MY APARTMENT AFTER 6 MTHS

Decided to do another filming of my apartment http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g254/yenlingmah/?action=view&current=P3150356.flvto show you all how it has changed to be "my home".. I must say I really enjoyed doing up this place to make me feel more at home... Before I buy something for my apartment, I will think whether its colour is compatible, whether it is useful, whether I should bring it back when i return to Singapore etc... Oh please pardon my videoing skills coz I have the habit to move it abruptly and turn the camera vertical when I really shouldn't! Hope you wouldn't get a headache from watching it! :P

GRADUATION CEREMONY

17th　March 2007
It was the first graduation ceremony that I’ve attended in Japan. I heard from others that it will be a teary affair, coz many students and even teachers will cry… Woke up a wee bit too late (well, it was a Saturday…) so I had to eat my breakfast in the taxi (that’s what I always do anyway!). Reached Hokuryo JHS rather early and was surprised to see Ms Hosoyama and 2 other 3rd Grade teachers dressed in Hakama. So pretty! Hakama is actually kimono with a wide pleated skirt covering the lower part of the body. It resembles the Korean traditional costume, Hanbok. http://www.clickasia.co.kr/digicart/products/shop/hanbok1.htm
Looks really good! I always thought that Hakamas are meant for men. Only today did I realise that there are Hakamas for women too and they are primarily worn at graduation ceremonies. http://www.maimu.co.jp/hakama/
I wore a pink turtleneck knit top, with a black jacket and pin-striped pants. The last time when I was in the gymnasium, I was freezing cold!!!. I was expecting the gymnasium to be awfully cold so I chose to wear a knit and pants. During my very first opening ceremony of the summer semester, I wore black dress shoes to school & changed into a pair of white　loafers. However during the ceremony I realised most staff were wearing sports shoes as their indoor shoes. I was puzzled as I thought it was a mismatch simply coz sports shoes don’t go with work attire. Yet everyone seem to be dressed like that. So recently, I decided to swap my loafers for a pair of lighter sports shoes. I wore the same sports shoes as my indoor shoes today. I thought everyone would be wearing sports shoes too with formal attire and in that way, I would blend in…Unfortunately, this time it seemed to be different…
The ceremony was surprisingly very (x3) formal... All the staff are dressed in black & white, and wore proper black shoes as indoor shoes…The principal even wore a tailcoat! I felt really underdressed… Shouldn’t have worn a pink top though… Looks informal… Arghhh…. Then there was the problem with my shoes. Should have brought my black dress shoes as my indoor shoes… Arghhh.. Too late…….
The ceremony was very solemn and had a number of speeches by the principal, guest-of-honour and representatives of 3rd graders and 2nd graders. It was so serious that the students looked more like they were in the military than in school. They had to come to attention just like soldiers. After the speeches, there was of course singing too. It’s a wonder how they manage to make every student sing. Many girls started sniffing… Oh no, it was starting… I swore I saw tears welling up the boys’ eyes as well…After the ceremony, the students (2nd and 1st grade) moved the chairs out of the gymnasium in an orderly manner. After some time, everyone gathered outside the school, forming two lines along the driveway. We were all supposed to give the 3rd graders a final send-off. Unfortunately, it started snowing and the wind became really chilly… Boy, what bad timing… The rest of the students were freezing too… And so we clapped and waved goodbye to the 3rd graders as they left the school. Took some photos with some 3rd grade girls with their cameras. I asked them to send the photos to me coz of all days, I forgot to bring my camera!
Felt very happy when we took photos together. They were good kids. Very hardworking in English and always very friendly to me… Some of them even wrote little thank-you cards to me. How nice…. Thus I didn’t mind standing out in the cold, just to wave goodbye to them, for the last time…

MY 1st BIRTHDAY AWAY FR HOME

10th March 2007
Arranged to have a small dinner pot-luck party in my own apartment with a few close friends that I've made here... Invited them over at abt 7pm and wala.... We had a real feast! I took the chance to make chicken curry since I cannot possibly finish a whole pot of curry if I cooked it for a normal meal... Also prepared Vietnamese-styled shrimp rice paper rolls. Kaoru couldn't make it last min so she came earlier to drop off her cherry pies. Yumiko made me a nice chiffon birthday cake covered with strawberries and pumpkin pie... Mayumi made a Chinese veggie dish, Felicia made soba salad, Yurika made pumpkin gratin, Russell brought my favourite Otaru wine and Wade brought ice-cream. There was so much left-overs! We had a good time just pigging out and chatting.
Received many presents such as a recipe book fr Russell, bath set and watch from Yurika and Shinobu, tea snacks fr Mayumi. Later at night, Felicia, Wade and I attempted to watch the newest James Bond movie on Wade's laptop. The new Bond guy didn't seem to have Pierce Brosnan's charisma. It was... well...maybe I was too tired... We didn't finish watching it in the end.. haha

11th March 2007
Went to church as usual but was really sleepy coz of staying up late last night... During lunch, Yurika suddenly brought a sponge cake right in front of me and everybody sang the birthday song to me. How sweet!
Then I took a bus to Hach station to meet Mandy as we have agreed to attend a kimono fair together. We both managed to wear kimonos in the end! Aren't the kimonos pretty? After that, I invited Mandy over to my apartment for tea and we had the leftover cherry and pumpkin pies.
Around evening time, I walked to the chicken restaurant near Russell's apartment to meet the rest of my ALTs for dinner. It was a really small place that can only accomodate 3 tables! The chicken pieces were quite small so it wasn't v filling ...Luckily I wasn't very hungry....After dinner we all went to Wade's house coz he said he bought a small slice of cake for me so we should just gather and sing a birthday song to me. Everyone agreed and we made our way to his house. However when I was presented with my cake, it was in a huge box. When I opened the box, it was a full-sized cake decorated with a picture of me! Wow! What a surprise! It was very well-made! Was very touched. Then I was presented with many presents such as Calbee Potato Chips (fr Claire coz she remembered how I kept eating her potato chips the last time. I just couldn't resist Calbee's potato chips!~), teddy bear and hair-dryer from Wade (so sweet!) and a big postcard from people in BOE. This is not the end of the surprise though....
Then Claire showed some dvd on Wade's TV. Apparently, my dear colleagues have gathered to make a home video using Singlish! Amazing! It's hilarious to hear them attempting to put on the Singlish accent!!!!
It was an unforgettable 27th birthday. Really unexpected and awesome! THANKS GUYS!!!

DEAR’S 1st JAPAN TRIP

10th Feb (Sat)
- Okunakayamakogen
Visited Gerard and Jaslyn in Ichinohe. We took the Iwate Ginga Aoimori Railway train fr Hach station. Gerard & Jaslyn helped us buy a Ski + Onsen package [2-way train cum 2-way bus cum (train fr Ichinohe-Okunakayama Kogen)] and we met them on the train. The ski rental voucher allowed us to rent the ski equipment at half the stated price. We skiied the whole afternoon, then went to an onsen and headed back to Gerard's house to have a home-cooked dinner by Jaslyn. Boy, skiing was really difficult. I fell down and my skis got tangled so many times! The funniest one was when when i fell and crashed through the orange plastic fence. A little kid on the snow lift shouted 「大丈夫ですか？！ 」　and I answered weakly 「大丈夫です... 」 Dear was really good ay skiing simply coz he rollerblades... Hmpf...


11th Feb (Sun)
- Ichinohe Snow Festival
On the way to the festival, Dear bought his most memorable gift from this trip, a robber-like looking beanie. At the festival, we pounded mochi, drank miso soup & sweet sake wine [甘酒], rode on a snow sleigh and visted Jomon-period huts. Apparently during the Jomon era, people used to live in these huts and when they moved out, they would just burn down the huts... Environmentally-friendly eh? And here's dear trying to look scary with his robber-like beanie...

- Iwate Snow Festival at Koiwai Farm.
Smaller version of the Sapporo Snow Fest. Unfortunately the snow sculptures look a little blackish... Guess there wasn't enough snow.
We settled our dinner there, in a igloo-looking snow sculpture known as kamakura in japanese. Had beef and lamb ghengis khan for dinner. Snowed really heavily when we were returning to Gerard's place. My face was consistently being splashed by the falling snow... Dear pulled down his beanie to shield the snow from his face. Guess he must have looked pretty hilarious, as though he was some bad guy who kidnapped a young lady!

12th Feb (Mon)
Hakodate Mountain. Nice view coz we went just before sunset so we could catch both the day and night view of the city. Many people thought the same way though so it was pretty crowded...
Then we went into a random japanese restuarant for dinner since the one that is reccomended on the map has closed down(!?). The waitress directed us to a bar upstairs where a Filipino guy works, so that we could speak English to him. We had a feast: crab sashimi, grilled eel and chicken cartilage... Superbly yummy!!!! Then we (or rather, only me) also managed to sing some karaoke songs as the Filipino guy invited us to sing as a service to foreigners! Good deal eh?

13th Feb (Tue)

Had the most aromatic grilled scallops at some small shop at Hakodate Factory. Hakodate Hakodate Beer Factory. Tried the 4 types of beer through a trial beer set. Very cute! Even though I was never a fan of drinking beer, the beer was not too bad! WE also had other food and I realised for the first time in my life that salmon with salmon roe actually taste really good on pizzas!

14th Feb (Wed)
Took 0745am Chuo bus from Hakodate to Sapporo
Back to Sapporo again! Snowed quite heavily in the late afternoon... Had much difficulty finding our hotel in the blizzard....

Met up with Ros in the evening. She brought us to try the famous Soup Curry. Contray to my expectations that it would be really bland, it was amazingly tasty! Good choice!

15th Feb (Thur)
Went to a newly opened pet shop in Tanukikoji . This shopping arcade is very similar to the one in Sendai as it is also covered and stretches over a few streets (http://www.tanukikoji.or.jp/menu.html). Couldn't resist cuddling this female puppy at the pet shop... How I wish I can have a pupply like that in future! Had the well-known Sapporo Ramen for lunch (we got more ingredients thanks to Ros' special relationship with the boss! Haha... She always brings foreign friends to his shop so he recognises her. Plus she can extend her student discount to her friends!) . It was really the best ramen i had in Japan!

After our stomachs were satisfied, we took a 1 hour train to Otaru to see the Otaru Snow Gleaming event. Otaru is really beautiful at night but it's very much a place for girls coz as we visited glass shops and musical box shops. Dear looked rather bored... Poor thing....

We went back to Sapporo at night and had kimuchi hotpot (nabe) dinner at Ros' apartment. Was v filing! Then I was introduced to the anime that Ros & Dear are both crazy about now, "Bleach". Looks ok but I don't understand it since I didn't watch from the beginning.

16th Feb (Fri)

Took 0700 Chuo/ Donan bus fr Sapporo Station but we reached Tomakomai station late again. So we had no choice but to take a cab to Tomakomai Ferry terminal. Managed to get on the ferry where I spent most of the time sleeping.......

17th Feb (Sat)
Walked ard downtown Hach. Saw many of my students as it was the first day of Enburi! Paiseh!
Dinner at Mayumi’s. Really delicious, as usual! She even prepared my fav potato soup.. How nice! Mayumi & Dear hit it off well as they both work in the healthcare industry.

18th Feb (Sun)
Brought dear to my church. It has been a long time since we both attended a serivce together. Good times... My churchmates were all very welcoming. Of course Mari-chan made a new friend really quickly! See how they click? We had the always-so-yummy home-cooked Japanese lunch in church before leaving to do some sight-seeing ard squid town.

Visited Kabushima in the afternoon. Nice place but still really cold.. Saw some seagulls there though. Dear decided to impersonate a robber again in the above pic. The "dangerous" sign suits him to a tee in this photo!
Then we watched Enburi dance outside City Hall at night. Didnt see any of my students though
After that, I brought Dear to Wise. We bowled a little and played pool. Then Dear gets hooked on an arcade game. Of course, it is a soccer game... But there's an interesting option of choosing Sonic the Hedgehog's characters as a soccer team, rather than the usual Brazil, Argentina, England etc.. SO cute to see those characters play soccer with their short round feet and round tummies portruding...

19th Feb (Mon)

Dear accompanied me to Shimachuu as a guest. He finally truly understood what was my job all about as he was roped into the lesson plans as well. Students were excited to have him in class too. We had a good school lunch with the kids.

20th Feb (Tue)

Dear took a morning train (while I went to work) to catch the bullet train to Tokyo, then Narita Express train to Narita airport and flew back to Singapore......and that marks the end of Dear's 1st trip in Japan.

SAPPORO SNOW FESTIVAL

2 Feb- 4 Feb
My seniors (senpai) told us that there will be many many many people at the Sapporo Snow Festival. It’s a very popular event in Japan so apart from international travelers, expect to see many domestic Japanese travelers as well. Almost everybody in my office decided to head up to Sapporo the week before the festival starts as most of the snow sculptures would have already been completed. We took the overnight ferry from Hach and alighted at Tomakomai, then a bus to Sapporo train station.When we reached Sapporo, I joined Gerard, Jaslyn & Felicia to sight-see. Plus l have arranged to meet Roslynn later in the day.
So we went to Odori Park to look at the snow sculptures. To our disappointment, many of the snow sculptures have yet to be completed. This may be due to the lack of snow this year. Previous years, there is always heavy snow but this year, strangely, it did not snow as much, even in Hokkaido. It's what the Japanese call [暖冬] aka"warm winter".
Took some good shots though. See? There are so many different characters!
It's a pity that we could not see all the completed sculptures... Usually by this time, they would have completed almost all the sculptures. Well, what to do? Nvm lah, just enjoy what we could see! After looking at the snow sculptures and ice sculptures, went for dinner at a Ghenghis Khan restaurant. It was great! Really suited for winter! Yummy & warm!
After that I stayed overnight at Ros' place for the night. The next morning, I had to go through a blizzard to get to the subway train station. From there I had to take a subway to Sappporo station then catch the highway bus back to Tomakomai. Unfortunately, because of the blizzard in the morn, the bus took a longer time to reach Tomakomai train station. Then from Tomakomai station, Gerard, Jaslyn, Veronica & I had to grab a taxi to bring us to Tomakomai ferry terminal. We were practically running like mad ...Luckily we managed to catch our ferry back to Hach. By the time we reached, it was close to dinner time, so Gerard, Jaslyn & I had dinner at Lapia and they stayed over in my apartment for the night.

BACK HOME

23rd Dec 2006 – 1 Jan 2007
Went back home for Christmas and New Year. Unfortunately I caught a cold so was feelin really sick on the plane. By the time I reached Changi Airport, it was past midnight. Went to Christmas service the next morn and met up with my cell’s people. We had dim sum for lunch and it was so good! I was really literally gulping down the dim sum as I haven had it for ages!
On Christmas Day, my family and Wendy Dasao’s family gathered to have dinner at Tong Lok Restaurant in Papa’s Jurong Club. It was an international buffet meal so we had all sorts of delicacies, including Japanese food like salmon sashimi .
Can't remember exactly what I did for the rest of the week as one week juz flew by… I remember eating lots of local fare such as roti prata, curry and Chinese dishes. And of course Mama’s yummy home-cooked food and soup!
Met up with only a few friends as there wasn’t enough time to catch up with everybody. Met Jas for lunch, visited my ex-Citi colleagues and sang karaoke with Suli and Grace with their bfs…
Before I knew it, the week ended and I had to go back to Japan. Felt so sad to leave when I was waiting to board the plane...

END-OF-THE-YEAR-PARTIES

aka 忘年会　(bounenkai)

Before I knew it, inviatations to various bounenkais came streaming in... Never had I received so many reminders that a year was gonna come to a close soon. It is customary for Japanese companies to hold such parties to mark the end of the work year. I attended 3 of them, which was really enough for me coz it can be pretty draining....

First one was on 15 Dec night, at a Chinese restaurant in downtown Hach. This was BOE's bounenkai so everyone came and we had some really decent Chinese cusine. Of course there were many jugs of beer and japanese wine too. After dinner, as usual we ended up in a karaoke place for 二次会 nijikai (second party) but this time it's a really small place (bigger karaoke places were all fully booked) so we didn' stay there for long.

Got to rest on Saturday but had to cook something to bring along to tomorrow's bounenkai by HIRA. Decided to make Bak Khut Teh since my ALTs gave me good reviews the last time I cooked that for them. After cooking that, I rushed to Marient in Same to attend the Hachinohe Jazz Quartett concert. Mr and Mrs Matsuda were kind enough to invite both Russell and I to the concert. It was a great evening. Music was good and we found out that Otaru wine tastes wonderful! Russell and I nearly finished up the whole bottle!

On our way home, I nearly got the both of us into another 二次会 coz of mis-communication over the phone! Mr Matsu's friend gave us both a ride back to Konakano area. Along the way, one of the band members of the jazz band called Mr Matsuda's friend and asked if we both would like to go for a drink. I thought he meant in future so I said "Sure!". Little did I know that he meant right now! Luckily we found out soon enough and quickly declined the offer. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow so no thanks.... Plus somehow there was some mis-use of English words on the caller's part which came out sounding like a bad pick-up line... Anyway, I'm sure the poor guy didn't mean it but still I was taken aback by his words so I ended the conversation abruptly.

The ever-so-kind Kaoru gave me a ride to Sougou Fukushi Kaikan [総合福祉会館] and I was really grateful coz it snowed quite heavily! We had a feast! Unfortunately there were no disposable bowls so nobody really bothered (except for Kaoru & Wade) to try my Bak Khut Teh which I had so painstakingly prepared, because it was quite troublesome to eat the meat out of a plastic cup. But on the whole, it was a good get-together time, with lotsa left-overs...

Brought my Bak Khut Teh home but decided to give to Shinobu & Yurika since they have never tried such a dish before... Anyway they were coming to pick me & Felicia up to go to a Misawa church for Christmas service. Service was great. One part involved inviting different nationalities to sing "Silent Night" in their native languages. It's amazing to see different nationalities praising the same God in different languages.

On 22nd Dec, I attended Hokuryo JHS's bounenkai at Park Hotel. It was a samll affair but rather enjoyable. There were games in which people had to guess who drank vinegar etc. and once I was also asked to participate. Party aside, I especially liked the dessert at the end. It was a really yummy cake! Didn't join the teachers for 二次会 as I was really tired already... The whole of downtown Hach was full of teachers as many other schools also held their bounenkais on this day. It's interesting to see how these usually prim & proper teachers let their hair down in such occasions....

2X TO SENDAI

I had to go to Sendai twice in 2 consecutive weeks coz of the office trip and JLPT. On 25th November morning, all my office staff hopped on a chartered highway bus and headed for Sendai. We had the whole bus to ourselves so it was really comfortable and we helped ourselves to the many packets of tidbits that were passed around in the bus. Along the way, we stopped by Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture to see San Juan Bautista [サンファンバウディスタパーク] which was one of Japan's first Japanese-built Western-style sail warships. San Juan Bautista actually means “St. John the Baptist” (originally called Date Maru, 伊達丸 in Japanese). It was used to transport an embassy to the Pope in Rome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_warship_San_Juan_Bautista.
The ship was beautiful! Really wondered how those people in the 17th century managed to built something so majestic as this when there were no technological help… Amazing. 偉いね！This trip felt like a school excursion so of course the child in us came out. We made fun of the sign which says “Watch your feet” and reenacted the famous Jack & Rose scene (“I’m flying!”) from the Titanic movie.
Next we continued our journey to Matsushima island [松島] where we did a bit of sight-seeing and souvenir shopping. Seems like I’m the only one buying omiyage! Well I figured out I wun be comin back here so why not? After that, we continued our journey to Akyuu Onsen [秋保温泉] where we rested our tired bodies at a Japanese inn called Hotel Sakan [天承千年の宿佐勘]. This inn looks absolutely gorgeous! It is modern yet traditional! Something really worth mentioning is the onsen! There are 3 different onsens in this inn, 2 are indoors and 2 is an outdoor one. There are different timings for males and females to use them. I was particularly interested in the outdoor onsen [露天風呂] coz I never went to an outdoor hot spring before! So exciting!!! When I watch “Japan Hour” on TV back home, I always envied those hosts who get to enjoy hot spring while admiring the beautiful scener...
As expected, we had a sumptuous Japanese styled dinner [和食] that filled our stomachs till they could explode! Strangely the small plates of food (sometimes I dun even know what they are!) laid out neatly on our trays look deceivingly light and would not be very filing. Boy, were we wrong! But I really dun mind getting full on Japanese food. Somehow it feels better (not so jalat!) than if I pigged out at an American buffet restaurant. Apparently、Japanese food which consists of mainly fish, is easily digestible so soon the stomach is empty again.
After dinner I couldn’t resist going to the onsen so Claire, Maeta san and I went to the indoor one. Plus the shampoo and shower foam provided were of top quality standard, from Shiseido! Feels so good There was a rose-petal bath… Wow, smells so good! いいにおい！The next morning, I dragged sleepy Claire out of bed (or rather the futon!) to accompany me to the露天風呂 coz she promised to go with me last night. Well, we both didn’t regret getting up early to go there coz it was simply wonderful. 気持いい！There were two types of baths, one is a wooden tub and the other a stone one. I feel down while walking from the wooden one to the stone one. Haha, it was freezing cold so I didn’t watch out for the slippery stones! Suffered a blue-black bruise on my back.
Checked out from the hotel and went to Sendai City to sight-see, free and easy style for 2 hours. Then we were all brought to eat the local specialty, cow’s tongue! So yummy!

Traveled to Sendai again on 2 December. Took the highway bus at 840am from Lapia. It was snowing on the day so I had some difficulty in walking on the sidewalks. This time I went with Wade coz he was gonna take level 3 while I was supposed to challenge Level 1! Totally unprepared for this test as I was busy with the office trip, school and the ALT seminar in Hirosaki (where I first saw snow falling from the sky!). Tried to study on the bus but ended up sleeping most of the time. When we reached, we first searched for the hotel which Murakami sensei has booked 2 single rooms for us. Thus armed with a small map that I had printed out from the hotel’s website, we went in search of Super Hotel. Imagine our surprise when we saw that Super Hotel was under renovation! We walked around the hotel and there was no way of entering! This can’t be it! Murakami sensei called the hotel and spoke to the staff personally. How can it undergo renovation and take orders at the same time? Desperate for answers, I asked the 1 of the construction workers and he told us that there’s another Super Hotel, located in the heart of Sendai City. Phew, what a relief! In the end, we finally found the small hotel and checked in.
Then we went to the bus terminal to confirm the bus-stop where we should take a bus to the test site tomorrow. At last when all the navigation have been sorted out, we had our late lunch at KFC. I miss fried chicken! Then we went to explore the park near our hotel and met up with Felicia in the evening. We then had dinner (cheap & tasty!) at a small shop in Sendai city and went back to the hotel to rest for the night. I did some last-min studying but soon was too tired to fit in anymore grammar. Woke up early to take the bus to the Kawaguchi Campus in Sendai’s University. Met up with Felicia and Charlie in the bus. Soon we had to go to our various rooms according to different levels to take our seats.
Well, what can I say but that I couldn’t understand 3/4 of the paper!?!?! 大変だった！困ったわぁ... Left the test site feelin kinda stupid.....私はバカじゃないか?!?!!! Felt especially so when I was stuck in the bus with all the China natives sprouting fluent Japanese over their cellphones. Arghhhh...... I’m so gonna fail this test and waste my time & ￥...
Met up with Wade in Sendai City as his test ended earlier than mine. We had dinner at Yoshinoya before catching the highway bus back to Hach. Was so tired from all the Japanese words floating in my head.... Just wanna go home & sleep.... Home sweet homezzz.....