stolen colours

To hide museum
Took the Keikyu Express to Yokosuka-chuo – a rather long ride of 43 minutes from Shimbashi station. Yokosuka-chuo is something like a heartland, with a heartland mall right on top of the station ^^;; That’s how I very roughly related it to something I was familiar with. Alanna and I had to walk out to the seaside, and then along the beach for a long while to get to the museum. It was SO WINDY! Oh, it was fun to be battling the wind and cursing the flying sand. Me, battling wind! Ohohohohoho.

hide museum
The first thing we did upon arriving was to stamp ink stamps on various pieces of paper on our person. Then we entered the museum. There were 3 rooms showcasing memorabilia, costumes, photoshoots, guitars etc. There were pictures that I’d never seen before. In the third room there was a model of hide and snakes in a case under the floor, which had a transparent lid. Quite impressive. It was sad and happy all at the same time. I only got a little overwhelmed on the train back to Tokyo when there was nothing else to think about.
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Wore a borrowed GL dress from Ivory to Harajuku. Unfortunately, in an attempt to keep the size of my luggage down, I didn

The most packed day of the entire trip.

Tsukiji Fish Market
We got up at 4.30am so as to reach the market before all the fish were sold off. The market is huge and the fish are huge. I had no idea that tuna were such large animals; since they always come shredded in cans, I used to think that they were ikan bili-sized. Guess not. The market was a wonderful experience, well worth the early trip down. (Of course I was the only one who would have gotten up at 4.30am anyway *curses body clock* regardless of bedtime) I was taking a general shot of the market when a fish-seller in the shot spontaneously grinned and did the V-sign ^^;; I guess they’re all very used to tourists, though a group of 4 young girls may be less commonly seen.

Sushi breakfast
The ring of shops surrounding the market has whole lines of sushi shops – there’s even a store directory that the policeman kindly gave us when we asked him for directions to Sushi-Dai. Sushi-Dai had an unreasonably long queue at its door, so we went to another place. The sushi chef at the counter hammed it up for us ^;; He’s such a funny guy.

I’m never going to eat sushi in Singapore again.

The sushi in Japan is heavenly. *starts drooling*

The shops around Tsukiji Market sell everyday items and PAPER. I bought some letter pads ^^
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The hotel gives us free breakfast at several restaurants, so we tried the Sandwich set at some French restaurant today. Big waste of money; no wonder the place was rather … deserted.

After breakfast we set out for the Japanese Sword Museum, situated in a sleepy little residential area. The nearest station was a quaint old one, and we had to walk for ages before getting to the museum. It was rather fascinating there; the blades got longer, then shorter as the eras passed. The hilt and scabbard, the blade patterns… it was a great introduction to swords.
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I took a sleeping pill on the plane and zonked out totally, to the extent that the nice Japanese lady beside me had to clamber over me to get to the toilet. Oops. Took the airport limousine bus to Shinjuku Washington Hotel – cost me 3000 yen @*$#Y$* Tokyo has so many tiers of flyovers that it’s confounding. I didn’t really like my first glimpse of the city because everything was tall, grey, and rectangular. It was rather depressing.

The hotel room was tiny, though lynn later told me that that’s normal in Tokyo. We just dumped our stuff, then set out again to wander around the alleys of Nishi-Shinjuku. Soba for lunch, and Japanese fast food (really cheap) for dinner ^^;; There are numerous discount stores all over the place that sell stuff at rather low prices e.g. 500ml-bottles of Coke for 100yen. Being Singaporean we patronised them.

Alanna was rather fascinated by “the suits” – entire armies of office workers in black business suits as they waited at traffic lights. *lol* Quite a sight too, I must say.

Wanted to go to Ikebukuro to find Mangakan, but I didn’t have a map of it, and no one we asked seemed to know of the place, so we ended up wandering into alleys. We did chance upon other anime/manga stores where I got Gundam SEED stuff, and Brand-X as well. Ohohohoho.

Am now at Tokyo Narita Airport using the internet in the lobby while waiting for the limousine bus. Quite fun so far. Alanna and I apparently look Japanese because everyone speaks to us in Japanese. Don’t know if that’s good or bad ^^;;

(both of us are not versed in Japanese AT ALL.)

To hugebaka: ego booster for you – my friends think you’re not bad looking.

Alright folks, I’ll be away from today onwards and returning at 11.35PM on 3rd June. DO NOT SMS OR CALL MY HANDPHONE IN THE MEANTIME, because Mother is using my phone. I’m using her account for roaming. And if you need to email me about something urgent, please don’t use plhu@mensa.org.sg because it’s the victim of a few hundred spam messages a day. Just use masque [dot] black-brollies [dot] net or plhu1984 [dot] hotmail [dot] com instead.

Happy holidays!

I am so sorry!
Really should have said ‘nine pm’ instead of just ‘nine’. This reminds me of all those bad alarm clock jokes that go ‘James set his alarm clock for 11 and went to bed at 8. How many hours did he sleep?’

p.s. high context conversation cannot be carried out via chat programmes…

I went with my sister to the paediatrician’s for a routine checkup. An interesting bit of information I gleaned from there:

The eldest is usually shortest, and the third child tallest. (taking the sex difference into account, of course) This is because the first child is the pioneer who stretches the mother’s womb, such that the subsequent children have it easier. Things go downhill for the fourth child onwards, though.

No wonder I was the shortest baby at birth. And now stand 3 cm shorter than my still-growing sister.

Please let it happen.