Archive for the ‘photolog’ Category
Day 3 meant Tsukiji.
(Warning: LOTS of photos.)
A cold morning, waking up at 5am to get to Tsukiji market before the Tuna auction ended. Took the first few trains heading toward Tsukiji and then it started drizzling and got really wet. Maybe that’s why there was no smell at all in the market, cos of the cold! Best fish market ever. I hate the smell of wet markets in Singapore, I think I never breathe through my nose when I’m there.
We weren’t sure where to go when we arrived at the station. So we just followed people. We assumed they were going to the right place. And we did end up at the right place. So all was good. (:
- First views of the fish in Tsukiji Market
- Roe – lots!
- Unagi! They look kind of scary and gross swimming in there. But… just think of the taste!
- Tuna sold at the auction (I’m assuming). They are huge! Its just so amazing seeing the whole huge tuna go pass by you, and then another one over there, and there. And then being cut up, being sliced, apportioned. Its just so amazing seeing it as a whole instead of being in my food alone.
- Here are my parents with the tuna!
- Fishy fishy, all in a row.
- Tuna being mistreated and hauled around, and cut up. They are so big, and heavy! They just chop off bits of it and its like all over the floor – okay not all over, but you know what I mean! – and there was a tail on the ground, then fins were coming off too.
After checking out the fish market, we then found the auction room, where the tuna auction was being carried out.
- Its all busy busy in the auction room. Bells will be ringing where the tuna to be sold will be. They will be shouting all sort of numbers to the crowd, hands will be raised, and then the tuna will be sold. So exciting.
- Look at the rows and rows of tuna.
- Dragging away the ones that have been sold.
- So much going on at 6am in the early morning. All the tuna to be sold, all the buyers busy calculating their worths and their ability to purchase.
- Dragging the tuna about.
After the auction was over, for us at least because tourists were only allowed in during a fixed time period, we headed back out and checked out the rest of the market!
- Here I am in the middle of the huge huge super cool Tsukiji fish market.
- And here are my parents in the cool Tsukiji Fish Market.
- Here is the anago man! Slicing the anago. I thought it was unagi, but he corrected me. And he also warned us when those crazy car things were zooming around next to us, how nice. (:
- Check out the cool octopus!
- Here is Pa with the man cutting up the fish
- And now Pa & Me
- Here I am.. somewhere in the middle of Tsukiji
- Slicing up the fish. With full concentration.
- Check out the long knife. I’m just imagining the sounds of swords slicing through the air. *shing-shwhing*
- Slicing up the tuna with precision.
- Tsukiji. Wow.
- Here I am with a whole fridge full of tuna pieces!
- And my parents with same fridge of tuna.
- Then whilst trying to get out of the fish market, we ended up in the fruit & vegetable market. Those are people buying the veges/fruit. It was quite amazing.
- Here we are in the fruit/vege section
After finding our way out of the market, and finding out where the other market with all the food was. We made our way there, and went to find breakfast! And I got to choose unagi! 
My parents love me.
- Then we went to eat unagi. Because I’m pathetic and don’t enjoy sashimi.
- Here is Pa with his unagi-don!
- And Mum with hers!
- And happy me with mine! YAY!
After this, we went back to the hotel to sleep. I wonder why.
After waking up too soon, forced to by my parents, we went to get my apartment stuff done. And check out awesome ramen we had for lunch!
That night we dumped all my stuff in my apartment. And I had Takopachi! LOVE!!
Day 2 of our Japanese Journey
Here is the second day in Tokyo! Not much comments, just pictures. Enjoy!
Lunch before headng to Asakusa.
Parents in front of Asakusa temple.
Asakusa!
Asakusa!!
The massive lantern at Asakusa!
They burn incense in the pot there and then people come by and pat the smoke on themselves, for blessings. Its cute watching people do it.
Pa at the water fountain area at Asakusa temple. At all temples, there is an area to wash hands/face, drink water from. For blessings I suppose.
A random green building we walked past. SO CUTE! I would love my house/aparment building/office building to be like that too.
From the rainbow bridge! NICEEEEEE view!! *Click for bigger view*
Here are the parents on the Rainbow bridge!! The rain lightened up and it got less cloudy.
Me and Mum on the rainbow bridge. WINDY!!
A random event we chanced upon, its a charity event if I'm not wrong. For Fuji-Television. The music the group was performing was good though.
Look at the massive crowds.
Yes, I AM in Japan.
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!!
design by bro.
Artwork by kor.
Stressed? Definitely.
Its quite cute actually.
night falls.
Studying stinks.
I wonder how many times I blog about how awful school is. Sigh. I’ll probably look back and regret all these thoughts because I’ll be thinking work is worse in the future, and then I’ll be like, ‘Whoa, school was so amazing!!’ I do think school is fun and all that, if I don’t think of projects and tests and exams. BLAH.
And I forgot to mention how half of my Mac’s memory was wiped out when I installed Bootcamp – all for the pleasure of taking a test for AdvancedAudit. I wasn’t aware that by combining the partitions, all the data would be formatted and lost. So I was struck dumb when I tried playing music and there was only a quarter of them left. Like, OMG. Stupid CIT dude did not tell me that would happen!! So I went to download a data recovery software.. but now its all classified oddly and I haven’t the mood to go through them to see if they are there etc. I’m giving up on the photos, even though my handphone photos are only backed up there, because they are all just named numerically, how to find!?! AND itunes is so useless in getting rid of songs that are no longer in the system. Thankfully, all my school-related information was in the main partition, and was not wiped out. Especially because all my projects were ongoing at that time – think of the horror if they disappeared.
My road at night. It just felt very peaceful at that point in time, and I wanted to capture its essence. The quiet. The darkness of night. I enjoy basking in moon and starlight, walking the paths under dim street lamps. Cool breeze blowing, silence enveloping me.
