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♪ ~ Aileen ~ ♪July 16 TaiwanAnd the countdown begins!!! 6 more days till Taiwan!!! I can't wait!! SOoooooooooooooooooooooooooo need to leave this place and go home for some real food! Taiwanese food, nightmarket, homecooked meals... MMmmmmmmMMMMMmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM !
YES!!! April 03 The Lock UpNo No.. I didn't get locked out of my apartment again...The Lock Up is the name of a rather.. kinky.. restaurant we went to in Tokyo last weekend. As the name suggests, there was some locking up happening. The restaurant is located in the basement level, so the walk down to the restaurant was somewhat like a haunted house. It was a semi-dark semi-narrow passage to the door. Occasionally, there were surprises on the side that can make one jump. Ok.. I'm a chicken, so it made me jump and scream. Took us a while to figure out how to open the door coz none of us could really understand the sign. We thought someone would pop out of nowhere to open the door. When you are in, the hostess - dressed with a uniform in every man's fantasy - shiny blue/red one piece mini-skirt holding a handcuff. One person from your party gets handcuffed - in our group, the lucky one was Kazuo. Then with the handcuff around your wrist, you get escorted to your table.. ahem.. i mean cell. Yup, you dine in a prison cell.
It's an izekaya that provides 2 hours all you can drink. After about an hour and half of eating and drinking, the restaurant suddenly went dark. This is when the monsters and crazy inmates gets released into the open. And what do they do? yup, scare the customers dining in the cells. They pound on your cell door, and sometimes pop their heads inside. THe cell next to us had a birthday person, so they got all the action - we heard lots of screaming coming from that end. Meanwhile, our cell was rather quiet - only one inmate came in and screamed, and of course, I screamed with him. I, unfortunately, had three other guys in my cell with me and I was the only girl. The monster and crazy inmates probably saw that and decided not to waste their energy on our cell. Boo hoo... I wanted to get my money's worth with more screaming!
It was definitely an interesting experience, some pictures are posted. Next place - the Ninja house!
The next day, we decided not to go with our original plan of cherry blossom viewing. Instead, we opted for.... food! Yup, some Yokohama fine dining. First, we went to the Ramen Musem. It was small and semi-fastinating. Like all places in Japan, it was small and croweded. But it was pretty cool to see the ancient style streets being recreated in this tiny building. Too bad we weren't hungry and didnt have any ramen there - which was probably stupid thing to do since that IS the thing to do when visiting..
And what did I mean by fine dining? Ermm.. the same Tex-Mexican restaurant we went to during our New Years Trip
 I have been seriously craving some real North American food that wasn't Japanized.. and that was the only place that could fulfill my desires. I even had real cheesecake! It's been a year since my last cheesecake.. it was just too long for me to handle....But now vacation is over. Back to work :( Today was the first day with all the teachers. Each year, a few teachers get transferred and shuffled around. This year, we got 6 new teachers. After finally getting used to all the teachers and slowly building a rapport with some of them, what happens? THey get moved
 And a few of them were soooooo nice to me. The new crew, can't say much. But I am excited about one person tho. One of the new English teachers I will be working with is young and speaks great English and is a girl! Finally! After being surrounded by mostly male teachers for so long...So with today being the first day with all the new teachers, of course, there had to be a meeting. And it was 3.5 hours long.. and I sat through the whole thing. And yup, I couldn't understand much. Most of what I understood was mostly guessing from context. But I'm not complaining, coz I got so many presents today. It was like Christmas again! Actually.. better than Christmas. My former vice principal left a goodbye present for me, it was a Burberry scarf.. I was so shocked.. Burberry!! I've never gotten anything Burberry from anyone before (except my mommy).. And I love the scarf, it's sooo cute! My second present was a tea cup used for tea ceremonies. Again, it was sooooooooooooo cute and i LOVe it!. Third present, a small souvenir from Sea World. Fourth, another accessory used for tea ceremony. And last, the belt used to wrap a kimono in place. Received this belt, and a rope to hold the belt in place, from my tea ceremony teacher. Though it's old, but it's never been used before. And it's the expensive type too, the one where you have to wrap around a couple of times and then tie into a knot.. not the clip on one. So so sooo surprised.. Slowly.. I'm building the whole set required to perform a real tea ceremony....
Some random things:
I'm now down to one fish again.. in my tank. THe turtle ate all the other ones.
Four weekends ago, I had a fever.. took a few days to recover, was ok for a week, even went skiing the following weekend. And hiking mid-week. A day after the hike, I caught the flu. My town was pretty badly hit by the flu. For a few days in a row, the kids were sent home early coz they were just collapsing one by one with fevers or other flu like symptoms. And I was one of the unfortunate one. This time, I was knocked out for nearly a week. Now, I'm left with this ugly cold sore as a souvenir  March 06 curses and blessingsI'll start with the venting first.
Not sure if I've said this on my blog before.. but.. i HATE Leo Palace. For those of you who don't know (which is probably most of you), Leo Palace is the company that built the apartment complex I am currently living in. My apartment building.. which is really hardly a "building"at all, is like those portable classrooms I used to have at my elementary school. If a tornado should strike my little town, it would pick up the whole Leo Palace "building" with ease. The place is super expensive and super small. It's all about looks, so it looks nice, but the quality sucks. The thing walls, so that you can hear your neighbour's loud music.. and occasionally, them "getting busy." Posted along with this blog entry is a picture of a prison cell in Austria. My apartment looks pretty much the same, maybe only a little wider. Other than that, the layout is very similar. My cousin emailed me pictures of this prison in Austria, containing this Leo Palace look alike cell. I'm not too sure how I should react to the picture.. That the prison itself is very very fancy, or that I'm living in a prison cell?
Anyhow, there are many reasons as to why one can hate Leo Palace so much. My major reason is my fuckin' lock! Leo Palace prides itself in this unique lock system they have developed. It is unique alright.. uniquely pain in the ass. The key is big and flat - hard to store and very easy to bend. And once you bend it, it wont work with your lock. Twice, I've been locked out of my apartment. I've gone through 4 different keys and one lock change. The first time I was locked out, my lock had mercy and decided to let me in after leaving me stranded outside for 10 minutes. However, two nights ago, it decided to not like me. I was outside my apartment for 20 minutes trying to get the friggin key to go into the lock. I had to call up my supervisor (and this was at 11:30 at night), woke him up, made him call and wake up another one of my supervisors to find out where the second key is, drive to the Board of Educatino to get the key, and drive to my place to give me that second key. Finally, after about an hour of standing outside, I was back into my apartment. I am also adding pictures of the world's stupidest lock system and key. And I'm not allowed to change the lock to a normal one either, for apparent "safety" issues.. yeah, keeping me locked out in the middle of the night is definitely safe and fun.
Alright, done with the venting. On a more positive note, today was Christmas again for me. For the past 3 months, I've been taking tea ceremony classes. The classses are fun.. and bla bla bla. But today was exceptional! Coz I got a free kimono! My teacher apparently had been talking to her friend about me (surprise surprise.. a gaijin learning tea ceremony and looking like an extreme fool). Her friend decided to give me a kimono..and I've never even met her before! Once again, the kindness of the people overwhelms me. It's only the outer layer, but a fellow teacher at my school (who has also been taking the classes with me and acting as my translator) said she will look for the other needed components so that I can wear my kimono properly as a set. The only thing so far that I need to buy are the wooden slippers, and I've been told they're expensive
 But meh, now I have a real kimono!! And I absolutely can't believe it!!!Anyhow, headache is killing me..and I think I hear my neighbour with her loud music againg (the same music since back in August).. and also back to more sneezing and nose blowing. I've been plagued by the spring allergies. No remedies seem to work either. I just love spring... January 08 A New YearHappy New Year!!!
Many people have listed their new year's resolution on their blogs.. I haven't really thought of mine yet :P But! This vacation has turned me into a pig and an alcoholic
 I've been drinking almost every day for the past two weeks! So maybe changing this should be on my list.On Dec. 24th, we landed in Okinawa. Got a sweet deal with JTB that included flight, hotel, car, and a couple of meals at the hotel. The trip was great. The rental car was better than my own car. It had GPS! Though, after much rage and swearing, I couldn't figure out how to use it... The hotel room was great, bigger than my whole leo palace shoebox/apartment. And it had an ocean view and it was beautiful
 We spent Christmas Day at the Okinawa Aquarium.. think this is the world's largest? Or Japan's largest? Anyway, it was def. the biggest that I've seen. Too bad it was a rainy day. We had to watch the Dolphin's show with our umbrellas.. definitely a first.
People told us it would be too cold to swim, but they were so wrong! The water was sooo warm and nice. Def. should've brought our swimming gear.
We spent 5 days and 4 nights there. A really relaxing trip, just wished we had more time. I also got to use room service for the first time in my life! Went a little too crazy with that.. and the room service costed almost the same as the trip itself..
 worst of all, it got me addicted to champagne! Which is a hobby I can't afford to have...From Dec. 31st to Jan 5th, we were in Tokyo. Did the countdown in a club in Tokyo. On the next day, we waited in line for 3 hours at the Meiji Shrine just so we can spend 1 minute praying for the new year. It was a great experience, but I don't think I'll be doing that again. On Jan. 2nd, met up with Kathleen and we went to the Imperial Palace to see Emperor and the family. More standing and waiting, but it was cool. We were all given Japanese flags, which everyone waved frantically when the Emperor came out to greet the crowd. After, we went to Shibuya for shopping but that didn't quite work out coz my legs were killing me from all the standing I had been doing since I got into Tokyo. And also, if you think Boxing Day is crazy in Canada, try shopping in Japan during New Years. Now, that's insanity! It's amazing how anyone can actually buy anything in that crowd...
Jan. 3rd, we went to Yokohama for some real Chinese Food. I had Dim Sum and stuffed myself. I missed Chinese food
 Too bad, like all Japanese restaurants, the selection wasn't that big so there wasn't too much to choose from. It was still good tho... We walked around Chinatown for a bit, before heading out for some ice skating. The rink was kinda small and there were a lot of people, but my skates had a light on the bottom that changed colors! That was kinda cool. Then we headed to a small amusement park. Went on two rollercoaster rides, and then the highlight of the night - the world's biggest ferris wheel. It was amazing! The view of Yokohama was beautiful and it was just so cool to be up on that thing. It took us 15 min? to go around the whole thing.
For dinner, we went to an American? restuarant. It was good good good good gooooooooooooooooood! Again, we ate too much. And drank too much. And the over drinking led to our screw up with the train. We took the wrong train and went the opposite direction (away from TOkyo). I was drunk, so i left out a couple of details when I was looking up the train timetable. And I fell asleep shortly after boarding the train.. and by the time I realized we had gone in the wrong direction, we missed the last train back to Tokyo. We didn't have enough cash to cab back to Tokyo. So, there we were, two Gaijins, stuck in a little town in the middle of the night, with very little money, and still drunk. The cab driver suggested for us to stay at a hotel or a love hotel, but love hotel came as highly recommended coz it would be cheaper. I was highly skeptical about the love hotel coz we were in a really small town that seemed nothing to me but darkness.. and if the taxi driver said it would be cheaper... I had an image of a really ghetto aka dirty, love hotel. And I was totally wrong! It was great! Better than our hotel back in Tokyo. It had a steam room, jacuzzi bath tub (the tub had special lighting to it too), free karaoke, movies, game, and... porn. There was porn on every other channel. And the room had a vending machine selling dildos, a flavored something, vibrator. Yes, I took a picture of this.. Condoms were free... It was quite an interesting experience. For couples travelling in Japan, love hotels aren't a bad option actually. They might be 1000-2000 yen more expensive, but the room and bed is bigger than standard hotel rooms (esp. in Tokyo). heehehee..
Anyhow, that's my trip update. Hope you all had a great holiday :)
December 04 updateMore pics have been uploaded ~~
Co Co Winery - went on a 4 hour drinking mission with a bunch of JETs in Tochigi prefecture. Spent a gorgeous afternoon sitting on the slopes and drinking wine made by handicapped people. Funny how only the gainjins were tumbling down the slopes by the end, and all the Japanese managed to walk down with their bums off the ground.
Nikko - a one day roadtrip in the prefecture of Tochigi. Got lost after 5 minutes on the road on the toll-expressway.. naturally. I seriously need a GPS. Beautiful morning followed by a half an hour nap in the car, then a rainy afternoon. Wonderful trip, but an afternoon boat ride across the lake would've been nice.. damn rain.
Tank status update - guppy fish died.. it was a horrifying scene.. :( One tetra got eaten, so now, one turtle and two very healthy tetras - one of them is obese from eating too much turtle food.
Can't wait for Xmas!! Staying for five days at a beachside hotel in Okinawa.
 For $520 CAD, that's 4 nights of hotel, 4 breakfasts, a car, and flight. sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetThen it's New Years countdown in Tokyo!!! Dec. is fab!! |
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