NATSUMATSURI 2007 aka Japanese Summer Festival 2007

This took place on the 25th of August, in Upper Changi Rd's The Japanese Sch (Pri).

Long awaited event indeed!
Why long cos last year didn't manage to go!! they held this natsumatsuri in clementi last year and because of the limited space, it's not open to the public. haiz. then this year i forgot to purchase advance tickets so we took damn long to queue for the day admission tickets on the day itself.

gu and i chiong-ed around running some errands in the earlier half of the day.
so bushed at the end of it that my mood got abit crappy. the weather was really bad on that day.
sun scorching and with that stupid bike helmet, i'm constantly sweating.

before the event itself i've been asking around to see if there's any other interested parties who might wanna join me on that day. what was initially a group of 7 became 4 instead.

the other 3 backed out last minute. haiz.

gu n i waited at the bus station for YL and we took a cab over to the school.
was supposed to meet immy but she had to wait and fetch someone else so gu, YL and I went down to the school first.

end up.. we were locked outside the gate.
but we weren't the only one locked out. the entire mob was out. seems like the school won't be opening up the gate till it gets nearer to the time of the event. ticket sales starts at around 6:30pm.

saw a schoolmate in the midst of the mob but since we weren't that close i didn't really call out for him. he might not even remember me. there were quite a number of youngsters (almost 90%) and some wore their yutaka. you get to see all the different designs. quite a sight.

then there was 3 japanese kids (girls but two in lady yutaka and another in guy's). their dressing was quite attention grabbing (cos nice ma and the ones wearing the lady yutaka were all dressed up). guess what. stupid kid jumped queue and even sneaked in. then got chased out by guards. the mob watched in smirking silence. O_o

oh well.

we waited very long outside the gate. more than an hour.

finally, the gates opened and we moved in to join yet another queue for the tickets. we were quite ahead in the queue and by the time iman came, there was two lines of queue already. i spotted jeff (kelv kor's friend) amidst the crowd and called out for him. think he too long never see me so didn't recognise me immediately. stood squinting at me for the longest time before walking over and say hi hahaha my change in hairstyle and putting make up make me so unrecognizable meh!? basket.

iman came with sandhya and another friend and soon the pavement we were standing at became a mini poker den. with newspaper spreaded out, gu started playing dai di with them. i'm quite useless when it comes to brain cells killing games so didn't really join in. YL didn't know how to play.

soon the queue turned into three lines and i got bored and started taking random pictures of sleeping japanese boboys in yutaka. their mother is one japanese hot chick! woo..!

got know how long passed before the queue finally started moving and we hurried along the way to get our tickets. somehow we managed to buy the ones that had main dish included. (normally day admission + 12 coupons is $6. this coupon does not include main dish so you can only buy snacks). perhaps there were some leftover advance tickets? not too sure. anyway, we paid $10 for ours.

strangely it didnt take us too long to enter into the area where the event was held. couple of years ago it took damn long.

but there were some changes. there's no tracks in the field!! one whole big field now! so all the stalls were no longer centralized (quite disappointing) but spreaded out into the various halls of the school. there were very much more varieties in the stalls now but since it's spreaded out now i guess it became a lil messy somehow and the feel of the event minimized drastically. i still had fun walking around though.

only regret was to not have read the map given out to us more closely. we chionged to the nearest hall and bought the main dish there and to my horror, i realised only later that the other halls have had other food selections (those that i would've preferred more).

*pulls hair*

immy and gu and gang after the inital round of eating and look see look see, started sitting down to play dai di AGAIN.

YL and I decided to leave them behind and go explore ourselves.
there were many many stalls (sorry nvr take pic cos queue too long n v crowded.) and YL bought candy floss that started dripping all over her hands sprinkling it with pink candy. ee.
that's why u hardly see me eating candy floss hahaha..

a cute sight i saw and took pic of was when four japanese kids in yutaka stood around the candyfloss machine and stared into it with awe. what a sight! then another two proceeded to starting at the popcorn machine next. hahahaha

we saw this huge sunflower and its stalk was even taller than YL and I!

all in all I had fun that day except, it could've been better.

Hopefully next year it'll be better and we get to go again! This time I'll try to remember to get the advance tickets!

Here's some piccys to share! Can click on them to enlarge.




my colleague was showing me her photos from her Hokkaido tour trip.
OMG LAH I WANNA GO!! (but i'll die from all the seafood cos i am not a fan of theirs).
the cakes looks damn fantastic.
but i heard from her that she spent about 3k for the entire trip.
wah lau... better start saving real hard now.

YOKOSO MARIA'S DESK!!
(welcome to maria's desk) *hiak hiak*

What's this?

...my "pending"work for the next day.

SAD.



means all these are what awaits me when i come in to work tomorrow morning to settle.
one whole big stack of them. i normally just stack them all up like that right next to pc and clear them one by one so that i won't miss out anything.

my colleague realised i have post-its stucked directly on my monitor. asked me why did i stick it in such a weird place. seems so irritating.

well, that's the point actually, it's my way to remind myself what i need to do. to make it so painfully obvious lol.

right now i have to worry my ass off about chasing for payments, budgets, promax submissions.. omg lah. then there's the new york festival. *dies*

and oh yes, boss gave me cupcakes!!


cupcake!

so pretty ah!
but taste crappy hahaha
too buttery. feel like i'm eating a tub of margarine.

but i think the cupcake my boss brought back from new york last year tasted better and looked prettier hahaha

It's finally here! (click pic to enlarge)



Cant remember the exact date of which I made an order for the figurine. Probably sometime in June or so? or perhaps before that? This figurine was supposed to be in during July but I received an sms to come collect it only in August.

Besides Ryuk, I've also ordered for L!

Can't wait man! Ryuk looks fantastic! I've taken it out of the box and displayed it on my desk in the office and even tho my seat is pretty hidden, Ryuk still managed to attract attention to my also-manga/anime-crazy colleagues.

The paintwork is pretty good.

I didn't intend to get this in the first place. MH did. then i got tempted and placed an order as well. then I saw L... and got crazy. and placed another order. L's figurine has him squating (typically) on a couch. wahaha will post pic when I get my hands on it. Will molest the figurine crazily first though. Misamisa wasn't that cute. in fact, some expressions were quite bad. Light wasn't too bad. regret not ordering it. now that it's gone.. BOO HOO HOO!!! *cries*

Ryuk's mouth can open and close one! damn cute ah!

The figurine came with detachable hands. there's quite a few. one was holding on to the Death Note, one where you can attach apples to it. woo! apples got two variation. a whole apple, or one that's left with the core (cos Ryuk ate it up!!)

I paid for MH's Ryuk figurine. At first, she was supposed to be paying for it but since her birthday is coming up, YL and I decided to give it to her instead as a birthday present.

Maria's logic of the day: why deliberately spend on purchasing something for the sake of buying something for birthday presents when there's already an item available. muahahahaha!

Totally inspirational.



Visit their site: rinpaeshidan.jp

senakablog

what's this abt? click the above title (it's URL) and it'll lead you to a page.
enjoy what you see!

crazy things a parent may teach. tsk.
cute nonetheless.

enjoy.

i like the tune of it.

oh wow didn't realise I havent been updating my blog for as long as a month hah!

oh well, sorry peeps.

Have been lazy.
Kept posting draft but soon after I would leave it there and not publish it.

Latest update will include quite a few entries. Pls start reading those dated from after July 12th as those would be the latest I've published.

Have fun!

hee... picked this up by the bus stop across the street.
there's a tree near the bus stop and overhead bridge where it grows fruits and drops off saga seed sometimes. it's a pity quite a number of the seeds fell into the drain. gu n i picked up wad's remaining on the ground. hee then was walking home happily with the seeds in hand and remembering the valentines day gift i've had from gu. a bottle of saga seed handpicked by him.

i washed the seeds when i got home. you don't just pick things up from the ground and keep it without washing it. very dirty ya.

everytime i get to pick these saga seeds i'll bring it home and lock it in my safe. have quite a bit of them already. hee. gu say bendemeer there got alot. he picked saga seed for one hour and had enough to fill up a bottle-full of them for me.

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i have had a new hairdo. *grin*



i need to get used to it.
am very depressed for some reason cos i think i look auntie but gu say i don't.
mom say it makes my chin look sharper.
but i guess after some time (dating aug 14th when i keyed in this entry, i've had the haircut for abt 2 weeks or so), i think i'm getting used to it lah. just that it's abit mafan to care for. must put alot of things on the hair. grr.

a work i did for Ching that in the end died of a tragic death.
it got graffitti-ed and had bird poo on it.
from what i've heard.
the walls turned orange.

anyway, the changed away some pics (for the project) and replaced it with my own words and yea, this is fully my work for now.

alas!!

gu finally got a new phone!!

erm i lazy surf net to show u which model/spec it is.

basically sony ericsson walkman phone series.

it's orange in colour behind.



Birthday Treats!

celebrating the four Leo ladies' birthday. My colleagues from SPE, 3 x producers & 1 x graphics designer.

we pigged out in "Changing Appetites" and for what we've spent, 4 of us were priviledged enough to get free membercards. heh now can go eat with discount!! their servings are huge. gu n i ordered the frankenstein mud pie and omg. damn big. feel so ... sinful. (refer to pic below, third vertical box on the left).

random cat photos.


this was taken in the carpark nxt to my block.
i call it "the cow" cos it's black and white spotted like a cow with white eyebrows.
and so it just sits there and stares at me while i try to take a pic of it.
click the pic for a larger view. u can see its face better that way.


geylang bahru fat cat.
as the names speaks for itself, you know why it's called "fat cat" right?

wilson's wise word of the day: "it looks like a stuffed turkey."

indeed.

FYI, our ass, unless u're kinda overweight, covers only about 2/3 of the seat the cat is on.
that does not include the seat for pillion. just the rider himself. So... we present to you, the geylang bahru fat cat.

my desk is the one on the right. as you can see, my bulletin board is quite swamped with pictures. and my table is damn messy.

but wait, the only reason why i posted this pic up is to hao lian how secluded my seating area is. LOL. backfacing a wall. left and right covered. cubicle wall infront very high. swee lah. *hiak hiak*

I must be nuts.
seriously.
but after having chionged and read till book #30++... I'M TOTALLY ADDICTED!?
(actual date when typing this entry is 14th Aug)

after having first watched Glass Mask aka GARASU NO KAMEN in a live action drama N years ago, i've always liked this show alot. It's been so many years and even though I've watched this drama twice, I can hardly remember the story line.

I finally got to watch the anime a few months back and was once again hooked to the show.

Link to Manga
Link to Live Action

Garasu no Kamen has a few different live action version. The version I watched is in the link above.

I'm kinda compulsive I suppose.
After rekindling my addiction with this manga, I kept talking about it to people and expressed my interest in reading the manga (cos I never did before.), a colleague told me that I could try looking for it in Kinokuniya. probably the taka branch since it's the biggest outlet they have here in singapore.

and so i did. while squatting in the manga section for the longest time i found it under the publisher Tong Li but the set wasn't complete.

then i went over the counter to ask if i could place an order for the full set. at that point in time, the full set wasn't available and they had to place an order first to check. if it's available, they'll bring the books in for me.

i vaguely checked the prices (being ignorant)and first couple of manga i took out was priced at around $5.57 or so. I thought that was ok since it's not a local publisher. that's probably the stupid-est thing I've ever did. or.. at least one of the stupid-est thingS i did.

fyi, there's a total of 42 books in this series.

the help desk ladies speak with a very thick chinese accent. not suggesting that they are from china, but i believe their command of language must be damn good.

after quite sometime I've finally gotten a phone call from kinokuniya. cant remember how long it took me but the call finally came in.

and that's when i got the biggest shock of my life. oh ok. one of the biggest shock in my life.

after informing me that the books are in, numbers and dollar signs started flying across my eyes and in my mind.

i asked about the total cost of the set (cos i'm expected to pay when i collect).
she say she don't know. i bet my eyebrow twitched at that moment. then she went on to tell me it's bcos each book is priced differently and she hasnt calculated the total cost for me.

my brain froze at that instant.

OH MY GOD. WAD HAVE I DONE!?

*slams head on door several times*

why did my brain freeze? cos the price she randomly listed while lookin at the mangas was $6.50.. $6.70.. basically, above the $6 mark.

imagine... $6.70 (taking highest point) multiplied by 42.
OH MY GOD $281.40!
I'M SO DOOMED.

*checks pocket n cry*

yea. exchange rate differs each time a book comes in. thus accounting to the difference in price for each book. *dies*

i procrastinated for a week or two before going down to collect the comics.

to carry home 42 set is rather daunting.

*nods*

and so i had help. muahaha

dearest YL decides to accompany me to kino to collect my comics.
while on the train i suddenly remember that kor might be in town working.
when i called him he just about finished his work.
so i jio-ed him out for dinner and also, in times like these when help in labour is required, it's gd to have a guy ard. muahahaha

so end up YL didn't carry anything.
actually when i looked at the plastic bag, it wasn't that bad. i could carry them all home myself. basket. anyway, i've carried heavier/bulkier stuff before.


Comic, "Glass Mask"

check out my uber long receipt!!!! it's never ending!!!
in the end i spent $270+ (i got membercard so gd discount)
wah lau eh!!!!
anyway, think of it now, i didn't regret buying the comic lah. it's daaaaaaaaaamn gd.

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i made a strawberry keychain!!!

ok lah i made quite a few actually.

12th July 2007

Nothing special abt the date itself but this is a date where Karen and I met up to go to East Coast's Shi Nai Cafe.

The first shot we took when we got off the bus.

The sky was in a shade of purplish pink.
very nice.

Karen wanted to take a picture.
I could only manage a potrait shot since on the right there's all the buildings and construction planes spoiling the view.



somemore the streetlights lended some magic to the picture.

i'm glad we took this shot tho.
it's pretty sweet and for the fact that after we walked everywhere else, the sky was back to the usual dull blue hue.

it's less crowded today at the cafe.

we didn't have to queue up for seats hehehe

ordered quite a number of stuff and my drinks were the usuals.


my favourite po luo baaaaaaao!!!!

i ordered the vegetarian (means plain) po luo bao.
po luo technically means pineapple but the bun doesnt taste very pineapple-lish to begin with.

everytime i come to this cafe, the po luo bao is a sure order.

i dun fancy the char siew stuffing ones.

Karen ordered minced beef cheese baked rice.
i had this before.
it's very good.


minced beef cheese baked rice

the sauce is generous enough to not have your rice end up being too cold and dry.
the cheese is hot and chewy. so you basically don't get the cold hardened cheese on your rice.


karen with her baked rice

I actually ordered pork ribs (dim sum) but i forgot to take a shot of it.
surprisingly, karen never tried it before.
but nvm, i havent tried it till recently as well but my first taste of it was in geylang.
i didn't like the taste of the ones i ordered in shi nai but karen tot they tasted great.

my main course was porkchop rice with curry.

the curry sauce wasn't really spicy but i guess it tasted alright.
shld've asked them for more sauce.

the meat was a little to hard and i was surprised when i saw that my porkchop was not cut into pieces beforehand. i struggled a lil with my fork and knife haha..


pork chop rice with curry

later that night karen came over to my hse and had me paint her nails for her.
lol

Hokkaido Food Fair!

The food fair lasted only for two weeks.
Today's the last day but I've already visited the stalls earlier this week.

Once was with my colleagues and the next day with Wilson (when we watched Transformers in GV Tampines that night).

It's quite a sight and all the stall vendors (those who are cooking) are japanese and it's quite interesting hearing them shout in the typically japanese vendor way except i doubt all the aunties flooding the area understood a single word.

i avoided the seafood sections as much as possible and nearly died when there was a human jam at the ramen area. the overpowering stench smell coming from the pot of soup base with all the squids inside invaded my nostrils and my god. i thought i was gonna faint on the spot.

i'm not a fan for seafood.

the process of seeing them cook the fishes were quite a sight but the smell.. i tak boleh tahan (cannot take it).

Yee Lin and myself squeezed through the crowd to take a peek at everything.

the tako balls are huge! like ping pongs! and they made it look so tasty.
selling at six for $5.50, i think the price is alright.

our local takopachi is sold at 3 for $2.20 now.

a dollar more for better tasting stuff, why not?

but i cant eat squid. got allergy. bah!

spend $1.90 buying a coroke.
is that how you spell it?

i tried our local coro-chan once.
eurgh.
i vaguely remember commenting that i don't fancy how it tasted.

mustered up some courage to buy this and prayin that it tastes as good as it looks.


coroke (don't know how to spell)
basically it's just fried potato

damn well it did!

it's crispy but not too oily on the outside and super soft and creamy on the inside.
imagine potato made to taste creamy. heavenly!

click on the picture if you want a better view on the food items yea.
i took it in macro mode.


japanese rice cake covered with herbs

Yee Lin say the taste in undescribable.. or issit indescribable?
aiya wadever.
anyway, this thing cost $2. I kinda forgot that it's herbs. Thought it was seaweed.
Yee Lin was saying how un-herb like it tasted.

There were 3 flavours mainly.

1. seaweed
2. herb
3. black seseame

i bought dango!!!!!!!
*smack lips*

taste damn nice lar!

$2 also.

takashimaya there sell @ $1.80 BUT... they pale in comparison in terms of size lah.


japanese rice cake - green tea dango with red beans
*fifty cent coin for size reference*

saw my coin in the pic right?
paiseh i stupidly showed the wrong side of the coin.
shld having the 50 cents part facing up.
anyway, this dango is huge.
the ones in taka is like at the most, a fifty-cent-coin size.

there were others that i was interested in but i guess my cash quite limited and the stuff on sale ain't exactly cheap.

- butter manju cake
- sweet potato cake
- ice cream
- ramen

*drools*

UWAAAAAAAAAAAA

natsukashi!!!!!

the last time i saw these MVs were like years and years ago man..





been surfing around some blogs and got to know that yesterday (Jul 4th) so happens to be GACKT's bdae haha.

Clarke Quay Riverside

the picture was taken after we attended my editor's wedding dinner at peony-jade restaurant.
stupid taxi driver dropped us off at the wrong location.

the food at the restaurant wasn't too bad.
it was my second visit there. first time was for burger's brother's wedding and we had really bad seats. it's all the way at the back and practically could not see a single thing and was seated with a bunch of old men. boring like mad. then we decided that should we ever end up as seat fillers again, we won't attend the wedding.

this time round it wasn't that bad and i was seated amidst all my colleagues and thus the familiar faces.


At the Riverside

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we went to novena's velocity shopping centre where gu picked up his running kit for the marathon he signed up for.

somehow there's tons of korean based shops around and i spotted this!!!

KOREAN RICE CAKES! with chilli paste!!

my favourite lah!


Hankook Rice Cake House

This bowl cost around $3 but it's damn nice lah!!!!!!!!!!!
pretty spicy and serving quite generous.


Rice Cake in Chilli Paste!!! Yummy!
pls give it a try when u go there the nxt time

there's this korean mini-mart nxt to it.
all the instant noodles! bwahahhaa

i randomly bought some clay (korean light-weight clay) to make clay bunnies

damn cute lah the results.
the end result was super light.

The Pika(s) are too damn cute

Soft Paws!!

Saves your furniture and floorings from being scratched by your pet dogs and cats.
thought this was pretty cool.

They have various colours. To check out the website, Click Here


Photo first seen in CuteOverload

chocolates bars from NY (new york)!!

my boss is back from a workin trip to new york and brought back with her a plastic bag full of chocolate bars that sent some of our colleagues into quite a frenzy and even those from the "far-away" desks dropped by to steal some choco bars from us.

i'm not a fan for sweet stuff esp milk chocs so i had only one piece (not the whole bar).


choco bars!

while i was randomly laying out the chocobars on the table for the fun of it, i realized something...



Everything is "King Sized"!

uwa.......

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went to chill out with kor previously in Ice Cold Beer.
it's quite a noisy bar in terms of music but still, a nice place to hang around at.

when kor n i reached the place there was hardly any seats and the waiter/waitresses weren't too enthusiastic in helping you find a seat or rather, shld i say, too distracted and often say yes to you but soon after forgets what you asked and moved on to serve customers.

maybe cos i'm not ang moh.

quite frustrating.

anyway, we did find a seat outside eventually.

over the weekends i ended up bringing wilson over to Ice Cold Beer (when he booked out from his reservist on sat) at night.


Ice Cold Beer

Starting the day with a photo! wahahaha



we were meeting up with Zhiwei and his gf to chill out cos the chicken wings in this bar is gooooood. i read from kor's blog. the chicky wings were marinated with shrimp pasted and then deep fried. so i guess i can't let chingling eat those chicky wings cos she's allergic to seafood.



guess wot? there's two airheads (woman) sitting on the table nxt to us. why airhead? cos of their behaviour. they r kinda in their mid thirties or something and they both ordered only one cup of drink and shared it, (ok so that's not the main issue), then they wanted to play pool so they wrote their name on the chalkboard to queue for their turn. normally at such places, it's winner stay. but they don't know how to play but they either wan to play together (since both cant play so takes forever) or they keep asking the other men who is around to play/teach them. O_o" sorry if i'm prejudiced. i just don't like how it looked. then soon after... they just left.

wad the heck!?

see my gugu so dark in the picture (albeit the lighting) cos poor boy kena toasted under hot sun during his 2 out of 3 weeks in reservist.


candid snapshot by zhiwei's mischevious gf

i actually bumped into kor again that night! hahahah quite happy to see him. he brought two friends along with him that night and right after the airheads left, kor took up the seats and so we're all happily seated together YAY it's the only sofa seats around and we stole them all!!! muahahaha