Yay.. updates?

haha. i seriously think i gave up on updating.. >.> see how lazy i am. i have skipped all my posts from kyoto / osaka and jumped right to JUNE. haha. shall talk about them another time? (fiddles)

met up with some friends who were in Japan for their grad trip (ENVIOUS! YOU RICH GUYS). haha. ya and it was the most expensive meal they had when with me.. (my apologies..) but we had lotsa fun. funny stories shared, and of cos good food! though i think i ended up talking more den eating.. lol.

i had a great time guys.. thanks!

桜んぼう狩り

桜んぼう狩り(sakuranbougari) basically means cherry picking. Went on this really fun activity with my colleague (ルイちゃん　ありがとうね！)and his high school friends Mahiko and Yoshiko (綺麗で、可愛くて　＾O＾). I would have never ever found out about such an activity by myself. It's seasonal, and farms open their orchards to the public for fruits picking at a fee. The area we went to is pretty famous for wines. We passed by lotsa grape vineyards along the drive in Yamanashi (山梨県). Cost us about 2000yen each for 40mins (though we took longer than that. I think we clocked an hour or so).Another friend of mine once told me that he went for strawberries picking before in Japan too. I believed it's the same thing! Though I haven't been able to locate the place where he went. I would wanna go try again some time. Cherries are plucked off the trees and eaten, and you don't have to worry about pesticides since they don't use any (which I guess is one of the reasons why cherries are really expensive). However, these Japanese cherries are different fromthose I've eaten.. they aren't as red. The fruit has plenty of flesh and is also jucier. Oh ya, Yamanashi has this place pretty famous fortheir udon. It was actually a special type of udon that is flatter than the normal ones. There was a namef or it.. but I can't remember.. *sweatdrops* We had to queue for almost an hr and a half, but the wait was worth it!　おいしかったよ！

The udon! It's making me drool again...

Cherry Trees!

Look at the cherries!!!! XD

Using my hat as a holder for the cherries.. >.>

The cherry orchard. :D

shinjuku = place of work and stay =

spamming pics mostly.. cause i'm too tired to write much today, and if i dun post today, i doubt i will post anytime soon.... pics of around my place of stay.

the east side of shinjuku

kabuki-cho. LOVE this signboard. I always see it in Gintama. hahaha. place of hostesses / hosts?

yodobashi camera --> love the place for new electronics. not to mention the games & hobby shop.

my view out from the apartment. this is tokyo metropolitan tower 1 and 2.

my 2D love~

if anyone is interested.. my schedule for animes to watch.. >.>

link out to schedule!

comments on anime and what-nots will be post in my LJ instead...

sakura just right at the door step

桜酒僕の胸の中に芽生えた～ (sakura sake by arashi) for some weird reason, i kept singing this song when i saw the sakura blossoms.. just right outside where i stay.. funny thing is, i went around tokyo to see all the other blossoms first, before looking at those right outside my place in Chuo Park. >.<

sakura~~~ in Ueno Park

gotta really love japan during sakura season. it's beautiful everywhere! sakura blossoms! when we were travelling end of march, most areas in Tokyo and Kyoto were at 70-80% bloom. XD 凄く綺麗だった！ Too beautiful for words. Though we tried to capture most with our cameras, it is impossible to capture that atmosphere. Here we are at Ueno Park.. and everyone's drinking under the sakura trees on a Wednesday morning.. unbelieveable. Lol.


and above, food stalls!! it's sakura season matsuri! You'd see a lot of these food stalls in lotsa parks, tourist spots.. selling takoyaki, yakisoba, yakitori~~ and lots more.. food does not come cheap though. the norm's about 500yen for a serving? I remembered we ate only junk food for lunch that day. *laughs* i have lots more pics but from other places.. will update in another post. :)

drinks and pirates of the caribbean.

In Japan, the only drink that you can find anywhere would be TEA. Green tea, oolong tea, you name it. And unlike what you get in Singapore, there is no Pokka Green Tea (not that I've seen anyway). It is unsweetened, and tastes .. erm. healthy. Though I do drink that, just once in a while, I would like something not-so-healthy. That's when I resort to coke. They call it cola here (コーラ, pronounced co-lah? haha). No F&N orange, rootbeer.. >.> They have their range of fizzy drinks. I like C.C Lemon best! :D The pic on the left features the latest drink I am trying from Asahi. Plum fizzy drink! haha.. 梅だ！ I love plums! Have already tried plum chewing gum, sake with plum (梅酒).. and now plum soft drink! It's pretty good, but has a little too much gas.

The other drink you see in abundance would be the energy drinks, kinda like red bull I guess. Small bottles packed with power? It's really good I'd say. Perks you up after a long tiring day. :) They also have drinks for aesthetic purposes. Comes with collagen and what-nots.. haven't exactly tried it since I have no idea what they taste.. and they cost like 240-500 yen? O.o I usually go for the Vitamin C kinds.

Been going on abt the non-alcoholic drinks, how can I miss the other counterpart?? In Japan, drinking is the norm! 焼酎(spirits), 日本酒(sake, japanese rice wine), 梅酒 (plum sake), these cocktails called サワ (sawa) and etc.. Usually grape-sawa, orange-sawa.. I have not idea what sawa means.. would anyone care to enlighten me?? It's usually a sweet cocktail. Oh ya, not to forget beer. Asahi beer! Super Dry. Not a big fan of beer though. Though I'm not into alcoholic drinks, I found sake pretty nice. Sweet and easy to drink. Like them both warm and chilled. Numerous eateries have this drinking package called 飲み放題 (nomihoudai). Bascially means a drink buffet? Free-flow of drinks from the drink menu. >.> The last time I had nomihoudai with 食べ放題 (tabehoudai, buffet), I drank 5 glasses of Mango milk shake and only a little sake. lol. weird choice for a drinking session. But the mango shake was GOOD though. :D

Jumping to another topic, I heard Pirates of the Caribben officially opened yesterday in SG. For Japan, the official date is today. Just thought I'd mention this, since I was caught by surprise from this life size figure of Jack Sparrow just last night, walking back to my apartment. >.< The trailer stopped in front of me when I was waiting at a junction. For a moment, I thought it was a person. Only realised then that it was an advertising trailer for the movie. I haven't seen these advert vehicles running around in SG before, but they are pretty common in Tokyo. You'd see them blasting music of a new song or make announcements for a new game / pachinko parlour. They're usually decorated from front to end. I also saw a mobile drinking bar the other day. Interesting. Where do I get on? Or do I just request for a drink when it stops by the roadside? Lol.