I thought I wouldn't have time, but I'm blogging at the airport departure area!
Thanks to all who came to see me off, and all the msgs from those who couldn't. Take care all of you!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
あと1日
Have been meeting up for "farewells", as much as I try to assure everyone and myself repeatedly that I'd only be away for a short four months. I'll be back when school reopens ya'all!
One thing I know I'll miss is the (IMO the best and cheapest in town) Fish Soup at Hougang Point food court (and also another branch at Kovan), at only $2.97 with your kopitiam card. Love the tau kee and bittergourd slices they throw in.
More comfort food in the form of yong tau foo - which opens at 12 noon sharp to a queue of hungry Chinatown uncles and aunties.
I'll miss being able to watch tennis on TV (the season is just heating up).
Things are looking up for Roger Federer, who prior to the ongoing Indian Wells tourney had suffered two consecutive losses in recent months. Which lifts my mood a little =)
Get the feeling that I'm leaving things behind... better go through my list again.
One thing I know I'll miss is the (IMO the best and cheapest in town) Fish Soup at Hougang Point food court (and also another branch at Kovan), at only $2.97 with your kopitiam card. Love the tau kee and bittergourd slices they throw in.
More comfort food in the form of yong tau foo - which opens at 12 noon sharp to a queue of hungry Chinatown uncles and aunties.
I'll miss being able to watch tennis on TV (the season is just heating up).
Things are looking up for Roger Federer, who prior to the ongoing Indian Wells tourney had suffered two consecutive losses in recent months. Which lifts my mood a little =)
Get the feeling that I'm leaving things behind... better go through my list again.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Oops...
Apologies for the empty blog. Forgot to click "publish" =X
This may sound funny, but I've been starting to count the number of nights that I have left sleeping on my bed at home every night. I have just 9 more nights (!).
My JAL flight leaves at 2355 to Osaka (Kansai International Airport) on March 21, which leaves me a week to travel around a bit before reaching Tokyo on April 1 to check into my dorm.
The Straits Times finally answered one of the nagging questions I had: Why should the Sing$ be depreciating against the Japanese Yen when it is at a nearly all-time high against the US$?
Answer: The US$ had weakened even MORE against the Yen (and many other currencies), negating any hopes of getting more yen for my buck.
See: The dollar sank through 100 yen on Thursday for the first time in more than a decade. Not great news.
On the other hand, these things ARE beyond our control anyway, so... I'm just gonna change my yen!
This may sound funny, but I've been starting to count the number of nights that I have left sleeping on my bed at home every night. I have just 9 more nights (!).
My JAL flight leaves at 2355 to Osaka (Kansai International Airport) on March 21, which leaves me a week to travel around a bit before reaching Tokyo on April 1 to check into my dorm.
The Straits Times finally answered one of the nagging questions I had: Why should the Sing$ be depreciating against the Japanese Yen when it is at a nearly all-time high against the US$?
Answer: The US$ had weakened even MORE against the Yen (and many other currencies), negating any hopes of getting more yen for my buck.
See: The dollar sank through 100 yen on Thursday for the first time in more than a decade. Not great news.
On the other hand, these things ARE beyond our control anyway, so... I'm just gonna change my yen!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Prelude
Ok this is long overdue (but yet again maybe it's not).
Anyway, this will become one of those blogs that almost everyone sets upon leaving for SEP. I'll be spending a (rather short) semester at Rikkyo University （立教大学）in Tokyo - which really is a dream come true for me (a big reason for choosing NUS). And despite the difficulties (stemming from being the pioneer batch to go to Rikkyo) and small setbacks (failing to get any sort of grant despite having worked my a** off in trying to earn decent grades), I'm more relieved than anything to be finally embarking on my exchange. As you may be able to tell by now, I'm quite inclined towards using brackets to add more (unnecessary?) comments to whatever I say, so do try to get used to it ya?
The thing was, I only received the acceptance letter from Rikkyo in mid-February, so I had barely more than a month to start preparing and get excited. I didn't dare start before that in fear of being totally disappointed if something had gone wrong, but on hindsight maybe I should have at least done some research...
My past few couple of weeks have been packed with
- planning and preparing for the trip (of course),
- intermittent movie outings and dinners and
- going to school occasionally for work and meet-ups.
In my search for cheap and good accomodation, I've realised one can judge a place's classy-ness just from how impressive the website is.
The cheaper ones look like they've been made by a very old version of FrontPage (Station Ryokan Seiki), while the more expensive ones have fancy java applets with traditional Japanese music in the background (Hoshokaku). Of course I'm happier to chance upon the former while surfing, due to my current (very) limited financial ability.
And I've finally booked my flight - leaving on Good Friday night - barely two weeks from now. I should have expected this, but there seems to be an infinite number of things to do. Settling accomodation, applying for my student visa, mapping modules... I'll probably take a while to pack too.
Will post more updates soon (I sometimes tell myself that I have to blog something but I usually forget by the time I get home).
Leave me shoutouts at the shoutbox! =)
Anyway, this will become one of those blogs that almost everyone sets upon leaving for SEP. I'll be spending a (rather short) semester at Rikkyo University （立教大学）in Tokyo - which really is a dream come true for me (a big reason for choosing NUS). And despite the difficulties (stemming from being the pioneer batch to go to Rikkyo) and small setbacks (failing to get any sort of grant despite having worked my a** off in trying to earn decent grades), I'm more relieved than anything to be finally embarking on my exchange. As you may be able to tell by now, I'm quite inclined towards using brackets to add more (unnecessary?) comments to whatever I say, so do try to get used to it ya?
The thing was, I only received the acceptance letter from Rikkyo in mid-February, so I had barely more than a month to start preparing and get excited. I didn't dare start before that in fear of being totally disappointed if something had gone wrong, but on hindsight maybe I should have at least done some research...
My past few couple of weeks have been packed with
- planning and preparing for the trip (of course),
- intermittent movie outings and dinners and
- going to school occasionally for work and meet-ups.
In my search for cheap and good accomodation, I've realised one can judge a place's classy-ness just from how impressive the website is.
The cheaper ones look like they've been made by a very old version of FrontPage (Station Ryokan Seiki), while the more expensive ones have fancy java applets with traditional Japanese music in the background (Hoshokaku). Of course I'm happier to chance upon the former while surfing, due to my current (very) limited financial ability.
And I've finally booked my flight - leaving on Good Friday night - barely two weeks from now. I should have expected this, but there seems to be an infinite number of things to do. Settling accomodation, applying for my student visa, mapping modules... I'll probably take a while to pack too.
Will post more updates soon (I sometimes tell myself that I have to blog something but I usually forget by the time I get home).
Leave me shoutouts at the shoutbox! =)
