Dinner conversation

One of hubby's distance cousin is now in Japan and staying over at our cousin's place (same room that we stayed recently) for a couple of days.

Hubby met niece K  over MSN today and was told that the above mentioned cousin said that our cousin's house is dirty. Em..  that's not tactful and come across very rude, don't you think? Please lah, let you stay for free still expect so much, they give you clean sheets, run bath for you in case you want a soak after a long day touring, make you breakfast, give you nice thick comforter, feed you fruits, tell you to make yourself at home, and most likely set up internet access in your room so as to let you stay connected... I think that's very kind and hospitable and di jia zhi zhu. I don't expect so much yet they did that and more. It's a Japanese home, so things are different from Sg. Anyway that man is close to 40.

I wonder how they reacted to this comment.

the start of a flu?

just a ramble. feeling rather sicky now. starting of a sore throat yesterday, seems to be getting slightly worse now, gargled listerine and taking pi pa kao.

stuffy nose and feeling warm- feverish. hope it's not the start of a flu or another round of H1N1. should go away, taking Vits and drinking water.

Hi! ... Meow!

just for fun, a postcard I received awhile back.

I would prefer not

I would really like some people to speak with tact and respect.

Regardless of attitude, character or just plain ignorance, please know that there are people who can get hurt or upset by words that may mean nothing to you. That keeping quiet out of politeness or wanting to avoid  unhappiness is just how we cope and that it is not OK and not acceptable for bad behavior.

That despite stoic appearance, we are learning to handle negative emotions and learning to let it go.

keep on going

When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."
~Author Unknown

There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream.  ~Author Unknown

Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it.  I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.  ~Charles F. Kettering

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it.  The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.  ~Earl Nightingale

source

there goes my fan too..

wah lau!

fan blade broke into pieces when my mum cleaned it. they say things come in 3 (or is it good things only?)... I hope not. Can't bear for anything else to spoil. sigh, have to buy a new fan.. and we were at Best at Vivo yesterday, there was a OCBC member sale with additional rebate.

arrgh!

Into the chute

As I'm typing this, a man is in our kitchen hammering away on our wall where the dustbin chute used to be. As hubby's luck should have it, the door of the dustbin kena stuck when he threw the milk carton away this morning, then he tried to scrap away chucks of the cement and some stuffs, hammer and pry and finally the door closes, but not fully.

For fear of cockroaches creeping in later.. we decided to part with our money again and called the no. in the classified.

$280 is very ex leh. There's one for $120, but it's the very old fashioned kind that juts out. There's another $180 type but no stock... so we have made our choice.

In a way, it's better to live in the newer HDB flats because the dustbin chutes are in the common corridor and the Town Council will attend to the maintenance. ( I called TC for help and ask for any licensed contractors to recommend) but having a chute in the house also makes it convenient. Oh well, just be contented and make do with what we have now. Same goes for the joy of hanging clothes out into the sun in old flats versus new flats, where drying clothes does not equals to fabrics flapping in the wind and tanning in the sun.

Dinner was..

spaghetti with olive oil, green pepper and corned beef and honey baked chicken from cold storage.

+++

a walk with you to library in this cool cool weather. slight drizzle. umbrella. you me.

你是我的宝贝

saw this on Felicia Chin's blog. thought it sounds so sweet, so wistful, so happy and it made me think of you.

Reminds me of Faye Wong.

Japan Short Notes #13

Day 14- 29/09/09

We spent the day touring Kyoto.

Places that we visited:

1. Nijo Castle

2. Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)

Our collective responses when we first sighted this building was "WOW! It's gold leh!" Then we started debating between us whether it's made up entirely of gold or just plated.  Truly impressive!

3. Kyoto Imperial Palace

Not so fantastic buffet lunch at the Kyoto Handicraft Centre. The entire group that we toured with consisted mainly of Caucasians, with  only 3 Asian couples. The funny thing was that because we are Asians, many assumed that we do not understand English very well, and were largely ignored by the tourists in this group. Ok, there weren't much time to socialised but the fun part is sitting next to 2 men from Germany (I think) trying to hit on a lone female traveller. One guy speaks better English and kept interrupting his friend (who was struggling with his English) and whom kept clarifying that his Japanese girl friend in Japan is just a friend and nothing special. Haha.. that's entertainment and they were rather loud!

By the way, KHC sells lots of Kimono and they are all so pretty! The decorative dolls and souvenirs were all so cute! I  wanted to buy it all, but senses and hubby prevails and I only bought a doll.

After lunch, we visited:

4. Heian Jingu (Heian Shrine)

5. Sanjūsangen-dō

6. Kiyomizu Temple

To be honest, we were both so tired at the end of the day that we couldn't really remember the temples and details of the places that  that we visited. It was crowded with school kids on excursion trips and alot of tourists! Kyoto is really a tourist destination spot! And it's proven by my simple theory... almost every place that we visited sells magnet! What's so special about that? Well, magnets are generally a gaijin's (foreigner) souvenir preference, almost all tourist spots in the world sells magnet. But for Japanese, they tend to favour handphone chains as gifts to friends and foodstuffs like preserved food or seasonings. It's true! I've been to places which caters to overseas tourists and local tourists and the stuffs they sells are slightly different.

We spent the night as New Miyako Hotel and had a lovely dinner.

Japan Short Notes #12

Day 13- 28/09/09

We joined a day tour to Miyajima Island and around Hiroshima. 

I love Miyajima Island! It's so beautiful and the deers roamed around freely. The deers there luurve to eat papas, yes papers. They will come up to you, nudged around and grab any ticket stubs or brochures. We also saw them loitering at the front of the shops and one of them was eyeing a piece of A4 paper that states the price. When the paper conveniently fell to the ground, the deer rushes in and gobbled it up before anyone could react. They really love paper!

We were given a tour and history lesson on the Itsukushima Shrine.

For lunch, we ate very yummy tasting oysters. The owner gave us 2 for the price of 1. Twice!

Lastly, we visted the A Bomb site, Peace memorial park and museum.

We had a scare at the end of the day as we discovered that we left our camera at the museum! 

Fortunately, we managed to get it back and had a kind experience with an elderly caucasian couple. They were worried that we did not have enough money to take  a cab and offered us money. Fortunately we had enough and as fate had it, hubby met them at the computer room in New Miyaki Hotel, Kyoto.

Japan Short Notes #11

Day 12- 27/09/09

The start of our 7 days self tour. First stop, Hiroshima.

This is my first time taking a train, MRT not considering. The shinkansen ride was nice, comfortable and fast! Well, the total journey from Shin Yokohama to Shin Osaka takes about 2.5 hours but time passes by quickly. We had our bento lunch, music and beauty sleep.

The transfer from Shin Osaka to Hiroshima take about 1.5 hours and we finally arrived at Hotel Granvia Hiroshima. 

We were pleasantly surprised when a station master at Hiroshima station approached us and asked if we needed help. We were trying to figure out the location of our hotel and were staring at the map. It was indeed a first in Japan ever to have someone approach us offering assistance. It could be possibly the fact that Japanese are daunted by having to speak English. Many of them do learn English in school but they don't dare to speak very much due to the fear of embarrassment.  This is very unlike us, we just heck care and just hantam lah! Hahah. Really, if hubby and I live in fear of embarrassing ourselves, we would be very hungry and lost in Japan. I mean I do get embarrassed when I get unfriendly stares or look when I open my mouth and they hear  an obvious foreign accent speaking (broken) Japanese, but I do get overjoyed when they understand my questions and vocabs! If nothing else works, we will point and order. Something we often do in Japan, when we look for food, we would look for places that are cheap and good. This means we have to be contented with no English speaking staffs or menu. We would have  to point at pictures and order "hitotsu kudasai" (one please). Unfortuantely, loal eats means lots of locals would be in the shop and they would look at us in amusement as we order. 

Anyway, Hotel Granvia Hiroshima was nice, high thread count bed sheets, firm mattress, tempur memory foam pillows. Sigh, it was a good night sleep.

Our view from the room was pretty gray, view of carpark. Because we were hungry, we decided to have dinner at the shopping centre next to the train station and had Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. Made with yellow noodle and lots of veg, it's different from the Osaka style where the ingredients are mixed with batter. According to the tour guide lady we met on Day 13, apparently Hiroshima won 9 times when pitted against Osaka style Oknomiyaki!

It's certainly healthy but since  Okonomiyaki is not one of my "must eat"  Japanese food, it's not something I would crave again.

At the Okonomiyaki store, I smiled at a young pretty lady inside as she calls out "Irashaimase" (welcome!). I coaxed her out of the store, point and order, followed her in, stared at her as she clarifies the order, guessed a few words, exchange hand gestures, feels shy when so many eyes are on you as I become the current entertainment and sigh in contentment when the food arrives, smelling so good and we leave full and happy. =D

Saturday

Lovely steamboat lunch at Ron's place with Von & family. Played with Lu and Baby Sofia. Enjoyed ourselves catching up with old friends and dancing with the baby.

Von left around 4 +, hubby fell asleep on the couch, Ron and I chatted and watched Discovery Health. Wanted to leave at 6 + to library and town but dark clouds gathered and thunders were loud and threatening. In the end we ordered pizza and watched "Day of the Dead" and "License to wed" on cable.

It was nice to be indoor on a rainy day with strong winds. For awhile we imagined the rain to be snow and if I could fool myself hard enough, I could be anywhere with 4 seasons other than hot, humid Singapore.

Later in the night, hubby and I went to HV Cold storage and we encountered a guy covered in blood!

Yeah, Halloween.