Star Storm: Travel Diary

Loot / Some notes

2006-05-10T00:00:00.000+08:00

First off, what I got from my trip to Japan!! It was quite alot, and I spent quite a bit. So I'm currently broke, and need to save up all over again before I can finance my trip in 2 years' time.

My loot:

From Meiji Shrine: A hankie, 2 lucky charms (gosh those were pretty expensive!), some tea (because I loved the kawaii packaging), and those raccoons for friends.

From Harajuku/Omotesando: A H.Naoto bandana (as a souvenir, but it cost big bucks all the same), 2 pairs of shoes, some accessories for friends, a candy-ish necklace for me, one wa-ki belt, and my Burberry Blue label handphone chain!

Tour merchandise! Pamphlet, T-shirt, bandana... a copy of NIL (with a free poster!), and some free flyers!

Magazines from Kinokuniya and Noiz.

Kawaii Hello Kitty handphone chains.

Other things that I got: Kagrra's Sara DVD, a sensu, Popteen(!), a pouch from Asakusa for my handphone, one chou-chou ring from Takashimaya, the LeSportSac makeup pouch, and a plushie thingy from the capsule machine on our way to Fuji-san.

And this is the sensu that cost me about 55 bucks.

Open! (No, I don't use it to dance Kotodama. Yes, I use it for cosplay.)

And all the free flyers that I've gotten from this trip, either picked off the rack at Noiz, or given at the live.

And here are some receipts...

These are the prettier ones...

... Ok ok, here are all my receipts. *broke*

* * * * *

While going to Japan during Golden Week is terribly expensive due to the hike in airfare and accomodation rates, I didn't really have a choice this time. And we booked our flights pretty late, so we made do we what was available at that time (aka, the only two seats left on JAL. ANA was full.) Lesson learnt: never go Japan during Golden Week. And never book seats late. (And I'm so flying with ANA next time.)

But going to Japan during Golden Week allows you to see things that you might not really see if you go during any other time. Tokyo was so crowded with people, it was nuts. XD And they've got Golden Week sales in some shops in Harajuku too. But really, the crowd was pretty crazy... The Omotesando sidewalks were absolutely filled to the brim with people, and it was worst than the busiest weekend that you'll ever see in Orchard Road.

My favourite part of the trip was, of course, the live. And a close second would be Harajuku and those cosplayers. They are things that we don't have here. The entire audience being spontaneous is one thing, but having a filled stadium head-banging and doing para para is another thing. Really. The atmosphere was so high, you cannot not join in. XD And visiting the cosplay bridge in Harajuku is really an eye-opener. Those cosplayers were really good, even though they were all amateurs. And shopping in Harajuku is great... they've got things for the young and hip at Takeshita-dori, and on the other side at Omotesando, they've got branded goods. The polar opposites at Harajuku is quite interesting as well. On one side of the cosplay bridge you've got the tranquil Meiji Shrine, and on the other side, you've got a really happening shopping district.

Shibuya's a good shopping district too. But if you plan to explore Shibuya and Harajuku, do not do it all in one day (like us). Shopping at Harajuku would probably take up one day on its own. You'll need another day to fully explore Shibuya. But do go to the famous crossroads in front of the Shibuya station if you don't have the time to really look through all the shopping malls at Shibuya. You can basically walk in any direction you want when the traffic lights turn red. XD

Shinjuku's not too bad either... it's a cosmopolitan place in itself. I finally got to see Mana's shop at MaruiOne. And see real Japanese goths for the first time!! (and in the process saw a cross-dresser goth as well...) My only regret was that I didn't visit Odakaya during my visit (because I wasn't into cosplay yet). But I would go there next time!

The hotel that we stayed in is a business hotel... the rooms are small, but cosy all the same. We kinda agreed that Shinjuku isn't really a place to stay for tourists... Ikebukuro would have been better. And we didn't manage to go up the Metropolitan Building. I must make a note to go the next time.

The trip to Hakone is a short one. It had a deja-vu-like feel, because I've been there before. But getting back to nature after a few days in the hustle and bustle of the city can be quite refreshing. We just need Mount Fuji to show its snow-capped peak though. XD There are many places in the outskirts which are really good places to visit for tourists. But of course, some planning would be required. I intend to visit Nagano on my next trip for its rustic villages.

Trains are the way to go by in Japan. Although the train station is already a crazy maze itself, once you get the hang of it, all's fine. Some knowledge of the Japanese language may be good too because not everyone working at the station knows how to speak English. The handy train guide (see navigation) really did help quite a bit for a beginner like me... always check the route before your ride so you know where to get off and transfer.

Eating Japanese food in Japan can be really exciting. Even though it is just a small ramen restaurant. XD Ordering is done by vending machines, so make sure you know some Japanese (although you can rely on the pictures of the food XD). Eating out can be expensive though... one bowl of ramen's about 6 Singapore dollars. A sushi box from the supermarket's about 25 bucks. And the lunch bento that I had on my last day in Shinjuku cost me about 18 Singapore dollars. If you're a fan of Japanese curry, do go for some when you visit Japan too. ^^

There was one thing that we didn't try though: kani houdai. Crab buffet's pretty popular in Japan... and it cost about 75 Singapore dollars per person for all-you-can-eat crabs. Ok lah... considering these are giant crabs we are talking about. I must go eat some next time. XD Theme restaurants are also pretty popular with the young crowd. One of these is the LockUp at Shibuya. I didn't get to visit the LockUp this time... but I'll try to go when I next visit. It's a great place for drinks, but I'm not too sure about the food. XD

This trip to Japan is the first one that I planned and went free-and-easy on my own. It had been a great experience, and I dealed with emergencies better (try getting lost in Shinjuku at night?) Communication is not as difficult as I had thought. But Japanese is still the language to go by, so do arm yourself with a phrasebook before you go to avoid embarrassment/miscommunication!

Now that I've seen the city, it's time for the outskirts and countryside. But I'll have to wait till my next visit to Japan! ^^

Departure

2006-05-09T00:01:00.000+08:00

On the way back to the airport, I didn't sleep so I ended up looking out of the bus and staring at the passing landscape. They were the same as what we saw when we arrived, but this time it was in the afternoon and the sun was out. Perfect weather for pictures. So I took out my camera, and attempted to take some photos as the bus zoomed along the highway.

The giant ferris wheel... again.

Tokyo Disneyland! They strategically hid the full view theme park so you can't really see it from the highway.

We arrived at Narita after about an hour or so. There were security checks when the Airport Limousine entered the airport compound. Actually, all vehicles entering the airport had to be checked by the security officials... So a couple of uniformed officers came up and walked down the aisle, and we were given the ok to move on.

The bus dropped us at Terminal 2, which is the place for departures. We heaved our luggage onto a trolley, and proceeded to find our row for check-in.

Narita Airport Terminal 2.

Me and our filled luggage. XD

As it was still early (as usual...), the check-in counter hadn't open yet! D: So we sat down at the seats in the middle of the departure area and I proceeded to search for places that has internet connection. XD The entire departure hall was covered by wireless internet (ah... the convenience of Japanese technology). But when I tried to connect, they attempted to charge me for internet use!! D: I took it as a signal to NOT surf, and switched off my computer. I got bored, so I stood up and went to the brochure shelf to pick my fill. XD And then I sat back down again and discovered that their departure board display in both English and Japanese! (ok... it's expected, but it felt pretty good to see and know how to read)

Yep, it's all in Japanese. (if you can see the words on the board XD)

By this time, we figured that the counter would be opened for check-in, so we went over to the JAL counter. There weren't any queue (because we were probably one of the first to check-in), so we finished the procedure pretty quickly. The girl at the counter couldn't really speak English, so when she asked if there were anything fragile in our baggage, we were like huh? But after a couple of repeats we finally understood. XD I was tempted to say that there was... because I packed my Gazette poster in my luggage and I was scared that it would get squashed on its way back home. XD

After checking in, we got rid of our trolley and with me lugging Miyabi along on my back, we went upstairs to check out the shops at the departure hall. They've got a small bookstore, and Mom saw some postcards and decided to get some (because she couldn't get a pretty picture of Fuji-san. XD) I went to the magazine rack. As expected, all magazines in Japan are free for all to browse, so I started flipping through whatever I could find. A Playboy magazine caught my attention... and it's free for browsing too! O.o I've never seen the contents of Playboy magazine in my life, so I got curious and started looking. Um... I must say, things get quite yellow inside. XD I saw that they had Popteen... and it's only 450yen!! It's like, only 6 bucks, when our local Kino charges about 10-12 dollars for one copy! Must buy. XD

After getting our stuff, we went on again to look for other things that we could buy. I saw that there was a crepe shop. There were many crepe shops in Harajuku, so I figured that they must be quite popular with the Japanese. I told Mom that we should get a break and eat one... and proceeded to order something cheap. XD I ordered one with chocolate ice-cream and fudge sauce... and it was very very sweet. ><

So after finishing our crepe with much effort, we went on to look at other shops. There was this store selling Sanrio stuff (no one can resist Sanrio...) and I saw that they had those Hello Kitty handphone chains that I saw on top of Mount Fuji. And this time it wasn't only one or two types... they had the entire rack full of Hello Kitty handphone chains. Most featured Hello Kitty dressed in different outfits and holding different things reflective of the different prefectures and areas in Japan. But some had Hello Kitty eating ramen, stuck in the sushi roll... things that reflect Japanese culture in general. I went nuts and limited myself to 3 because each chain wasn't cheap (like 500-575yen). I picked a Shinjuku and Harajuku Hello Kitty (because these are the places that I visited this time), and decided one the Kamakura Hello Kitty too because she was wearing a purple kimono. The Shinjuku Hello Kitty wore a black dress with boots and the Harajuku one wore a funky pink and purple dress and carried a bag. XD

After getting these things, Mom said that it's time for us to go to the departure gate. We had to take the shuttle to get us over to the departure gates. It was something like taking the Sky Train at Changi. I remembered that I took the same shuttle when I transitted at Narita during my OM trip with Chee Seng and the OM gang.

On the shuttle.

We got ourselves to the departure gates and guess what, Mom caught sight of duty-free shopping. XD I wasn't going to get anything because I hoped to go home with some cash left in my wallet... but I saw a LeSportSac pouch and it was only 1650yen (25 bucks). They were clearing stocks I guess, but the pouch was awfully cheap for something that is genuine so I bought it. Mom bought one too... The pouch ended up being my makeup pouch... It's really useful! I must get another one if I see the same bargain when I go back to Japan.

They also had this display in the middle of the departure area that teaches you to differentiate genuine from fake goods. They displayed LV, Gucci... things like that. XD Mom was pointing out that some of the fakes that were displayed really looked... well, fake. -_-"

We found our departure gate and sat down with other passengers to wait for boarding. The travelator was in the middle of the departure area, with departure gates on both sides of it. I told Mom to sit and watch the TV there (which was showing some sumo match XD) and went over to the other side to take a picture of the airport.

Narita Terminal 2 from the departure gates.

A JAL plane and another plane from some airline that I couldn't remember.

Our flight was delayed. :( So I sat there with Mom and watched the sumo match on the TV... and the sky was getting dark when we finally boarded the plane. We will get home after midnight I guess, but it's ok, because Pa will be waiting to pick us up. XD

The seats on this plane weren't any better. I still felt squashed. I stashed Miyabi and my Billabong under my seat, and sat back to watch the safety video. Yes... I always pay attention to the safety video, partly because there weren't anything else to do. XD

We took off around 6.45pm or so... Mom looked out of the window as the wheels of the plane left the ground and said, "See you in 2 years!" And we were through the clouds and in the sky in no time.

The flight this time was much less stressful, although I still couldn't sit comfortably in my seat. I didn't have to worry about reports, so I sat back and watched some in-flight entertainment. I didn't like the selection (again... whoa, I'm so taking ANA next time) but I settled on this trivia game show. The meals came, and I watched and ate. We had panna cotta for dessert this time, but it looked like an egg. (Really! They decorated it so it looked like an egg sunny-side-up) Didn't taste too good too.

I decided to grab some sleep, and managed to doze off for a while... but when I tried to open my eyes, I couldn't because they were so dry. I decided that it was time to pop out the contacts, and went to the loo to take them out. We weren't really given much things to eat on board, but I wasn't too hungry so it was ok.

It must have been 5 to 6 hours or so... when the Captain finally made the announcement that we were going to land soon. Yay, home, I thought. Mom opened the window cover and it was already dark outside, but we could see the lights from boats and ships in the sea (South China Sea, perhaps). And very soon we caught sight of the bright lights of Singapore, and landed almost immediately. Yes, our island's so small that once you catch sight of it, it's time to land. XD

The plane taxied into Changi, and we were like, Oh... home... And sleep!! XD The seatbelt lights were turned off, and we grabbed our bags and queued to leave the plane. And as soon as we were inside the arrival area, I took out my phone and gave Pa a call to make sure that he was still in the airport. XD We arrived later because of the delay in take-off; it was only around 1am or so that we arrived in Singapore.

Pa didn't want any wine, so we collected our luggage at the baggage claim, went out to meet Pa, and it's home sweet home!! (it's a little hot though. XD)

Shinjuku (Part 2)

2006-05-09T00:00:00.000+08:00

We rose early as usual... but on my last day in Tokyo, I felt that an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My report's done, and Agnes did me a huge favour by offering to hand it in for me.

I washed up, made up, and made sure that my bags were packed. And then just for the sake of remembrance, I took a picture of the scenery outside our only hotel window.

I stared at this scenery night after night while doing my report so the image was kinda branded into my brain...

We got downstairs to the hotel restaurant to have our breakfast. Today I had my usual Japanese set with porridge. I love their porridge. And I told Mom that on my last day, I must try natto. On our first day, the waitress told us that they have condiments which we are free to help ourselves to, and one of them is natto. Since it's free, why not? :P Natto is basically fermented soya beans, and it's sticky and gooey and I heard that that it stinks quite a bit too... But then the Japanese love natto and eat it for breakfast daily. So yep, I'm going to try natto.

I went to the condiments table and helped myself to a cup...

Are you disgusted already? :P

It didn't stink (I sniffed at the contents so I know), but it looked weird. I took a bean and tasted it... It tasted like steamed kidney beans, or those yellow beans that they add to yong tau foo soup, except that it's slightly harder and tasted bitter. Yep, it tasted bitter. I picked at a few more while trying to avoid that sticky gooey thingy that clung onto the beans... and then I gave up. I don't like natto. -_-"

So after we had our breakfast, we went back to the hotel to check out. But we left our luggage with the receptionist, and set out to Takashimaya. Yep, we're going Takashimaya!! In Japan!! :D

The walk wasn't too long, as Takashimaya's just around the corner from where we stayed. Along the way, we saw some colourful posters and banners.

Found stuck on the window at the huge JTB office near our hotel :)

And these banners decorated the lamp posts along the entire street.

I had been looking around for vending machines selling stuff other than canned or bottled drinks, and I found some!

Cigarette vending machines!! :D

I had wanted to find those vending machines selling weird stuff like oh I dunno... porn or worn underwear or something. But guess you can't expect to find everything in one place :P

We crossed the road from the cigarette vending machines and found ourselves in front of Takashimaya.

Can you see the building already? No?

Tada! Takashimaya!! :D

In front of the flagship Takashimaya store in Shinjuku. :) That plaque just says that the building's the Takashimaya flagship... and it's called Takashimaya Timesquare.

It was still early and Takashimaya was not opened yet. So we wandered around to the other side of the building and we came face to face with the railway tracks of Shinjuku station, one of the busiest train stations in the world.

It's a mish-mash of train tracks...

The train station's just so big... can you even count the number of tracks there are?!

A JR train leaving Shinjuku station.

More trains at the foot of the Takashimaya building.

There was this bridge that linked one side of the tracks to the other side... and it kinda separated the shopping district from the civic district sides of Shinjuku. We stood on the bridge to take photos, but didn't cross it.

Behind me is the civic district already!

The Takashimaya building from the bridge.

And hey! I've been to the Takashimaya flagship store! :D

So we got back to the Takashimaya side... and the store's not opened yet. So we decided to drop by Kinokuniya first instead. ;)

Kinokuniya's flagship store's also in Shinjuku. And the best part is that, Kinokuniya's flagship's just beside Takashimaya's flagship!! And the buildings are even linked!!

The Kinokuniya flagship store in Shinjuku. That bridge on the right links the Kinokuniya building to the Takashimaya building.

Me and my favourite bookstore. :)

Big big picture of Kinokuniya's store sign!! XD

Right outside Kinokuniya. :)

I walked up to the front entrance of Kinokuniya and passed it, before standing next to the glass windows with the books on display and asked Mom to help me take a photo. Yep, I'm a big Kino fan. XD And then we U-turned and stepped into the store. It was still early, and there weren't many customers yet. So all the staff whom we passed greeted us with "Ohayou gozaimasu!" I found the right floor that had all the magazines, and we made a beeline for that area. Mom had wanted to buy lots of Japanese fashion magazines... and I wanted my fill of Shoxx and Arena 37oC and other Japanese music magazines.

Magazines are cheaper when you get them in Japan as compared to when you get them here at our local Kinokuniya. The price difference is about two times (!!). The magazines that were displayed on the shelves were not wrapped (unlike here...) so it's free browsing for all. I stood at the music section and had a ball of a time flipping through my favourite magazines and choosing those that I wanted to buy. I got myself Arena 37oC and Fool's Mate, and as an afterthought I got Shoxx Bis too... because Kagrra's on the cover. They are cheap anyway, so why not? :P

I saw that they have Rock and Read there... but they didn't have the issue with Gazette on the cover. So how? Ask information desk! XD I thought Kinokuniya would have seen its fair share of foreign customers, so I didn't really bother to structure my Japanese sentences and decided to make my enquiry in English. I asked the lady at the counter if she speaks English, but she said she couldn't really. Ah heck it, I don't want to speak Japanese! So I asked her if they still carried the issue I wanted, in broken English. Well, we did communicate quite well, so in the end I found out that it was already out of print! T_T

Mom got herself a stack of fashion, nail and hair magazines. So we paid and left happily with our magazines. The cashiers were polite to a fault. They always tell you, on handing over change, "Please come again" in formal Japanese.

Remember that bridge that I had mentioned earlier? The one that links Kinokuniya to Takashimaya? I wasn't going to leave Japan without walking on that bridge, so I pulled Mom along and we went up the Kinokuniya building. XD The bridge's on the 7th floor (Yep. Kinokuniya's got like, 8 floors in total. Our local branch can't compare XD). I got there and kinda went delirious with happiness.

Victory!! I stepped on the Kinokuniya bridge!

Fooling around for a while. XD

After snapping our fill of photos, we crossed the bridge over to Takashimaya. Of course, Takashimaya's opened already... so we took a look around.

Our first stop was this event area where they were selling accessories and bags with traditional kimono prints on them. Think Kokon Tozai at CityLink Mall. I found myself a ring that I like (chou chou-shaped!!) and proceeded to buy. :P The salesgirl's really nice. I was conversing with Mom in Mandarin, so she asked us if we were Taiwanese. XD I replied in Japanese that we were Singaporean, and then she continued to ask me if we were there for holiday... and stuff like that. It was good that I could understand what she was saying, and she could understand my broken Japanese.

Next, I told Mom that I really really needed to go. To HMV. XD You see, I was hoping to buy some Kagrra DVDs and I'm going to cash and carry them home. It's much cheaper that ordering and importing them to Singapore. So Mom gave me 15 minutes, and we rushed up to HMV. I zoomed in, looked around, and decided that I didn't have the time to scan the entire shop to see where was the DVD section. I caught a Caucasian girl standing at the cashier counter and hoped that she could understand English. I didn't want to ask where I can find concert DVDs in Japanese. I didn't know how to.

So I approached her... and...

"Sumimasen, eigo wo hanashimasuka? (excuse me, do you speak English?)" I asked hopefully.

"Yes. Hai," she replied.

"Oh my god. This is great," I replied in relieve. And proceeded to ask her where I could find my live DVDs. She pointed me to the correct direction, and I found my Kagrra DVD in no time. They only had Unsanmushou and Sara. I had Unsanmushou already, so I got Sara. I managed to catch that small sticker at the top of the cover that says something like first press... but I wanted to make sure that it's the limited edition that I wanted so I went back to the counter to ask the girl if it's first press limited edition. Her kanji's not too great, so she asked a colleague and they kinda confirmed it. So I made my payment (to the helpful Caucasian girl of course!), thanked her and left. It's so good to have someone speak to you in English after so many days of struggling with Japanese.

I got my magazines and Kagrra DVD. And now Mom needs her shoes.

So we went down to the ground floor of Takashimaya, and Mom picked out a pair of court shoes she liked. The stuff were rather expensive (really, the entire building of Takashimaya's filled with expensive things) but she found a pair of reasonably priced court shoes. Now it's the sizing...

I asked a young salesgirl and after a few tries of trying to speak to us in Japanese, she switched to broken English. XD Mom found the size, but then the salesgirl was already busy with another customer, and Mom and I were in a rush, so we got another salesman to help us. This one speakth no English. So I had a hard time trying to tell him what I want. The shoes in Takashimaya are displayed in a way such that only one shoe is on the display rack. The other's in the box. So I told the guy I wanted the other shoe, but I probably said the wrong thing and he took my shoe and put it back into the display rack!! D: I was quite pissed, so I took the shoe and asked him again... I guess I came across as rather rude ("Kono kutsu ga hoshii desu.") but then at least he understood.

Mom paid, and then it's time to get lunch.

Of course, like any other large departmental stores, Takashimaya's got a supermarket. I wanted to have a bento to myself before I leave Japan, so I settled for this pretty looking set with spaghetti, corokke, and sushi. Mom wanted to eat their giant pau, but then I couldn't understand what the aunties were trying to tell me and after we bought it, I said, "Ano... ima tabetai desu... (Erm, I want to eat it now...)"

"Taberanai! Taberanai! (you can't eat!)"

Like, wtf. I thought. So that carried on for a while, before one of the aunties got one of those Chinese nationals working there to come and talk to us in Mandarin. Apparently the filling in those paus are raw... you have to steam them yourself. Like duh. Ok... so Mom scouted around and settled for a bento instead. The pau... we wrapped it up and decided to take it home for Pa to eat (after steaming, of course). XD

There wasn't any place at the basement to sit down and eat, so I suggested that we go outside of the building where they had benches on the wooden boardwalk. It's a nice place to have lunch actually. The boardwalk is framed by glass panels, and you sit on the benches and watch the commuter hustle and bustle at the train station beneath your feet. So we put our shopping bags down and sat down for lunch.

This is my lunch bento!! It's actually a cheese set. Everything in it's got cheese. The corokke's got cheese. The sushi's got cheese... I didn't bother to read the tag when I bought the bento, but then the food's good all the same! I finished the entire bento. And after that I was so bloated. ^^;

I sat where I was and took out my camera to snap some shots while having lunch. :)

Salarymen at the platform directly in front of me.

The Shinjuku Station sign!

After we had lunch, Mom wanted to visit the loo. So yep, I went with her. I'd say that the toilets in Tokyo are really clean. And most of them are fitted with a heated seat. ^^; Well, Takashimaya's a very famous store, so the toilets were really really clean. I sat down and then the control on my right happened to catch my attention. I saw the same control fitted into the heated seat back in our hotel room, but I didn't have the time to play around with it. Agnes had told me before that if you pressed some buttons you can actually get a spray of warm water to clean your butt after you're done with your business. So I looked at the words on the control, and hit at the right button for the butt wash.

But alas, I wasn't really wanting a butt wash. I wanted to see what was going on, so I turned around and was just in time to catch the pipe extending out from the toilet bowl and spraying out a stream of warm water over my head. I ducked instinctively. XD But I still got sprayed at nonetheless... I quickly hit at the stop button, but it was not before the water shot over the door of my cubicle. ><; I took a picture to remind myself that I shall never play with toilet bowl controls ever again.

High-tech toilet bowl with heated seat and butt wash controls!! XD

Some of the water got into my Kino plastic bag... and soaked the top of my magazines a little. :( So after wiping away as much water as I could, I joined Mom outside, and we went back to our hotel to get our luggage. Mom asked the receptionist to call for a cab because she didn't want to drag her filled luggage to the station again. The cab-calling service was pretty quick too. I was frantically packing away my magazines in my luggage when the cab arrived and the receptionist called us outside.

The starting cab fare in Japan is 660 yen (about 9-10 bucks). The taxi driver was quite nice... He realised that I could manage a bit of Japanese when he was heaving my luggage into his boot and I asked, "Daijoubu desuka?" So we ended up having a conversation during our short journey from the hotel to Shinjuku station. He asked if we were having a vacation, and where we were from. It was surprisingly easy to speak to this guy really... He asked things about Singapore because he never came here before, and I managed to answer about 99% of what he asked. He asked things like, do most Singaporeans look like the Japanese (in the sense that we are Asians), do we have many jungles here... things like that. XD I threw my grammar away when conversing with him, but it was fun. And he could understand!! ^^v

We reached the station early... We were supposed to wait outside Shinjuku station at the Airport Limousine stand for our bus to come pick us up to the airport, but since it was early, I left Mom to look after our baggage and ventured underground again to look for the tie shop that I had seen earlier on our way back from Takashimaya. I needed to get something for Couz Simon you know... he helped me a lot so that I could go on this trip.

I picked a couple of ties from the shop... One for Pa. And one for Couz Simon. And then I wandered around the labyrinths of the station for a while because I didn't want to leave so soon. It was so hard for me to get to Japan and I had to leave after just 4 days. I was just walking around aimlessly when I caught sight of a blood donation centre inside the train station. Yes, a blood donation centre.

What's this doing in the middle of the train station? *puzzled*

Basically, they need every blood type. Tasukete!

I found the exit back to the Airport Limousine station, and went back to join Mom. The bus came right on time... We handed our luggage to the handlers who helped us load them onto the bus, and gave our tickets to the conductor to be torn...

... And it's bye bye, Shinjuku!!

Hakone

2006-05-08T00:00:00.001+08:00

It sucks when you don't have no sleep, and then you have to step out of your hotel room at 6.30am in the morning. That was precisely what I did... I woke up around 5 plus, having slept for twenty minutes. I didn't really bother to put on proper makeup, and I was so groggy I didn't really think much of what I wanted to wear. I grabbed a T-shirt and jeans and my jacket from the previous day and went for breakfast with Mom.

I had the Western set today, but having slept for a mere twenty minutes, I ate less than half of my share. The potato salad was good though. It's the same stuff as what you get in Fiesta, but there's just something different in the way they do it in Japan because it just tasted so good. We stepped out of the hotel restaurant and started out to Keio Plaza Hotel.

We walked through the Shinjuku station over to the west where the Civic District was. It took about half an hour of walking, and I was groggy and half-dead from the lack of sleep so I didn't talk much to Mom. We reached Keio Plaza Hotel slightly before 8am, and Mom went to the reception desk to check out about the tour while I found a place in the lobby to sit down and tried to shake myself awake.

So I was sitting there and staring into space when Mom finally came over and told me that our bus has arrived. I was rather skeptical, because there isn't anyone in the lobby going for the tour except us. "Just US?!" I asked. Mom shrugged and we followed the guide to the bus.

The tour that Mom had chosen was run by Grayline. It covered a day tour in Hakone where you get to go Mount Fuji, Owakudani Valley, take a cablecar and pirate ship ride. I wasn't too enthusiastic about the whole thing, but Mom was desperate to see Fuji-san in all her glory. And since she had accompanied me to see what I had wanted to see (Gazette!!), it's only fair that I accompany her to see what she had wanted to see.

There were some passengers on the bus already. I figured that they were from other hotels in the area. All were ang-mos from different countries, and we were the only Asians on board. No one really talked to us, assuming that they thought that we were Japanese and why on earth are a couple of Japanese coming on a Grayline tour to Mount Fuji?! I wasn't in the mood to talk to them either. I found a seat for both of us and settled down to sleep.

While I was sleeping, the bus drove around Shinjuku to the various hotels to pick the tourists up. I told Mom to help me take photos...

That's the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, I think. It was raining that day, so the glass window fogged up. ^^;

The criss-crossing roads in Shinjuku.

Salarymen!! In their black suits and ties going to work. :)

I was peacefully catching up on sleep when I felt the bus jerked to a stop, so I woke up and saw that we were in front of Keio Plaza Hotel again. "Huh? Why haven't we reached Mount Fuji yet?" I asked in my confusion and sleepiness. Mom mumbled something, and our tour guide came onboard.

He was Japanese, looked 40-something, and spoke heavy Japanese-accented English. He introduced himself, but I forgot his name. ^^; I was still groggy, but I looked across the aisle and saw an old couple sitting across from us. Tour guide san gave an introduction on what we were going to do that day, and then we set off along the highway towards Hakone.

Along the way, we passed by the Parliament building (or the Digest), immortalized in Clamp's manga X. Tour guide san kept on talking about the buildings we passed and gave us an introduction of Japan. Like, how many people are there living in Tokyo blah blah blah. I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, but I noticed that he had a habit of ending every sentence with "You know?" I almost burst out laughing. He reminded me of a prof who taught us in school... That guy always ends his sentences with "You know?" And all of us would mumble under our breaths, "No we don't know." XD

Tour guide san kept his introduction going on for a while, but once we were on the expressway, he came around with a namelist and started collecting money for the tour. XD I stayed up till Mom paid the money, and then I dozed off.

I slept all the way from Tokyo to Hakone, so don't ask me what happened.

This is what you get when you work on your report all night without sleep. =.=

I got my contacts on that day, and I was so tired and my eyes were so dry I could just keep them closed for the entire day (and hibernate away).

And then we reached the half-way stop for a toilet break, and I woke up for a while so I went walking around the place with Mom.

Outside the half-way station with our tour bus in the background (that West Coast one). Yep the weather was bad and I looked like shit. D:

The half-way station's got a supermarket and an extremely HUGE toilet. I mean, it's huge. There were so many cubicles and even showers! And there's a train station there too, I think. Mom caught sight of those capsule machines and we both tried our luck on 2 different ones. I got a plush-on-a-string thingy. -_-" I think it's supposed to be a character from an anime.

We stopped for about 10 to 15 minutes, and we were off again. The scenery turned rural, and there were paddy fields and farm houses. And then I slept again. Mom's in-charge of the pictures for the day, as you can see. :P

Paddy field!

That tree with dried pink flowers is a remnant of a cherry blossom tree, according to Mom...

And up we go on Fuji-san!

It started raining... and there's snow!

The weather was extremely bad that day (a far cry from the sun and warmth we had at Harajuku). We stopped at the fifth station on Fuji-san (there were like, 7 stations in all or something) and all of us got out of the bus. It was foggy, raining, and cold. I had brought only my short jacket along, but I managed to survive the walk from the bus to the building.

I shared an umbrella with Mom, so while she carried the brolly, I took pictures.

Ugh. Bad weather sucks.

Like, I see dead trees... and some snow... *disappointed*

The inside of the building was warm, which was great because the outside was just cold (kinda reminds me of Switzerland's Zermatt). The building's actually a shop selling all sorts of souvenirs ranging from keychains to magnets to snacks and photos. Mom bought mochi, magnets and keychains... while I got... a couple of Hello Kitty handphone chains. What?! I saw that they were limited handphone chains, and one was wearing a pink hakama and black wig, while the other was carrying a giant wasabi. They were adorable, so I bought them. XD

Fuji-san wasn't going to show us her face that day, which was too bad. Fuji-san 2. Mom 0. (Note: Mom has this on-going battle with Fuji-san. She is going to keep going back until she gets to see Fuji-san in her full glory. XD)

So anyway, we stepped back into the bus all drenched, and then we went down the Fuji-san again. (duh.) And I slept...

... Until we reached our hotel for lunch! Now don't ask me where it is. I just followed the tour...

Lunch was great. Each person paid about 20 bucks sing and you get a bowl of nice hot soup and fresh garden salad for appetizers; a giant prawn and a piece of tender marinated chicken with potatoes and veggies for main course; and a slice of strawberry shortcake and bread, butter and jam with tea/coffee for dessert. The butter and jam comes in this sachet which has one side filled with butter and one side filled with strawberry jam. And all you have to do is to squeeze the sachet end-to-end (like breaking a sachet of butter) and you get both butter and jam on your bread. That's Japanese ingenuity for you. ;)

The old couple sitting across the aisle from us now sat next to us during lunch, and they were rather impressed by the standard of our English. :) Certainly makes me grateful that we practice English as firt-language here.

So we had our lunch, and we walked out of the hotel to look around... the place was quite peaceful, and surrounded by greenery. The day was foggy, and all the clouds laid so low, they cover the surrounding hills!!

Now you see it...

... now you don't. The cloud ate up that hill! XD

Lush greenery outside the hotel

There weren't much flowers blooming then, but this bush had these tiny white flowers that were so pretty...

We gathered back in the bus after lunch, and were whisked off to take the cablecar ride.

That's the cablecar...

Now, you'd probably wonder why there weren't any pictures taken from the cablecar. Well, there wasn't much to take anyway. Once we got out, the entire cablecar was surrounded in fog and cloud and visibility was limited to about 10cm in front of you. No kiddin'!! You just see this white thing engulfing the entire cablecar. We couldn't even see the grass clearly under the cablecar!! So the ang-mos started talking about their travel experiences in the orient and Mom and I just kept quiet (we are from the orient!).

After the cablecar ride, we went on to the Owakudani Valley. It's basically a volcanic place with lots of sulphur and hot springs... The weather sucked, and everyone had to walk from the carpark (where our bus was parked) to the hot springs...

The entrance.

A spring at the entrance where you can dip your hand in to wash... I dipped my hand in and when I took it out, it smelt like rotten egg (that's sulphur for you *rolls eyes*)

The place had these wooden bridges laid over the hot springs, so you walk on them and climb the volcanic area. Believe me, that place stinks. Didn't help that it was raining and the fog kinda mixed with the smoke... and everywhere just smelt like wet rotten eggs.

Some part of the volcanic hot springs...

The place's so loaded with sulphur, even the water's white!!

See? The water's white!! D:

A raven standing amongst the fog and smoke and stench of rotten eggs kinda gives you this morbid feel to the place...

At the halfway mark, there was this log house that sells black eggs (kurotamago). Basically, these are normal eggs that are dunked into the boiling hot springs to cook... and when they are cooked the shells of these eggs turn black. Tour guide san told us that eating these eggs will give you longevity. I'm not sure if it's true... but no one bought the eggs. XD

That log house selling kurotamago

You can't really see it because of the fog, but that's the pit where they dunk the eggs in to cook... You might be able to see the boiling water...

Mom and I walked around the place for a while...

That plaque just says "Owakudani"

Then we walked out of the hot springs (omg that place really stinks...) and went into another souvenir shop to get away from the rain. They were selling all sorts of snacks and gifts again... and I saw another Hello Kitty handphone chain that was only sold at Owakudani. This Hello Kitty's wrapped in a black egg! So I thought it makes a good souvenir, and bought it. XD

Tour guide san got us all together, and we were off to take our pirate ship ride.

Yay pirate ship!! Where's Jack Sparrow? :P

Passengers boarding...

Another pirate ship returning to port...

As mentioned countless of times earlier, the weather was bad that day. The rain became a slight drizzle, but the place was foggy all the same. The ride was actually a river cruise, complete with a recorded guide to introduce you to the different waterfalls and mountains in the area. But whatever the guide was saying, we couldn't see because of the fog.

Guide: "Please look to your right. There's a waterfall that is..."
Us: "Huh where?! It's all cloudy..."

So the ride was kinda a waste of time... and the experience was totally wasted because of the fog. :( I did manage to take a few pictures though...

Kinda reminded me of Jyuuni Kouki (12 Kingdoms). Or the heavenly kingdom in Journey to the West. :P

And the clouds clear... and you see what the building actually is.

It's a little town with a marina and stuff...

The pirate ship ride ended prematurely because of the sucky weather... for safety reasons (that's Japanese safety for you). And so ended our tour as well.

We got on the bus... and were driven to the Hakone Shinkansen station. Basically, in this tour, you can opt to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo station and find your way home from there, or you can have the bus drive you back to Keio Plaza Hotel. Mom and I opted for the bus because we didn't have the time to play around with Shinkansen. We took the Shinkansen before anyway... it's like... a train ride. -_-"

So we saw a group of ang-mos off at the Hakone Shinkansen station, and then we went back to Tokyo. I slept a large part of the journey back, but as the bus made stops in Ikebukuro and Akasaka to drop off the passengers, I started to become awake due to the increasing impatience to get back to the hotel as soon as possible. I had a few more parts of my report to complete, and I needed to complete my report that night so that I can hand in my report via email to the prof (deadline's that day!).

The old couple sitting across us from the aisle got off at Akasaka... and then Tour guide san announced that we will be making our way to Shinjuku. Good, I thought. Godspeed. :P

We were dropped off at Keio Plaza Hotel around 7.30pm, and the sky was already dark. The wind was blowing and it was cold as we made our way back to Shinjuku station. We needed dinner, and Mom knew that I was in a hurry to complete my report so she suggested that we take out. We happened to pass by the underground entrance of Odakyu as we made our way across Shinjuku station. Odakyu's a huge departmental store like Takashimaya, so we went to the supermarket and picked a couple of sushi bentos. We hadn't tasted sushi since we set foot in Japan, and we didn't have the time to go find an affordable sushi restaurant. So supermarket sushi was a rather good idea then... They weren't cheap. Each box was about 25 dollars sing. So our dinner's like... 50 bucks sing. >>;

Mom bought some roasted kuri (chestnuts) at the supermarket too... because she likes them. :P In Singapore, you eat your roasted chestnuts by cracking open the shell with your fingernails or your teeth (I do the latter, yeah. >>;) but in Japan, they give you this plastic spoon-like thing to help you crack your roasted chestnuts!! That's Japanese ingenuity at work again...

So I carried our sushi bentos and rushed back to the hotel. Mom couldn't keep up with me, and it was so cold that I had to button up my jacket for once. Mom started to feel giddy because she was cold and hungry, so she told me to go ahead first and she'll make her way back to the hotel slowly by herself. She knew the way around by then, so I wasn't too worried and almost ran back to the hotel.

I rushed in and got my keys from the (probably surprised) receptionist, went up to our room, dumped my plastic bag of dinner on the floor, fished Miyabi out of my luggage, and started typing frantically. My aim was to finish the report by 9pm... and it was about 8pm when I started. I just typed whatever came to mind... the stuff weren't really logical, but then at least I did make an effort to guess. Mom came up around 8.15pm, and while she bumped around making hot green tea and packing her bags, I continued on my report. I finished around 8.30pm (record time!!) and told Mom that I'll be going downstairs for internet access so that I could send my prof my report. I saw that they had SmapxSmap on TV then, so I told Mom to watch it while she start on dinner first. Me? I forgot what's for dinner already. And darn, I couldn't watch SmapxSmap.

So I got downstairs, hooked up my LAN cable and proceeded to send my report to the prof. I had originally attached my report directly to the email to be sent, and then I realised that my file was too large so I decided to upload on an external server (God bless yousendit.com!!). Thanks to the efficiency of Japanese broadband, I uploaded my file within 10 minutes. During my waiting time, I complained to Ardaka on msn about how sucky my life was and why was I cursed to write a report when I'm on vacation. And then I sent my email (with no attachment!!) to my prof...

... and it bounced. To my utter horror.

I panicked. "Omg my deadline's today and the prof's mailbox is full!! What on earth was he doing? Doesn't he check his mailbox?!" I thought. I screamed across msn to Ardaka about how unlucky I was, and proceeded to scan my list of contacts to see who was online at that time. Angeline was. I buzzed a message over, but she wasn't replying. So I typed: "Please message Agnes to tell her that her boss's mailbox is full and I can't send my report over. This is urgent. Tell her to tell her boss that I'll hand in the report when I get back." (note: the prof in-charge of the ill-fated report was Agnes' boss) And then I switched off my computer, packed up and went upstairs to scream to Mom about my rotten luck.

Mom had already eaten some of the sushi, and when she heard about the situation, she told me to go downstairs and send a copy of my report over to Agnes... or someone. Then they can hand in my report for me... it'd be a day late, but what the heck. So I got downstairs again, and now Agnes' online. :) Apparently she was just back from work, and got the message from Angeline. I sent my report over, and she offered to print out my report and hand in for me with an explanation as to why I didn't hand in on time. Thanks so much Agnes!!! Words cannot describe how grateful I was. Thank you x1000!! :D

So I got my stuff settled, and finally I went back upstairs to have dinner. It was about 10pm already, when I was done settling all my things.

Sushi bento dinner!! (Mom ate some of the pieces there already XD)

Another bento box that I chose!! :D

Even though these were supermarket sushi, they were the freshest that I've ate in a long long time. I mean, they were so much better than those that we have at our restaurants here. Can you imagine?! They were only supermarket sushi!! One can imagine what restaurant sushi in Japan would taste like already... *drools*

Anyway, they don't scrimp on their sashimi and uni (sea urchin). Actually, the uni maki that they sell in Singapore were so expensive, I didn't even get to taste it!! And there I was in Japan, eating uni maki from a supermarket bento... The uni from the sushi bento was slightly too slimy for me, but those in the other bento box were good!! The salmon roe were great too... but I found them a bit too salty. The slices of sashimi were so big, they outsized the rice ball in the sushi by almost two times!

I like the other bento box with all sorts of meat and seafood on top of the rice. They've got like, lots of crab meat?! I mean, real crab meat! From a crab! Gah, if supermarket bentos are as good here as in Japan, I'd be eating all these every other day. And since I had got my report settled, I wasn't under as much stress and managed to eat more of the food.

But even with Mom and I, both of us couldn't finish the bentos. They gave that much in their portions. These couldn't be left overnight either, so we threw them away. :( I showered while Mom went to sleep, and when I was done, I took my own sweet time to blow dry my hair and pack my bags. Life's good when you do not have stress on vacation. And it was just sad that I was only stress-free during the last few hours of my vacation in Japan.

I intended to make as much out of it as possible, so I switched on the TV and went about to pack my things properly. Late night shows in Japan weren't too interesting (they show things like reality TV and TV shopping programmes)... so I focussed on my loot.

My luggage!! Yeah, it was still messy when I took this photo. You can see some Gazette tour goods and magazines and boxes of snacks. :P

I finished my packing around 1am, and thought that I'd have a good night's sleep before going about to do last minute shopping on my final day in Tokyo.

Nameless Liberty.Six Guns...

2006-05-07T00:01:00.000+08:00

So we had gotten our fill at the ramen place, and strolled out into the rain back to the train station (we got our directions right this time so we didn't walk too far). We got our tickets at the subway, and I stopped to ask the conductor stationed at the information counter for the timings of the last few trains (Mom insisted. Just in case.)

I decided to ask in English. He was a young guy after all, so I thought it should be no problem. "What time is the last train from Kudanshita?" I asked.

"Huh?" Uh... he probably wasn't too used to people asking for timings in English.

*switch mode* "Konya, saigo no densha wa itsu? (what time is the last train tonight?)" I asked.

"Kudanshita kara...? (from Kudanshita?)"

"Sou sou. Kudanshita kara, Shinjuku made. (Yep. From Kudanshita back to Shinjuku)"

"Chotto matte kudasai ne. (Please hold on)" And he took out a thick schedule book to check. When I said thick, I mean thick. It was like a phonebook, and the words were so tiny. He squinted at the numbers, and took out a piece of paper to write down the time of the last train for me. As he was handing me the paper...

"Ah! Sono mae... (Before that...)" I remembered that Mom told me to ask for the timing for the second last train too.

"Sono mae desuka...?" He squinted at the book and wrote down on the paper for me again.

I took the paper and thanked him before scrutinizing the stuff he wrote for me. He was very considerate actually, because he wrote down the Kanji AND English names of the stations, and the timings of the last and second last trains leaving. The last trains leaved around midnight, so we should have no problems because I believe that concert organizers can't be so stupid as to finish their concerts so late such that everyone would miss the last train and had to be stranded in Tokyo for a night. The following day's a working day anyway, and people had to go home (when I mean home, I mean places further away, like say... oh, Osaka... something like that. :P)

So we got down to Kudanshita station. The duration of the journey's something like from home to Orchard. About 15 minutes.

Hey, the Budokan's not a popular tourist attraction. And I actually went there so I had to take a picture with the station sign. As a souvenir. XD

We didn't really have to look for the exit. We just had to follow the crowd. They weren't too hard to find anyway. Actually, "too hard to find" is probably an understatement. We came out from the turnstiles and we saw all of them gathering in the stations already. How do we know that they were there for the live? Everyone turned up in cosplay. Okay... I exaggerated. Some turned up in cosplay. The rest... they turned up in all sorts of punk/goth/lolita outfits. I realised that I was severely underdressed. Check out the following pictures... I included all (including blurred photos because I couldn't pick out which ones I should leave out. :P)

Ok, maybe you can't really see them...

Ah ha. That's better. I see... An Aoi and a Reita cosplayer. *nod nod* In the Black Moral white jackets that I love so much (that I had once harboured the thought of getting one tailored for myself)

The kids there don't dress like our kids here. Try wearing those stuff to a Jay/JJ concert!! XDD!

The entrance to the Budokan. And the backshot of everybody with umbrellas because the weather was sucky on that day and it rained continuously once we got there. (I took it as a hint that I shouldn't be at the Gazette live after all - Underdressed. Raining. Almost couldn't even get a plane ticket. Report- hey wait! I'm not supposed to think about the report!!)

More cosplayers. Judging from the hairstyles, my guess is (from left) Ruki, Kai and Cloud. In the white tuxedos that the guys wore recently.

Perhaps I should state my reasons for turning up severely underdressed. I did entertain the notion of bringing all my goth finery, including my accessories and stripy socks. But then I remembered that if I were to jump here and there during the live, I'd risk having chains hitting me in my face. I certainly didn't want bruises on my face, and bringing so much stuff would just weigh me down when I drag my luggage all over Shinjuku. And I didn't quite believe (before the live) that people can actually jump and headbang in platforms and flimsy costume fabric flying all over the place. Wouldn't you just ruin your costume with all the perspiration?! But hey, there's always a first time. I know what to do now when I go for my next live in Japan. XD

Ok... I've said so much, and before I go on any further, perhaps everyone could use an introduction to the boys? :P

This is Gazette.

From left: Uruha aka Cloud (guitarist), Kai (drummer), Ruki (vocalist), Reita aka Bandageboy (bassist), Aoi (guitarist).

I call the purple one Cloud because I thought it sounded so much nicer than his actual name. By the way, his nickname Cloud was given by Ardaka... because she thought he looked a lot like Cloud from FFVII. ^^; And I call the bassist Bandageboy because he always wears this bandage thingy over his nose. And don't you think Bandageboy sounds better than "Reita"...? XD

That picture was from a flyer that I got at the live (everyone gets a bag with all sorts of stuff inside and I found this amongst other goodies), but I was too lazy to scan so I took a photo of it instead. ^^; Those clothes you see in that flyer - they wore those clothes during the live. I've never seen those clothes until that day itself.

I was lucky that Mom did me a favour by taking a photo of my tickets before they got torn up by the bouncer at the entrance. I was typing my !#$!&*#$& report so I didn't have the time to snap the shots.

My precious tickets! Gotten with much help from Emi-san. Arigatou x1000!

Okay, back to the main program.

Girls are already queuing at the entrance. Who says only Singaporeans love to queue?! :P

More people queuing in the rain...

We were rather lost in a sea of black makeup and funky clothing (and umbrellas) so we kinda wandered around... when I spotted...

Hey... is that it?

Omg that's it!! Merchandise stand!! *whips out wallet*

Never never go to a Jrock live without first visiting the merchandise stand. I always believe in getting a T-shirt when I go. It serves as a souvenir, proof that you went, and that you support the band and their work. It was raining, and everyone was queuing in the rain. So we joined a queue, and when I got to the front, I realised that it was something like those Disney on Ice merchandise stands... Someone would be there to get you what you wanted. You just have to point out what you want. Of course, instead of Mickeys and Princesses, you have T-shirts and bags and stickers and what-not.

Mom wanted a tour T-shirt too, so I got 2 of those. I also got myself a tour pamphlet. The tour pamphlet itself is not just a booklet like those from Disney on Ice. Their tour pamphlet was a hardcover book, and it came with a decorated protective plastic case and a limited edition CD. Guess you pay for what you get. *shrugs* As an afterthought, I got myself a pink bandana (to decorate my bag) too. As we got out from the merchandise area, we happened to pass by another tent selling CDs. Most of the people there gave this tent a pass (because they were fans afterall and would have collected all the CDs already). But I took a look anyway and saw the limited edition of NIL was still available. NIL is the latest album by Gazette, and the limited edition had a red velvet case with gold letterings on the front. I didn't order it while I was in Singapore (because it was bloody leh-chey and I didn't trust Gazette enough to produce good songs) so I thought that if the limited edition was still available there, it would be a good chance for me to buy (because I have heard the album already and I thought the songs were not too bad). And they gave me a free poster too! :D

So carrying our loot, we wandered around aimlessly until it was time for admission.

We walked to the front entrance and I saw the huge sign!!

Queues... again.

It was raining so this was the only one that I took (with me inside). :(

I got so bored, I started taking photos. Aimlessly.

A bouncer (in black suit and plastic raincoat) giving directions.

A pretty Cloud cosplayer!! (Cloud's always in purple so his cosplayers weren't that difficult to spot)

I saw that the queue started moving, so I got Mom and we joined in to queue in the rain. There were 2 queues. The one at the front entrance was for those sitting in the arena area, while the one at the side was for those sitting on the stands. We got backrow seats on the stands, so we joined the queue for the side entrance.

I'd say that the Japanese are very considerate and courteous people. There were no barriers, and yet everyone queued accordingly and the queue just snaked across the courtyard and no one even jumped the queue. Not only that. The people queued in pairs. It was just surreal. It was pouring heavily then, and the wind was blowing. Everyone was cold, and yet no one jumped queue. I told Mom that if it were the Indoor Stadium, people would have cheong-ed like there's no tomorrow and the bouncers would be crushed under the stampede.

Speaking of the bouncers. All bouncers looked like the MIB. Black, no-nonsense suits. I thought it was rather comical. Shouldn't they hire like, those black bouncers that are like, 2m tall? Anyway, the bouncers gathered in a row on the steps leading to the entrance (like salary-men!!! XD) and you had to pass through 2 of them. When it is your turn, just go up, stand in between, and hand your tickets to one of them. The other one just stands there and does nothing. >>;

So we got up the stairs, and I handed this bouncer my tickets. Now, my tickets were in the same state as when I first took them out of the envelope. I didn't have the heart to tear them up into 2 separate tickets because I went to so much trouble to get them. So I gave the bouncer my 2 tickets stuck together, and he was like, *fumble fumble* and tore out one stub. Then he tore out one ticket and mumbled something to me. Now I can never understand what these people are saying ever since I set foot into the Budokan compound, so I told him, straightforwardly, I don't speak Japanese. He looked at me as if he was a bit surprised (yeah I look like a Japanese but I'm a Chinese so what huh huh?) and tore out the other ticket. He gave me a smile and motioned me up the stairs.

Now, on the top of the stairs were 2 more bouncers. I wasn't sure what they were there for, so I assumed we had to go through a security check. So I walked up and stood between the two of them and held out my hands as if to allow them to search me. They looked at me, and I looked at the both of them. Then I went, "Huh? HUH? Oh ok... Hahahaha...." And they laughed and let me through. =.= I saw some boxes outside... they are labeled with the members' names and you can drop pressies for them if you brought something. I came empty-handed. Hey, plane ticket all the way from Singapore to see them not enough is it? But seriously, I didn't have time to prepare presents. I rushed to Japan straight after my exams. Gah. But I did come up with some possibilities of presents that I could get them. One of it was Kaya. Like, how sua ku. XD But I doubt most Japanese ever tasted Kaya. Right? :D

The inside of the Budokan was old... But it was like the Indoor Stadium. It wasn't too big after all... There was this lady in executive dress giving directions. Bouncer? Or manager? Whoever she was, I gave her my tickets and she pointed me to the correct direction. I could see our seats from where I stood already. They were backrow seats duh, so they weren't that hard to spot. I got to my seat... saw the number, and decided that I was really lucky.

Buahahahahaha. (Actually, it stands for South-East stand. Row X. Seat 22. XD)

Once I had put my bag down, I immediately went to the back and touched the wall. Omg I touched the Budokan!! Yeah, I'm warped like that. Then I got down and secretly took some photos. Well, it wasn't that secretly anyway. Even though I was careful not to use flash, I saw some girls whipping out their keitai (handphone) to take pictures of the stage too. XD

The stage... The words read something like, "Scream of Nameless Liberty." Don't ask me what that means. I can never understand their Engrish. >>;

The audience filing in.

Now got more people...

And moi. I made it!! *peace* :D

Some of the people in the audience wore some pretty ridiculous stuff. I saw a couple of girls turning up in pink nurse outfits (oooh kinky... XD). Then there were these 2 kids who came with horse masks on their heads. That was an old cosplay I believe, but it was weird anyway because who would come to a live with a horse head on their heads (hey that rhymes...) I don't think you can even breathe in that stuff. ><;;

Okok. So we waited, and the live started around 6.10pm. Quite punctual, considering our local standards (ahem ahem.) One of the staff came out onto the stage and started on the usual announcement: Don't crowdsurf. Don't hurt others. Don't push. Don't punch. Don't slit your throat and commit suicide (kiddin'). Let's be safe and have fun. And the lights went out, and the crowd rose to their feet. Every single one in the audience. Rose to their feet. I loved the spontaneity. You can never see it here in Singapore. The End started playing. The End is the intro track of NIL. They always have an intro track, so that the members can file out onto the stage and get ready their drums/guitars/bass/mic/whatever.

But as everyone was clapping to the beat, The End came to a sudden stop, and the lights started directing everyone's gaze to the arena area. Oooh. New way of entry! Through the crowd! So the guys walked in through the audience in the arena (how I wish I was in the arena...) with Kai leading the way, like that:

Picture courtesy of rawkstarr23@lj.

Perhaps I should say this now. Like any other band that I like, I've got my favourites. I've got 3 favourites in Gazette actually: Ruki, Kai, and Cloud. I favour them in that order. XD

Usually when it comes to entrance, the drummer would walk out first. So naturally, once I saw someone in the arena, instinct took over and I screamed, "Kai!! Kaiiii!!!" (hey it's not everyday where you can relieve stress by screaming so that was my opportunity) Then I realised that the person was in white (and Kai was never dressed in white before that live) so I thought that I had mistaken and I started screaming, "Aoi!! Aoi!!" instead. XD You see, Aoi's always dressed in white. But it was Kai alright. Ruki looked like he had a hard time trying to avoid being suffocated by all the grabby hands (didn't help that he was short...) but he managed to walk up the steps and they all gathered around in a circle in front of the drum set.

The first song was Nausea and Shudder. I heard that they always start with that song for this series of lives. They had been touring for about 3 months on the Nameless Liberty tour, and that night was the tour final. I should thank my lucky stars that I could even get tickets to be there. It was full house that night. The first song by Gazette is always nice. The 5 of them were jumpy, and Ruki didn't cheat by singing 50% of the song and leaving out the rest. Nice. I like. The audience started with the para para, and even though I didn't know the actions, all you have to do is to follow the people in front of you. XD (We had a Mom and her daughter in front of us, actually) Then they played Maggots. It was a noisy song... and there was FIRE!! XD Literally. There were some pyrotechnics. I didn't really like the song because it was so noisy, but it was great when played live because the audience responded with serious para para and head-banging. I tried head-banging too, but I thought that I shouldn't go overboard because I didn't want to break my neck before I finish my report (hey! No thinking of reports! D:). So I just stuck with the para para actions and jumping around.

Then they played Cockroach. I hate the insect, but I love the song. It sounded great on the CD, and sounded even better live. Nice. Next was Silly God Disco. I didn't really have much of an impression of it now, but there was a giant disco ball and stuff. And... they played Akai One Piece!! Now that's an old song, but it is always nice to hear them play old songs. Ruki did his "yippee!" jump off his riser; and towards the end he stood on his riser and did that cute para para that I could never imitate (ok, unless I watch the DVD 50 times.)

After the first few songs they had a break and the lights went down. People started screaming the names of the members, so I joined in too. It was fun actually, because that's the only time that you can just go nuts screaming their names and no one cares. Most of the people screamed "Ruki!! Ruki!!" (like I did), but I also heard lots of "Reita!! Reita!!" from my side of the stadium.

After all the fast songs, things slowed down a bit. They played Juuyonsai no Knife. It wasn't a song that I really had an impression of, because 1) it was an old song. 2) it was a sucky song. 3) I never listened to that song because it sucks. So I turned and told Mom, "I never heard this song before. ^^;" while she got out the binoculars and started looking before turning around and said, "Hey, that singer's really good-looking." Hey! Hands off the boy! >>;

Next up was a fast jazzy number, Namanurui Ame to Zaratsuita Jonetsu. One of the new tracks from NIL which I like too, so everyone got up and started the para para again. Cloud played the acoustic in that song. For once!! I'm glad I saw it. XD Then it was Baretta. I never really had an impression of that song either... so no comment.

Then things slowed down again. I hate it when things slow down during Gazette lives because, well, I was there because Gazette can bring up the atmosphere like nobody's business. They played D.L.N and Bath Room, while I stood at my place feeling slightly giddy from all the jumping and para para. Then they played Taion. I didn't really like the song because it was just... forgettable. But there was fire. And this time even I could feel the heat from all the way at the back.

After surviving the slow songs, it was back to the faster paced ones. They broke into Shadow VI II I, and I thought, finally! as I joined in the para para again. Mom suddenly piped up beside me, "Hey this is fun!! Exercise!!" And proceeded to do the para para too. O.o Seriously, if you go to this kind of lives for a month, you can lose weight judging from the amount of para para you do (every song!!). Not kiddin'.

Then they played a song that I have not heard before. But it was a fast, noisy piece with wailing guitars. The song list stated that the song was called Go to Hell. But nope. That one was not included in any of the CDs so it is justified that I didn't know that song. XD The atmosphere started to become increasingly high as they launched into the last few songs from their main song list (the crowd-pleasers).

First it was The $ocial Riot Machine$. That song's quite sucky on the CD, but when played live, it was great. Everyone knows that this song's a crowd-pleaser. So everyone shouted, "Riot!" and punched the air with Ruki, and he did that pelvic-thrust thingy. I didn't think it was too obscene, but I believe some fans out there do think slightly off the road. XD And then they played Carry?. Apparently it was a crowd-pleaser, but I didn't like the song one bit because it was sung in English and I didn't understand what he was singing. Heck, I couldn't even understand the lyrics because they were written in horribly broken, incoherent English.

They just kept the old songs coming now. They played The Murder's TV. It was great, but rather forgettable because I kept mixing that song up with another old song called Red Motel. XD Before I knew it, they started playing Kantou Dogeza Kumiai. That one's a loop song. Basically most bands would have a loop song at the end (or towards the end) of their lives to bring up the atmosphere to the highest. Kumiai was Gazette's loop song. But I didn't really like it because the looping part wasn't very nice and they just go around shouting on stage. And the audience had to keep on head-banging (yep. I just stood still when everyone else head-banged). I'd prefer Kagrra's loop song, where Isshi screams (like a banshee) "Ai yai yai yai yai!!" but let's not digress. Somewhere along the line Mom nudged me and said, "hey! The black one fell down!" Aoi was the only one in black that day. I was too busy looking through my binoculars at Ruki and Bandageboy at the front so by the time I focused on the guitarist, he was already up and about. So I asked, "what happened?" Apparently, Mom saw that he did a spin and he tripped on his own feet so he stumbled forward with his guitar in front. At least he didn't crush it (precious stuff there because that black guitar of his is customized and probably cost an arm and a leg)... after that he did seem to be slightly lost. XD

All this while, the girl standing beside Mom was what I'd label as a pro. She knew all the para para moves by heart, and head-banged like crazy. She head-banged like crazy now, and if you try head-banging (like I did), you'd realise that not only would you feel like you're going to break your neck, you'd feel giddy and start moving sideways. She moved sideways and hit Mom. XD But she did apologize. You can't blame her anyway. She was there to have fun like us. I kinda liked her actually, because she knew what to do so I just had to glance sideways and follow. XD And her head-banging was the best that I had ever seen. I think she did it better than Ruki. XD

The last song was Discharge. I didn't realise that it was that song... somewhere along the chorus came a line where everyone seemed to shout, "F*** THIS S***" I had warned Mom earlier on the train that their songs were not too parent-friendly, and that if they were to sing that song I'd shout "F*** THIS S***" with them because I was sick about my report and f*** that s*** man, spoil my holiday. (Oh wait, no thinking of reports.) I guess I was kinda delirious with fatigue after all the jumping and para para, because I forgot that it was that song. Heck, I couldn't even remember what I was doing during that song. But I did remember that at the end, Ruki took a swig at his water bottle and proceeded to pour the rest over his head. XD

So they finished, took a bow, and of course I applauded. Great job from the boys... Ruki didn't cheat much until towards the end, Kai was just amazing when he bashed at the drums (I love him playing the drums. Most of the time when I had the binoculars I was looking at him. XD). Cloud and Aoi were their usual great selves playing away at their guitars (Cloud used his blue one that day. XD) and Reita... Eh. I didn't really pay attention to him. XD But they were all amazing... to be able to bring up the atmosphere of a full-house Budokan.

They disappeared off backstage, and I held onto Mom just in case she was preparing to leave. "Wait, there's encore. There's always encore, if we all shout for it," I told her. People where talking amongst themselves, and I could hear some shouts of "An-ko-ru!" here and there, but not in unison. So I thought, hey, I'm not local. I can get away with it. So I shouted at the top of my lungs (while seated), "AN-KO-RU!! AN-KO-RU!!" And the people at my stand joined in. XD Everyone continued shouting for about 10 minutes... Well, of course I did take a break. XD But I did shouted an occasional "Encore! Encore!" IN ENGLISH. XD

Then Kai appeared. I like Kai. So I starting shouting (like everyone else), "Kai!! Kaiiii!!!" And he got to his drumset, spoke a few words and proceeded to bash away. Ah, they are playing Ride with the Rockers. It wasn't really a song, because it only involves shouting "Hai hai hai!!". So Reita came out with a bandana over his mouth like a thief, and accompanied the drummer with his bass. On cue, he ripped off his bandana and continued shouting into Ruki's mic "Hai hai hai!!" That carried on for a while, and the 2 guitarists came out and everyone punched the air and shouted "Hai hai hai hai!" That was Ride with the Rockers. XD

And finally, Ruki came out again... Cloud was at the riser already waiting for him. They played Ruder. It is my favourite song by Gazette (and my ringtone too!! XD) but I didn't quite like the live version. Too messy. Then Ruki strapped on his electric acoustic, and they played Cassis. If I had been sitting down all this while I would have loved the performance, but I was giddy and tired and perspiring so all I did was to stare at everyone through my binoculars. Then they played Maximum Impulse. I never did like that song, so no comment. XD And finally, they played Linda. I like that song live, because it's a fun song and everyone gets to clap. And because somewhere in that song, Ruki rapped, "blah blah blah blah Arashi!" Yay! Arashi!! XD Whoops, wrong context here.

So after that encore, they left the stage again, but gee... no one's leaving. So everyone shouted "AN-KO-RU" again. We didn't have to shout that long before they appeared for a second encore. Ruki started to talk... He first made an announcement for the next tour that they were going to have in August. The final this time would be at Tokyo Big Sight. O.o How big are they getting? Gosh.

I thought that the interaction with the audience was great. When Ruki said, "Oshirase ga arimasu" some girls in the audience started shouting, "Nani? Nani?" So cute. XD And there was this one part that he was rambling on and on about something (I couldn't really understand) and one guy in the audience shouted something like, "Temee da! (you bastard!)" in a joking sort of way, and Ruki replied, "Ne? Haha!"

Then Ruki launched himself into a speech. It was a long one... I didn't really listen to what he was saying, but he mentioned that they had come a long way, and their parents were there to watch them play that night. (Gee... I'm not too sure that if I were a Jrocker like Nana, I would ask my parents to come watch. Pa would probably come after me with a chopper and Mom probably would have a heart attack.)

Then they played Kare Uta. Ooh! Limited edition song! But it was nice... And finally, Ruki said, "Hontou ni saigo ne" and everyone was like, "Eh....?!" They played Miseinen. I like that song... and it's a great song for closing the entire thing. At the end, Ruki ended up in heap behind his riser (and I told Mom that he must have been thinking, "Ohhh finally finished! I can go home and sleep liao!" XD) and the rest took off their guitars and Kai appeared from the drumset. They gathered in a row midstage, took their final bows, and thanked the staff and audience. And finally (what I was waiting for), Ruki told everyone to stand and join hands. And then he shouted "Sei no...!" and everyone jumped. Yay! Finished. Then Cloud, Aoi and Bandageboy started walking around and threw their picks into the audience... Ruki hung around and threw water bottles and his towel into the crowd too. My favourite moment is always the drumsticks. Kai came out from his drumset with 4 drumsticks and proceeded to fling them into the audience. He was quite fair. 2 into the middle. 2 to the sides. He even threw the sticks high enough for the people at the stands to catch. And then they all waved bye and left.

As everyone was leaving, they played some promotional adverts for their upcoming DVD called Film Bug I, and their new tour with the final at Tokyo Big Sight (I can't go T_T). So I finished watching, and Mom and I grabbed our bags and filed out with the rest of the crowd. At the exit, staff were handing out plastic bags with flyers. I told Mom to go queue and help me get one too (one bag per person) so I get double the number of flyers! Muahahaha. Inside the packet was a survey form that you could fill up and give comments about the live. I didn't do it. Then they had the Gazette flyer for Film Bug I; and Alicenine, Kagrra, Kra, and Miyavi flyers. They also gave a free copy of a music magazine. Nice. You would never get these if you go to a Johnny's concert.

Mom looked at her watch when we stepped out of the Budokan. It was slightly after 10pm. It was a solid, three-and-a-half-hour live. I doubt you'll get this kind of deal here. The 5 of them didn't get much break either, so you have to admire them for the stamina that they have (I'll never say that Ruki's cheating again because singing AND shouting non-stop for three-and-a-half hour's just crazy.) My 75 bucks per ticket is so totally worth it. I must go watch them again, if I get the chance to. ^O^

Otsukaresamadeshita ne! Gazetto no minna. Zutto wasurenai yo, kono live. ^^

As we were walking to the station, and as I was telling Mom that half of my wish was fulfilled that night (now if I can see Kagrra live, my wish would be fulfilled and I'd die happy), some band boys handed out flyers to us. It was something like a self-promotion. Before you make it big, you do shit stuff like handing out your own flyers as self-promotion because you're just a poor musician. Gazette and Kagrra were like that once too, you know. :) I got a flyer from this band called Spider Lily. I've heard of them before, but it was too dark and I couldn't see the face of the guy who handed me the flyer. Could be the singer, guitarist, bassist or drummer. >>;

We got back to the hotel around 11pm, and I showered first, and crashed onto the bed and almost fell asleep. Mom was kind enough to help me pack my stuff into my luggage. I think it was because she couldn't stand that kind of mess I was leaving around the room. XD I had almost given up the thought of doing my report when Mom chided, "you should have done more when you're in Singapore."

I woke up and retaliated, "I've got exams. You think I got so much time meh?! Idiot prof. Crazy ah, got to do his report on vacation!"

"Yah lor. You go back and tell your crazy prof don't leave reports to the last minute ah!"

So I stayed up the entire night, trying to shake away my fatigue from the para para, and typed the night away. I consoled myself with the thought that I could sleep on the bus as we drive up to Hakone the following day. And when I got bored I entertained myself with some Smap, and even grouchily thought that while Gazette was sleeping I'm still slaving away at my report. *curses* And I thought, heck it, I could just give a slip-shot job and that prof wouldn't even realise because everyone else's report would be like mine - over 20 pages long. So I typed whatever crap I could come up with from my confused and tired brain. I thought that if I hadn't stayed up all night to do my report, I wouldn't be able to finish it on time. I didn't finish the report after the entire night... I was left with a few more questions that I thought I would be able to finish after I get back from the Mount Fuji tour. I realised that I was dozing off sitting in my chair... so I gave myself a break and rested for about 20 minutes before I heard Cloud's guitar playing from my phone. Gah.

By the way, the sun rises in Japan at 4.30am. In early May. :)

Asakusa

2006-05-07T00:00:00.000+08:00

So I woke up late. Slightly groggy, messy hair. I did my best to hide my face in some makeup, but not too much because I don't want my face to be dripping with black stuff by the time I'm done with the live. I felt quite sick actually, and didn't feel like moving but I knew that I've got to move my butt because it's the day of the live and I had spent half a year getting my tickets and I'm not going to let that report ruin it. *catches breath* I got on my jacket, and we went down for breakfast.

Breakfast! Japanese-style. :)

I had porridge that day (didn't feel like eating), and Mom had the Western set with eggs and sausages and toast.

I didn't finish the fish (as usual, because it was too salty), but the porridge was good. I realised that my waistline had decreased to the point where I had absolutely no problems getting my jeans on. Oh well. Combination of exams + report writing = no good. At least I know that I was nice and slim then. :P

So we got our bags, and walked out to the station. Unlike the previous day where we took the JR trains, we would be taking the subway today. Firstly to Asakusa, and then to Kudanshita, where the Budokan is. The 2 stations were on different routes, and we had to make a transfer halfway. Mom was in a blur, but I had the stations and routes and transfers planned out nicely, thanks to my handy internet train guide (see links).

The Shinjuku subway was much further down from the JR station, and we had trouble finding our way. I stopped to ask a tour agency or something, but unfortunately, staff talk no engrish (weird, I thought tour agency staff should know how to at least utter a word of English). So we got back to the trusty JAL office, and got our directions to the subway stations. Apparently we had overshot by a lot, because the subway station was just located 5 minutes away from our hotel and we walked all the way to the JR station and back. -_-" Ah, the wonders of being a tourist and getting lost. I actually love the experience. :P It's like learning something new.

I bought tickets... (the map's free, from JTB Singapore :P)

... picked out the right stop (Bakuroyokoyama 馬喰横山)

... And we're taking the train! (I bai3 pose only lah... :P)

The train wasn't crowded at all. Probably because we beat the peak hour crowd, and it was raining that day.

The platform.

The platforms were cold and dark. No wonder so many Japanese ended their lives by jumping on train tracks. Ok, let's not talk about morbid stuff here. Onward!

So we stopped at Bakuroyokoyama, and made a transfer to Higashi Nihonbashi station, which was on the Asakusa line. It wasn't too difficult, you just have to follow the signboards. The Asakusa station was a few stops away from Higashi Nihonbashi. You won't miss it, because announcements are made in Japanese and English when the train is arriving at the station, and they even have LCD screens to tell you the station names. Just like our MRT. So nice. :)

We tried to get out, and the turnstile almost chopped me in half. Reason: we paid less that we should. -_-" Hey it's not my fault!! I didn't realise that when you transfer you do not buy new tickets!! T_T Every station has a manual turnstile, so once you pay the conductor, you're free to go. >>;

We got out... and...

They have numerous exits at Asakusa too! T_T

It wasn't too difficult to find our way around here (hey, we survived Shinjuku!) and we exited at the correct exit and found ourselves in a nice neighbourhood.

Whoa vending machines!

I wasn't too sure about the Asakusa area because I didn't really research on that place (we were there for souvenirs and the lantern only...). But I remembered a really good advice that Jarel told me once. Follow the crowd. So we did just that (there wasn't a crowd actually, but we just followed where everyone was going).

And once we got out into the street, we saw the lantern!

You gotta cross the street to get to the giant lantern.

They had these trishaw people looking for customers, and naturally we got ambushed. But they weren't so bad; you say no, and they leave you alone. We crossed the road in the light drizzle, and found ourselves in front of the Sensoji Temple and the giant lantern, also known as Kaminarimon or 雷門. Some of you might know it as the Asakusa Kannon Temple. Most tours would bring tourists here, and the tourists were many on that Sunday.

We took pictures like crazy.

Yay I look so Singaporean. XD

Hai. Another one.

Sensoji's a shrine and a temple. To get to them, you have to pass through the Nakamise-dori, which is like a street filled with shops selling souvenirs and food for tourists.

Behind me is the Nakamise-dori!

The weather was horrible that day. There was a slight drizzle, but then the rain stopped, and then started up again, and stopped, and... You get the point. The rain stopped a while for us so that we could walk down the Nakamise-dori without umbrellas. :P

Omg Japanese fans!! *gaga*

They sell Japanese fans!! *gaga*

How much is that doggy in the window (woff woff).

We were walking along, when we saw...

Ah!! Models!! Photoshoot!! *point point*

I saw people going up to the makeup artist to ask if they could take photos with the models. So I thought, why not?

She's so damn tall, I'm so damn short. *digs a hole and buries self*

As we continued down the Nakamise-dori, we were able to see the entrance to the temple and shrine.

Frankly speaking, I dunno which is the temple, and which is the shrine. ^^;

Pagoda. (Must be part of the temple)

Once we passed through the entrance, we saw the shelter where you are supposed to wash your hands.

This one's more elaborate than the Meiji Shrine's. :)

So we washed our hands (I didn't wash my mouth and spit that day, because Mom's waiting), got into the courtyard, and we saw...

... Mikuji!! For 100 yen! ^^

Mikuji is like fortune telling at the temple. In Japan they have Mikujis in shrines. I saw them at Meiji shrine too, but that one was slightly different so I didn't bother to read the instructions. The Mikuji at Sensoji was classic. You put in 100 yen into the slot, take the can, shake out a stick, see the number, take the paper stating your fortune from the appropriate drawer, read, and tie the paper up.

So you put in the coin...

... shake the can like crazy...

... get your stick...

... and take your paper from the right drawer.

I made a couple of mistakes. ^^; I shook the can like crazy... but none of the sticks fell out from the hole in the can. Apparently it wasn't like what we do in the temples here. You have to shake the can, then invert it so a stick can fall out from the hole. ^^; And you are not supposed to take out the entire stick from the can. You just take a peak at the number, and take your paper from the right drawer. I took out the stick for photo purposes. ^^;

The piece of paper contains a series of ancient Japanese characters on the front which I didn't understand, but when you flip to the back, you have your fortune told in Japanese, English and Mandarin. Very good, I read the English version. :P And when you're done, you have to tie that piece of paper on the metal stands so that whatever that is good as fortold by that piece of paper would come true. And whatever that is bad, would not come true.

Tie up that piece of paper...

They had the giant incense burner where you can buy a roll of incense, light it up, stick it in and fan the smoke towards you for good health. Mom decided not to do that so I didn't do it either. We proceeded to the temple...

They had a giant lantern outside too...

Seriously, I wasn't sure that I had entered the shrine or the temple, but we just gave a short prayer and left. -_-" We stepped out, and it started raining. Heavily.

View from the main temple (shrine?) building. It was raining. :(

I took out my brolly and discovered that my finger kinda splitted. It must have been the cold, and the metal can I held when I was shaking out my stick for the Mikuji. It was a small cut, but sure hurt like crazy.

I saw some smaller lanterns on the way out.

We didn't plan where to have our lunch, but I saw a takoyaki stand and we decided that we might as well have something. Gah, I already promised myself that when I go Japan I must must must try their takoyaki. I love takoyaki. ^^

The people selling at the stall knew English. I was like, "Ano... *makes sign for number 1* Hitots--"

"One box?" the guy asked.

"Ah, yeah, one box." ^^;

They sold a box of 6 giant takoyaki balls for 500 yen. That's about 7.50 bucks sing. The lady was making the octopus balls and I wanted a picture, but I couldn't just take and run because I was waiting for my takoyaki, so I asked politely, "Shashin wo totte iindesuka?"

"Doozo." *bored tone*

Uh... ok. There must have been countless of tourists who asked her for photos already.

I think she kinda posed for me. Nice huh?

Takoyaki!!! *love love*

We had our food in this tent that was owned by another stall selling yakisoba. But as long as you buy something from them, like a drink, you can sit inside their tent to eat. It was raining, and we seriously needed a place to sit, so we bought a drink.

Some of you might have seen this picture already. :P

It's $1.50 per ball. But it's giant, so it's quite worth it. ^^

Check out that huge piece of octopus inside!! O.o

Mom and I shared the box... it was quite filling actually. We had our meal, thanked the owners of the tent (^^;), and went about to do our shopping along Nakamise-dori. I bought some boxes of cookies for the lab, a box of strawberry mochi for Agnes (she loves mochi), a pouch for my handphone, and a Japanese fan!! I actually walked up and down Nakamise to pick the most Kagrra-ish fan I could find. Well, and it had to be affordable too. In the end I settled for a orangy-red and gold one that cost me about 50 bucks sing. I certainly wouldn't use it to dance Kotodama, if you know what I mean. -_-"

The good thing about free-and-easy was that we didn't have any tour guides breathing down our necks telling us what time to meet, and omg we have to leave for this place etc etc... We ended our Asakusa tour early, around 12 noon? We each had about 2 shopping bags full of things, and Mom was like, "We can't possibly go to the concert with these!" So we decided to go back to the hotel first.

Well, good for me. I can rush my report. >>; We got back to Shinjuku around 1pm, but I didn't see any goths or punks when we passed by Kudanshita. Probably still early. It was raining... but we got back to our room and once again I plonked down my bags and immediately sat down to type.

Life sucks.

I told Mom that we can go down to the Budokan around 4 because I didn't want to stand in the rain to wait for the doors to open. (And I wanted more time to do my report. :P) As I was typing away, I reminded myself that I wasn't going to let the report ruin my once-in-a-lifetime experience. Heck, I shouldn't even be thinking about it at the live.

Mom said that we should have lunch, and then go down to Kudanshita. Or we would just starve till about 10pm that night and probably faint in the Budokan. Good idea.

We had lunch at the good 'ol ramen shop. The chef already knew us I think, and this time I wasn't about to screw up. :P I had corokke udon... which was good because it was a rainy day. I finished my meal... and suddenly was struck by a sense of nauseousness because I suddenly realised that I'm going to see Gazette in person. Yeah, it's sad but I didn't really realise that until that moment. >>;

I turned to Mom and said, "Omg, I'm so excited!! I'm going to see them soon!"

"Yeah you should be."

Oh well. XD

Harajuku & Shibuya (Part 2)

2006-05-06T00:01:00.000+08:00

I thought that I was imagining things when I saw a group of Gazette cosplayers in front of the phone booth. Harajuku must have loved me. Great weather, the sun was out, three Shinto weddings, and now... Gazette cosplayers. How lucky can I get.

Omg Gazette cosplayers!! *point point point* (for the many of you who don't know who they are, from left: Drummer, Bassist, Ruki, Ruki. You recognize the cosplayers by the outfits they wear. I could tell you exactly which Gazette image the outfits were from, but I'll make this caption even longer so I'll shut up now. :X)

The girl in grey looked almost like an exact photocopy of Ruki. She was in my favourite Ruki outfit too. Actually I knew that the person obviously wasn't Ruki... That was the cosplay bridge for heaven's sake. You get copies of the real deal... and some copies do indeed look like the real deal. That's the power of Japanese cosplay. No one in the world could actually beat Japanese cosplayers in their game... Ok, maybe the Chinese or Taiwanese cosplayers. But Japanese cosplayers were the original anyway. :P

I grabbed Mom by the arm and said, "Omg those are Gazette cosplayers. I gotta take a picture with them." Then I pushed my camera to her. "Hold on, I'll go ask."

Obviously, I approached the girl in grey. Whoa... she looks just like him, I thought. "Ano sumimasen." She turned around. Omg she looked like Ruki. Complete with the glass eye. "Isshoni shashin wo totte, iindesuka (can I take a picture together with you)," I managed, while motioning to her friend beside her. Her friend was supposed to be Ruki too, judging from the red shirt, white tie, and leather jacket. She looked more like Kyo from Dir en grey though. Oh but then again, Ruki used to resemble Kyo alot... until recently.

"Ah chotte matte ne. (Please hold on)" I was slightly taken aback by the female voice. Here was someone who looked just like Ruki, but sounded female. Obviously someone had wanted to take their picture, so I waited. The other two cosplayers came over... dressed up as the bassist and drummer respectively. I heard their conversation. Bassist and Drummer were from Nagoya. The two Rukis were from Osaka. They must be going to the live the next day, I thought. Bassist and Drummer left for a while, and I decided to make some conversation.

"Kimitachi wa Gazetto desune... (You two are supposed to be Gazette ya)" I managed. Duh. Stupid question. I can recognize that grey outfit and hat from a mile away.

"Hai. Gazetto desu (Yeah, we're supposed to be Gazette)," answered Ruki-in-grey in an embarassed tone.

Okay... now what do I say? "Ah... ashita no live... (Tomorrow's live...)" Oh shit. I had forgotten how to say what I had wanted to say.

"Hai... ashita no live...??? (Yes... Tomorrow's live?)"

"Ah... nani mo nai. (Nevermind. Nothing.)" I replied, cursing myself that I should have worked harder during the semester and practice my Japanese. She must have wondered why I was speaking like I had problems with speech control.

Mom does know how to take candid shots after all.
Me *thinking*: Eh... you're not Ruki.
Cosplayer *thinking*: Eh... your Japanese sucks.

Someone came over and took their pictures, then it was my turn. I realised that I might as well do it all at one shot, so I told Bassist and Drummer to come over too. "EH?! Iindesuka?!! (EH?! You sure?!)" Bassist looked shocked. You mean you can't take pictures together? "Iindesuyo! Isshoni isshoni! ^^ (Yeah sure! Together together!)" I motioned them over.

They may not be the real people, but it felt just as good. XD

I caught sight of 2 fruits standing beside the Gazette cosplayers, so after saying thanks, I went over to the fruits. The term "fruits" is used to describe people dressed in super kawaii frilly outfits. These girls seemed to be friendlier than the Gazette cosplayers. I don't blame the latter though. Their image was meant to be like that.

Yay piisu~! The girl on my left's got bunny ears!! ^O^

These cosplayers on the bridge would pose for anyone and everyone who were willing to take their pictures. I thanked the fruits, and walked across the bridge when I saw some Psycho le Cemu (PLC) cosplayers. They were still dressing up, and I didn't think that it would be very nice to ask for pictures then, so I skipped the PLC cosplayers. I don't really like PLC anyway. I heard that their songs are techno para para? XD

Directly in front of the cosplay bridge on the opposite side of the Meiji Shrine was an overhead bridge. You take this to cross the road over to Takeshita-dori, which is rather famous for its teenage fashion trends and possibly, the street that all would associate Harajuku with. I was climbing the steps of the bridge when it hit me that I had forgotten to tell the Gazette cosplayers that I was from Singapore. *slaps forehead* That would certainly explain my stuttering Japanese. Ah well, I thought, there wasn't enough time to tell them anyway. I'll just settle for letting them think that I've got speech problems. :P

I took this picture on top of the overhead bridge. The Saturday crowd was in full swing already. The mock Tudor train station is on the left, and that tall building in the distance is the NTT DoCoMo tower.

As we stepped off the overhead bridge, I realised that being someone who hates crowds when shopping, that day was going to be hell. No choice; it was a Saturday, and on top of that it was Golden Week. We walked along the path together with the rest of the crowd when I found a shop selling Birkenstocks. I wasn't sure if those were fake though; they were awfully cheap. But they didn't have our sizes anyway (I surprised myself when I could converse with the salesgirl about shoe sizes and stuff ^^). We continued on and found ourselves at the entrance of Takeshita-dori.

It was crowded. -_-"

Check out the people in the street behind me!!

You don't really get to see a crowd this size turn up at Bugis Village every Saturday. I took a deep breath and walked down the street with Mom. Takeshita-dori is about 400m in length, filled entirely with shops side-to-side. They've got shops selling socks, accessories, different types of clothes, food... In short: Shopping Heaven.

Ugh. Crowds. D:

Nudy Boy!! No, you don't get nude boys inside. XD It's a shop filled with male apparel. Go there if you're metro. :P

Uh, stage costumes?! Even I wouldn't dare wear these out. -_-"

I swear that I didn't see that sign when I took the picture. I swear. ><;

People seemed to like crepes alot there. They've got a couple of shops here and there selling crepes. All shops have these shelves full of displays. Which flavour do you like?

Surprisingly, I took only a few photos of the shops on the street. I guess I was busy shopping. :P I bought some accessories, jewellery for friends. As noon was approaching, it was starting to get really warm, but not too humid. I was tempted to take off my jacket, but everyone around still got theirs on. Some even got on sweatshirts. Weird, I thought. I marveled at the Japanese for their ability to go out on a sunny day wearing a jacket. I didn't melt though. Yay for low humidity! XD

We visited the hundred yen shop there... Mom didn't get much. It was Daiso after all. We've got Daiso here at IMM. Duh. :P I was going to walk on, but Mom was tired and hungry so we stopped by McDonald's. They operate at a slightly different way. Instead of finding your seat first and then ordering; you have to order first, then find your seat. And there was a store manager to make sure that you do just that. So we joined the queue, and I looked up at the menu on the wall. Katakana. No problemo. I read the menu and asked Mom what she wanted. Mom suggested that we order a meal to share... I wasn't too hungry anyway so I told her she could have the burger while I pick at the fries. A male store manager came our way to take orders. He looked slightly over 30, but very friendly. I decided that I wasn't going to converse in Japanese for once.

"Eigo o hanashimasuka? (Do you speak English?)" This phrase's sure useful. :P

"Boku no eigo wa chotto... (My English a bit cannot make it)" He looked slightly amused.

"Watashi wa nihongo wa chotto... (My Japanese a bit cannot make it)"

We looked at each other, and laughed. He pulled us to the side so he could spend more time attending to us. He even got me a menu. I told him that we wanted a meal, and pointed to the main. In Japan, you could choose your side: fries or salad. I wasn't too keen on salad that day, so I had fries. He got my order down, handed it to the boy at the counter, and we paid. Great service. ^^ Unlike Singapore where the person at the counter places the food on the tray directly at the counter itself, you have to wait at a separate counter here for the food. We found our seat at the back of the restaurant and tucked in. The people sitting beside us must be amazed at the way we conversed in English. They kept looking over. XD

At the Japanese McDonald's, people buy their food, eat, and leave. No one really stays behind to chat. And certainly no one brought homework and textbooks to do revision in the restaurant. :P Other than that, the restaurant resembled any other McDonald's around the globe.

After we had our fill and rested our feet, we continued with shopping. We found a shoe shop giving discounts and went nuts. I originally had bought one pair, then Mom saw that they had those punk leather shoes on display outside and told me, "You came all the way here and don't buy these types of shoes a bit wasted ya." I had already let go of the thought of getting creepers, but then what Mom said was right. I tried on the creepers, found them too big (they didn't have my size already!! T_T), and settled for a black leather pair instead. They kinda looked like Mickey Mouse shoes actually. Rounded toe. I wonder which outfit I should match them with.

We carried on and Mom found a bag shop. Surprisingly, the bags were rather cheap, so Mom got one. I don't really buy bags unless necessary, so I passed. My Japanese got better as the day went on, and by that time, I could already ask the store owner for a new piece of the bag Mom wanted. He rattled something that I didn't quite understand, but I caught the "please wait a moment". He went to the back to search, but too bad, that was the last piece. Mom obviously wanted that bag, so she took it anyway.

I told Mom that I needed to visit the Sex Pot Revenge store, which we did. I had originally wanted to get a t-shirt, but they were going for about 50 bucks each. I was lazy to try out, and I thought that I was already too old to wear t-shirts with skulls in front and Sailor Moon-style collar trimmed with pink ribbon at the back. So nope, I left empty-handed. I dragged Mom to the Brand X store as well. That shop was selling second-hand punk and gothic clothes and accessories, but the Harajuku branch was a bit small, and there wasn't much inside.

We walked on and found a pet boutique. Yes. PET BOUTIQUE. The Japanese must have really loved their pets. Mom was rattling about getting something for Brian, so when I saw the shop, I told her that there was her chance. They had a wide range of clothes for dogs, with sizes for the smallest chihuahua to the largest golden retriever. There were some cat clothes too. And shampoo ranges. And pretty little dog bowls. And kawaii kennels. Being a pet has never been so hip. We found a sleeveless baseball shirt that Brian would probably look good in, but we didn't know the size, so we got the salesgirl to get a few pieces from the store so we could estimate. Mom made a good judgment. :P

XD!!!

That shirt cost Mom about 30 bucks.

Unfortunately Brian's a boy. Or I would have invested myself and got him a frilly lolita dress too. Yep, they've got lolita dresses! XD (No Brian doesn't cross dress even though he's gay. Thank you very much.)

I saw lots of idol shops along the way as well. They had all these posters of Johnny boys and Morning Musume and some even had Gazette!! D: I didn't know that these stores were idol shops initially, but after passing a few I got curious and told Mom to wait while I go check the store out. It kinda looked like a KTV place on the outside... but they couldn't possibly have KTV in the middle of Takeshita-dori! XD As I stepped into the store I saw that they had all sorts of stuff on display. Keychains, photos, uchiwas, posters, stickers... You name it. They have it. Kinda reminded me of Mise here, except they sold more stuff. Chey, I thought, and left without walking around the store.

We finished the 400m of Takeshita-dori, and turned the corner to LaForet. I had always told Mom that if I go Harajuku, I must visit a H. Naoto store. H. Naoto's a designer of punk fashion in Japan, and he's quite famous amongst the punk/gothic community. I doubt anyone here has heard of that brand though. :P He designed quite a number of lines of clothing, but for me anyone was fine. I found the H. Naoto boutique at basement 1.5 of LaForet (yeah, their levels go like this: 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 etc...) The shirts were nice and all, but as expected, expensive. I settled for a bandana as a souvenir. Cost me a cool 55 bucks.

Next, we stepped out into Omotesando, which was parallel to Takeshita-dori. Unlike Takeshita, which was stocked to the brim with funky fashion and cute accessories, Omotesando was Japan's answer to France's Champs-Elysees. On both sides of the street were designer boutiques. If you have money to burn, do spend a day there.

The white building on the left is Gap. I couldn't get a shot of the sign. >>;

The crowd here makes the Saturday crowd at Orchard child's play.

During that time of the day, both Mom and I were lugging so many bags of shopping and our feet were hurting so much, we decided that we wouldn't want to walk the entire length of Omotesando. I brought Mom to Omotesando for 2 reasons: one, she wanted to buy a Burberry bag from the Burberry Blue Label boutique. Two, she wanted to buy a LeSportsac bag because she couldn't stand not owning one anymore. Yeah, Mom loves bags.

Mom's always sharp when it comes to bags. She caught sight of the LeSportsac boutique across the road. >>; So we crossed the road, and Mom made a beeline for that shop. They had some new designs, so Mom made her choice and came out of the shop happily with her bag. We sat on the benches at the sidewalk for a while looking at the crowd pass by, and Mom said that she could give up that Burberry if necessary. I told her that I didn't want to walk back to the Harajuku train station, just to take the train to Shibuya, which was one stop away. We might as well just walk there. It was just 20 minutes from where we were, I told her.

So out came the map. I found the correct direction, and we picked up our shopping bags and walked. We must have walked on for about 10 minutes along a rather quiet road, talking along the way, when suddenly Mom turned and said, "Hey isn't that Burberry Blue Label?!" I looked up at the shop that we had just passed. "Omg yes!!!" We cheong-ed in.

I think that the Burberry Blue Label could only be found in Japan. They've got a Black Label (for men) and a Red Label (for I dunno what) too... The pricing was a notch lower than the actual Burberry. But it's still Burberry. XD The salesgirls were all very pretty. Tall too (their heels must have been 5 inches tall). The one who attended to us wasn't too good with English, but she was very friendly and patient with my broken Japanese. We made do with a combination of bad Japanese, bad English, and sign language. :P Mom settled for a sling bag which cost over 300... and as she paid, she saw a handphone strap and suggested that I should buy. I asked the salesgirl for the price. 5000 yen. Okay. I paid. And then I realised. Hey I paid 75 bucks for a phone strap?! >O Btw, the strap is now hanging from my Sony Ericsson. I intend to make full use of my merchandise. :P

It was obvious that we were tourists, and the salesgirl told us about the tax-free policy in the shop. If you produce your passport, you are entitled to tax-free purchase if you buy over a certain amount (10000 yen I think). Before I left the shop, I asked the salesgirl if we were going in the right direction towards Shibuya. She replied in a long string of words, which I took to be the polite way to say, "Yes. Shibuya's just down the road."

And we continued on about 15 minutes, and I found Tower Records. I would show you the picture, but then I was under the building, and the building must have been 7 or 8 stories tall. I couldn't bend back that far, so I took the road beside the building instead. :P

Yay Shibuya!

The place I was looking for was the famous crossroads in front of the Shibuya train station. You know, the one that everyone sees in pictures and that DHL ad. So we walked down the road, and I found a funny-looking building.

Weird architecture. I wonder what was it for.

I was walking down the street, when I suddenly realised that I was supposed to bring Mom to the LockUp for drinks. Unfortunately, I forgot to look up the map to the theme restaurant the day before again, and now in the midst of people and tall buildings, I couldn't get my bearings properly. Also, I was supposed to be back in the hotel to do my report, and I couldn't afford to get drunk. I told Mom that we would have to give up the LockUp (hey that rhymes :P). She didn't really seem to mind. It was my suggestion to go anyway. XD

Then we walked and walked...

Ah, 109! We're getting warmer...

We found the clearing and I didn't realise that I was standing in front of the famous crossroads because there were too many people. ^^; I squeezed my way through so I could see the roads and confirmed that we were at the right place. The pedestrian lights turned green, and people started crossing. And then you couldn't see the opposite side of the road anymore. ^^;

We crossed the roads and I took a picture while standing in the middle of the road. No problem. XD

As mentioned earlier, the crossroads were located in front of the Shibuya train station. In particular, it was the Hachiko exit.

The view from the Hachiko exit side. Noticed that huge HMV sign. And Otsuka Ai's Frienger PV on that screen. XD

I told Mom I needed to look for Hachiko. I knew that she did some research on Shibuya when I was cramming for my exams, and Mom knew that we couldn't miss Hachiko. Hachiko's the statue of the dog standing in front of one of the exits of the Shibuya train station. It's so famous, the exit was named after it (hence, Hachiko exit). The statue was made as a tribute to a dog named Hachiko, which apparently was so loyal to its master that it would wait everyday at the station for him to go home, even after its master passed away. Nowadays, the statue is like a meeting point for people. Think, outdoor version of Orchard MRT control station.

Hachiko! :)

Some band was playing a mini live beside the Hachiko statue. I have no idea who they were. Their songs were so-so. I think I'll just stick to ELT. XD

Although we were supposed to spend some time shopping at Shibuya, we decided that finding the crossroads and Hachiko was good enough. Our feet were hurting, our shopping bags felt like they contained lead. So we bought tickets, and got back to Shinjuku.

We got the right exit this time. XD

It was still early, by our own personal shopping standards. Around 4.30pm. Shinjuku was still crowded with people who were shopping. It was a Saturday after all. I had never felt so tired after shopping for the whole day. A day at Harajuku broke all my shopping records. Mom looked beat too, and she was supposed to have better stamina than me when it comes to shopping. As we dragged our feet (and shopping bags) back to the hotel, I started taking pictures. It wasn't dark yet, and it was a great chance for photos.

Shinjuku. On a Saturday afternoon. Mom said it looked a bit like Hong Kong. XD Sakuraya sold watches, if I remembered it correctly. Unfortunately, you can only make out Sakuraya's signboard if you can read Japanese, because the name is in Hiragana. XD

Now you can see the traffic too...

The original Isetan. Yep. That's the flagship store. It's in Shinjuku. They've also got Isetan Men's, Isetan Park City 1, 2, 3... There may have been more but it slipped me at this moment. The point is that there are so many Isetans in Shinjuku, you'll probably take a week to shop all of them. (Same goes for the Marui branches.) -_-"

Taxi! Taxi!
They've got different colours (from left): cream, green, red, black. Starting rate: 660 yen. (about 9 bucks)

The manbou truck! I had seen it make so many rounds that I just had to take it. XD Manbou is a type of fish... ocean sunfish. That's what the dictionary tells me.

Koda Kumi! XD These 2 posters were my guides to tell me that we were nearing our hotel.

Yep... getting warmer...

Marui Men's and Marui City. We stayed just around the corner... (it's just up that road lah, can see the signboard already if you squint a bit)

Ah ha!

We had a Lawson's just a stone's throw away from the hotel. And these were a couple of vending machines outside the shop. :) Lawson's cannot be found in Singapore, but I found them in Shanghai. Lawson's a konbini - a convenient shop. Like 7/11's.

I went back, dumped my bags on the floor, and got down to work (how pathetic could my life get?!)

Under normal circumstances, that table would be scattered with our makeup pouches and whatnot. Unfortunately, this time, it was Miyabi's official sitting place throughout the trip. -_-"

As I was typing away, Mom took off her shoes and kinda shouted, "Omg my feet! They're flat!!" That brought me back to my senses (see how numb the report made me?!) and I felt that my feet were hurting like crazy. I lifted them up and looked. "Omg my feet! They're swollen!!" I screamed. My toes were red, my feet felt bloated. Yep. They were swollen all right.

Mom started packing her goodies away, while I decided to leave packing to the last day when I'm done with the !#*$!#*$&!# report. It was too quiet, so I switched on the TV and tuned in to TBS. Omg, it was Blood+. Too bad, I thought, and continued typing away while I listened to the voices in the background, all the while thinking that I must have done something horrible to deserve such fate. (Who brings homework to do during vacation?! D:)

We got out to look for dinner around 7pm... dragging our feet. I saw a curry rice restaurant the previous night when we were exploring, and told Mom that we should try. We found the shop near the kani houdai restaurant. Same protocol. Vending machine, and you choose the type of curry you want. They had got mild, vegetable, hot, and very hot curry. I tried the vegetable curry. Mom decided to be adventurous and opted for very hot. XD Well, it was indeed, VERY spicy. I tried. >>; Curry rice is one of my favourite Japanese meals... and nothing beats having curry rice in Japan. Even though I was under stress, I almost finished the entire plate. Just a bit of rice left. :D

And then we went around the Men's stores to find a souvenir for Pa. First, we tried Isetan Men's. All branded stuff. Mom wanted to get Pa a clip for his ties, so we went around looking for those. All over 10000 yen. >>; So we visited Marui Men's instead. Again, all branded boutiques. These malls sure tell you about the way the men dress in Japan. They've got malls. For men only. *whistle* They certainly didn't lack metros there. XD We found a reasonably priced tie clip at Marui Men's. The salesgirl even wrapped up the clip for us. For free! And her skill was really good. I mean, she wrapped up the thing in less than 5 minutes, with flawless folds and a lovely silver ribbon to finish. We need such services here. XD

We visited Lawson's on our way back to the hotel. I needed coffee... and I got a box of Pocky too. I thought that I should taste it to see if it was really different, and then I could buy a dozen boxes back home.

I didn't get to taste it. Once I got back to the hotel and showered, I limped downstairs for internet access so I could do some more information searching, and at the same time, find the way to get around the next day. Then I limped back upstairs, and crammed my report till 3am. I drank the coffee... but only finished about a quarter of the little can because I thought that it tasted funny. I forgot all about my Pocky.

I was going to go to my first concert the next day. And I wasn't about to go there without sleep. So I logged off around 3am. That would give me about 4 hours of sleep. I hoped that it was enough, because I couldn't afford to faint at the back of the Budokan.

Harajuku & Shibuya (Part 1)

2006-05-06T00:00:00.000+08:00

I realised that I've been very long-winded, so I'll try to cut down my words as much as possible. :P

So came the day where I finally could walk down Harajuku. I was the later one who got up (obviously...), dilly-dallied a little and got dressed. Mom requested for breakfast within the hotel itself, so we got down to the restaurant located at the annex. Shinjuku Sunlite's actually 2 buildings - the main building and the annex. I stayed the in main building. The elderly waitress greeted us with Ohayou gozaimasu! Irrashaimase! as we entered, and sat us at one of the tables. Breakfast had 3 choices: 2 different Japanese style sets, one with rice, the other with porridge; and 1 Western style set. Both Mom and I chose the Japanese set with rice.

Unfortunately both of us didn't remember to bring down our cameras, so pictures of breakfast would have to wait till the next day. There was a bowl of rice, a dish with salmon, omelette and the thickest piece of naruto (Japanese fishcake) that I had ever seen, a bowl of stew with beans and sweet potato, and pickles. And of course, the mandatory miso soup and green tea. The fish was salty. I only finished half. Didn't help that I was still stressed and didn't have much appetite.

So we got our breakfast settled, went back to our room to get our bags, and off we go.

My favourite photo of the trip. I had an extremely good hair day (courtesy of the hairdryer in our room), rested quite well, and certainly didn't feel so ugly and bloated anymore. This was taken near our hotel, as we walked out towards the station. We stayed about 10 minutes away from the station, btw.

The weather was great; not too hot, not too cold. Wearing sleeveless was ok... until I realised that everyone on the street got on a jacket even though it wasn't cold at all. Apparently these people don't really dress like us Singaporeans. I got the message and put on my jacket. A slight wind started blowing, and I finally understood why everyone was wearing jackets.

Some flowers on the roadside where we waited to cross the road. The flowers were in full bloom... no wonder lots of Japanese have pollen allergies.

The road signs, surprisingly, were few and far between. That was one of the reasons why I couldn't find my way when we arrived the night before. I guess these would be more obvious during the day.

Before we arrived, I had discovered that there was a shrine in Shinjuku when I was studying the map of the area. I didn't really planned to find it, but we were lucky enough to pass it on our way to the station.

It was a Saturday, but apparently it was still early when we left our hotel around 9am. The streets were still quite deserted. The shops were just opening. I could see that most of the people on the streets were dressed casual... I also spotted some goths too. No prize for guessing where they were going. There were also some people in executive dress and jackets. Working? Probably. The Japanese are well-known workaholics.

Shinjuku by day. Lovely metropolitan city. It is easier to find your way around during the day. ^^; Oh, and the Epson sign's there again!! XD Guess I took a picture on the other side of the road on the previous night. :P

The crows they have in Japan were GIANT. I heard a loud cawing when I passed under the signs jutting out from the sides of the buildings. I looked up and saw this fellow sitting there and greeting everyone who passed. Hey! Is that word hoshi at the back?! :P

As we walked down Yasukuni-dori towards the place where we came from the previous night, I realised that there were these underpass thingies that I kept seeing the previous night. I read the signboards above one of them. "To JR station". Oh good. There was where I was going. I suggested to Mom that we try the underpass. Probably it would be much easier than walking in the streets to the station. The subways in Japan are all connected afterall, and probably you might encounter some shortcuts that you can take if you try the underpass.

We got ourselves underground and were greeted by the sight of closed shops.

It was like an underground city in there! The shops would open later, when the people start to stream in.

Our destination wasn't the actual JR train station yet. Mom had wanted to go to Mount Fuji, and she found out that we could join 1-day tours to bring you there. There was a tour desk at Keio Plaza Hotel, which was located on the west side of Shinjuku, right in the heart of the commercial area. The east side, where we stayed, was for shopping. Kinda reminds you of Shenton Way, Raffles Place and City Hall. Except it felt much, much bigger. The Shinjuku eki - or train station - was located right at the centre of Shinjuku. So to pass from the east to the west side, it would be certainly easier to pass through the station itself, rather than walking around it. And believe me, it is easier. Both Mom and I agreed that being first-timers, we had walked around the entire station the previous night, and took the long route to our hotel instead. *curses*

The signs weren't too difficult to follow. That is, if you know Japanese. :P I led Mom to the JR station... I had wanted to see how big the Shinjuku station was for myself, after all the stories I've heard and the pictures I've seen. When I saw the place I went something like, h*** sh**. Something like that.

Certainly not your typical MRT station.

The turnstiles. It wasn't too crowded at that time...

Woot~ The ticket machines! Check out that chaos of a train route in that map on top of the machines. It wasn't time to buy tickets yet. So I'll worry about that later. :P

Still inside the JR station. They had got signboards in Japanese and English, so it makes life slightly easier for English-speaking people. Making out the exact directions in which the arrows are pointing to is another thing.

I heard that the Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world. I'm not too sure about that, but it is certain that the station is very big. Very big. In Japan, different companies run different lines for the trains. You've got the all famous JR or Japan Rail, that operates all around Japan. You've also got the smaller subways and metros. The train stations for the different types of trains are all linked; so on one hand it makes it easier for the commuter to transfer from one line to the other, it also makes one easier to get lost in the station. We got lost a bit, but found a JAL office with English-speaking staff who produced maps (!) and pointed us to the correct direction to go.

So we walked on for a bit (ok, that must be an understatement), and at one of the exits (I couldn't remember which one. There must have been hundreds of exits) we found ourselves at the Keio subway station.

Well... The colours for the signboards are a bit different... :P

We walked on for about a 5 minutes and we found ourselves at the backdoor of Keio Plaza Hotel. Posh one that was. Sato-san at the reception desk spoke perfect, American-accented English. We booked a tour for Monday, and turned around to walk back to the JR station.

More people were coming in. See the LED screens? They tell you which platform your train would be at. Helps if you know that in the Shinjuku Station they've got 14 platforms arranged on top, below, to the left and to the right. >>;

I wasn't too sure if we were supposed to just go buy the tickets. If we bought the tickets, I didn't know which platform our train would be at because I couldn't find the screen... So we went to ask the train conductor. Mom asked him in English (it was deliberate. I pushed her to ask so I know if the conductors spoke English.), and he answered in English!! It wasn't too good, but understandable. "Platform 12!" he replied in thick Japanese-accented English. Ok desu!

So I bought tickets...

Yeah yeah I cheated. I saw that they have an "Instructions in English" button, and wasted no time in hitting that one. :P

People behind us in the queue must be wondering if we were retarded gaijins who would actually want to take photos when buying train tickets. So anyway, our destination was Harajuku, one major stop away from the Shinjuku Station on the famous Yamanote Line (no it didn't mean that we could walk there no.)

I saw this sign and felt stupid because the platform number was just there. >>;

The Yamanote Line runs in a circle around Tokyo, with stops in major cities like Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro etc etc... We got onto the platform and the train just arrived. They arrive like, every minute or so. So no problems with waiting. Unlike in Singapore, where people tend to ahem, rush in; the Japanese lined up properly in a row and file into the train slowly. I wasn't too sure about the train that arrived that day, but there was a big crowd so people just moved into the train like our peak hour here.

Oh yay I took a JR train!! I was holding the ticket in my hand, if you noticed. :P

The next major stop from Shinjuku was Harajuku. But in between, they've got minor stops too. What I meant by minor stops were those stations which would be represented by smaller dots on the route map, unlike the major ones, which are represented by large dots. The minor stop between Shinjuku and Harajuku was Yoyogi, famous for its stadium and park where lives and concerts would be held during weekends. The train reached Yoyogi station in thirty seconds. -_-"

We reached Harajuku in less than 3 minutes. >>; Ah well that's about 2 bucks gone like that. :P

On the platform at Harajuku Station.

I paused for a while to take this picture. Proof that I went ya! :D

The station was rather old... kinda reminded me of some train stations in KL when I went the last time. We moved towards the turnstiles to exit, and even inside the station, I could see it: the cosplay bridge.

I would be out of my mind if I visit Harajuku and never step on that bridge.

It was Saturday, and early. So there were zero cosplayers on the bridge. Most would come out on a Sunday anyway, so I didn't really have high hopes of seeing them when I went.

My failed attempt to cosplay... as myself. HA.

We had planned that our first stop would be the Meiji Shrine. I was sure that it was somewhere near the station, and as I was going to take my map out, Mom suddenly said in an excited tone, "look behind you!!"

Kimono ladies!!

No doubt going to a Shinto wedding ceremony. I had hoped to see a Shinto wedding ceremony when I visit the Meiji Shrine. Lots of people went and came back with really beautiful pictures. And Shinto wedding ceremony = Meiji Shrine. It was just across the cosplay bridge!! Talk about 2 different worlds side-by-side.

The torii gate at the entrance. The pillars were made of cypress, over hundreds of years old.

The torii gate up close. You can see the chrysanthemum detail... that's the royal crest. The Meiji Shrine was built to enshrine the spirits Emperor Meiji and his Empress.

Tourists and locals alike walked the tranquil path lined by trees to the main shrine.

And... that's me. :P

Sake barrels donated to the shrine. With kimono ladies walking in front...

The details on some of the barrels.

The journey into the shrine was rather long... and from my trek through Shinjuku in my heeled boots the day before, even sneakers didn't help much as I walked along the stone path. I had originally planned to wear boots to Harajuku (hey, hip a bit mah~!) but decided against it on the day itself... for the sake of my feet. Guess I made the right choice.

We followed the signboards along the path, and as we approached the shrine, a procession of Shinto priests was just marching out. There were security keeping tourists to the sides, and people (like us) who were scrambling to take photos.

I wonder what was happening...

Mom's got a better shot. So I included the picture she took as well.

Cool huh? The priests were just walking along quietly, their clogs making a "cluck cluck cluck" sound as they walked on the stone path. As the train of priests left, everyone went back to their activities. Mom and I passed through the gate marking the entrance, and the shelter to my left caught my attention. You have to wash your hands and mouth before entering the shrine... something like a cleansing ritual.

Some people just wash their hands. I tried drinking and spitting out the water too. It was like toothbrushing session in primary school :P

So we moved into the courtyard (I'm not sure if it's called the courtyard, but it looked like one...)

To my left is the shop selling the lucky charms, and behind me is the entrance to the actual shrine.

The sacred tree in the shrine compound. Notice the rope and white paper. I'm not too sure if it was the good weather, but the tree was so green...

Wishing tablets! You buy a tablet, write your wish on it, and hang it up. They offered paper too... you can write your wish on a paper and slip it into the box. (Just in case you're wondering, no I didn't write a tablet.)

We finished taking our wishing tablet photos and were wandering towards the main shrine when *gasp*, a traditional Shinto wedding procession!!! Again, security was there to make sure everyone stayed aside, but all of us tourists were scrambling to take photos of the procession and the couple as they passed.

The priest was leading the procession. And the couple was under the umbrella. Relatives would follow behind.

The procession passed, and again everyone went back to what they were doing. Mom and I went to the main altar area. They've got about 4 or 5 boxes that you would throw your coins into. After which you'd clap your hands twice, then say your prayer. I'm sure everyone has seen this somewhere, be it in doramas or anime.

Mom screwed it up and took a blur photo. But it was the only one I have so gomen.

Tourists groups started crowding the place and started doing what we did: throw your coins, say your prayer... take photos!!!! Yeah, so we left. And it was just in time for...

... Another wedding procession!!

I thought they were a rather good-looking couple, so I got an up close picture. :)

Mom and I decided that we had enough, so when the procession left, we went outside to the courtyard to pick some lucky charms. Those stuff were pretty little things, but very expensive. The girls behind the counter were dressed like the ladies leading the couples in the wedding procession. Very traditional, very cute. We were going to leave already, when... another wedding procession came in!! Man, I think everyone picked a Saturday to get married or something. I had hoped to witness one Shinto wedding, but there I was witnessing three. Mom and I got tired of taking photos... but there was a girl in the procession dressed in a kimono of my favourite colour, and that I had to take. I got Mom to run into the shrine to help me because I was still sorting out my money after paying for my charms.

Mom's got it for me. ^^ Isn't it pretty? *_*

It was late morning already when we left the shrine, and the sun was up and shining quite brightly. It was starting to get warm too, but everyone kept their jackets on. I kept mine on as well... I was lazy to get it off. And everyone had on jackets... so I would look funny in spags if I took my jacket off too. We had originally wanted to visit the iris garden, but it was late spring and the irises had not bloomed yet. A pity. So we gave that a pass. We went back the way we came, and stopped by the souvenir shop along the way. Mom took rather long inside. :P

By the time we walked through the torii gate, it was around 11am already. I turned to the cosplay bridge and saw some kids there in frilly, oshare outfits. Ah... they are out today after all, I thought, as I took out my camera. And then I looked on further towards the phone booths beside the bridge, and couldn't believe my eyes. I thought I saw Ruki.

Shinjuku (Part 1)

2006-05-05T00:02:00.000+08:00

I had long suspected that my first word in Japan since I began learning Japanese would be Sumimasen. I saw a young guy with a couple of old folks nearby, probably the parents or relatives. Target number 1. I walked towards them. "Ano, sumimasen." Oh yeah, I was right all along man. I told them in horribly broken Japanese that I was finding our hotel and showing them the map. They couldn't recognize the hotel's name. It was a small hotel after all. Either that, or they were from out of town. The young guy was kind enough to point me towards the Seibu station, my first step into the city of Shinjuku.

As I walked towards the neon Epson sign, I realised that I shouldn't go too far because Mom was already half-dead dragging her luggage bag, and the last thing I needed was that we had walked the wrong direction and had to do a U-turn. Once I saw the train tracks, I assumed that it was the Seibu line and started asking around at a traffic cross-junction. First was an otaku-looking boy. Wrong one. He was from out of town too. I decided my best bet was to ask the salesgirls standing outside the shops at the cross-junction. They directed me down the road under the train tracks towards Yasukuni-dori. At least I know I was on the right path.

As I walked under the train tracks with Mom trailing behind, I saw the brightly lit sign marking the entrance to Kabuki-cho. As far as I was concerned then, Kabuki-cho was a red light district of sorts in Shinjuku, and you have a high chance of meeting the yakuza (or the Japanese mafia) if you go in. I intended to avoid that place as much as possible. (When I came back I found out that Kabuki-cho's a place full of host clubs too. Shucks. Pretty gigolos. I missed the chance to see them.)

So anyway, we crossed the road over to the side of the Kabuki-cho entrance, and I glanced at my map. The hotel seemed to be miles away still. I couldn't believe my eyes, because Mom told me Huitin-san told her that it was a 10-minute walk from the East entrance of Shinjuku station. We started off from the West entrance, but it shouldn't be much of a problem, right? Mom already looked like she was going to collapse, so I told her to take a break and while I approached a lady standing outside the cafe next to the Kabuki-cho entrance. Even though my command of the language wasn't too great, I could understand that she told me she was from out of town, and suggested that I go into the cafe to ask. Fair enough. I went in through the sliding doors. It was like Coffee Bean inside, and the waiters were serving the queue of customers. I walked to the front of the counter. I couldn't afford to wait. The young waiter was apparently preparing coffee, but I didn't care and asked him for directions. Boy that guy looked like he's got a contract with Johnny's Entertainment. So pretty. I thought, oh lucky! I picked the right person to ask! XD He gave me some vague directions that didn't really help, but I thanked him anyway, and left. The guy didn't give me good directions, but hey, at least I can now proudly say that I've seen a bishounen face-to-face. XD

I stepped out of the cafe with no answers, and the lady outside suggested that I go ask a man in business suit, standing directly under the Kabuki-cho sign. He was giving directions to another group of girls, but my question wouldn't take long. I approached and asked immediately, "Where's Marui?" Our hotel was near the shopping centre called Marui. He gave me the directions, and told me that I had to cross the road, back to where I came from. Ok, at least I wasn't going to go in the wrong direction. I thanked him and the lady who helped, and got Mom to pick up her luggage and crossed the road again.

As I followed the man's direction and walked up the road, I felt that I was going in the right direction, but I still needed more information (certainly felt like the Amazing Race). I stopped 2 guys near a traffic junction. Normally the Japanese are all willing to help, but different people communicate differently. I lost count of the number of people I asked already, but I certainly hoped that these 2 guys would be the last targets that I would ambush. I was tired to repeating the same question in Japanese, although it did certainly help in the fluency at which I spoke. I repeated the same question, asking where Marui was. They told me it was down the street where they came from. I looked at them with a huh?! expression. Where they came from was certainly off because it didn't coincide with the map. Mom suddenly piped up behind me in English, "Show them the map!" I did just that, and they pointed to the Marui they were talking about. I suddenly realised the reason why everyone's giving conflicting directions that night. Marui's got FIVE branches in Shinjuku. Which Marui was I referring to?! Gah... I thought. So I told them, "No no no... Kore desu! Kore desu!" And pointed to the right Marui on the map. "Ah?! Kore desuka?! Mada desuyo! Achi desu!! Go straighto! Go straighto!" Both of them pointed up the road in unison.

I realised the humor of the situation. The 2 guys already realised that I was a gaijin who speaks no Japanese. And they attempted to communicate in English. Kudos to them. "Ah!! Arigatou gozaimasu!!" I replied in a half laughing, half appreciative tone. I bowed and placed a hand over my heart to show that I really did appreciate their help, and started up the street, confident that the hotel was just ahead.

We reached the correct Marui, and sure enough, a short glance around the cross-junction revealed the huge sign of the hotel we were looking for. Mom and I heaved a huge sigh a relief. We found it.

It was almost expected that the staff at the reception desk could speak English. We got our key, and went to our room on the top floor of the hotel. Great. Hope we have a good view, I thought. As Mom opened the door, I was disappointed to find that the room was bloody small. And it was a queen bed. And the only window in the room faced another hotel down the road with bright neon signs that read "Bali Style Hotel". Oh whatever, it's not like I'll sleep a lot or be in this room all day! We dumped our bags and immediately went out again to look for dinner.

I knew that we had to scrimp, but Mom was intent on having ramen for dinner. We asked the receptionist for his recommendations on cheap food around the area, and following his directions, we stopped at the first restaurant we found: a ramen shop. A quick check on its display window... most of the dishes were around 390 to 400 yen. Reasonable. We opened the door, and was greeted by the usual Irrashaimase!! from the chef and his apprentices. I have never eaten in a Japanese shop, and so I obviously had no idea what to do. The vending machine inside the shop caught my attention. Ah yes. You order by vending machine. I hit a button. Nothing happened. I called one of the assistants over... Apparently you got to put in the money first, then hit the button. Sheesh! I thought. I fumbled through my wallet for coins, and Mom produced a note for the both of us. All the better. Dinner was on Mom. XD I paid, ordered, and got receipts. Now what do I do?!

The chef probably knew from the vending machine fiasco that we were first timers, and gaijins too. But he was rather unforgiving, and told me to put my receipts on the table in front of him. He asked me what noodles I wanted. I was a little muddle-headed from my lack of sleep, but I slowly began to understand what he was saying. I asked Mom what kind of noodles she wanted, and told the chef our choices.

The noodles came real quick. I had soba. Mom had udon. Lookie at the traditional Japanese ramen!!

That was my first meal in Japan! Tempura ramen.

I realised that I didn't ask the chef for permission to take pictures inside his shop. I couldn't anyway. I didn't know how to. He didn't chase us out. So I guessed it was ok. :P

I couldn't finish my ramen. The soba absorbed the soup at an amazing rate, and I had to resort to pouring hot water into my bowl to keep the soba in liquid. I was stressed, from the report, from my lack of sleep, and from sheer fatigue. Mom finished her bowl though, surprisingly. I felt rather horrible about not finishing my bowl... I hope it didn't offend the chef or something. The ramen was certainly good, so much better than what we have in Singapore. But I just didn't have my appetite going that night.

We didn't know that it was common practice in that shop to return your bowl, so we left it at our table and was about to leave when the chef himself motioned us to return our bowl to the dishwasher. I felt terribly embarrassed. He did say a loud Arigatou gozaimasu when we left. I thought that he didn't want to see us again.

I told Mom that we should spend the night walking down Shinjuku to do some exploration. It was a warm night, and I didn't need any jackets even though I was wearing sleeveless. I got my camera out and started snapping.

A giant crab near where I stayed. Its actually a sign for a crab restaurant serving kani houdai - crab buffet. 5000 yen a person. Quite worth it. But I wasn't in the mood. The legs of the crab move during the day!

Shinjuku at night. This is just one of the many streets you'll see in Shinjuku. The neon lights were very pretty. ^^ And if you strain a bit, you might be able to make out that Epson sign near the left of the picture. It's half hidden, though.

Haha no hi, or Mother's Day, was approaching then. Shops everywhere were selling flowers. I was going to take the flowers only... but Mom chucked in. :P

I told Mom that I needed to go to MaruiYoung, because on its top floors they've got gothic, punk and lolita fashion shops. I couldn't find it at first, but as luck could have it, we found it in a small alley, together with a couple of goths. They were already out on a Friday night.

This pair was just standing outside MaruiYoung and I stood as far as I could and zoomed as much as possible just to get a shot of them secretly. :P

MaruiYoung, on the bottom levels, was just any other department store. It was quite small actually. I had expected bigger. I dragged Mom to the lift lobby... and I found...

Even though I looked horrible, I just had to take a picture.

Mom was slow with the camera. Thank god no one saw. I didn't think that photography was allowed inside.

So we took the lift up to the top floor, and walked down. Sure enough, the top 3 floors were stocked full with gothic, punk, and lolita fashion. I didn't really look at the clothes themselves. I just wanted to take the whole thing in. It was rather impressive. All the boutiques specializing in such fashion were all there. I saw kawaii pink mary-janes, high leather platforms decorated with spike and chains, frilly black skirts and blouses, pink and white lace dresses and bonnets. It was great, but I didn't really bother to touch them because, well, you can't wear these stuff in Singapore. Seriously. You would find yourself in Woodbridge in no time. But before that, you'd probably melt in the heat already. I did try to peek at the price tags for some pieces of clothing on the racks. A plain black skirt with asymmetrical hemline? 9500 yen. Forget it.

I was looking at spiked shoes when this tall lady in a funny-looking gothic outfit walked past me and went to the shelf next to mine. That girl must be wearing platforms, I thought, as I turned to look. I saw that the longhair lady had got a 5 o’clock shadow. It wasn't too subtle, either. In fact, it was very obvious. Suddenly, checking out longhair girls in gothic outfits didn’t seem so fun. I turned to Mom and whispered in Mandarin, “Is that person a guy?!” Mom nodded. He wasn't just in any gothic outfit. He wore a gothic black blouse with white lace trim and a fluffy lace skirt. The clothes didn't really matched, and certainly didn't look too good on his large frame either. Seriously, he looked like he raided his little sister's or, worse still, daughter's closet secretly. I thought I was going to scream bloody murder. Thank god I didn’t. >>; This kind of things can only be found in Japan. ;)

I found Noiz on the 6th floor. It was a CD shop, something like a small Sembawang music store. Something like that. They sell all sorts of indies CDs and DVDs. And they've got rack full of flyers. Free for all. I pigged out. I was going to leave with a stack of free flyers from bands that I've never really heard of, when the latest issue of Shoxx lying inside the store caught my eye. Of course. I intended to buy that issue when I go Japan. Gazette's on the cover, and it's only 930 yen in Japan. I pay only 930 yen! If you convert it to Singapore dollars, I saved lots if I were to buy the same magazine in our Kinokuniya. I grabbed a copy and paid. In Japan, you placed your money on a small tray on the counter. I thought it was weird because I had originally handed my note to the cashier, and she insisted that I place it on the tray. Okay........

We went down another level and I saw it. Moi-meme-Moitie. That's the shop that Mana owned. Everyone who knows about goth culture in Japan would know Mana. He was the one who brought about the whole goth craze in Japan. Even though he is a male, he cross-dresses and appears like a dark Victorian doll. Nowadays his image is more of just... dark. I think. I don't like Mana. I thought the guy was too overrated and the music that he wrote for his band sucked. Back to Moi-meme-Moitie. Everyone knows that the stuff they sell inside is ridiculously expensive. No one was in the shop at that time when I went, except for the two salesgirls in full goth outfits. Heck it, I was going to touch the clothes no matter what. So I went in, trying to look as normal as possible. Irrashaimase, I heard one of the salesgirls greeted. I've heard stories about the salesgirls being biased against people who weren't in goth outfits. I wasn't too sure about the tone, but I didn't feel like I was being chased out of the shop. I went over to the racks and sifted the clothes. Lovely quality. Nice designs. Too expensive. I stepped over to the glass displays to look at the accessories. Enormous skulls-adorned jewellery and lacy headdresses. Uh, no use. I managed to smile a bit and stepped out of the shop. Outside, a mannequin had on a pretty gothic dress, and a portrait of Mana (framed too!!) was placed beside it. Omg, can I get a picture? Of course I knew that it was forbidden. Mana's a very peculiar guy. Oh heck. I hid out of sight from the salesgirls and took out my camera. Unfortunately, Mom saw what I was doing and waved me to the front of the shop, where I could get a better angle. I must be lacking in sleep, because stupidly, I went. Of course the salesgirl saw me and immediately stepped out and waved her arms in front of her. No pictures. Okay. Excuse me.

I was quite pissed off with Mom and myself because I could have gotten a picture. We stepped out of MaruiYoung, and passed by the numerous Isetan branches (when I say numerous, I mean numerous), but most were closed already. Mom saw a pharmacy/cosmetics/skincare shop across the street, and dragged me to the shop. It was still open at that hour, and filled with women. If you've been to those shops in the heartlands that sell shampoo, cosmetics and skin care products at a slightly cheaper price than in the shopping centres or supermarkets, you'll know what I mean. Mom was hoping that these shops in Japan would sell their goods at a cheaper price too. They offered cosmetics from established brands like Kose and Kanebo, and I was curious if they would really sell those stuff cheap. I got my answer when we went in. While the first floor sold all the usual necessities like toothpaste, contact lens solution and whatnot, the second floor's got the cosmetics. It wasn't like the beauty counters that you see in departmental stores. Here the cosmetics were chucked unceremoniously on the shelves and if you want, you just take. I took a look at the price. Hey! It's the same!! >O

Mom left empty-handed, slightly disappointed too, I think. We got back to our hotel around 10pm, and while Mom got her shower, I took Miyabi to the ground floor where there was internet access. I plugged in my LAN cable, and I was on quick Japanese broadband. Hooray for Japanese broadband! ^^ I signed on to MSN, had a short conversation with Agnes and the rest, and got down to do some information searching for my report. I didn't do much though. I had told Mom I would be upstairs in an hour.

While Mom settled down to work out the TV channels, I had my turn in the shower. The shower room was small; heck, our room's small!! I felt like I was in a capsule... But everything was so compact, it was actually quite cosy. The hotel offered complimentary shampoo and shower cream too. Great service, even though the room's small. I noticed that the toilet's got a heated seat. It was a pity that I didn't get down to setting the thing. I didn't have the time to play with the controls, and even if I did, I didn't want to risk having my butt burnt. Huh uh.

Mom was watching TV when I came out of the shower. She said she got the thing worked out, pointing to a manual beside her. No doubt they've got instructions in English. :P I took a look at the channels: NHK, TBS, Asahi, NTV. There were actually 6 channels in all. NHK's got 2 channels. I couldn't remember the last one. I thought, great, TBS and Asahi are enough for me, but I couldn't afford the time to watch TV. As Mom fell asleep, I started working on my report. I didn't progress much. I had already gone through more than 48 hours without sleep. I typed a few words, off my computer, and hopped into bed beside Mom.

At least I was comforted by the fact that I wouldn't go to Harajuku with dark circles and on the verge of fainting. Heck with the report. I was gonna have fun. :)

Arrival

2006-05-05T00:01:00.000+08:00

I didn't have much sleep on the plane. I slept for about half an hour before the steward came around with hot towels. Hot towels were the last things I needed. I've got makeup on so I couldn't put it on my face (that would be suicide), so I settled with wiping my hands. JAL seemed to be very efficient. Immediately after they handed out the towels, the in-flight staff came around to hand out packets of mixed nuts and rice crackers and offered drinks.

I thought that I probably should check out the in-flight entertainment, since they offered personal screens. Not much stuff, so I appeased myself with some J-pop. I was dozing off, when the steward came around again with the trolley, this time with food. I ate, and decided to be hardworking so I fished out my papers and pen, and started making notes for my report. I couldn't remember how long I sat there staring at the papers on my table while the other passengers slept in their seats, but when the Captain made the announcement that we were going to arrive in 45 minutes, I decided that I had enough and stuffed my documents back into my sling.

Mom popped up the window cover and almost blinded me as the sun shone through. Uwa! Mabushii! Hey, I'm practising my Japanese! That's great, I thought. I could see the paddy fields below already. The plane was circling the area near Narita. The Captain kept going for about another 10 or 15 minutes, and all the while you could see paddy fields stretched out to infinity below the plane. I could remember the time when I last touched down at Narita with Chee Seng and guys. You wouldn't be able to see the tarmac until you're on it. Like the other major Japanese airline, JAL has an exterior camera on every plane. You can join in the action as the plane touch down.

JAL pilots are great at touchdowns. You don't really feel anything. As the plane taxied into the terminal, Mom asked, "How long has it been?"

"Fifteen years," I replied.

"Ah yes."

"Sure feels different now."

"Of course."

It was around 4.15pm. We arrived early. The plane turned slowly into its assigned lot, and the Captain turned off the seatbelt lights. I grabbed my bags, put on my trench coat and waited excitedly to get off the plane. I thought it would be cold... It wasn't. I was so disappointed! I left my coat on because I was lazy to take it off... the airport had some air-conditioning, so I didn't really feel warm. We joined the wrong queue for the customs. The officials were waving us to the foreigners queue, but apparently we mistook and joined the local queue instead. I thought it was rather weird because people in front, behind, and beside us were all conversing in Japanese... Until I saw some ang mohs queuing over at the other corner. Ah yes. -_-" The foreigner's queue was shorter than the local queues for obvious reasons... not many like to go into Japan during Golden Week. It's always a crazy period. For me, I didn't have much of a choice.

We cleared the customs, and proceeded to baggage claim. I had wanted to take a picture, but decided against it because officers in bright blue uniforms were all around and I didn't want to get caught. I got our bags, and then went through the customs check. The officer was a young guy, dressed in the same bright blue uniform like the rest. He spoke relatively good English, with correct grammar. He didn't ask us to open our luggage for him to check, but he did ask a few questions, like, what are you doing here? Where are you going? Etc.

We finally got out of customs, and I wanted to take the Narita Express into Shinjuku. But Mom was already frightened by all the stories that Couz Simon and I told her about Japanese trains, so she wanted to take the Airport Limousine instead. Either way, we would have to walk to our hotel. Fair enough. We found the counter, and the young lady there told us in faltering English that the bus we should be on was going to arrive in 1 minute. Mom paid, got the tickets, and we ran to the waiting area. It wasn't far from the Airport Limousine counter... and there was already a queue forming. We joined the queue, and the friendly young porter came over, asked in broken English if we would liked our luggage bags to be placed in the cargo area, tagged them, and gave us our receipts for luggage redemption later. The bus came, and the porters quickly loaded the luggage bags onto the bus. Efficient Japanese, as always. We showed our tickets to the conductor, who would tear it and then you would be allowed onto the bus.

On the Airport Limousine before the bus left the terminal. I still had my trenchcoat on. :P

The great thing about the Airport Limousine was that once all the seats are filled, the bus would leave, and the other passengers would wait for the next bus to come in. That way, you wouldn't have to stand throughout the journey, which is 1 1/2 hours, if there are no jams. There was no air-conditioning in the bus, so I took off my trenchcoat and had Mom stuff it into her bag, all the while feeling rather bad because she was going to have to drag her luggage down Shinjuku later.

The bus moved out of Narita Airport, and I plugged into my mp3 (in a failed attempt to remember the new Gazette songs before I go for the concert) and whipped out my camera for photos...

There were lots of paddy fields surrounding the airport. I was certain that the scenery would change as we got closer to Tokyo city itself.

The Airport Limousine's not bad after all. You get to see the scenery as the bus drives you straight into Tokyo by expressway.

I had thought that the wires were a curiosity. So many, all over the place. I came to realise very soon that they were for the trains.

That bridge is meant for a JR train. Probably Narita Express? I dunno. The waters in Japan are quite choppy.

Ooh! Ferris Wheel! Tokyo Disneyland lies not far from here. I couldn't take a picture because another road was blocking the view. (I bet it was deliberate :P)

As we moved towards Tokyo city, the paddy fields changed to factories, then you see small towns and cities. Somewhere along the journey, we got into a slight jam along the expressway. Expected. It was the evening peak period and everyone was going home. The sky was getting darker, so I stopped taking photos. Finally, Tokyo Tower came into view in the distance, and we cruised into Roppongi.

I saw the building and structure on top of which Sakura stood when she faced her challenge from Yue. Cool, I thought. We got into another slight jam, but other than that traffic was generally smooth and found we ourselves on the West side of Shinjuku station around 6.45pm.

I exchanged my receipt for my luggage, stood on the spot for a moment to watch the bus leave, and stared at the vast compound highlighted by the huge Odakyu and Keio department stores. The lights were already on, and Shinjuku was one bustling city full of neon lights at night. To my right, I could vaguely make out that huge Epson sign I kept seeing in photographs.

I realised that finding that small hotel of ours was quite difficult. Correction. Make that very difficult. Mom was already panicking at the sight of the buildings and lights. I told her to give me my map. It was time to put that Japanese to good use.

Nippon e ittekimasu!!

2006-05-05T00:00:00.000+08:00

To tell you the truth, I wasn't too happy when Mom told me to get ready and eat some breakfast before Pa fetched us to the airport. I wasn't even really looking forward to the trip anymore. The reason behind that was that my researching on my report was not finished, and I hate leaving things unfinished. Obviously I'm going on the trip now, whether I liked it or not. I bundled up Miyabi (my lappy), put it into my laptop bag with all the necessary cables (I brought four: cables for LAN, my mp3, my camera, and Pa's camera - to be used by Mom) I threw away my half-finished can of Nescafe, brushed my teeth and washed my face, then put on my turtleneck and Scottish skirt, feeling fat and bloated. I got my accessories on, and looked into the mirror realising that I had earned some serious dark circles after not sleeping for more than 24 hours (I woke up at 5am the day before wth). I tried my best to hide them with makeup (Yay for makeup!! Banzai banzai!! :D). No eyeliners that day. They would just make me look like a panda.

I realised that both Mom and Pa were waiting for me, so I finished half of my bread (wasn't too hungry anyway. I still felt like throwing up then), checked that I've got everything, locked my luggage. I tugged on my boots, and off we went. (Note: if you think that Singapore is too warm to wear boots, don't miss the chance to wear them in Japan. Especially in Spring, Autumn or Winter. No one would stare because everyone else's wearing boots too.)

I love my new luggage bag. I got it at an absurdly cheap price at People's Park; it's a lovely light purple, 4-wheel trolley, and goes wherever I go. Certainly beats Mom's ancient Samsonite; she's got to lift the thing off the ground and pull. That reminded me of my trip to China last year with Huijia. I had borrowed Mom's Samsonite then, and when I lugged it through the Shanghai train station, I die-ded. I predicted with almost absolute certainty that Mom was going to die like I did when she drags that piece of luggage down Shinjuku. She's smaller than me in size and height. I had wished her good luck actually. XD

So we were dragging our luggage to the waiting area in our void deck while Pa got the car, and sure enough, Mom was tired already. Oh well. I made my offer again, to help her drag her luggage and she could help me drag mine. She said it was ok, so I just continued ahead. It was a short distance anyway. As we waited for Pa to arrive with the car, I fumbled with the trench coat in my hand and realised that I had brought a little too much hand carry. Mom sighed and offered to stuff my coat in her big bag, much to my relief. Then Pa came with the car, loaded our luggages and sped us off to Changi in 20 minutes. There was little traffic on the roads, as it was still early. I took the opportunity to nap a little.

Sometimes Pa's speeding is great, when you're in a hurry. But when you need some sleep, his speeding isn't too much of help. We were at the entrance of Changi Airport Terminal 1 in no time. Mom told Pa not to bother to park the car and see us off. We could settle it ourselves. I thanked Pa again (thinking all the time about his generous sponsorship for me to go see Gazette hehehehe) and told him that we would see him in 4 days' time. I got a luggage trolley for us, loaded the luggage bags, and waved bye as Pa sped off.

As I pushed our trolley into the terminal with Mom walking beside me, it suddenly hit me that wearing boots in Singapore certainly wasn't too practical. People kept staring. I felt exceptionally fat and ugly that morning because I lacked sleep, and I realised that wearing short Scottish skirts wasn't really a good choice too because the sling bag Aunt Karen got me for my 21st birthday was stuck against my butt and was threatening to lift the skirt off my backside. >>;

I was too tired to bother who was looking then, so I got the trolley to our check-in counter, and whipped out my camera.

It was JL712. To Narita, Tokyo.

I'm sorry that I looked horrible. I wasn't in the mood to dress up properly. Not many people were at the counter because we were very early. Earliness has always been Mom's forte. It's a by-product of her paranoia that we would be late for events... but I think she wanted to go do some duty-free shopping at the departure area too, so she wanted to get us checked in as early as possible. There wasn't really a queue anyway, so after that picture was taken, we got our turn.

Once we got our boarding passes, Mom whisked us both for check-in. I felt horrible. I've got my lovely Billabong sling stuck to my butt, and my laptop bag slung over my right shoulder. I tried hard not to knock into the shelves as Mom looked at her Chanel lipsticks; while trying to avoid the funny looks that the salesgirls were giving me. Then I remembered that I had to stock up on my Clinique, and where better place to stock up than duty-free at the airport. I got my stuff at the cheaper price than outside retail.

I was almost 7am, and Mom said that it should be about time that they opened the boarding room for sitting. If Mom says so, it has to be true. She worked as airport personnel before, and got firsthand experience on check-in and boarding procedures. If I remembered correctly, she specialized in arrival procedures because she was just too damn efficient. That had got to be true. Mom's always efficient when it comes to airline work.

So we made our way to the boarding room... And no trip was complete for me now, without a picture on the travelator.

So many bags. Miyabi comes along because my report depended on it.

Our boarding room was all the way right at the end of one of the wings, so it took quite a while before we reached. I told Mom that I don't see the point of going in so early, so we sat outside, and I took out my handphone to check for messages. Pa told me to bring my handphone along because he thought that I could receive signals in Japan and that I could call him back at home, but I'm not a 3G customer for heaven's sake (though I wish to be one. :P) I brought it along because my ringtone makes a great alarm clock. What better thing to wake up to than the loud guitar riffs of Gazette. :P

I got a message from Agnes. Apparently she was up early. I had sent a desperate message earlier that day (like, 3am), saying that I didn't have time to look up all the materials for the report, and hoped that she could help me. This time, I messaged her the specific things I needed, then called Pa. Apparently, he was at home already, and told me that he had earlier parked the car and went up to the departure hall to look for us, but we checked in already. I looked at Mom, and said that he should have just listened to Mom and not bother to come see us off. :P And I finished my call telling him to come wait for us at the airport when we come back. XD

We sat outside the boarding room for about half an hour, and Mom thought that we should go in already. I lugged my bags, and put them through the mandatory security scan. As I walked through the metal detector, it beeped. -_-" I thought, Shit. I didn't carry bombs! No!! Apparently the female officer was quite suspicious about my boots, so she ran her portable detector through them. >>; I was clear (obviously...), so I collected my bags and joined the amused Mom at the other end of the room. I dropped my bags for a moment to take a photo...

It was raining...

The plane was small. I expected it, because I had already looked up the flight details and found out that the plane was going to be a 767. But it was ok, it was only a 7-hour flight. We found a couple of seats in the boarding room, and sat down and stared into space. I observed that many of the passengers were Japanese, probably returning home after holidaying in Singapore to start work after Golden Week. I suddenly felt very intimidated, because not only my Japanese sucks, I got the sudden realization too that I was going to make full use of whatever little command of the language I have when I reached Japan. Great, I thought. I should have taken Japanese Level 2. Mom got curious about the issue on concerts in Japan, and I had her take out my concert tickets because I didn't really have a good look at them when I got the envelop from Emi-san. I explained the words on the tickets to her, again feeling excited that I was going to see Gazette.

The flight in-charge began the call, in Japanese, for passengers who were in Business Class, Frequent Flyers' etc. Mom leaned over and asked, "Do you understand what she's saying?" I thought, "Shit. No." But I could make out a few words here and there, so I answered, "A little. I think." The flight in-charge then repeated the message in English. I could understand that one perfectly. :P

We were seated at the wing, so our turn was last. It didn't really matter. I sent Agnes a final message and off my handphone, slipping it into my sling bag. I got up, laptop bag in hand, and walked down the aerobridge with Mom listening to her tell her usual story about how exciting it was to wait at the bridge for the plane to come in so close that you could actually see the pilots' faces. I walked pass the flight in-charged, and she greeted with a Ohayou Gozaimasu. Omatase shimashita, yokoso irrashaimase! Apparently everyone on the flight was Japanese. >>; I nodded in reply, and queued to get on the plane.

When I found my seat, I was disappointed to find it so small. I'm already a small sized person, but that seat was really small. >< I stuffed my bags in front of my seat, feeling frustrated that I wouldn't have much leg space in front of me throughout the flight. But I wasn't going to place my bags overhead. I would have problems retrieving them when we arrived (yes I'm vertically challenged).

I settled into my seat and waited for take-off. We left on time. Mom said that it would be a good record for JAL. I believed her again. As the plane tipped and left the ground, Mom waved out of the window and said happily, "Bye!!" while I sank deeper into my seat, hoping that I could grab some sleep before we touch down.

I suddenly felt happy again. I'm finally going to Japan after so many years of saying that I would go. And I'm going to my favourite places, and see one of my favourite bands. What more could I want? :)

Introduction

2006-05-04T00:01:00.000+08:00

I've been to Japan once. Exactly 15 years ago when I was in Primary 1. I cannot remember what happened during that trip exactly, because I was too young and didn't really care whether I was visiting Japan, USA or the South Pole. But I do have some memory of the trip... in fragments. Like Mom dressed me in red tights, had me put on a navy blue winter coat from MotherCare, and the whole family walked down a park near our hotel in Hiroshima where I could see the leaves on the trees were red because it was autumn. Or Pa had too much sushi and got to rush to the toilet the whole night. Or that I sat in front of a Mickey Mouse show in Tokyo Disney Land, eating chips and couldn't understand what Mickey was singing because it was all in Japanese. I could remember vaguely too that I thought the food sucked, and they gave me a raw egg for breakfast.

Fifteen years later, I found myself back in the Land of the Rising Sun. Just for 4 days, towards the end of spring. I no longer think that the food sucks. I now understand some Japanese, and why people eat raw eggs for breakfast. And while my parents dragged me along to Japan 15 years ago, I'm now dragging Mom along (Pa stayed behind to look after Brian). Our destination: Tokyo.

I wouldn't say that this trip to Japan was carefully planned. In fact, everything was foggy until April this year. Both Mom and I went for different purposes. She went because she wanted to see Fuji-san (we did go the first time, but couldn't go up the mountain because it was snowing). I went because I wanted to see Gazette. I had been harbouring thoughts about going to Japan since December last year, when the band released news about playing a live at the Nippon Budokan. If you're a Japanese music fan, you would know that playing at Nippon Budokan is one important milestone in an artiste's career. It's a sign that you're getting popular, and you're going to be big. And that's big news for an indies band like Gazette. I discovered them slightly over a year ago when they were still relative unknowns, and just look at them now. Of course I wanted to go. They are the first Jrock band I like. And to sit inside the Budokan? Omg yes please! That's the place where the Beatles played their first live in Japan!

Now I wouldn't go into details about my newfound obsession with the Japanese culture. It's not really newfound anyway. I caught the J-bug towards the end of its days here in Singapore (oh yeah Korean craze was in!), when I picked up a copy of the CardCaptor Sakura manga at a store near my place. That was like, 4 years ago! So let's fast forward to 2006, when I discovered the visual kei culture in Japan and started buying black eyeliners. >>;

Right right, I digress. As I was saying the trip wasn't too well planned. And it was true. I kept telling Mom that I wanted to go Japan in mid-2006 to catch a great live band, but she wasn't too sure about it. In March this year, I got some private funding for school... slightly over a thousand. I made up my mind then that I'm making this trip to see Gazette. So I got in touch with Couz Simon, who was so kind as to offered his help years ago when I expressed interest in going Japan but never did (I was terribly poor then). He's now married to a Japanese girl, and all the better because I needed tickets for the live, and I needed them fast too because I've heard of the ridiculous privileges the fanclubs get (like, booking your tickets half a year early!). So after a couple of months of correspondence, Emi-san (Couz Simon's wife) mailed and told me about Ticket Pia, the Japanese version of Sistic. I thought, Ok. I'm going to get the tickets no matter what, even if I'm sitting at the back of the concert hall (ironically, I did...) I survived Ticket Pia's registration and booking, and got seats at the end of the hall. But what could I do? I'm not fanclub member (and don't intend to be one), so I kind of expected back row seats. What I didn't expect was that Gazette actually managed to sell-out the Budokan. That place is rather huge, and I thought their company would play tricks and open only half the Budokan for sitting, like they did with their first big one-man band called Miyavi.

Once I had booked my live tickets I told Mom that I had done what she thought was impossible (I remembered the date: April 2!). And the wheels started moving. Mom said that our original plan of joining a local tour would be too restricted for my concert plans, so she suggested we do a short free-and-easy of about 5 days. I had wanted a longer period, but she was paranoid and thought that it would be troublesome for her because this was the first time she would be going overseas with me alone (no Pa!) and she didn't really believe that I would be able to handle the trip properly on my own (read: I would cause trouble for her). *rolls eyes* It didn't really make much of a difference for me anyway. I just wanted to see Gazette, and go Harajuku.

So we booked our air tickets within the same day. It didn't help that Gazette placed their big live at the end of the Japanese Golden Week, when everyone's free (marketing strategy, I understand). It's tough to get air tickets leaving Singapore during the end of Golden Week, because everyone's flying home too after their holidays to start work on time the following week. We did manage to secure the last 2 seats with JAL, out of Singapore on the morning of 5th May - the morning right after my last exam paper (I'd love ANA, but geez, all full). Next come the accommodations. Huitin-san at JTB Singapore had been a great help. She found some cheap accommodations for us. We were recommended the Shinjuku Sunlite in, well, of course, Shinjuku. Apparently it's a good place to stay because you can go anywhere from Shinjuku (which is true, I found that out later).

Pa was kind enough to give us a generous sponsorship when we presented him with the bill and told him that we were, in fact, still quite poor. Mom's got some networking within the industry too, so she got us our JAL tickets at a cheaper price. And she was in-charge of getting the air-tickets and accomodations settled while I waited for Emi-san to send me my tickets for the live. As I waited, I settled in to cram for my exams, and in the little free time I had I looked up information and pictures of the places that I had planned to go. I had come to realise that Japan is not a small place, and pictures of the cities would help a lot in addition to a map. They help you prepare yourself for the potentially nasty shock you might get when you come out of the train station and a maze of closely spaced buildings and streets greets you.

Then it was exam period where everyone got really stressed. Me included, of course. Let's not talk about that one here. I got Mom to go down to Kinokuniya to get me a map of Tokyo. I figured that we would seriously need one when we get there.

My Japan trip started not on the 5th of May itself, but the day before. Directly after my last paper, I rushed off to Auntie Violet's to get my hair cut and brushed up nicely so at least I wouldn't look horrible when I walk amongst the fashion-savvy at Harajuku. Then it's a rush back home to pack, before I started work on my report.

YES. The report. It was after the exams, and we had to write one more report. This wasn't any ordinary report. It was more like a personal project. Lots of researching and typing. I had already sent a mail to the Prof in-charge regarding my trip and the deadline (which fell when I was still in Japan). He replied that he couldn't extend, and I would have to send him a soft copy. Oh well. Bad luck. I figured that I wouldn't be able to finish the entire thing if I didn't start before I leave Singapore, so I worked the night away while everyone slept. I found as much information as I could as I gulped Nescafe, feeling sicker and sicker until I thought I was going to throw up due to my lack of sleep. I was cursing at the Prof all night long. Who wouldn't?! I was deprived of sleep for heaven's sake!

Then I made a resolution. I've put in so much effort to make this trip to Japan. And to see one of my favourite bands too. I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm not going to let anything ruin my vacation. NOT EVEN THE REPORT.

And before I knew it, it was 5am, and Mom's awake. She told me to get dressed. We're going to Japan.

Welcome!

2006-05-04T00:00:00.001+08:00

ようこそ　いらっしゃいませ! Youkoso irasshaimase!

That's Japanese for Welcome. This travel blog would be a record of the sights and sounds that I have experienced throughout my trips abroad.

Please pardon the long entries and barrage of photos. I have also included a list of online resources that I have found useful during my research on the places that I visited, so feel free to move around using the navigation bar on the left.

Sino-Singapore Undergraduate Exchange Programme, China leg Part 2: Tianjin, Suzhou and Shanghai

2005-05-23T00:00:00.000+08:00

After staying in Beijing for one week, we started on this nomadic pattern of moving from place to place. :P First off, we visited Tianjin, where Huijia and Ting Ying's buddies, Miaomiao and Xiaojing respectively, stays. (In case you're wondering why my buddy haven't appeared, she's in Shanghai, and that's our last stop in our itinery.) We reached Tianjin around late afternoon, so they brought us shopping at the Cultural Street:

The Tianjin Cultural Street, famous with tourists for their oriental souvenirs and stuff.

They had this tea-pouring demo and some zither-playing as well... so those of us who were lucky enough to come across them before they finished their act got some pictures taken.

Miaomiao, Huijia, Xiaojing, Ting Ying, Xiaoyun and me.

Those are prawns called pi4 pi4 xia1. Huijia commented they looked like bugs, but I tried one and it was pretty hard to peel... Tasted like prawn though :P

The Tianjin buddies brought us shopping after dinner. It's like Bugis! Woo~!

Our stay in Tianjin was very, very short. We visited Nankai University the next day (Miaomiao and Xiaojing study there), had lunch, then rushed back to Beijing to travel to Shanghai by train:

At Nankai. The wall shows ex-Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai and the words he wrote: "Wo shi ai nan kai de" ("I love Nankai")

First class train cabin! 4 in a cabin, and even though it's first class it's still quite a squeeze. The bottom beds cost slightly more than the top ones because you don't have to climb, and the table's next to you!! Muahahaha...

I got the bottom bed because Huijia said she wanted the top. ^^ They served dinner on the train, but it wasn't a lot. And they have toilets, but no shower. Oh well... Btw, when we arrived in Shanghai the next day, I got a serious sore throat. ;_;

That's our train. Picture taken in Shanghai train station. It was still a long walk from the train station to our bus, and I couldn't drag my luggage that far but thanks to those guys... ^^

We arrived in Shanghai early in the morning... and the hotel didn't have enough rooms for us to check-in yet. Official check-in time's at 12 or something... so we didn't get to shower and once we finished our breakfast, they whisked us off to start on our day tour, starting at the Oriental Pearl tower -_-;; I wasn't in a very good mood then, because one, I got this horrible sore throat that was just annoying me to death; two, I couldn't eat much breakfast because my throat hurts when I swallow; three, I didn't get to shower and four, I was wearing my glasses and I generally just felt uncomfortable. Ugh.

First stop's at Oriental Pearl tower (Dong fang ming zhu). It felt different when you're looking at it from pictures, and when you're standing under it. I looked up at the thing and went "Whoa". But I still prefer the Eiffel :P

Those words say: Dong fang ming zhu. Proof that I went. :D

We went to the first floor at 263m. You get a 360 degree view of the Bund and the rest of Shanghai.

When we took the lift up they had elevator operators who would give an introduction on that floor you're going to, and they would finish their speech exactly at the time when the lift stops and the door opens. Someone commented that they were like robots... XD

Next off we had lunch at this floating restaurant at the other side of the Bund... and they had this imperial stage setting so the entire Gu Gong (Forbidden City) family went up for a photo (don't ask me to explain the Gu Gong family here, it's kinda complicated but it provides a source of entertainment when we're bored XD):

From left: Lee Lim as Xiaolizi, Celest as the visiting Arabic princess, Xinming as Xiaosuzi, me as Huijia's maidservant, Huijia as Gege, Ting Ying as Gege, Xiaoyun as Gugong HR department manager (XD), Zihan as Xiaohanzi, Yang Sheng as Eunuch Yang, Kok Kuan as the official castrator (XD... He doubles up as Comrade Chen as well XD), and Fonzarelli as Xiaofonzzi. XDDDD *laughs non-stop*

After lunch, we were brought to the famous Nanking Road for some shopping (but you can't exactly shop in peace when you are given a certain time limit...), and then we walked down to the Bund (Wai tan):

Nanking Road in the afternoon.

The Bund, also known as Shanghai Tan. *plays Shanghai Tan theme* The background looks fake but I swear that it's real!!!

Me and Shiqi at the Bund. Shiqi's Singaporean buddy is Zhiwei, and we shared the same table previously when they were in Singapore so I knew her since then.

We visited Fudan University the next day. We went one day early, because the following day they celebrated their centenary. ^^ After Fudan, we went to the museum in Shanghai. (Was it the history museum? Uh... I forgot... ><):

Flowers in full bloom at Fudan.

Us before the photo-taking session.

Jessie is Joolin's Shanghainese buddy, but he was always MIA when they came to Singapore (due to attachment at SPH) so I helped entertain her.

Me, Weiliang and Huijia. Bio students at the museum. ^^

We visited the Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) at their new Songjiang campus the following day. It was raining. ><:

My buddy Huaying! Isn't she tall?! *hides* Check out the backdrop! It's the new SISU campus at Songjiang! It looked like a hotel... >>;;

The weather got better after we stopped at SISU... and we visited the famous Cheng Huang Temple. Huaying couldn't come with us because she had some admin stuff to clear in school:

Can't find those famous Xiao long bao... *sobs*

Lovely architecture... After a while I decided to brave the wind and ditch my wind-breaker because I kept putting it on when the wind blew, and taking it off when the wind stopped blowing. -_-"

We went to a couple of gardens which used to be residences of people... and I can't remember their names because they got repetitive after a while... Yang Sheng said he wanted to build something like this so that he can leech tourists' money when they visit. Not a bad idea... XD

It's free-and-easy after Cheng Huang Temple so we went back to Nanking Road! (visited a couple of bookstores along the way):

Nanking Road at night. Check it out yo! They have Ajisen too! XD

The Bund at night. I swear that it was quite a sight if you see the actual place. It wasn't dark at all!!! ><

We got a day trip to Suzhou towards the end of our stay in China:

Trying to blend into those flowers...

We visited the Suzhou industrial park, which is, of course, a Sino-Singapore collaboration. Can you spot me and Huijia amongst the words?

Next, we're off to a silk factory! Silkworms, at your service...

We had to cover quite a number of places in Suzhou... so we stayed at each place for a short time only. After that silk factory, we visited a nearby residence with its magnificent garden. I remembered the name of this one, it's called the Lingering Gardens, or Liu Yuan.

Plants are high in fibre... So eat up!

Next up, Tiger Hill! (no relation to Tiger Balm Gardens here in Singapore... >>;;) That tower on top of the hill is leaning... and it is leaning more than Pisa in Italy!

We reached the tower after a short trek up (the hill isn't that high, anyway). The tower had seven stories, so we attempted to make a live replica... but the 7th person went missing... >>;;

Flowers at Tiger Hill...

After a day at Suzhou, we returned to Shanghai for dinner... Then it was back to Nanking Road because the day before, Huijia bought a pair of slippers there and the salesgirl gave her 2 right slippers!! XDDD We had to go back to exchange for the correct side, but when we went back, they didn't have the size anymore... That meant that the salesgirl gave someone else 2 left slippers and that person didn't even checked!! XDDDD Huijia got her money back anyway...

The next day was free-and-easy so Huijia and I went shopping together at Nanking Road, then at Huai Hai Lu and Xiang Yang Shi Chang. I got most of my loot back on that day... and we met up with Huaying and other Shanghainese buddies for dinner. (no pictures because we were busy shopping :P) Our stay in Shanghai seemed to pass really quickly, and before we know it, we were on our way back home:

Us at Pudong Airport.

So that concludes my trip to China. It seemed like I've seen more things than an average tourist, because we visited their government offices like their Ministry of Education, as well as the various Universities... Oh heck, I think I'm starting to write an essay... Okok...

Seriously, I want to go back for more shopping. XD Maybe I'll try to drag Mom to go or something... :P

Sino-Singapore Undergraduate Exchange Programme, China leg Part 1: Beijing

2005-05-16T00:00:00.000+08:00

I remembered that we took off on 16th May, very early in the morning. *yawns* I remembered that I packed my bags only the day before, and got scolded by Pa for being last minute. -_-" Anywayz... Being last minute has it's own disadvantage: I forgot to bring my spaghetti top for my Peranakan costume (see pictures below)!! I was lucky that most of the girls brought spaghetti tops... and Victoria was kind enough to lend me hers to wear for the welcome dinner.

The flight to Beijing was disturbed by lots of turbulence. -_-" My drink almost got knocked over because the plane was rocking so hard. Singapore Airlines have improved their inflight entertainment ever since I last took the carrier (that'll be in 1999, UK trip with the secondary school gals!!). I get to listen to the latest albums by Glay(!) and other artistes... but I didn't watch any movies *slaps self* Guess I wasn't in my enthusiastic mode. 6 hours was short... I slept a little, and we arrived in Beijing late in the afternoon on the same day. It was raining. Heavily. -_-" And we took 1 hour (!) to clear the goddamn customs... *curses* By the time we took the bus to our hotel (and we got caught in rush hour jam as well...) it's almost time for dinner. We settled on our room arrangements (I get to bunk with my senior, Huijia!! *whoops with joy*) we started on this super long journey to Wahaha restaurant for our first dinner in Beijing. Yep. It's called Wahaha. Wahahahaha....! *lame*

Dinner at Wahaha restaurant: Huijia, me, Ting Ying and Xiaoyun. Xiaoyun's younger sis has the same name as me... Wahahaha... *lame*

I think I shouldn't talk too much now. :P Okie. So we made our first official visit to Peking University the next day. Dress was formal:

Huijia, me and Ting Ying at Peking University. Note: Ting Ying is Singaporean. I heard from lots of my friends that she looks PRC. Oh well. I look PRC too yah. :P

Lovely flower bed at the main gate of Bei Da.

That's me at the main gate of Peking University, with Spencer minding his own business in the background.

We had a welcome dinner on our first full day in Beijing. Each school had to come up with some item to perform to the Chinese buddies, so we came up with this ethnic fashion show. Much thanks to Vic for loaning me that spag. ^^;;

Official visit to Tsinghua University:

They have the same motto as us!! Well, as far as the first line's concerned, anyway. :P From left: Huijia, Ting Ying, me and Kok Kuan aka Comrade Chen. XD

Me trying to blend into the Tsinghua crowd outside their library.

They had this lovely garden with a lake at Tsinghua! You can film period dramas here, you know! Ok... I'm just kiddin'. But it's really nice, isn't it? *sits under a tree and writes a poem*

We went to Beijing Foreign Studies University as well:

They have roses in their campus! And they are in full bloom!! *in awe*

The Japanese language department at BFSU.

Watashi wa benkyou o suru... Yah right...:P

Then we visited Chongwen Primary School! It's a boarding school for kids, but man, those facilities! o.O

Isn't she pretty?! Kawaii~!! ^o^

Primary students in the Science lab... not! XD

The Primary school has a dance studio, and even personal music rooms for the kids! You'll never know when your ice-skating training would come in handy... *poses* XD

One of the Chinese buddies bought us for some local delicacies and shopping at night. Check out this extreme gourmet:

Ma la guo with weird stuff added like pigs' blood (ok, that's fine), cow's throat (?!), thick pieces of kelp and I-don't-wanna-know-what-else.

Shopping at the famous Wang Fu Jing.

Other stuff we tried:

Dumpling lunch!! I stuffed everything into my mouth, as expected. Hoshi = Dumpling fan ^^

The famous food street at Wang Fu Jing. They sell some extreme snacks there, like...

Starfish and centipedes... -_-"

Crickets, beetles, and silkworm cocoons! I tried the cocoons. They looked like giant roach eggs but tasted like cuttlefish. >< They had goats' testicles too (picture not shown because I couldn't find that stall selling those um, balls. XD)

Since we were on an official visit to Beijing, going to this place is a must:

A little touch of home: the Singapore Embassy in Beijing!

We visited lots of universities in Beijing, and the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (Bei you) was our last stop as far as universities were concerned. We got a very warm welcome from the students there... they even closed their library early the day before to spruce up the place for our visit, much to our surprise. *touched*:

Me and Mr. Mao at Bei you. Tsk, should have posed like him... :P

Then we were brought over to the National Science and Technology Museum... where Huijia and I had a field day looking at all the stuff on display (and doing silly poses with them XD):

Omg, check out our wonderful discovery! --> Us trying to copy Watson (Huijia) and Crick (me), the discoverers of DNA.

My good friend the mRNA... -_-" (don't degrade now... >>;;)

Those spirals create an optical illusion so that the bridge would appear tilted when you walk on it. I was walking sideways already... ><

Our trip included dinner at the Lao Bei Jing Zha Jiang Mian Restaurant, famous for, of course, their zha jiang mian. Their interior decor's right out of those period dramas... Xiao er! Na xie xiao cai lai!! *puts sword on table* XD:

The xiao er mixing the topping for the zha jiang mian. I wonder if it's normal for them to break those little dishes, because they broke quite a lot... ><;;

There! I haven't mixed the zha jiang in... but this is the original zha jiang mian from Beijing!

The weekend arrived, rather quickly. Weekends were reserved for tours... as in, the tourist type of tours. :P Time to act touristy and start taking pictures like there's no tomorrow! XD We went to the Forbidden City on our first Saturday there... and the place was overflowing with people!! o.O They dropped us off at the Tiananmen Square and we had to walk over, but this gave us lots of chances to take photos ^^:

Us at Qianmen. It was rather cold that morning because it rained the previous night. Oh crap. The fog... >>;;

You don't have to guess what this place is... :P But the fog! Argh. This is the closest you can get to Tiananmen if you really wanted to take the entire building with those words.

This is Wu Men... I supposed it's part of the Forbidden City already. We gotta wait here because the tour guides had to buy tickets for us to enter. Check out the weekend crowd!! (I heard that Wu Men is the place where they used to chop off people's hands or something... >>;;)

This is the main attraction of the Forbidden City, and you can see it once you stepped across the main gate. Unfortunately, there was the fog, and the huge crowd, and adding on top of this they had renovation work going on!! @$%^%$#!!! Result: Not-too-magnificent backdrop.

We requested to go to the Summer Palace after we cleared the Forbidden City (2 hours to walk from one end to the other!!) because Marco Polo bridge was under renovation. I was glad I went because that place was so pretty! But I still wonder why the Empress Dowager would use military funds to build this place... Hmm... But I couldn't find that marble boat though *sob*:

The garden that greets you when you just enter Yi he yuan.

The compound's so big! I wonder if it's possible that since those servants travel on foot in the compound, they would take hours to arrive at those back rooms where they work... ><;;

Tee hee...! Ten bucks for the costume and unlimited photos on your own digicam! Piisu~!

"Zha!"
(Note 1: I was desperately trying to hide my feet because I was wearing my Nike shoes XD Note 2: Yep. That headdress was sure heavy. -_-")

We went to the Great Wall the next day. Everyone on the bus was snoozing when we arrived... It was a rather long trip into the mountains, you see :P

Bu dao Chang Cheng fei hao han! So I'm a hao han yes! XD Big wind that day, as you can see...

The amazing wall that stretches and stretches as if to infinity. Check out the weekend crowd... >>;;

Before I went to walk the wall, I always thought that walking would be a piece of cake. How wrong I was... After we cleared the first part (which wasn't very high) I was already out of breath. I think I'm getting old. *wheeze*

Whoosh! That wind almost blew Huijia and I away you know! ><

2 hours at the Great Wall was shorter than I had expected. We didn't walk very far. ;_; Then we went to this village where they hosted us for lunch and we get to explore the place:

The village is meant for tourists to visit and stay in, so it was pretty developed, so as to speak...

Corn! I swear that I got cornier after taking this picture... XD

Man's best friend in the village. Boy was he fat!! And big!! When he stood up and walked around everyone just siam. :P

The village kids. Kawaii ne! Check out that typical xiao di di hair on that little boy! :D

We were really busy on our last day in Beijing. After visiting the Great Wall and the village in the day, we went for Peking opera after dinner:

Peking Opera at the Yiyuan Theatre, Jianguomen Hotel. Lots of tourists went... and that included those French, English, American tourists...

I think we were kinda inspired by the show... *corny* (Ting Ying was supposed to kill me by poking me at the back, I think...)