Summer Holiday '09 Day 2

The second day of my summer holiday is all about testing the new D90.

I’ve never been so giddy since I last bought my PS3.

The inner otaku/nerd/gadget-mania in me was unleashed!

To test my D90 for the first time, I decided to go to Harajyuku because that place is packed with the most interesting young people (fashion wise) in Tokyo.

> Taking pictures of random people without their permission: Newbie in photography.

It is just a 50 minutes train ride from Hashimoto (city where I live) to Harajyuku, and I arrived at the station in awe; I have forgotten how crazy Harajyuku is.

The place was packed with people, and tourists with their big cameras.

Quickly I realized how hard it is to take photos at such crowded places.

Everything was moving so fast, I can’t really concentrate of using different configuration to check out and compare the different results… I was really overwhelmed by the many functions and manual settings that the D90 offers.

Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed, White Balance, Composition, Bracketing… I’m lost! It felt too much, and I guess I’m doing this all too fast. I should learn to learn slowly.

I quickly crossed the road from the station to get to Takeshita Road (竹下通り), snapped some photos of the road entrance, and then a heavy pour of rain came, forcing me to get back to the station to find shelter.

And everybody else did the same thing.

The train station is packed full of gothic lolitas, gyarus, hime-keis, homies and huge fat American tourists; all wet and hot.

I can’t stand it any longer, so I decided to go home, after just arrived 15 minutes there LOL.

The train back home felt longer as the bad weather seems to slows down time and I’m a bit blue… but that’s ok because a girl passenger sitting right in front of me on the train wore a shirt so short, I’ve gained little happiness.

You perverts, I can’t take photos! Might get charged with chikan/perversion in public places!

I arrived in Hashimoto, and the Hanabata Matsuri is still going on.

The last time I went, it was during the night, and this time it is during the day, so I take out my D90 and shoot away.

One last thing, did you know that the D90 was the first dSLR that could shoot HD videos?

Although it is a bummer that the D90 will not Auto-Focus when taking videos, the video quality produced was not bad at all.

Here’s a video of a dance performance that I took during the Hashimoto’s Tanabata Matsuri:

Lastly, here's some of the pictures that I took during my first day with my new girlfriend…ok the D90 does not have a vagina but it’s cute anyways.

Festival Ornaments at the Hashimoto Tanabata Festival

The entrace to the famous Takeshite Road in Harajyuku

A broken entrance-ticket machine in Shinjuku Station

Trains coming to Hashimoto Station's Keio Line

Rabbit guy performing in front of Hashimoto Station

Crazy but cool 3rd year high school kid doing street performance

Kakikoori with various flavors

Chicken steaks sold at the Hashimoto Shrine

Cute windmill thingy

REVEAL SPOILER

And of course, hot gyaru chicks with short-hot-pants

Summer Holiday '09 Day 1

Today is the first day of my Summer Holiday, so what better way to start it by going to the beach!

I've been in Japan for almost 6 years and a half now, but weirdly enough, I’ve never been to a Japanese beach, so this might be fun!

The Enoshima Beach was just a 45minutes densha ride from my place, and I met with Bentong and Yu at Fujisawa so that we could go together.

Reached the beach at about 10:30 a.m. and there was already a crowd at the beach.

After successfully influencing Yu to buy a new pair of swimming pants, we head on to the beach with our sunscreen lotions on.

So I got to be honest here, one of the major attractions of going to a Japanese beach during summer is none other than: Japanese girls in bikinis HAH!

But I’m blind as a duck so I have to wear my glasses in order to see the beauties, so I went into the water with my glasses, and only a few minutes later that I realized that this is an extremely stupid thing to do.

Getting deeper into the water to hide my boner, I mean, to experience the wave, I didn’t know that Japanese beaches has such strong waves!

Before I knew it, a strong wave knocks me off balance; I got sea water in my nose and ears.

Then I realized that it was too late: I’ve lost my glasses during the tumble.

It was impossible to recover it.

So I got off the water and went to the spot where we put our stuff, to relax and slap myself on the head for being such a stupid pervert.

As I squished my eyes to make sense of my surrounding, I could slightly see that there were like hundreds of sexy Japanese girls in their cute bikinis running around playing frisbees and beach balls, laying down and doing some other stuff that they usually do when on the beach, and I can only project this image clearly with my imagination, because I can’t see shit without my glasses!

:(

Next time I’m going to the beach, I’m wearing contact lenses!

LOLs, am I a scary person?

After that extremely unproductive and failed attempt at ogling sexy Japanese girls in skimpy clothings for FREE, we went our separate ways, with me returning to Hashimoto.

In the afternoon, I placed an order for a Nikon D90 with the 18-200mm kit lens, after a thorough research and opinion-asking activities.

I really can’t wait for my first Digital SLR camera!

Then somehow, I went to sleep.

I was probably quite tired, and I woke up at about 8:15 p.m. to the sound of my door being knocked.

My Korean co-worker told me that there was a matsuri (festival) being held just 5 minutes from our apartment.

I quickly washed my face and get ready to go out with him.

Does that sound gay?

Damn homophobes hahaha.

It’s Hashimoto City’s 58th Tanabata Matsuri (七夕祭)!


The festival was great with a lot of people showing up, including loud kogyarus (子ギャル) eating chocolate bananas in their skimpy short-shorties.

After a decent amount of watching cute girls in their summer yukatas and ganguro gyarus being drunk while pushing their baby-cars, I decided to buy a pack of tako-yaki, and went home to eat it.


It costs me 500 yen, and this is probably the worst-tasting tako-yaki that I have ever tasted, and I’m really disappointed because I love tako-yakis to death!

I guess that is pretty much what I did today.

Not bad for a first day of holiday.

I cannot wait for my shiny new D90 to arrive at my doorstep tomorrow!

Doki doki doki!

unagidon on payday

time seems to be flying so fast that i don't even realize that it's payday already.

i decided to NOT get sushi last night, but instead an energizing unigidon bento instead.

i realized that this is the first time i ate unagi this year, and it tasted just great as always.

it's summer in Japan and during summer, eating unagi has been a culinary 'tradition' here.


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anyways, i managed to write a new post that would be an extension to my previous post about answering 'hard' questions from my Japanese mates.

in the new post, i tried to tackle one of the two questions that i brought up, and that is the freedom of religious choice for Malaysian Muslims and the New Economic Policy.

i'll be writing about the former first.

i hope i could post it here as soon as possible.

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today i'm going to the Nagatsuta Firework Festifal with my co-workers (there will be about 20 of us), and it would be great!

it's going to be a great evening, and i'll make sure to make a new post here and upload pictures on my facebook album.

楽しみだ！

1:1 Scale Gundam & Farewell En. Jasri

Last night I went out with my co-workers to a Hawaiian place where the food was Hawaiian; it was a very nice place, the food was brilliant and the Hawaiian make-belief was further strengthen by Hawaiian musicians.

It was a fun night; we even played some old school party games from this old Japanese variety tv program 学校へ行こう！ (Gakkou e ikou! - Let's go to school!).

Brings back old memories of my early days in Tokyo.

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This morning I woke up around 10 am, with an annoying headache.

I almost forgot that I'm going to En Jasri's farewell party that was held at the Malaysian Embassy's Staff Apartment, so I rushed to prepare to get on the 10:50 am train to Naka-Meguro.

I arrived at Naka-Meguro Station at about 11:45 am, and I went to the nearest Doutour to get some toast and caramel latte while I wait for Bentong to arrive.

We didn't know how to get there by bus, so we decided to walk.

I met En Jasri, En Redha and En Zubir; and we exchange a couple of sentences.

En Jasri was a really great government officer in charge of the Malaysian students, and I was quite bummed actually that he is going back to Malaysia for a new job.

Anyways, En Jasri gave us a little speech, and it was quite a scary one; especially to those still studying in Japan under government scholarships.

They have decided to cut the amount of allowances if the student didn't perform on a certain expected level set by them.

I can felt the gloom surrounding the room when this was announced.

As for me, I'm done already, so I need to only worry about job and how am I going to improve my skills at work.

We said our farewells, then off we go to Odaiba to see the time-limited 1:1 scale GUNDAM!!!

It was such a hot day, and there were thousands and thousands of people crowding the park where the giant Gundam stands so freaking handsomely and strong.

It was really bigger than I expected.

It was pretty much the coolest object that I have seen this year.

I hope the next coolest object that I am going to see this year is a pair of medium sized, mango shaped breasts.

For free.

Anyways, I'm was never a fan of Gundam.

I've never watched the anime.

Never read the manga.

Never took the time to build a gunpura.

So why a non-fan like me would take the journey to Odaiba just to see this?

It's simple.

I'm just trying to make those hardcore Gundam fans jealous.

HAHAHAHA.

Good Night people!

;)

Fujikyu Daisakusen

Yesterday was a very tiring day.

But it was a blast of fun and I don't remember myself jumping in joy and giddy excitement for a long time.

I went with my new co-workers, and I was really glad that my co-workers were this cool and everyone really played hard; like the pig flu's going to cause the end of the world tomorrow!

Anyways, going to Fujikyu, we went and tried the Fujiyama, Japan's biggest (they claim that they're the tallest in the world!) roller coaster ride, and I even managed to slip through my camera and capture a video of the experience.

Of course, I got scolded severely by the staff when I got caught, but I just made my 'dumb-gaijin' face, and went off scott-free.

It was actually very WRONG of me to do such irresponsible act because it does bring some safety issues; like what if I lose the camera during the ride, and it hit the passengers at the back at such high speed?

大変反省しています。

_(。。)_

Fujikyu definetely has the best roller coasters in the whole of Japan, that I can guarantee.

We also tried the EEJYANAIKA ride, and it was the best roller coaster experience that I ever had! It was fucking insane!

You were hung on air and as the ride sped up to mind blowing speed, they turn you around in 360 degrees while the ride goes upside down and some.

We ended up riding the EEJYANAIKA two times and it was still not enough; although I almost crap my pants every time each ride was over.

Rode the FUJIYAMA two times too!

And of course, being a fan of horror movies and everything that has to do with scaring the shit out of oneself, I just can't miss visiting the Haunted Hospital, the world's largest haunted attraction.

One Monday worth spending with the people that you work with for sure!

REVEAL VIDEO

sapa doh paser mah

Alhamdulillah, I arrived safely at home. I wanted to post this earlier, but I was pretty busy relaxing and chillin' in my hometown, the hot and dampy Pasir Mas.

So here it goes...

My Akita-Tokyo Shinkansen (bullet train) was like always, right on time. Even with the heavy snow, they always depart and reach its intended destination right on time. I have much respect to the Japanese public transportation system.

One would suspect a train moving at about 200km/h would be prone to nauseating shakiness, but let me tell you that the Shinkansen is the most comfortable way of transportation that I’ve ever experienced; it’s incredible that even at that speed, I could still piss straight in the toilet. And it’s quite quiet too!

I really enjoyed the ride because the scenery from my seat was absolutely stunning; my view is fixed on the window. I really liked how the heavy snow has turned the previously lush greenery, to majestic whites of trees, river banks and paddy fields.

The only unfortunate thing about it is that each attempt at taking a great picture to visualize it to you here has failed; the reason is obvious: the bullet train moves at such high speed that it is hard to take a picture without it being very blurry; I just gave up after a few tries, then I sat back and just enjoyed the scenery while listening to Halim Yazid on my mp3 player. I guess those beautiful sceneries should only be seen with one’s very own set of eyes.

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Upon arriving at Tokyo Station around 10:00 a.m, I rushed to change train and took the Yamanote Line to Hibiya, where I change to another line (I don’t remember the name) and took the rapid train to Narita Airport.

I arrived at Narita Airport around 11:30 a.m. and I immediately changed my winter outfit to summer ones… it’s quite warm inside the airport, and I’m about to go to a much warmer country in a couple of hours!

There was quite a long queue at the MAS check-in counter, so I waste no time and immediately lined up, as my flight is at 01:30 p.m.

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30 minutes later, I got to hand out my printed-out ticket reservation to the check-in counter, and as I explained to the MAS/ANA employee about how conveniently they have cancelled my flight and moved me to an afternoon flight that made me miss my domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Bharu on that very same day, the lady behind the counter made an extremely sad face, like a kitten who got scolded by its owner for doing something naughty.

She then asked me to follow her to the ticket service counter, and there I was given a new domestic flight ticket and a hotel reservation papers for my stay in KL that night. Then two other MAS/ANA employee joined the counter-lady, and with much synchronization, they bowed and bowed some more, apologizing for all the hassle.

Actually, I was not really mad at the whole situation because I don’t really mind being late for a day; but their excessive apology really made me uncomfortable because they made it look like a MAJOR apology after a MAJOR fuck-up; like mistakenly kicking me in the balls with their hard-leather-made high-heels. I know there are some who might like it done to them, but not me!

Well, the way they apologized might seemed sincere and all, but knowing the well-developed culture of Japanese customer service, I guess that’s all in their manual book. They’re just doing what they are taught by their seniors.

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Anyways, the security check went well and I got to my seat as planned.

At first, I was being very defensive with the guy sitting next to me. I just said hello and then went into total silence as I read the book that I brought along.

Then when the afternoon meal was served, I just couldn’t hold the awkwardness anymore and tried to make small chat with him.

* The lunch menu for that day was just terrific; Gyudon with Soumen. Delicious! *

Although I knew my guess would be right that the guy sitting next to me is a Malaysian (Indian-Malaysian), I started my conversation in English, not in the national language Bahasa Melayu.

I don’t know why, maybe I thought that he would understand me better using orang-puteh-speak.

So begin the awkward conversation of two Malaysian nationals in a foreign language, instead of their own national language.

Then suddenly he spoke in Malay, in a distinctive Penang accent. I was so relieved! It was so rude of me to underestimate the language proficiency of my own fellow countrymen.

Anyways, the guy is an engineer for Hitachi, and he is going back to Malaysia after a week long briefing/meeting concerning a new product.

It was inevitable that our conversation would touch the topic that everyone talks about now: the Japanese (and global of course) economic meltdown.

He acknowledged the fact that his own company (Hitachi) is affected but he said that it was predicted that this fucked-up condition will only last until March, as the Japanese economy finishes its current fiscal year, in which every extra baggage are let go, to start a new fiscal new year a lot more stress-free, starting from April.

I hope he is right.

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The flight made a brief stop at Kota Kinabalu International Airport. I took this opportunity to perform my Solat, take a huge dump, and relax while I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; just to fill in the waiting time.

I thought when I arrived at Kota Kinabalu, I could take a brief walk outside to breathe the air of Borneo for the first time, but they just won’t let me do it. I can only stay inside the small airport the whole 3 hours.

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I asked for the Spanish Chicken set for the in-flight dinner to Kuala Lumpur. My curiosity of how it would taste like helped me make this decision, but really, it was nothing special; it tastes like Ayam Masak Merah with extra tomato, and a lot milder. I finished my meal rather quickly, not leaving behind even a single seed of rice, like I always do.

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I arrived at KLIA rather late, at around 11:00 p.m.

Claimed my luggage, then I went straight to the elevator to go to the first floor.

As I reached for the close button, a lady with her luggage trolley came rushing in the elevator, relieved that she made it.

I asked her “which floor?”

Then she mumbled something about her baggage and what floor should she go to claim it. She looks exhausted, and I mysteriously find her bushy tired eyes… attractive. Maybe it’s because I’m flight-tired too.

Anyways, I was not in a hurry (although slightly tired) so I guided the Turkish lady to where she was supposed to be waiting.

As I left her to be on my way, she said “Terima Kasih” and gave me such a beautiful smile, I’m blogging about it.

Nothing beats an honest, friendly smile. That really made helping her worth it.

I wish I knew how to speak a little Turkish.

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The Concorde Inn room given to me was not that bad. It was quite spacey, clean and most importantly, FREE of charge.

I have an annoying trait (can this be called trait?) of not being able to go to sleep quickly if I’m in a place that I’m not used to, unless I was very tired. So I did push ups and sit ups till I have not one ounce of energy left, then I went to sleep.

I woke up at around 6:30 a.m. by the hotel staff’s morning call, washed my face, went outside for a little jog around the soccer field near my room, took a bath, brushed my teeth, long pisses and shit and all, then I went to take my breakfast at the hotel’s café.

I was pretty hungry so I ate a bunch of sliced beef, 2 plates of nasi lemak, some roti chanai, roti bakar, bihun goreng and 3 glasses of milk to wash all that down. Everything was tasty and nice. Me likey!

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My level of excitement jumped a couple of notches up as the plane gets closer and closer to the Sultan Ismail Petra Airport.

The landing was a little bit bumpy but I won’t waste any time worrying about it, so I smiled and waved goodbyes to the friendly air stewardesses as I rushed to baggage claim.

At the arrivals gate, I could see a bunch of people take turn welcoming and shaking hands with one of the passengers on the same flight as mine.

So apparently someone famous was on that plane.

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Carrying two heavy bags, I walked steadily towards 3 smiling faces that are very dear and close to my heart.

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“Ummi, sapo tadi hok oghe ghama-ghama ‘sale tuh?”

“Ooo tu la Khairy Jamaluddin”

“Sapo?”

“Cekak tok kena. Tu la ‘natu Pok Loh”

“Aaa kena, kena. Tapi bakpo maghi Klate nyo, sini ke banyok doh tuke kaghut?”

one pasir mas breakfast

nasi dagang lauk campur RM3

cha-kuey RM2

teh tarik instant

one pasir mas lunch

sup tulang

ikan goreng kicap

sotong masak merah (?)

mangga + ikan (apa nama nya?)

perfect combination?

one pasir mas police car

chotto kawaii kamo?!

balik mesia kejap!

i'm packing my bags.

i'm going home for a while.

Ya Allah moga perjalanan ku selamat dan menepati masa.

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i'm taking the earliest shinkansen at 6:00 a.m today, and i hope everything would be smooth so that i could catch my plane leaving at 01:30 p.m. i really hope the snow in akita won't cause any delay to my shinkansen.

my MAS flight would be making a brief stop at kota kinabalu first, before going straight to KLIA.

then i'm going to stay the night in a hotel provided by MAS in KL, while i rest and wait for the flight to kota bharu the next morning.

i hope i could perform my jumaa solat in the Masjid Besar Pasir Mas.

excited, i am.

can't wait to see my family.

year end winter break over

i just got back (yesterday night) from my year end winter break; and i'm honestly tired, but it was all worth it.

i've a made a promise to some of my friends to blog about my travels, and i plan to do it little by little, covering it each day.

anyways, it's 2009 already, and i want to start the year by starting fresh!

so i went to komachi (a cheap hair saloon) today, and got my face shaved and my hair done short.

it's a refreshing feeling!

i love my short hair and now i know that i love my hair short!

i cut my hair short for 2009, what did YOU do?

REVEAL *cute* SPOILER

This is Aya Hirano wearing the Malay traditional costume Kebaya, shot during her brief stay in Malaysia for a gravure photo & video shoot. She looks nice, especially with the green veil.

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.

End Year Travels D02

I woke up in the morning feeling refreshed; it IS true that a good night's sleep could really cure a bad night's outing.

Turned on the switch to see what's on the tube.

I was shocked by the news of the bad economy: another 85000 Japanese outsource workers were fired! Man, why now? Am I going to be fine next year when I start working? A cloud of anxiousness bogs my mind; this feeling really sucks.

I was again shocked by the next news. I was not only shocked, but also angry, sad, frustrated and confused: Israeli army has commenced an aerial assault on Gaza by bombing them with weapons of mass destruction targeting Hamas, killing innocent civilians in the process. I fully understood the complicated issues between Israel-Palestine, but slaughtering innocent civilians will never solve the problem.

Each innocent civilian they kill makes 10 more suicide bombers.

I pray for the safety of all the peaceful Palestinians and Israelis in this never-ending conflict, may GOD (whichever god you prefer) protect you and your family.


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The reason why we decided to stop at Tokyo before going further south is something so simple.

No, it's not for anything hentai or sick or disgusting, that you might have thought I normally would do.

It's simply to re-visit Ekoda and ISI.

Ekoda is a small town in Nerima, Tokyo where I spent 1 year living with my PPKTJ friends while we took advanced Japanese language courses in ISI (International Student's Institute) in Shinjuku.

Although it was a very short period of time (Spring 2003 to Spring 2004), it was fully stuffed with major memories that molded and help build the current me.

Living by my own in a foreign country for the first time, I've learned and experienced a lot of 初体験 (hatsutaiken - first time experience).

We took the morning train on the Yamanote Line and stopped at Shin-Okubo, just like we used to do everyday going to school 5 years ago.

Before proceeding to ISI, we went to this newly opened Pakistani restaurant near the station for breakfast @ lunch; the mutton biryani there was terrific!

With our belly full, we start tracing our steps to the Japanese language school.

As we were approaching a junction that leads to ISI, I noticed the clinic across the street; the first clinic that I went to in Japan. Why is this clinic so special that I have to stop to take a picture, and then blog about it?

I remember it quite vividly. I caught a terrible flu just weeks after I first landed in Japan, and my class teacher (Ishitobi Sensei) advised me to go to the nearest clinic, so I followed her advice.

I got into the clinic, and asked to see the doctor to fix me up. The nurse immediately brought me into this room inside the clinic, asked me to lie down, and then she told me that she would ask me a few questions first while waiting for the doctor.

I was really sick, and I remember having a very bad headache and I was really tired and my shoulder suffers from stiffness, so I address my uncomfortableness to the nurse.

Upon hearing my complaint, the nurse in her pink nurse uniform, offered to massage my head.

Suffice to say that it was a good enough head massage; that I'm writing about it 5 years later. She even massaged my shoulder. I remembered having a boner right after she finished.

I didn't know why, but I didn't get to see the doctor. I don't really understand why, but the nurse gave me some pills and I was felt much better immediately and my flu were gone the next morning.

I think this is how I got my nurse fetish.

When you’re sick, you’re bound to be weak and helpless. In those (rare) weak moments, there comes a pretty and kind nurse in her clean costume, with her soft voice, treating you very kindly and with a genuine smile on her face; you felt like you’re being taken good care of and someone actually cared about your well being. You felt like you’re being saved by a gentle person with a pure heart. This is how nurse fetishes started. So my advice to women out there: if your man is sick, take a good care of him, because he might be a nurse fetish too. He will adore you for it later, I guarantee it!

Look at the picture above.

I'm standing in front of a rice-trading store; that used to be a small grocery store back during those ISI days.

Whenever I went to school, I never miss stopping at this grocery store first to buy my breakfast: a simple vanilla + chocolate flavored bread.

Being the strict Muslim that I am, I only bought the same bread every morning, because other bread sold in the store contained some form of ingredients that might be haram (considered forbidden in Islam's teachings).

My other Muslim friends also made it a daily habit to buy the same bread from the same store, so the owner of the store had to radically increase their stock to meet demands.

The problem with this is, when it’s the holiday season, the now large bread stock went to waste because the customers (us) didn’t come and bought those breads like we used to.

I wonder though why they went under and exclusively sells rice now.

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ISI is located just about 100 meters from the store.

Visiting the school for the first time in 5 years, nostalgic memories were running through my mind.

Being there reminded of the crazy morning rush, the classes that we attended, our kind Japanese teachers etc.

I’m so glad that we did this.

We also stopped at the security guard’s office for a while to have a little chat, and of course the permit to take a look around the property.

The security guard was a really nice guy, a student trying to get into medical studies. He was actually studying for the entrance exam (20th of January 2009) when we went to his cubicle to say hi.

We took some photos around the place and when it’s time to go, we ask the security guard to be photographed with us in front of the school. If I’m not mistaken, his name is Hasebe, from Iwate Prefecture. I hope he pass his entrance exam and finally fulfill his dreams of becoming a medical professional.

After the short visit to ISI, we boarded the train to Ekoda through the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line.

It is getting dark already so we rushed to visit places that matters.

We went straight to Rikko Kaikan (some kind of a dormitory), the place we used to live in 5 years ago. Each and every Malaysian student doing the same Japanese language program used to live here; and we live next to each other, so cook groups were created and we take turn to cook for each other.

This is where I find out that the only meal that I could prepare is the mighty KARI AYAM.

Pic above is the common kitchen of the kaikan. It still looks and smells like shit, except we had it worse than this.

After visiting the kaikan, we took the long route to the Eki.

On the way, we passed a video rental store that basically introduced me to Maria Ozawa, bukkake, hentai anime and all the other educational contents that awesome Japan has to offer.

This is the place where I used to do most of my groceries. Their veggies were cheap!

This is where I got arrested by the Japanese police, as I wrote in one of my post here (click the link).

It’s getting really dark, so we decided to leave Ekoda, and fill out tummies with yummies.

That’s from Sesame Street or some shitty kid-program I don’t remember.

We decided to go to Shibuya, just to see people and more people.

On the famous Hachiko-Mae crossing, I was intrigued to see nationalist Japanese with their loud speakers preaching about the demon Americans and Chinese.

There were also Christians holding banners that try to scare the shit out of the Atheist Japanese crowd. This one read: Jesus will rise from the dead, and he will fuck all you non-believers!

Then we arrived at a Chinese restaurant specializing Kani-cha-han (Crab Fried Rice), just 10 minutes from the Yamanote Line Shibuya Eki.

It was a pretty good meal, and it did the job right. I felt so tired and kinda exhausted, so we went back to the Malaysian Student House in Meguro to have a good night sleep.

I dreamt about the world in a crisis because there are not enough penises in this world, but I come strong and saved the world.