I've got a job!

on 6/24/2009 07:42:00 PM

Yup that's right. No more Neet for me *cries*
It was a short but fun time *wave hanky*

But still there's not much changes in my current lifestyle.. wearing pajamas whole day at home, hugging my lappie in the living room and playing with Hiro once in a while, besides making lunch delivery to my parents in the afternoon, doing some chores and jogging for a bit in the evening.

It's practically the same mundane routine but yeah. I've gotten a work-from-home job! Specifically it's a manga translation job. The job scope is to translate the original manga from Japanese to English and apply them on the manga conversation bubbles. Sounds easy but it's a really time consuming and brain squashing job. Well at least I am forced to learn new japanese vocabularies and at the same time getting paid!

Thanks to my lil' sister's help, I've manage to finish the first assignment in 2 days. There's about 20 pages of gag doujin with fair amount of conversation bubbles lol. Then I have to re-learn the font setting and sound effect wordings, since last time in alpha years the only scanlation practice I had was in Chinese. so I went to The Idiot's Guide to Editing Manga to get all the fonts needed and some basic know-hows. Neat~

Anyway I've got my pay! It's only 15USD but what the heck. It's still my first pay from a job I really enjoy. So hopefully there will be much more to come! Ganbarimasu!

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Hiro!!

on 6/18/2009 11:39:00 PM

It's been a few days since the last post, because I've been busy playing RO2 and lazying at home lol. This post will be about my dog named Hiro.


Unlikely as it seems, I suggested the name after Hiro Nakamura in Heroes lol.

He first came to our house in June 2007 looking very tiny and uncared for, with his fur all patchy. Then my auntie aka godmother took care of him like a precious baby.


My godmother's holding Tiny Hiro. Notice the paws are all black except one at the right leg? cute right XD


then after a month his fur become smooth and nice under my godmother's loving care *got jealous abit back then*


Hiro likes tapiocas and couldn't sleep without them. So we had to buy a bagful as his pillow :p.


Then when he got bigger a little bit, we gave him a collar with bells and a pillow too, but he likes to sleep on his back, paws facing up.


Hiro likes car rides too. whenever we go out on our kancil, there's a special seat for him on the dashboard. Later as he got too big for it, the rear seat became his throne.


Not to mention bucket ride too lol. This time around his ears are not droopy anymore. We'd hope his ears would be like the Labrador type but apparently not T.T


It's bathing time! My godmother bath him there with hot shower then later dry him using hairdryer. Both luxuries are not even available for my 5 years in Melaka *bites handkerchief*

So Hiro grew longer and not taller in time, but he still likes to sleep on his back, just that his limbs became too heavy to lift up so it become like this.


One hotdog playing dead there lol


Did I mention that Hiro is a poser? when we say 美美(meimei), meaning pretty in chinese, he will keep still and look at the camera. no kidding! Hiro and his vanity lol. the weird blue thingie is his favourite squeky soft toy.


He have a lot of them actually. small baby soft toys and teddy too.


Hiro is feigning a depressed look. I din torment him with multiple shoots ok?

And so Hiro has been the king of the house ever since he came, leaving the other dog Coco in the shadow, sad and neglected.. No la. Just kidding. But yea the love is halved di..


Coco is chained outside our house with a pethouse of his own while Hiro roam free in our house. It can't be help cos Coco would pee in our house if we let him in >.<

And so this is our Hiro for whom we'll be buying a bday cake to celebrate his upcoming 2nd birthday this month!

Happy Birthday Hiro!

P.S. No animals were harmed during the production of the photo shots in this blogpost. maybe just mildly annoyed :D

P.P.S in response to sherwin's question, here's a pic taken today lol.

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Hekinan City + other pics

on 6/13/2009 03:10:00 PM

As promised, more Japan pictures spam! Today we will focus on pictures taken in 碧南市(Hekinan City) in 愛知県(Aichi Prefecture), of which the munipal council had co-organized the homestay program I participated.


This is the Hekinan-shi Highschool, taken from the highest building in town, the 市役所(shiyakusho), Municipal office. They have their own swimming pool leh, everyone one of those highschools, even though they only use it for like 2 months each year, june and september nia, according to the 4 seasons. I do wonder why we don't even have a pool in university, let alone highschools when we having sunny weather all year round over here. *grumbles*


and these are the houses in the town looking all cramped up. Did I mention that the roads in the housing area are super sempit too? It's like only 1 lane and you have to stop at the side letting the opposite way's car to pass barely. That's why car license is so expensive and hard to get in Japan.. I won't even dare to drive there!


The Hekinan city's flower is 花しょうぶ(Hana shoubu) or commonly known as Iris. This is the iris garden with different species of colorful Iris flowers.


Close up on the Iris flowers. it grows on muddy field and shoot up on a green stalk. since the 2nd part of the name "shoubu" sounds the same as the kanji 勝負, meaning victory/defeat match, I was like "flower fighto~" all the while in the garden annoying our homestay organizers lol.


Oh yeah. Here's another manhole in Hekinan city. the pattern is of the city flower, Iris instead if you notice.


After the walk in the iris garden, we went to a traditional teahouse to drink 抹茶(maccha) which is the powdered green tea prepared by the owner. It's abit bitter but has rich green tea flavour. the もち(mochi) at the side is suppose to be eaten before drinking the tea, so that you will savour the maccha's richness fully.


A quarter of Hekinan City is covered by paddy fields and other plantations, so we went to a farm, in which we are standing in the corn field.


We even get to harvest the humongous onions! Not to mention potatoes too! we were struggling to pull and dig them off the ground and rose victorious XD

That's about it for the tour pictures in Hekinan City~
So next up will be random pics!


This is Makudonarudo. If you say Mc Donald there no one will understand you. Anyway most importantly it's the menu!! got Bacon Burger aka Pork! XD in case you din notice it's the 4th from the top left. Besides there's Cheese Katsu too, on the bottom left, aka Pork!! *bliss* btw the Prawn burger is nice too lol. the cashier was nice enuf to hold up the menu for me to take pic *sampat* XD


And do you know they use bullet train to deliver your sushi in 回転寿司 (kaitensushi) shop? very efficient. and not to mention you use touch screen to order too, but that's available in msia so I won't show the pic la.


Oh and this was what my host family fed me for Welcoming party on the first night. XD Seriously very fresh and nice. No more Sushi King for me, ever. oh the gold covered container are 茶碗蒸し(chawanmushi) which was bought from the cold storage department. you can eat it cold too apparently :p


Speaking of train, here's the 普通電車(futsuu-densha)'s track. It's the normal railway for travelling within the city. Speed's like KTM nia lo but unlike KTM, very on time.


While travelling on highway to see mount fuji, I was lucky enough to see the wellknown 鯉幟(koi nobori) or the carp banner/windsock, which is traditionally hung up for the boy's day (5th of May), signifying energy and strength as the carp 'swims' upstream. Each carp represents a boy, with the upper and biggest carp as the eldest son.


And on the way to see Fuji-san, we detoured to this 由比桜えび通り(Yui Sakura Ebi Toori). the Street is famous for prawns which are pink when they're still alive, hence the name sakura ebi XD


And this is me eating the sakura ebi tempura set XDD The restaurant we went to was called 海の庭 (Umi no Niwa), with surrounding glasswalls overlooking the sea and the mountain side by side.

Well erm cos I like food so I apologize if there's too many food pic lol.
Let me know if you got other things you wanna see so i'll upload more of them instead!

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Kyoto Pictures!

on 6/11/2009 07:53:00 PM

2nd round of Japan homestay picture spam!
Beware of plenty pictures coming through!

Here I'll show some of the infamous tourist spots which you might seen or heard of from anime and manga, in which the main chara go there for school trips and touring XD


No I'm not going to stick this on my forehead like a zombie in Chinese horror movies :p It is in fact the entrance ticket to 金閣寺 (Kinkaku-ji), the Golden Pavilion Temple, located in Kyoto.


Which is this Golden castle, with its wall all tinned with gold foils. Note that the bird there is not an ornament. It's very picturesque right?


Japan is the land of vending machines. so it's not unusual to have ice cream vending machine.


If you can have anything sold using vending machine, it is just logical to be able to get おみくじ (omikuji) or fortune paper from there too.


Next off is the super popular 清水寺 (Kiyomizutera), one of the amazing architectures in japan where the temple is built on wooden scaffolding with no nails or screws.


If the temple is not cool enough, this is the more frenzied spots called 音羽の滝 (Otowa no Taki) meaning otowa's waterfall. It is said that if you drink from the streams you will get either longevity, beauty or success in studies, from left to right respectively. if you drink all it will lead to misfortune due to your greediness lol.


And this is another must go place for young people, called 地主神社 (Jishu-jinja), a love shrine :p this is the place where there's a pair of rocks 60 feet apart and if you managed to walk from one to another blindfolded then you will find your true love. Too bad we din get to go there due to time constraint *cries*

After getting my share of お守り (omamori) or charm amulets for souvenirs, we went ahead to the 東大寺 (Toudai-ji) in Nara, and yes it's where there's alot of deers waiting to chew off any paper material from you.


This is the entrance, with deers among the crowd behind me if you noticed XD.


And we of course would take picture of them like mad, but they had gotten used to it.


Omg it only has one horn nia! and yes it's giving us the "Where's my 100 yen biscuit? go get me my biscuit from the vendor machine dammit!" look.


So after being chased by the deers, we seek refuge in the temple, which is the largest wooden building in the world, and having the worlds biggest great buddha statue in it. *thank buddha*


It seems that in order to get good fortune we have to go through the hole at a pillar behind the buddha which is said to be the same size as the statue's nostril. I din wan't to get stuck inbetween it so I'll pass ^^;

After Nara we went back to Heikinan city and so this is it for the visiting trip around Kyoto. Will upload more pics of homestay in Japan on next post!

For previous homestay picture post click here.

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NEET is Fun

on 6/10/2009 04:12:00 PM

NEET is an acronym for the government classification "Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training". It was first used in the United Kingdom but its use has spread to other countries, including Japan, China and South Korea.

In Japan, the classification comprises people aged between 15 and 34 who are unemployed, unmarried, not enrolled in school or engaged in housework, and not seeking work or the technical training needed for work. The ‘NEET group’ is not a uniform set of individuals but consists of those who will be NEET for a short time while essentially testing out a variety of opportunities and those who have major and often multiple issues and are at long term risk of remaining disengaged.

As plucked from Wikipedia.

After finishing my last paper, I am proud to say that I now fit the bill to be called a NEET! It's been two weeks (or was it three? time flies) since my last paper had ended, and you bet I've been having fun through and through until now.

To recall back, right after exam on Tuesday I had dinner with Shuyin and Lynn in kokiya, leaving poor loomun at home cracking her brains for her final paper on thursday. Then Wednesday we had a class gathering in Seoul garden, about 16 of us there which was alot of fun where we kinda make signature gestures of our lecturers throughout our course and guess who it was. The next day we had a close fren's bbq gathering in Alan's house and that's cool too while busy writing/signing Anne's and jon's sigma books. Then Friday whole day is spent in Muar, with William, Jun, CP, Weiyong, Loomun and Suj. The food was really great there, where we went to the famous street of hawker food for otak-otaks and half way to yong peng for the mouth watering yam ring basket. Photos will be uploaded when I get them, hopefully *stares at someone*

The night on sat we had our EMiNA Gang Last Gathering in Wazen, where we have 11 of us there making silly poses at the facade of the restaurant *haven't grown up*



there's Qj, Kristine, LooMun, me and Lynn on the left, and Khurshid, Nazrin, Edo, Shuyin and Dexter on the right. Jin's snapping the pic lol.


My best friends and housemates ever.

On Sunday, it's the House Moving day. In the morning I went out for branch with Motor uncle and his family at the Shun Fat Bak Kut Teh restaurant in town.


The motor uncle had been helping me uncountable times throughout my years in Melaka, although he's abit on the rough side and always pulling my leg whenever I see him.


I'll really miss his 2 kids Ah Hock and Ah Pei too. Before we parted I gave them all the GACC sponsor stuffs leftovers.

Then after clearing the house completely (took several hours to move our boxes of stuff accumulated for 4 years @.@) and getting back our deposits from the agent, Mr. Sanjay, who is going to be married end of june *super busy*, we went around the house once more time, and left our home for 4 years. So goodbye, our Melaka home!

Before Loomun and I went to the bus sentral, we had dinner in Sakura House, which was not really that splendid after all. Wat you pay is wat you get i suppose. Won't really recommend it to people but hey, i'll leaving melaka di so nvm!

After 6-7 hours of bus trip *backache* I'm back to my beloved raintown. It was 3.30am when i reached but yey the HoShin (raingod in hokkien) who always triggers the 'rain' switch whenever she wash her clothes is finally back to her hometown.
Home sweet home~

To everyone I know throughout the past 5 years, I'm glad to have you as my classmates/friends during my life in MMU. I will treasure the moments we have together and will miss you all dearly. Even if our paths may not cross again, the times we had always hold true to me. Good luck in all your future headings and see you at MMU convocation in August!

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