this weekend 2

friday night the people at work held a welcoming party for the two of us 新人(shin jin - new guy) at this japanese-italian izakaya.

it was not so bad.

when all the 年配の方 (nenpai no kata - old people) left, we held a second party (二次会 - nijikai) just for people in their twenties.

with the big senpais gone, the second party was more relaxed, and i got to talk and had simple games with my new colleagues; which is a great opportunity for bonding.

after the second party, they wanted to go karaoke until morning, but i just had enough for the night.

the other shinjin got so drunk that i think i should take the responsibility to take him home.

well, i always take the drunkards home. always.

the next morning i woke up very late.

then out of the blue, i decided to buy a new car.

so i went to Toyokawa, and then i bought a second-hand Honda Fit.

although the it is not brand new, the condition was very good, and the price was not so bad.

around 470000 yen for everything plus road tax until October of 2010.

it was really a pretty good deal.

i went home and decided to organize my photos using picasa.

the free image software from google is amazing! especially the face recognition tech!

i'm very impressed!

i woke up on the sunday morning with a headache.

and hungry as fuck.

so i went to family mart next door to buy a simple bento.

while i eat my bento, i connected my 47 inch sharp aquos to my nvidia gtx 285 via hdmi so that i could watch おくりびと (Okuribito - Departed) on the big screen.

that movie was simply the best Japanese movie i've watched this year. highly recommended!

then i turned to my ps3 to continue the single player missions in uncharted 2.

i got to this puzzle involving big ass golden 'dagger' thingy and it was freaking cool and all; but i got stuck so i decided to watch cat videos on youtube when i realized that Adilla was online playing mp.

fast forward some messages...

well, she kindly invites me to her party and for the first time i'm playing co-op.

it was super fun.

i mean AARRRR FUNNN!!!

pretty hard though, but i'm glad i played that game.

thanks Adilla.

kalau ada masa, kita main lagi okeh?

damn, tomorrow's work; gotta go to bed early.

良い夢を！

p/s: i noticed that i have totally forgotten my responsibility to the society to post pictures of hot Japanese girls. i would like to apologize by presenting to you some fines from Anri Sugihara:

REVEAL SPOILER

burger king windows 7 whopper

this weekend

this weekend i spent most of my time relaxing, watching movies, playing video games and going outside to explore new cities.

i went to nagoya today, and was surprised to saw this statue that was located just outside of nagoya station.

as you can see from the picture below, it is obviously a statue of a naked women doing an anal-fisting; in the middle of a public space.

i guess the nagoyans are crazy too!

i also got to play uncharted 2's multiplayer, and it was pretty good.

maybe not as good as modern warfare, but at least on par with gear of war 2's.

and that's a high spot to top off.

anyways, i got bored really fast, so i turned to a demo of battlefield 1943 and it was a blast!

then i continued my gaming marathon with a couple of hours of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.S Clear Sky and i must say, this one is a gem of an FPS.

great atmosphere, great gun battles, great immersiveness, overall a great game although the story was confusing and the characters were very weak.

with my room tidier and equipped with stuff that i needed, now i can feel like home again.

with that, i hope this means that i could really focus on learning new skills at work, and play harder when i'm off.

tomorrow's going to be a great starting day.

i just hope i could get my hands on a decent honda fit as soon as possible without much hassle.

uncharted 2 getto!

last week i was looking around for a 3d mouse pad in amazon japan, and then i noticed that they're selling pre-orders of uncharted 2 just for 4784 yen.

that's pretty cheap for a new ps3 game.

the first uncharted was probably the best ps3 game that sony had when it launched the ps3, so i expect the second to be at least on par.

i put my order and i received the game just today.

i was pretty skeptical when i opened the amazon envelope; the cover art for the game is hideously ugly and stupid!

i know the game had a reputation of being a 'movie that you play' in japan, but this is just ridiculous.

then i looked at the back cover and were pretty disappointed to know that the game runs in 720p native; why the hell did i bought my 1080p sharp aquos for?

moving on from my geek-rant, i put on the bluray disk and instantly recognized the interface and was pretty impressed with the first opening 'gameplay'.

i'm just about one hour into the game, but my first impression was that the game is exactly like the first one: unoriginal but very interesting.

this IS the japanese version of the game, so it is bilingual, meaning i could play the game in japanese on my second run! i always play my games in english, if the game offers it.

i stopped playing because i wanted to watch music station; HALCALI's performing my new favorite song 今夜はブーギバック (Konya wa Boogie Back). Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSCiNCpf7A

anyways, i heard the multiplayer component of uncharted 2 was not so bad.

can't wait to check that out.

i hope it's better than japanese AV.

rearanging the new room

i'm extremely bad at placing things in my room to make it look like something that humans could live in comfortably.

it has just been a month since i moved to toyota city, and i'm thinking about doing this thing they call 'interior design'.

i start with nothing at all.

then i mess the whole thing up with stuff from my previous apartment.

then i made little effort to look more civilized by placing an unfinished metal rack and a reclining seat on random spaces.

then i bought a tv, a computer table with side-rack and a computer table.


aaahhh i'm too lazy for this shit.

as long as i can watch おねだり！マスカット (Onedari Masukatto) every Sunday in HD, i'm OK.

Osaka Tomorrow!

i'm going to Osaka tomorrow!

can't wait to use 「なんでやねん！」 - nandeyanen!

all the way!

＊translates to something close to [ Why the hell?!] - one form of 突っ込み (tsukkomi - an important element in the Japanese Manzai comedy routine)

but first, i got to go to sleep.

catching a very early densha tomorrow morning.

the d90 can't wait to be 'on the job' again!

:)

big-ass typhoon tomorrow!

according to the news, there will be a major HUGE typhoon tomorrow that will hit the whole of Japan in a big way; they're saying that this will be the biggest one in 10 years.

they predicted something really big, that most of the schools and universities around the country is giving out 'disaster holiday' tomorrow.

my company does not give out 'disaster holidays' tomorrow, because gaining profit is more of a logical stance than fearing for the life of its employees, of course!

knowing the Japanese typhoon, i knew that it would be pretty bad.

old people in rural areas will die.

they always did.

i hope this time around that consistency would be broken.

Japan please be safe for all...

going to toyota

It was a gloomy morning.

I don’t feel like waking up, then I would have to leave this place.

I never liked this weird feeling.

Although it has only been 6 months, I really made great bonds with my (same year) 同期colleagues; and I’m really sad that we have to be separated all over Japan.

It felt like they made us go through such hardships together just to make it such a bummer when we had to part our ways.

I don’t know about the tradition of other companies in other countries, but it is a Japanese company’s tradition to held a ‘determination declaration ceremony’ (決意表明式) at the last day of training, before they send the trainee to their destined department thus ending their training program and officially become a part of the company for real.

There are two main elements during the ‘determination declaration ceremony’: first is officially receiving the ‘department assignation order’ and the second one is the obligatory speech to say our goodbyes and pledge our loyalty to the company by declaring our determination to work hard and stuff.

Thus the determination-declaration!

I don’t remember my own determination-declaration speech, but I’m glad that I was able to fish for some laughs, instead of a gloomy-sad atmosphere.

Then we took our bags, and went out.

To Osaka, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Utsunomiya and Sagamihara.

The folks assigned to Yokohama wave us the last goodbye.

I’m assigned to the Nagoya Branch, so I have to take the Nozomi Bullet Train (the fastest bullet train in Japan) from Shin-Yokohama to Nagoya.

When we arrived to our intended destination, we waste no time by asking the kind human resource guy to took us to the city’s municipal office to do what is needed to be done when you move address in Japan; especially for a foreigner like me.

Each city have it’s own regulations, for instance, Toyota City requires the presence of an 印鑑登録書 (certificate for one’s personal seal) for that seal to be approved of use.

The 印鑑 (INKAN) is the equivalent of a signature, and is very important when dealing with documents that needs personal approval or recognition.

Then finally we were taken to our new apartment, and I’m so glad that it has more space that what I got back in Hashimoto.

It even got warm-seat toilets with washlets and full SECOM security system!

Plus, I really liked the bathroom that could be turned into a quick sauna room to fast-dry my laundries!

Anyways, the thing that boils my mind is that by just walking around the neighborhood, I found 3 whore houses just in 1km range from my apartment.

God damn Toyota City!