bubblooning

During one of our daily visits to the Hyaku-en shops (Think $2 shop, but with EVERYTHING i.e cutlery, household cleaners, stationery, food, tupperware and toys) I found a product which started my newfound hobby: bublooning!

Kinda like a bubble, kinda like a balloon, and thus the name - I don't know if it's the fumes of the stuff which make it so fun, but I'm telling you now - it's addictive. And it's catching on fast!

Over the weekend, we made our way to Neo village - it's techically in my city, but it's still like a 45 minute by train, through 3 or 4 mountains. And by train, I mean a train that comes around every hour and a half, that's only 1 carriage long. We ending up going there since Julie, another English teacher who's from Canada, had to head back to her apartment in Neo, and so me & Kiri decided to tag along for the ride.

Neo feels kinda of like a traditional Japanese town - there's only a population of 2000, and maybe only 3 or 4 shops in the whole village - the grocery store is about the size of a small 7-Eleven, but opens when they feel like it.

Anyway, we heard that there's a river in the village that people swim in and have barbecues and stuff, so decided to spend the day by the river and have a picnic.

Sounds like a plan, right? Well, in theory, it would have been picturesque eating our homemade sandwiches by the river. But we forgot that Gifu is apparently one of the hottest places in Japan and freakishly humid. So after a 15 minute trek to the apartment, we camped by the air-conditioner and had an indoor picnic. I guess to most people, that's just called "lunch", but I'm sticking by "picnic" so it seems like we did something special and fancy.




An hour or so later, we convinced ourselves to leave the comfort of our apartment and search for the river. We eventually found an area with a bunch of other people and set up a place by the water with our newly purchased 100 yen "picnic rug" (a table cloth), snacks, and our bubblooning materials!



Our awesome new hobby also got the attention of another family there as well - so we ended up making friends with this kid and also the Chinese exchange student as well.




hours of fun for only ¥100! Best new hobby ever!

allez cuisine!

Move over, Michiba-san, I just made my first meal in Japan on Monday! It was like 2 parts Iron Chef, and 1 part Macgyver, since as I was cooking, I realised I didn't have many cooking utensils, and had to improvise. My kitchen has like nothing except for a couple pots and pans, and a rice cooker, so I'm slowly accumulating cooking utensils and ingredients as I need it. I bought this Iron Chef-esque knife, which has Japanese characters written on the blade, and has holes in it, which I'm not sure about what they do - I think they make the knife go faster, but I'll let you know.

So as I just put all the food in the pot on my gas stove thing, i realised I had nothing to actually mix and turn things - I had a fork and spoon, and that's pretty much it -I managed to find some disposable wooden chopsticks and cooked using them - how Japanese! but it all worked out well - despite my lack of Japanese cooking vocabulary knowledge!

I've mainly been going out for dinner most other days, since there are some welcome events, people to catch up with, and I can't be arsed the rest of the time. But I found out how awesome the supermarkets are here in Japan - they've got a deli type of section with ready-to-eat foods, like bento boxes and fried chicken, and food accompaniments, all ready to take home and eat! It's a bit like department stores, which have a whole basement of food products, but with less stuff - but I guess I should expect that when I live in an area that is filled with rice paddies every now and then.

The coolest part is, since all the food is made daily, they end up discounting food after 7, which is the exact same time I decide I can't be arsed cooking every night!

All in all, a pretty good meal - I was kinda proud of myself for buying the weird-but-probably-healthy vegetable thing AND fruit! I heard about someone who was living by themselves in Japan and was eating nothing but 2-minute noodles, until he discovered all these red welts on his body - he went to get it checked out and the doctor found he had Scurvy! I do like pirates, but that may be going a little too far...

my apartment

screw you, buffy

I hate Sarah Michelle Gellar. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have seen the remake of the Grudge, and if I hadn't seen that movie, I wouldn't have developed a fear of Japanese-style houses with sliding wooden door-style cupboards and wardrobes. Like the ones in my new bedroom.

Any second now, I'm expecting an albino Japanese kid to be sitting in the corner staring at me, or a crawling and moaning Japanese lady to pop out of one of the top shelves. I was shitting myself when I left the sliding door open, because when I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I couldn't remember if it was me or the aforementioned hairy lady who opened my wardrobe door. Urgh.

So yeah, the whole living it up in a 5 star hotel is over and I've now moved into my apartment – It's way huger than my friend's, which is just a couple doors down, since unlike hers, has 2 rooms instead of one. It even has it's own laundry and bathroom, table, and coffee table as well. So, trying to make it feel more like home, but at the moment, all I've got to decorate it is an awesome coffee table photo book, a photo in a picture frame, and a whole bunch of 5 cent coins. I'm hoping to queer eye the place, but it's kinda hard when you're trying to limit your furnishings to stuff from the 100 yen shop.

Other than the furniture and stuff, it 's pretty much barren, so it's weird thinking I have to buy EVERYTHING – all that stuff you accumulate and take for granted when you live at home, like cutlery, Panadol, note pads, laundry hamper thing, cleaning products, bed sheets, and that kind of stuff. Fortunately, I'm five minutes walk away from Malera (pronounced Mall-era, not Malaria as I originally thought) so after I signed my apartment contract, and unpacked, me and my friend went to explore and stumbled upon their awesome food court – not that big,, but had a Takoyaki store, a Ramen one, Crepe place, and this fast food chain here called Fast Kitchen or Faasuto Kitchin, which apparently, in the Japanese tradition of abbreviating names, is shortened to faakin. We ended up eating elsewhere, but I so can't wait to go back. I really want to try some faakin chicken.

smack that, all on the floor...

It's a little scary what come out when you've been drinking. Who knew the lyrics to Akon's Smack That, including Eminem's rap, were ingrained in my head? Yeah, Karaoke and all you can drink really does that for you. 

For anyone who's already missing me for my outstanding singing skills, here's a couple of the songs that were "sung" (I use that term liberally) - Rihanna's Umbrella, Build Me Up Buttercup, and yes, there was a Backstreet Boys song fit in there as well. 

landed in japan

Meh. too tired to blog so I'll keep this short - Flew overnight from Sydney to Tokyo, so arrived at the airport at around 7:00am - we got to the hotel around 9:00, but since the rooms weren't ready to check into, just been walking around the city for around 4 hours finding places to eat... 

Anyways, cool food of the day was Pizza-la - Prawn Mayo Pizza-flavoured Doritos. Weird. But Kinda Prawn Crackery. and Corny. I'll post a pic of it once I get my camera cord...

matrix date

Aah, Japanese TV - you never disappoint. If it isn't a wacky gameshow where people are punished for wrong answers by being farted on bare-butted (which evidently can lead to pink eye), human tetris, or a dancing tree and weird sperm-dude singing a song for curry, then it's a cool live action matrix-esque date.



While I am doing the going to Japan freak out thing, this at least gives me something to be excited about...

Knocked Up

Knocked Up - way better than the overhyped 40 Year-Old Virgin.  I don't know if it was the spontaneous decision to see the movie (and thus little to no expectations or anticipation) that made it funny, but I thought it hilarious - Probably not as rewatchable as Dodgeball or Zoolander, but awesome nonetheless.

I think I also partially enjoyed it because I've finally discovered the female equivalent to the "frank and beans" scene in There's Something About Mary - you know, the scene at the start of the movie that invokes the strong reaction from all guys. Some girls don't fully understand why guys squirm and nervously cross their legs (if they're not in a fetal position squealing already) when they watch the Mary bathroom scene. But now there's Knocked Up's more-graphic-than-you'd-expect giving birth scene to bring the same feeling of uneasiness to those of the opposite sex. 

One thing that kinda bugged me was the same thing that bugs me in clichéd sitcoms - Katherine Heigl is so out of the main guy's league! It took me the first third of the movie to get over that inconsistency and appreciate the movie. 

two too many mango puddings later...

I don't know what it is about the premise of nearly-limitless food, but I don't know many people who would say no to the idea. Even if the food isn't that good. In fact, when people think of buffet food, most people's expectations in food quality drop when they know there's vast amounts lukewarm, semi-questionable seconds (and thirds, fourths, and sevenths). 

On a totally unrelated note, I went to all-you-can-eat yum-cha today! only $16.50 per person! It was awesome! I so wanna go there again!

woo. japan.

It still hasn't completely sunk in yet. Yeah, I know that I'm leaving next month and stuff, but it still seems like such a far-off concept I haven't really thought about it much. It has been something I've been thinking about doing for a while, but actually doing it? Just seems weird.

Me. In Japan. For a year.

I got a little excited yesterday when a package came from Japan - it was from the Motosu Education Board with info about the place I’ll be working/living, the schools I’m teaching, and postcards and stuff. So it looks like I’ll be teaching at Motosu Junior High & Motosu Elementary School – knowing the actual names of the schools I’ll be teaching at makes it seem a little more real than just knowing that I’ll be teaching at a random Japanese school actually.

My biggest concern about going to Japan was finding I’d be teaching in the middle of nowhere, so I was relieved and somewhat ecstatic when I got a map of the city – Motosu has a shopping mall! And a shopping centre! And banks! That’s right, more than one! I know that seems really superficial, but I don’t think I’m ready to move to a place where buying things becomes an event, rather than something you can do any day. Plus, it’d kinda conflict with my current view of technologically-advanced Japan, with robots and stuff on every street corner…

jetsetting to japan

It's now pretty much official - I'm going to Japan to teach English! I've handed my letter of resignation at work, and making a list of stuff to buy and do before I leave in 44 days, 17 hours 43 minutes, and 37 seconds. It hasn't really sunk in that I'll be moving my whole life to a whole nother country knowing next to no one, but I think that will come once it gets closer to the flight - It didn't even strike me that I was going to go to Korea until I landed in the country and took a 3 hour bus ride to Jeonju last time, so maybe I should expect the same thing this time around.

There's already a huge list of things I have to do before I go - exchange all my money into Yen (since I don't know how rural the place I'm going to is, and may not have any banks or ATMs nearby), get an international driver's license, a Power of Attorney, catch up with everyone, and you know, get my affairs in order and stuff...

...And by "affairs", I just mean downloading the last few episodes of Grey's Anatomy that I may miss, as well as the next season of The Amazing Race.

But don't worry, not all my affairs are seemingly useless and a pointless waste of time - In preparation for the huge void that I will inevitably leave in your lives, I've created a cybertwin, who I'm in the middle of training to be a replacement me for emergency situations. Sure, he won't be much help when there's food to be eaten and things that are out of reach for the vertically challenged, but hopefully he'll be able to answer any question you have...

As long as it's basic. And about liking cheese.

busy at work...

Yeah, I know. Long time no blog. But I can assure you there'll be more blogworthy stuff in the next month or so. At the moment though, I've just been working like 5 days a week, and what have I learned over the past 6 weeks? I'm really good at being fake nice, where to the casual observer it seems "nice". There are some minor differences that are only noticeable if you are keeping a close watch on me though - if you're yelling at me, be it for something that is so not my fault (like, your phone not working, and me not being able to call the repair hotline because they're closed on weekends), or just dropping all-round racist comments (which happen a little more frequently than I thought they would) chances are, I'm being fake nice.

My job's also made me appreciate the extra spending money as well - I forgot how cool it was to buy frivolous stuff and not have to worry as much about saving money - I like having the peace of mind knowing that a piece of pie will not affect my standard of living - well, other than lead me on the almost inevitable path of diabetes and/or heart disease.

it'll only get worse...

I knew this day would come, but still, there was a naïve, optimistic part of me that was hoping that it wouldn't get to this:


3rd on the ladder - not bad. Pretty good actually, considering my lack of knowledge about all things football, but I was still hoping that I would arse my way through the whole competition and come first.

is this po-mo?

Excuse the lack of blogging. It's not that I hate you, because firstly, I don't know who you are and don't know you well enough to make my initial, superficial judgements of you. According to my site meter though, I do know what ISP you're using, and what time you check my site, and whereabouts you are and stuff. Unfortunately not able to find stalker-y amounts of information on you, so just checking my site meter to find what kind of browser the few blog-readers are using is about as far as my voyeuristic hobby goes. Yeah, my hobby involves reading info about people who are reading info about me. Does that count as postmodern by the way? I know a friend who's embarrassing moment involved being asked to go in front of a group of people to talk about her most embarrassing moment, and having a non-embarassing story, which in turn, was embarassing. So if that was considered postmodern, does that make my hobby postmodern too?

You see, the whole point of my digression (which as people who know me well, is something I rarely do - that, and not being sarcastic) is to cover the fact I have little to update about - do have a job now, which is... interesting, but has made me especially aware of the fact that information I post online makes me instantly google-able... So anyways, I'll definitely have more stuff to blog about in the upcoming months...

But in the meantime, please enjoy this pointless video! I posted a version of this Algorithm March a while ago while I was in Japan, but found another version involving subtitles and a Japanese soccer team, and still cracks me up whenever I watch it - I already know all the moves, so feel free to study the moves in case the need for a well-coordinated march ever arises...

got it covered

I don't know why, but I find myself mesmerized by the concept of current bands and singers covering other songs. And by "other songs", I'm not just referring to like the standard Beatles or Bob Marley or Police any other old-school classics that most bands typically cover. It's the current songs that you've heard a million times on MTV, and the radio (and nowadays, through people's myspace profiles I guess) that I'm really interested in listening to.

Maybe it's got to do with me having an obsession with getting an insight into artist's personal lives -not in the stalker way, but I am on wikipedia a freakish amount trying to find out what's behind certain song lyrics and stuff. I just find it interesting finding the types of songs people cover - like you get to know what music the singers and stuff like listening to, and how they interpret the song and stuff. I think it's also because covers provide a fresh take on something you're so used to, so it's kinda like hearing something again for the first time.

Anyway, that's why I'm a huge fan of BBC's Live Lounge - when they get singers to come in and do a couple songs, almost all the singers and groups do a cover of a song as well (list of the singers and the songs they covered is here). While there are some fairly standard covers, there are quite a few good ones there.

I've noticed I'm a fan of girls covering songs sung by guys, and vice versa - which is why I like Natasha Bedingfield's covers:

Natasha Bedingfield - Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol)



And I do like when artists come up with interesting interpretations of songs - While this isn't as out there as Corinne Bailey Rae's jazz-loungey version of SexyBack, I like Keane's mashup of Destiny's Child & Christina Aguilera (also a guy covering girl songs)

Keane - Dirtylicious



And then there are the songs you just wouldn't expect to be covered... Didn't expect a non-offensive rock band to cover a weird hip-hop-infused latin song - It's no My Humps, but still pretty bizarre...

The Fray - Hips Don't Lie (Shakira)



(see what I did there with the title of the blog and stuff? wow, I'm so incredibly imaginative & witty...)

cheese...

Since I've come back from my trip overseas, I've felt the need to bring my camera to more places more often. I got a digital camera for my 21st, and it feels like a waste if I don't use it. After browsing all the photos I've taken in the last 5 years or so, a pattern seems to emerge:
Birthday cake photo,


special occasion (formal), special occasion (wedding), photos of family holiday, another birthday cake photo,



people's 21st, another special occasion (wedding), and yet another birthday cake photo.


It seems weird to just take photos of the same thing every year when heaps of other stuff happens as well. Next thing you know, people you normally see are going overseas and now the opportunity to take photos with them is gone. So at first, it seems like a good idea to take photos of everything.

Unfortunately, I've found the two major problems with my plan:

1. I don't want to be that guy. You know, the guy who takes their camera everywhere and insists of taking photos of everything you do. While we all appreciate the photos after they're taken, no one relishes the time they are exposed to an unrelenting barrage of blinding flashes. Soon enough, people develop a greater resentment towards the guy taking photos of seemingly menial things. Me living in constant fear of being the guy with the camera means I only take a few photos at the start of the night, and the rate of photo taking quickly dies down. And all the interesting, photo-worthy stuff happens later in the night anyway...
   
2. The "good" photos are the ones with a group of people smiling, or doing something interesting or whatever. It requires a lot of effort to take these good photos, and for me, most of my photos end up looking like this:

I think next time I'll just leave the task of photo taking to that camera guy and leave my camera at home.

yay the amazing race!

I know what I'm doing at 9:30 Thursday night- my favourite reality TV show is back! I think I like it because it's kinda more game-showy than reality TV show, so even though it has pretty much the same formula as the first series, it doesn't really matter as much, since the whole globe-trekking and detour activity thing is still so cool.

Channel 7 have skipped season 10 in favour of showing season 11, aka Amazing Race All-Stars. I guess it's cool to be watching the same season America's seeing at the moment (despite the huge delay), which might mean there'll be less chance for people to find out who the winner is months in advance. They still could have shown season 10 during the holidays, or preferably, in place of the stupid American-only family edition of the show.

I don't know why, but I love it when they go to places I've been to, and get really excited when I recognise the background shops and stuff. I've actually found that I enjoy watching those travel shows more when I've been to the places they visit in the show and stuff. That's weird, isn't it? I think it's partially because I get semi-nostalgic and reminisce and stuff. That, and
I always kinda hope that I happened to be there when they were filming and just happen to be in the background. When I was overseas, I even kept my eye out for pairs of travellers lugging huge backpacks and cameramen following them. Despite my Amazing alertness and everything, alas, still no Phil Koegan sightings. Sigh.

irasshaimase!

I love when my dad visits Australia. Not because we have like, an uber-close relationship or anything, but mainly because it means we get to go to Shira Nui. It's this sushi restaurant in Glen Waverley, and, it's alright I guess. Kinda awesome. I don't want to overhype it, since, you know, you'll have ridiculously high expectations, and if you do go, it'll inevitably end in disappointment and tears. So anyways if you do like sushi (and other stuff too, but mainly sushi) You should try to check it out. Maybe.

It's run by this cool sushi chef called Hiro, who reminds me of a younger Mr Miyagi, if he was an Iron Chef with a really cool katana-like knife. He's one of the few people in Melbourne who actually has a license to serve fugu - you know that Simpsons episode where Homer almost dies from blowfish? Well, in order to prevent people from reevaluating their lives and doing everything they wanted to do in 24 hours, you need to get a license from the Japanese government to be able to serve it in restaurants. Anyways, Hiro doesn't actually serve fugu at the restaurant, but the fact that he could if he wanted to is cool nonetheless.

But the katana knife-wielding, potentially fugu-serving, Mr Miyagi is only part of the reason I like it so much. They've got really good regular sushi, but then there's also the mackerel wrapped with clear seaweed sushi and the blowtorched beef sushi. Like, a blowtorch! C'mon, how cool is that? (Please don't go just for the blowtorch - if you don't see it, it'll just mean more disappointment and tears.)

Shira Nui's also the only restaurant nearby that's run by Japanese people as well. Not that there's like a sushi-making gene that all Japanese people have, but it means that they do the Japanese thing of making sure everyone working shouts "Irasshaimase!" when anyone enters. You'd think that everyone shouting at you in a foreign language when you enter a store would be a little weird and scary, but it's pretty cool - I was thinking of of running in an out the shop to see how many times they shout it before they get over it and ban me...

the power of myspace

I just had a phone conversation about not-so-superpowers that people had - like the ability to guess where people came from, or guessing their favourite colours and stuff, and came to the tragic conclusion I had none. I wasn't looking for the ability to bend time and space, but you know, anything would be cool.

I do have the ability to find a way to make time pass quickly whilst doing nothing inherently productive... I know it's usually just called "procrastination", but I can waste hours on end finding out info on absolutely nothing. Then, it's like a stream of consciousness thing where finding the answer to one thing leads to more googling, and next thing you know, hours have passed, and I'm still none the wiser. And probably limit my future capacity to be wiser since my head is now jammed with more useless facts.

Let's take yesterday:

• Reading the Grey's Anatomy's Writer's Blog, since I like finding out useless trivia about TV shows.
  
• Checked other blogs for other news about Grey's Anatomy - Give me my Remote has a bloopers reel from Season 2 - I don't know what it is about bloopers, since they're pretty much a video of people screwing up lines and laughing, which doesn't really sound funny, but I still have to watch them. Speaking of which, you should youtube "Lost Bloopers Season 2" just to find a video of the actor playing Michael saying "oh no you di'int!" Hilarious!

• Grey's Anatomy Blooper reel video already taken down for copyright reasons, so try youtubing it, and still no success. There is a MadTV parody though, with the crossdressing Asian guy doing a pretty good Christina impression...
• Looking at other Grey's Anatomy youtube stuff, and the only other thing I can find other than The Fray music videos is a video of TR Knight on Ellen, talking about "the incident" with homophobic guy.
• Reminded about seeing the DJ on Ellen, and thinking he looked familiar. Found out DJ Jonny= Jon Abrahams, previously seen on Boston Public, Scary Movie & Meet the Parents.
  
• Wondered if he was always a DJ, or an actor who decided to be DJ - according to his myspace page, he's been DJing a while. Should I add him as a friend? or is that a little too weird?
  
• Who else who is obscure-famous on myspace? Hi-3 of Hi-5 (Nathan, Kathleen & Tim). Googled Hi-5, found out there was a Kathleen replacement who was also a minority (and also has a myspace page) and Nathan and Kellie were engaged, and then broke up. Would this ruin Hi-5? Well, according to Nathan's myspace page (with Kellie noticeably absent from his top friends...) Everyone's back at work, so looks like 5-year olds and horny older guys can breathe a sigh of relief..

what the hell was I thinking?

Mental note: Don't do things just because everyone else is doing them and everyone else thinks is cool, because you're bound to pay for it later.

I did something really stupid the other day that I'll probably regret for the rest of the year. I really don't know why I agreed to doing it. It was a slip of judgement, a stupid mistake that I didn't think about when I was doing it.

...I signed up for the AFL fantasy-sport-league Supercoach thing.


If you're not laughing out loud at the moment (or ROFLing, or LMAOing for that matter) It's probably because you don't know me as well as you should. Me and sport kinda go together like, um.... two things that don't go well together. I thought I could arse my way through it and pick players who's names I would recognise, but it kinda backfired and I ended up picking a guy that's been suspended indefinitely, one with a potential career-ending injury, and a guy battling cancer. Not the best start to the supercoach season I guess.

On the plus side, my love of all things TV related and a certain TV show involving people with extraordinary powers resulted me in naming my team The 9th Wonders. Which leaves two potential options for my season: I could either a) be totally awesome and come first, thereby reaffirming the whole Wonder naming thing, or b) just be adequate enough to come 9th thereby still validating my team name. I really hope there's at least 9 teams then, or hopefully, just 9 to make it easier...

need a linguist, anyone?

It's been yet another couple of weeks since my last blog. I know, I'm slack, but I really don't think it's worth blogging again about TV, since I've noticed that's pretty much all I've been doing lately... but then again it's hard to blog about my life when TV is my life at the moment...

I did go to the Monash Careers Fair a couple days ago though, if that's really blog-worthy. At the very least, it's made me realise how limited my career prospects are as a budding linguist. Out of the millions of companies that were there, I think only one stall were actually looking for someone with a linguistics background. It was ASIS - the Australian spy people on a recruitment drive to get more potential spies, or "information officers". For information officers, they weren't that informative, and was kinda hard to ask them questions about what entailed being a spy, since most of it was classified information.

Despite how cool it sounds to be a spy, like with the high-tech gadgets, pretending to work undercover in a paper company, and villains with sharks that shoot lasers and stuff, I don't think I could every be a spy. I already have issues in my job hunting lying to people and telling them I'll most definitely be here til the end of the year.

Plus, when you're a spy, I guess you can't really tell anyone that you are one, so the whole sounds cool to be a spy thing doesn't really work that well anyway...

why everyone should be watching heroes

I'm sometimes amazed when something that I hold dear to my heart (i.e. Guitar Hero) is not received well by other people. I'm a little shocked, and at a loss about how they can't see how cool something is but then subsequently get over it.

But when someone says they think Heroes is just 'meh' is just shocking. Like, seriously, jaw on the ground shocking. So shocking in fact, that even if you're at home by yourself, your mouth will be wide open, you'll make an audible inhaling sound because you're that shocked. Never felt like that before and wonder what it's like? Well, I consistently get that shocked when watching Heroes. I'm up to episode 16 - Unexpected and it's got a huge ending - like, filled with disbelief, ohmygods and everything - and the killer thing is, I pretty much have to wait 14 more weeks before I can talk to anyone in Australia about it, since it just started being shown on TV here a couple weeks ago.

So really, when's the last time something has actually made you gasp out loud? Anyone who's been so into a show and gasped knows how cool it is to find something that makes you do that. And anyone who says they've never gasped at a show is really deprived and doesn't know what they're missing.

Ipso facto, ergo, and a couple other rarely used conjunctive adverbs later, WATCH HEROES!!!

what i've been up to

Wow Narin, your blog is so interesting and witty and such a hoot to read! All the cool kids are reading it! It's not lame at all! But how come you haven't updated your blog recently?

Boy, I wish someone other than me said that. But anyway, if anyone did actually ask me that, it'd be a great segue into telling people what I've been doing recently.

...Well, that would have been a good segue into telling people what I've been doing recently if I was actually doing something interesting and blogworthy. But this excessive free time has let me achieve one of my life goals...

hiro's my hero...

You know how you can tell if you've got an excessive TV-watching habit? When you have so many TV shows to watch that you have to prioritise them by obligatory-watchingness. That's what I've had to do with Scrubs, Veronica Mars, The Office, Heroes, Grey's Anatomy, The OC, Lost, Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty - and Amazing Race hasn't even started yet!

It all started with iTunes giving away the Pilot of Heroes for free last year- and it pretty much snowballed from there. Fast forward to now, and I've got 9 must-watch shows (with a few in reserve) and 14 episodes of Heroes on my computer. I hope sharing my problem can help someone with organising their TV-watching schedule. Well, at the very least, I get hear the narration-type voice in my head as I type (It's kinda like JD without the wacky fantasies and the summing up of the moral every 22 minutes).

Shows to download from iTunes as soon as they're aired in the US:

1. The Office (US Version) - I know, the UK one's supposed to be good too, but I figure the US version provides more value for money since there's heaps more episodes than the UK one.

2. Heroes - Since I'm up to episode 14, and love this show, I just can't wait for Channel 7 to air them... And who can hate Hiro, who can "bendo time and space"?

Shows to download by other means, but if they can't be found a couple of days later, just get them from iTunes anyway:

3. Scrubs - I thought this season didn't have the best start, but then there was My Musical and His Story IV (yay Dr. Kelso!), and the expected hilarity ensues.

4. Veronica Mars - Veronica's the new Buffy, without the vampire slaying, but still with all the cliffhangeriness and witty goodness.

Shows to watch online whenever they're available:

5. Ugly Betty - I wanted to see what all the hype was about, and now that I'm up to episode 11, I kinda see why. Enjoyable, but not as must-see as the others.

Shows to watch immediately on DVD, to possibly catch up to be able to watch on TV:

6. Grey's Anatomy - I purposely avoided this show for as long as possible since I knew it would be a show that I would like. I was right. Still haven't found why the Mc-prefix is added to everything though. I'll keep you posted.

Shows to watch on TV:

7. The OC - This season's so much better than the last two. Plus, with new regular Autumn Reeser as Taylor, on top of Rachel Bilson as Summer, it leaves open the debate of Summer vs. Autumn. Priceless.

7. Lost - I heard the first few episodes are kinda iffy, but now I'm two seasons into it, I really have to find out what the dealio is with the island.

8. Desperate Housewives - I totally forgot what happened last season, but I still feel obliged to watch it - might drop off my list, if it sucks (and if I have the willpower).

9. The White Rapper Show - Let me set the scene: After a white, female rapper gets drunk, waves a dildo in everyone's face, and starts using the N word, she is subsequently punished by being forced to wear oversized bling displaying "N word" while playing mini-golf. What more can you ask for?

Shows to be watched later:

10. Entourage
11. Extras
12. Survivor

Gotta run. Just finished downloading Heroes!

new photo albums! which i'll update later...

Just a quick post to say I've now got photo albums up on my blog - I'm looking to add more photos, but have to find a way to work around the 250mb limit at the moment...

I've got to do this quickly because once I've done that, I can go back to preparing for my JET interview next week - I'm kinda freaked, because I heard that a majority of it will be in Japanese... hopefully, they won't be expecting too much (they are looking for someone to speak Japanese who hasn't lived in Japan for longer than a couple years) so all I'm doing (in theory) is translating my statement of purpose to Japanese, and trying to work out possible questions they'll ask me and answers. Problem for me is just a minor problem - my endless need to procrastinate has prevented me from actually getting around to actually doing much study - I was going to write a blog about my superhuman procrastination ability actually, but

back in melbourne... and bored as hell...

I felt the need to blog since I haven't done any blogging since I came back - probably because there's not much to update really - been back for like a couple weeks now and my body clock still feels out of whack - Not as bad as before though, since I think I just got sick from jet lag/exhaustion the week I came back, so was coughing and all gross, but I'm pretty much over that now.

But haven't really being doing much since - except for watching TV, and downloading episodes of all the shows I missed, and the shows I got hooked on that haven't been aired yet here in Australia - yay Heroes, The Office, & Veronica Mars! Also, Ugly Betty isn't too bad either - I ended up watching a few (by few I mean 8) episodes to see what the hype is all about - I can kinda see why people are watching. On a related note, yay peekvid.com - It's like youtube for TV shows, so more watching and less downloading time as well - so bookmarking it for every time I've missed an episode of Survivor.

Anyway, it still feels weird not being overseas - I've got a theory that the amount of time it will take before you settle back in is like around about half the time you spent overseas - so, some time this week I'll be more into the whole swing of things. It just feels strange going from chillaxing and not having to worry about anything to worrying about finding a job and an interview and stuff. I think I've spent like most of these two weeks finishing picking out the photos I like and making DVDs and stuff...

By the way, I'll probably make one of those online album things of my trip, so I'll put up a link once I'm done with that...

my humps... in thai

I've finally gotten around to posting this clip, of My Humps in Thai... We were kinda freaked out to hear this while at Starbucks.Nope, it's not even a song that sounds coincidentally similar,
it's just a straight rip off. Kudos Thailand, for bringing us inferior pirated DVDs, electronics, clothes, and now music!

My Humps

it's the end of an era... wait, how long's an era?

Wow. It's already been five weeks, and my Amazing Race-style holiday (though remarkably less amazing and not really a race) has pretty much come to an end. I've just finished packing my suitcase and what have I got to show for my holiday?

• Extra clothes I bought when they lost our bags (but now don't really need at all). I hope I can get reimbursed for these since it took a chunk out of my spending money...
• A cool blue Nintendo DS I had originally planned on purchasing in Japan to entertain me for the whole trip; little did I realise they sold out almost completely in Tokyo (or the places I went) so only managed to buy it a couple days ago here in Thailand. I also didn't realise that they don't have many DS games at all, and the ones they do have are imported from the US and not Japan, so are actually more expensive than Australia. So now I have a DS to play for the last day of my holiday, but without any games.
  
• A bunch of postcards that I accumulated over the five weeks, but forgot to actually send to people
• Monopoly: Roppongi Hills Edition - I remember why I don't play this game often - I really suck at it. If I buy up all the stores I land on, then I have no money to build stuff, and the fact that the Dark Blue Park Lane/Mayfair set is the bane of my existence.... It's so much harder to dislike this Monopoly though cos it's set in Japan and has all these anime characters on it! Plus, when the currency is flowers, how can you stay mad for long?
• 4.1 GB of photos on my MacBook - That's 1927 photos and 61 movies, which means hours of fun slideshows to inflict on everyone when I get back!
  
• at least $100 worth of tiny crap I thought would make cool souvenirs but looking back don't know why I bought them. Case in point: I have at least three or four mini plastic toilets that shoot mini plastic turds when you open the toilet. I know. It seemed cool when I was standing in the store in Japan with aisles upon aisles of those little toy dispenser things. Um.... do you want a mini plastic toilet????

Still, it seems like I could've done more on the trip - like spending more money or something - I guess I can just justify it when I get home by using up the rest of the money I allocated for this trip anyways.

Also, I'm kinda bummed I won't be here in Thailand to celebrate Australia Day - I know it sounds weird, namely actually celebrating Australia Day, and doing it in a place other than Australia, but they have a special buffet here on the day - By reading the ad, it seems like a shame to miss...


See? I love lamp.

chillaxing...

I finally got my suitcases back! It only took a week, an endless amount of time spent on the phone following it up and complaining, a few days buying clothes that I don't need anymore, but huzzah! Even though I've got new T-shirts, and boardshorts and stuff, I now have to make an effort to wear the ones I brought so it doesn't seem like a big waste of time and effort packing all that stuff.

Nothing much has happened in the past few days really though - mainly playing Pacman, lounging by the pool, and eating excessive amounts of food. I've also been shopping a fair bit to buy stuff, and hoarding the receipts in hopes of getting reimbursed by the airline. I'm pretty familiar with the local shopping centre now - to the point where I know what the next song will be that is blaring out of the loudspeakers - judging from the dido, savage garden, and that song by kylie that you apparently can't get out of your head, an Australian tourist gave them a CD six years ago that they haven't got around to updating yet.

I got freaked out though while I was there since I heard a Thai song that sounded strangely familiar... I'll youtube the song once I get around to uploading it from my camera.

baggage claim: the movie

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fruitlessly wait for your bags at baggage claim, but were put off by the thought of having to go through customs at the airport? Now
you too, can experience all the fun and enjoyment of waiting for a bag, in the convenience of your own home!



All this, thanks to my brother's unparallelled photographic ability, and two hours to kill at the Bangkok Airport!

things i've learnt on this holiday:

1. Japan really does rock. I was a little freaked out that I had really high expectations of it and that I'd be disappointed when I got there. Fortunately, this was one of the cases where I wasn't.
2. The Algorithm March thing. Me & my brother have watched it so many times now that we probably know all the moves. Well, I think it's a cool dance anyway...
3. Mr Pink from Reservoir Dogs has a fair point about tipping. In NEw York, most of the waiters were shitty, never smiled, and would just dump food in front of you. One place we went to, the greeter/door bitch greeted us with her friendly frown and took us to our seats. When we asked to be seated next to the window (in a fairly empty restaurant, and within sight of an empty table) She just said "nope" and walked away. Why pay a service fee for no service?
4. To find a good restaurant in Rome, simply find a place to eat. Then, once you're full and you've eaten a fairly overpriced mediocre meal, leave the restaurant, walk 20 metres, and then you'll find a place with not-lukewarm pizza.
   
5. The reason I love Thailand is probably because I've already exhausted every facet of the Thai tourism industry. Since i've already seen every major touristy destination, it just leaves more time for bumming, eating and shopping.
6. I'm Narin, and I'm a Guitar Hero-holic. I really, really really want to play. Guitar Hero songs now form an integral part of my iPod playlist, and when I listen to some of the songs, I remember what buttons to press and manage to air Guitar Hero. It's gotten so bad that everytime I hear a song, I think a) whether or not it's a Guitar Hero-worthy song, and b) what buttons you might have to press if it was in the game. Is that sad? Wait, don't answer that.
   

happy new year!

well, I certainly had an unconventional new years. It was spent watching Anchorman and The Office when the clock struck 12. We wanted to see the fireworks and stuff, but because of the bombs in Bangkok, New Years Celebrations were cancelled, which sucks, because our hotel room windows look right on the main street where the fireworks would've been.

It wasn't too bad, though. I've decided Anchorman just gets better everytime you see it. I'm not saying it's Zoolander or Dodgeball quality, but it may get there...

minor update...

just heard there's been some bombings here in Bangkok - I was wondering why they had to scan all our baggage at the hotel... The bombs were a little while away, but also heard there might be an attack near the major new years celebrations and stuff though, which is kinda near us... Anyway, just letting you know we're okay, and leaving Bangkok for Hua Hin in a couple days anyway...

new years celebrations and excessive gelati

This has to be the weirdest New Years yet – I left Italy at around 6:10 on New Years Eve eve, and around 14 hours later, I arrived in Bangkok in the afternoon. In between that, our planes got delayed, and all our bags got lost in between Rome and Bangkok. Haven’t had the best luck with our planes – I think every flight we’ve caught has been delayed – some for a couple hours, and this time they lost our bags…

Anyway, it’s been a while since my last blog - Our hotel in Italy didn’t have internet (well, they did, but at €17 a day, so like 34 bucks) so I’ve been waiting for a good time to blog. Not much has really happened, except that I’ve been killing time playing monopoly. Not just any Monopoly though. Monopoly: Roppongi Hills Edition! Roppongi’s this high-tech residential/business/entertainment district in Japan, which has its own logo and mascots and everything. So, this Monopoly has different place names, currency, and player tokens. I think the cool thing about it though is that instead of buying houses and hotels, you buy kiosks and megastores. I don’t normally enjoy playing Monopoly that much, but maybe because it’s in Japanese, and I can’t understand all of it that makes it more fun.

Italy’s been pretty cool – I’ve struggled to find good pizza and pasta here, but the gelati’s been good. I guess it’s kinda hard to screw up ice cream. So the gelati’s been a little too good. I’m kinda glad I’m leaving Italy because I’ve pretty much OD’ed on gelati. Favourite flavours: Chocolate mousse, Panna Cotta, Cream Caramel, Mango, Lemon & Chocolate truffle. It’s been pretty much a requirement after every meal –including breakfast- one gelati hunt ended with two cones of gelati after we discovered an even better gelateria right behind our first one. I think I’m one more serve of gelati away from diabetes. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that fourth one of the day yesterday…

can't talk... in italy

HEEEYY!!!

super fun happy slide!

Q: What do you call a sheep with no legs?
A: A cloud.

I know jokes in those Christmas bon-bon things are usually lame, but that has to be the worst joke ever. I don't even know why it's supposed to be funny! And yet every year, millions of people spend money on these glorified wrapped up toilet paper rolls (yeah, I saw Play School, I know how they make it!) all for crappy paper hats, lame jokes, and nail clippers!

But yeah, I haven't posted for a while - been busying eating, charading, wrapping, crapping (craps the gambling game, not the other one) darting, and verbifying everything. Plus the whole christmas thing, but that excuse is like 2000 years old anyway. Anywhoo, I'm staying at my Aunt's place in Romsey, which is like an hour out of London - we were kinda even lucky to be here, since there were a number of ridiculous delays here, and some planes got stuck at Heathrow airport because of the fog. So since we've been so far away from London, unfortunately we haven't been able to do any celebrity spotting, so alas, nothing to top the Donald and Sean Penn in New York. We did manage to go to London for a day, which is a pretty crazy idea around this time of the year, since it was pretty busy. We didn't do the touristy stuff though since we did it last time, so it was mainly for my brother to check out some of the art and design museums.

Sounds meh, right? Well, that's what I was thinking, until I saw the Super fun happy slide(s) in the Tate Modern Museum! They were huge - the longest one was like 58 metres and starts on the 5th level of the building all the way to the first floor.To play use the slide though, you have to get tickets to use it. I tried to get tickets to the biggest slide, but the earliest tickets I could get for a chance on that slide was like four hours later. I didn't think I could really find a way to entertain myself in an art museum for four hours and sacrifice a day in London to justify going on a big slide. Fortunately, when we were heading off to see some art stuff, a guy offered me his tickets for one of the slides, since he couldn't be bothered waiting.



Despite the coolness of slides, in particular super fun happy ones, I'm kinda glad they're not a standard means of transport around buildings. I don't think I'm ready to be regularly seen giggling giddily like a little girl in public.

“I’m fighting for something real for the first time in my life”

Move over Raise Your Voice. I think I’ve found an even more clichéd movie – It’s pretty much Raise Your Voice 2 since it’s also based at a school of arts. So, if you love clichéd teen movies (you know who you are), you have to watch Step Up. During my long, delayed flight to London, I decided to watch it, since I figured if I fell asleep at any time in the movie, when I woke up, I would still know what was going on, and what was going to happen. Boy, was I not disappointed.

There are so many clichés in the movie, I don’t even know where to begin. Well, the two protagonists are from two totally different worlds: The guy comes from the wrong side of the tracks (which, as we see in the movie, is the result of coming from a broken home with the standard alcoholic/negligent foster dad) who at first hates the rich girl. Little does he know how much they have in common.

Despite the rich girl seemingly having everything – she attends the prestigious arts school, has good ethnically-diverse friends, and also the prick of a boyfriend – her mother doesn’t believe in her dream of becoming a dancer, but we find out in the end that she does in fact, truly care, but is just being overprotective and only wants the best for her daughter.

A million clichés later, including the guy finding something he truly believes in, a comic-relief sidekick, tragedy, and everything going smoothly until exactly two-thirds of the way through the movie when it all appears to fall apart. What's going to happen in the end? Will she be offered her dream job of being in a theatre company? Will he, guy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks, learn the error of his ways, and find the one way to escape his movie-rate thug life? Who knows? It's not like it's an overclichéd teen-dancing movie!


...Oh wait...

food!

I can't be bothered writing anything that blogworthy, yet I feel obliged to post a blog since it may be the last time for a while I'll be able to blog - I'm in the JFK airport in New York, waiting for our flight to at 7:30 to London. Fortunately, almost everywhere here has WiFi, (I think it's pronounced why-fy, not "whiffy") so I'm on my MacBook trying to use this unlimited internet before boarding and going to London, where I've heard I won't be able to access the internet as much. So anyway, I've just decided to post pictures and captions to one of my hobbies- food!


I found this everywhere in Tokyo - It's apparently beauty tea supposedly making you, well, um, more beautiful I guess...



Yay Mos Burger! I don't know if it was the perfectly-stacked, round burgers, or the amount of effort to find one of these places, but it was pretty good...


The vending-type machine in the Ramen noodle place - In an effort to rid the restaurants of waitresses, you purchase tickets for your food through this machine... and then give the tickets to the waitress...


... and moments later, steaming hotRamen!


We went to this robatayaki place, which is pretty much just cooking things over hot rocks or embers or something. kinda like a Korean BBQ, only in this photo, less ribs and beef, and more tentacles.


A huge day for me - my goal was to eat as much stereotypically-American food - so ate this pretzel, which really did make me thirsty! Later that day I also had a hot dog and a chilli dog, and a huge-arse steak, though wasn't able to finish it as well as my brother...

I even ate at a diner, with booths! Though oddly, I felt the need to order cereal during the afternoon, talk about nothing, and ask what was the deal with a number of things while I was there.

Next goal on my list of stereotypically American food-related goals: become obese!

tv & celebrities in new york

Boy, it's only been a couple of days since my last blog, but boy, the stories I could tell...



...Well, I guess I should tell you what's happened then. We've been doing the standard sightseeing thing lately of popular attractions and all the like. Today we we walked down Fifth Avenue, which is pretty much the rich street here with all the fancy shops and stuff, and apparently costs a fortune to get a shop on the street - apparently, there are quite a few stores that lose a lot of money since they don't attract enough customers to the store, but keep their shop anyway for the prestige associated with being on Fifth Avenue. What's really weird is that there are a bunch of Target ads all in Times Square, and there isn't even a Target in Manhattan!

Anyway, the highlight of the day shopping-wise probably would have been the NBC store, since it had souvenir stuff from The Office, Scrubs & Friends. After wondering why I loved the store so much I came to the realisation that two major facets of my life are watching TV and shopping, and this just combined the two. I was a little sad, but consoled myself with buying some stuff in the store. I was so close to actually buying actual Scrubs-Scrubs, but decided against it, considering I probably wouldn't wear them and that I'm too lanky to wear them anyway. Plus, I'm going to the CBS store tomorrow, so hopefully I can pick up some Amazing Race stuff.

Also went to the NBA store as well - two levels of unbelievable basketball merchandise, with jerseys, bobbleheads, a lego Lebron James, action figures, clothing, and Basketball Baboushka dolls. It was every basketball-lover's dream... too bad it was wasted on me. So after perusing (which is another facet of my life, mainly because then I can say it more) for 20 minutes , I ended up just sitting in the store for another 40 minutes twiddling my thumbs and wishing I enjoyed organised-competitive-physical group-activities, or "sports", if you will.

I wonder if video games will ever be considered a sport? I watched this documentary on the plane to the US about a guy who was a professional video game player, and has a contract and is a millionaire already. Apparently in South Korea it's also pretty huge, with people going to stadiums to watch other people play. I remember seeing it being covered on TV in Korea. I can't wait till that trend hits Australia. I'd love it if I could be paid to play Guitar Hero - then I could be a professional rocker without even knowing how to play an instrument.

Probably the coolest & noteworthy thing in New York though is celebrity spotting that's happened so far. It's way cooler than Australia since you see people other than Toadie from Neighbours. But anywhoo, while we were eating a restaurant near the hotel, Sean Penn came in to the restaurant and sat a couple tables away from us. I tried to do the keep-cool-and-pretend-it's-nothing thing, which pretty much means I tried not to stare too blatantly, and glanced repeatedly instead. Was also too afraid to ask for an autograph or take a picture since he seems like a kinda edgy guy anyways.

Also, after while visiting Trump Tower to getApprentice-related photos, I got to see the biggest celebrity there - you guessed it, Trump's hair! And also the guy attached to it! The acting cool thing didn't work this time- mainly because everyone else was staring and taking photos, so me and my brother decided to join in on the fun:

live, from new york, it's saturday night!

Man, it's been a long couple of days. Actually, more like one really long day and one shorter one. We left Tokyo on Friday around 7:00, and arrived in New York at midnight on Friday. Doesn't sound like much of along day, but we went over the international time line, so in between those seemingly short 5 hours was 10 hours on a plane to Dallas, 2 hours in the airport, 2 hours to New York, a fat guy sitting next to me taking up all of my armrest and intermittently leaning on my light button on the plane, and a number of plane/landing delays in between. It does feel weird to not be in Japan anymore, so I'm trying to look on the bright side. Not so much the bright side, but focusing on the sucky things on Japan so I don't feel as bad...

1. Couldn't find a Nintendo DS anywhere in Japan! apparently they're sold out in the country! I doubt there are shortages overseas, in fact, in Australia, they seem to be everywhere! Why didn't they spend that manufacturing time making Nintendo DSes for Japan, in particular the light blue one that you can supposedly only find in Japan? Shame, Nintendo, shame.

2. For a place notorious for it's crazy TV, I didn't really find that much crazy TV. Well, there was that show that involved two people trying to set the record for eating as much sushi humanly possible, and eating around about 100 plates of sushi at a sushi train restaurant, but still, not that zany, and only shown during the afternoon/night!

3. Banana Fanta. Eeew...

Anyway, New York's been pretty cool so far. I did enjoy some New York pizza, so I just have to eat a pretzel, and a hot dog from a questionable street vendor, and I'll be able to check everything off my New York list. I think I should have put an extra check box for watching Saturday Night Live live from New York as well. It's not the best show, but I think it sounds cool to have done it anyway.

also, my phone's working now, so I should be able to get any messages, should anyone wish to tell me how they're going in Guitar Hero, Starcraft, or anything else noteworthy. I've heard that international roaming doesn't accept SMSPup messages, or anything involving Gilmore Girls, so if you do message me, you might have to just use your own phone and avoid any Lorelai references...

By the way if there's anything you might want from New York, let me know -I expect to be receiving requests anytime now...

towel origami

What does patience, persistance, and a chillaxing (I don't care, I'm going to keep using that word until it catches on) night in a Tokyo result in?



(by the way, it's supposed to be a chicken...)

why i won't be on australia's funniest home videos

Today we returned to Tokyo after spending a couple days in Kyoto - Kyoto was pretty cool, got to see the Gold Temple, which was surprisingly all covered in gold, and the deceptively-named Silver Temple, which isn't silver at all.. Unfortunately, we tried Geisha-hunting with little success, but on the plus side got to try some quality tempura and teppanyaki.

We got back to Tokyo at around 1:00, and tried to find Mos burger - think of a classier McDonalds, but with good burgers, and that's Mos Burger - they cook your burgers to order, and they are made so meticulously and everything! Anyway, for the second largest burger chain in Japan, it was surprisingly hard to find ,but we managed to come across a small one, which was cool but didn't have the full menu. I just wanted to see if they had their Takumi Burger, which is a 10-level burger with like imported Australian beef, avacado, and other stuff as well.

The rest of the day I spent having flashbacks of Big, and tried to remember all the notes to chopsticks, thanks to the funky stairs in the Sony building!

In the end, I decided against trying to play a song, out of fear that I'd trip and break my neck on the stairs. Then it'd be REALLY akward, since the stairs would make the beepy noises as I fell, kinda like the sound effects you hear when people get hit in the balls on Australia's Funniest Home videos. Awkward.

yay japanese tv!

i feel violated... and not in a good way...

I thought I'd be nice and share what I wrote this on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto...

I feel so violated. And not in a good way. i thought today was going to be just an ordinary day, holiday-wise. The plan was to check out of our hotel, catch the bullet train to Kyoto, and depending on what time we get there, some sightseeing. Seems like a typical holiday-day, right?

That is until we stop at the Shizuoka station, and the guy to my right hops off. Here I am, listening to my iPod, until someone says "excuse me" in Japanese and sits next to me. He takes his jacket partially off, and puts it on back to front, so his hands are going through the sleeves and so the back of the jacket is covering his lap. Sounds a little weird, right? But nothing too out of the ordinary. Until he pulls out his magazine to read... or ogle.

It's a porno - from the quick awkward glances I had (I felt uncomfortable just asking him if I could also have a proper look, or share the experience) It's nothing too hardcore - it had no bukkake or anything - but still... AWKWARD. Doesn't seem like appropriate bullet train reading material if you ask me.

His hands are now officially under his jacket, so I'm fully conscious of him trying to jack off when I'm right next to him... I'm too afraid of even looking in his direction, even to look through the window to look out for Mt. Fuji.

Well, in the end, I'd just like to say that I still haven't seen Mt. Fuji, but maybe on the way back by bullet train I'll keep an eye out...

posse-less & waiterless in tokyo

Finally in Tokyo, and man is it all neon and bright at night - pretty cool though! We ended up arriving in Japan an hour later because of the plane delay, and finally got to use my Japanese! Finally, 3 years of uni paying off! It's a little disheartening though, I knew my Japanese wasn't that good, but everytime I say something, everyone will try to respond immediately in English, which is good because I can understand them, but kinda sucky since I always end up going back to using English anyway...

Since we arrived later, we ended up getting to our hotel at around 10:30 at night, so most things were closed, and couldn't find any huge place to eat. So, ended up right in this great little fast food place right next to the hotel that was open 24 hours, and had neon signs... and golden arches. Yeah, I can't believe my first meal in Japan was McDonalds... I did have a Filet O'Prawn Burger (I'm guessing they don't know what the Filet O' part means) which isn't found in Australia so constitutes something uniquely Japanese, so I ended up doing better than my brother, who ended up with a Bacon burger. There's just something about salty, crispy strips of pork by-product my brother can't get enough of....

So other than that, ended up doing the touristy thing today - (I'll try to post some pictures soon)Went to a Japanese shrine, and and then spent over an hour hunting down some Harajuku girls in Harajuku - hey, it was harder than it sounds! It also means I'm still working on developing my Harajuku posse, so if you know anyone who's interested, let me know! Also went to Shibuya, and saw the huge pedestrian crossing. It's that one where you see like a wave of hundreds of people crossing the street, like in Lost in Translation - we even went up Starbucks to take photos of the crowd, just like what they did for the movie as well (Thanks IMDB!).



The other highlight of the day involved going to a Ramen noodle place, where instead of ordering from a waiter (well, waiters are so 2005 anyway!) you have to buy tickets for the food you want.... and then give it to the waiter, who will give the food to you... I guess they haven't really worked out the whole automated service thing yet. Guess they were afraid of robots taking over too...

yay holidays! well, almost.

it didn't really hit me that I was going overseas and on holiday til like this morning when our taxi came, but since I'm at the airport now, I'm kinda pumped. I always wondered why there are so many shops that sell luggage in the airport - don't you think you wouldn't be ready for a trip if you are just getting a suitcase to carry all your crap the day you leave?

Also, some people may be happy to hear that I beeped - I know it doesn't sound like much, but my last trip to Korea I was the entertainment at the airport since I continually beeped. Well, I didn't make beepy noises, it was the machine, and apparently my belt. I'm starting get the feeling it's me, not the belt since I even pre-emptively was beltless and still beeped... maybe I have too much iron in my diet... better lay off the bacon...

Anyway, my not-so-adventurous adventure is supposed to start in 10 minutes as I board the plane, but according to that big booming voice making announcements about plane times(God?)the airport's been closed due to weather conditions - just looking outside, all you can see is smoke, and even inside the airport it's getting pretty smoky and stuff. Being stuck in the airport for a day just sounds like the plot of a crappy Disney movie - You know, our plans are ruined, but a bunch of people from different backgrounds and stuff come together for the ultimate adventure, one they couldn't possibly expect to have if they did go overseas! And inevitably, hijinx and hilarity ensues.

I hope there's hilarity and hijinx on this holiday...