Marooned.

Seeing how I’ve been missing in action for the best of almost 3 weeks. I know I have a lot to fill in! Like tonnes of pictures too. But.. the television is distracting me with baseball, and baseball players – 鳥谷 敬 (Takashi Toritani) from Hanshin Tigers is damn cute, and he’s damn good! I think he hit 2 home runs. The first one brought 2 others back home, leveling the score with the Giants, then he hit another home run. So the Tigers won the Giants 7-6 today, super exciting game. I need to watch baseball live in Japan! Like the Giants at Tokyo Dome, too bad the Tigers are from Osaka – I kind of like them, watched a few games along the way when we were traveling around.

Yes, ok so that was not updating about me being in Japan, but kind of.

Well. I shall update on my apartment! Its more like a room, with an adjoined toilet, and an electric stove & microwave to you people who live anywhere other than Tokyo.

View from the door, as you enter. New flowers, bed, desk. Not enough storage space... AT ALL. I don't have a bookshelf, so my books and papers are going to overflow onto the floor very soon.

View of my room from the bed!

My desk & Tv (with PM Hatoyama on the screen), clothes wardrobe & cabinet at the back.

My toilet! Minimal space, but enough for whatever's necessary.

House plant, Pretty Pink Flowers! I decided that I need a plant in the apartment. (: So I bought one. Its so pretty.

Ok I’m watching the news in Japanese on Hatoyama Yukio stepping in as Prime Minister of Japan today. I didn’t understand what was happening – my Japanese is rudimentary – so as expected, google helped me!

So school has not begun proper, only the orientations and getting us to take the language placement tests. Well, the placement tests were just crazy difficult, and just made me feel as if it was a waste studying it for the past 6 months, because, well I’m probably in the class just above zero. In J0 they learn the real basic of basics, so I guess they won’t put me in that right, I can’t do hiragana and katakana all over again. My brain died during the interview test today, so I started using English for some words, which totally explained the lady’s sympathetic, ‘We think its best we put you in a basic class, to improve your level of Japanese, is that ok?’ Oh wells, not that I need to take any modules in Japanese, so although it was an ego buster, its okay.

Met the other international exchange students who are entering Rikkyo this term, got to know some Japanese students too, when we went for the Nomikai on Monday evening. The other exchange people are really nice, hung out with some of them for the past few days when we see each other in school to get stuff done etc, then we did grocery shopping, Daiso shopping, dinner etc. I spend way too much on groceries, so far its about ¥3500, and that’s not including rice, which I intend to buy tomorrow, cos its cheaper at the other supermarket which I was too lazy to walk to today. An international friends club thing organized the Nomikai for the international exchange people, so we went. Its a drinking party, but the group was too big, so we split into 2 separate groups, and went to 2 different restaurants. The Japanese students were really nice, and they spoke to us in Japanese, mostly, so I was having a real brainy time trying to converse in and understand Japanese – its really tough! Especially because they use casual speech, when all, or most of, what I’ve been studying has been formal speech, so its really different. But it was alright in the end, it was fun!

People sitting around me! Perrtu on the left. Jap girl - forgot her name.. David, and Yuki doing something with her chopsticks.

The table. We had interesting food. A hot pot, deep fried spaghetti, okonomiyaki, fries, chicken wings, and drinks!

Yu & I. (ha. ha.) First year law student.

Me, Yu & Yumie. Yumie brought me around for the school tour part of orientation, and lunch. She's super cute. And tall. And pretty. They're both 19, so young!! (Oh, and under the legal drinking age. So no, they were not drinking. Righttt.)

The other half of the table! The guy on the right, is Travis, from Hawaii, he lives in the dorms at my station too. Part of the group of us who've been home shopping for the past few days. He loves Uniqlo ( he just bought 3 shirts today when we were out), according to Robyn, the other girl from Hawaii.

Me, Amanda & Sara. They're from Canada, but different schools. They're really nice. And Amanda is like kerraazy. Haha, maybe she was just really high. But she's really fun to hang out with. And has cool hair.

Right outside the building the restaurant was in. This is Ikebukuro on a Monday night. Go figure. Its packed at all times, all over central Tokyo. Its freaking amazing.

A standing up bar across the building we were in. Its interesting seeing people just stand around drinking.

Ok, I really need to wash up and go to bed now. I have to be up for College of Business orientation tomorrow morning. I already totally forgot about the library orientation this morning and slept in. Hope its not as boring as the one we had on Monday. Kei was sleeping, whoops, and I was dozing off, so were many of the people around me. Ok night! I’ll update with more on the traveling part tomorrow! Promise!!

Meeting all my friends make me sad that I’m leaving, and yet I’m so crazy excited about it. It feels so surreal that this time tomorrow, I’ll be in an A380 heading for Tokyo.

My bags are terribly unpacked, or more like overpacked. The huge bag and carry on are full, yet I’ve tonnes of things still not insides. HOW! I’m getting a bit worried, and scared to take things out, because I’ll feel annoyed with myself when I realise that if I brought it, I’ll be saving money over in Tokyo. I just want to pack everything into those few bags.

I was driving home just now, and throughout the way, it hit me how much I’m going to miss Singapore. But it’ll be very soon that I’m back, so I guess it’ll be ok. (:

It just hit me that I’m leaving in 2 weeks and 1 day. That’s way too fast! I keep thinking my departure date is far away, and that I can’t wait for it to come, but at the same time, I don’t want to leave all this behind!

I always wish that there’ll be this portal where I’d be able to walk through and arrive in another country. Because I always have this surreal feeling after taking a plane home, and thinking that its weird how I was in another country, culture, land, society just 3 or 4 hours ago, and now, I’m back at status quo. Its bizarre.

There was a quake in Japan 2 days ago. Kind of cool, better go read up on how to protect myself if a quake hits.

And housing in Tokyo is effing expensive. ARGH. Shall blame my desire for privacy, and my own toilet! Haha.

So the school term is over, finally, the real summer break is beginning.

The project was okay, didn’t really have enough time to do everything to its best. After a while, it was just too tiring to make any more edits, and time was just running out. I think summer modules are way too stressful, to jam-pack 12 weeks worth into 4  just isn’t right. (Update: at least now I know it wasn’t wasted! Yay.)

And I lost my charm bracelet when I left it in the Seminar Room after our presentation, and the next day when I went back to check, it was gone! No one returned it to the lost & found either. I’m very upset. I made it myself, and now I have to go back to buy all the charms again, thankfully, I am going back to HK next week, yay! Sigh, but its still annoying that I lost it. I hate losing things. And I did love the bracelet very much, it was so cute!

I so need to get my visa done, but I have not taken a passport photo, printed the application form, made the effort to go down to the Embassy. I NEED TO GET OFF MY FAT ASS.

Academic year ended 2009 is ending soon! Less than 48 hours and it’ll be freedom. It’ll be party time. (Ok, I know I’ve already been partying, but its different knowing I don’t have a 20 page report & 20min presentation nagging me at the back of my head.)

It’ll also mean JAPAN. (Skips around happily, and impatiently.)

Although I wish the world were smaller, so that I can just pop to another country in a matter of minutes, and costlessly, its impossible. Whilst the internet has flattened the world so, it still has its many inabilities. But be happy as a clam at what I have got in my hand already, shall remember lessons to self.

My lovely girls are home! I had Jinping & Shermaine back a few weeks ago. Then Friday brought Jiaying home. And today it was Michelle. (: Happy happy! And happy friends make me happy too! Like my Mayjean getting her dreams spot. YAY!

The gang, Mich, Brynner & Jeremy, – short of Jason, plus Kieren, and Vick later on – was damn fun. (: Ivin’s then itouch around the kitchen table whilst Jeremy & I rushed out our project. Then playing wii – Raving Rabbids TV Party – awesome.