And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.

so goes Frank Sinatra's My Way.

well, the end of streats is tomorrow. the last issue of Streats will be on Dec 31.

desk is packed and it's time to head out the door.

it's been a great ride.

clearing up

i'm sitting at my desk at work, facing a half-empty shelf, a big cardboard box sits next to me, and it's slowly filling up with all the stuff I need to bring upstairs to my new office.

we were busy taking photographs this evening. farewell photos which hopefully will turn out good.

and yesterday, there was a farewell party at the usual central mall area. bad food, good company and plenty of fun (well there's always fun to be had with freeflow of alcohol).

as a friend said, a bittersweet party.

i dont know how it's gonna be upstairs. i hope it'll be a challenge. i'm up for a challenge. i know i've already faced this one challenge in this year's job. let's see how next year goes.

me and mr botero

best of the best

thought i'd just write up a list of some of the best movies i've seen this year. (in no particular order and i might add more cos this is all i can remember watching at the moment)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
how could i not love a movie with such a title, and written by the brilliant Charlie Kaufman too. jim carrey and kate winslet sparkled in this absolute gem.

- The Incredibles
ok not as funny as i thought it would be but definitely entertaining especially that bit about superheroes and their capes. who can resist?

- Last Life In The Universe
this thai-japanese film startled with its quiet charm. a little dark a little obscure (and some people have complained about how slowmoving it was) but i loved it.


- Spider-Man Two
sequels usually suck this one didn't. it actually somehow managed to do better, maybe cos i cldn't stand the green goblin in the first one

- Collateral
similar to the way Road To Perdition surprised me some years ago, I went to see Collateral not expecting to like it. i just wanted to see how Tom Cruise did as a bad guy i think. but Michael Mann's beautiful tribute to Los Angeles just took my breath away. ok, maybe some of the violence also helped with that. but one of the nicest surprises for me this year movie-wise.

- Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban
sequels usually suck. this isn't a sequel but the third in the series and it was simply THE BEST, thanks to the brilliant Alfonso Cuarón, who's also responsible for one of my favourite movies Y Tu Mama Tambien.

- Open Water
this movie had some bite and i'm including it because it was a small indie movie with no budget that somehow popped into my head when i was swimming in the sea at Koh Samui. and that's the mark of a movie. one that you don't forget, even if it's just to think of sharks and other creatures swimming below you.

- Zatoichi
i loved this samurai film by Takashi Kitano. funny, action-packed and with a blind samurai who has a shock of blond hair. how could i not include this one?

- Ocean's Twelve
i hesitate to include this cos it wasn't as intelligent as the first one and it seemed to push too much screen time to the other actors but it was still entertaining all the same, with plenty of eye candy to go round.

wait can i include the ROTK?
i can't remember when that came out, but nevertheless, it was a good film. i finally got to see the extended version and although a little bit too long, was of course good, especially since you get to christopher lee, who got cut from the movie release.

also included in this list should be Before Sunset, but I DIDN"T SEE IT!!! don't ask why.
There were too many movies I missed out on, including Maria Full Of Grace, Mean Girls, The Return, and Kill Bill 2 (although i later fell asleep watching it on dvd)


BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
- this award goes to Alexander. i was expecting bigger and better but what i watched was a film that was deflating right from the start.
Alfie is also a disappointment. It looked promising in the beginning being very stylish and of course Alfie being a charmer (plus its a Jude Law movie!) but it got so boring towards the end, you begin wondering if there's a plot to this or is Alfie really just going to spend the entire movie going from girl to girl? I just HAVE to watch the original Michael Caine version now, to see how different it is.

MEANWHILE,
I'm waiting the opening of the following films:
Mar Adentro
Closer
We Don't Live Here Anymore
The Aviator (yes it's got leo dicaprio but he looked good in the Vanity Fair spread and hopefully this film will redeem him. he was after all quite brilliant in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? which brings me onto the next reason why I want to see....)Finding Neverland (JOHNNY DEPP!)




ALSO....

Best album in my books is Juanes' Mi Sangre. But Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous is just the next notch below. I know these albums won't make critics top 10 lists (most of them list The Streets, Animal Collective, Kanye West - whom i also love, Franz Ferdinand, Madvillain, Nick Cave and the like) but I thought these two albums showed how both Colombia's Juanes and California's Rilo Kiley have grown, developed for the better over the years. Three cheers.


2004 was a good movie year, may 2005 be even better!

food blogs!

i'm so excited to discover these amazing foodie blogs. yes, might be abit late catching on but they're definitely worth reading every so often.

Pim
Chocolate and Zucchini
Shiokadelicious!
Domestic Goddess
101 Cookbooks
Tiny Fork
The Grub Report

island in the sun

just got back from a short holiday in koh samui. and what a place! the main area of chaweng is just full of old white men and their thai girls zooming around on motorbikes. the beaches there are decent, with waves that come crashing right near the cafes during high tide. we moved to the choeng mon area after the first two nights (we arrived mon night at 10pm so decided not to waste good money and instead spent first two nights at cheapo place not too near the beach) to stay at the fabulous Sila Evason Hideaway. Worth every cent! and more! the pool villa was just beautiful, and like all the other villas has a view you cannot believe. even the reception has such a gorgeous view, and i cant begin to describe the view from the main swimming pool. it was a decadent two days. hit the gym, swim, lunch, swim a bit more, a massage at the spa (where the treatment rooms... wait for it... also have amazing views!

unfortunately my camera battery gave up on me the day i got there - that is, i actually have to go get a whole new lithium-ion battery!
damnit!!!

long time no bother

it's been a long time

and i've been a lucky person. i will not use that word that i hate 'blessed' - i see it used too often in quotes from newsmakers. 'i've been so blessed' tends to be the catchphrase of the year.

anyway, i've had an amazing few weeks.
i got the chance to meet Colombian artist Fernando Botero twice and listen to his dialogue with Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming as well.

Botero is a delightful, warm and charming man. and i wish i cld've spent a little more time with him but i knew he had been speaking to reporters the whole day and honestly, that the story wasn't going to require too much from him. it was after all my third Botero story! streats ended up doing 5 stories on the man and the exhibition. overkill

also, i got the chance to interview writer Chang-Rae Lee, who's written Native Speaker, A Gesture Life and Aloft. I only got the chance to read Native Speaker halfway before my i/v with the korean-american. but i am so glad i decided to rush down to the library in between assignments and pick up his book. it is a magnificent book. his writing is truly eloquent although the storyline is a little wanting at times.
when i read his words, i just want to sit and breathe it all in, slowly.

there are some books you want to race through, the storyline pushing you to read fast to find out more. soon. quick. now.

but this is one book to savour, to sit and think about and to wonder at the brilliance of such a man.

i'm always delighted when i find out that people who have found fame are just down-to-earth, easygoing characters. they're easy to talk to, to get to open up and do not seem fatigued by what must be the umpteenth interview they've had to sit through. they pay you their fullest attention, careful to understand your bumbled question and they think their answers through.

i also spent the later part of hte morning (after interviewing lee at the ritz-carlton) talking to the owners of Bunalun, an organic food store at Chip Bee. they were also a delight to talk to. not the preachy type of people as some businessmen can be but interesting and frank about their products. and no, organic food is not just about brown rice. they have chocolate mousse too! and i assure you, it is delicious. and chocolatey. and you can bet that i'm going there again.
(they have a lunch menu at $15 for a tart, two salads and a dessert) truly delightful. Tony even sat down with edwin and i to have lunch, asking us about the way the food tastes and just chitchatting about different things.

sometimes i love my job but then when i have to get into the office and write a boring-ass story, i just want to get a gin and tonic.

i left the office earlyish on friday, the story wasn't writing itself (none of the above stories though, something entirely more boring - 3d animation!) and will have to punish myself tmr by going back to the office to finish it up.

late nights

i've been kinda pushing it the last few days...
on wed night went to not only the official opening of the very classy italian restaurant Capella, at Chjimes but also to the Heineken green room sessions at Velvet where the Thievery Corporation was playing.
It was an awesome night, ending only at 315. on a wednesday night... what was i thinking?
But too much alcohol and good music and friends also hanging around, how could i leave?

so paid for it on thursday. thank goodness i didnt have a morning assignment. so i crawled into work at 1045. i actually didnt fare that badly but my brain was so fried that i took ages to finish one story (ok it was quite a long one) and then i had to crawl to my 2pm assignment which fortunatley turned out to be a tiny story.

and then i did it again yesterday night.
it's a sunday morning, i managed to make it here again at 1045.
actually i have no idea why i took so long to get here. i did wake up at 9am.
but last night, was taken to this little dim sum place at jln besar. cheap and not too bad. we had the usual - char siew bao, the yam puff, siew mai, beancurd prawn roll, pork ribs and then finished off with some ice kachang. all for less than $12. not too bad. and plus it's open until really late. left at about 2plus and it was still quite packed.

but i think i'm getting tired of the holland v thing (we were at essential brew before going for supper) - too many people, too uninteresting. and somehow coffee club was closed, kfc was being renovated and tons happening. maybe too much happening. what happened to it being a nice laidback place? plus the crowd is getting younger and younger. or am i just getting older?

blog entry

ah cant be bothered to think of a right title.

but plenty has happened this past week. i'm sure everyone's heard the news of the closure so i dont want to elaborate on that.
just please dont call it a merger bt the 2 free papers. its not a merger. its more like the closure of one paper - the better one.

i dont know what's going to happen to me at this pt of time. i'm hoping for the best.

i've been thinking a lot abt life, love and relationships. (i'm reading Sex and the city afterall)
all of my conversations with friends seem to be about men. why are we all so hung up on men? i am a very guilty party as i'm always moping about the disappearance of that one man. time to get over him! plenty of fish out there... er... right...??

some weekend

this was an amazing weekend, something unforgettable.

it all kicked off on friday night at brewerkz at riverside point, where about 15 ex-classmates from Class 6F of Henry Park Primary School gathered, along with our form teacher Mrs Ong.

I was a little amazed at how some people hadn't changed and others were unrecognisable. But it was good to see everyone and learn that everyone was doing well in their chosen lives. There were 4 classmates who were married, one pregnant, several in the medical industry, some more in the engineering field, others in the academic field, accountants, civil servants, insurance agents and more. Mrs Ong said she was proud of how we had turned out and it was good to hear that, and also to learn that she's still at the school, but now the HOD of English.

ABout 8 of us adjourned to a hotel at scotts road for a drink at the quiet lounge where we read aloud from autograph books and chatted until 2am.

And then I was up again at 7am on Saturday to pick up the girls to go wakeboarding at Punggol Marina. I think everyone had a great time, despite the aching bodies after.

I know I did and I found myself liking wakeboarding more and more. I was more relaxed and having more fun than the last time. My body didn't ache as much as the first time so that's fantastic and neither did I get sunburnt for a change! Am looking forward to doing this somewhat regularly although weekly would bust my budget so badly.

Saturday night was spent at Suntec, sitting through 3 hours of Chinese pop music/acting/hosting at the Next Big Thing finals. I got a good laugh out of a few of the contestants and especially William Hung with his majorly idiotic comments which bordered on 'i think he/she was good' 'i liked it' only offering one criticism 'he could've sung better' which brought on plenty of Sniggers. Hearing Hung say that would be like Bush teaching a primary one kid to read.

so i had to drag my ass down to the office on Sunday avro to file my story and rewrite another story and then be reminded to write a column ASAP.

i'm having problems with writing a column, and i think it sorta boils down to inexperience. I'm not talking about inexperience in writing but not having lived life to be able to comment fully on it. It's like what a film-maker I interviewed last week told me, that film courses should never be an undergraduate/diploma course because at that age you can only teach the technical aspects, that the stories, the narrative produced by those youngsters will never be of any mettle. Simply because they have not lived life yet. I know I haven't lived my life yet. I think it's only just started this year. I do not count my previous contract job as a job. Because it was going nowhere and it had the shortest learning curve imaginable, which all too quickly plateaued.

But can I not write a column? No, because this would all seem like an excuse to anyone who hears this.

a little lost

i was watching the trailer of Lost In Translation just now, trying to gain some inspiration for my travel story on Tokyo, which I've foolishly volunteered to write. (perhaps not foolishly, it will after all serve as a reminder, a way of preserving my visits to that metropolis).
but watching that trailer, although without sound because i just have a crappy soundcard-less PC, i realised just how i much i enjoyed the film. i caught it once in the cinemas and again on a friend's dvd as i had missed the first 20 minutes of the film.
despite having only seen it twice, i laughed at some parts of the trailer even though i couldn't hear what was going on. it put a smile on my face this afternoon. i want the dvd. i think this is one more movie i could watch over again.
i love how it was filmed, i love the relationship the two seemingly incompatible heroes have. i love how tokyo looks.i just want to go back to July, to be back in Japan. to be on holiday. and to only worry about how to maximise my time there and minimise my spending!
i need a holiday already. july seems like ages ago.
i guess Lost In Translation is a sort of symbol, a representative of my holiday in Japan. something i'm trying to cling onto, to embed deep into my memory.
i hate the way i forget things, how i can only recall some of my previous travels. i wish i could close my eyes and have all my holidays, all the good times appear in front of me. like a film reel, a home video screening in my mind.

sunday blues

how can sorrow be sweet?

he's somewhere on his way to bangkok right now. to begin a journey that i would think is a little scary but also very exciting.

getting together

i got the most interesting phone call the other day.
the voice, with an american accent, was unfamiliar.
the name, Kaixi, a little more familiar.

she was my primary 6 classmate.
hadnt seen her or heard from her for 13 years.
and there she was, on the phone, asking me if i'd like to be part of a reunion of sorts she's organising.
having only met a couple of my pri-sch classmates over the past few years, i said sure.
it's supposed to happen sometime next weekend. exciting.

so when i checked my email this morning, i was pleased to see that kaixi's actions have sorta spurred on another of my classmates to contact us. he sent us an email encouraging our participation.

coincidentally, a classmate from Uni also sent out an email suggesting a reunion sometime next year in january to mark the.... er... 1000th day of our graduation or something of that sort.
i guess since uni wasn't that long ago, its not as exciting. plus, in my line of work i keep meeting ex-classmates, from PR agencies, other magazines/newspapers. just the other day at one press conference (which included lunch), there were four of us from the same year sitting at the same table of ten. 'mini class reunion' we joked.
but it would indeed be good to catch up with people and find out how they're all doing. and what they're doing.

and just for old times sake

change your mind

yeah so i thought i might change the template of this blog to something a little cleaner, easier on the eye. but too lazy to change the actual template so just leaving this as it is courtesy of whoever it was who put it up on blogger. thanks!

might add in some more stuff to the sidebar later tho.

movie week

i didn't realise just how many movies i saw last week until sherise kindly pointed it out.
Five.
In one week.
A new record for me i believe.
It started with Tuesday and The Bourne Supremacy (which i am giving 3 out of 5 stars)
Then Wednesday and Maqbool at the Indigo Film Festival (i had written a pre-event story for them, interviewing Indian directors Vishal Bhardwaj, who directed Maqbool, Santosh Sivan and Asif Kapadia). Maqbool is a Bollywood version of Macbeth. Very entertaining and a definite recommendation. If i had to review this I'd give it 4 stars
On Thursday, I was assigned to go review French film Les Choristes, The ChoirBoys. Very Mr Holland's Opus. Quite heartwarming, with a few gorgeous looking French boys. Am still deciding on the number of stars but should do pretty well.
On Friday, hmm... didnt see anything on this day. Instead had dinner at the singapore swimming club.
On Saturday, Fergus wants to go see Open Water. So we do. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Quite entertaining once they were in the water and after all the bits in the beginning was done with. (the first 1/2 hr or so was like watching someone's boring holiday homevideos. nothing much happens). It opens this Thursday, so I might as well just give my rating. 3 1/2 stars. It is, by the way, rated NC16 because of a bit of nudity.
On Sunday, the Tan family decides to go catch The Village. I'd been wanting to see it for a while, but my enthusiasm sorta died out when i read Newsweek's review. Mistake. I shouldn't have read any review, as is my usual policy. I hate someone's thoughts and opinions echoing in my head before I see the movie for myself. Anyway it was quite negative. Actually very negative. And the movie turned out to be better than expected. Some bits were still pretty damn silly when you think about it but it was generally ok. I think he had an interesting idea about isolation and innocence but he just wasnt able to carry it out thoroughly. I guess having made such a brilliant film in Sixth Sense, all his movies get ranked alongside that.

Unfortunately am these two weeks' night rep, so will be missing out on the previews for The Terminal and Saved! and luckily, Cinderella Story.

oh and he leaves Sunday morning. damnit.

red and whites

i've been lazy about updating my blog. I've also been busy at work, so that's my excuse!

but its been an interesting weekend. The first weekend that Sherise is back in Singapore, nice to have her back for a while. Although that means I can no longer blast my music in the morning while I'm getting ready for work....

Anyway, I interviewed author Anchee Min on Thursday. She was in town at the invitation of the Sg Tourism Board (also known as the pp who try to work in the 'Uniquely Singapore' catchphrase into everything they say - sorry to those nice pp i do know at STB. just that at the promotion event for the Asean Tourism Forum, a certain asst ceo kept using the two phrases 'U. S' and "Truly Asia'. could he be any more blatant?)

Diversions about catchphrases aside, Ms Min was a delight to talk to. She looked real fierce when she came in but she had such thoughts and emotions, it was amazing.

I wrote something on the bus when I was leaving the Book Cafe (it was btw, part of a monthyl reading that Subtext does at the B Cafe every first Thursday of the month. I plan to add that to my meagre staple of arts events, provided I can make it there by 730 each time!)

Here goes:

She strikes you as a fierce, determined, staunch woman but when she speaks, her icy demeanour breaks into a woman filled with passion, who despite having lived a life of hardship and despair, is at ease in this world.
Her attention to the slightest of details amazes you.
The way her tanned face breaks into a smile as she talks about some ceramics that had caught her eye in a museum.
She is bowled over by that little detail that hardly anyone else would notice. And she speaks about it with such fervour and amazement that you feel you ought to go have a look for yourself.
As she speaks of your life, you are reminded that your own life has been an easy, unblemished one. And that hers was fraught with difficulties. You wonder to yourself, what have I done with my life?

Ah, dunno why i wrote that now, but that was what i was thinking as i watched the world go by frm the seat in the bus.

Friday - spent the whole day out with Sherise. shopping and eating, shopping and eating. and checked out Aaghir's fashion show at the heeren.
went to the wine network after dinner for a drink with Fergus. the owner, henceforth known as The Wheeler-Dealer, really is a wheeler-dealer. while i like the place i didnt really like talking to him lah. he was very pretentious but not in a snooty way. but rather in a very singaporean way. i dont know how else to describe it.

Saturday - made vietnamese rice paper rolls for lunch w mum. chilled out at home. and then got ready for my belated (very) birthday dinner at Whitebait & Kale. Food was decent. just dont ever get the Lavendar tiramisu. had a kitkat martini which i actually quite liked. we shared a whitebait, i had some pretty damn fatty lambchops and then shared the desserts like chocolate mousse (also a mistake) and passionfruit creme brulee (q good altho why was it cold?)
fergus, who was part of the dining party (!), took me to newsroom bar, where (gasp!) it was an NTU bash. crap, felt so old. but i got to meet a couple of his friends. and i have to say i definitely was with the best looking guys in that place! all the other guys were so beng, so sad.

Sunday - did nothing much as usual. met sujin for ice-cream (supposed to be coffee but too bloody hot for spinz at the heeren). he's starting work tomoro at life! also checked out kino's sale and got 3 books - WH Auden's poetry, Raymond Carver's Fires and Haruki Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes (which i've already read but have fallen in love with one of his stories)
after a quick dinner, went with the family to see House of Flying Daggers starring the very delicious Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau (not so cute but not too bad either). not my choice of films but some parts of it were quite beautifully shot, especially the first 1/2 hr of the film, in the peony pavilion. swordfights were decent. acting was eh. and i fell asleep a few times in the movie! second movie i've ever fallen asleep in. the first was 50 First Dates but i dont think that counts because i had had about a jug of magarita before the movie. and i dont do tequila very well! so i was either really tired (ok i was kinda tired, after two late nights in a row - i'm getting old. quarter of a century you know!) or the movie was really boring.

you'd have to pay me to watch that movie again.

meanwhile it is a monday, it is a public holiday and i'm sitting in a quiet office. supposed to be doing my anchee min story but not really in the mood. because i'm not in a good mood. i have to get my ass down to the stadium later and i am just sitting here going EXPLETIVE! EXPLETIVE! EXPLETIVE! if they are going to make me do another NDP next year, i'm afraid I"ll just have to quit (er that is provided i'm actually still here next year, since i am still on probation!)

HAPPY NATIONAL DAY to one and all. Think of me in non-red as i swelter amongst the flag-waving, can-shaking, nokia torchlight-shining sea of Singaporeans all decked out in red. i will be stifling my yawns, clutching my useless goodie bag (which i will be selling to the highest bidder) and interviewing any seemingly enthusiastic, unfortunates around me.

sunday sunday

it's an amazing sunday morning. the sun is out yet it's not too hot as there is a gentle breeze blowing.
 
i've been having a good weekend, startin on friday where f & i went to see Spiderman 2 at midnight at marina sq (which was a construction hellhole but at least the cinemas were still good).
 
we were talking about how differently the people here dress compared to those in Japan. Singaporeans are generally unstyled, casual, and just can't be bothered. at least that's what i've been noticing this past week. in general, the japanese dress much better, even if it's just a day out shopping they make the effort to dress up. but people here just wear shorts, t-shirts and slippers to go on a date to see a midnight movie. (but let me stress, not me. i was in jeans and a nice-ish top thank you very much)
 
the movie was fantastic btw, somehow managing to surpass the first one, which i think many thought was impossible cos that was a pretty good movie too. and somehow it was written to be inspiring i guess, the idea that spiderman is just a kid who delivers pizzas, gets shit from his bosses and has to wash his suit at the laundromat.
 
then yesterday we went to catch bertolucci's The Dreamers. i saw that little snippet of a film review in sunday life and it was hilarious (and prob the first time that i'm agreeing wholeheartedly with a life reviewer) - that bertolucci's just a big pervert. while some parts of the movie was interesting, it turned out to be quite a waste of time. there were flits and bits of philosophical talk which just turned out to be fillers before the nudity and sex came in.
 
i think the best thing about the movie was the moments where the old films were shown. and the three of them play a game where they act out the scene and the others have to guess which film it's from.
 
this movie was too pretentious. too scattered. it sounded promising in the beginning with the whole french new wave cinema bits but then bertolucci lets the sex and nudity and hedonism just take over too much of the  film. and then it's all over. and you go, "i dont really know what that was about."'
 
and i didn't, i still dont really get what he was trying to do. and i dont think he managed to achieve whatever that was.
 
 

not putting on a happy face

i just found out that i have to go to sentosa tomorrow morning at 8am. friday morning. 8 am. what kind of idiots put a media thingy at 8am? that's only reserved for the civil service nuts who force media to get there 2 hours before the VVIPs do.

whatever the hell that job is, 8am is not gonna make me write a nice piece for them. do they not have any idea what time journos begin work? all i can say is there better be coffee. and it better not be super coffeemix. 

crazy or lucky?

two trips to Tokyo in two weeks - is that insane or what?
 
quite a few pp have said that it's a crazy thing to do but i like to travel. i dont mind the 6 1/2 hr flights, the bad inflight entertainment and the same boring food on UA. (ok maybe a little bit) because i wanted to go back to japan (and yet i also wanted to fly back to Sg instead of staying for another night, but that's my story and i'm not going to tell it to the world)
 
Anyway here's how it went =
on the bus back from Mt Fuji on the 12th of July, my phone rings and it's the sub asking if i'd wanna go to japan on a junkett to promote an all-male ballet performance. she didnt know i was already in japan and started laughing when i told her.
 
the details werent too clear and i was kinda tired after the long day on the mountain so i said probably not. but then i thought it over and i was like, hey why the hell not? so i whipped out my long-forgotten Singtel worldcard and dialed the office using my singtel-rented CDMA phone which cost me a bomb to rent but was definitely worth it just to receive that phone call from work!
 
and that was the beginnning.
 
and the end was that i got back from tokyo last night after 2 nights at the Tokyo Hilton (hilton whoo!!) near Shinjuku.
 
The first day was such a hectic one. arrived at narita at 3something, got onto the narita express and made it to the hotel at 5 something. checked in, hopped onto a taxi for Omiya Sonic City where the troupe would be performing (taxi fare cost a bomb - but luckily was paid for by the PR company) and then after watching the amazing performance, went back to Kabuki-cho for dinner (altho we inadvertently ate a korean restaurant - but that was some of the best korean food i've ever had!) and finally went back to crash.
 
and crash i did. i set my alarm at about 8 (we had an interview at 10), got up and then went back to sleep telling myself 30 more min. next thing i knew it was 930. i jumped into the shower, jumped into the cafe for breakfast and then rushed down to the lobby. 5 min late.
 
after the interviews, more travelling - this time to Fuchu where the troupe would give another performance. we got to ride on the bus with them and watched their warmups and rehearsal at the theatre where i experienced the second earthquake of my lifetime. this was a slightly more violent one than the first (in LA in the 1990s) and you could hear the light fixtures rumbling. the dancers leapt off the stage whereas the watching schoolkids just sat and giggled at their flightiness.
 
after catching the first bit of hte performance which we had missed the day before, we decided to head on out and caught a cab back to the hotel and then took the train out to Harajuku where unfortunately many of the shops had already closed by the time we finished our tempura don. but it was a nice pokearound. we also took another look around shinjuku, chancing upon the red-light district where the many many love hotels looked unlike our hotel 81s and instead more like classy, tho very discreetly done-up places.
 
on the last day, after breakfast we went our separate ways. i headed down to asakusa to buy some souvenirs for forgotten people. and then to shinjuku where i checked out two dept stores and then lost myself in the underground maze. cldnt figure out where to take the hilton bus from so i had to jump into a cab and head back for the hotel. grab my luggage, meet the pr person and head off to shinjuku station again to catch the narita express back to the airport. i love trains! and honestly the subways werent as bad as warned. altho initially the whole jr/subway thing did get me confused.
 
all in all, a fantastic trip, make that trips to japan.
 
cant wait to go again.
 

are you big in japan?

no probably not but i'm now big on japan!

after spending about a week there (just arriving back in Sing last night at about midnight) i realised just how much i liked the country!

2 nights in yokohama, where we walked a whole lot around the Yamate, Minato Mirai 21, Sakuragi-cho, Isogo areas.
Took a side trip on the way up to Tokyo to the Shomyoji Temple at Kanazawa.

on the 10th went up to Tokyo

taking the train from Tokyo
 
and visited the Asakusa area (where there was some special religious day from the looks of the throngs of people there at the temple) and the Omotesando area (where all the rich pp shop!)

The shrine at Asakusa, where the smoke is supposed to heal ailments.

11/7 - Odaiba (where there's a HUGE toyota showroom), Shinjuku areas.

Shinjuku in the daytime
 and then to Ikebukuro for Okonomiyaki to celebrate my birthday!

12/7 - went to the Yatsuyo area to settle some necessaries and then spent the whole day at DisneySea!


13/7 - Got up bright and early (6am!) and took the subway to Shinjuku to catch the first bus up to Mt Fuji. Bus took us to the 5th station and we decided to do a little mountain climbing but without the proper gear, clothes and shoes (wearing sneakers!), we could only make it so far.

 
caught the last bus back and went over to Roppongi area for dinner. had a nice variety of dishes at an izawaya i think it's called. a more casual one than those we had passed by before.

14/7 - last day. woke p at 5!!! headed to the tsukiji fish market to check out the HUGE tunas being carted around. buzz of activity. but prob more interesting to gaijin who haven't been to a wet market before.

check out them tuna!
 
checked out the Imperial Palace and then to Ikebukuro to browse at Parco, Seibu and Tobu. before heading back to collect our bags, take a train to Narita airport and board the flight back to Singapore.

(this is merely a quick rundown of wat's happened. will add more in the future)