Saturday, May 20, 2006

boooring


nothing much 2 blog about, but there was a bazaar on the campus last week n i bought these for 100 yen (along wif other stuff).

cool eh? the 2-pronged thing is for handling sashimi (exactly how, i dunno)...the others....well, i see a throwing knife, a longer assassin's blade n the biggest one is for fighting wif, i guess. kiddin :P

Saturday, May 13, 2006

the long-awaited update

lately i've grown sorta lazy....esp when i sit down to blog....so i'll try 2 keep this short...paiseh 2 all my fans out there lah (kiddin :P)

anyway, for those who dunno, japan's Golden Week is a week in which several national holidays fall consecutively...so most businesses n schools take the whole week off n there r lotsa celebrations n festivals n duno wat else. so last week was golden week n we had 5 days off in a row (not the whole week tho..the teachers here were too hardworking)

d 1st day passed pretty boring-ly, wif most of us malaysians spending the day aimlessly wandering around the dorm, playing a bit of ping-pong (me n ck), studying (cs), playing d piano (me), n making burnt food at the kitchen (me n cs). the 2nd day was a bit more exciting tho; there was a festival at okunitama shrine in fuchu town center, so tufsia arranged an outing to visit the place plus sum other activities. but in the end a few of us (me, cs, yst n a guy from indonesia) decided to go by ourselves...so off we went, on our bikes..

well, the festival itself wasnt dat great, since im not the festival kind of guy anyway...took a few pics wif my hp's camera but cant transmit them here yet cuz dun hv IR...but anyway there was basically sum parades n lots of yelling n shouting n drums n singing...n at nite there was a parade of floats...in short, those traditional festival stuff dat we'v all seen plenty of in malaysia lah...the REAL attraction there (besides the other thing dat i'm famous for) was the food! there was sumting like a food fair there so i went from stall to stall sampling the various 'specialities'...including octopus, yaki-tori (grilled chicken pieces on sticks) n kebab...yummy! the normally-kiamsiap me spent quite a lot of money there...lunch n dinner, in total, cost me around 3000 yen..but it was worth it (i think)

the next day, we went to watch thomas cup! teik chuan, our senpai, booked us subsidized tickets at the malaysian embassy...so instead of paying 2500+ yen, we only paid 500 yen each for the ticket - plus a dismal-looking malaysian flag dat snapped 20 seconds into the match, n a pair of 'pong-bong' inflatable noise-sticks dat wudnt inflate. heheh. but still it was quite an experience 2 b there, watching a world-class event! tho i must say, the performance of the malaysian team, esp the singles, were....heheh u noe lah. malaysia boleh. n after that we met up wif a bunch of jpa scholars who were oso there 2 watch...no chicks, but found 2 guys who play dota, so the evening wasnt entirely lost...

on sat, the 4th day of golden week, we met up wif a dai-senpai who is now working here...had dinner at an underground pasta restaurant (there r lots of underground eateries in the central parts of tokyo)....n i had squid-ink speghetti. looked pretty disgusting but tasted great, tho it left a relly yucky black stain on my teeth n tongue after dat (which i took a pic of). after dat, the other 2 senpai, soon li n teik chuan, took us around shinjuku..n we went to kabuki-cho, the city's sex district :P n the most funny thing was when ppl started approaching us asking if we wanted to watch 'free shows'...tho we din take up any of their offers lah. sorry guys. +P

well, dats about all worth mentioning about the golden week lah. as for the photos, i'll post them up sum time next week, cuz now feeling a bit lazy n wan 2 read adventures of huckleberry finn liao :P

mata, ato de!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

updates? no time lah

stay tuned for updates on wat the ravenlord had been up to during golden week; highlights include:-

visit to a festival during the (name forgotten) matsuri of the golden week;

trip to watch the thomas cup!

n sum gy stuff dat happened during our 'tour' of kabuki-cho of shinjuku :P


also expect interesting photos of:

raptor's very well-stocked fridge!

raptor's messy but comfy room!

sum random pics of mostly birdy stuff...


well, folks, until next time!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

random updates

last saturday there was a bbq organised by TUFSIA, a campus group 'dedicated to helping foreign students adapt to life in japan'. it was held on the bank of...tamagawa? river...but actually it was more like the dried up bed of the river cuz there wasnt any water in sight..n the stones lying around were the smooth pebble type u see in riverbeds. ok back to the topic..the food at the bbq was great....the food was cooked on metal trays over fires built from twigs pulled straight out of the ground n was delicious cuz we (well, i at least) were hungry by the time everything was ready...but it was so damn LITTLE! i cud hv finished everything on the tray myself but it was shared among 10 ppl...ish...

after eating we played frisbee n i learned to throw an american football...there was this guy from marshall islands who dresses like a hip hop guy all the time n throws the football damn good...

dat nite i tried cooking stir-fried vegetables wif the old cooking pot left by seniors...n it was a halfway decent dish...but it turned out to be a damn expensive cooking experience cuz i used up like 400+ yen of meat n 150 yen of vegetables juz to make dat one dish...it was originally supposed to be for 2 meals but i ate up most of it at once cuz i was so hungry..n my fren from macau 'helped' me clean the rest up. n i left my pack of maggi chicken stock cubes in the kitchen n they were gone the next day! chin cibai ne.....so much for saving money thru cooking...

anyway, for those who erm..havent seen my msn nick yet..i LURVE my new frying pan! wif it i finally made sumting nice...fried noodles (called yaki-soba in japanese btw)...n its even easier than cooking rice AND having to make a separate dish..cuz for this i juz throw everything in n stir-fry to my satisfaction. n my fren from chille praised my noodles. hehe.

ah...n another reason to luve my frying pan: it makes terrific sandwiches! i can toast bread without spending like 2000 yen on an oven toaster (which will probably be too troublesome to carry downstairs n wud eat up a heck lot of electricty if used in my room)...n when i fry bacon wif butter on it...damn..its so oishii-licious....n put in slices of apple to substitute for salad..ah...wat heaven..

okok, shao thing's back. anyway, to continue wif my random topics:

the 1st instalment of scholarship money came already! all 134000 yen of it (yes, its been reduced by 1000 yen liao this year..but its only like 10 bucks to the japanese anyway) deposited straight into my postal savings account. n juz today i went to withdraw sum money...more for the heck of it than from need...n their ATM machines can oso b used 2 deposit money...so i mite b depositing the money i brought from home into the account sumtime next week lah.

speaking of which, the rest of this week is holidays! its the Golden Week, where there r like 3 or 4 holidays almost in a row so most offices n businesses r closed for the whole week...the japs call it the 'oogatarenkyuu' (dun try 2 pronounce it...i'm not responsible for damaged vocal cords or tied tongues)...so apart from joining the activities organised by TUFSIA, i'll hv time 2 look around the place around here...as i mentioned b4, fuchu-shi (the district the university is in) is damn nice....lots of greenery n the town is quaint n high-tech at the same time...n mite b going 2 other parts of tokyo if time permits lah...there r even plans to watch the thomas cup, tho i'm not quite sure exactly when or where that will b...

on a more sombre note, my hp bill soared to over 9000 liao since the last post...all becuz i downloaded 2 songs thru the ezweb, their version of gprs.....tho the broadband speed was impressive....170kb file downloaded in less than 15 secs....aih...so next month i'll prob juz b using my fon 4 cmailling (1.5 yen per msg) n calling home...no more stupid downloads for me! n btw those who noe my ezweb email address, pls do NOT send anything other than text msgs to me...best if dun send at all lah, since if u can send email mite as well send it to my internet email address rite? :P

anyway...to continue after last saturday...on sunday i borrowed sum tennis racquets from the office n had a game of tennis on the campus tennis court...the court wasnt as good as the psc court back in penang tho...it was soft court which i wasnt used to, n lots of sand all over the ground. n the tennis club was using the courts so we had to use the most ill-maintained court....chin boh song..but still chin song cuz got to play after so long..tho my frens were..ahem..not dat good at it....so not much chance of my game improving for the time being..hehe.. sorry lah ej...

today met a couple of chinese here in the library...from taiwan...its always so cool to meet ppl who speaks the same native langauge here..itho it isnt exactly uncommon cuz apparently a lot of taiwanese students come 2 japan...n it may seem funny but here, even malay makes me feel kinda proud cuz its a 'common language' we hv wif the ppl from indonesian n brunei so its like a secret language for a mini-'society' here. n dat day at the ywca thing interview, i even met a couple of guys from PENANG, malaysia!! jit sin tho, n a few years older...

anyway, duno if i mentioned it b4 but its been getting hot here lately...not relly hot lah, in fact its still cooler than malaysia...but i've got used to the cold weather so it feels hot if its juz warm enuf for me to sweat.....haih..the best part of spring is over liao....the good thing tho, is dat i dunnit 2 spend so much on food liao...cuz i noticed i dun get hungry so fast or need so much food when its not so cold....

well, this is a long entry...hope its been an interesting read +P at the very least, u juz spend 20 minutes reading raptor ravenlord's crap! hahaha....

ja mata guys!