nak raya juga... walaupon sekejap

tahun ni aku silap budget hari raya.

so tak leh raya.

tapi aku nak raya juga.

so seminggu lepas raya pertama.

baru aku sempat raya.

terima kasih penganjur majlis makan2 raya kat toyohashi gidai punya kokusai kaikan.

so tahun ni kira nya aku dah raya la.

orait!

packing up stufff: moving out

I hate moving.

I hate packing my stuff into boxes, taping them all up.

Before I could do that, I have to really mess the room up.

It looked like a hurricane just visited my apartment.

Although it was a last-minute effort, I managed to pack my stuff for delivery on time.

With all my stuff on its way to my new place in Aichi Prefecture, I just have my trusty Logitech speakers as the only entertainment tool for my farewell party; to be held in my apartment for the last time.

I should pat myself on the back.

I cleaned the place pretty well.

Now for the farewell party…

they're sending me to NAGOYA!

my training in Yokohama is getting closer to its final phase.

last Friday, they finally announced where I'm going to be posted after training.

it looked like i was needed at the Nagoya Branch.

the place was actually in Toyota City (the automobile city of Japan, a sister city of Detroit, the automobile city of US), but because it's just close to the famous city of Nagoya, they took the Nagoya name... which was confusing to me at first.

anyways, i have to pack my things and get ready to move (again) in the 15th this month.

that's like next week!

6 months in Sagamihara and Yokohama was a pretty good experience, and i really felt the bond that i made with my fellow co-workers are going to stay for the rest of our lives, and i'm starting to felt a little bit of sad that we're going to be separated to the many corners of Japan.

to all my 同期, good luck! and don't forget our hardships and all the wonderful experience we had together!

man, it is going to be hard to say goodbye...

today is doraemon day

i was surprised when i went to google today:


they're celebrating the world's most famous robotic cat!

happy birthday doraemon!

and google is soo cool to have done this!

Asakusa Samba Carnival Summer 2009

I never quite understood it, but each year during summer, the famous Japanese city of Asakusa, known to tourists as the easiest place to experience Japanese culture in Tokyo, held a samba parade competition, where various groups (probably with Brazilian-Japanese roots) would parade with their best group-dance routines and costumes (or lack of) to impress the judge, and the gazillions of local tourists flooding the streets.

This year, the Asakusa Samba Carnival was held last Saturday, and I got nothing better to fill my boring weekend.

My apartment is just an hour train ride to Asakusa, so I thought, why not go and see some hot Brazilian and Japanese chicks dancing half naked on the streets during bright day light eh?

Here I want to express my utmost gratification to all of the genius Brazilians who created this Samba Culture in the first place and brought it to Japan.

A wonderful Brazilian culture that made it OK for Japanese girls to dress up in thongs and parade it for everyone to see, for free!

And you can take pictures and not get into trouble with the police!

Here's some videos:

Asakusa Samba Carnival Summer 2009 from Taufiq Ali on Vimeo.

Click the SPOILER below for more pictures of cultural exchange fun in Japan!

REVEAL SPOILER