End Year Travels D03

We plan to spend our third day in Akihabara and visit maid cafes and what not, but waking up really late doesn’t help our noble cause, and it winded up screwing with our plans.

We also plan to purchase our bus tickets to Toyohashi today, but that plan didn’t go well too because it was almost impossible to get bus tickets on the same day during these holiday seasons.

That was pretty dumb; I don’t remember myself being so over-reliant on things to magically happen even if I don't plan it well with a conscious mind.

So the only way to Toyohashi is by train, and that didn't sound good because we know that there is a LOT of Japanese people in Japan, and they are also going to ride the same train with us; just to annoy us.

We were in Shinjuku at the time while we knew that the bus tickets will be impossible to get; and then we realized that we still haven’t eaten anything that morning, so we decided to go to this Pakistani restaurant: Karachi to have our breakfast + lunch.

The place is pretty famous among Malaysian students and I remember us making a HUGE crowd by eating at the restaurant after Jumaah prayers together ramai-ramai.

For 1000yen, the all-you-can-eat system is pretty awesome. I got to eat rice with nan and a couple of chiken tikkas, chai, lassi, salad, corn soup etc. It was not the best meal ever, but it was definitely worth the money.

With our bellies full, we went straight to the Shinjuku Eki to get on our train, and it was packed full of people. It was pretty uncomfortable because it was a pretty long ride and we have to stand among all these people and it was hot and everyone seems to smell like salt.

Smelly salt.

I didn’t consider it a pleasent experience; that is why I don’t take any pictures.

Anyways, we arrived at Toyohashi Station at about 1800 hours and it was already dark. Sonn came with his type-R to pick us up from the station to his place.

As I walk into Sonn’s place, I could hear voices and laughers of familiar people.

I was surprised to see several of my old buddies from our ISI days being cramped up in front of the tv playing their winning eleven on the ps2.

It was the gathering of the guys from Toyohashi Univ, Saga Univ and Akita Univ; everyone from the same ISI batch. It was such a long time since I’ve seen these guys that I was dumbfounded by everything; it felt kinda unreal.

You know how it's like when you don't see someone for a long time, and then suddenly they were there in front of you; your brain needs to recalibrate and breathe a little to realize that all of it is real and you better thank god for this moment.

Tapek, Wak, Sonn, Ilzam, Razmi, Pak Lan, Daim, Apis and the two girls Uya and Yanti were all sitting in one cramped space. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of Malays that I could found that night in one room. What a rare occasion.

Later that night, we went to the nearest Joyfull (another family restaurant chain that was supposed to be common on there areas. They don’t have it back in Akita) to have our dinner.

I ordered a simple saba yaki set and it was pretty good; or maybe just because I was dog tired and hungry?

We chat and chat and chat and I don’t know how I got a cat moniker in the end, thanks to the creative minds of Pak Lan.

It was a pretty tiring day, but I don’t want to sleep in Sonn’s place because it was already crammed up with people; so I made a brilliant escape to Apis’s place and take shelter there.

I slept like a baby that night.