Prowler

Living in the Darkness,
Always awaiting the opportunity,
Disregards any particular warmth,
Exploits the surroundings and weaknesses,
Tearing through all to reach its goal,
Devours,
Devours,
Devours,
Leaving none for scavengers,
Cold blooded yet not one by nature...

It's sad that you and I share the same traits and common name...

Forward

A decision made and acted upon should never be frown upon or worth regretting. This was how I have always felt about stuff. Sometimes, when the situation calls for a quick decision and to ease the suffering of related parties, it is made at the consideration of the well-being of all. It does not and never will be one sided; being such would only amount to regretting the decision made.

Reflecting on bad decisions made would always be the best way to learn. Regretting will get me nowhere as I would just keep pondering on my mistakes and yet not move forward. But does the other party sometime hope that you would move on so soon? I'd separate the time frame for both as short term and long term. Reflections being short term as you quickly address the wrong choice made and think of what you could have done to better it, leaving no time for remorse and jumping to the next phase. Regrets can last a lifetime, amounting to long term. You do not get over it and it comes back to haunt you all the time. You run from it, seek solace and possibly distract yourself from your negative emotions but yet, in the end everything hits you twice as hard and often lessons which could have been learned becomes irreversible scars, embedded into your memory, lasting to be worse memories that haunt you over and over again.

Scars do not heal over time. They are merely forgotten and are easily triggered by events, people. We only run away from them, burying them deep within but yet they spring forth faster than any sweet memory and eats into us. They are a reminder to us at times too, that in our happiest moments in life, that when we are probably at our most vulnerable moments, we must never be complacent and to be alert to avoid a possible comeback. So do we associate them with reflections or regrets? It is of a nature that takes two shapes... and often to how we would want to see it. Yet, the determination in human is such, that sometimes we think and feel that we have learned from a mistake, we truly haven't and it is just sitting there. Waiting for us. In its darkest moment, spring forth, causing more agony and regrets for life.

Prep Prep Prep Prep

So much happened this week (I lump in last week's saturday and sunday too)...

Foremost, on Saturday I went to ZARA for winter shopping! At last I got my winter clothes! They were costly but the design was good anyways and cost just $200 (on average per piece) than the ugly ones at WinterTime or any other so-called specialised winter clothes shops! Spent a total of $885 on 4 pieces... I think that's the norm right? There was this Sherlock holmes look alike one which was like $399, some other similar one which was $349, and a jacket which costes $199 and a normal cardigan (?) for about $99. I think ZARA's stuff are quite cheap actually... but some people told me that I can find better ones in UK itself... well, that's when I am there. Now, I am going there and surely I do not wanna be caught wearing the same stuff for like 1 month?!?

For sunday, I shopped mainly at parkway and the nearby stores... was DESPERATE for black stuff... I recall looking for black utensils etc but then there were none so I settled for white ones. Other than usual kitchenware, I got some nice electronic appliances too... Was actually set to get a normal boiling kettle for hot water... but instead got a superbly big one which can boil and store water for long.. it does quite a lot of rubbish too but I am not too sure of it at the moment. LOL. My wonderful steamboat set was also reduced to a small all-in-one kinda steamboat machine... I wanted one which the frying pan/wok would be over the heating element so I can just swap the wok for another etc... Oh well, it's ok either way... just not so convenient :P

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Oh yeah! Since this is about my prep, I shall lump this in too! I was SOOOOOOO glad that I managed to get my VISA! The Brit High Commission gave me up till 31 OCT 2011!! See how long I'd be away from dreaded SG! LOL. Did I mention my exit permit was approved too? It didn't even require much other than a few finger clicks! LOL. Now I'm really set for UK...

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Anyways, I managed to get my BLACK bedsheets set too... along with towels with black and brown patterns... why not all black right? It seems impossible to find any.. so I just make do with that... lol anyways the pattern looks good too so why not?

Now what I left with is...

Pillow n Bolster
eeePC
Black curtains (?) if it's really possible

Oh and I made my hair ash blonde yesterday... MWAHAHA

Still hanging onto life...

SO BORING! God... they pay me to just sit here... make the office room seems like there's human presence! -_- I think most probably those people will come in at about 530pm again... then ask me do some mediocre stuff.. seriously I should quit right? ARGH

Office life ~ CBRE

Gosh.. office life is damn boring... I can't imagine myself being like this in the near future... As of 21st July (ytdy) I started work at CB Richard Ellis. So boring... yesterday was busy but today seems to be so boring... my boss isn't around today but I guess he should be back anytime soon... Till then I can keep surfing the net...



I am looking at the new EEE pc by ASUS. Seems so tempting.. hope I can get my pay asap to grab it... then I'd be skipping away to UK with all my nice gadgets... Should I bring my Wii too? :D

ABC Roti Prata

Went over to ABC roti prata restaurant for supper with my Primary School friends last night after my party and happened to see an Angmoh getting beaten up by some locals. Really dramatic and sorta scary when the blood came gushing out and stuff... which leads me to my conclusion that Singapore is indeed no longer safe at all. Imagine all the crimes which are increasing, the rebellious students who punch bus drivers, and a lot more which is probably deemed impossible to ever happen 8-10 years back. I won't be surprise if we are to be rated a 'dangerous' city (amongst NY, London etc) in the near future. Sure we may not escalate to be the top danger zone but it's sad that we would never be able to reach something like NZ or Switzerland's peace at all...

Anyways, today I was so free at home and didn't feel like doing anything but to walk about lazily and lie about the house. I guess this is the typical aftermath of holding such a huge party... But Reagan and Joane called me out in the late afternoon for a movie and we went to watch Red Cliff (Kenneth came along too as he promised to). After the movie (Which lasted for 2.5hrs!!!) we were shocked to find that it was pouring outside! So we detoured and went to the 9th floor for a game of Dota and CS. It was soooooo disheartening as I was trashed and Ken was really noob. He kept dying like no tomorrow and Reagan couldn't help to kill much either. CS was dumb though as Reagan and Ken ganged me initially, but Reagan pitied me and joined sides with me against Ken after a while.

Japan Trip

Just got back from Japan last night! Really enjoyed it thoroughly as I managed to meet so many of my close friends!

Met up with Jeannie - it's been like forever since we last met 3 months ago! Hohoho. Jeannie is a really good friend of mine. Like a big sister most of the times.. sometimes she'd be like, "I've seen u grow up since a young boy..." And that's true! I've known Jeannie ever since I was like 1 year into studying Jap or less... I've seen her from the time she was in NUS till she grad and now getting married too... ahhhh how time flies~

Met up with Seiko... twice! - At first, I traveled to Himeji for the Yukata Matsuri and stayed there for a night... then the following day she took a day off from school and accompanied me for a short while... The shocking part is that... on the 4th (one day before I flew back to Singapore), she came to Hakata at night just to have dinner with me and send me off the following morning... while I felt that it was a total waste of money... I was a little touched too :P

Ayuka Takasuga - Ayuka is a really good friend of mine too... while she was in Singapore, we did so many stuff together like watching movies, having dinners, strolling in Orchard and even going on a trip to Thailand in Sept 06!!!... she treats me as a little brother and perhaps looks out for me on a lot of stuff... although she's really naggy. We did have a little friction while I was in there... which really made me feel bad for the next few days... but I am glad it was solved and hopefully no scars were left behind.

Keiko Gonoi - Keiko! Keiko! Keiko! Akita Bijin (Beautiful lady from Akita). Keiko is Ayuka's friend and went on a trip to Thailand with us. We met for a couple of more times after the trip and after Ayuka went back to Japan, we (together with Setsu) met practically every week for a movie... those wonderful slack times were great... hahaha. Too bad this time I only met her for a mere 2-3hrs! Keiko happened to be away for a long trip to India while I was in Japan! And on the night before I flew off to Okinawa (27th June), she came back and rushed down to Ikebukuro to meet me! It was so nice of her and great to catch up with her again...

Setsu Hagihara - Setsu is great! She moved over to Tokyo just less than a month ago when I met her and was trying her best to settle in with the rude Tokyo dwellers! We had Sushi at Shibuya... and she was complaining about Tokyo all the time! Although I love Tokyo for its modern culture and great shops, I do agree with her.. Tokyo people are a little too cold and unfriendly... She's having some problems with a horrid old woman at her work... hope she has it settled by now... BTW, she is Keiko's friend, and after I got to know her, together with Keiko, we watched movies every week!

Aki Okazaki - I met Aki twice! First was at Shinjuku, where she treated me to Tempura, and next was when we met for a whole day event to Odaiba! Where she picked me up at Shinjuku and drove there with her sister Yuki. We ate an expensive buffet for lunch and dinner and went for Karaoke after that. Shopping was so-so. All expenses were paid by Aki and she even drove me back... :D

Eriko Tsuru and Kumiko Kumate - It's only been 3 months since I last met them at Osaka and this time, we met at Okinawa, together with Jeannie as well. We ENDURED the dirty BASE Okinawa together too... It wasn't too bad until Kumiko spotted some cockroach which sent the 3 girls rather jumpy for a while. We often met up with me for a lot of stuff in SG. We went to watch movies, have dinners and some Karaoke occasions...

Kaori - It's been 2 years since I met Kaori in Shibuya! I recalled going to some contemporary pub to have a meal and drink some alcohol and then taking some weird purikura together... hahaha. I was so shocked to find that she was married! But it was really good for her... she seemed to have found her perfect match. We met up at Ebisu this time where the clothes were good but the prices attached to them were skyrocketing. We had an Italian course lunch too... and she paid for it as well :O

Takanori Takeshima - I have known Takanori for only a very short while and we met only for a few times in Singapore... 5 to 6 times... nonetheless I was shocked to learn from Mariko that he was in Japan since March and was lucky to get to contact him. He treated me to some expensive restaurant near his workplace, Mizuho Securities at Tokyo Station, and it was really good!

Atsuko Onishi - I met up with Atsu at Shin-Osaka on the 22 June for a bried moment before heading to Himeji. It was nice of her to travel all the way to Shin-Osaka... which is really boring... but I had no choice as I was at Atami the day before and my Shinkansen could only reach there at 1pm and the next one was at 3pm...

It was a pity I couldn't get to meet up with a lot of other people... However, I am glad that this trip allowed me to catch up with everyone else.
My schedule extended to places namely

Tohoku; (where at Miyagi and Iwate had earthquakes and I was warned repeatedly not to go to)

where I went to Aomori-shi and Hirosaki on the 17th June (Hirosaki is another part of Aomori which had a really beautiful park and castle... we didn't really do much there but it was really countryside and I thought it was a really nice town. What really impacted me the most were the delicious scallops, which I had for lunch (some set meal) as well as for dinner in Ramen.);

to Akita-shi on the 18th (Wouldn't say Akita is boring but the city really doesn't have anything much... I could remember the Kaneko shophouse museum the best and the horrible Kirintanpo);

cycled the city of Morioka on the 19th (Recalls the kind yet frail old man at the bicycle shop who was apologizing to me for the war Japan waged on ASEAN countries in WWII but I told him most people forgotten about it anyways and he seemed really relieved);

roamed the streets of Sendai on the 20th (What's in Sendai... many shops yet nothing to interest me... but the beef tongue tasted great and the horrid Sendai Green hotel was so far away...);

and also visited Atami (not a part of Tohoku) for its small, narrow and yet beautiful streets on the 21st (Atami's beach was supposed to be really beautiful... too bad it was raining throughout... however the sushi man gave me a really great impression of the countryside);

and finally headed to Himeji for the Yukata Matsuri on the 22nd before heading back to Tokyo on the 23rd.


I was in Tokyo from 11th till 17th June and also from 23rd till 28th June, flying off to Okinawa early in the morning. BTW, Kenny and I learned our lesson the hard way... we went to club at Club Air in Shibuya, missed our trained and had to pay roughly 7k yen (about 100 SGD) on Taxi back...


I was in Okinawa from 28th till 1st July, but hanged out only at Kokusai-dori because the weather was killing and we didn't have too much spare cash to go too far. Anyways, we visited most places by Taxi (Financially killing!) and

On the 1st July, Jeannie and I set off to Kyushu! We landed in Hakata, Fukuoka and decided to stay there for a night before venturing to Kumamoto on the 2nd.

In Kumamoto, we went to Kumamoto city and found that the accommodation was too expensive but we were shocked that even in the neighbouring town of ASO, we were cheated! Aso no Fumoto! I'll never forget that cursed name. The old lady said that since her relatives were around, we could not use the other rooms and told us to make do with a single room when we were supposed to have a room to ourselves! Worse of all is that she did not lower the price! We felt so cheated of our money.. we actually planned to visit the Kusasenri, a grass plane which seemed really beautiful but decided to hasten our pace towards SAGA instead...

We went to SAGA on the 3rd of July and were relieved to find that our hotel where we were gonna stay for the night was 1) 5 mins from the train station! 2) BIG and COZY! 3) Had FREE INTERNET!! Saga is supposed to be really boring but Jeannie and I practically walked EVERYWHERE. We walked northwards to the castle and then headed southwards back to our hotel and West from there to YuMe Town... where I found a nice Kinokuniya and Jeannie got her sunglasses (AT LAST!)

On the 4th, we went back to Hakata really early... Checked into our beautiful Ryokan, went shopping at Tenjin, where I got a bag, and headed to Canal City for a brief while before meeting Seiko at Hakata Station at 8pm for dinner. We had Motsu Nabe but nobody touched the main ingredient... which is the insides of a cow... yucks.

On the 5th, Jeannie and Seiko sent me off... I guess Jeannie missed her train... she was at there till 1050 when her train sets off at 1100... I was really happy that she waited so long... but it's all due to the stupid attendant who refused to close one eye on my heavy luggage. We took a farewell shot and that probably ended my best memories of Japan.