RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

The card almost gave me an almost imperceptible naughty wink as the word Saturday flashed in front of my eyes after two weeks of me seeing the word Sunday emblazoned on it. The good news is I wasn't alone. Sally and I had planned to take a trip down to Seremban this weekend (we both figured it would be a nice drive on a Sunday evening) for Remy's wedding reception dinner after cancelling our plans to Ipoh at the 11th hour last week. I cannot explain how both our eyes fooled us into thinking of Sunday when it was clearly written that the dinner was supposed to be on Saturday. Nevertheless, we both missed it (I took a nap at 8:30 pm last night with the intention of finishing up my report when I got up at 11, but slept all the way through till 8 am and only found this amusing piece of news later in the day today, while Sally was online informing me about it on my FB status update) Ah, well... another tale to add for the amusement of future grandkids, but what on earth do we te...

When it comes to awesome plots, my favourite author is undeniably Neil Gaiman with his unique blend of fantasy and horror, laden with interesting twists, ideas and disturbing characters that may sometimes leave you gaping in awe. Plus, he's wickedly good-looking. I first 'discovered' him while reading Good Omens which I have read three times so far and have been hunting down his books one by one since then, not an incredibly successful task I'm afraid as his graphic novels seem to be missing hereabouts. Can't seem to figure out which of his other books I like best, though... I suppose it must be one of those 'firsts' for me to have read and watched a movie based on the book within one month of each other and this makes it much more fun. Coraline is a story about a little girl who is bored after she moves into her new house with her parents who somehow seem a bit absorbed in their work, leaving her to seek entertainment on her own. She finds a door in her h...

I have finally loaded up the whole Japan diary entry. The last count on Word was 78xx words altogether and yet I feel that it cannot describe fully all the new sights, sounds and tastes I experienced, not to mention the insanity that struck the whole lot of us. It could be that being a process engineer in the paint manufacturing sector can lead to serious damage of brain cells what with the smell of solvents wafting around and all. A few things I forgot to mention in the previous posts includes how open minded the Japanese are... coming from a country where everything is censored (this includes the cleavage you see in pictures of actresses - some of our newspapers blur the cleavage - as if people don't know what it is), and I was incredibly intrigued by the so called dirty magazines on display (despite being a woman myself), and wanted to get one, but didn't. But I do think they underestimate women... JC and I had to put up with several rather sexist remarks, which seemed to ...

October 19, 2009 Training resumes Had a long and tiresome lecture about a (banyak songeh – nearest translation I can come up with is very annoying) customer’s audit form. Their English can be incredibly confusing. Miyoshi is cold, cold and cold. The room is freezing. Went shopping at the supermarket (a 15 minute walk only, this time. We must have been exhausted yesterday) for some sweets. (I’m falling asleep in class) and ended up a while later in CK’s and Kenny’s for some Alaskan crab which CK cooked (steamed over boiling water) on one of those electric stoves they borrowed from our apartment. Why the hell is their place so warm? Tuesday, October 20, 2009 We have a new trainer in today, and a new training lesson, one of particular importance. Just realized that quite a lot of current practice needs to be revised. Now, due to a certain food restriction of mine, the chef at the dormitory has been attempting to turn me into a vegetarian. He served me a fried egg this morning...

October 18, 2009 The journey across *half of Honshu I woke up early to pack my remaining stuff and clean up the room I had seeked shelter in for the past two weeks. There was enough hair on the ground to give a doll a head full of hair. It is indeed very difficult cleaning up a room without a broom! My luggage had been couriered on Friday night, so I only had my backpack and a hand carry. This was the time I regretted my decision for lugging my laptop around. We switched trains so many times I have some difficulty remembering them. The best part though was I got to ride the Shinkansen, the ever famous bullet train (shaped like a bullet, interestingly) Somewhere in the middle of the journey, our trainer who was with us beckoned us to a back window, and pointed out Mt Fuji to us, a little speck that disappeared within a minute. I can’t say how incredibly glad I am that we actually went up Mt Fuji instead of relying on getting a peek at it from the train. Upon reaching Nagoya, we t...

Saturday, 17 October, 2009 Over 2000 metres on top of the world. So, it’s supposedly Diwali/Deepavali today, aside from the few texts I received from a few friends (too few indeed, not even from some of the usual suspects - nobody likes me! :(, but then again, I didn't send out any either) and my sister (my parents have yet to learn the fine art of texting) as well as a few of my training buddies (in person), the day was spent in the most unconventional way for what is well known as a traditional holiday with supposedly traditional activities – in my case eating and sleeping (because you would be lacking sleep the few days before as you stay awake to bake cookies and clean the house, etc) We went all the way to Mt Fuji!! As I might have mentioned earlier, the idea of going to Mt Fuji was not very well received by our trainer. He tried to talk us out of it by saying that you could die there, falling off the cliff, and how cold it would be, etc, but we would not budge. He finall...

Monday, 12 October 2009. Back to training The skin is still awful, and I found a whole bunch of hair fall off my comb while combing my hair. Is it the MSG, or the water, or my shampoo? Anyway, training today was pretty dreary because the whole lot was conducted in the classroom. Turns out, the PEs in Japan too are sometimes faced with unsolved mysteries in terms of product problems, so we are not alone. After training, we headed out together for dinner, all the 7 of us because the cafeteria was closed (It was apparently a holiday in Japan which we and the trainers were not involved in!) As CK, JC and I had travelled the streets of Hiratsuka on practically a daily basis, we seemed to lead the way to the place we were supposed to go for dinner. It was hilarious seeing CK being all tour guide-ish, informing our other 4 friends what restaurants there are and what they serve and the price range. Finally, we ended up at a very cozy looking place which served ramen noodles, but the vari...

Sunday, 11 October 2009 Kamakura I looked at my face in the mirror today in shock, not that I don’t look in the mirror every day, but I had on my contact lenses and could clearly see my skin peeling around the left side of my nose. I blame it all on the cool wind (despite the sun shining at your face) Today we visited Kamakura, an ancient place with shrines and temples aplenty. We checked out Engaku Ji, a shrine that houses Buddha. Unlike the last time where we did an Amazing Race type visit, this one was very relaxed and laid back. Personally, I preferred the Amazing Race type. At least I managed to get some background info on all the places I visited, but I shall refrain from complaining. These people sacrificed their weekend to take us around. After the shrine, we took a train to the town, where we had lunch at McDonalds. As weird as it may seem, I welcomed the idea because a)    Their menu is different from ours b)    Change is good c) ...

Saturday, 10 October 2009 Yokohama! From the very beginning of our visit, our trainers had been asking us where we’d want to go for the weekend. Even while back in Malaysia, while busy compiling stuff (work related) to take CK and I had planned that we should check out Mt Fuji and Disneyland (this was CK’s idea. For some unknown reason, Disneyland wasn’t part of my itinerary, me being more interested in the cultural or historical aspect of things but I was cool with it. After all, chances are I might never be able to get to Florida to go to the real one) However, we were soon to find out that Disneyland needs at least two days, and that everything would be in Japanese. And somehow, the Japanese were not too keen on Mt Fuji, stating that we could see it from the Shinkansen when we travel from Hiratsuka to Nagoya. Why would we want to just see Mt Fuji? Going to it would be a better bet, aight? Anyway, we met with the trainers at the train station at 10 am to go to Yokohama. I absolu...

Thursday, 8 October 2009 The Typhoon I was awoken at 5 am by a loud sound, but refused to get up until after 6. The sun rises early here, and you tend to wake up with it regardless if your curtains are drawn or not. Looking out of the window, I could see the effect of the ‘tempias’ (can’t find the perfect translation for this in English, sorry) of the typhoon that hit Tokyo. The wind was so strong that you could see trees swaying like crazy. There’s a motorbike parked right beneath my window, and the sheet that supposedly protects it was blowing with the strong winds and looked as though it was about to fly. The walk to the training place was challenging compared to the other days as the wind threatened to blow us away. Surprisingly by noon, the sky was clear once again and we saw the sun. According to our trainer/translator, the sun comes out when the typhoon ends. Later that evening, we headed out to town. ***We took the bus to the train station, which is like the most happening...