blog/enigma
I spent the whole day mooching around, staring at the computer, randomly trying to play the piece Walter was playing, waiting for attendance.
I corresponded with qf with emails even though I know he's online. I was being rather mean, too. Somehow.
Started thinking about a lot of things. Since a long time ago.
I thought about how I was a nobody in sec 1. A horrible little twit with too much ego and too little knowledge of how things work. A little ugly boy with too much honesty and too much brashness. Too little tolerance and too much self-righteousness.
And I thought about how I changed.
I met friends. I befriended friends, severed ties with them, and became cold acquaintances. Sometimes we warmed up. Sometimes we just can't be bothered.
Thought about too many lies. Lies I told my parents, my friends, myself.
Thought about friends who weren't really friends. Thought about how selfish relationships can be. Thought about happy times - and how those times make me feel utterly miserable now.
Thought I was the problem. Thought I wasn't.
Thought that I'm really lucky. And I'm really not.
Thought I had the respect I wanted. Thought that I could lost everything at once. And thought that I didn't really want all that respect, after all.
Thought about my seniors.
Remembered how I was mean to them, and they were mean to me. Remembered Luther told me to wait for my year. I never did.
I apologized to some of them. Others I never did. But most I hate all the same, even the ones I apologized to.
Thought about Edwin. I don't really know him. He deserves all my respect. But somehow I don't give him any. I don't hate him.
Thought about Jie Xuan. Ups and downs. I won't forget what he did, even if he does. Or did.
Thought about Qi Fan. Or Qifannn. I don't know what to call him. He was my closest friend, in a way. It was just that I wasn't his.
Thought about my more ordinary friends. I like them.
Thought about exco. They deserve a better leader than me. They are wonderful people. Cooperative. Non-complaining. Smart, funny. Great company.
Thought about Melissa Lai. She's hardworking. And efficient. And sincere.
Thought about the person. Wonders who he is. And what I'll do when I finally know.
Thought about Liang Jun. And feels sorry for him, and myself. I shouldn't expect him to be a friend who cares when I say, "I'm okay la" too quickly.
Thought about what I've done. Thought about what I'm doing, and not doing.
And didn't want to think anymore.
signed, jiasheng
Since I've owed the Japan trip post for a long long time, and even though I'm supposed to study for my physics test next week, I'm just too lazy and I shall post all the 505 pictures I have.
Er. No. I won't.
Anyway, so I was pretty hyped up about the trip, and on the day I left I took a screwed up Chinese test because I didn't understand what I was writing and straight after that, took a chemistry test (which Mr. Kong said he'll be especially lenient with me, which he did, A1 yay!) then went home to pack.
Five minutes before I left the house, half my luggage was still strewn all over the house.
Anyway it was a rainy night and my mum and I took a taxi there. There was a jam and I used the time to reply Shimin about the keys and blahblahblah. Still pretty worried about the band.
Soon reached T3! First time I've been there - I was expecting some real cool skyline ceiling technology thingies after being deceived by all the advertisements on Time but just found random metal plates there.
Flight info, with our flight no. SQ638
The infamous metal plates
One of the many many many jiexuan-qifannn photos to come
Roommates being bored waiting for our flight
Some other people from the trip - (from right) Chen Fang, Alvin, Edward (If I'm not wrong la)
By the way, thanks for all the smses that you guys sent me before I left. Not so much thanks for people asking me about last minute stuff xP
Huiyao and I were talking crap while we were waiting for the plane. So we randomly sang "The hills are alive" when we didn't know what to say.
Anyway, was super bored when we were on the plane waiting for it to take off. I gave up trying to learn new Japanese words on the screen:
This was the screen on the flight we took back home, because I didn't have my camera when we were flying to Japan
And I sorta fell into an uneasy sleep when we took off. Had gastrics in the middle of the night, but just huddled beside Huiyao (whom I think is a seasoned traveler) and waited for it to go away.
Finally, we reached Narita Airport
People who evade the camera
And Bo Xiang, who doesn't. He is the most photo-eager person I know, who does it being being camwhorish. I don't know how he does it
Told you so
Yep, Narita International Airport
Loading our stuff on the bus, to our hotel
RANDOM JAPAN SCENERY
This is the Disneyland Resort, btw... Huiyao told me
Everyone was tired (actually for many of the days later, because the bus rides were so long and the days so tiring, the bus sorta became our sleeping place)
MORE random scenery
Ahem
Random Huiyao photo, who was my roommate and sat beside me most of the times on bus ride, leaving Bo Xiang quite lonely indeed
Jiexuan claims it's his restaurant
Some of the millions of vending machines in Japan
Aaaaaand finally we reached our hotel:
Called E-Hotel, please don't ask me why
Btw, it's the first day of the hotel's opening... so we're the first guests! ..who left a great impression, thanks to huiyao's handiwork. More about that later.
At the lobby, aka the camwhore area:
The counter, where every night I'll say "san byaku jyusan" (313, which is my room number) and they'll give me the card key
The cafe at the hotel, which caters our very boring breakfast of sandwiches and bananas and a drink
After we booked in, we (meaning the hwachong clique) went for our first meal in Japan, which was...
Ahem
I bought the juicy chicken meal, which was NOT available in Singapore! Yayness
Btw, I think MacDonald staff speak a universal language:
1) What do you want? (You point to the menu)
2) Upsize? (You say 'hai'(yes))
3) Your drink? (You point to menu again)
4) Eat in or out? (You choose)
Macs wasn't bad. Jiexuan said the coke taste different, but I'm no coke connoiseur. Fries are totally crunchier though.They don't droop when you lift them.
And after our meal, we discovered the first most amazing thing about Japanese people:
There's this bin in MacDonalds', and you're supposed to separate your plastic cup cover, straw, straw wrapping (which is made of paper), uneaten food, food wrappings, unfinished drink and ice into various categories. In simpler terms, you dissect your rubbish.
More vending machines
Vending machines selling cigarettes
Which are AMAZINGLY cheap. 300 yen is less than 5 SGD
Earthquake escape plan. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we didn't experience any.
Higashi-shinjuku station. (East Shinjuku station)
Heh-heh.
So after that we went to the East Shinjuku Station to take a train to Asakusa (浅草). The tickets are quite cool: it's this slip of paper, where you slot into the machine and take it from this thingy that pops the ticket out. Erm, hard to explain.
The ticket I was talking about. Btw, the ticket is later recycled to make... more tickets. How typical of Japanese.
Do you see these signs in Singapore? Nooooo.
A very simplified version of a train system (there's definitely more than one) in Japan. If you get one of the maps at the station, it looks like a multi-coloured spider web. Wait, I have a picture of one of those:
Scary, no?
Famous Japanese tunnels. I still remember ghost stories about them.
And the train arrives. Looks like the Singapore version actually.
Okay so on the train there are like priority seats and courtesy seats. It's like those seats at the corner of the MRT trains.. I don't have clear pictures of them. But as Singaporeans, what do we do?
We sit on them la. And yes, ahem.
The train system there is supposed to be REALLY crowded, but luckily for us it wasn't the peak hour. We still had to stand, though. (Some of us la)
So we reached Asakusa... And boy was it hot.
You see that yellow thing in the distance? Not the 3 yellow thing, but the weird irregular shape thingy. Turns out that it's a piece of golden shit (yes. yes. yes.) and it won some prize for creativity.
=.= Japanese.
And it's huge okay. Think it's about the size of the Esplanade Merlion.
Anyway, we reached the Lantern Place. No, it's not called that, but I forgot what it's called xP
Lemme check.
Sensoji Temple is the oldest temple in Tokyo It was founded in 628 and was restored after burned down by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and during World War II. This temple is dedicated to Kanzeonbosatsu (Buddhist goddess of mercy) and is also called Asakusa Kannon. A large and red lantern hung at kaminari-mon gate is well-known.
http://gojapan.about.com/od/asakusaareaattraction/p/sensojitemple.htm
The famed lantern.
Yay the hwachong boys (in red) have been to Tokyo! (Apparently it's one of those "must-go" tourist spots.)
Then we went to the shopping street behind the lantern, which is like Bugis Street, but much cleaner, cooler and infinitely more Japanese.
So anyway, I bought an ice-cream because it was still super hot. I deleted the picture of me licking it because it's super disgusting.
Shopping street
More.
Oh ya thanks Bo Xiang for lending me batteries when my camera went dead.
One of the shops with the money cat thingy.
Oh I must tell you that it's impossibly clean on the shopping streets - NO litter at all, for the size of a shopping district in Orchard Road. And the impossible thing is - there are no rubbish bins. It's super rare to find one la.
Later Don, the tourguide would tell us that Japanese people just kept their rubbish in their own bags...
Amazing no?
Anyway before I knew that Huiyao and I were looking for rubbish bins. So I asked one of the shopkeepers.
ME: (In very broken Japanese) Where is the rubbish bi-
SHOPKEEPER: Ah, give me that (politely snatches rubbish from me and throws it in the shop's bin)
I was utterly dumbfounded. Then I realized that maybe Japanese EAT their rubbish. It's a delicious source of food to them.
-terminates crap-
It was a long long while before we found a rubbish bin.
It looks like a shrine.
No comments.
Random pictures:
Someone said these are Gideons. Joking only la.
Ninjas!
We were deciding to buy the ugliest mask for Teezhuo, until our conscience stopped us.
Speaking of conscience, Huiyao bought cheapo ear-diggers for his section:
Waving them proudly.
Then we took a train to this shopping district, where we went to Kinokuniya (I finally learned the Kanji name), ABC mart, where it had a lot of cheap shoes, random places.
L. Siao made me memorize the names of the group when I was on the train.
There's this funny sign on the train:
It says, please do it at the beach.
Random pictures:
ABC mart.
Real complicated roads.
I think that's the Jap equivalent of "Last discount"
Kinokuniya, which is a whole building with like 6 floors. There were elevator girls who just repeated stuff over and over in that cute voice.
Creepy.
Girl: Which floor are you going to sir?
You: Erm... 4th.
Girl: Going to 4th floor! Please stand to the back to allow people to move in. Please take care not to touch the doors!
You: Erm...
Girl. 4th floor now!
Add in the cute Jap accent, and you'll get what I mean.
I think this is LV, with the theme "Hysteria Collection"
100 yen shop
A whole shop full of arcade vending machines
Dinner was at:
Don't ask me what the words mean - I think it's a name
You're supposed to put coins inside a vending machine, where it'll give you a coupon. You give the coupon to the staff inside and they'll bring you your food.
The food is okay la
Them ordering
The signs are really cute lor
I think Japan is the real city of lights. Though I've never been to Paris la
Skies darkening. Which means neon coming on
Say hello
Bo Xiang doing some weird face. I realize he has a talent for it.
Anyway I have a knack for bringing the HCI peeps into weird, secluded places.
There was this sleazy looking sign that says "Comic book shop at 3rd Level" so I was like saying "Hey, let's go up and see!"
The others were like "Noooo... it looks weird."
But anyway I dragged them up AND once we enter there were like big posters of busty manga characters. The book titles were all like "Lust", "Temptation", "I love my brother" or something.
We ran the hell out of there. Which was lol.
Wanxin, my classmate, told me to post pictures of sunset. I couldn't get good ones.
We walked back to the hotel, which was like a 30 minutes walk. WE passed through a shinto shrine:
Yeah when we got to the hotel Mr. Phua made me collect for him (for the train ticket which he paid for first).
Fell asleep after watching Olympics, with Japanese commentary.
***
Anyway, this is what I'll blog for now, because even to get this far (2nd day) it's with VERY IRRITATING computer breakdowns and stuff. So yes this is part I. Actually I think this is the most interesting day.
Erm okay. These few days have been eventful. Good seeing teachers again.
***
Every time I see "And I hate you." on people's blogs I'll think it's me. And I really think so.
And I shouldn't think like that anymore. Because I remind myself that I'll just do my part. If other people don't do theirs, I can't do anything.
***
Sorry guys for the long long lag in posting.
signed, jiasheng
