Another post.

Idk why, suddenly remembered that before I joined Facebook, one of the websites I usually 'hang out' with was blogger.

Ok, now blogger is like a long-time friend who chats with me only at times, mostly when I'm emo/deep in thought.

Hmm, today had a large mood change.

It all started in the afternoon.

ACE was quite nice, writing messages for people.

Each person will write messages for every person in the class.

Sometimes I doubt the sincerity of some messages, but I'll take it as true comments to make myself feel better :D

Hmm anyway then later hanging out in library coz nothing to do before the ARP briefing.

Started having emo thoughts of myself during the briefing.

Like how insignificant I was actually.

Then later I was called for some SSEF forms problem, which turned out to be a missing file (as in physical file) which school (or Janice) said it will settle.

Then I was a little surprised to see Roslyn there.

And seeing her (or any of the y6 people) kinda reminds me of the Nanao trip, which in itself didnt have much sad memories for me, but it linked to the matter before the trip...

So yea my problem that started during the briefing was made worse (not her fault though, probably my brain patterning).

So yea I walked towards concourse, passed by 2 happy groups, one was someone's birthday, another was the campus net group.

So I just passed by campus net group saying sorry I wont be going, and just left.

Somehow, the road home seems very nostalgic.

I remember the different mindsets I had all along the way from year 2.

Year 2 I was thinking of Pardus and com games.

Year 3 I was crapping with Teck Lim on most days.

Year 4 I was always complaining and trying to plan a work schedule which never really worked out.

Year 5 - Dont have. Hostel year.

Year 6...

Boarded a new 165 bus.

The feeling wasnt that much different from an old 165 bus, except much brighter.

So I started my train of sad thoughts about myself.

Link back to the pre-nanao trip days, where I was kinda angry and sad with myself for being such a failure.

I was like really feeling quite lousy on the bus ride, letting my emotions roll...even though the roads seem to have some developments that didnt exist in the lower years, it always seem so serene, peaceful, like memory lane...

So I started whacking myself down.

It all happened and until I could feel rather sad and looking out of the window was some light rain.

Then, at about Thompson there, I kind of drifted into a dreamy sleep.

Opened my eyes a little at few stops away from amk mrt, and went back to sleep.

When I finally woke up before the CTE flyover, everything seemed to have changed for the better.

I suddenly felt some bliss, some joy. I didn't know why.

I woke up 'even more' and felt a strong sense to fight back in life.

Then I looked up at the sky, with weak sunlight falling on my face...just felt extremely strong.

When I alighted the bus, and took a slow walk back home, I really appreciate the beauty of the estate.

It's so peaceful, and slow-paced.

A group of old men sitting round a table talking, some random guy like some property agent answering his phone...people parking cars...daily life.

I never experienced any of these 'slow life' when I took MRT, since the bus goes all the way right to my block.

Then, the playground had new facilities added to the old, stained facilities, but the old ones still make me feel nostalgic of the lower years.

Suddenly I felt that how I perceive these stuff did not change much whether I was Year 2, 3, 4 or 6.

Year 1 and 2 were the frivolous years. I enjoyed without even thinking of consequences.

Year 3 was more controlled. A controlled frenzy (ironical) could describe it. Enough mix of fun and a little work.

Year 4 started all my troubles. Started to want to work really hard, but always slacked off. Being detached from the teck lim bunch also made me 'mature' more, since I did less childish stuff with them but those were the great times :P

Year 5...strong desire to do well, could even be a total ass and forgo many things even my friends. Started to feel that I was a total asshole (maybe the word should be 'realize')

Year 6. Probably still quite an ass but I hope I can change for the better.

Things never seem to change.

But all I know now is that, I am empowered.

Is this God working in my life?

I'm just very happy that this magical moment happened to me.

Suddenly recalled something from Dream High.

Sometimes, there can be short-lived bliss that lasts only for seconds, but it is still memorable enough for a life time.

Maybe not a lifetime, but this short-lived bliss is memorable enough for me.

Now, I'm gonna work hard and fight hard and hope for the best.

I must succeed in what I want to accomplish!

Haven't been posting for a while.

Whenever I post (except this post), I tend to be emo.

So, if you dont see any updates, IT MEANS IM DOING ALL FINE AND HAPPY :)

Recently I kinda realised that my world wasn't what I thought it was.

Still can feel everyone looking down on me, but that doesn't matter for the moment.

I may be different but if people don't appreciate, I don't really care.

Anyway, just randomly posting coz I'm bored.

New year started off ok.

Gonna work hard and fly high :)

I'm gonna make 2012 a sucessful year :D

No more emoness. I'm gonna live life without regrets, working hard for what I want to achieve :)

Trip to Penang 2011

Ended up in 3 segments: Happy, Sad, Angry.

Don’t really feel like posting, since I already skyped it off yesterday.

Touched down yesterday evening, and finally a nice whole day slacking off at home.

Left on a Sunday (20th Nov), where the Monday to Friday in that week was last week of school and the Saturday was spent going out, so little time at home.

Perhaps I’ll stop writing such long posts which waste a lot of my time. Thinking if I should add photos for the Nanao trip post (below).

Hmm…

Now another long post.

This time would be the outbound trip for Nanao SEP.

I think I've been mentioning that Nanao SEP people are REALLY AWESOME.

I feel sad that the year 6s are going to leave us, especially when they are quite fun to hang around and quite good friends.

Ok, so let us start the recollection of the trip before I forget.

Memorable lines I used...

KONNICHIWA, WATASHI NO NAMAE WA 'HANA YORI DANGO' DESU.

KIREI KANKOKU ONANOKO GA SUKI.

List of awesome people (nicknames)

Myself! (Kstar, hana yori dango, iceberg)
Raynor
Wei Ren (Wei-pyon) [pyon means bunny in Jap. The deer came up with this, I still find no correlation in that)
Shane (Stone) [he's quite stone at times]
Bingjie (Bing-chan, ice cube, bear)
Roslyn (Punk girl)
Vivian (Deer)
Michelle [Vivian was calling onigiri or something like that, which was a rice ball. Nobody else bothered though]
Qiusi
Junyan

Day 1 - Monday night

Ok, so Monday night. 31/10/2011

Reaching the airport, I received a call from Ms Mariko asking where I was, and then I realized I was at the arrivals floor and not the departure floor of Terminal 2. LOL.

When I reached, I thought I was kind of late, but it turned out that there were people later than me.

So we just casually chatted and stuff like that.

And I remember that I set the record for heaviest luggage ever :D

Can remember the guys all trying to lift it and guess the weight.

"I think yours is probably like 17kg" - Roslyn Ang

I'm not sure who said but someone was right when he/she said that my luggage would definitely be above 20kg.

When my luggage (also called 'half the great wall of China') sat on the weighing scale, it went up till 22kg.

Though in normal circumstances it should only go to maximum 20kg, but due to the group package the airport kind of closed one eye for that. Whew.

Then being very kiasu, we kind of boarded very early.

Once in, we tried playing cards, but soon it became increasingly difficult considering that we had to be on the move once every while, and started filling all the Japanese customs cards.

Then we moved into the waiting to board area, and later onto the plane.

First time travelling on ANA :)

I remembered that I was urgent coz I drank all my water before the boarding gate, and soon rushed to the toilet (in the plane) after putting down my luggage.

My seat was between Raynor and Wei Ren, of which I talked to Wei Ren a little. He taught me some stuff, and we also joked around, and he tried to teach me some FPS skills but sadly I forgot all that he told me :P

I remember that he was kind of sick, having flu, and was quite uncomfortable during the takeoff. Sadly I couldnt really give much advice, but could only say some stuff that I hoped was encouraging.

Then we started to play with the entertainment device, where I watched Kung Fu Panda 2 while he watched Green Lantern. Then I went off to the Kpop section and realized that 2NE1's Ugly is actually quite a nice song. Also heard INFINITE's Be Mine, but the title was in Korean, nae ga ha ja.

Then tried to sleep with the Kpop running, but I realized that I couldnt sleep with music playing. So I unplugged the jack and left the headphones on like a sound muff to sleep.

Sleep was ok until one point I half-woke up and realized that both Raynor (on my right) and Wei Ren (on my left) were leaning their heads on my shoulders. But I didnt really care coz I was too tired.

Then the irritating part was the cabin lights which suddenly turned on in the middle of the flight for breakfast, and even after breakfast the cabin lights were still on! Grr, couldnt sleep.

Breakfast was good though. Of course, Raynor didnt want his spinach, so I had an extra helping of it. For fruits I took an extra serving of dragonfruit from Raynor even though I dont really like dragonfruit, as I was just hungry.

And lol I had to test the food and tell Raynor what it was before he would eat it. He seems to be kind of picky with regards to food. Oh well, hope he can adapt to food more quickly, we would all go NS soon.

Then trying to sleep with cabin lights on was quite hard. Even after I slept, when I woke up I didnt feel refreshed. I was like WTF when I realized they didnt turn off the cabin lights after so long.

Ok, but I wasnt that pissed off. Everyone was happy and so I saw no reason to be pissed too. Couldnt really sleep, so looked around trying to see funny sleeping positions. Saw Shane with his mouth big wide open, then saw Michelle covering her entire head with a blanket and sleeping on the foldable table. Lol.

When we touched down, Wei Ren was feeling quite sick, and just looking at him made me kind of sympathize with him, though I dont really know how it feels like.

Day 2 - Tuesday Morning in Tokyo/Haneda Internation Airport 01/11/2011 (火)

Then we took a bus to another terminal. Loved the cool wind that received us, and I could remember Vivian saying something about being cold, but I was feeling cool and enjoyed the weather. Haha I guess different weather appeals to different people.

The bus ride was kinda quiet, only our SEP was on the bus. I think I made some comment about the bus track being made into an F1 track, with its cool bendy curves and stuff like that.

Then we arrived, checked in, and me and Bing went to the shops to buy something to eat as well as change off big notes (for me) while the rest went to sleep.

So I used 2 10,000 yen notes to buy 2 different items from the same store by requeing again. Idk if the Japanese found it quite ass, but I needed to change some small change. :D

Had some fruit and veggie drink that was claimed to fufill your one day's required nutrients from fruits and vegs, and it tasted kind of horrible at first. But at the end of the trip, I was loving it <3

Then I went to buy some pork cutlet sandwich which tasted really really good. Felt a little sad giving a little of it to the hungry Shane, but oh well I'm a nice guy :)

Then went to wash up at the airport toilet. Brush teeth and wash face made me feel quite fresh.

Then Wei Ren borrowed my Jap notes to copy some useful phrases, while me, Bing, Vivian and Shane started playing cards. Playing hearts was fun for a while until I got really bored, so I helped Shane shoot the moon so that Vivian would die and we could play something else.

They turned to playing taiti which I owned for 1 round coz I had 3 2s. :P

Then they wanted to play bridge but soon got scrapped when we all started going to the toilet.

On the second flight, with the little sleep I had on the first flight, I fell asleep soon after I was on the seat. Didn't even feel the plane takeoff! When I awoke it was like 10 mins to touchdown. Saw the nice green fields scenery for a while, then soon it was touchdown.

The pilot was really quite skilled, from the window I could see how the plane kind of slowed and slowly approach the runway. Cool!

Then we got off and moved our luggage to Nanao High School's baseball team bus that became our excursion bus.

Had a hard time moving 'half the great wall of China'.

Then we went sightseeing and first was a Botanic Garden with a Planetarium.

We had lunch in a restaurant there, and I had a nice cheesy hamburger steak.

Then we were given half an hour to appreciate the flowers and stuff like that, but most of us went to the playground to hang around and kid around.

I kind of walked around and was surprised to find a stone in the middle of somewhere written in Chinese saying something like 'South Korea, Incheon came to Japanese Garden'. o.0

I remembered that Bing-chan had a nosebleed due to dry weather. Some others speculated it was the Japanese girls. Hmmmmmm.

Then was the planetarium, which was all about stars. So the curator tried to speak in English, though a little slow. At some points he couldn't and used Japanese, but luckily Raynor and Ms Mariko translated for us.

So it started off showing us the night sky from Japan's point of view, then SG's, and also started showing us stellar charts and how Polaris is fixed in the night sky while most other stars move.

The chairs were quite comfy, leaning back like you're on a bed, and the ceiling was the projector like the science center omnitheater that kind.

So I fell asleep soon, and at the end when I woke up I heard Raynor saying something like "But Hurberg slept too!"

It was refreshing though :D

Then we went to visit the Thousand Rice Fields, which looked quite nice. It was funny how Wei Ren didnt wear his jacket and was trying to use every object for cover against the strong chilly wind since the place was near the seaside.

Then we saw a shop with a lot of sea produce but it was kind of expensive so no one bought anything.

Somehow Ms Mariko talked to the lady shopkeeper and she said that she still goes into the sea to catch seaweed and other seafood stuff, though this tradition is dieing out. Reminds me of the Haenyeo (海女) of Korea's Jeju Island.

Then we finally went to the Satamiya Inn.

Huddling around the table with the warm under table heater was nice.

Then we were supposed to change to smart casual for a dinner with the principal, but we just put on jackets...nice cover.

So we went to this place called 'Fish & Chips' but we didnt have any fish & chips but instead had hamburger steak. LOL. There was pizza, sphagetti and salad for side dishes.

Shane and Wei Ren then went to PK each other in who could eat a pizza slice the fastest. Poor Wei Ren choked and had to drink a lot of water to get it down. So I guess Shane probably won.

After a nice dinner, the guys went to the bath in the inn and it was quite a nice place. Except that I couldnt really get used to the hot water bath. I put half my foot in and immediately pulled it out with like a "F***ing hot!" expression.

Was kind of uncomfortable being seen unclothed by anyone else, so I wore my underwear in on the first time. Raynor too. Consequent baths we kind of got used to each other liao. Lol.

So after a bath and some crapping we went off to the room, did some unpacking and played 99 for the night (minus Raynor).

Sleeping arragement was simple, Year 6 guys take one side and Ytear 5 guys take the other side. Raynor took the side with the TV, I took the side with the safe. We actually agreed well enough having strong reasons for wanting to choose that respective side. Good chemistry :D

99 was damn fun :) Learnt to play it only today.

At first was taiti, hearts, then 99 for the rest of the night.

Epic fail: BOARDING CALLED ME!

If I had free incoming, I wouldnt mind letting the seniors troll boarding. But I didnt have...not overseas at least.

Then we slept kind of late, but in the morning I still felt quite ok.

Day 3 - Wednesday in Nanao 02/11/2011 (水)

Breakfast at the inn.

Kind of not used to drinking cold drinks during breakfast time, but it was a nice experience just like when I was in Korea.

We had to go to school.

So I decided to hairspray, but couldt get the ideal hairstyle I wanted, so I just pushed my fringe up to look kind of formal as a last resort.

Mr. Fuji (rather not call him Sensei, since he always give me this impression that he's kind of Westernized and maybe coz I heard that he stayed in America for a short while) was waiting outside the inn to walk us there, but being kind of slow we kind of delayed him by 10 minutes. Of course we got told off by Ms Mariko but, oh well.

So we walked there, and the scenery was quite nice. The streets were clean and the morning wind was cool. Japanese streets just look very diffrerent, very serene and clean.

Their traffic lights were also quite cool, they are more pedestrain-orientated as the junction pedestrain crossing had fast response times and were timed nicely so you could cross the whole junction at one time. You dont have to cross one way (eg. the 'length') and then wait for another way (eg. the 'width') like in SG. Sweet!

Then we walked beside the train tracks, and came to this crossing where cars can pass over the train tracks. May be quite common in other countries, but was kind of new to me though.

Then we went to Nanao Koukou (high school), and the gate wasnt very large. And we were told that the brick wall was 100 years old. Didnt really expect that.

Changed from our sports shoes to court shoes as the school has a rule of using 'inside shoes' and 'outside shoes'. The students' 'inside shoes' are some kind of slippers, but Ms Mariko asked them for permission for us to use our court shoes.

Then we walked in, and man their school looks quite nice. Even the interior is nicer than our school. We went to this room which was apparently the English teachers' room. We unloaded our bags and discussed what to do for the assembly.

Then we went to their school assembly and omg it was really an eye opener. Everyone lined up military style, standing straight at attention, in very straight files, no noise at all (not even a single sound).

Then we walked to the right side of the hall, where the MC said some words and our school song was being played by their band, at a faster tempo which I thought should have been used in our school :P

Then was the Nanao school song, of which the lyrics were written and framed on the right side of the school hall.

Then we went on stage and the principal and vice principal made speeches, followed by Raynor's speech, then our school corporate video was shown (in English) and then we had self-introductions. I remembered that Raynor was the only one who didnt get an applause as he didnt say 'Thank you'. LOL.

Felt kind of cool to hold a mike and talk to a group of people about yourself :D

Then the MC invited us off the stage at to the left side of the hall, where I saw something framed and hung on the wall on the left side of the hall that I thought was probably the Nanao School values or something like that.

Then we walked out of the hall, and passing by we realized there were some photos of the inbound trip on a notice board alongside the corridor leading to the hall.

Went back to the room, where we received Chemistry notes for the lesson after that. It was the orbital stuff, and instead of using n=1 and n=2 and so on they used k, l, m, n. They learned stuff like the orbital rule of d4s2 becoming d5s1 and stuff like that.

All was in Japanese so I could only fill the orbital diagrams part.

Then we had lunch which was a really really nice bento which was like a mini-buffet. The prawns were not bad, but I wasnt allowed to eat due to my mild allergy to prawns. Didnt really mind it though, not like I'm a usual prawn fan or anything.

So there was someone else who had a seafood allergy too (the deer). I jokingly suggested playing scissors paper stone and loser eats a prawn. If I lost 5 times, I'm screwed. The reply was 'If I lost even once I'm screwed'. LOL.

Then we had our dance performance, which was announced once during the morning assembly, and another time like 5 minutes before our performance.

Changed out of formal and went out to the stage area where many of our inbound buddies were everywhere and we were kind of waving here and there.

Then we did our dance, which I think wasnt that good, since I kind of missed beats and stuff like that.

And I adopted Shane's suggestion and at the ending of the song I threw a blowkiss, though not very extravagant. But it did evoke some moderate level cheers.

At the end, somehow someone told Raynor to tell the school I was about to do a dance solo, which I had to, and I did Roly Poly but I screwed up the direction I was supposed to face, but luckily no one in the school knows about it :P

Then there was alot of applause and stuff like that, before everyone hurried off to lessons. The inbound buddies came and the girls started calling me 'kawaii' while my male buddy (Koki) realized my hair had hairspray and soon the girls were trying to touch it.

And with the sweat from the dance, my hairstyle kind of screwed up -_-

Then was Chemistry lesson with Hirano Sensei.

He was really funny, and we had our sitting positions decided by Amidakuji, some sort of Japanese lottery that used ladders. I was nice to have a nice guy beside me who tried translating a lot of the lesosn with the help of his dictionary.

Then Hirano Sensei was really funny, and a student demonstrated the octahedral structure by streching his two arms and jumping to show us the 3dimensional nature of it.

Then we did some experiment to make liquid crystals like the one in LCD screens, but the nice part of it was that we didnt have to weigh the compounds, everything was nicely packed for us already :)

And we also learned about rare metals, where Hirano Sensei asked where we can find it. He said a place in Asia, 'very rainy and hot temperature'. We guessed SG, but it turned out to be East Malaysia.

Then we went to some science class called Speak Science class. It was the lesson where we made a Rude Goldberg machine. Surprisingly the lesson was conducted in English, and from their expressions the Japanese were like "WTF is she saying?" in their minds. Complete reverse of what happened to us (except Raynor) during the chemistry lesson.

Our group didnt complete a 5-step Rude Goldberg Machine to push a tin can off the table in 45mins :(

Michelle's group made a creative model of
1. releasing marbles to fill a can
2.to activate a lever
3.to push pins up to
4. burst a balloon
5. cardboard box behind the balloon push the can off

Nice one. Raynor's group also completed, but I wasnt really paying attention then. :P

Ours was a backward step working approach. After many trials we changed our step 5s.

Step 5. A cart would slide down the ruler and knock the can off. (The cart was just a box containing pins that had two straws placed underneath like a sled).

Step 4. The ruler was horizontal at first, so the supporting beam had to be knocked off to slant the ruler and then the cart can slide down.

Step 3. A string was used to release the masking tape that would roll and knock off the supporting beam.

Step 2. The string was made into a knot can be realeased by tying to a chair or streching it and cutting it off.

Step 1 : Not enough time.

Then we went back, and even at like 4 there the sky was getting kind of dark, like 6+ in Singapore.

Before going back to inn, we stopped at a supermarket where I bought a strawberry flavoured Meltykiss as well as a 'gift bag' of snacks which I ate.

Had dinner, a relaxing bath of which I remembered I had a long talk with Wei Ren about a lot of stuff. The rest kind of pangseh us and I was 'late' as I was spending a long time in the toilet releasing my load, and the bidet function was quite cool.

So we just stayed around pouring water on ourselves with pails. The water from the hot bath was too hot for me, and so I mixed it with cold tap water. While for Wei Ren the water from the hot bath was a little to hot for him, while the hot tap water was too cold for him. So we started mixing water from the hot bath with cold tap water except to different amounts and spent a really long time just relaxing and talking stuff.

Then we went back to the room.

Then I asked for 2 pots of hot water, with some mugicha and ocha. The mugicha tasted quite similar to the 大麦茶 I drank in Korea. The tea was nice and soon I got addicted to the mugicha.

The girls came over for a while after that, and just chilled out. Somehow in the middle of somewhere Roslyn became my "mum". And Yesung my "dad". Strange enough!

Can't really remember if this was the night whereby 4 guys stayed up to 3.30am to talk about everthing under the sun while eating instant noodles, but I think it was. This was where we really interacted a lot, and heard Raynor sleeptalking.

A lot of guys stuff mentioned... ^_^

Then I was lazy and just slept at the Year 6 side, too tired to care about anything.

From here onwards, I was irritating Raynor a lot about Korean girls since he was saying that he hates 'obsessive Korean culture fans'. So in the end Shane told me that if I redefined my definitions to define 'girl' as Korean girls, and other females as 'non-Korean girls', I would save 200 words a day. Really worked :P

[Ok when I was writing this post on 11/11/2011, I stopped here at 1:54AM. Started at like 12AM there :O
Continued at 10:20pm on 12/11/2011 DD MM YY]

Day 4 - Thursday Trip to Kanazawa 03/11/2011 (木)

I don't remember mornings very well. Some mornings were good, fully refreshed, some were kind of crappy, with one morning I remembered Bing had to try to drag someone out of bed (was it? can't remember whether it was dream or reality).

Ok so this day I remember was kinda warm. Didn't even need a jacket.

Along the journey, the bus stopped to pick up some students from their homes. Lucky people. It was a school holiday so not everyone reported to school.

Koki was letting me listen to Bon Jovi's Its My Life, and I was surprised he actually knows a few English songs. Then he corrected errors in Ryan's Minna no Nihongo, and I taught him some Chinese while he taught me a Japanese pick up line. Nice exchange, eh?

Everyone else was sleeping...

And I remembered some funny part where Mineshi (Raynor's buddy) stopped to go to the toilet. Idk why there was laughter, but it was just in my memory somehow.

First we went to some castle/garden. I think it was Kanazawa castle, then there was some garden place.

Yama-chan was nice and bought me a stick with 3 dango-mochis on it (so it was Hana Yori Dango eating a dango-mochi combination) and tea set, of which the tea, strangely enough, felt like 中国茶 but being nice I decided not to mention that. Ok, not really 中国茶 but it tasted Chinese enough. If I didnt remember it tasted a little like 普洱茶.

But I was like half-glad that someone else actually wanted to try the tea, since I wasnt that enthu about the tea, and it could probably fit better with someone else as I'm not really a fan of drinking hot tea especially when the weather was kinda warm.

Then, we toured around the garden, and stopped by a sign that was kind of weird. It was written in Kanji, but I spotted a catch - it wrote 国 when the 繁体 should have been 國. Weird enough? Of course, the wood it was written on didnt seem very old either, so no way would I believe it was a traditional setting. But a good try coz wood always look the same, except they could have bothered to be more careful with the wordings!

[P.S Do Japanese use any 简体 in Kanji?]

And I remembered that Roslyn made a bet with me that if I talked to her buddy Kido, she would give me 100yen or even her Yesung card. Challenge accepted!

Later went to some souvenir shop where I bought cakes for my family. Yama-chan bought me some dango there too. Hana Yori Dango eating dango...the dango was really nice :D

Ok next was walking along Kanazawa street.

I kind of chose the wrong bunch to tag along with. I tagged with Raynor, Koki, Yama-chan, Mineshi, Kido and some other anime lovers.

We had lunch at some Italian restaurant which was quite expensive. Koki was nice enough to 'subsidize' for me and Raynor, our meal was like 1200 yen but he only asked us to pay him 1000 yen. What a great guy.

I talked a little to Kido on the way out of the Italian shop, and was surprised his English is actually quite good, I spoke once and he already understood, only he took a short pause before speaking English. I'm not sure whether he is not that used to speaking English, or not used to speaking :P

And he likes akb48 and SNSD. Wow.

Then they went to some anime shop where everyone except me and Yama-chan actually bothered. Yama-chan and I were like walking around aimlessly, I was trying to look at the music section hoping to find a familiar name, but not even BoA appeared.

Was helplessly sian and even contemplated telling the others that I'll walk off with Yama-chan...but somehow I think they finally realized or they finally finished buying their merchandise.

Met with Michelle's bunch in the store too, and I find it interesting how people can be interested in anime and manga MERCHANDISE.

Koki also asked me about Junyan's present, which linked to a long story back in inbound.

[Recap: During inbound, the last dinner at Changi Airport, Koki accidentally spilled Junyan's drink, so he asked me to pass $4 to her. Then later I realized that actually school was paying for the meal, and so since he already left Junyan had to accept the $4.]

And he still feels a little apologetic, so he thought of buying a small gift for her. This time, I kind of 'resolved' my part to play in blowing up the matter by telling Junyan in advance so she can pre-empt him. DONE. All because of my mistake at Changi Airport.

Now soon they left the anime shop, and we wandered aimlessly along the street in Kanazawa. They asked me what I wanted to look at, but I just replied 'just looking' as I was kinda unsure what I wanted.

Actually was hoping I could find some cool fashionable shoes like in Korea but sadly I didnt find any, but they brought me to some shop with all sporty shoes that didnt really fit my criteria.

Then we kind of wandered before going back to the bus. On the bus I collected my ¥100 from Roslyn. She refused to give me her laminated card of Yesung, which I actually wanted to try to style my hair after his (though my hair is like too short for any styling). Damn. Poor Raynor tried the challenge but got nothing except ¥1 which was later taken back by Roslyn due to his relentless talking. LOL OWNED.

Then we went to the Ninja temple. It had nothing to do with ninjas, but only the temple has a lot of traps which were super cool.

First was the Buddhist offering box. You step on it, you fall 2m down.

Then they had some neat traps. They were part of the altar, where most people in their right mind wouldnt venture to. Floor boards can be removed to reveal a flight of stairs from behind the altar, and near the altar also had removable stairs (more like a ladder-stair combination) that could go to the second floor and had nice hiding spot for this removable stairs.

Another was the double sliding doors. Let's call the door closer to you Door 1, the further Door 2. You pull open Door 1, you get to go to the backyard. You open Door 1 and Door 2 together, you get to go to a secret flight of stairs. So you can hide in the secret flight of stairs and leave Door 1 open to make your enemies think that you ran outside where actually you're still in the house/temple.

Another was the cool stairs that had sheets of paper somewhere and people hiding in a darkly lit room under the stairs and pierce your foot using spears.

There was also this room with many secret exits, supposedly for the samurais to use in fending off any attackers. One was in a wadrobe to quickly access the higher floors, another was a door that reveals an arched bridge that can quickly go the main hall where the altar was, while other doors go to different parts of the temple.

There was also this tea ceremony room that was said to have optical illusion to look smaller than it really is, but I didnt really feel that way.

And there is this well that is said to be 25m deep. You can jump in and there is a secret entrance supposedly leading towards Kanazawa Castle located 3m above water level. I wonder why 3m, perhaps to prevent the water from flooding your escape route on rainy days.

Then there was this hara kiri room with 4 tatami mats, and 4 also means death in Japanese, and it had a revolving door that cannot be opened from the inside but can be opened from the outside. Thought it would be of better use as a prison instead, but, oh well.

Then there was this stairs that are kinda steep and make you feel like leaping to get to the bottom of the stairs, but there are floorboards there that can be removed to make you fall down 1 storey + the height where you jumped off the stairs due to the dark lighting there. In(di)geneous.

Then after that we went out, and I remember the rest were taking very long at the charm shop, the place where they sell charms for good weather, etc. I wasn't interested at all, due to religious conflicts. Somebody tried pulling Koya's pants which had two large straps that were easy to pull. So I joined in the fun by ambushing him. Bwahaha.

Then we took the bus back, where we had a large '99' session, with the girls and the Japs. Raynor played and whenever he died, I initiated a large high-five with everyone else in the game, alive or not. In one round, me and Koya ganged up on Raynor by reversing 99s to him and he finally died.

Soon it got boring and then we kind of stopped. I gathered with Roslyn Shane and Wei Ren and just watched MVs like Super Junior.

Then we reached back late, and had dinner. During dinner we were asked to say something that we learnt, which ranged from 'life values' to chemistry stuff. Was about to say I learnt 'itadakimasu' so that we can start eating as I was like damn hungry.

We later went out to the convenience store where I bought 36 Doraemon corn sticks. Raynor bought even more like 60 or something, but for ¥9 there were kind of cheap, so I just bought a lot.

Surprisingly I can find JANG GEUN SUK pictures all over Japan, but no other Korean male stars. Epic weird.

Then we saw a magainze featuring KARA, and I was a little disappointed hearing how Koya liked KARA and the members werent as good as I thought they were. OH WELL.

Then I cant really remember what happened on Thursday night. Packing, and then sleeping early, like 12am or 1am there I guess.

Me and Raynor were joking about Yama-chan living in a boat, since he said that he could prepare a lot of seafood for me and lives near the sea. We also wondered if his 'boat' had a shelter, and whether the umbrella listed on the packing list was for that purpose.

Day 5 - Friday in Nanao High School and Homestay at Yama-chan's Boat House 04/11/2011 (金)

Now we had a lot of school activities.

The activities line up was school based stuff. First we were in some lecture theather having presentations, first Nanao High's and after a short break, NUS High, followed by Nanao High again.

There were funny presentations when one guy, the 'Ninja' who kept disappearing during the inbound trip said loudly 'JAPAN IS VERY SAFE! THERE ARE NO NINJAS OR SAMURAIS!' which was kind of funny. Another team (Koya and someone else) did an analysis on the angles that different bidet functions used, which was really super ROFL. They also taught everyone how to use the bidet.

Then we went off for lunch which the bento was kind of disappointing, considering that the first bento we had was awesome. It wasnt that bad, but only we had high expectations.

Bought a hot milk cocoa drink. I'm kind of slow to realise that vending machines actually dispense hot can drinks.

Then we went to the Noto Jufu shop to do some weaving. The weaving was kind of noisy, though quite fun and I was a slow learner and many times the old auntie (or obasan) had to correct me. But it was still quite fun overall.

Then we went upstairs to try some traditional Japanese costumes, where the girls (esp. Sachiyo) were daring me to try the woman's nightgown. I'm not that insane, and deflected it to poor Yama-chan who obviously declined.

Then there is this photo of me kissing some anime girl wallpaper. Asked for this photo as I was bored then.

Then later they went out and we saw a lot of students hanging on the spider web, though its quite small, much smaller than the one in Pasir Ris Park. Someone was shaking wildly while the rest were trying to hang on. Others were kicking a soccer ball around.

Then we went to a mountain that was called Goseki Peak. The road up was quite tiring and sweaty especially in blazer, but the view was nice and equipped with a bottle of tea it became kind of relaxing.

Took some photos, and made lame Japanese jokes.

Q: Name a hero of Japan.
A: I'll say Shima. Hero Shima (Hiroshima).

Then there were other lame stuff happening like daring each other to slide down the mountain and stuff like that. Sounds really fun until you reach the end.

Caught Raynor and this girl walking closely side by side, and I'm sure photos were taken of them. Looks kind of lovey dovey, but in fact they were just talking about anime and manga (what else do you think Raynor would talk about?)LOL.

Then there was still funny grass similar to lovegrass that had seeds that could stick on people's clothing. One guy (Kato?) was going around swiping it on people's clothings. The way to remove it is to swipe it the other way it was swiped, they said. Cool.

Raynor got some on his pants by some ninja moves, and so did Roslyn. Raynor was epic when he reached out his hand to try to pull the seeds off her skirt (and it was at the thigh area) until his hand suddenly retracted upon realizing she was a girl. That awkwardness was so funny, and it wanst that hard to imagine Raynor having pervetic thoughts either. No offense. :P

Then we sat on the bus back to the school. Had some tea ceremony, where I spilled some of the powder used to make the tea on my pants. -_-

Then the seiza position was difficult for the guys, after 3 mins I was like in agony at the numbing of my legs...

Then we finally went off, and off to homestay!

Me, Wei Ren and Shane met with our buddies Yama-chan, Miyata and Ueda to take the train. They go the same way.

Took a train ride that lasted half an hour but costed ¥480. The train wasnt that new either. Wei Ren alighted 2 stops before my buddy, while Shane's buddy allighted at the same stop as Yama-chan.

So on the train ride we rehearsed what to say to the host family.

'Konbanwa, yoroskiku onegaishimasu.' Thats all I recall, other than introducing my name, my true name and not Hana Yori Dango.

Yama-chan's grandfather came to pick us from the train station, and so I said those lines to him. Then it took like 10-15 minutes to reach his house, which had persimmon trees and some freaking large field.

So I repeated the lines to his family, went upstairs to unpack my bags, gave the gifts to his family. Bak kwa, merlion chocolates, some Singapore snacks including the choco wafers and some preserved fruits.

Then we had dinner which was kind of Chinese-style, had 烧鸡, potato salad and yong tao foo. Except that Japanese beans are a little more plain than Chinese beans. The food was too much and this time I couldnt really finish...while Yama-chan just finished everything in a very short time.

They asked me if Singaporeans used chopsticks and I tried to explain that only the Chinese tend to use chopsticks. Hard to explain the concept of 华侨 (Overseas Chinese) to them so I just said that my great-grandfather was from China. Hope they understood.

There was dango for dessert but I was too full to even try it :(

His cousins also came over, and after dinner I had a game of Reversi (they call it Othello) with Yama-chan, and next his cousin. Both lost to me :D

Then I checked out his toilet, which was kind of nice. The toilet seat had a nice cushion mat and was warm.

Then we went to play piano and he played Chopin's Waltz Op.64 No.2 in C# minor, the one that Jay chou played in the piano battle in 不能说的秘密. I played Younha's Maldo Andwae, with some hiccups here and there. Later he played some accompaniment while his mum and aunt sang, like a mini choir, which was quite good.

Then I had a shower, and tried Yama-chan's computer, which had 256MB RAM, 60GB hard disk, and a 1.4Ghz processor. No further explaination was really needed. I was lucky that google translate still managed to work...

But Japanese keyboard layout is kind of weird. Who will want to put your @ key as a seperate key, and your Shift + 2 becomes ' ?

So I emailed some people, like Koki and Natsumi (where Roslyn stayed). Logged onto facebook and spent 20 minutes just checking notifications...with a lot of lag time. His grandfather was watching baseball so I just watched while the com was lagging.

A message came from Takafumi/Mineshi/Raynor's buddy which wrote "So does Yamachan live in a boat?" to Yama-chan's handphone. I replied with "LOL NO" but no reply after that. Yama-chan didnt know what a boat was, so I wrote 船 for him on a notepad and he was like "OH!" *laughs*. No one else knew the boat joke except the Singaporean guys ;)

Tried to show him roly poly but it lagged badly, frame by frame. So I showed him the dance by doing a demo. His grandfather was out then, so it wasnt that awkward. Duh.

Later on TV was some Jpop time, which the songs werent as bad as I thought. So I realized maybe I was too quick to jump to conclusions upon hearing many terrible Jpop songs.

Then was washing up and sleeping. Yama-chan sleeps super fast and before I even really finished thinking about the day he was snoring. But in the midst of my thoughts I quickly fell asleep, probably at 12.30am.

Day 6 - Saturday Full day at Nanao High School + 2nd Day of Homestay 05/11/2011 (士)

Yama-chan turned on the lights at some early time in the morning. I was almost going to swear until I realized I was at homestay.

So we had breakfast which I couldnt remember what was the course. Ham and eggs I think. And I had some fruit juice that claimed to give you 1 day's worth of Vitamin C. Nice.

Sad Nanao High School students have school on Saturdays sometimes. Idk why either.

So his grandfather gave us a lift to the train station. Then we met Shane and Ueda. Later Wei Ren and Miyata came(as well as other people?).

Went to school.

[Pause here, it is now 13/11/2011 12:04AM. Probably going to continue this tomorrow
Continued at 10:22AM on 13/11/2011]

Went to the staff meeting room (our 'room').

Had physics class in the morning, and they were learning Dopura Ifekuto (thats what I heard, it just means Doppler Effect).

Was probably the lesson I could understand something when the lesson was in Japanese(excluding the 'lesson' where we made a Rude Goldberg machine which was in English). The teacher wrote a lot of kanji, which made it very understandable. Instead of seeing stuff like sound source, you just see 音源. And so on.

The 1 hour lesson quickly got bored as it isnt exactly 'new' stuff. I was trying not to snooze off...and finally the lesson ended. Then we headed back to the staff meeting room to change for aerobics.

Aerobics was kind of ok, though it got boring halfway. Some moves were quite similar to certain dance moves (incl. Roly Poly) and so I started doing them :P

I was struggling to follow the later moves which were more complex, but look around me and everyone else seemed to have a breeze except me and Raynor (who was the least interested).

Then after 1 hour of aerobics to random music including Bee Gees and instrumental of Utada Hikaru's First Love (at the ending part), we went to home econs class with the juniors. Making sushi!

And when we reached there, WOW our photos from aerobics are already pasted on some cardboard at the back of the class. With our introductory slides too. And Roslyn had her photo being dragged and enlarged to improper dimensions and LOL it was freaking funny looked like some 大头娃娃. Raynor's one was surprisingly quite ok, his smile was a lot better than the one at Sungei Buloh.

So I had some problem putting on the apron and bandana and kind of needed help. -_-

Unexpectedly, I was dumped with Vivian until I realized that we both have some kind of seafood allergy. Except that mine was only prawns (I think?), and to a less severe degree.

Then I messed up everything. While opening the sausages I accidentally almost broke one at the 1/3 mark. So I cut it into 1/3 while the other sausages were all sliced into halves. Someone called me a noob, but I said that it was being more thoughtful for those who have smaller mouths. ;)

Haha then later was a lot of other stuff that happened, of which I remembered was slicing vegetables, cutting seaweed, slicing tofu on your hand, which I was kind of nervous about. So I did it really really slow and carefully. Thanks to Vivian for the encouragement, but still very cautious about it.

For sushi we needed egg roll too, so the juniors went to beat the eggs and stuff like that. I was asked to crack an egg and they all laughed when I cracked it from the bottom. No problem what...I didn't make a mess and the egg still came out nicely... -_-

Then Vivian made egg rolls of which she was quite skillful. Remembered how Bing and Junyan's group made scrambled egg instead. Haha. On the second attempt I poured too much egg 'solution' but she still managed to save it. She's good, just that I'm better. *ego*

Later was lunch, and I tried this sushi with a lump of wasabi which killed me badly. Nobody dared me to but I just wanted to try something stupid. LOL.

Then Qiusi was making the juniors eat a lot of wasabi. What a bully and the guy's face was totally red as he tried to swallow the sushi.

The tofu soup was nice. Tried some bean paste along with sushi which was quite good. Some guy asked me about whether Singaporeans used chopsticks, so I just said that the Chinese used it. I'm not sure if they were thinking of China chinese, but couldnt be bothered to explain further. They will go to SG next year, so they should know...

Then after a really nice lunch, we went to visit the English Language Club. They did some 3 little pigs story, but with a twist that the wolf didnt die but went on to sue the pig for attempted murder. o.0

Their English was quite good compared to most of the school, except that I wasn't that used to the slang.

Then we went to the dance stage where we last performed and watched a band performance, and then choir. Natsumi was playing the clarinet in the band (never expected her to be a music sort of person).Their choir had only 5 guys but it was quite good, especially with Kido-kun as the powerhouse bass. Seems like he doesnt like talking but is enthu about singing.

Then we went to some science class where we made a decorated leaf.

First you scrape some stuff off the leaf in a basic solution, then you wash it in water, iron it, paint it, iron it again, then laminate it and woohoo.

At first I made a mix of colours which was quite nice but it dried off too fast so I changed to making a heart shape on the leaf. Would serve great use in future :P

Raynor talked to some little kid on our table, pointing to Yama-chan and saying "Etto...Yama-chan! Yama-Chan! Yama-Chan!" and a while later the mother and the kid moved to another table. LOL.

Then we went to the Karate Club, where we saw 2 rounds of sparring between a black belt and white belt. White belt was the ninja guy who kept getting lost and omg he was super fast and drawed with the blackbelt even though he didnt learn a lot of moves. *Applause*

Then the second round another whitebelt was more aggressive but less sucessful...

Then we just practised kicking against targets, where most of the girls except Vivian and Michelle didnt go but slacked.

Suddenly I heard a lot of random comments of me, like the Jap girls shouting 'KAWAII!' and the NUSHS girls making a heart shape and shouting 'SARANGHAE'. At first when I heard the second comment, I was hoping there was...a 'girl' but nope. There were none. :(

Then we went off by train to our buddy's home. Shane talking about playing Super Smash Bros with his buddy kind of made our buddies realize that we do actually play video games, and Yama-chan took out his PS2 later at night and we played Taiko drum.

When we reached back, we had dinner of hamburger steak (4th time I had it in Japan, 3rd time was at the inn). Surprised that the grandfather also eats Western food, compared to my grandparents who are quite loyal to Chinese cuisine. Later we had ice cream, where they bought Haagen Daaz Vanilla for me :)

We also discussed the plan for tomorrow (free & easy day) where we go to Aeon for shopping in the morning and then go to Karaoke in the afternoon with everyone else. His mother was nice enough and realizing I had many bags offered to bring it to Nanao High School for me so I wouldnt have to lug so many bags on the journey. :D

Then had a nice time in his toilet with the cushioned toilet seat, then went for a shower and this time Yama-chan borrowed his cousin's computer which was Core i7...no further explaination needed. It was even faster than my own laptop.

So we traded nice songs, where I spammed him with Korean songs and explaining to him about the groups by going to wikipedia and clicking on the 日本語 link at the side. DONE. Also showed him Yatta and the Jinnai school song thing.

He showed me quite a lot of nice Jpop songs. Ok, so this kind of made me less biased towards Jpop. Actually it made me have a new look at Jpop, and its nice to have a song filter.

Then was mass emailing everyone with this fast com. Vivian's buddy sent me something in Korean (romanized spelling) and so I went to google translate and spam her with the translation saying 'Nam Sang Mi is pretty'.

Another funny reply was from Kato who replied to my 'How is Bingjie' with 'Bingjie is dead.' So I replied 'Let's celebrate tomorrow!'.

Then me and Yama-chan went to play PS2, where we played the taiko drum game. Won him in accuracy in most games but he has longer streak combos and always won me. Except in one game where I thrashed him.

Then we went to wash-up and sleep. Before that, I gave him a gallery of Singapore notes, $2, $5 and $10 and told him it was for 'souvenir', which he didnt really get so I google translated it for him.

Day 7 - Sunday Amazing Race + Back to Satamiya Inn 06/11/2011 (日)

Morning I woke up tired, but not as tired as the previous morning where the lights just flash flooded my face.

Had a nice breakfast, and then thanked Yama-chan's family in English. He had to translate for me...then I gave his mother a Singapore keychain as a token of appreciation. Lesson learnt: split your gifts equally so you can surprise them with a gift each day, coz the host family will also do that. :)

Then we took some photos and then left.

Along the train journey people started popping in. Me, Shane, Yama-chan, Ueda met before boarding, and in the train already had some people hanging around, and later at further stops more familiar faces got on. Basically, most people except Raynor?

A lot of interesting events happened on the train :)

Shane and Wei Ren tried teaching me shuffling, which I vaguely remember now.

Then we reached a train station and took a shuttle bus.

The bus went to AEON SHOPPING CENTER. The Japs pronounce it as 'ION' though. It's very American style, large area of parking lots, the mall is wide but not high. Had 3 storeys but the 3rd floor was undergoing renovation.

Met with everyone first, before dispersing off slowly. First I went to buy some gifts, like a calendar for my family, a diary for Natalie's birthday present, a caligraphy pen for Teck Lim, a caligraphy mat for Szeto. (P.S I decided who would get what only at the end of the trip :P)

Then the guys played Taiko drum at the arcade, where Shane and Wei Ren were good at. I tried but got owned.

Then we went to another floor where we walked past a music shop and I actually thought of buying a mini metronome that I thought was ¥500. But checking again I realized it was ¥5000 and thanks to Wei Ren who reminded me it was $80 I did not buy it. WHEW. Then I bought picks, 1 metal pick for Ben, 1 bronze coloured pick for myself and at the counter saw 2 nice Japan picks and bought them for myself :D

Alot of time was spent in the arcade again. Me and Yama-chan played air hockey against 2 other people, and sadly we lost. Was close to winning but made slips and let them have a 3 point advantage. SIAN.

Bingjie and Raynor then went to play some racing game.

Wei Ren was trying to win a prize from those machine in which you lower some callipers and try to get the prize out. The prizes were placed horizontal on some vertical support. Me and Shane were just watching and Shane was actively giving advice.

Later we realized how 贱 it was, they would make sure the weight was at the back, so if you tried to knock it off it would just fall back into the tray. And the callipers opening force wasnt great enough to swivel it, so it would be quite hard to play. I think at least 1500 yen was spent there, with nothing returned. Sad.

But Miyata went to another machine and managed to get a box of candies out of it. :O

Then we went to some CD shop, which bored me Wei Ren and Shane. But the guys said we had to wait till 11.20, with no reason given. So I asked Yama-chan, and he said actually we can go if we wanted to. So he gathered Miyata and Ueda and we left the CD shop.

The CD shop had some Kpop but who bothers buying them anyway. The girls were crazy over Akb stuff, Roslyn was searching for her Jrock bands, and etc. To me it wasnt any interesting at all, considering other than the Kpop stuff nothing else was familiar, other than some Bieber album.

Then Wei Ren wanted some ornaments for his house, but he said 'interior decoration' and Yama-chan brought him to some interior decoration shop. LOL. Ueda and Miyata went to 'chope' seats at the food court.

Then we went to the food court, and it was crowded. We took the 'choped' seats and after ordering some ramen, the girls told us we only had 10 minutes to eat. Worse still, the food had not arrived.

Then we chionged to toilet before the meal, then chionged back and there the noodles were.

Challenge : Finish a bowl of ramen and 6-piece gyoza and run to the bus stop right outside the mall in 5 minutes.

Challenge accepted, challenge completed :D

Gave 2 gyozas away to the hungry Yama-chan, and left the soup there (the soup was actually quite nice, but didnt drink much of it).

So we completed the challenge. Yea! Rushed onto the bus, which was stalled a little for us by the other early people (everyone else except me, Wei Ren, Shane and our buddies).

The bus went back to the train station, then we took more stops to the Karaoke place. I could remember someone being quite pissed at someone else. And someone who banged INTO me. And many more interesting stuff happened :)

Some parents were there to give us a lift from the train station to the Karaoke place, while Raynor's bunch had to walk there. Miyako's mother came and sent me, Shane, Yama-chan, Ueda, Michelle and Miyako to the place.

Lame joke: What you think of Karaoke?
I think KARA quite ok leh.

[Paused here at 11:53 AM on 13/11/2011, for lunch.
Continued at 2:47PM on 13/11/2011 after lunch, a nap and a bath]

The karaoke costed ¥8000 for 2 hours, which was equivalent to $130. So I thought it would be a nice place, considering that many other people said that Japanese karaoke was fantastic and stuff like that.

On the contrary...the karaoke lounge was beside a bowling arena. The room was larger than normal Kbox rooms (duh, we had like 20 people in it), but the facilities were kind of terrible. The speaker system was poor, and to 点歌 you have to comb through a freaking thick book as thick as yellow pages to look for the song you like, then key in the number into the remote.

And the chairs were kind of cheap too.

Bing-chan sang a lot of jap songs that the japs knew but most of us were foreign to, probably the deer knew some, but I was just stoning. Raynor went off to play bowling with a few others.

They made me sing Bo Peep Bo Peep, Tonight, Gee. I realized that whether it was in katakana or hangul, I was lost. I can't read katakana (yet), and my hangul reading speed is very slow.

Then at some random point of time Yatta started playing so Bing-chan solo-ed while the others like me Wei Ren Shane Roslyn were shouting into the mike the parts that we knew (like the G-R-double E-N LEAVES and the chorus). That was one high moment.

Yama-chan was nice to buy me a carbonated drink. The other buddies did that too I guess.

Then we had Moves like Jagger, which actually a nice song.

Qiusi and Junyan sang some 張靚穎 song.

Then after a long round of Japanese songs came the English, which had Grenade by Bruno Mars of which finally Michelle sang something, then had Forget You (which the Japs probably wont know). Then it all ended. LALALALALALALALA.

So we paid like ¥440 for the thing of which I still owe Wei Ren (I think?).

Then we went out and I had a scare when I suddenly thought I lost my blazer as my bag felt light. But it all turned out to be nothing coz actually I just drank a lot of my water and LOL the weight obviously decreased. Close shave man.

Wei Ren actually panicked more than me and started helping me to ask around. Though embarassing, but, still, thanks a lot good friend... :D

Then Miyako's mother sent the same bunch back to the supermarket near Nanao High School. Everyone was sleeping on the journey while Michelle asked me about econs stuff and we just started some conversation about econs class stuff which drifted off to economic related stuff.

We went to the supermarket and being despo I just grabbed a lot of snacks. Yama-chan wanted to buy a plastic bag for me but I declined, and stuffed them into my bag.

Then we walked to Nanao High. On the journey I was telling Nishizaki about the word 'chink' on her sweater meaning Chinese. She kind of understood I think. Then she was suggesting to me random ideas like walking in the middle of some pair and flirting with the girl like a Korean drama. Perhaps Raynor is right, she is quite a troll.

Then I went with Yama-chan to his family car and collected my bags from his mum. His mum was nice and gave me an extra bag to put my shoe bag and also all the gifts into. That helped me a lot, especially during the trip back to Singapore.

Then was the 'farewell time', where Natsumi gave me a gift bag, and we were taking pictures. Took pictures with Natsumi, Sachiyo, and suddenly got dragged into a random bunch of people taking photos.

Then we went back to Satamiya Inn. Had a nice dinner and debrief and filled up feedback forms. Dinner had Japanese kimchi, which someone said was called kimuchi, but everyone else gave me their kimchi -_-

But the Japanese one is quite salty compared to the Korean one, and not as sour. So it wasnt that nice...

Feedback forms had a lot of of negative responses though, some ranging from 'they should also consider personality in the selection process' to Raynor 'personally do not like aerobics' as he gave aerobics a horrible rating. I generally enjoyed everything, so I gave nice comments. Regarding the bento, I gave a good rating, if they were referring to the 1st bento I would have given an awesome rating, but to the 2nd bento only a so-so rating.

Then for me, after dinner was spent in the toilet.

Heard a lot of noise and banging on the male toilet door, then heard Wei Ren shouting like "I'm sorry but your fangirls are too strong!" and stuff like that. Heard a lot of girly laughter and didnt really get what was happening.

Next point, would be, NO ELECTRONIC DEVICES SHOULD BE ALLOWED IN TOILETS.

Then was a nice long bath spent with me, Wei Ren and Shane in the hot bath tub. Finally I managed to stay in hot water for such a long time :D

Raynor and Bingjie left earlier, and after realizing we took a long time, Bing-chan came over and started blabbering stuff but I just shut the door on him. LOL.

Then soon we took a quick rinse and went back to the room to pack. I accidentally dumped all my dirty clothes into my bag planned for food, so...oh well had to improvise and then put all my food into my big luggage.

So I had 1 check-in, 3 hand carries, 1 the dirty clothes bag, 1 small backpack and 1 hangbag like thingy that my host family gave me to store my shoe bag and gifts. Some food were stored there too.

Then the girls came over and we had some truth or truth session which later became more of a sharing session as people got tired. Some questions raised were obviouly pointing to specific matters.

Then we had a late night and it continued a little while longer within the 4 same guys until Shane started snoring, Bing-chan got pissed trying to sleep with the chatter so it all ended there. And I moved my futon over to the Year 6 side.

Then it was a tired night which seemed to pass too quickly.

Day 8 - Monday Wajima Morning Market + Travelling 07/11/2011 (月)

Woke up feeling kind of crappy from the lack of sleep.

[Take a short break from 3:39PM 13/11/2011 to 3:51PM]

So, we had a rushed breakfast and later left our bags at the inn while we went to school to quickly thank the principal. He was busy and had a senior management meeting at 7:45 so we had to catch him from about 7:30 to 7:45.

So being one of the latest (me and Wei Ren) we were one of the last few to leave. Others went ahead, and upon reaching the school we were lucky enough to meet him and say some words to him. He also told us 'the best souvenir is a safe journey home'. How true indeed.

Then we went back to the staff meeting room which was a little bit familiar to us already, and met the students there again. For the last time, I actually did some Roly Poly moves, mixed with some Super Junior. :D

Then we left on the same small bus which took us back to the inn. We carried our luggage onto the bus and then left to Wajima Morning Market with Hirano Sensei.

On the journey only I realized how little photos I took and tried to take a few. Would be missing the weather and scenery, would be missing the people (incl. fangirls), and perhaps the drink that gives you enough nutrients from fruits and vegs for 1 whole day (had 2 bottles of it in the entire day :D).

Searching my bag I realized I forgot to give the 5 Singapore keychains out. Intended for Hirano Sensei, Mr Fuji and Arakuni Sensei, Koki and Natsumi. So I asked Hirano Sensei to pass the gifts to them on my behalf. I was actually that forgetful...

So we passed by some island I think was Noto Island. Nice scenery, especially on the bridge.

Then I took a nap and soon after we reached Wajima Morning Market. Mrs Hirano was waiting for us as we alighted, and we greeted her.

First we went to a shop to make some 豆沙饼. They were strict with hygeine so we had to wear a mask, apron, bandana and disinfect our hands before going in.

Then we took 60g of dough and some flour and started making it into the shape with our hands, and later adding 60g of red bean paste and wrapping it, before dipping it into some yellow coloured rice and smacking it onto the 饼 so it could stick on.

Qiusi and Junyan helped me with most of the initial steps...I forgot to take the flour and LOL the dough all stuck onto my palms. -_- Was still in a sleepy daze then. Raynor didnt make as he needed the toilet.

Then the shop said they will bake our biscuits, so we went off to shop around. There was a lot of sea produce being sold, but I bought souvenirs, as well as some chopsticks. Actually wondered if I should buy some sea salt thingy for my family but Roslyn said that it was a waste of money. So I decided not to. It wasnt that cheap anyway, like $8 to $10 for a small packet perhaps 300g?

Then Hirano Sensei was nice and bought chopsticks for me Roslyn and Shane.

Then we went back to the shop to collect our biscuits which were hot from the oven. People who were cold pressed it against their faces for the warmth. Sounds despo, but I guess they probably needed it. There was a cold wind blowing.

Hirano Sensei also bought me a katekopta, the Doraemon 竹蜻蜓. I saw the price was ¥500 and felt kind of bad, it was $8 which was definitely not worth it, it was just wood. But oh well, cant decline right? So I just accepted it.

Then we went past some stall selling some sort of biscuit which was like a crispier and flattened out version of egg rolls you usually eat for Chinese New Year. Roslyn and Shane got a free bag of it when they bought some nicely packaged ones from him as he was closing stall. Nice guy.

Then Hirano Sensei also bought stuff like some hot pancake-bun and shared it with everyone. What a nice guy. He also bought the biscuits I mentioned in the paragraph above and shared with everyone.

Then Wei Ren and Shane bought Vietnamese style farmer straw hats with Japanese-looking Kanji on it. Wearing it on with the plastic bag made them look totally retarded but funny.

Another incident of Raynor getting owned (too many to list).

Raynor: "Hey punk girl, can I have of that ______ (some Japanese word that probably refers to the biscuit)?"

Roslyn : "No."

Me: "Hey Roslyn can I have one of those?"

Roslyn *passes bag over* : "Ok." *smiles*

Me *smiles back*: "Raynor got OWNED!"

Raynor: "Not fair..."

Then we went to a foot onsen. I seemed to be quite ok with the water temperature which shocked the guys a little. It was warm and nice, and I washed my hands with a seperate onsen water outside the onsen place. Warm and nice.

Then we dried our legs with towels provided by Hirano Sensei. What a nice guy!

Then we boarded the bus and went somewhere for lunch.

This place was kind of interesting. I got owned by trying to push and pull a sliding door which was the toilet door -_-

Then we had a choice of hot udon, cold udon, or soba for 'dessert'. Took hot udon, but later realized I should have tried eating soba dipped in hot tea.

The tea was 中国茶 though. The setting was really traditional, except for the hot water flask dispensing 中国茶.

So had a nice lunch, and famous quotes arose from this discussion. There were 3 tables, 1st table had Ms Mariko, Hirano Sensei, Raynor and Michelle, 2nd table was me, 饼贱, Qiusi, Junyan, 3rd table was Wei Ren Shane Roslyn Vivian.

1st table was conversing in Japanese, 2nd table in Chinese, 3rd table in English. Multicultural indeed.

金言玉语 arose from the 2nd table discussion, such as

连人都是饼贱的 更何况是块鸡呢

Trading 4 pieces of chicken for 1 piece of chicken. Hmm ;)

Then we went to some place where the girls tried on the Kimonos. Guys went off to some Kiriko Museum which to me, was kind of boring. But it was next to the sea and the sea breeze and scenery was nice. Reminds me of a very serene environment.

Then later went back to the Kimono trying place and they explained a little on the different kimonos each girl was wearing. Wasnt that interested, so after seeing for a short while the guys went off to the massage chairs which had CD players and a nice motorcycle hemlet like thingy to shade the light off for a nice rest.

Shane was lucky to find a CD in his chair, but to me the 'relaxing music' wasnt that relaxing.

Took some pictures before robbing someone (not Raynor) of the chair (there were only 4 such chairs and 5 guys).

Then we went to Noto airport. Had a hard time passing luggage through the bus window this time. Ms Mariko told us not to let Hirano Sensei carry any bag, as he just recovered from some sickness. So to pre-empt him, we passed bags through the window while he was at the side, in smiles. Probably laughing at our despo-ness.

My 'half the great wall of China' lost weight, to 17kg. My dirty clothes bag was like 6kg. So both satisfy the requirements. Yay.

At the counter, they asked me to look at some notice and it said aerosols prohibited. So I tried to ask them if my hairspray was allowed. So I did charades, said Gat-su-by (Gatsby) and demo-ed the action to them while making the spray sound. (ssssssss) They looked a little amused, then asked if there was a cap on, to which I said yes and then everything was OK. Whew.

Then we went in and due to some rule of only max 2 handcarries, Roslyn was nice and helped me to carry the handbag like thingy through the customs. [After all, my "mum" right? Haha]

Raynor went on to mention some stuff like carrying my bag with the word "HChew" written on it sounds inappropriate sounds like she's carrying stuff for me and bla bla bla which in the end ended with a death glare from Roslyn. Owned, again.

Then we checked in and Raynor told Hirano Sensei that we would wave so much until he got bored of it (in japanese). He just smiled.

So we checked in and then went on the flight which was spent talking random stuff with Wei Ren and Roslyn. Mostly listening, until a while where I just snoozed off.

We reached Tokyo/Haneda Airport. We went for lunch while I lugged my 3 handcarries around. Finally went to some restaurant which wasnt that expensive.

Had some taupok and udon meal. The Japanese taupok is a lot nicer than the Singaporean one which I mostly dont eat. It was sweet and nice.

Raynor had only ¥300 remaining, so I exchanged my ¥ for SGD. He gave me 12SGD and ¥300 while I paid for his ¥1050 meal of some pork cutlet rice.

Dinner I was sitting beside Raynor and opposite Vivian and Bingjie and Ms Mariko, and the conversation from the other table with the rest kind of mentioned me a few times, but when I looked over everyone just smiled. Hmm. We also had a debrief and were told we were a group that didnt give her any problems compared to the other groups. Raynor mentioned "Oh cause Nelson was in the previous group?".

Then was free time, we all went to the top deck and enjoyed the night scenery and cool wind. First was taking photos and then camwhoring and photobombing.

Then people went off shopping, and me too. Bought a few souvenirs, and lent ¥100 to Raynor to call his Tokyo friend, but no reply so he returned it to me. Then I met him walking aimlessly and we just walked around a bit before going back to the open deck. I took more photos with my camera 'night mode' on and realized the large difference. Oh well. Then took some 自恋照 but my hair was quite screwed then so yea the results werent that good.

Then the plane ride back...was supposed to be sitting next to Qiusi but Shane and Qiusi swapped. We tried some language game thing where Level 1 and Level 2 had a crazy increase in difficulty. Tried Chinese but the romanization was so terrible that we couldnt understand much unless we listened to the audio given.

Asked for cards but the air stewardess said that cards are only for kids and they werent supposed to give...I was thinking like "WTF? How would kids know how to play poker cards? Its more like a game for mature people". But I tried talking nice and asking for another pack, which she relented. :) Charm, eh?

Then was very tired and tried sleeping...till the stupid cabin lights came on AGAIN for breakfast. Breakfast was quite nice, but I thought the flight to Tokyo breakfast was nicer. Then the same problem with strong cabin lights so it was hard to sleep. But still slept. Wooooo.

Day 9 - Tuesday morning at Changi International Airport 08/11/2011

If you realized I put the Japanese way of naming days from Day 2 - Day 8.

I didnt do it for Day 1 or 9. We're in SINGAPORE, so WHY WOULD WE NEED JAPANESE CALENDAR SYSTEM?

Then the moment I turned on my phone, was spammed by epic system lag and 3 messages from my dad, Benjamin and Glen. So I had a hard time getting through the customs gate with my 3 handcarries. But I finally went through.

We had a final debrief about passing photos and filling up the review form and then collected baggage.

Shane and Roslyn were nice enough to follow me to the wine and perfume shop to "look around".

THE TRIP OFFICIALLY ENDED HERE.

Then Raynor followed us as my dad said he wouldnt mind giving Raynor a lift to Kovan MRT.

Then we left the gate soon after, and my father came so we dropped Raynor off at Kovan before finally reaching home.

Talked a little to Raynor on the car.

Then went home, crazy unpacking, loaded everything on a table and then took photos, then later a bath.

Went to hostel after that, with Wei Ren's gift bag which was left in my handbag like thingy my host family gave me.

Went to canteen to pass it to him, and he pointed to his luggage beside him. LOL.

Then went up to hostel, did some cleaning up and unpacking the stuff I brought to hostel, then had a nice sleep till 2 in the afternoon and had some instant noodles.

To me, this was where the trip REALLY ENDED. Haha. When I got some rest.



Ok, now to upload photos...maybe I should post this whole blob of text first and upload photos at a later time. Took super long to write this entire post!!

[Finished writing the text on 5:23PM on 13/11/2011]

Crazy number of words, at least >12,700.