for a while before returning to our room to do packing. Almost couldn't fit everything into my luggage.


The tattered and torn map that served us well.~ Yup, end of Day 9~


More here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=149

Korea Day 8 - 08/05/08 (Seoul)

By
Jhui
on June 4, 2008 1:49 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Day 8 of Korea~

No more hotel breakfast so we ended up having breakfast at Mcdonald's~ Korea's Mcdonald's taste differently from Singapore's Mcdonald's. The egg tasted like as if it were fried with butter and the hash brown was crispy, not soggy like the ones sold in Singapore.


Took the Korea subway for the first time and it was such a cool experience! Firstly, we had trouble buying tickets from the ticketing machine because it's so different from the one we have in Singapore. To tell the truth, Singapore's ticketing machine is more user-friendly. =D Next, I tapped my card and attempted to enter but failed to do so...because I pushed the wrong gate. wtf. Thirdly, the trains are like damn old but hey, at least it's clean~ Oh, and I like the fact that there's no partitions on the seats because it means that you can shamelessly squeeze yourself onto the seats even if there's no more space. Heh~

Wanted to go to Rodeo Street right after we reached Apgujeong Station but had difficultly finding it so we decided to shop at Hyundai Departmental Store instead, because it was easier to find. Damn high end can, the departmental store. Boo, so yup, didn't buy anything from there although Li Ming did.~ The toilets there are like freaking chio! I think they have different toilet designs for different levels. I think only...because I only went to the toilets on two different levels and one had metallic purple walls whereas the other one had a nice country feel.


Bought strawberry daifuku~Why am I eating Japanese sweets in Korea...?!


As we were not sure of how to get to Rodeo Street, we tried to ask the counter lady at Hyundai but ya, she was so not helpful.
"I only give directions INSIDE the departmental store." wtf. The first counter lady I've met who wasn't willing to help us. I know that they are paid to direct customers of the departmental store but even if she's not willing to help us, it would be nicer of her to lie that she didn't know the directions than answer in way that made her sound like a unhelpful bitch. Other departmental stores in other countries have counter ladies who give directions no matter where you want to go.

Don't mess with me. Roaaar~


Anyway, we decided to find the place ourselves but failed to do so even after asking at least 4 Koreans for directions. Took a short break at this coffeeshop that served freaking expensive orange juice that cost 8,800won (about 12 SGD, wtf). Using my magnificient map skills that I learnt from Geography class(bah), we managed to find Rodeo Street after 1.5 hours of walking. Quite a long walk but the sense of accomplishment was great~ That is, until we found out it takes only 10mins+ by taxi to reach Apgujeong from our hotel. -___-


Shopped in Rodeo Street, got lost again, found our way out, ate lunch at New York Hotdog & Coffee. Lunch tasted heavenly after the long walking "exercise". After lunch, resumed shopping at the damn high end Galleria Departmental Store before taking a taxi back to the hotel.


Had ddeokpokki for dinner at Marche. Singapore's Marche is so much better, selection wise.


Li Ming's seafood pasta.


Halfway through dinner, I lamented that I did not have enough money left so we started figuring out where our money went to by doing accounts at Marche. WTF. -____- Decided that we were damn poor so we agreed that we'll do something that does not require a lot of money the following day.


Singapore's Marche is more high-tech in the sense that we scan the cards and not stamp on the cards, like Korea's. Okay, pointless but whatever la.


The hotel we stayed in was kinda cool because you get to choose whatever pillow you want from the pillow menu~ The pictures looked damn nice but what you see is not what you get. I requested for a chrysanthemum pillow which was yellow and traditional-looking in the picture but got a normal-looking pillow that was stuffed with chrysanthemum. -____- Damn nice to sleep on anyway.


That's all for Day 8~


More pictures at http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=148

Korea Day 7 - 07/05/08 (Jeju/Seoul)

By
Jhui
on June 2, 2008 5:46 PM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
Day 7 of Korea.

Ate breakfast at the Jeju hotel but since we came down like 2 minutes late, there was practically no food left. Do not underestimate the kiasuism of Singaporeans!!! Satisfied our tummies with bread and porridge that nobody wanted to eat while waiting for the new batch of food to be served but alas, the bread and porridge made us too full to stomach any more food. Blast! (I've been watching too much Family Guy -_-)

After breakfast, we proceeded to the airport to take a domestic flight back to Seoul. I hate taking short flights because it means that no food's served(not even snacks) and don't you think that it's such a waste of money?! Like that time I took a flight to Malaysia, paid like 300+ per person and all I got was a lousy cup of water. Yeah, no peanuts, no nothing. =(


While on the way to the place to buy Korean foodstuff, Richie entertained us with a short song and dance. The video's damn funny but I guess I wont be uploading it here. Then again, if you really need to satisfy your curiosity, you can always email me for it.


Everyone practically went crazy buying Korean foodstuff, even myself, although it wasn't that cheap. One couple bought like 3 overflowing baskets full of seaweed alone! Wtf -_- Okay, I bought seaweed too but not as much as them, chocolate bars(damit, I ate them all up already), sweets, ddeokpokki and blah blah blah. Yes, I love grocery shopping. Here's a picture of the ddeokpokki I made last Saturday. Damn spicy but delicious~


After grocery shopping, it was time for the rest of the tour to take the flight back to Singapore. While waiting for them to check-in, Li Ming and I felt really bored so we started doodling all over the box that contained the food we bought. Whee~


We then took the airport limousine that set us back 14,000won each but heck, it was damn comfortable and I practically slept throughout the journey...although there was this irritating Korean girl who kept on whining to her mum.


Took a complimentary taxi to our hotel from the bus station~ The taxi driver's name was Kim Dong something. Seriously, so many in Korea have the surname Kim or Lee. The taxi driver's Kim, the photographer's Kim, Kim Hee Sun's Kim, Kim Hee Chul's Kim, Kim Dong Wan's Kim, Kim Sun Ah's Kim, Kim Ah Joong's Kim, Kim Jong Il's Kim...ya, you get the idea. I shall not go on to name the Lees.


We stayed at COEX InterContinental Seoul Hotel for our extension period and the hotel room was omg, so freaking pretty. Oh, and the temperature's adjustable! Most of the hotels that we stayed in had like central airconditioning so it kind of sucked to not be able to adjust the temperature. The first hotel was even worse. No matter what temperature you set it at, it'll automatically jump back to 27 degrees Celsius. Seriously...27?! Even though it's spring, it's not that cold(it was hot somemore) to justify 27 degrees indoors lo. wtf.


The hotel room~


And...finally, for the first time in a week, we had something that wasn't Korean at all~ Pasta~ I finished the whole plate somemore. Heh. Oh, the only Korean part of it was that it came with pickles...which I finished up as well.


Since the both of us were quite tired that day, we decided to shop around COEX mall instead of taking the subway to other places. COEX mall is like seriously such a nice place to shop at. There are soooo many shops there and though it's not that cheap, it's still nice~


Fast-forwarding the shopping, we had dinner at this Japanese restaurant. Bad choice. First of all, the waiter, obviously a high-school student who was a part-timer, spilt like hot soup over Liming and her bag. Then again, he tried to make up for it by giving us free colas and free temakis(that had like beansprouts/leafs in it...wtf). Secondly, the soba I ordered was like...a fusion of Japanese and Korean food...and it sucked.


Initially I was like, hey, my soba tastes weird but I couldn't tell what was wrong. Then as I ate, I bit into this horrible tasting PEPPERMINT LEAF!!! wtf?! So disgusting can! I hate peppermint leaf lo...in fact, I hate almost everything mint. Bleah.


The beansprout temaki btw.


So yup, that's basically the end of a very short Day 7~ Wait for Day 8!
More Day 7 pictures can be found here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=147
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