なんでやねん！

so yea, today was the last day with the japs. the farewell was pretty happy and sad at the same time. we took so many photos haha.

kinda feel abit sad that i won't be seeing my buddy tmr anymore. it's been a really fun week. i kinda feel like a tourist cos of all the bus rides and the places we visited haha. was dead tired by the end of everyday, but my mood has been really good for this whole week, and yea, i really enjoyed showing the japs around singapore. had alot of good times :D

highlights were the weekends, science center, marina bay walk, and also, playing frisbee, soccer and chilling in the games room, as well as the card games we played on the bus. there's this variation of taiti called daifugo, which i think is much better than taiti.

anyway, i'll miss my buddy's friendliness and coolness. all the 'yeaaaa's and the fistbumping haha. i guess we click quite well. all the attempts at translating and trying to explain stuff in science center, or in lessons. and won't forget the なんでやねん！that he thought me haha. basically its some exclamation u use when someone tells a bad joke or doing something dumb.

the other's were quite a fun bunch too. ryouta was really nice to talk to cos he explained many funny things about the japs to me haha. and there's also tomoki, who's likes to disturb his friends, and they all just smack him haha. he's a bit like a buff version of wong. damn funny joker, that guy. also had a really fun time with a lot of ppl from the group :D

so yea, tmr sch resumes. waa i'll really miss hanging out with my buddy, but school is pretty enjoyable as well. kinda missed out quite abit in this one week haha. we still need to do that prank on wong :P

anyway, hope i can keep in touch with my buddy :D. and i'll definitely visit them during the year end. it's really convenient that they are all in the same class heheh. so ya that's all for now. bye~~

science center and west coast market

today was quite a fun day as well, despite how boring the schedule seemed. the start of the day seems like such a long time ago actually haha.

in the morning, after the introduction in the hall, we went to eat breakfast with the japs, which was mostly fooling around and taking unglam pictures, watching videos and one piece for the guys, and a mass gossiping session for the girls lol.

after that took normal lessons la. pe was netball, which is probably one of the more interesting sports they could teach. and yes, valles' lesson, but surprisingly i din't sleep. maybe cos i was in a good mood haha. at the same time, the japs were like visiting the cool stuff in the labs, and went to that demo room where u take the air gun and shoot at ppl, and the gyroscope, hovercraft and stuff.

at 12, we had lunch, where my buddy shingo downed like 4 mango puddings lol. yes the japs love mangoes that much. and they were also talking about how my buddy is popular with the girls from our school lol. anyway, halfway through, jookee, wong and zheyuan came to crash. cos ya he's sad that he couldn't crash anything. though we kinda told the japs that he likes jap girls and he just ran out of the room. lol.

anyway, we left for science center at 1, though not that many locals went. at first it was seriously only me and chee, and some ppl -ahem- wanted to go back to hostel to sleep lol. but in the end managed to get 7 ppl to go.

anyway, i thought that science center was actually quite interesting, even though i've been there like a thousand times already. actually, singapore's science center is much more interesting than science center's in other countries, at least for those i went, cos they are much more interesting (but much more confusing to understand). anyway, the most fun part of the trip was trying to explain what the stuff are or how it works. its hard actually, cos we ended up trying to figure out some of the stuff that we never bothered to find out how it works. and translating haha.

i actually kinda like the fact that my jap is like halfway in between. makes it really challenging to explain how the stuff works, but yet just nice so that its possible. cos of all the 'ohhhhh' moments haha. the most fun sections were still the optical illusions and the slow motion videos at the first part though. cos they were cool (and much easier to explain :P)

came back to school at 3:40, and we went in to the hall. and since they happened to be doing the talk about ritsumeikan at the same time, everyone was like staring at us lol. but its quite interesting to show them the montage of our trip over there cos our inbound buddies are different.

went to visit cca's after that. crashed quite a few cca's, but in the end, my buddy and chee's buddy decided to stick to soccer, cos my buddy is in soccer club in rits, and he's pretty damn good, like a junwei :D. so they joined for soccer training for awhile lol, and the soccer coach was being strict with them lol, like he's their real coach haha.

they din't join in the matches though, but after that, bradley was free, so we spent some time doing practice shooting with bradley as the keeper. he's a damn good keeper now btw. saved almost everything except two or three balls, so when they scored they were quite happy haha.

left for the music room at 5:30, where all the musical talents started coming out. more of on our side ba. dawn, yx and anh all started playing piano pieces, while isaac's buddy was doing drums. with a inverted brush and a fan lol. as well as a broken bass. but still, not bad :D

after that, we went to eat dinner at west coast, where -ahem- were like stalking us but pretending not to intentionally be there lol. din't eat zhu cao as intended, but it wasn't too bad la. let my buddy try mango juice (even more mango :0) after dinner, we all went to west coast plaza to look around at the movie shop, which they found cheap compared to japan. cos movies there can cost like $20 or more, and the blu-rays are like $100+, and they still buy them. for us, it's free though, because some programs exist that are possibly not perfectly legal lol. but of course we din't tell them that.

after that, we went to the supermarket, which i thought was quite a good idea. and wcp has so many jap goods. there's like a sushi section as well as a jap good section with sauces, curry and stuff. and yea spent quite some time comparing prices here and there lol. and teaching them how to make the instant chicken rice, or instant chicken curry. don't know how we managed to spend so much time, but we were just back in time for roll-call lol.

ok sry for making u read all this. its all my excited brain's ramblings haha. looking forward to bringing my buddy to class tmr haha. kk that's all for now. bye ~~

bringing the japs around

this weekend has been a really long and memorable :D. at first i was worried my buddy would judge me cos he's a cool guy and i'm like... this. but turned out he's a really funny and nice guy.

anyway, its really fun being the tour guide. i feel really glad when i manage to get my buddy(s) to be amazed or to laugh. it really helped that i went to japan before, cos i can understand how they feel. so i kinda put in more effort to make sure they don't get sian or something by trying to joke around and stuff. managed to have quite a good time talking to them haha.

anyway this post is going to be extremely long. ya.

saturday was our group outing. it had a kind of ice-breaker feeling, where we all just mixed around with each other's buddies. went to school early at 9 and ate breakfast together with the japs. after that, we went to bugis street to buy the drinks there. it was quite a sight, cos we just ordered ten drinks in one row. after that, we went to shop for souvenirs, and they were quite surprised at how cheap everything there was. actually, i'm quite shocked too haha.

after that ate lunch at bugis junction. i let my buddy try indonesian food, bbq chicken penyet. so one moment he was dying from the spicyness, then next moment he was like thumbs up haha.

went to gardens by the bay after that


rainbow in the waterfall :D

went up to the top to look at all the venus fly traps and pitcher plant and trying to explain what they are. then after we went to the crystal mountain section where we took group photos through the mirrors lol. it was like mass camwhoring :0

last part was the nicest part, cos all the plants had really nice shapes and structures :D. there was this plant that had a spiral and looked like spaghetti lol.


and weethean was talking about asses and d...

try to unsee that :0

after leaving gbtb, we decided to detour and walk towards promenade instead. we happened to walk past the ndp practice, and we were really lucky, cos we saw the parachuters landing, the helicopters, the tanks shooting. we even saw a group of ppl marching past us when we crossed the road haha. it was pretty interesting actually. i'd be really amazed if i wasn't a singaporean haha.



i realised it was quite a waste that i din't go flyer, cos there would have been fireworks, and that would have been really amazing. but ok la the bbq was also pretty fun :D. the food was really good, like the beef and the chicken wing, and the fish and the salmon. everything was tasty actually :P

anyway, things got interesting when they started trying to feed their friends food they don't like, like corn or mushrooms. and they were challenging each other to eat the spicy squid heheh. even i found it quite spicy lol.

the best part was the durian though. at first all the japs were like running away and shaking their head, but after that, they tried, and although some of them were like repulsed, some actually seem to like it, even though they felt it smelled bad haha. waa it was really enjoyable, the bbq.

anyway, yx's buddy followed me back home cos he wasn't able to host. learnt that our buddies also like playing games, like us. there was temple run, flow, badlands, etc. so maybe its not just us addicted to phone games haha.

reached my home at like 12 though, so we couldn't really do anything. mostly they were looking at my one piece comics and duel master cards haha. laid up like two mattresses in my room and we all slept at abt 1.

went to the market today, and showed them around to the vegetables, fruits and fish. part of the fun is trying to come up with analogies for the stuff they didn't recognize, and yea i use alot of broken english and japanese :P. after that we ate noodles, then walked around the market, and they were interested in the praying items.

after that, we left for sentosa and turned out yx wasn't coming. firstly, went to the merlion. after that, we took the train down to see the sea aquarium. at first, we spent alot of time queuing and stuff, but when we went in, it was pretty amazing :D.





after that, we went to the malaysian food street, where we ate the famous chicken rice ball, and i got the penang laksa which was delicious. after that, we shared chendol, which i nvr dared to tried until now, and damn, it was really good. the japs also seemed to like it (yea), though they were like saying cold most of the time.

intended to go to adventure cove for the afternoon, but turns out u can't just go in with any kind of clothes after all. couldn't enter cos our pants had zips and buttons, and it was too expensive to buy trunks and stuff. so had to change plans halfway and decided to go to luge and skyride instead




after that we just ended the sentosa thing by going to the beach and playing with the sand, writing stuff on the beach, and doing jumpshots :D

i guess we were too tired to throw each other into the sea lol.

ate dinner at clementi, and yea my buddies all knocked out in the car, though surprisingly i din't feel that tired even though my legs were completely dead from so much walking. ate at crystal jade. (ok its not that ex as it sounds, just around $15 per person).

after that we brought them around clementi mall, which they actually found pretty interesting cos there was the pineapple tart, and also the floss from the mei zhen xiang there. we also brought them to look at the fruits in the supermarket, especially at the mangoes, cos they love it and its much cheaper here than over there. basically, we were being evil and tempting them with all the food haha. they were like considering to buy, so i agreed to bring them back there if i had the chance.

so yea super long weekend (and super long post). really excited to see them in sch tmr haha. ok nites ~~

start of term 3

blogging again after mia-ing for so long lol.

anyway, its start of week 3 now (so fast), but at the same time i felt like i did quite a lot of fun stuff within the first two weeks :D. and school. i know some ppl begrudge not having time, homework sucks, etc, etc... but waa im seriously enjoying myself here haha. maybe its cos im a slacker who drops bio, who stays out late to play even though i live so far, who does alot of retarded stuff when i get the chance to. school's fun :)

anyway, even though i stopped blogging so much, i still keep a really short log of the interesting stuff i did that week haha. youth day, class outing (swag yo!). tuesday, gong cha, fun run! (and the very embarassing, stupid thing that happen that luckily not many knows about). wednesday, board games cafe, so worth the $6 spent. 

this week was pretty fun too haha. yesterday, art workshop :D. made something i'm unreasonably proud of and hidden somewhere retarded lol. today, RM, after such a long time off. made really retarded but fun games too haha. and we're planning a surprise for wong heheh :P.

excited for my buddy to come this friday :D. previously i was worried i'll get judged by my buddy, but now i feel like i got a dozen things that i might want to do haha. hope it goes well ~~

k anyway that's all for now. let's just say i'm also a last minute chionger haha. bye ~~

sep stuff

i've done quite alot of things recently but haven't really been updating. so gonna just copy and paste my sep reflections here lol, since it doesn't take time :0

"One of the biggest differences I noticed between life in Japan and Singapore is that their students there are more dedicated to their CCAs and seem to enjoy school more. Also, they have many activities outside school, and do not solely just rely on the computer for entertainment.

My buddy happened to bring me along to some learning center where she goes weekly to practice calligraphy, which is also her CCA, and she has been doing this for the past 9 years. Also, she plays the piano extremely, extremely well, and I also heard from her mom that she swims really well. Probably this is because these are the activities that my buddy spends her free time on instead of always using the computer like me, which is why she turned out to be so talented, unlike me :0.

Despite having so many activities, my buddy showed me this log that she said the school asked them all to do. It is a rather detailed timetable of the things to do after school, and there’s an allocated time to study, to practice the piano, to eat, etc. Their lives are well regulated and they exercise much more discipline than us Singaporeans.

Another thing I realized during my stay in Japan is the difference between living in a small and a big country. There is a lot to see and do over in Japan, thus their family often goes on short day trips to different places to do things. Transport is much more time-consuming in Japan though, despite the very efficient train system. The distance between two stops on the map seems very short, but it is actually a very long walking distance due to the size of the city, and also it is pretty expensive travelling in Kyoto, especially without a train pass.

One thing I really enjoyed was the class visit during the second last day. We had music, Japanese, PE, physics, and flower arrangement lessons. From what I heard from the people there, the students also have lifestyle lessons, where they learn where their food comes from, or how to do daily stuff, and also cooking. I feel that this kind of education is both interesting and useful.

Despite the academic abilities of the students in our school, many people do not know the nitty gritty interesting facts about daily life, and end up not knowing stuff or how to handle simple problems when they arise. Of course, our school focuses heavily on math and sciences, so there may not be the time or resources for this kind of activities, but I feel that it is both interesting and meaningful, and that this kind of information is worth knowing.

Physics was quite interesting as we learnt how to make and see rainbows. The lecture was quite technical and draining, so we saw some of the students dozing off during the lecture, which was amusing, because no matter whether we’re Japanese or Singaporean, there are some similarities between us :P. The practical part of the lesson was a very simple experiment that involved a black paper, spray glue, and some sort of small circular glass balls that allows us to see a rainbow due to refraction of light. It was a simple and fun experiment, which I feel that might make lessons interesting. However, it may not be so applicable to our school because our schedule is tight and every experiment we do has some much more complicated theory to it. The lessons were generally pretty fun to attend.

Of course, not everything went perfectly smoothly throughout the trip. I felt that the NINS workshop was really time-consuming considering that we didn’t really do much there. I regretted choosing basic biology instead of molecular science because I was interested to find out more about biology since I didn’t take it from year 5 onwards. However, it turned out that I wasn’t able to understand almost everything as it required certain genetic modification knowledge that I wasn’t taught, and thus wasn’t really able to help my groupmates come up with a presentation, and therefore it didn’t had much content in it. However, to those who did take bio, they felt like they didn’t really learn anything from the trip, and as the presentations were done in English with most of the content presented by the Singaporeans, I felt like the Japanese students didn’t really receive much out from this workshop either.

However, as it is one of the only academic activities during the trip, it was necessary to do this. The experience of trying to communicate with our groupmates and staying in a hostel where we had to do everything for ourselves was unique, and we did learn some things out of it, even though it wasn’t really pleasant.

Another issue that happened was that I think I caused quite a bit of problem for my buddy, because I requested to go to places with other people in the group. I was quite unlucky for this trip because I wasn’t able to access wi-fi and was unable to contact the rest of the group, and also, my buddy planned the activities for me but wasn’t able to tag along because of her tests.

I think that my buddy got quite stressed because I had to contact the others via my buddy contacting their buddies, and it was much harder than I expected to organize a group outing as our Japanese buddies did not really know each other that well, and some of them had already planned activities beforehand. Therefore, I think I kind of killed the mood a little on Saturday because my buddy started arguing with her mom, and I also kind of unintentionally troubled my buddy’s mom as she went to call the other party’s parents to see if they are okay with a group outing. I was trying to tell them not to worry if it’s too troublesome, but communication problems kind of prevented me from doing that.

Therefore, I felt quite guilty that I troubled my buddy so much just to plan these activities for me. In the end, I still had a pretty fun trip on Sunday going to Nara to see the deer with Yi Xuan, and we also managed to squeeze a small group outing on the second last day of the trip, which was extremely fun though quite short, so it worked out pretty well.

Overall, the trip felt quite short and I didn’t get to do as much as I wanted, such as buying souvenirs for friends, but all in all, I enjoyed my stay in Japan, got to eat quite a bit of nice food, and received really good hospitality. On my buddy’s side, they were trying their best to ensure my stay was a good one, so even though not everything went the way I wanted it, I realized from some of these issues that it is not solely just what I want, and sometimes it is better to not be so assertive if it would be troublesome for my buddy. Thus, I’m really grateful to my host family.

Now that I’ve been to Kyoto and received such good hospitality, although the buddy that would be coming over wouldn’t be the same one, I’ll most probably be able to better empathize with him since I’ve experienced the outbound trip. Therefore, I’ll try my best to accommodate to my buddy’s needs, and try to do as much as I can with the existing barrier. And most of all, I’d like me and my buddy to have as much as possible when he comes over soon! :D"

anyway, if u managed to actually read all that, yea im kinda happy that i get a second chance, and it feels much easier to host than to go there and interact cos i've got more stuff to tell my buddy. and i kinda met him before too, somehow. lucky. but then im kinda worried that my buddy will judge me cos he looks quite the popular guy. sigh i have no confidence.

but yea, i think i've got quite a lot of things i want to tell my new buddy that i din't get to say to my old buddy. see how it goes. its only next next week :D. bring them around, especially now that i get how it feels like to be an outbound buddy. intending to host some bbq at one of the weekends (and jio ppl :P). and then i get to go night safari for the first time lol. pretty excited haha

kk anyway, that's all for now. bye ~~

talent search

today was pretty entertaining haha. our class went up first, so we kind of got it over and done with when there was still lesser people and got to watch the rest of the performances. the group performances were all pretty entertaining, especially the bands. galen is too good at hyping up the crowd lol. and even though dice din't win top 3 positions, i thought playing gentleman was quite cool haha.

quite relieved that it's over. it went pretty well haha, what with the many screwups on our last minute preparations within the last two days. but yea la there's a upper limit with our performance, and compared to other groups there, we were really lucky to get in lol. but anyway its really satisfying to perform as a class without screwing up :P.

kinda feel like doing our band thing again, just for the sake of fun. wanna try more jap songs. dreamriser! or fate-zero songs. or any song actually. just wanna try doing a jap song again. got more motivated to learn lyrics and stuff ever since coming back from sep haha.

speaking of sep, i guess i haven't really been blogging lately about my trips or stuff, so ppl don't really know what i did there. i just completed my reflections like 1 hour ago, so maybe, if u guys want, i can upload it lol. have quite alot of post i should catch up on, but not sure whether i'll actually do them in the end... so yep, anyway tmr i'm playing mahjong again lol. this week's been filled with quite a lot of activities and its pretty decent, except i got valles for english yet again D:. DDDDDD:

anyway, that's all for now. bye ~~