with more intensity
today was so tense at work.. we had to try and fix this uber obscure error.. it only occurred when u create a user without setting their password and then u later on set their password.. then when the user first tries to login if they change their own password then afterwards it hangs.. but if they close their browser and login again it works fine. and all of this only on the eBanking application and only for internet explorer users inside the RBA.

man... that was a tricky one the track down.. we drew up a massive test plan and narrowed it down one part at a time.. and in the end it wasnt our problem it was in another application which we dont control =p gah!

.. meh..
anyhoos we went suit shopping after work.. but didnt really get anywhere.. we may as well have not gone =p twas all pretty futile trying to find a bargain among $1200 suits =p just kinda wandered around for a bit.. then went to play DDR. i kinda sucked a lot.. but its a good workout =) hehe. jenelle rang to meet up.. but i only saw her for a coupla minutes.. cos she had to rush off and study.. also we were still kinda playing DDR.. i really should catch up with her sometime.. its been a while.

...
anyways the 2nd last trian home got cancelled.. bleh.. what do u expect on free train day? =p so anyways i had to go change trains at central. gah.. but some girl came up to ask me where she had to go to get to eastwood.. which is on my line. so i showed her.. at first i thought it was a pickup line.. but it wasnt.. which is a pity cos she was soo hot! she was a student from china.. and her english wasnt that flash so she just talks to ppl on the train to practice her english. dang.. hehe. she did provide some interesting conversation on the ride home though. it was kinda like talking to ppl in japan.. cosshe had this electronic english-chinese dictionary kinda like naoko had.. hehe pretty funny. um.. her name was Grace and she is 27 and has been in australia for 1 year and wants to study accounting at Mac Uni.. but failed the elssa test last sem. she was working at a clothes shop at town hall.. but she quit today. she studied administration (how is that a degree?) at some uni in china. then she worked at some consulate place.. then an IT magazine and then at Sun Microsystems.. then came to australia to get away from china. thats all i can remember =p

CJ from downtown...
went to the first game of the grand final series tonite.. we had nosebleed seats, but in a good area of the stadium so it was still pretty awesome!! the kings dominated.. mostly due to CJ raining nine 3pointers on razorbacks. overall it was pretty sic.. although it was riddled with the usual stupid nbl referees.. man sometimes its like theyre not even watching the same game.

.. *shrugs*...
anyways before the game we met up for drinks at the Forbes.. and $5 steak dinners at the Slip Inn.. mm so tasty.. i met some of julia's frens at the game.. they seemed nice.. anyone who i can talk to about basketball must be at least kinda cool =) hehe

um.. thats pretty much it for the day..
oh i bought a shirt from GBs .. ahem.. i mean Myer.. and it was marked as $39.95.. then crossed off and replaced with $27.95 .. but it was on the 25% off. thats an ok deal.. but when the girl scanned it.. it said $19.95.. and im like "ohh cheaper =)" .... but then she took 25% off that.. and i got it for $14.96 =) although now that i have it, it doesnt look as good as it did on the rack =p

relaxation..
um.. ok so i took a whole day off work and didnt really do anything cept watch women's collega basketball and channel v..

also i took a bit of time to draw this comic.. its sorta based on this script which hunt made.. but also kinda not..
so far bunny is the only person to even kinda laugh at it =p but thats ok cos i only drew it hehe

.. this will probly throw the blog even further out of alignment ..

art?
ok so i finally learnt how to use paths in photoshop to lineart stuff..
im still learning though, so bear with me..

this pic will throw the whole blog out of whack for a coupla weeks, but have a peek at a drawing i did yesterday.. my first ever path-based lineart. i hope u like it

ouch
i just realised something which is heaps teh suck =(

pete repeat
the only difference between today and yesterday is that it happened in my office instead of my house.. and i got paid for it today.. i totally did nothing at all today at work.. so boringness.. i found out i still have tons of leave dispite just taking a month off. so im taking a day off tommolo for no reason other than im wasting leave by not taking it.

i dont really have anything to do tommolo.. but i figure i may as well do nothing at home.. to save me having to travel all that way for nothing..

sigh.. it took me about 2.5 hrs to get home on the stupid trains today.. grr...

boredom
today is probly the most boring-est day of all time.. i totally did nothing today. i tried to sleep thru the day but i couldnt stay asleep for more than an hour at a time.. grr..

msn and icq were also pretty empty.. so i was stuck watching NCAA basketball and snacking on what ever was lying around.

thou canst get ye flask
kallie woke me up with a phonecall this morning cos i was late for going to see the opening of ashfield swimming pool. but i ended up getting there before any of them =p the place was pretty packed out with lil kids. but it was still a good day to be out at a pool. it was pretty hot and stuff.. didnt really swim much but did a lot of diving, cos its kinda cool n stuff... uh.. um.. this is a really boring post.

um..this is pretty cool

reserve bank of losers
bah humbug.. tonite was corporate cup volleyball.. and we got pretty 0wnz0red. there were some awesome opposition teams though. like teams full of guys who were jump serving and back court spiking. basically we sucked a lot. i played crapsticks.. but i did manage to successfully block a few spikes around the place =)

the mixed team did heaps well.. they won all their pool games.. and the first elimination final.. they lost out in the quarter finals to a pretty impressive Johnson & Johnson team.

in other news a new icchanolist. this one is the top ten words ve "caught" off other people. u may find it mildly interesting to read.. or not.. u can decide... remember, no one if forcing u to read this... =p

ZZZZzzz
so anyways at work im currently working on this application with is having performance problems. like 7 minute delays between web pages... so during testing i do a lot of waiting.. during one of of these waits i put my head down and sorta dozed off a bit. so this lady at work (betty) came along and poured a bottle of water over my head =p

after work i went to the ATP to play tennis.. but no one turned up.. and so we played basketball instead =p twas a pretty good training session, lotsa shooting and left handed lay up drills. my free throw shooting is getting pretty good.. but my everything else shooting is getting crap =p

in other news: heres another gem from sheralyn's blog, its this bizarre movement which embraces being single. actually it embraces individuality and not being in a relationship just to avoid loneliness. seems that all around everyone is coupled up.. but thats not really a good reason for me to join in. its not about eternally being single.. its about waiting for someone special.. but no a soulmate who completes u, its more about finding one who compliments u.. who u can enjoy being individuals with. the idea is that while ur not ina relationship, then thats ok.. and u dont have to feel lonely. kinda hard to explain, but well worth a read if u have the time to spare. lately more than a few ppl have asked me how come i havent got a new gf yet.. and i guess this partially explains my thoughts on the subject... also girls are trouble! =p

re-postage
ok last nite i was too angsty to do anything cept have a cry..

so heres a real post about tuesday:

i believe that the head of security at my work may very well be the pointy haired boss out of dilbert. he is so dumb it hurts my brain sometimes.. he has no idea whats going on, but he is very good at making it look like nothing is ever his fault.. and jsut palming off blame to someone else (the web team for example). grr .. ok we have this admin tool, which i wrote.. but cos he is security admin he wants "control" of the application.. whatever the hell that means. *shrugs* he can have it, i hate it. but if anything ever goes wrong.. they jsut palm it off to us and say its not their problem... grr.. he even took away my admin rights.. cos i apparently dont need them.. which makes it awfulyl hard to fix problems.. or even see what problems are there ... (luckily i left a backdoor super admin in there =).

also i got yelled at by the volleyball coach cos i never paid for the corporate games.. and money was due like 4 weeks ago. (whilst i was in japan btw).. meh. i did go and register though =p i got a nice ugly yellow NSW Corporate games bag..

in other news: nathan at work got his snowboard from america (over ebay) for about half the price it is here. and it shipped in only 2 working days.. omg! and onyl cost him US$55 for psotage.. thats pretty sweet..

angstalicious
hrm.. im heaps angsty today.. =(

i kinda need a hug.

pleasantville
total fall asleepness at work today.. ZZZZzzzz...

anyways after work we went out for fish n chips down at circular quay.. just a quick bite before going to see The Station Agent at Dendy. it was pretty good, its one of those bizarre movies where its jsut about relationships but in rather odd situations. the three main characters were a train-obsessed dwarf, a loud coffee-making new yorker, and strange recently separated artist. it was a heart-warming friendship movie with a bunch of weird amusing moments to keep it all going. not my favourite movie of all time.. but itll probly end up in my dendy dvd section somewhere..

.. afterwards we headed to the Orient hotel for a night cap.. jsut a small chat over a drink..

curouser and curiouser
twas a relatively busy weekend for me i spose. friday was nothing.. but saturday was a rather nice picnic which michelle organised. due to me needing to leech a ride, i got there relatively early... before anyone really got there. it was still kinda cool to sit around in a parka nd catch up with some people who i havent seen in a while. its really nice to think that i havent seen some of these guys for up to a year and we can still sit down and have stuff to chat about. its like some of these guys i only kinda knew when i did know them, but theyre still friendly after all this time. i think in recent time my life has been riddled with too many short term friends who i hang out with heaps but then lose in the woodwork, and not enough of these guys who i will still be able to sit and chat to every few years even if our lives arent intertwined.

me and zincky had a pretty good talk to Phuong about the ever controversial movie The Passion of Christ. she was saying how it had impacted on her life.. and she was interested in learning more about christianity. which is great i think, i havent seen the movie (and not sure if i will yet) but its obviously doing something good in the world if it can make this sort of change in someone.

.. in reading what i jsut wrote, it doesnt sound that good.. but i know what im talking about its jsut my writing skills arent as good as my thinking skills =p

in other news: i do dwell too much on things ive missed out on and things which i never had. pretty stupid when im so blessed in my life. i guess the grass always looks greener on the other side..

.. anyhoo.. back to the story..
the picnic was pretty cool. we played some good basketball which was fun. betty was a bit of a gun .. she was better than half of the guys =p it was rather warm though.. but it was still fun to play some run and gun basketball =) the food was good and the company was good too. i was gonna teach ppl to play ultimate frisbee but every was too scared to play. they all played ghey soccer, which i doubt ill ever play again. its not even exciting to play.. cos theres too much gap between good players and crap players. especially when all the good players decide its even when theyre all on the same side. at least in basketball, even when u are losing badly, u at least score a few so u can still have a bit of fun. soccer is ok to watch.. but its not really my kinda game to play.. theres too much grey area.

anyways we finished off with some more basketball cos pablo missed out on the early session. it was fun as always.. well for me anyways =p cos i was late, me and chito didnt get a game on the big time court.. so we were on the easy-beats court. it was still heaps fun though cos the guys werent that good, but they played clean and i think they had fun too. my team was a bit unbeatable.. we won 5 games in a row. 5-0, 5-0, 5-2, 5-2, 5-3.. or something like that. i was heaps of a ball hog though... cos there wasnt realy anyone who could play dribble defence. but the guys on my team were good passers rebounders, and ok shooters too. i got one guy by dribbling it between his legs =) hehe.. and i almost did it a few more times.. but i think i over used it =p

next was the DDR action at gus' place which was pretty sweet.. i managed to leech a copy of 3rd mix of Yuki too =) hehe.. i attempted this 200bpm song from Dancing Stage Megamix 2.. and i passedit the first time, with the help of jason.. but then i attempted it 2 more times and failed... leaving my thighs pretty cramped up =p and that was about all the DDR for one night for ian ..

the rest of the night was filled with various attempts at playing UT2k4.. and some Total Annihilation games squeezed in just to mix it up a bit. there was lotsa leeching, but nothing much i was interested in. we all slept a little bit, but i woke up with an uber sore neck. cos i slept on the floor with a very hard cushion for a pillow.. i was also pretty cold.. brrrr..

the next morning was pretty lazy. shelle made pancakes and bacon for every1.. so tasty.. =) and we lounged around and played some games.. and ate some left overs from the picnic.. and talked about games and stuff like that. nothing too intense since we were all pretty beat. nige even stopped by for a bit.. and we reminisced about the old days of total annihilation =)

*ponders*
ive got a lot on my mind atm. ive got my thinking cap on atm.. considering the possibilities...wondering what could be in the future for ian. should i stay or should i go? why am i really staying here? is it because its just easier to not change anything?

also been thinking about various people lately.. and how much i miss some specific people a lot.. and how i miss the old days in general. everyone grew up so fast.. i kinda feel left behind.. i still wanna be a kid for a bit longer.

i think i peaked too early..

howzat!
today was pretty boring.. in fact after reading back in my blog, this whole week has been a bit of a yawn =p ill try and be more interesting next week =p

work has been a bit of a suck.. i had to put in this test data for an admin tool, and it was all like basketball players for users and bands in my playlist for organisations. so id have Tim Duncan from the Cat Empire.. or Lauren Jackson from the Dissociatives.. or Penny Hardaway from the Brilliant Green =) hehe

we had a work lunch .. yawn.. old people are no fun =p

i went home a bit early.. and watched the cricket for a bit, then just went to bed early.. how excitement my life is =p

its all because of you, im feeling sad and blue....
much karaoke action going on today. finished work and then went to K-world for a short half hour session. then headed to masuya for dinner, but it was all booked out. so we ended up at Ichiban Boshi at The Strand. twas sooo tasty =) i had ramen.. mm hehe. reminded me of being in japan... *sigh* the waitress was pretty hot too.. reminded me of japan =p

anyhoos, we went back to K-world for an afterdinner session =) this time for 2 hours.. mm soo good hehe. at one point we sung "Time Of Your Life" by Greenday.. and bunny was crying =p hehe

.. i got a ride home from matt =) .. havent got a ride home for a while.. =p

lateness
um.. i havent really posted this week..
heres a quick wrap up.

monday: lunch with jenny. um.. i dunno what to say about it =p she is thinking of going to japan later this year. .. nothing much all that interesting =p

later that evening: i saw interstella 5555. which is the movie of the album Discovery by Daft Punk. it was on Peak hour on Channel V. its basically the music videos to all the songs on the album end to end. and it forms a 65 minute anime movie. it was directed by Leiji Matsumoto, the guy who made Star Blazers. it was pretty awesome.. the dvd came out in december, i think i shall have to go purchase it =)

tuesday: snowboard shopping with nathan.
he is intending to buy a Burton Custom =) pity he didnt think of it before i went to japan. couldve got $500 off the price.

talked to Frances on msn.. i havent spoken to her in real life or online in about 2 years. thats pretty long. she has suggested a reunion for that hk trip. annie and miranda are back from america, and im back from japan. kallie is back form HK.. tenny never left. and a lil while ago i finally caught up with cecil. so we're kinda on the way there anyways.. oh how things can change in 2 years. at least we're considering a reunion though.. id jab myself in the eye with a red hot poker before going to a snow trip reunion =p ... ive been told im a difficult person to travel with. hehe.

um..
i want this:
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/225189

icchan is placed on the injured list
this weekend started with an early morning movie at burwood. we went to see Big Fish, which id been dying to see for ages. it wasnt awesome.. but i still thoroughly enjoyed it. some of the ways they portrayed his outlook lon life was really nice. its probly not gonna be my fav movie of all time, but its definately on the re-watchable list. =) i highly recommend.

next was my sister's engagement party.. and a pretty exhausting one for ian. had to get there early to set up and stay late to pack up.. but it was fun.. jsut wasnt as fun the next morning when i had to wake up at 7 to go play basketball =p i had a chance to catch up with some ppl who i havent seen in a while, mostly credo ppl.. but a few other miscellaneous peoples from around as well. there was a lot of "oh, how was your trip?" hehe

a very tired ian got up for basketball at KGV this morning with the pablo crew. it was pouring rain and i turned up a tad early, but the place had some ncie courts. we played for a while but it was uber-humid inside.. and there was some serious sweating going on. i played pretty crapsticks.. i still scored and rebounded and got assists.. but mostly by moving around heaps and cos the defence was pretty average. i didnt really make and plays myself though, no driving layups or any mad double clutches =p jsut played in the flow of the game =)

.. on the last play of the day i completely fsked my right shoulder though.. gah! hunt threw me an alley oop, but it was a bit overthrown.. i managed to gather it in, but put up a bad shot, and when i went to rebound it, some loser took my legs out from under me.. and i landed very heavily on my shoulder and my elbow.. ouchy! i might be on the bench for a while.. *sigh*

also a new icchanolist: Top 10 things i learnt about japan =)

in other news: Sydney is suffocating me!! .. also.. how come no one comments anymore..

guest post by julia~
.. a taste of her new found medical knowledge:

umm.... good morning everyone who reads Ian's blog..
Today is the day you'll all hear about hyperosmotic soup... (at least that's what my housemate called it..)
First off, hyperosmotic means pertaining to an increased concentration of osmotically active components. [Mosby's med dictionary]
In this case, the osmotically active components were the flavoursome bits... like chicken, celery, carrot, salt...They are osmotic because they have the ability to move from a place of higher concentration to a place of lower concentration to get to an equilibrium.
So, when we say that the soup is hyperosmotic, we actually mean that it tastes like crap because all the flavours and that haven't mixed into the watery soupy bit...
So now you know what hyperosmosis means..
Similarly, hypoosmotic soup would be soup which has reached it's equilibrium where the flavour is equally spread amongst the total volume of the liquid.

playing catch up
today was very lazy at work.. more so than normal =p

lunched with angela tio and ivan today, yum cha at the Regal to catch up and talk about our respective overseas holidays =) twas cool to see those guys again.. it was fun. smells like the start of another lunch gang =) angela went to europe and skiied at switzerland.. and so we traded snow stories.. hehe.

by some bizarre coincidence, we bumped into Tomoko at lunch.. she was meeting her mum and her man. but we left before they came.. i mean i did take a 2 hour lunch.. thats about the limit for me =p

the rest of my day mostly consisted of Mario and Luigi =p

hokkaido
ok ok ok.. i shoudl hopefully finish my japan report in this post =p

:: day 11
travelling to hokkaido day.. aka..abusing JR pass day.. today we pretty much rode enuf trains to justify our 7 day rail pass =P about 90% of this day involved us sitting on a shinkansen with a contorted spinal position as we attempt to squeeze all our luggage into the luggage storage above the seats.. and under our feet and on our laps. and all this while still trying to be in a reasonably comfortable sleeping position =p

we had to head back to tokyo for a bit, so chito could purchase a snowboard.. and so ian could be further disappointed but the lack of naruto headbands at yet another Animate store.. grr.. worst holiday ever! chito ended up getting board boots n bindings for a bit more than Au$200.. and would eventually cost something like AU$160.. so he did pretty well, although he did get an Oxygen board =p hehe. the rest of the day was staring out windows at japanese snow-covered country-side going past at 200km/hr.

after a bit of discussion, we ended the day at a capsule hotel in Sapporo. nothing real exciting about that..

:: day 12
woke up and headed to a Mr Donut for a spot of brekkie. we all had a few donuts and a drink.. and we ended up having 8 of these tickety things which u get for every 200 Yen u spend. if you are lucky enough to collect 10 tickets, you can claim a free gift =) .. i couldnt possibly get so close and not claim a prize =p so i went and bought me and chito another milkshake.. cos we were thristy.. and also so i could claim this nifty 3 piece stackable teapot set =) it seems like lame now.. since ill probly never use it, but it was free.. and my mum seems to be awfully impressed by it. if only we were one day later, that teapot couldve instead been a 3 piece Cookie Monster lunch box set.. dang =p

.. more train travelling today thru snow-ridden country side. we went along this stretch of railway which ran right along the seaside, it was quite spectacular =) more interestingly, we saw some surfers in the water! i dunno what the temperature outside was, but it was snowing =p .. and there was hardly a wave to be seen. they mustve been desperate, i mean why not jsut trade in that surfboard for a snowboard?

we arrived at the backpackers after a rather amusing phone conversation between me and the owner, in which i dont think he understood half the words i said =p but still managed to come pick us up in his van. anyhoos, we decided to hit the slopes straight away, because in niseko the slopes are open from 8:30am till 8:30 pm =) the backpacker guy was uber helpful and drove us around so i could get hire and lift passes and such. whilst i was fitting snowboard boots, the guy at the hire store was preparing a 149cm board for me! omg! .. luckily hunt spotted it and hinted that it was a bit too small for me =p so i ended up with a 155cm.. a much more acceptable size for me. although over the week it did still prove to be a tad small.

basically the snow rocked.. but not literally.. there were no rocks to be seen, they were all covered in 4m of sweet sweet japanese snow. we ripped it up pretty good all afternoon and nite. although we were a bit n00bed up by chito hehe. we managed a whole lot of tree runs and black runs under lights.. ahh i could do this forever... *sigh*

:: days 13-16
um.. these middle days are all a bit of a powdery white blur to me. we didnt do much except snowboard all day and all nite. it was sooo good! omg.. we ventured a couple of times to the various terrain parks, i did some spectacular.. and some not so spectacular stacks on the rails and tabletops. chito managed to hit his head on a trunk on one of our many tree runs but overall got to be a much better snowboard over the week.

they have mad lifts in japan.. firstly there was a gondola, which is like an enclosed carriage where u totally unclip and sit inside. but they also had a hooded lift which is like a normal lift u get in perisher, only it has this plastic dome which lowers over your head like the cone of silence in Get Smart. it was a life saver on the windy days. instead of shivering as the wind chill tears thru my expensive snowboard jacket, we comfortably sat and chatted and ad justed our gloves in warm comfort =)

:: day 17
ack.. our last day at the snow, but we decided we had to try out to the snowmobiles! mm.. twas kinda pricey, so we cheaped out and got the 30min deal. my snowmobile conked out after about 2 mins =p but after i got a new one, the ride was awesome! the guy didnt really speak english and he jsut pointed at the controls and goes "brake" , then "accellerator" .. "ok lets go" hehe thats all the training we got. he jsut took off and we attempted to keep up with him as he raced around the place. it was mad fun, i almost rolled my snowmobile a few times =p At one point the guy jsut stopped in the middle of the track and turns to us and says "special stage" with a big grin on his face, then turned off the track onto these huge powdery rolling hills where we both had trouble movign around =p it was sooo sweet.. =) although for future reference, u cant turn a snowmobile is knee deep powder unless ur going really fast =) i got stuck once and he had to come drag me out =p

:: day 18
ok, we were sposed to go to sapporo today and meet up with shizu (hunt's mother's friend). and chito was sposed to fly home today... well 1 out of 2 isnt bad =p chito made it to the airport.. but there was no flight today =p so he had to wait a day.. he decided to hang out in sapporo instead of joining us. i suspect he jsut read manga all day.. possibly yaoi =p

.. back to me.. we met shizu and her daughter naoko.. and true to japanese nature the first thing they did was pull out a digital camera to record this historic event =p they were heaps nice though, they took us back to their house and cooked us a rather delicious japanese lunch (although it did have mushrooms .. bleh). it was pretty funny talking to them, cos they had partially broken english and i had very broken japanese.. and hunt jsut had "sumimasen" and "arigatou". me and naoko compared japanese/english dictionaries as we attempted to communicate by pointing at words in the other person's respective language =p she had an electronic one which was sick.. she was very impressed with my dictionary though.. it doesnt look that special to me =p

.. that nite naoko had scored us some free tix to the Toyota Big Air competition becuase her friend was working there =) as we got dressed, they kept telling us to wear all our snow clothes.. cos it would be uber uber cold. so shizu tried to get hunt to wear this rather amusingly colored jacket which lasted about 2 seconds.. before he jsut wore my jacket =)

the competition was pretty sick.. although there was a noticeable lack of double backflips. every1 jsut did spins the whole time. the winner was some canadian guy who did a method 1080 (or something like that). we met a bunch of naoko's friends.. most of whom were pretty trashed. i can only remember the names Yuka and Machi. Yuka was her friend from down the street who later drove because naoko had had wayy too much to drink. Machi was the guy who worked there and got us the tickets. here's a pic with both of them. from left to right: some guy, machi, me, hunt, naoko and yuka. Machi kept trying to get me to drink this weird alcohol which was supposedly a Okinawan specialty, and honestly it tasted like methylated spirits =p it was horrible, but they all drank it straight and by the glass full.

anyways.. after that we headed to this dinner/karaoke place where u order food and sing at ur table =) it was heaps funny trying to talk to the ppl at dinner, once again using the dictionaries, but this time we all had a lot more alcohol in us. they had all these english songs they wanted us to sing, and i had a few jap songs i wanted to hear them sing. unfortunately all the songs they wanted us to sing were like Britney and Mariah, so we sounded pretty bad, but they thought it was still cute =p we also sang Sukiyaki in english, and then they sung the japanese version =) hehe so funny.

we ate as we sang, but we also ordered more dishes and drinks as we went along. the waiter would always run thru the door, drop off the food or drinks.. then rush out again as if the room was full of poisonous spores and he had to hold his breath. the food was a big mix of different things most of which were really tasty =) one dish in particular was very interesting, it was a plate of a dozen or so Takoyaki (octopus balls) but one of them was filled with extra hot wasabi. What we did was play Janken (rock paper scissors) to put people in order of who would eat one. i was not the unlucky one *phew* .. but the look on the guy's face was priceless =) hehe

afterwards we headed upstairs to try and find a Dance Dance Revolution machine, but to no avail... instead we took sticker photos! hehe.. ahh im kinda getting into those.. even though i thought they were lame before. theyre all so complex and varied over there, i had no idea what was going on as they cut pics and editied stuff and drew on our faces =p

:: day 19
woke up to a japanese breakfast courtesy of shizu. it was soo nice.. and rather huge. it was snowing pretty heavy in the morning their backyard was caked in soft soft powder =) we spent the morning jsut looking around the local shops and going to Animate yet again.. but i think im destined never to have a Naruto forehead protector .. grr. worst holiday ever! hehe. They took us to this little japanese restaurant which only opens for special visitors =) it was vegetarian, but in japan that includes fish =p the food was pretty incredible.. it was like a 5 course meal or something.. all of them were sooo nice.. i even ate a mushroom! *gasp*

after that we went to get our luggage.. and then they drove us to the train station for the start of our ludicrously long, tedious trip home... when we go to the airport.. it was pandemonium! there were some flights that were delayed by up to 3 hours. we were kinda freaking out cos we had no idea what was going on. in the end it all worked out. our flight left on time and we had heaps of time to spare.

back in tokyo! .. we decided to go for the net cafe option for our nite's accommodation. basically cos we only need about 6 hours stay.. and it was a lot cheaper than a even a capsule hotel for that. also we could check ur mail =) hehe.

:: day 20
last day in japan! *sniff* it finaly comes to an end. we woke up.. and dragged ourselves out onto a train to the airport. where we just checked in and then we spent the rest of our Yen at some airport stores then slept a bit in wait for our plane....

the trip home was pretty trying on me.. if u count the net cafe.. i hardly got a breath of fresh air from Sunday afternoon all the way to Tuesday morning! by the time we got to Singapore i was feeling very very ill. i jsut couldnt want to get home..

.. meh the rest is boring.. i jsut went home

:: fin ::

its just another day for you and me..
there was a Reserve Bank Board meeting yesterday.. so i had to get up early today to be at work in time for a possible media release (i.e. a rate rise or cut). but there was no change.. so i got up early for nothing =p

today was mostly me trying to fix crap which id broken yesterday at work.. which turned out to be some really obscure bug in this API we'd bought.. gah! but it all works out in the end =) i had lunch with lisa today.. to catch up and to get my new Gameboy Advance SP from her =) i asked her to buy it in HK.. cos i was under the impression that HK had the same power supply as Australia.. but for some reason it had a jap plug =p grr.. luckily my brother has an SP.. so im using his charger till i buy one. maybe a solar one or a wind up one =)

.. after work i had dinner with Ling to catch up on stuff... and bitch.. *ahem*.. i mean talk about the world. =p actually she mentioned she didnt like a particular person.. then i went for the next few hours about all the ppl who've jerked me around in the past 23 and a bit years =p we ate at the food court at china town.. then had pearl tea.

anyhoos whilst walking her to her class, we bumped into Ling (the other ling) hehe so i had some1 to walk to the train stn with =) hehe. at Oportos on the way to the station, i spotted lisa(the same one i lunched with earlier) with her brother hehe.. Then.. at the station, i bumped into Phil (the tall BIT frisbee one) .. so i had some1 to catch the train with =) hehe.. he'd just started work across the street from me the week i left for japan. so we caught up and stuff.. he mentioned he thought my blog was easy to read (or words to that effect) hehe.. i like hearing stuff like that =) i think my writing has improved from writing more, i have noticed that my words are becoming more coherant.. although my spelling is still rather appalling =p i think blogging more makes me think about my words more, so i develop better writing style and structure.. what do u think? =p

.. lastly.. when phil got off the train at eastwood, i went to sit down and bumped into Louis (the ex pres of the Usyd anime club) hehe.. i was on a bit of a roll today for bumping into people =) so we caught up n stuff.. he had started his own company for event organisation or something.. i have no idea really =p .. but that got me as far as beecroft.. so Mario and Luigi had to keep me company for the last leg of my journey =) hehe. this game rocks btw.. i might go play now actually.. . nite!

angsty
today i lunched with jenelle for the first time since she started work.. been trying to organise it for a while.. but i was kinda in japan =p it was fun.. i havent seen her for ages.. but then again i havent seen most ppl for ages.... we were gonna eat at wagamammas.. but the queue was pretty ridiculous, so we went and grabbed a sandwich and ate down near circular quay instead. id just picked up my disposable camera photos from the processing place so we had a bit of a peek thru those. none of them really turned out that well..but i posted a few of the good ones up here.. along with a pic from jap lunch which i forgot to upload. i also gave her this bag i bought her from harajuku.. it had like a pacman game map on it. i thought it was heaps cool.. but i was a bit worried itd be too geeky for her.. she seemed to like it.. or at least she was polite enuf to say she did =p

.. back at work they made me sit thru this stupid meeting about the interest rate announcement tommolo. just in case theres a cut or rise.. they needed me as the 97th backup for the website update.. in case the first 96 members of publications department all die in a horrible train crash tommolo. it was uber boring =p

in the past 2 days ive had 2 ppl say that i seemed happier than usual.. funny i dont seem to feel it =p although the japan trip was very good for me.. helped to de-stress and gave me perspective on life =)

.. in other news: i miss u! *hugs*

osaka!
:: day 6
we got up earlyish to check out and get our JR passes. nothing all that interesting =p we just waited a japanese hour in a japanese queue for a japanese lady to give us a japanese rail pass =p hehe, its still more interesting that if u replaced japanese with Sydney =p we got on the Shinkansen (the bullet train) and pretty much jsut sat and slept and ate Pocky sticks for a few hours =p we stopped off at Shin-Fuji (new fuji) station to attempt to get a photo of Mt Fuji.. but as u can see in this photo we didnt do too well =p

when we got to Osaka it was pretty busy (i believe it was peak hour) and we made our way to find some cheap ryokans (traditional japanese hotels) which chito had looked up on the net earlier, and suprisingly easily found one. it was owned this really nice japanese couple, who were pretty helpful considering how bad our jap was =p the room was pretty sweet.. it had paper sliding doors and bamboo mats and a tea set =) hehe it jsut reminded me of the Tendo Dojo from Ranma 1/2 =p

we decided to have a peek around the local night life in Osaka. we went to this place where u can stand in the street and see three Big Echos (a chain karaoke place). there were about 6 or 7 Big Echos in total which were within 5 minutes walk from where we stayed as well as a few other no-name brand karaoke places.. and these are little karaoke places, some of them were 6 storeys high with 99 rooms.

next we went to have japanese pancakes at a local restaurant. it was pretty cool.. if u dont know, a japanese pancake is mostly made up of lettuce and egg.. with a number of variations like adding meat, noodles, cheese etc.. theres a hot plate on each table so ur pancake gets cooked in front of u, and u get a lil metal spatula to play with ur food =p on the table next to us, there was a group of 6 girls who all at the same time pulled out their mobile phones (equipped with a built in digital camera) and took a photo of their cooking pancakes.. quite funny =p

after that we headed to this music store just to check out the local music. there was this giant used cd and rental cd section which also sold CD-Rs =p hehe, how convinient.... we checked out some stuff like j-pop, j-punk, j-hiphop and even j-reggae. these two foreigners came up to us to tell us about a local hiphop gig which was on in Amerika Town (thats not a typo).. one guy was indian/scottish and the other was indian/canadian =p turned out he gig was also a break dance comp =) .. but we left the day before it was on =p Hunt bought a snowboarding DVD and the guy at the counter gave him a Smirnoff Ice to go along with it.. how odd =p

::day 7
according to our schedule, today was designated to be the checking out Osaka day.. it basically turned out to be a bit of a bust. we jsut walked around our local area for ages and went to karaoke =) the karaoke was good though.. heaps more songs than ud get in Sydney including english songs. then we went to heaps of electronics stores.. and another Animate store.. which didnt have Naruto headbands =p gah! .. worst holiday ever!

we then stopped at a 100 yen store to stock up on groceries.. and hunt and chito stumbled upon our favourite drink: Miracle Body V.. with all the goodnes off ginseng, caffine, guarana, taurine.. and nicotine! it was pretty vicious stuff.. we saw all the basketballers we played against at tokyo drinking it. hunt had half a bottle and he was pretty hyper for the rest of the nite.. and pretty wrecked the next morning too =p

:: day 8
today is the hiroshima day.. but we kinda slept in (partially due to Miracle Body V). had instant ramen for brekkie then headed back to the Shinkansen for a train to Hiroshima. along the was we stopped at Himeji Castle.. not suprisingly in the town of Himeji =p we only had a small time fram before our connecting train (about 1.5 hours i think) so we ran to the castle and took a pretty speedy tour... it was pretty cool inside, it was riddled with secret rooms to hide ninjas.. and various other military defensive structues. the place had really low doorways to hinder the advance of tall western invaders =p .. chito hit his head pretty hard coming down one set of stairs..

.. onto Hiroshima and we caught a light rail to the various memorials and museums. it was all pretty mind blowing to see the kinda of destruction the atomic bomb caused. i cant even explain it in words.. it was all pretty terrible. some of the parts about how people died and such were all too graphic for me.. and i had to skip those cos it made me sick. but there was also a lot about nuclear weapons in the current day and about what people are doing to make sure it never happens again. lotsa of Peace merchandise around the place.

we walked a bit around and stumbled upon a basketball game going on =) we managed to get to shoot around a bit with the guys.. but they were playing a comp, so we couldnt jsut join in =p but we watched a bit of the game.. it was ok =p we went on to check out some local traditional japanese archery.. then walked back to the station for probly the earliest nite we had all trip, except we stopped at an internet cafe.. and kinda ruined that idea =p

:: day 9
we woke up and i had charlie brown choc cornflakes for brekkie =) and started maybe the most boring of days =p we headed to kyoto cos im a stupid tourist. we basically rocked up all excited and started on this walk that took us to all these famous temples.. the first one was heaps cool.. but after the next one we were already sick of temples =p and we pretty much jsut looked at whatever was on the way back to the station.. cos it was along the way. we took lotsa photos that day cos all the other days we were having too much fun to take photos =p

back at Osaka, we tried to find this Baseball hitting centre which hunt saw from the train yesterday. we basically walked around for ages before asking a police station and found it right away =p the baseball place was cool.. u payed some number of yen (i forget how much) and u had 20 balls pitched at u.. and u got points depending on where u hit them. i totally suck at baseball.. but i partially blame the hard to adjust height of the pitches. they were a bit too high for me.. and thus i missed heaps and hit lots straight up in the air. but in a real game i couldve jsut left them and got a walk all day =p

hunt and chito played this table tennis game.. neither was all that flash.. but it looked pretty hard to me =p and i suck at table tennis too.. i played the frisbee game.. and i was one triangle away from winning a portable toilet.. whatever the hell that is =p outside the baseball place was a public foot bath right alongside a major road =p it also had this massage thing where u walked along all these bumps n stuff to relax your feet. i wasnt really game to try it =p

:: day 10
today was scheduled to be a trip to Nara.. but after kyoto we were pretty much all templed out =p we went back for some more karaoke.. and we recorded our own CD! hehe, cos they have this facility to record as u sing, and they burn it to cd for u.. for a small fee... but it was worth it =) they had a problem with the machine.. so we had to pick up our CD later.. gah! i sang Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet, Chito sang Complicated by Avril Lavigne and Hunt sang High and Dry by Radiohead.

.. a few days earlier (i forget exactly when) chito logged on at a net cafe and someone had forgotten to log out of their email. so they (not me =p) decided to read the email.. and it was an email about basketball! =) some open training session on in Midoribashi (green bridge). because we werent at Nara, we figured we may as well go down and check it out.. hehe. after a small amount of wandering, we found the place and the ppl there were really nice. it was some basketball organisation who had some office in north sydney, so they were open to australians =) it was a mixed comp, not jsut guys n girls, but japs, koreans, australians.. and even a jap/Austrian guy. we played half and full court.. and me and hunt pretty much dominated all day =p i was on fire from everywhere.. mostly by outrunning every1. but i did soem pretty spectacular aerial moves like a one handed double-clutch in traffic .. and me and hunt did off the back board alley-oop trailers all day.

afterwards a few of us went out to dinner at the "Friendly" restaurant =p it was heaps fun to mix with some local japanese people =) one girl was japanese, but studied in New York, so she spoke pretty good english.. but it was still sometimes a struggle =p the coach guy kept trying to teah me mandarin and malay cos chito told him i was chinese from malaysia. i couldnt understand whether he was speaking jap or mandarin or malay.. they all sound the same to me =p he said soemthing about how i was very open and honest (although apparently in the literal translation he said i was very pure). he also compared me to Michael Jackson.. but he actually meant Michael Jordan =p we swapped emails and such.. then headed off home..

.. we had to stop and pick up our CD.. but it was screwd up =p which uber sucked. they said we could get free time at the next Big Echo (like 5m away). but i was busy buying Brilliant Green CDs.. and chito didnt feel like negotiating with anyone... but i basically forced him into it (which he wasnt happy about).. but jsutice was kinda served when my recording was heaps more crap than the original.. and both of theirs turned out much better =p

.............
thats it for Osaka.. Hokkaido up next... in a coupla days probly.

we are the champions!!
... ahh the sweet taste of victory! for the first time ever.. i was on the winning team of a grand final! .. after years of second placing in volleyball and handball.. and last places in aussie rules and basketball.. my first season of ultimate frisbee yields a premiership!! woohoo!! *dances around*

i played ok.. scored twice.. make one massive fingertip diving catch.. and a few good defensive plays. wasnt my best game.. but we did beat an undefeated team! so go to the UTS SummerFruits (thats our team). we were rewarded with pizza and beers and softdrinks and such afterwards.. although it wasnt exactly a party party.. it was still cool. i stayed to watch parts of the division 1 grand final, and it was pretty crazy.. those guys are soo good! like jsut throwing skill and knowing how to get open and not lose the disc.. ahh i can only dream...

i got a lift home from andrea.. which was cool, cos the train ride at nite is a killer.. she kinda lives my way, so its not too far and so i didnt feel too bad about it. =p

more japness
hunt finally put his pics up!

if ur too lazy to loko at them all.. heres a few notable ones:

- view from Tokyo Metro Gov building
- the laputa robot at the Ghibli Museum
- our new Tokyo basketball buddies
- me playing some special drum...
- animate: closed.... worst holiday ever!
- the shinkansen (bullet train)
- inside the karaoke place
- yes.. thats 99 rooms of karaoke..
- .. back in my day, we walked 20 miles in the snow to get our groceries...
- old man winter..
- me and hunt on skidoos =)
- me and naoko attempting to make first contact ..
- omg! ian ate a mushroom!

.. in other news.. im really tired
its frisbee grand final tonite! eep!

.. also im fat.. and im going on a diet. not sure what kinda diet though.. hopefully an easy one =p

tokyo: second stage
ok i didnt quite fit all of tokyo into one post as id planned, but hopefully i will now cos i have lots of free time (im at work =p)

:: day 4
we kinda had a bit of a sleep in, we needed to catch up on sleep.. well i did anyways =p our first stop was the world famous Electric City in Akihibara. i was quite intent on purchasing a digital camera (mostly to record this trip). i ended up getting what i considered a good deal on a Sony Cybershot DSCFX77. i got it for about AU$50 of the price on the tag.. i probly couldve done better, but "um.. how much is that?" is about the limit of my japanese bargaining skills =p either way it was still almost AU$400 cheaper than buying the same camera in Sydney. i also managed to get a 256Mb memory stick for about AU$50 less than tenny bought one in Sydney for just a week earlier.

next we headed to Meijiro to scope out a streetball court that Hunt spotted as our train sped past on the previous day. the court was a street court in every sense.. it was basically jsut rings and backboards .. the ground had no line markings.. mostly cos it was jsut uneven dirt ground. quite hard to get any grip. after a lil bit of confusion we managed to kinda get a game with some locals.. all they could really say was "2 on 2?" and "up to 7".. but thats enough =) it was ok ball.. the ground was a bit frustrating. but the guys there were pretty cool. After the game we were talking to them kinda.. it was all pretty funny.. talking about basketball mostly in their broken english and my very broken japanese =p they could read and write jap a lot better than they could speak it. so they ended up writing notes to us cos it was just easier =p (ill add the scan of the note here tonite). they wanted to be friends.. so we traded emails =) hunt gave one of the guys his bandanna too, hunt has photos of the guys too.. but he is lazy and hasnt posted them up online yet...

next was to somewhere in between Kanda and Jimbocho.. to the snowboard district of tokyo. there were some uber cheap snowboards like 1/4 of Sydney prices.. and some stupidly cheap bindings (like AU$25) but in the end all i walked away with was a pair of snowboard pants (which i did need). i also tried on every beanie in every store pretty much =p we didnt realyl know where we were.. but some photographer passing by said he'd show us the way back to akihibara .. so we walked with him down there.. also hunt dropped his wallet on the street.. and some stranger chased us down and returned it. hehe u can tell when ur not in sydney .. tokyo had such nice ppl =)

we headed back home to Ueno to greet mr chito and went to check in and attempt to get a good sleep for the next morning. we went to the shared bath downstairs.. it was my first jap baths.. basically theres a lil seat with a hose-like shower where u wash urself down before getting into this giant hot tub filled with naked middle aged japanese business men =p i went to the sauna for a bit.. man its hot in there ... some other odd things were one-use toothbrushes. they had like built in toothpaste, so u get one brush and then u throw it out. also a communal set of nail clippers.. a bit ewww.. but my nails were getting annoying long by then =p on the way back up, i lost my locker key!! eep! frantically looked everywhere for it.. the ppl at the place were really nice about it.. cos it costs 5000 yen to replace.. luckily some guy found it so i didnt have to pay.. phew =)

:: day 5
chito tried to get breakfast from a ramen vending machine to no avail.. it was broken or soemthing and the noodles came out frozen, twas pretty funny.. but me and hunt ate breakfast at the local bakery =p we headed back to shinjuku.. cos apparently theres stuff there.. but we didnt find anything.. so we left =p took a nice walk down to Harajuku to see punks but went thru the park to see a nearby temple. it was kinda cool n stuff.. lotsa n00b tourists with cameras n stuff.. but i guess we were like one of them =p

finally we got to Harajuku and the place was crawling with assorted punks .. some cool.. some cute.. and some just plain bizare. it was all as much as i couldve asked for.. although some older kids came along later.. and we missed out on taking their photos.. but they were pretty extravagant. the funniest thing was when some korean girls came up and asked if they could take their photo with chito =p it was was hilarious., apparenlty thats a pick up line in korea....

we went back to the snowboard district.. where hunt wanted to buy this snowboard for 39800 yen.. which is about Au$480.. cos he thought it was a bargain.. but it turned out that 39800 wasnt the board price.. it was the price for a set of board, boots, bindings and a bad =p hehe yay for not being able to read jap signs. we headed back to akihibara too cos i wanted to go to Animate to find naruto headbands.. but alas the store was closed... grr.. worst vacation ever!

last stop was a local internet cafe. it was actually an internet/manga/console gaming cafe. u pay by the hour and u can read manga.. or surf the net.. or play ps2, or play gamecube.. or watch dvds.. hehe ahh thats service. u also get a private room with a puter.. and there was a selection of free unlimited drinks too, like coffee or coke or calpis or OJ.. or green tea or corn soup =p

....
ok thats it for tokyo.. ill write about Osaka in another post.. maybe today.. maybe tommolo =p