And also wish i can get an iphone now.

am really in a dissatisfied mood. wish i didnt have to grow up, wish i didnt have to work every day while watching other people travel, wish i didnt always feel like i want what others have, wish i didnt feel life’s monotony so strongly, wish i…

A HR major (2nd class lower) graduated in Dec 2009, spent 3 months searching for a job, got a HR position in a private firm. Starting pay about $2400.
A psychology major (2nd class lower) graduated in May 2010, spent 3 months searching for a job, got a HR position in the govt sector. Starting pay $3000.

Actually, i dont know what this means.

But i know i have spent more than a month looking for a job, and already im quite sick and tired of it. Sometimes im excited, when i see jobs i like, and cant wait to start, sometimes when i get an interview, i think im still not ready, i dont want to go to work at all. I’d rather spend more time searching. Then i get tired of it again, its a vicious cycle.

I think.. its not an easy phase for me, someone whose skin is as thin as paper. Im afraid of what people think, afraid of the kind of image my job title brings. I know i shouldnt be, yet i am. Unconsciously, i am falling into the mad rush of the rat race. Competing, comparing, not so much for anything else but the salvation of my pride. Is that what the real world is about?

I think , im still just a kid and i dont know when i will ever grow up. A part of me knows more about what i want, finally know what kind of job is probably ideal for me, where my priorities are. Not my violin, not my drums, not about going overseas, but for now, its just finding the proper job, doing better at interviews, looking more serious and alert, and practicing my japanese. A larger part of me, am really really frightened at the thought of working, and i know i still look young and blur because i still AM. I know, even without having to hear it from candice and my dad.

I know they always say change is the only constant, but change, is also one of my greatest fears.

Fukuoka photos (during the Homestay):

Our seating arrangement on the plane.

Breakfast wasnt nice at all.

Glad i got the window seat!

Our first proper dinner in Japan. The food is really great.

Where i sleep every night for 5 days in Fukuoka. My host lives alone in a small but neat apartment. I slept really well for that five nights because the futon is really amazingly comfortable! I wish i can sleep in one every night.

First breakfast in Japan which my host Marino made. Instant miso, salmon pan fried by her, some cold side dish of vegetables and red tea. Super yummy.

Mochi at the market we went to. The nicest mochi ive ever eaten.

Everyone loves this.

Cute shirts at Canal City, this shopping centre we went to on the second day. I would’ve bought the pusan shirt if not for the fact that it costs sgd50+ for that! What if i buy it and wear it in Singapore but everyone thinks i got it from the pasar malam.

Yummy sweet cake Yonghui treated all of us too. Seriously no food or sweets in Japan is not nice to us.

Yummy takopachi for lunch.

Our first group purikuras (neoprints). In Japan you can have the neoprint sent to your phone hence the large image. Sayumi bluetoothed us the 2 purikuras she got.

Dinner at the yatai. Also the most delicious ramen ive ever eaten. In japan as well. Yatais have the most delicious ramen!

Us happy after the ramen.

Karaoke after dinner. Super huge and nice room. But also very expensive. Karaokes in Japan cost about two times as much as in Singapore.

Tea ceremony at a really pretty garden the next day.

Girls’ yukatas come in 3 designs, two of each. Yuyun and i chose the same ones.

The Homestay group. We all love this photo.

Yuyun and I with Harapon. Everyone loves Harapon cos hes so nice and cute.

Our yukatas from the back.

The tea ceremony starts. We eat some nice sweets and then drink the bitter tea.

Bento from Hotto Motto for lunch.

Finally got to the top where theres a really great view. We all love this group photo too.

Onsen (hot spring after that). Just the 4 of us. Actually once we got used to it, we werent so awkward about being totally naked in front of one another. Plus, i feel its better to do this in front of people im not close to than with people im really close to!

After the onsen. We all felt much more refreshed and light after the onsen. I really loved the experience.

Nomikai (drinking session) which only Ben, Sophocles and I went. It was a really interesting experience. I only drank a little (half a glass of beer and half a glass of Cassis Orange, a really popular drink with very little alcohol content and tastes like fruit juice) but the next day rashes appeared on my back. Thank goodness they only lasted a day though.

Breakfast at Harapon’s. Looks like we were having salad right. But nope. Harapon made super yummy okonomiyaki for us!

First batch is ready. Super yummy okonomiyaki!

Second batch. Ben’s masterpiece on the okonomiyaki.

Haagen dazs green tea waffle ice ceram. Yuyun loves it like crazy and ate about 5 throughout our stay in Japan.

The best taiyaki ever. We had 2 more taiyakis after that but none were as good as this. Its really good! Super creamy though a little sticky, and the filling is a lot! This chocolate one is not mine of course. If you know me, you’d know i’d never choose chocolate as a flavour.

Went to visit Kaji sensei in Dazaifu, a part of Fukuoka, and she treated us to this famous mochi like biscuit in her hometown. I dont like red bean much but this really agreed with my tastebuds. You can tell its red bean but at the same time it doenst really have that red bean taste.

Only 4 of us were taught by Kaji sensei so we went to visit her. She brought along her cute son who was acting a little spoilt that day.

Dinner at a sushi-ya, conveyor belt style. Unagi sushi and yummy crab salad sushi.

Farewell party they held for us. Before dinner started they provided us with a plate full of yummy snacks which they kept refilling.

This is me with my host Marino and Yuyun and her host Sayumi. All the girls were discussing whos prettier. The guys obviously chose Sayumi but i personally prefer Marino cos i think she looks more approachable.

The 7 who went to Tokyo together. Love the whole bunch of them!

Everyone who came to send us off at the fukuoka airport. I really missed them when we got to Tokyo.

Everybody’s (including mine) favourite ochazuke. Its a simple and delicious meal, very common in Japan. Its loosely translated as tea with rice. Just pour out the packet’s contents onto your bowl of rice and add hot water. Lucky we all bought a lot back home because this is hard to find in Singapore! Only meidi-ya and isetan orchard sell them, and at exorbitant prices too. But you can find them at certain Japanese restaurants. Shin Kushiya sells them for i think $5.90 a bowl, and its quite a large bowl.

Photos from Tokyo:

Saw this cute pokemon plane from our window seat before the plane took off.

Our first dinner was at this manga restaurant near our hostel which the front person recommended. The host was fantastic, the food was great, and it was an interesting experience, cooking our own yakisoba and monjyayaki (similar to okonomiyaki but with a more liquid flour). The only bad thing is after that our clothes and belongings really reeked of bbq smell! It stayed for 2 whole days and we had no choice but to do our laundry at the nearby laundry.

This is our monjyayaki.

There is a special way of eating monjyayaki. Using the back of the mini spatula, you press and pull on the food and it will get stuck on it. Then you eat it from the back of the spatula like this.

For dessert we even got to make our own crepe! This comes free of charge from the owner. (:

This is the menu to choose from the mojyayaki. You can choose whatever you like and mix them together!

Our first breakfast in Tokyo. I love their ebi fillet! Nicer than the fillet o fish. The bacon potato pie is nice too. And mcpork is everybody’s favourite cos its only 100Yen but i thought it was ok only.

Super yummy strawberry mcflurry. Its a million times nicer than the one in Singapore!

Imperial palace garden. Its a beautiful place with really nice scenery. And the place is huge.

We may look really comfortable here but truth is the grass was really prickly. We suffered to take this.

The ideal place to take a photo. Lots of tourists were waiting for their turn to take a picture here.

Freaking scary roller coaster ride at the tokyo dome. Really scared the hell out of me! The descend was so steep and the coaster didnt slow down for even a second. I was screaming out of fear throughout the entire ride. I thought i couldnt get any louder until i opened my eyes once (i kept my eyes shut tight throughout) and saw clear blue sky, and my knees really shook and i screamed even louder. And even with my eyes closed i could feel myself turning upside down and my legs trembled even more. Its really a good thing i peed before the ride.

Us before the ride. The good thing about queues in Japan is that from where you are standing, there will be a sign telling you how much more you have to wait. From where we were, we waited for about half an hour.

Us after conquering the most thrilling ride of our lives.

Tokyo tower when we went in the late afternoon. It looks like a piece of construction work. It honestly looks much better at night when the lights come out and also at a distance (for example in Odaiba where i took a photo of it in the distance).

Dinner at some random chinese-japanese restaurant we walked into because all the eateries near tokyo tower were too expensive. All of us had ramen which was not bad.

Studio Ghibli, home of Spirite Away and my new favourite The Cat Returns. I love their painted windows and stained glass. Really pretty. This painting on the window looks too real. I really love it!

I really love this as well. This features kiki from kiki’s delievery service. The ceiling has similar painted glass featuring ponyo.

Rooftop of the museum. I dont know from which movie this came from but whatever it is, its huge! Too bad souvenirs were rather expensive so i only bought a small badge and a spirited away magnet.

Our lunch at this Japanese restaurant. This is one serving! Their sets are usually super large so we sometimes share or get the mini version. The food is great as usual, and i especially liked their soba but service was quite bad surprisingly. They took almost an hour to get our food here.

At shibuya we had the best lunch at their basement. The basement is like our Takashimaya basement but million times better! They had so much food and all looks so yummy we totally were spoilt for choice. We took like an hour to choose! In the end we got some stuff to share so we could try a bit of everything.

Super yummy omelette with prawns in it, unagi bento and chicken drumlets.

This looks really good. I liked the croquette!

The selection of desserts was also amazing. Everything looks so sweet and yummy! I think i was more tempted by their sweets than by their food. I cant help it if ive a sweet tooth. We got a yummy coronet to share and the best gelato ice cream cos theyve some weird flavours ive never seen before. I think we got crepe with maple syrup, cranberry cheesecake and some strawberry thing with biscuits. Omg super yummy! We all agreed that was the best lunch in Japan.

Us on live broadcast at NHK studio.

Us with one of the many cosplayers outside meiji shrine. The next day we also visited a real maid cafe which was disappointing cos they had a rule whereby everyone has to buy something to eat or drink but everything was so expensive! In the end they allowed us to order just 3 main course to share, but that was after we threatened to leave.

Theres this small little shop next to the shrines entrance which sells the most delicious ice cream! I absolutely love it. Even the cone tasted great.

Dinner at Harajuku. Our cheapest meal outside i think, its only at most 300yen (about sgd5?) and its super yummy! So we went back there again the next time we went there. I never liked udon but theirs is awesome! And the soup though salty, is super yummy. We always ask for more soup lol. There are also sides which you can just take and make your payment. I like the croquette! But the second time we ate it it wasnt that nice because it wasnt warm.

Our favourite yogurt drink which we cannot get enough of! I think its nicer than Calpis, and that says a lot. Too bad i dont see this selling in Singapore though.

Super huge tako yakis larger than the size of your fist! They bought one to share.

Super yummy scallops at the market. Its super fresh and tender.

Huge block of sweet omelette which taste so-so only. We bought one block to share but couldnt finish it.

On the red bridge which we cross every day to get to our hostel. This is the last group photo of the 7 of us before the 3 drunkards left for Singapore. Shown in the backdrop is the Asahi building and whenever i see it i know im near home. We’ll never get too far lost this way. I really miss the 3 when they left though. Things got a lot quieter after that. Anyway thats Car’s hat i borrowed to wear cos the weather was kinda hot.

Taken a few days later at the same spot. The 4 of us who stayed on for an extra 3 days. This is also taken when we were on the way back to get our luggage. Sigh. I miss Japan!!

Odaiba, which my sister says is the prettiest place in Tokyo. It really is gorgeous. In this picture you can see the rainbow bridge, the tokyo tower in the distance and the statue of liberty. And at night we walked along the sea back to the train station. Walked past so many couples there lol. It really is a lovely place. But because it was near the sea it got really cold at night.

Joce and I. You can faintly make out the rainbow bridge and the tokyo tower behind us.

Huge ferris wheel near the station at Odaiba. Super pretty. The lights keep changing to form different patterns.

One of the shopping centres at Odaiba has this really cool ceiling which changes every ten or fifteen minutes. If im not wrong the sky also turns dark at night. This really reminds me of Hogwarts.

Dinner at this fast food chain called First Kitchen. Kailin sort of recommended it i think. They have many different flavours of fries and we got 3: the normal bbq, mentai, and butter flavours to share. And the spaghetti was not too bad too. But of course their western food cant taste as good as their own Japanese cuisine.

The photo which everyone found to be really amusing. Cos the sign above says to watch out for your head but i neednt have bothered because im too short. Well being short has its advantages!

One of the days we bought instant noodles back to cook for breakfast the next day. I got yakisoba which tasted awesome. Im never eating instant noodles from home again.

Famous asakusa shrine which we didnt enter, partly due to the lack of time. We only went there on the last day of our stay.

Because it was our last meal in Japan we decided to have something nice and entered this nice expensive looking restaurant to have sukiyaki. Also ordered some side dishes like this egg with unagi and brinjal cos i love brinjals.

And the real sukiyaki. You cook the beef the way you like it and then dip the slice into a bowl of raw egg. Super duper yummy! The price is totally worth it.

Dinner on the plane flight back was great. I thought i wouldnt finish my food but i ate everything up haha. They had 2 long slices of sashimi, chocolate orange cake, chicken with potato gratin, and crackers with cheese. Everything was super yummy! This is what SIA food should taste like, not the one we had on the way to Japan!

This kinda toy poodle is super common in Japan, we see them everywhere. It makes me feel like having one too cos its so cute!! Really looks like a toy.

Wow i cant believe im finally done with this post! Took me quite a while with the number of photos.

Mickey mouse shaped windows. This train leads to DisneySea which we didnt go.

Pretty! I was waiting patiently for my turn to take an individual shot.

Mickey’s profile!

Entrance.

Entrance within the entrance.

Pretty little shops selling really pretty confectionery, souvenirs and stuff. I was tempted to buy everything!

Beautiful castle.

Where all the fun begins.

Super pretty! It must not have been easy to do this.

Joce and I, with Carmelita looking on.

Outside the ice cream shop.

Fairy Godmother! Hope she grants us our wishes.

Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. I didnt see Alice at all. I wonder if she was even there.

Piglet. I often wonder if characters in Disneyland speak different languages depending on where they are. These characters do not speak at all.

Solemn Eeyore with happy us.

Pinocchio.

Fox from i dont know where.

First ride we took.

Super yummy mickey shaped ice cream! Chocolate chip ice cream with 2 pieces of soft cookie. My favourite food in Disneyland.

Outside Toontown with Carmelita, still happily munching on our ice cream.

Our first visit is to Minnie Mouse’s house! Minnie’s my favourite Disney character.

Minnie’s armchair.

Yuyun and I on Minnie’s sofa.

Minnie’s pretty dressing table.

Having a mini tea party in Minnie’s kitchen.

Minnie’s fridge stocked with yummy cheese. Speaking of cheeses, i think i will go buy some Camembert cheese later. Yum.

Minnie’s kitchen in one glance.

Goofy’s house with a bush shaped just like him in his little garden.

Goofy’s drink stand in front of his house.

His clothes put out to dry in the backyard.

Goofy’s car.

Daisy’s boat i think.

Donald and Daisy stay together i suppose.

I realise im not really familiar with the ducks in Disneyland.

Chip n Dale’s treehouse.

Minnie roller coaster near their treehouse which while not as thrilling as the one in Tokyo Dome, is kinda fun.

Disneyland’s Cityhall. Pretty flowers in front.

Back to Skool in Toontown.

Driving around Toontown.

It’s a Small World ride, which was really pretty. Actually most of the rides we took were really pretty. Ive so many favourites!

Pretty restaurant.

Queen of Hearts restaurant.

Pooh corner.

Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, also one of my favourites in Disneyland!

Love the huge pages along the entrance.

Inside Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. We were seated in a Hunny pot which brought us through Hundred Acre Wood, and the Hunny Pot spins as well! Super fun.

This is really really pretty!! Loved this part the most in the ride.

Huge elephant bee hanging from the sky.

Jubilation! the street parade.

All the Disney characters parading. Pretty, but not as pretty as the electrical parade at night.

My favourite princess, Beauty from Beauty and the Beast.

Cute and colourful seven dwarves.

Lunchtime! Pluto’s favourite sausage and mickey shaped pizza.

Spring roll.

Everyone’s favourite turkey leg. Carmelita looks so blissful with it.

Cute little girl in a minnie mouse outfit. There were a lot of kids dressed up in princesses outfits and lots of adults had on Disney accessories too. Really gets you even more hyped up about Disneyland.

One of the muscials we caught. Wasnt fantastic but not that bad too. This is my favourite scene where Peter Pan saved Wendy.

Another one of the rides.

Scary Snow White’s Adventure ride we took. I like how the carriages are named after the seven dwarves and we got Happy!

Alice’s tea party. Was a little giddy after the ride.

Carousel.

Inside pirates of the caribbean ride. They really made the guy look like Jack Sparrow.

With the ‘real’ Jack Sparrow after the ride.

The Jungle trail ride we took.

One of the nicest rides but i hate getting wet! Although my hood helped a little and we all didnt get too wet except Ben and Carmelita who sat in front.

See the steep descend? Which was why some of us had our hoods on.

Inside the ride. Couldnt take a lot of pictures because i didnt want to risk getting my camera wet. But they really do have the nicest interior! Damn cute.

Nearer to the castle.

Cute post office.

Mini golf course.

Dog pound haha.

Dinner! Cinnamon churros.

Some pork and crispy noodle wrap. Super yummy though.

Prawn float bun. Tasted like a nice meat bao but i dont really eat meat baos so i cant tell how nice it really was.

Final electrical parade! Also one of my favourite parts in Disneyland. This is Goofy in a cute train.

Chesire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

Pooh and his friends.

Cinderella’s prince.

I like this too. From Alice in Wonderland.

This is my absolute favourite. Im glad i got a pretty nice shot of it!

So that ends my day in Disneyland. One day is definitely not enough, i want to go back there again!!