Hello world.
This is my first entry of my recent trip to Japan for HPAIR 2005.
There's just so much I've experience over the 9 day trip that only
written entries can do it justice. Even if I told you about my trip,
it would barely be 50% of what I experienced. Hopefully though I will
manage to finish the entries for everyday. So here goes nothing:
My flight to Japan on Fri was at 6am. So you can imagine I had to wake
up at 3am and then meet up with friends to share a cab to the airport.
I probably had like 2 hours of sleep and fortunately I could wake up.
Shared a cab with L, M and S.
Our flight was on Northwest and the check-in procedure was enough to
convinced me that given a choice, I won't choose NW again. NW being an
American airline, there was lotsa security procedures to follow.
Before checking in, an officer would interview us, ask us this and
that. Actually shouldn't blame them, should blame the terrorists
instead, for making our lives so troublesome. One friend even had to
open up her luggage and start up her notebook for the security
officers.
On the flight itself, I REALLY decided not to take NW again. There was
no toothbrush in the entire plane! And this was an early morning
flight. On all my previous trips to Japan on JAL and ANA, there were
always toiletries provided on-flight. And the stewardess was damn
serious looking lor. Never really smiled at all. Oh man, I guess I
can't blame them either. Must blame the terrorists for making their
lives more dangerous and hence the lacklustre service.
Oh before I forget, M and S are really alcoholics. They were clubbing
right before we left for the airport and at the airport they bought a
bottle of duty-free liquor each (rum and vodka) to party in Tokyo. Oh
man...
The rest of the flight was pretty boring and pretty bad food too. We
arrived around 2pm and it was sunny! I started looking around for H
who was supposed to meet me but I couldnt find him. Meanwhile the rest
of my friends were discussing how to go to Tokyo from the airport.
Coupla minutes later finally H appeared. Whew...
We bade farewell to my SG frens and checked out the train schedules.
Apparently the express train to Yokohama leaves in 45 mins time so
eventually we took the limousine bus instead. In case you are
wondering, the limousine bus is just like any normal express bus.
Don't ask me y they call it that. We had sometime to spare and I made
my first purchase, iced matcha drink (thick green tea) with vanilla
soft-served ice-cream on it. Ok I really need to make a note to myself
that matcha is really bitter. But it's a robust drink. H had a
soft-served ice-cream cone. Apparently soft-served ice-cream is the
Japanese standard. You can find almost any flavors for it. From my
previous trips, I have tasted/seen black sesame and matcha and
probably some others which I cant seem to recall now.
Ok anyway before long we were on the bus heading towards Yokohama. The
one way trip costs around S$50 and this is often what catches visitors
to Japan by (unpleasant) surprise. I should also say that everything
in Japan is at least 40% more expensive than Singapore, so later if I
say something is reasonable, please reduce its price by 40% before
strangling me.
The bus ride was pretty ho-hum with H and I catching up on old times.
Actually its more of new times because we discussed the future more.
Anyway before long, we reached Yokohama. This was my first time there.
Fortunately we found a place where we could leave my luggage so that I
don't have to lug it around. But I still had to carry my sling bag and
a suit so after a while it was tiring too. We went inside the Sogo
Building and up to the top floor. Though it was hot (evening sun), the
wind was pretty strong there. Oh and one thing about Japan is that the
day is pretty short... it gets really dark before 7pm. Anyway after
that we went down floor by floor and looked at the stuff. There was a
beautiful lady playing a violin in a restaurant area! Anyway moved on
to Loft on one of the floors in Sogo, which is kinda like a lifestyle
store, with basically anything and everything. There was where I got
the takoyaki card for SW. Lotsa of other cute stuff there like
minature replicas of food, kitchen stuff, household stuff, etc. Then
we moved all the way down, got my luggage and proceeded to take the
train towards H's house. Oh and before we left, I bought da-bao some
gyoza back for dinner together with H's family. And we got some Jap
pancakes to eat on the journey too.
Ok the journey was really kinda long. His house is really far away.
After the train ride we still had to take a bus around 20 mins to
actually reach his house (and another 5-10 min walk too). One thing
striking is that there's so many pachinko parlour's in the Japanese
suburbia! There can we several within distance of each other. Along
the bus ride we also saw many family restaurants. This would be
familiar to Americans, but to Singaporeans it might be something new.
These restaurants are like bungalows, sitting by itself with usually
no other shops beside it. Saw steak restaurants and Big Boy, hahah...
Reached H's house finally and unfortunately it was on the 4th floor
and lugging a heavy luggage up on a long day aint fun. But wat a
pleasant surprise to see the spread waiting for us! There was rice
with ikura and egg, stir fried beef, gyoza I bought, fried prawns with
raw cucumber and a huge bowl of potato salad. We all had a small glass
of wine too. And milk... which was kinda weird. Eventually as expected we couldn't finish all the food so the mum meticulously packed all the food properly into the fridge, probably for tomorrow's lunch. Ah well, tats wat u do when u have guests. After dinner we had
grapes. Haha got funny thing happened here. H's mum put a plate in
front of me. I was like wondering... was I supposed to put the grapes
on my plate before eating them? Or was it for the seeds? Eventually I
realized that they don't eat grape skins! And the plate was for
spitting out the grape skin. On retrospect, the japanese grape skin
was kinda thick and bitter compared to the grapes we eat here
(australian i think). Haha... cultural difference. I was oso amazed by
their dishwasher, TV remote, and the overal organization of the house.
It was so neat and proper, though it could be becoz they had a guest.
Hah after dinner H's dad was eager to show me his work. Apparently he
works freelance for Nissan and Honda. He takes technical data from the
parts manufacturer and converts them into 3D models. Wah... and
somemore he is retired! And his comp was damn impressive lor. It had 3
big LCD monitors linked together so that the combined area was huge.
Oh yah forgot to mention about their cat. It was damn FAT lor... wah
huge man! And apparently they said it was very cowardly. His mum oso
brought out a huge atlas and asked me where I stayed. Hmmm...
amazingly Kukup is inside the map and it's called Kukubu. Wahahaha...
Then after some amazement over how clean the bathroom is, I bathed
sitting on a stool. Very Japanese! Hah... and the mum offered me
pajamas to wear too. So nice... And after some TV and oyasumis, I
conked out before long.
Thought of the day: H has such a good relationship with his parents.
