tsewei’s blog

Well, not physically.

I’ll be moving on to a new blog. The wacky wombat weblog.

No, I’m neither secretly an animal researcher specialising in wombats, nor can I confirm with you that they are wacky. It’s just an inane blog name that me and au yong came up with.

What it really is: a combined blog for me and him. Sort of like our shared online space, where we’ll continue to rant and write about our lives. Same stuff, but new location.  

But it’s not the end of this blog. tsewei.theuseless.com will still be sticking around. Mainly because he’s too lazy to go through the hassle of migrating all the old stuff we wrote, puh. So all my old jottings and memories will be stored here.

Meanwhile, house warming has begun! So please drop by and pay us a visit! Our new address: http://www.wackywombat.net

I know I’ve only adopted her as my own pet (hehe ) just less than 2 years ago, but I guess I’ve kinda grown attached to Gigi.

I’ll miss how she’ll sniff my toes and jump around me excitedly when I visit. Plus she’s the only dog whom I can share durian with. And no one can ignore the blur look that she always had on her face, tongue lolling out and all. So cute.

RIP in doggie-heaven dear Gigi. We will all miss you.

Yup, I’ve not disappeared with the rest of my Japan postings. I just merely took a break. I can explain.

You see, this blog of mine was about to be merged with this other blog. So I was supposed to stop posting new material while the blog gets migrated. But, things were not to be and there’s still some technical stuff which he will iron out soon. So in the meantime, I’m back here blogging again.

Thus far, my 6-week vacation in Japan has ended. Followed by a 4-day makan-marathon back in KL with family and old pals. And now, school. So begins my final year, 3-day week, and commuting to Boon Lay.

First day of school, and I thought Boon Lay bus interchange disappeared. haha. Ended up 5 mins late for Video 2 class.

It’s kinda strange to be back again, where everyone speaks English (albeit slightly broken) and salespeople in shops are not curteous. But it was refreshing to have taken that long break. Not just because it was great to be able to hang out with Au Yong again like we used to, but also because I usually get sick of Singapore after a while (which I’ve noticed to be one-year cycles) so a change of environment does great for me.

Great to be back, and I will update soon with my backlog of postings.

woohoo! Au Yong applied for leave and it’s approved so we’re headed west to ex-Japan-capitol Kyoto next week!

Will be our first time on the shinkansen (bullet train). I love trains.

Wanted to stay in a traditional ryokan, but turns out they’re pretty expensive in Kyoto. Especially compared to the great package deal we got at JR Tours: Shinkansen + Westin Miyako Hotel + breakfast = 30500yen. w00t! travel in style, baybeee! LOL

So excited. Now gotta plan out travel routes and mark out all the temples + shrines that I wanna see. Ooh, Gion too. geishas! (i hope)

1 piece fresh salmon

1 sachet pasta mushroom cream sauce (for 2)

pepper & parsley for flavour

linguine (too much for 2 person)

1 bottle of red wine

2 sachets of onion consomme soup (just add boiling water)

1 bottle of expired oil (ditched this & substituted with butter)

1 tiny stove

1 bigass cooking pot

1 happy first-time pasta cook (him)

1 pasta-cooking instructor (me)

1 manual dishwasher (me)

2 hungry tummies

1 scrumptious pasta dinner

I never really liked beer. Gassy, bloats me up, bleah. Quite puke-inducing sometimes too, so, definitely bleah.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. For example, Brewerkz. And since my Tokyo visit, Japanese beer. And I’ve just discovered something else — Hoegaarden beer!

Friday night — TGIF (for Au Yong), and a little treasure hunt downtown.

Armed with a not-so-detailed map, we walked up and down the streets of Shinjuku, and finally by a stroke of luck, located our dinner place nestled in a narrow dark alley.

Cafe Hoegaarden. A tiny restaurant serving Belgian food, and of course, Hoegaarden beer!

- the Hoegaarden Grand Cru for him, and the Hoegaarden Le Fruit Defendu for me. Mine’s fruity (yay), his is a little stronger (hic), both excellent stuff. -

Au Yong’s been telling me about this beer ever since his Auckland trip, and after trawling the net for an hour, I decided that this place is worth checking out.

And it was definitely a good choice. Although we had to wait a bit for seats (that tiny place really couldn’t fit more than 20 customers), and we panicked when we *wrongly* realised that the menus could be only in Japanese (turns out there are *some* English labelling.), we were soon sipping nice strong ale, and feasting on yummylicious food.

I must have eaten like ten mussels. (We managed to translate “mussles” on his handphone and picked out the correct item to order kihkihkih..) And they’re fat, juicy, succulent and fresh. Nothing like the tiny anoroxic ones I get back home. And this comes with a healthy serving of carrots, celery, and onion. *slurp* Yummy with the beer too.

And now, it’s time for my little observation on beer:

• beer back home (like Tiger, and Carlsberg.. the import from Thailand types) — icky. refer to: first para of this blog post.
• Japanese beer (like Asahi and Yebisu) — dry and smooth. Goes down really well, and suspiciously all Japanese food taste good with them, so you’d eat and drink and eat and drink and not realise how much you’ve actually drunk (and eaten).
• Hoegaarden — strong, but nice flavour. Can’t drink a lot of it, but it tastes good.

whee~ My tummy loves this country. heheh.

Visited Odaiba last week. It’s an artificial island south of Tokyo, with artificial beach (hmm sounds like Sentosa island haha) and an abundance of weird architechture that was born out of the excesses of the 80s economy (and maybe too high a dosage of sci-fi movies too).

Au Yong was actually there for some tech-geek exhibition for his work purposes blabla zzz zzz. So I tagged along and was left to wander in a fake Venician town for FOUR hours. eecks.

VenusFort, as the name might already suggests, is a shopping place, for women. With of course a special setting — computer-generated skies that changes from dusk till dawn (looks quite real actually), set in stores lined along a fake Venician street, complete with fake cobbles. But it’s kinda cool actually.

I got conned to pay 300yen for an itsy-bitsy piece of strawberry tart at a cafe. Sigh. But it smelt so good it was hard to just walk away from the cafe.
Also, I bought a pair of red shoes!! RED! whee…

Anyway, check out the ferris wheel! It’s huge, and it was the largest in the world, until the London Eye came along and burst their bubble.

The view was fantastic up there. Could see the city skyline all the way, Tokyo Tower and everything. Very very cool. Plus, from the outside, the wheel changes colour. Sorta like the Rainbow Bridge that connects the island to the city.

I like this one. Though the 16-minute ride seemed a little too short. But it was fun. It’s been ages since I’ve been on a ferris wheel.

Yes, I’m now living in the time zone of GMT+9, land of rising sun, sushi, ramen, hello kitty, japanese school girls, and mild-earthquakes which I slept through this morning.

Narita airport is really so far off from the city it took us 2 hours on the train just to reach back. 0_o Good thing au yong was there to pick me up, else I’m sure I would’ve gotten lost. Their train system is absolutely bonkers. So intricate with so many different train services. Just look at the map in this link and you’ll see what I’m talking about. How crazy is that?

My communication capabilities is practically paralysed here since I don’t speak Japanese. I feel kinda bad sometimes when all the salespeople at the stores or restaurants greet me and ramble on and on in Japanese, and I have no idea what to say. :s eecks. Au yong’s Japanese phrase book now has a permanent place in my bag. Not gonna go anywhere without it, and the subway map.

Went off to explore Akihabara, land of electronics goods - where else would tech geek au yong first bring me to than this? - and I actually managed to find my favourite pnyek! bear. teehee. And found out that the real name’s actually rilakkuma. Or something like that. Yay! And there were all the coolest toys that I wished I had when I was a kid. I like the Doraemon that has eyes which you can swap (like Mr-Potato-Head in Toy Story) and a pouch that can fit all sorts of different items!

Finally checked out the new Nintendo DS Lite too. So cool. I am so enticed to get one for meself. Very very tempted, but I’ll sleep on that first before deciding further.

Shibuya was crazy on a Sunday. The intersection was jam packed with people. And that’s where I had an umbrella tussle. With the permanent Sunday rain, everyone was carrying an umbrella, and guess what happens with people from both sides of the street start to cross? Thousands of umbrellas, pink, white, black, green, blue, all moving perfectly avoiding one another, cos this is Tokyo. Until…. one small stupid tourist — me — stepped onto the road and started poking everyone’s umbrella with this look of confusion in me eyes. Good thing I didn’t take out anyone’s eye.

But it’s a great place to hang out. And of course shop. Most of the Japanese labels are really costly, though very pretty. The bags!! So pretty!! And so unafforable. But I still managed to get some cheap stuff, at Gap’s sale. Haha, it’s a little ironic, to be in Japan but buying American fashion, but I can’t help myself when it’s cheap AND available in XXS. It’s hard to find my size in US. So, ladida, caching! There goes some yen, but we both got something nice for ourselves. But the best still is the Disney Store. It’s like a mini cartoon castle in the middle of the city. With tons upon tons of Disney goodies. I went back to being 5 years old.

Food is great. I especially love all the cute little family restaurants located on little streets. I’m gonna become so fat.

Despite the language barrier, I really like this place. The city centre is very exciting, with so much to see I had to spend some time on the train just stoning my eyes out cos if I kept on looking at the riotous eclectic mix any longer I think I’d get disorientated. But at the same time, nestled right between the little streets is a slightly older Japan, with quaint grocery stores that sell only fresh vegetables and things like that. It’s so charming. And cute!

Now, on to plan more travelling!

… for someone very dear to me.

Happy 25th birthday, dearie.

No Secret Recipe nearby, so can’t get that Choc Indulgence cake that you like, but anyway, here u go…

*hugs* =)

Yes, I’m really loving SIA.

This is gonna sound like some promotional plug for them, but I just happen to think that their frequent-flyer program KrisFlyer roxx!

Just confirmed my flight tickets to Tokyo for next month, and guess how much I’m paying? Zilch! Zero! Nothing! (Ok, ok, technically I still have to pay SGD200++ for airport taxes, but my $1300 air ticket is free!)

Apparently au yong has flown enough on his previous business trips to redeem his mileage for a free SG-Tokyo return ticket. And we figured that since KrisFlyer allows him to redeem the miles for a friend or family, I should might as well use it since my 6-week trip would warrant the air ticket to be a 1-year ticket that costs $200 more than the usual.

So we went to their website, tapped a few keys and gave it a few clicks, and I got my tokyo tickets for free, on SIA flights! Rockin’!!!!

Then a few days ago, we confirmed the tickets, and we found out that we could actually select which seats I want on the aircraft! So ladida, *click click click*, I selected my seats.

Then, we found that we could actually select what meals I want to be served onboard! Vegetarian, seafood, oriental, western, kosher, halal, blablabla.. Heh, it’s probably nothing much, but I still think it roxx! So, *click click click*.

*sigh* (< -- contented sigh)
It's great to know you just saved $1300. And he's just only on silver membership. And I get free stuff! yay!!

Not to mention also, with the relatively good experience that I've had on their flights (as compared to super sucky United Airlines, never even help poor little vertically-challenged girl like me with my carry-on luggage), I am definitely looking forward to my flight next month! wheee!

sidenote to self:
Must not forget to buy a bag of Milo 3-in-1 for Au Yong. No Milo in Japan, it seems. How can they not have Milo?! Don’t they know Milo’s tagline “Minum Milo anda jadi sihat dan kuat!” (drink Milo you become healthy & strong). Their kids are missing out on some good stuff here.