apartment found!!!

just found an amazing apartment. tiny but cheap and it is right in the middle of everything. in comparison, it's like staying in Bugis. few mins walk to almost anywhere. best part is it comes fully furnished with new TV, fridge, washing machine, stove, heater, bed, blah blah blah...

weekends weak hands...

It’s inevitable, birds of the feather flocks together. 2 completely lost aliens in the strange land of Sapporo can only have so much luck as to seat in the bar sipping wine (organic Argentina wine, now that's a first) and watch the girls go by… now blogging with a hangover... BURPz!!!
There’s a nice apartment just one block down where I stay now. Would love to get it by can’t speak a word of Japanese so it’s impossible to rent until I can get someone to ring on my behalf… time to bug my sensei… hehehe…

Hanabi and beer

class of JLI going to the Asahi beer factory...
and that's the Asahi girl saying sayonara!
Hanabi is the fireworks festival here tonight which freaking last for one and a half hour, loud yet pretty... nothing like seating on your ass with peas, cold beer and a full bladder... i think the whole sapporo is here tonight, the streets were filled!!! all the girls dress up in their traditional kimono for the party... hooray!

day one and a half

So after the monster commute I took to a hair cut to relieve stress, dozing off as my stylist snip away, dodging my sway to save my ears from being nicked. It cost lesser then what I pay Gill Chong… and as usual I got fantastic Japanese service plus an almost one hour hair cut… score!!! Tried to buy a mobilephone and open a bank account but without luck as I’ve yet to apply for my alien registration card. Guess I’ve to rush one out soon.

The entertainment area here is the Susukino district where one can find food, drinks and girls… hehe…. There’s all these soapland thingy where girls would bath and soap you, but I guess I won’t have the luxury of such service until I can speak fluent Japanese. Food wise is still plenty point and tell. Suffice to say I don’t usually get exactly what I want.

Sapporo holds beer festival like that in Germany’s October fest… everyone gets drunk as early as 3pm in the afternoon. Also told there is going to be a fireworks in the evening tomorrow at the river… I guess I must have struck gold coming to Sapporo this time of the year. Yipeee!

The biggest discovery so far has got to be a Singapore Kopitiam just 10 mins walk from where I stay now. I swear I burst out laughing when I saw it… here in the middle of Hokkaido there is actually a heartland kopitiam… I know now where to go when I get real homesick. But meanwhile I guess I’ll stay away… I mean hey, I just got away from it and now it’s in my face again. Bleh!!!

planes, train, automobile... and a boat!

It starts with a boat ride 7am which goes round and round the oil field in Brunei before they let me off. Aliman, the driver of this particular company whom I’m working for (so far…) picked me up and sent me everywhere but the airport. I had to get the silly green ID card done otherwise the Brunei police is going to put me in jail for 2 years or fine me $5000. hoho… I thought my stint with a green IC is over when I left navy, gosh… here I go again. Anyway I was jeep around later by Siti (company cleaner?) to the staff house to wait again so that Aliman can zip back to fetch the company van to send me to the airport, which is 2 hours from KB town.

Flight back to Singapore is but typical, bad food and bad service. But I’ve no complain this time as this manner of transit I get to go home for a quick Bak Kut Teh. Oh yummy! Thanks mum! My bro picked me up and I drove my long neglected car for the last time this year… boo hooo… and it’s rush rush after dinner to terminal 3 bound for Tokyo.

It’s my first flight with A380 and damn, ultimate disappointment. The in-flight entertainment system broke and nobody could watch movie or play games. They gave us silly SIA baggage tag as apology gifts… but I’m still mad… this plane is brand new! Anyway, I resorted to boozing and drown my guts with gallons of wine. The fatigue of constant commuting maybe… or the dehydration perhaps… KNOCKED ME OUT! I got sick and thought I was going to throw up, got up from the seat heading for the toilet and I blacked out, hahaha… boy, scary as hell… I knew I was dropping and I could do nothing about it. Luckily I did not smash my new glasses. Fortunately the screaming babies woke me up… and kept me up the whole night. Sheesh… I feel so old that night.

Lands about 7am in Tokyo, Narita… went on to the domestic airport to catch yet another flight into Sapporo. And while waiting, surf the net and found out on MSN that Rai, my high school buddy was in Narita at the same time… we could have meet and had coffee before I take off. But anyway, the flight didn’t take off till 11:30am and a 1.5 hours journey. It was cloudy and grey when I land in Sapporo, and I took in one cool breathe of Hokkaido as I set my foot on this soil, telling myself this is fresh, this is my imagination come true, this is my dream living… ruthless!!!

The airport information told me that a cabbie ride to my apartment would cost 15,000yen (about US$140) which I would gladly pay as I was absolutely smashed and need a bed badly. But only to find out it would take twice as long then to take a train, a minimum 1.5hours again… so I took the 30mins train instead, and a 5mins taxi to my new apartment. By now, I’d traveled a total 32 hours.