My last week in Japan

It was a busy but memorable week. Right after the exams, I started getting ready for a week long holiday trip with my siblings. My sis arrived at Nagoya on 7 Dec (Tues) morning. After depositing her luggage at Nagoya train station, we went shopping at Sakae (Nagoya) before going back to Okazaki in the late afternoon for my farewell party. Did lots of shopping...

Back at my apartment, had a sumptuous steamboat dinner of seafood, lots of meat & 2 different types of soup base. Began the dinner with 8 S'poreans doing the traditional cheer “Y-a-mmmmm Seng!” for 3 times. Ate like a pig as if it’s my last meal! Daniel & Aaron came to join us later but we were almost done by then. After everyone’s done with dinner, we packed up and started round 2 of the party ~ drinking time! Didn’t drink a lot this time round coz I was too full after dinner. We were very tired and wanted to end the party but Aaron just kept talking & I didn’t bear to cut him off…so just let him be… i just stoned off...and went crazy until they left...

From 8 – 13 Dec, my sis & I went on a trip to Osaka/Kyoto/Nara with my bro & his gf (Alice). It was the first time that the 4 of us had traveled together. Had lots of fun though it was quite tiring… Here are the details of our trip…

Day 1 ~ 8 Dec (Wed)
We stayed at a hot spring hotel at Ikeda (Osaka). Duno where my brother found this place, but it was quite a nice quiet place amidst a backdrop of greenery. After a relaxing soak at the hotspring, they began to update me (read: gossip) on my cousin’s wedding. So glad that I “escaped” the wedding dinner. It pissed me off to know that my Auntie asked my sis the same old question at the dinner ~ “You are Baoling or Meiling?” I just don’t get it! She only has 2 nieces who look so different yet she can’t differentiate us.

Dinner at the hotel was quite an elaborate affair ~ very “pretty looking” dishes that tasted great too! Watched the “Bin-bo” show, tried to translate for them whenever I could. Slept early but I woke up a few times coz the heater was too warm. Yet I can’t adjust it too much coz Alice & my sis can’t take the cold. At 3am Bro woke up as well… so we had a short light-hearted chat till almost 4. We talked about Dad’s car, Bro’s proposal plan….i didn’t really want to talk about my future plans coz I wanted to relax and enjoy this holiday trip, and also because I know that Bro doesn’t really hold the same thinking that I have & would never support the crazy plans I have in mind…but I don’t blame him for being so practical…society gave him no choice…

Day 2 ~ 9 Dec (Thur)
Breakfast was more like lunch ~ there were so much food! And we finished all of it ;p Left Ikeda & set off for our hotel in Osaka. After that it’s shopping & eating at Dotonbori. Went to the themed restaurant which was featured in the 8-Days magazine. Very nice set-up…felt as if I was transported to another era / place. Over there, we went to a restaurant to cook our own takoyaki. It was very fun to try cooking it on our own. Though it looked really bad in the beginning, the final product looked ok & tasted great! We found it amusing to cook it, while the waiters there found us amusing....hahaha

Then we started shopping for souvenirs along the street. It’s just a normal weekday but the streets were very crowded. We went to the Fujiya shop for my sis to buy her Peko stuff. After that we went to have a light lunch/dinner before going back to the hotel to offload our stuff, coz we were meeting my friend from Osaka (K-san aka “Xiaolin”) at 7pm. He was planning to drive us to Kobe to see the night view.The journey to Kobe was fun ~ trying to communicate in a mixture of Japanese, English, Chinese & Singlish. But after a while everyone dozed off, leaving only Xiaolin & I to self-entertain ourselves.

He’s the “best” ~ duno how to get to the night-view spot, yet driving us there….get lost together huh… luckily I dun have to pay for his petrol!Should’ve checked with him on the location earlier, coz we realized too late that it’s up a long & winding road to the summit of Mt Rokko in order to see the night-view. Mayleen has serious motion-sickness problem, so half the time we were telling her to tolerate a while more while Xiaolin was testing his driving skills “speeding” thru the winding roads to reach the summit a.s.a.p. It was a dash to the toilets once we stopped. And he was so mean ~ asking whether can take picture of her puking!!

My bro had planned to propose to Alice there coz it’s so romantic….but he also felt a little giddy so dropped the idea. What a waste! It’s such a romantic place...Think everyone’s hungry after the trip (was nearly 10pm by then?). But looking at how exhausted my siblings & Alice were, Xiaolin & I decided to send them back to the hotel first. After that we went to search for ramen coz we had a craving for it. It’s the perfect food for the cold weather. We had a quick meal of ramen & I went back to the hotel straight after that. Expected everyone to be asleep by then, but was surprised that they were exhausted but wide awake, and were going out to find food! So I accompanied them for another round of eating….slept at almost 2am that night…

Day 3 ~ 10 Dec (Fri)
It’s Universal Studios Japan day! Set off early for USJ and went straight for the Spiderman ride ~ was really good! As it’s a weekday, there weren’t that many people and most queues took less than an hour. We managed to try almost all rides, and even had time to go shopping at Hard Rock Café before returning to USJ for the night performance. And that’s the time that my bro proposed…. So R-O-M-A-N-T-I-C!!

Earlier on during the performance, he had squeezed the box containing the ring into the Hard Rock café bear that Alice had bought. After the fireworks ended, he asked her to check the bear, saying there’s some problems with it…but apparently she didn’t want to touch the bear coz her hands were a little dirty. So my impatient bro had no choice but to take the box out to give her! And during this period, Mayleen & I were pretending to take pictures around the area. Hahaha….Alice was overjoyed ~ grinning from ear to ear. Felt so happy for them ~ so happily in love…When will it be my turn if there ever is?*Between, the ring was a fake one (the real one’s too expensive to bring to Japan)…but Alice didn’t know until the day before they were coming back to S'pore…hahahaha…*

Left USJ after that & went to Dotonbori for dinner. Bought some cakes there…sort of like a celebration for the proposal? We were stuck in the train coz it was the peak after-office hours in the evening. Packed like sardines and people were just pushing their way through. It’s so different from S'pore where we’d just take the next train instead of squeezing our way into the train. Missed our stop and had to alight at the next stop.

I was the first to squeeze out ~ thot they could follow behind me, but apparently the space closed up the moment I squeezed out. So Mayleen started to “elbow” everyone to make her way out. And she apparently elbowed them so hard that many were losing their balance, and the space stayed clear for my bro & Alice to walk out easily. They were laughing their heads off after alighting…coz according to my bro, some passengers were searching around for the person who elbowed them…hahahah..

Day 4 ~ 11 Dec (Sat)
We traveled separately on this day. Bro & Alice went to Kyoto, while Mayleen & I went to find the Harley Davison shop @Osaka. Set off at almost 11 coz we slept till 10am. After the Harley shop, we only had time to shop for Astro boy stuff + souvenirs @Kyoto. Had a hard time finding gifts for relatives & friends….and went crazy buying food souvenirs. In the evening we met up for dinner at Osaka.

Had 2 rounds of dinner ~ first was BBQ meat, followed by Jap’s version of satay & some drinks. Mayleen went ga-ga over the waiter and specifically asked for him to help to take pictures for us. Ok, he’s quite cute, but unfortunately quite a “himbo”~ should see how excited he was about helping to take a photo for us, and how he fumbled with the camera….haiz…Very tiring day though we didn’t do anything much…

Day 5 ~ 12 Dec (Sun)
We traveled separately on this day as well. They went to Hiroshima while we went to Nara. I’m a little disappointed with Nara ~ it wasn’t as laidback as I expected. Probably because I went to the more touristy areas. The deer park wasn’t that interesting, and the Giant Buddha statue didn’t interest me neither. I drew a lot to see my fortune, just for the fun of it. This temple must have had many tourists asking for translations, coz their interpretation of the lots had English translation on it!We shopped for Dad’s gift then went back to Osaka in the late afternoon.

Supposed to buy a variety of food from the supermarket for dinner with Bro & Alice, but because it was raining, we settled for a simple bento each. Back at the hotel we started packing while waiting for them to return. Dinner was a simple affair of bentos, followed by yummy desserts. Ended the day early… wanted to update my blog on the trip but was too tired…

Day 6 ~ 13 Dec (Mon)
Bro & Alice left for Tokyo, while we stayed on for one more night to see the Kobe light-up “Illuminare”. We went straight to the tourist information office to collect maps & information on Kobe, then took a while to plan our trip for the day. First went to the Kitano area. It wasn’t as fantastic as we expected, probably because we’ve already seen many of those colonial/western buildings in S’pore so those in Kobe didn’t really interest us that much.Next we went to Chinatown. It’s really interesting there. The variety of food being sold, the prices that it’s been sold at… imagine “you tiao” which costs only S$0.50 in Spore being sold at S$3.60 in Kobe!

From Chinatown we walked down to the port area. It’s a lovely place which we believe will be very romantic at night....but we had to leave early for the light-up. Started waiting for the light-up from 4.30pm which began at 6pm. 1 ½ hrs standing in the cold was worth it coz the light-up was spectacular. On the way back on the train, we were approached by an auntie to help spot the difference between 2 pictures, and chatted a little about the light-up with her. I tried to ask Xiaolin out to Kobe’s port at night with us, but he replied too late to make the trip down. Too bad then…

Day 7 ~ 12 Dec (Tues)
Took the 8.40am train back to Nagoya / Okazaki. Quickly packed our luggage & set off to school. Met Aaron before we set off, and he helped to get a bicycle for Mayleen. Unfortunately the keys were with Liyuen, so he had to cut off the lock. Was so touched by his help. At school, I thanked the teachers & office staff, paid my outstanding rental, & bid goodbye to my classmates. Then we went to the karaoke with Liyuen, Eve & Shin. My last karaoke session in Japan ~ sang all the Glay songs to my heart’s content :) After that we went to McDonald’s to bid farewell, and bought supper back.

Had a simple meal of sashimi, some finger foods & snacks/desserts. When it was time to end, Eve started crying….sob sob….we went through quite a bit together the past 1 year….we came to Japan together, but now I’m going back first….Aaron dropped by in the evening to pass me some of the anime DVDs I had requested for. Later at night he came to pass me the remaining DVDs, but I was too tired to get out of bed to open the door, so he stuffed it into my letterbox. I was very touched to receive it the next morning, but it was too early in the morning for me to thank him. Goodbye Mr Nice Guy....Thanks for everything...

Today's my last night in Japan.....I had managed to keep my mind off the thought of leaving Japan…until Xiaolin had to remind me about it by talking about his tearful farewell in the past…i ended up crying to sleep that night…