Japan 8 (281210)

Entrance of Takeshita-dori, Harajuku.

Last night, Sam came down with food poisoning after eating some raw yakitori at dinner. So today, he and mum stayed at the hotel. On the other hand, my uncle and his family, and my grandma and I caught the train to Harajuku.

My uncle and his family went to Kiddyland, while I wanted to stay and explore Takeshita-dori and Omotesando. My poor grandmother came with me because she was worried for my safety (on the other hand, I was worried for her safety lol).

So, walking through Takeshita-dori I looked at all the stalls and stuff. There were lots of jewelry stalls selling visual kei-inspired stuff. And Dir en grey t-shirts :D I bought a punk-lolita hoodie, complete with rabbit ears.

I had a look in the Bodyline shop too! But I wasn't allowed to take photos... The interior was really pretty though! Red velvet drapes everywhere...and chandeliers! And the shop assistants were so very polite and well-dressed. Lots of tourists though.

When we reached the end of the street, I was a little disappointed that I hadn't come away with much. However, I remembered that Laforet was on Omotesando, so I led my poor, slow grandmother through the herds of lolitas and cosplayers down the road to it.

It was like a dream to enter the shopping mall I'd wanted to go to since I was a little wee jrock fangirl. Of course, I headed straight for the basement levels (after all, I'd been looking at floor guides online for years) and went for a browse around h.Naoto, Black Peace Now, Alice and the Pirates, Angelic Pretty, Metamorphose and Putumayo.

Terribly blurry photos of the h.Naoto store (above) and BPN (below)

I guess it goes without saying that I couldn't actually afford any of the clothes. However I managed to purchase the necklace from Putumayo that I've been wanting all year.

We also went to Like an Edison, where I bought D's Akaki Hitsuji single. Actually, I've never seen so many visual kei CDs in one place before...so it took me a good forty minutes or so to decide on what to buy.

While I was there I also picked up a copy of Shoxx magazine (contains a poster of topless Saga (alicenine) splashing around in a pool of 'blood' *A*).

After my fantasy shopping spree, we met up with my uncle & co., and stopped by a SoftBank store on the way to the train station. They were advertising a new product of theirs, Disney phones. One of their TV ads starred a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Song Joong Ki.

We returned to Shinjuku, and browsed Bic Camera for a while. I bought Sam a couple of Fate Stay Night Nendoroid Petites (Claire and I took ages to decide on which boxes to purchase - we even shook the box to try to determine which figure was inside).

We had dinner at a restaurant called Tengu. There, we had various things - pizza, yakitori, yellowtail sashimi, and a first for me - horse meat sashimi.

Somewhat chewy, but otherwise rather nice. :3

All in all a good day, minus all the worrying about Sam. Mum and I stayed in his room that night, and watched Sungkyunkwan Scandal until 2am. Lol...

Japan 5 (201210 - 261210)

The view from our apartment balcony.

We caught a bus to Niseko around 9am.

There wasn't much to say about this week, seeing as I had no interest in skiing or snow in general. What I enjoyed most was probably the apartment we stayed in - a 4 bedroom penthouse suite several times the size of my house in Wellington.

One of the four bathrooms D:

Mine and Claire's room.

The 4th bedroom was a mirror image of this one.

(Part of) the master bedroom.

While the rest of the family went skiing or snowboarding, mum and I explored the souvenir shops and picked up a few local treats.

I didn't buy those cookies just because they're called Ciel...

Danpa :D

I also downloaded the Sungkyunkwan Scandal drama using the free wifi :D Claire watched it with us when she could, and thus began her quest to marry me off to Song Joong Ki. Alas, I don't think he goes better with anyone but Yoo Ah In...

During our time there, we seldom cooked our own food despite the presence of a kitchen. Most nights we ate at restaurants around the ski village, or pigged out on snacks from the combini.

To be honest, I didn't really like the atmosphere there - it was much too touristy. Nobody there was actually Japanese (everyone was Singaporean D:) and everything was twice the usual price because the foreigners didn't know any better.

I was super excited when we finally left for Tokyo.

Japan 3 (181210)

Today, we spent the afternoon at Sapporo Factory (while the shops were actually open).

Had lunch at a sushi train place - the sashimi was excellent. The snow crab was sweet and tender and omg I could eat it all day. Unfortunately, the rest of my family (as well as Uncle Simon and his family) are gastronomically challenged when it comes to seafood, so my aunty and I were really the only ones who seemed to enjoy ourselves.

There was an event being held at the Factory to celebrate the release of Pokemon Black & White - there was someone wandering around in a costume of the water-type starter, and he/she was getting tackled from all sides by heaps of little kids. It was a sad and amusing sight indeed.

We couldn't get a picture of the body due to the sea of kids.

They were also giving out these ridiculous hat things with the new Pokemon on them.

:D

We spent the majority of our time there looking at ski stuff. Even though everyone already had some. :/ I got a pair of boots to wear in the snow though - they're really ugly. I don't plan on wearing them after leaving Japan...

After dinner (I had cold soba and tempura :D), the kids got bored, so seeing as we weren't gonna leave for a long time, we headed out to the back of the shopping centre to play in the snow.

Singapore 6

Today, Peaches went under the knife (or scissors) to get surgery to remove her mouth. The decision was made by Claire, who thought that Potato looked cute because he has no mouth, therefore Peaches would also look cute if she removed her mouth.

Tonight, we're heading off to Japan. For the first week or so there will be no internet. Hopefully the second week will be better. 

Singapore 5

We went for another shopping adventure, this time with the whole family - my grandmother, aunty and uncle included. It was a mess, lol. 

We had dinner at the Crystal Jade La Mian & Xiao Long Bao restaurant in Takashimaya. The Xiao long bao was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. 

A picture of us, but not really the food...

After dinner we sent the tired people (Maxwell who hates shopping, and my grandmother who walks slow) with my aunty, who was heading home first. The rest of us went for dessert at the food court in Wisma Atria - mum and I had chendol, Sam had ice kachang and my uncle had tau suan. Claire just shared with everyone. :D

Claire and I have a go at Sam's ice kachang

I managed to nab myself a copy of the Togainu no Chi: True Blood manga too. :3

Singapore 4

Claire's dance academy held a concert to raise funds for a hospital in Cambodia. On the same day, my uncle arrived back from Phnom Penh and asked my mother to drive his car to pick him up from Changi airport. x_x With the help of Sam, Max and the GPS, she managed to do it though.

It was both cute and funny to watch all the little kids (and the older kids too) doing ballet and tap dance, as well as a SNSD dance. Claire's costume was really pretty, but we weren't allowed to take photos. :(

Here are some less-than-stunning photos taken before and after the performance:

Potato attended the show too, and even had his own seat (reserved by Claire). Also, my uncle with his trademark scowl.

The five of us after the performance, with Claire looking quite scary in her makeup.

Singapore

The house has twice as much stuff in it as last time lol.

So, over the last week, we've been lazing around at my uncle's place. We went shopping on the odd occasion, but since the kids don't have school (though they still do extracurricular tuition) we've had to stay home and entertain them. Mostly with Potato.

Here in Singapore, Potato was reunited with his family: Claire's Cupcake and Peaches, Max's Cotton, and my aunty's Vanilla.

Potato and Cotton at the front; Peaches behind Cotton; Cupcake is the medium-sized one and Vanilla is the giant. :D

My uncle's place has a pool in the back...or rather, they had wanted it to be a pool, but if they made it as big as they originally wanted to, they would bump into sewage pipes. So they kept the pool but made it narrow as heck. The final product is something like a moat, that only spans across one side of the house. And if you're not careful when the sliding door is open, you will trip and fall in. However, it's very nice to dip your feet in on a hot day.

I also got a hair cut - it's a bit more of a bob now. Claire is finally warming to the idea of me having short hair (after like 5 years haha).

Air travel adventures

At Wellington airport

My mother and I set off for Singapore on December 6th - only a couple of days after graduation. It was a mess - mum wanted to bring her heavy-ass Gucci handbag because she'd get told off by my uncle if she didn't use it (he bought it for her) but she complained that it was heavy. I told her who cares what he says - if you don't like carrying it because it's heavy, then don't carry it. She carried it, and complained the whole way. I told her so.

Our luggage was overweight by 8kg. We had to remove some frozen meat that mum (of course) wanted to bring. For such a practical person, she is so impractical at times.

Our flight to Auckland left around 9 or 10pm. There was a spare seat in our row, so Potato sat in it. :3

Taken during turbulence heheh...

Auckland airport was meh. Instead of waiting for the inter-terminal bus, mum decided it'd be faster to walk - it was indeed faster, but she had to carry her heavy handbag (which she'd filled with a large box of cherries, no less). When we got to the international terminal we had to wait about 2 hours for the flight. I helped her write a report for one of her student teachers that had to be sent before we flew out.

There wasn't much to do on the flight to Singapore. We sat between two rows of noisy Indians who kept kicking our chairs/reclining their seats. It made it very uncomfortable to do anything. Also, since the flight left at 1am, there wasn't much that I wanted to do beside sleep. Funny though, I went to the bathroom more than usual this time, and every time I went, there would be turbulence as soon as I locked the door. 

Turbulence + Airplane flush = Scary.

One good thing was that this flight had the nicest plane food I've ever had (aside from the soba, omuraisu and Loh Hei from the last trip). There was stir-fried duck with ginger plum sauce for dinner, and egg noodles with steamed fish and black bean sauce for breakfast. 

Again, there was a spare seat in between my mother and I, which was filled by Potato. He didn't wear a safety belt this time though - the little rebel.

We landed at Changi airport Terminal 3 and got lost for a bit while waiting for my aunty to pick us up. My brain didn't function well at 6.30am Singapore time...

Graduation

I'm not actually in this photo...kekeke...

So, it's been a while since I last updated. I'll deal with the backlog of overdue posts eventually... x_x;;

On December 4th, I graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmacy (yey!). My brother and grandmother had to fly to Singapore ahead of me, so they couldn't attend. Which was just as well because my grandmother would have fallen asleep as she tends to do. 

As usual, my dad drove us (my mother, myself, and my other grandmother) 10 hours south to good old' Otaghole. I slept most of the way (both there and back), since we drive up and down every year...

The day of the ceremony was rather hot. It was even more so for the graduands, having to wear our big ugly gowns all day. Unfortunately for me, I'd chosen to wear a black dress, which made it worse. We walked from the Hunter centre to the Town Hall for the procession - something that normally takes 15 minutes. However, they managed to drag it out for half an hour. Ah well - the girl in the monkey suit was adequate entertainment.

The ceremony itself was quite tedious and took the excitement out of graduation. :( Afterwards there were more photos and I got dragged home by my antisocial father and his antisocial mother (it runs in the family). 

All in all I was a little disappointed that my last day with my class was cut short by my family. But I should be used to it now, right?