Day 5

We just arrived in Tokyo at 7:30am this morning. Wayy too early for me, or anyone sane for that matter. We got to our hostel at 10:30am but had to wait til 2pm to checkin. Total killer! The obvious solution of course was to kill time by facebooking lol.

As soon as we got upstairs (that's dragging 18.5kgs up 5 flights of stairs!!!) I think we just konked out from exhaustion. And that's pretty much how we spent our first day in Japan.. exciting, huh? haha but you've gotta love the ikea boxes we're sleeping in. They're actually pretty spacious. Basically, they're like bunkbeds but instead of being beds, they are these big box/cabin things with sliding doors that you sleep in. They even come with a built-in light, shelf and powerpoints hehe. Pretty awesome, or so I think anyway.

Now, is it just me or is there some unspoken rule in japan that all girls must speak in a cute voice?? Because no kidding, every person I've come across so far speaks in that cutesy jap voice. Nothing wrong with it, but it's abit odd when you think about it lols.

I think it's about time for me to start budgeting and sticking to it.. I think I spent $550 in 3 days while I was in KL. Don't know how I did that when everything's so cheap over there haha. If I keep going at that rate, I'm gonna be broke by the time I get back.. BUT in my defence, I now own a whole heap of cheap anime and accessories, woohoo!

Me and Mai also got fake nails put on for the very first time... yeah, let's just say I'm never doing that again. They look awesome but god, they're so impractical! You can't do anything with them on. Writing's hard, taking stuff out of your bag is hard, typing's hard, taking your contacts out is hard. Basically, doing ANYTHING is hard. I don't know how those girls do it. I just got so sick of it the day after that I just grabbed my nailclippers and chopped them down to normal sane sizes! Sigh. Never again.

Anyway time for me to eat. All I ate today was aeroplane bread and salad, and a packet of chips, and I'm starving!

Day 3

Tuesday 17/03/09

Time's flown so fast that it's day 3 already. Perhaps it's a good thing that the computer at the hotels not working, and that I'm too lazy to go over to the net cafe across the road very often. This is only the 2nd time (and only because I have to write emails to my mum!).

We got to Kuala Lumpur at 11:30pm on Sunday (2:30am melb time) and to our hotel probably around 12:30 or so, so we were TIRED. But being our first night, we couldn't just sit in our hotel room so we decided to go for a walk around our neighbourhood. Quite a silly thing to do for 3 young girls to do at that time of night, but we didn't realise that til later. Now, the area we're staying in is kind of the nightlife/entertainment/sh

opping area (we're staying on Jalan Bukit Bintang) so it was still nice and alive even though it was past midnight. But I have to say, the amount of unwanted attention you get over here would astonish you.. I never had this problem in vietnam. People may have looked but they never said anything. Here, they look at you, whistle at you, call out at you. And not just once in a while, but constantly. It's really uncomfortable and extremely scary at night time especially when we're just walking down the road and suddenly there's 5 guys following us. I swear I wanted to turn around and say FUCK OFF. but obviously, that would be a silly thing to do in the middle of the night. This was all on our walk to the Petronas Twin Towers by the way (don't think I mentioned that before), and it was just our luck that the minute we arrived at the towers, they turned off the lights that were lighting up the tower. That was the entire reason we walked there in the first place to take photos, so we were pretty shattered and had to hike back to our hotel haha.

Anyway we're going to go back to the towers now and get a proper look at go up to the Skybridge and I'm actually running late now so I'll update later on!

Still stuck in melbourne..

So it turns out I'm not heading to Ballarat today.. actually, no one with a rural placement is heading out to the country towns because of the bushfire threat. Guess we'll just have to sit tight and wait for news about when it'll be safe to head out there. Ballarat seems alright though, I don't think it's in a particularly risky area at all so we'll most likely be heading up there some time tomorrow. Yay, one less day of slaving.

I think yesterday was a record-breaker heatwise. What I don't understand though, is why there are arsonists trying to start these fires? What kind of sick, twisted idiot gets a thrill from destroying peoples homes and the unnecessary loss of life?? 35 dead and rising, yet there are still people trying to relight the fires that have already been controlled.. i just don't get it. I really wish I knew what goes through their head as they do stuff like that.. sigh. Hopefully abit of sense gets knocked into their heads real soon.

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So on a different topic that's not so sad, the past couple of weeks have been fun. I've seen Phuong more in the past few weeks than I have in the past 4 years haha. And I seriously missed the girl when she went to qld. I'm glad she's back though, and I shall see her later today before I head off to Ballarat tomororw. I'll miss her even more when I'm up there =[

Hmm.. I think I'm also learning to take things as they come. Go with the flow, right? haha yeh.. I think I just need to seperate the past from the present and realise that just because some things have similarities, it doesn't mean that they're the same. Or that the same things will repeat itself. I'm learning! hahaha

Phuong is taking her sweet time. What was meant to be lunch is now turning quickly into dinner and I am STARVING.

The summer that finally came

I've spent all summer basically wondering where the hell summer went, and then finally decided that it wasn't happening this year... when BAM it hits you when you least expect it. All week long. Not even a single days break. 40+ weather for days straight is a bitch, I tell you. Especially when all you have at work is circulated air and a fan. NOT happy.

Oh yeh, I had my first 'proper' counselling session in viet at work a few days ago. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but my viet sucks. Like, really truly sucks. So imagine me trying to talk to this viet girl who can barely even speak any english.. and of all things I had to counsel for, it had to be for the morning after pill. That means, I had to go through every single question on the form with her and literally translate it. Lots of hand gesturing on my behalf as you can imagine. Plus, the inevitable 'how many times have you had unprotected sex since your last cycle' question which went something like this (in viet though):

Me: Uhhh... how many uhh.. umm how many times.. uhh.. you know.
Girl: Huh?
Me: Ummm well, how many times.. sorry, i don't know how to say it in viet.
Girl: How many times have I had my period?
Me: Nah nah, I mean.. you know.. uhh..
Girl: (getting completely lost now)
Me: Well, you know sex right? (giggles) uhhhh... how many times did you have it without.. a.. uhh.. bao cao su?? (more giggling)

Smooth yeh? I said sex in english too hahaha.. you biet sex right? LOL totally uncool. I never want to do that again. Ever. Please. And thank god I remembered the word for condom from all those damn posters in vietnam, because I sure as hell don't know what I would have done if I had to explain that to her using my hand gestures haha =]

The reason I don't update much is because my life is boring. So boring that if I shared the details with you, you'd wake up dead the next morning. Death by boredom.

Well, the past week hasn't been so boring actually. I've been out and about alot with Phuong recently, probably because there's no longer anyone to tell me off for hanging out with her. The poor girl has had to do so many long drives up and down, but I'm sure she's loving it ;) I don't think I've been home a single day in the past week, which is partly good because I'm trying to enjoy what little time I have left before Ballarat and uni, and partly bad because I haven't had much time to do anything else really. This year is going to be a drainer. Too many things on my plate.. but luckily I've put off piano and violin for the time being.. never thought I would live to see the day where my mum would suggest that to me but yeh..

Hmm, what else has been happening since I got back... I guess I've reacquainted myself with some old friends, and made some new ones too ;) We'll see how that goes.. and I'll keep you updated I guess =]

Sorry haibo told you this update was going to be boring haha =p

Counting down

51 days to go and I sure as hell am counting every single one of them. And it feels all the more closer since we've started booking places to stay. We've decided to stay at backpackers hostels since it's a whole lot cheaper, and I have to say they look pretty decent. But we'll be backpacking minus the backpacks haha. That's right, we're going to be one of those girls that bring suitcases with them to hostels haha well who cares! It's not like we're trekking anywhere far and distant. We're going from the train station to the hostel. Period. And we're only staying in 3 places in Japan so it's not like we're moving around a whole lot.

So here's a glimpse of where we'll be staying:

Kuala lumpur

Bintang Warisan Hotel:

Tokyo

Khaosan Tokyo Ninja:

yeh! we're sleeping in boxes! haha

Kyoto

K's House Kyoto:

Osaka

Go Osaka hostel:

Ahh... I cbb with the photos so here is the website
Lalala, I'm so excited! Cannot wait!

Parents + technology... hmmm...

My mum makes me laugh. Actually, if you combine old people (i.e. parents) with technology, it's pretty damn funny. I know, i know, I shouldn't laugh at them... they didn't grow up with this technology, blah blah blah who cares. It's funny.

Although I have to say, my mum has learnt how to email, chat and videocall so she's not too shabby in that department. But every once in a while something happens to remind you of how much they really are clueless in this department... like this:

Scenario:
Mum is trying to dial a number on her mobile phone. She comes up to me and asks me why it's not ringing, so I dial the number for her and it works fine right.
Then she comes up to me again later and goes, vy it's not ringing again.. look, i'm pressing in the number. So she presses the numbers in to show me - 9xxxxxxx. And then stares at me. It's not ringing. I stare back at her and go, mum you have to press the dial button for it to you know, dial. LOL i love her.

So anyway, not much has been happening in my life lately and thus I haven't been posting up anything. Just work, work, work and sitting at home. I totally need to get myself a life.

BUT one exciting thing (well, sort of) that's happened is that I now know where I'm going for my rural placements... BALLARAT! Ok, so it's not exactly 'rural' per say.. actually, it's a pretty freakin big town.. but for a group of people with no car, it's a great location. Guess I'll be walking that 30 minutes to work seeing as I'd have to leave even earlier if I was to take the bus. Plus, I'd have to take 2 buses just to go down the road from our house and turn left.. pretty pointless really. Luckily for me, I sure as hell need as much exercise as I can get. Must slim down before my trip to Japan so I can squash myself into their tiny sizes. It's going to be a repeat of vietnam.. depressing much? Oh, and talking about exercise, I turned on my Wiifit yesterday and it's been 169 days since I last logged on. And mind you, the last time I logged on was to let some friends who were over play it haha terrible, I know.

We're staying at Curnow, a bed and breakfast place in Ballarat. Looks pretty damn nice, and it comes with a bbq, can't wait!

Sensation bitches

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