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whee time to blog about things and more things and things in general.

1. i love japan. i love tokyo. its probably the greatest city on earth.... and so on...

Well where do we start.

day 1.

rouse and wake at the unearthly hour of 5, drag myself, suitcase, backpack, minicoffin (instrument lah) to airport and wait for people to appear in similar fashion. flup, into the plane, foom, we are airborne. right smack in the middle, between jeremy and the gay david. nothing to do, because the movies were crap (even the japanese ones), so read, mug physics, sleep, write japanese speech (with darn lot of help from oura haha)... blarh. urgh singaporeans... the way they fill in their immigration forms is really irritating...

screech we land on time after a terrifying drop xD. into the bus, into the greatest city on earth. highways in japan have these tall walls built beside to block out the sound, maybe that's why they don't own cars there (along with the parking fees, the traffic jams, the toll...). poof we appear at the hotel, ホテル ｲｽﾄ 21, a business hotel on the outskirts of the city. there's a big pachinko parlour opposite, and strangely enough, NO VENDING MACHINES >< room with justin and jeremy, which means... politik haha. they have porn on tv there; you have to pay for it but you get a 20 second preview before you pay. needless to say, all the rooms i went to had those 20 seconds used completely up =p

bus into tokyo city for dinner, it was 焼肉 (yakiniku, korean barbecue-type of meal). so we have six people to a table around a hot plate, with a free flow of meat, (a small bit of) vegetables, and desserts xD. fire+riboy = trouble. huge plates of burnt inedible meat, enough to feed a small african nation, great monuments of plates to the god of hunger... typical mayhem haha

loong bus ride back to erm read, play cards in paul's room and finally fall asleep at midnight (whao. so early (:)

day 2.

arrgh this is boring. fast forward to delicious parts

my potential was realised as a JAPANESE INTERPRETER! xD. shopping means talking to shopkeepers, means having to speak JAPANESE, which means me! ok sorry ego...

got this super kawaii solar-powered nodding thingy for cheap cheap cheap! and lots of shao bing and mostly good food. all bought from this place they call the nakamise dori in front of the kannon temple in asakusa haha. see japanese students...

1. i was the tallest person on that street xD
2. the skirts aren't that short. the socks are super high though (compared to the ones here, that is)
3. the boys tuck in their shirts all the way and all have long hair
4. the girls all look the same
i. flawless skin
ii. 'sadako look' - long hair that falls straight down
iii. short, giggling, always smiling

kawaii ne!

lunch at a place for sumo wrestlers -> figures haha again mayhem because it is another cook-it-yourself-meal. with paul, no less.

also went to the 江戸東京博物館 (edo-tokyo museum), with oura as our guide haha. its this big frog-like building with so much empty space...

next stop: odaiba, this gigantic island of reclaimed land with lots of shopping and its own statue of liberty. with a crow on the torch. arrgh there was a sony gallery selling this great looking flash mp3 player for 10k yen, about 150 bucks... should have bought. pretty dead at night though... cheapest cd in hmv retails for 30 bucks, books are all in cheem japanese ><

second day was a bit of a drag with all the moving about... but

day 3

was a BLAST.

exchange with tamagawa gakuen (玉川学園), this huge private school from kindergarten right up to university level =S. beautiful place with its own train station outside. it was on the far outskirts of tokyo though... 2.5 hr bus ride there.

meet the our counterparts finally haha. first thing: their auditorium had this interesting quote outside... "no vision, the people perish". kinda makes you think, doesn't it? well we got herded into their canteen, where they sang their school song. in soprano, alto, tenor and bass. whao number one. haha they were all shorter than me. ok shall stop talking about my height. their bm gave a speech in english, after which oura was prodding me to make my speech.

couldn't remember it =S run back to bag (while maluing the whole time), get script and stammer my way through haha. ugh everyone else in band pretended they didn't knew japanese (ahempaulahem). quite funny seeing the two bands staring at each other not knowing what to say or do xD. trombones (unfortunately) have boys (not fair. when 4/5 of the band is female ><) but they are one hell of a bunch. 智之、尚、蕭平、真理子　(tomoyuki, nao, shohei, mariko) they knew a bit of english, i knew a bit of jap, so talk in some japlish concoction xD must patent that language.

their classrooms are incredible. 4 tvs, rack of AV equipment, each bench fully equipped with av stuff, and other expensive installations... richard lu was in the next room with the horns, 7 incredibly chio girls. and he was like a block of stone. -.-

their sectionals are weird... they have a metronome for playing, and apparently they have to stop to change the beat for each different part haha. ran through merry widow and 小さな世界　（its a small world, which involves SINGING)

sectionals were over too quickly ><. lunch prepared by the parents of the bandits (which means a huge spread). took a piece of pizza and paul and went around asking them to choose. twice i asked, and twice they chose the pizza over paul. johnny got jacked by his sl (or sempai). japanese girls are fun to talk to. arrgh ri people are really uptight... so many chances to interact, and all they do is bind to each other uncomfortably and stare around.

rehearsals afterwards. their auditorium is supremely impressive =D. individually tamagawa wasn't that good, but together its WHAO. capitals all. blown away. their conductor is like a photocopy of oura, only slimmer and taller xD

what blew my mind was their junior band. 1 month with their instrument, and they sound like an syf gold band. seriously WHAO. their band culture must be really WHAO... our sec 1s have had 6 months and they haven't gone beyond mouthpieces. they are crap. we need some serious change here (:

WHAO

concert ended (too soon), have to drive another 2.5h back to hotel >< jeremy koped my mp3 and did strange things to it...

the girls there are really kawaii xD i fell in love... x times, where x is a big number

argh this post is too long already... shall continue in another later haha

impressions of japan:
its a concrete jungle. you could ignore the alien language and the weather and feel right at home. there are no trees here. but the place is so... alive. throbbing with energy day in day out. maybe i just like the japanese way, but... i love that place

even more so for the japanese people. those people have service down to an art. EVERYBODY, from stationmasters, waitresses, toilet cleaners, teachers, is so polite, so... cultured. i feel like an ignorant savage. even the people on the street are nice haha. i'd like to live here someday.

pictures will come when i find them!