An Afternoon at Le Blanc

After I got home from that sushi lunch, I had to get ready for afternoon tea with my host family, the Nemotos.
I'd bought them some souvenirs while I was in Malaysia and wanted to give it to them. They took  me to this cute little French cafe in Mito called Le Blanc.

I could smell heaven as soon as I got out of the car.

We talked about the 3/11 earthquake and just did some catching up.

How cool is the tea set? That's the timer for your tea.

I ordered 80% Organic Cocoa. It came with a dollop of fresh cream. This is the best cocoa drink I've ever had. 

Mango Mousse Cake

Fruit Cake

Milafile

They bought 2 cakes for me take home, this is the Passionfruit Mousse

Pinafore or something, basically almond based cake.

The cool packaging for my cakes

We also stopped by at a traditional Japanese sweet shop

The cute candy

Sugar Castella, had this for breakfast. D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!

I always get something awesomely appetising every time we meet. I can't wait for next time.

Ber-Sushi

The Genki Ondo Sushi place near our college recently got an upgrade and they renovated everything. It's now called Oubei Sushi. The place is so cool now. There's a touch-screen now instead of the old 'press this button and someone will come take your order' thing.

There's also a cool 3 lane sushi row now. The bottom level is for the sushi that you just take whichever you want, the 2nd and 3rd level is for the special orders that you've made through the touch screen. There's also a game on the screen and if you win, you either get a free toy or miso soup. Fun fun fun, right?

There's also ice-cream and a new selection of desserts as well.

The stuffs you'll need to enjoy your sushi

3 lanes of fun fun fun! That's the menu there.

Unagi; delicious!

All time favourite - Salmon Mayo Aburi

Err..forgot the name. So tasty too!

You can't go wrong with some raw salmon

My nearly finished Matcha Mousse Cake. Heavenly.

The game.

We decided to get a toy. Use this coin to have a go at the toy machine thingy.

We spent nearly 2 hours there just stuffing ourselves with food and talking about really lame people that don't stop trying to shove their political  bullshit down your throats on Facebook.

Poetry; Grab It By The Testicle

Good Morning John, and all of the rest of you
I come to you now from this familiar vestibule
with advice for the graduates of college and high school
A familiar format, the well meaning nice tool
who'll grant you this, a afternoon's savor
for cash or a favor, food with no flavor
inspring advice for the next few days
You'll do well, have some of this koolaid.

It's time, you must bite of the cherry of life
It'll taste like fear and hope and diet coke and rainbows
But don't be surprised when the pain grows
this is kinda gonna suck, you can't abstain though

There is no "do not"
There's no effin try
There's no "I don't wanna"
It's life...If you don't like it then die

Wait no, I'm not condoning suicide
Just trying to be motivational
overly sensational
You get it, I'm sure
So I abjure

Oh, you don't know what Abjure means?
Ehhhh..maybe you're not as prepared as you seem
It's like rejecting an error but with a bit extra care
I'm pretty sure they should have taught you that
I'm making a point, you don't know jack
The best of you can hope to have been taught to learn
To yearn for more that you'll still have to earn

You're not ending learning, you're ending this one structure
And OK, I'm starting to sound like a schmuck, sure
But you're gonna keep learning, one way or the other
Whether it's how to make change or be someone's mother
Or make music or toffee or coffee or spread sheets
Or hotels or laws or web sites or bed sheets.

And don't think "but I majored in lit I won't do that $#*%"
I majored in chemistry, what did I do with it?
I make videos for nerds, an entrepreneur
I taught myself 90% of what I've learned

And that's normal, average, boring, but true
And for most hearing this it's be true of you too
It should be, if it's not, that life's hardly real
And that's scary, sure, be wary but deal
Insecurity is something you will always feel

The deep dark yawning pit of the next step of your life
Might look like a fall but it could be a flight
And who knows, that pit might be filled with ice cream
maybe you're lactose intollerant, but you get what I mean

Or maybe pain and failure is all that's awaiting you
I'm just baiting you.
Whether your facing hell or a festival
My point here, right now, is grab it by the testicle.

Make it your bitch! This is all you've got!
Your one shot, it's short, it's actually probably not
But while you grab life by the balls be careful with people
Don't be a creep or you might find a deep hole
Success might be however you define it
But if you define it wrong, you're never gonna find it.

Or even if you do, it'll suck to know
that you got there at the expense of those
who you love, or would have, if you'd ever even tried
Because it's not he-who-has-the most toys when he died
It's just life, and if you're not at least trying to be happy then why?

So ONE you don't know jack, TWO be nice to others.
Whether you become executives, or barristas or stay-at-home mothers
And lastly, have fun, OK that's all, I think I'm done

And, that was a pretty good denoumont
So uhhhh...I'll see you on wednesday John.

------

I can't resist a man so good with words. 

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Golden Week #4 : Yamanashi

    While Angela went straight back to Ibaraki, I, who didn't have class on Friday, went to Yamanashi. I slept at Fifi's house and got to eat her delicious ayam sambal. Bahagia giler, I tell you.

    On Friday night, Fifi and I went to Kak Jijah's place for dinner then to a 24/7 bowling arcade. I was already getting pretty sleepy since I've rarely slept past 12am during the vacation that I took a little nap in the karaoke room while everyone else was singing their hearts out. We started bowling around 1.30am and after that at around 4am we all went to the nearby Gusto for supper/really-early-breakfast. I was beyond knackered. Then went home and slept till noon.

   After everyone had woken up, we all went to a Fruits Farm. Yamanashi is awesome because of the amazing view of Mount. Fuji and also because of all the fruits that they grow there. There was also a Tropical Green House and we found bunga kertas! Macam terkejut gak.

   That evening we had dinner at a nice Indian restaurant. The guys wanted to go to the futsal match but because we spent too much time eating, they couldn't have made it in time. Too bad. That night, Fifi and I watched Tangled. I left for Ibaraki in the afternoon, the next day.

Fuji-chan comel di belakang

Rumah Fifi & Abg Sap

Takkan ku lupakan Malaysia

  Felt awesome to be back in my tiny hostel room and to be reunited with my beloved futon. A mountain of laundry was awaiting my presence.

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Golden Week #3 : Osaka Part 2 & Nara

 The next day we went to Osaka Castle and walked around the grounds. We also went to the Umeda Sky Building and the Kaiyukai. The Kaiyukai is the largest aquarium in Asia, or was it the world? I forgot. It was awesome inside but so full of people that in some spots in became hard to see the wildlife and all I could see was the back of people's head. If you want to go, you should go early because the lines to get inside are just horrendous. Also, you have to wait twice. Once, to get the ticket which shows what time you can enter the aquarium and the second time to buy the tickets when your time has come.

A museum in the Osaka-jo ground

Osaka Castle

Mascot Osaka-jo

The Kaiyukan

We also went for a ride on the Santa Maria, which takes you around the Osaka Bay Area.
Universal Studios Japan is just across the harbour

Night view of Osaka from the top of the Umeda Sky Building
￥700 per entry for adults、totally worth it 

The day after that, we took a train to Nara which is about 30 minutes from Kyoto. Nara is really famous for all its old temples and also a huge Buddha statue. Let's not forget the numerous amounts of deer just walking around Nara Park. Sightseeing around Nara is easy because everything is within walking distance of the Nara station. To get to all the tourist spots would probably take you around 2 hours.

Famous pagoda that I have forgotten the name of

Angela with one of the many freely-roaming deers

A scary statue behind me

With Nara's mascot

Met with SiGee after we came back from Nara

After we came back from Nara, met up with Si Gee. We all went over to Shinsaibashi again to shop some more then had dinner at a yummy Thai restaurant along the river that runs through there.

On our last day, we checked out around 11 and went to have lunch at a Malaysian restaurant, Malay Boleh. The food there is delicious. I ordered pineapple fried rice, the others ordered tom yam, sate and a bunch of other dishes. It was all delicious and the prices aren't bad either.

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Golden Week #2 : Osaka Part 1

After we were done with Kyoto, we took a train to Osaka in the morning.  We had lunch at the station and then headed off to our hotel, Hotel Raizan South, and then went to Shinsaibashi and Dohtonburi. Both of these places are famous for being the place to shop, eat and entertain. At Shinsaibashi, we saw so many cool and quirky store fronts unlike any I've seen in Tokyo. There were so many people too. It was just like a sea of heads, stylish heads, I might add.

Our lunch at the 駅, Omrice with Crab Croquet.

In front of the Glico building, no idea why this spot is so famous

Shinsaibashi, it's about 3km long, I think

My dinner, Unagi(eel) bento and Hot Soba 

A famous crab place

Osaka is famous for its Takoyaki(squid fried batter) and Okonomiyaki(mixed pancake)

Takoyaki stall

Ramen restaurant, there was a really long line in front of it so I assume the food there is delicious

Cool store front #1

Cool store front #2

Rows and rows of bicycles, the main from of transportation in these areas

       A truly traumatic thing happened to me while shopping at Shinsaibashi, which is I lost my wallet. I was about to pay for an awesome leather jacket and I reached into my handbag to get my wallet when my hand met with air. Goddamn nothing! 

       Obviously, I started freaking out. I told the sales clerk that I couldn't quite locate my wallet and that I'll be back later. I rushed to Angela and asked her if I might have dropped my wallet into one of the shopping bags she was holding. No such luck. 

      We then started retracing our steps and walked back into all the stores that I'd shopped at before. My tears started pouring out drop by drop. Here I am, a foreigner, on a distant land and I had absolutely no identification on me. I could be thrown in jail, for crying out loud!

      I asked Angela to find the nearest Koban, which is a police booth, so that I could report my missing wallet and we walked in the direction that Google maps told us to. Just before we were about to make a turn towards the Koban, I noticed a shoe store that I'd entered and had bought a pair of gladiator flats and decided to ask the store clerk about my wallet.

"I've lost my wallet. Did you find one in the store about an hour ago?" I said(all this happened is Japanese).
"What does your wallet look like?"
"It's a pink Coach wallet, it's kind of rectangular-shaped."
"Then yes, we do have your wallet. Here you go."

I felt like kissing her and giving her the biggest bear hug on this side of the equator. I've found it! *happy dance

Because I was feeling kind of tired due to the crying and wallet-searching, we went to YogurtLand and had ourselves a nice big cup delicious dessert.

Having a bite at YogurtLand, notice the puffy eyes?

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Vending Machines

In every other city around the world, you might find a vending machine for sodas, mineral water, snacks and even fruit but in Japan, they take it up a notch.

A Haagen-Dazs vending machine. Due to the economy, Haagen is cheap in Japan, which is also what makes the Godiva drink bar at Harajuku seem affordable.

A vending machine for instant noodles. Notice that there is a place where you get the hot water for the noodles and the box at the bottom provides eating utensils.

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